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Comments
The only alteration I'd ever do with TND is to film the alternate script written by Feirstein. Other than that, I wouldn't change a thing. I'd also use a better actress than Michelle Yeoh for Wai Lin. Lucy Liu for example.
Again as a teenager this fight was gripping. Now it looks pretty bad - but I do like the music.
I've always felt he could and should have jumped out of the way of the drill as it was approaching. There was more than enough space.
"It's over Stamper. Let her go". Oh my. What happened here I have no idea.
I would have liked it if Bond had kicked him into the approaching drill.
But they did cast him. Didn't Hopkins turn up to work and then walk off when he saw the state of things?
- It's a little thing but I'd change the music on the gunbarrel when the blood is dripping to the actual main bit of the theme instead of those notes at the end. I prefer it that way.
- Make the theme song Surrender.
- Hamburg isn't the most exotic of locations. Not sure if that's just because of how they filmed it but the original script had a masked ball in Venice instead of the more generic press launch. I think that would have been cool.
- Recast Paris. Belluci like Brosnan wanted would have been perfect.
- Haha, the UK going to war with China, that'd end well. Make it America. The CIA could ask to send in Bond because of his link with Paris.
- Do more with the 48 hours thing, hype up how WW3 is about to kick off. The set up makes it feel proper urgent, even the briefing takes place in a speeding car, but once Bond gets to Hamburg I think that sense of urgency is lost.
- Do more to set Stamper apart. Give him some sort of gimmick or make him look different or something. We didn't need another big blonde European henchman. Maybe make him and Dr Kauffman one character? Bond could stun him with the phone in the hotel room then escape. He could still kill him at the end with the "me too" line. Might make it even more satisfying if the film builds up to it.
- I agree on the fight scenes. Brosnan might not have been naturally handy but he still looked great in the GE ones because they had better direction/coreography so I do think this is easily fixable.
- Tone down the action massively in the second half. Trim the bike chase and make the finale more interesting. Bond stabbing the guy with the combat knife and using the dead body to fake his death is cool, so is the trick with the grenade. But there's too much mindless shooting and explosions imo. I actually love those sorts of action films but Bond should be more high concept and inventive than that.
- Michelle Yeoh is always great but Wai Lin isn't very fleshed out, she's quite generic and one dimensional imo. I also think that there wasn't much sexual chemistry between her and Brosnan so I think a better ending would have been them parting as mates, like Camille in QoS. They worked well together but Bond doesn't have to shag every woman he meets.
- Carver's death is a bit awkward I think, like the film didn't know what to do with him. Someone on here suggested a much better fate for him: he lives and gets captured, then his arrest, trial, etc becomes big news. His life is ruined, his empire has been taken down and his face and his failure is plastered all over the media.
I think that's about it. I don't hate TND but I don't love it either. I don't think it's as good as GE and TWINE and I actually prefer DAD these days. At least that does more to set itself apart and even in it's dumbest moments is really out there, full of high concept and memorable stuff. TND just feels like a generic 90s action movie by the end.
Both starring the lovely Miss Yeoh.
Sounds like the kind of title that would suit his era as well.
The PTS is probably my favourite out of them all, and speaking of which (and more to the topic), the only thing I would change (add) is in the opening minutes: The folding rifle Bond carries was custom made/modified for the film, with the intention of showing Bond unfolding it before unleashing chaos on the terrorists. Whether that scene was actually filmed or not, I'm not entirely sure. I thought that perhaps SP's rooftop scene in Mexico with Bond preparing the Glock with laser mic was an attempt to include the scene.
https://kudosmemorabilia.com/collections/heroes-of-cinema/james-bonds-prop-ar18-assault-rifle
And one of the kids survives and vows revenge on Bond when he reaches adulthood. Two decades later he battles Daniel Craig in Bond 25, Collateral Damage.
And Ahhhnold Schwarzenegger and his producers sue.
Unfortunately this was the film that put me off new Bond films until 2006. I was so bored during it I actually got out my phone to text people ( I know, I know an unforgivable act, but it was in the early days of mobile phones and I never did it again).
Not a Pierce fan unfortunately. The next film was an improvement, but these films (especially this one) reek too much of generic 90's actioners.