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Lots of love for Q and the voting went as follows:
Excellent round guys and gals! On to a Klebbie! This time lets swing to those moments of some cringeworthy scenes. You know sometimes you just have those moments in the film when you cringe at either the joke, the scene or the situation. Bodn has had his fair share of cringeworthy scenes and these will be a potpourri of some of the worst.
The definition of cringeworthy is causing feelings of embarrassment or awkwardness.
The nominees are:
This one might be interesting and the Dove realizes this is not an exhaustive list! Maybe we break it down in future awards to each Bond. Cause I am pretty sure each actor has some cringeworthy material!
I swear a good majority of the audience i was with groaned with embarrassment!
Actually, no: it would be most of Pierce's attempts at 'serious' acting (which mostly seem to involve him wiping or touching his mouth for some reason!): like the bit where he appears to almost start crying watching the news report of Electra's abduction in TWINE. But even then I'd say that's more funny than cringeworthy... I'll have to have a think.
It might be that awful sub-Thunderbirds modelwork in GoldenEye? Of the tiny model aeroplane crashing into the little toy satellite dish? I'm trying to think of things that would make me feel embarrassed if I was watching it sat next to someone who isn't into Bond. I think it's most likely to be from a Brosnan film than any other.
The Christmas line is awful, but it's awful in a cheesy way. While it reduces the character to a joke, it's still less sinister than bribing someone for sex.
Of all those poorly judged moments though, two scenes bother me more than the others.
Bringing it back for TMWTGG is a big mistake. The way the film handles Andrea's character is hugely ill-advised.
But the worst moment has to be Bond forcing himself on Pussy Galore. I revisited GF recently, and while I have other favourites it was a great experience and I think it will gain a lot of spots in my next ranking. Except for that barn scene, for me it's the most jarring moment in Bond history.
I can think of loads more scenes that have made me, or the people I have been watching the films with, cringe. I almost died with embarrassment in the cinema when a low grade cover of the Beach Boys opened up in AVTAK.
But to stick to the nominees ... I’ll go with Christmas Jones. It’s a Carry On level of joke and Carry On deservedly bit the dust. DAD suffers from the same problem. “I think I got the er thrust of it, fnar fnar.” Awful. Makes Viz comic look like Jane Austen.
The slapping women has also always been hard to watch, but like many things was a product of its time along with Bond forcing himself on Pussy, Pat Fearing, and I guess you could include Miss Taro and tricking Solitaire into bed and so on. The Christmas joke is also an all-time eye-roller, but not the lowest of the low.
Yeah DAD really suffers: the whole beachside bikini mojito scene is full of very cringey bad dialogue. And then we get to watch James Bond actually ejaculate, which has got to be right up there for cringe as it's Brosnan playing it! :D
"That is not the soap."
(Shudders)
But if I have to get more personal, there's a cringeworthy scene that's it's also essential to the plot, so it's cringe, but good cringe; it makes us understand that Bond is about to lose it just when he realises that Saunders can be a grouch but a he’s a true companion and then he’s gruesomely killed.
So yes, my personal bet goes for Bond about to shoot an innocent child on TLD. Wow!
Most cringeworthy moment, if I have to go by the nominations, I would go with the Christmas joke. But if I can choose another one, it will be Moneypenny's VR scene in DAD. What were they thinking ? Oh, that's right, they didn't think. At all.
Which scene are you talking about? GF isn't nominated..?
In many ways, I reminded of the prior discussion over the "Fetch My Shoes” line from DN (p41). If you love “classic” movies as much as I do, there is a lot of “objectionable” content out there – sometimes subtle, sometimes not (i.e., Mickey Rooney’s “Asian face” character in “Breakfast At Tiffany’s”). For example, “Bond forces himself on Patricia from TB” or “Bond slaps women around!” are certainly objectionable – although movie goers in the 1960s probably gave it a pass. And I can’t separate those scenes from knowing that Connery himself is on-record as condoning an “open-hand.” In short, I’m forced to conclude that these choices were an unfortunate product of their time. And while I don’t give them a free pass, when I watch those movies, I’m more inclined to consider how social mores have changed over the years and joke about “how you couldn’t get away with that now.”
For the other choices:
Shoddy special effects from Blofeld's satellite from DAF.
Most of the budget probably went towards Connery’s $1.25million salary, so Ken Adam knew that the special effects would probably be on the light side! In any case, the scene is underscored by Barry’s outstanding “007 and counting” musical clue, so I’ll give this a pass.
Bond and Stacey play in the shower from AVTAK.
An utterly embarrassing send off for Roger, that by attempting to end the movie on an old-school “OH..JAMES!” sexual moment, only served to remind me - in 1985 - just how old Moore was compared to Tanya Roberts. And how much better this was done in DN,FRWL,GF, etc... Were the writers deliberately trying to give him a bad send off?!
Bond cracks jokes about Christmas.
Dear GOD! This joke was set-up from the moment that Bond met Dr. Jones, so I suppose the scriptwriters felt compelled to follow through. Of note, “Robot Chicken” choose this particular joke to spoof the James Bond series (I’ve posted the YouTube link of several occasions). After an excellent start with GE, there is no better symbol of the decline in quality over the span of the Brosnan era than this (IMO, of course). As stated by @mtm and @IGotABrudder, DAD has several cringeworthy moments, but normally I’ve hit the eject button on my DVD player before many of them come up😊.
The Champion and still loser: “I Thought Christmas Came Only Once A Year”, with Bond and Stacey’s shower scene not far behind.
I apologize for the wordy nature of my response, but it is an interesting topic worth breaking down (paging Dr Lisa Funnell, paging Dr. Lisa Funnell….).
Exactly. Well said.
You do wonder about AVTAK and what they were thinking. I think it was obvious if not widely known that Moore was leaving the role. Not sure what Maibaum and Wilson were thinking. I have often thought that maybe the whole thing was written with a different actor in the role? I don't know. Maybe the whole dialogue was improvised between Roberts and Moore. But it is a cringe ending.
Thanks for your views and thoughts. Yes if Dr. Lisa is on the boards I would love her to weigh in. :)
I immediately thought of the DAD surf scene when I saw the topic. I guess it'd be a runaway "winner."
I was backpedaling a bit, recalling the preceding nomination.
Oh okay. And what’s the obvious Gilbert & Sullivan gag in the Q scene?
+1. One of the main reasons TWINE currently ranks next to the last in my rankings and makes me very glad in retrospect that EON didn't have the rights to film CR back in 1999.
As for this round I vote for:
Bond cracks jokes about Christmas in TWINE.