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Comments
The worst offender in DAD for me is the robosuit Graves wears in the finale. It’s a scene that makes me intensely uncomfortable as a Bond fan. In comparison Jaws’ love interest in MR has the subtlety of Italian literature.
I think the Aston gets a bit more shit than it deserves on here sometimes when a spy drives through Venice in a gondola and comes out of the sea in a car in front of the whole PUBLIC !!
They’re both dire scenes. MR is second after DAD in total dire sequences.
And apart from anything else it serves very little purpose. It allows Bond to sneak around a bit but he does that just as easily on foot and then at the end when it comes back on in time to assist in the demise of Zao it wouldn't make any difference if Zao could see it or not. It's the studded tyres that save Bond and kill Zao not the invisibility.
But anyway as I've said before people can bleat about the invisible car being just as feasible as the Lotus but it won't alter the fact that the latter is iconic and the former is utter shit. That's not my opinion that's just the way it is. It might seem illogical and harsh on the Vanish but no one ever said life was fair.
As for the gondola sequence? It's MR for Christ's sake so who cares!!? And anyway Rog can get away with stuff that no one else can. Again I don't make the rules, it is what it is as they say.
Brosnan and Moore never got their cool introductions as James Bond like Connery, Lazenby, Dalton and Craig did.
I did (see it in the cinema, that is)… and I came out really embarrassed to be a Bond fan at that time. It should have been a good film but…hey ho.
There wasn't at the time IIRC,only once the buzz of being the latest Bond flick had dissipated .
The more I think about it,the less I think it is the worst scene.
Its over in a few seconds and some other squirm scenes I can think of last a lot longer than that.
You hardly ever hear it mentioned along with the usual suspects of slide whistle, double take pigeon, tsunami and brothergate.
But it really is an appalling scene whichever way you cut it and with nothing whatsover to redeem it. Slide whistle and double take only last 2 seconds and tsunami is a cool concept but if they could'nt film for real they should've abandoned it. Brothergate I'm struggling to defend at all.
I'm not saying that kung fu schoolgirls is necessarily the worst moment of the series but it really should be in the conversation more.
Why did they not stop when they realised Bond wasn't in the car ?
The nieces are telling Hip but he just smiles and keeps driving.
Never makes sense to me.
That's a possibility I suppose..he did have that look on his face.
I will look at it that way next time I watch it,it will definitely make the scene more palatable,and in the 'fun' context of the film.
The best I can offer whenever I've tried to reconcile it in my head is that when Bond slams the door on the girls Hip thought everyone is in.
That doesn't get around the fact that the girls are telling him and the pursuers aren't that close that Hip couldn't stop and wait a few seconds.
My own take is that in the original script Bond dives out of the window and then we go straight into the boat chase. But then Cubby in a moment of insanity decided that some girl writing to him with a shit idea should be something that they should put in the final film so now we have Hip just hanging around outside (why is he not coming in to help and shouldn't MI6 recheck his clearance given his nieces' old man runs the karate school which Hai Fat seems to have worrying links to?), the shit kung fu scene and then they drive off so we can go back to the script and get on with the limp boat chase. It really is the most dismally lazy writing of the series.
Terrible, terrible scene with an awful postscript of hapless Hip driving off and leaving Bond.
Bond diving out the window and then running to a boat would have made much more sense.
Very true indeed. I also consider it most embarrassing (for bond).
Brothergate is astonishingly difficult to defend. Many simply say "I ignored it". That's nice, however, IMO letting that idea make it to the final print opens the doors for all kinds of crap ideas to potentially end up on the screen.
Although the kung fu schoolgirls bit is intended to be funny, I find the fight with Chula far more amusing. Hip ditching Bond after going all the way out there to rescue him is just a poor transition into the boat chase.
The fight with his nieces seems to be aimed at kids around the 3rd grade level. I think the scene probably gets a pass because we have Sir Roger as Bond here, who can adapt to the silliest of situations and maintain his dignity. Had this sequence appeared in a Craig film we could (and probably would) be throwing Purvis and Wade to the sharks along with Mendes or whoever had directed it.
I can't speak a word of Thai and perhaps you can but I've always assumed that moronic as he was Hip could at least understand what members of his own family are saying? Perhaps he really is that thick and pidgin English is all he speaks?
I think that whole stretch of the film from the horrific sumo wrestler "fight" up through the boat chase is pretty much the nadir of the series.
SP actually 'meant' their moments,and were deadly serious about it.
If Blofeld had got away that,at least,would have made it tolerable.
Bond grabbing the sumo s buttcheeks is the worst. What was the pont?
The issue with SP, and for that matter TWINE (imho) is tone. Both are all over the map and that's why they are bottom of the barrel for me. They don't commit but try to have it all ways. Both fail on the fundamental elements of entertainment for me as well - namely the action and characterizations.
Something which might partially explain the oddness of this scene is that in an earlier draft (Maibaum's first maybe?) Bond and one of the girls get separated from Hip and the other girl during the fight. The latter pair makes it to the car. The karate students block the way for Bond and the girl he's with, forcing them away to the river. The girl ends up joining Bond in the boat chase.
At what point that idea was nixed, I'm not sure. Could have been that the production was falling behind and Hamilton changed it to speed up filming. Or maybe it was just five o'clock on the day-of and he was just going, "Ah you three just get in the car."
"What makes you think this was my first time?"
Indeed, we must never fall into the trap of taking any of the films away from their time period and judging them by today's standards. This is why the whole debate about Bond's sexist behaviour in the 60s is ridiculous, and a waste of time.