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So I don't have a problem with her falling for Bond. As you say, she seemed to sleep around and perhaps confused love with lust.
I agree though that she started off far more promisingly than she ended up, and that was unfortunate. I thought they could have done more with her character, but Soto sadly had very limited range.
Lowell's Pam was playing hard to get, and Bond played her all the way to the end for what was most likely a most gratifying off camera finale.
It's entirely possible that the film was rewritten, or refocused, away from Soto to avoid her character coming off as more weak and forced.
She's the kind of character they would have killed off in prior films (like Andrea from TMWTGG). This is the first time I can recall where they kept the secondary girl alive (OP too, but Magda was on the same side as Octopussy).
Glen may have gotten confused as to how to wrap it all up tidily!
DN, FRWL, in OHMSS only the secondary girls survive.
https://youtu.be/0fFw7rhoO0A
and this:
https://youtu.be/vFi1yZFXI5o
makes watching the CGI surfing a pleasure trip
The two Bardem moments are distinctly Bond. The CGI tsunami is trash.
more like distinctly Austin Powers, which at least was good at intentional parody.
Nothing like Powers.
@BondJason Bardem is one of the best Bond villains ever and his whole introduction scene is fantastic. I am surprised that with some of the crap we've gotten over the years that's what you picked as the nadir. What makes you hate it so much?
Anyway I think for me it might be the TMWTGG sumo sequence (everyone talks about the slidewhistle, nobody mentions the horrific trombone/trumpet wah wah sound during the sumo fight) right through to the boat chase. The tsunami surfing I've come to enjoy, it's awful but it's part of DAD's crappy over the top B movie charm. And Bond breaking a landspeed record then escaping a falling glacier and surfing a tsunam at least sounds cool on paper. That whole section of TMWTGG is just a shambles.
QoS will always be my least favourite but I think if I had to try and pick an objective (well as close to objective as anyone can be) worst Bond film TMWTGG would probably be it. It's just cheap and nasty and bad. The guy who directed Goldfinger, Roger Moore and Christopher Lee facing off, John Barry doing the score. That could have, should have been a top five Bond film and instead we get Bond grabbing a sumo wrestlers arse and cringey karate schoolgirls. Can't imagine how original fans must have felt watching that one in the cinema. I think TMWTGG and DAD are the only genuinely bad Bond films, but at least with DAD you get the sense that they're trying to make something good. I don't know what anyone was thinking when it came to this
And this
Thank god for TSWLM.
Bit rich of you to dig out Bardem for being Austin Powers yet SP, which nicks its big plot twist from Goldmember, is apparently a work of genius.
+1.
Wasn't that Star Trek Into Darkness?
At least the plot twist doesn't overact in your face in clownesque fashion. It's merely one sentence in a film.
I really loved it. We got a Bond who ejects from his bespoke Aston Martin after shaking off the invulnerable henchman with a built in flamethrower but then ends up facing him in a fistfight later on whilst wearing a white dinner jacket on a train taking him to Blofeld's base which he later escaped with the exploding watch he got from Q earlier. I wish I could take that description back in time to my 2008 self, just as reassurance that it'd all be okay in the end.
SF was great but SP was on another level, really ticked all my fanboy boxes. It was so unashamedly old school. No pretentiousness, just James Bond being James Bond, but like the rest of the Craig films it was still a fleshed out, human James Bond instead of a cartoon character. The perfect blend of both styles. Best since the Dalton films for me.
Do me a favour.
'The Dead Are Alive' ruining the GB as Mendes shoves his themes down your throat?
True but that's the only pretentious moment in the film that I can think of. There's certainly nothing as bad as "haha an exploding pen piss off we're way better than that now aren't we guys", or M reciting poetry. I think QoS felt like it was ashamed to be a Bond film. SF was much better but felt a bit smug and up its own arse at times. It was as if they were dipping their toes in but didn't want to commit to a Bond film with all the trappings, they tried to have it both ways. But with SP they just seemed to fully embrace it and went all out to make a great classic Bond film that still felt fresh and modern, ala TSWLM and GE.
I guess it must have hurt so much to see Craig portraying a Bond that evoked a real Bond feeling and even worse was evoking some Brosnan/Moore vibes OMG OMG....
Personally, I don't agree - I think Craig's performance in SP is a natural progression from the ending of SF, and there are many character moments from Bond in there that are great. My biggest gripes come with how most of the other cast is wasted, save maybe Batista. There are other reasons why I don't care for SPECTRE but Craig isn't one of them.
That's not the point. SP resembles the classic Bond films with PB and RM. And that's painful for people who thought SF was going to be repeated.
And the PB films, for the most part, are their own unique set of films, ensconced in 90s action cinema. They should never be replicated, and, I'd say, SP, for all its flaws (and there are many), is far more sophisticated than any Brosnan film save for GE-- and GE is its own beast.
Now don't get me wrong, I love Pierce and Daniel's films greatly but Daniels are not better than Pierce's they are on equal footing.
I don't mean evoking Brosnan, the actor. SP evokes the Brosnan-era films, mainly GE, very clearly even. Tank chase/plane chase for instance...just one of many examples.
Also DC has many moments that are so Moore that it practically jumps at you. Noding from the plane, or how he lands on the sofa (that could be Brozza too). Just two of many examples.
SP clearly headed for the classic 80's/90's Bond with a 60's look in many parts.
Therefore SP for me personally is the one and only proper Bond film with Craig. And while I find the four year gap inacceptable I at least hope we'll get a fifth Craig film that will be again 100% Bond and not something resembling Bond slightly...
There's only one person being ridiculous with their histrionic and extreme black and white view of the world.
SF is a very good Bond film, SP merely a good Bond film. I neither worship SF nor hate SP. But of the two SP's script flaws are what leads most to see it as a flawed effort and a missed opportunity.
Hmm. Depends how you define classic I suppose.
You seem to have a phenomenal perception of what people think. I don't know many people who criticise SP because it wasn't SF. For the most part they tend to criticise it because it had a badly cobbled together script and then pissed all over Fleming.
Oh dear. Visual gags is where it's at is it? Maybe in the next film we can have Clifton James resurrected with CGI and pushed into a canal by an elephant? Or has anyone got the double take pigeon's agent's number? Perhaps it cold be persuaded to come out of retirement?
Each to their own I suppose but I would contend that CR with a spine of pure Fleming running through it and a Bond that bleeds is far more 'proper' than SP.