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I find Jaws plenty cartoonish in TSWLM:
1. Jaws drops a massive stone block on his foot like an oaf and gets a goofy startled expression on his face and does no more than wince like he simply stubbed his toe instead of getting every bone in his foot crushed.
2. In the car chase, the car with Jaws in it goes off a cliff and crashes through the roof of a cottage, nose down. After crashing, Jaws waltzes out like nothing happened and dusts himself off while the cottage's owners look on at him with awe for laughs.
3. Jaws gets thrown off a train and we cut to him getting up and just looking miffed and brushing himself off again--not cracking his arm back into place.
4. A whole collection of massive stone blocks collapse on Jaws and he somehow survives this!
5. Jaws survives a fight with a shark AND survives drowning in Stromberg's sinking lair!
I was actually pretty scared of Jaws in TSWLM as a kid.
I find the character equal parts menacing and funny in both films (until the end of MR, which is admittedly different). Jaws is like Non from Superman II. I like the sympathetic monster angle--like Frankenstein's monster. I understand suspending disbelief for both films but what I don't understand is why some feel one film merits suspending disbelief and the other does not.
Of course for every scary scene there is a silly scene. But that's the beauty of Jaws and that's why he is an icon to this day.
I always know coming into a Bond movie that Bond isn't going to die. These movies make too much money for them to ever let that happen, but a henchman that is nearly as indestructible as Bond is always makes things a bit more even and exciting to me--particularly if Bond is physically outmatched.
What are we comparing? You've lost me.
I guess for me the tension between Bond and the villains all comes from whether or not Bond will live. As you pointed out, the actor's performance helps to convince you that he is actually in peril even if you know he really isn't. Since the tension (for me) comes from Bond being in mortal peril, I am simply at a loss as to how a near-immortal henchman does anything but increase that tension (but maybe you watch Bond films for a different type of tension).
Well here comes my controversial opinion. I think Bond's almost indestructible appearance is part of what makes him different from any other action hero.
Moore movies came to look like parodies not because he is almost indescribable but because of His Films where very comedy oriented due to Moore not being comfortable with Violence and to Not being constantly compared to Sean Connery.
Is Jaws ever genuinely threatening, though? Goldfinger carries far more threat and he's in no shape to get in to a dust-up with Bond. Likewise Grant carries a similar threat, with added physical prowess. Even in TSWLM Jaws is a caricature. Don't get me wrong, TSWLM is a belter, but he comes across as oafish, rather than someone like Bautista in SP who looks like he could do some serious damage.
Jaws is a cross between Dracula and The Mummy, if you ask me.
Yes I would say Jaws is pretty threatening. If he can bite through metal chains and thick steel cables he can do some pretty bad damage to human flesh. We can always agree to disagree though. In my experience, liking MR is pretty controversial.
I can see that, in a sort of theatrical hammer horror way. The problem is, he only exudes that sort of nightmarish quality in the pyramids scene, in pursuit of Fekkesh. Most of his role is underpinned with a sense of goofiness that nullifies any real threat. Again, I'm not slating him, I think in that capacity he serves a purpose and is wonderfully cartoonish.
I like both MR and Jaws. The poster is on my living room wall and a set of his teeth on my coffee table. However, I'm not blind to it as a piece of cinema. It is an excessive, overindulgent, gloriously shot, breezy piece of care-free cinema. It's a sense of awe rather than tension that drive MR for me. Jaws being able to bite through cables is merely superficial in the grand scheme of things.
I know what you mean. I always face palm when Bond has his gun trained on Jaws at point-blank range and manages to shoot him in the teeth. :-w
That's nearly as bad as when Dalton unloads his gun on Whitaker's protective face guard. Just shoot him in the leg!!
It is also not good to bring a character back if you have no good direction in which you can develop him. They brought him bach for pure commercial reasons. There is one very good line related to Jaws in Moonraker (his name is Jaws, he kills people...)
As for Lazenby, he had a natural class due to his physique, but that was it. He was completely wooden and uncharismatic in everything but the romantic scenes, and there's scenes where he's outright uncomfortable as Bond. That's not the mark of a classy, confident Bond actor - he's a far cry from Connery, and even the audiences of '69 recognized that. In fairness, though, anybody will get dwarfed following Connery.
Don't confuse wooden with stiff upper lip. What about the ice rink sequence? His fear there was completely believable.
Examples please?
Well said. The fear on his face there and a few moments earlier when he his trying to quietlychoke the guy on the cliff edge bring a level of vulnerability to the character you just never get with Sean.
I don't mind if Bond 25 is a revenge laden film due to the death of Madeline Swann. People act like we have had so many "this time it's personal bond films" but Honestly I disagree and feel in terms of Revenge being the sole motivator Licence to Kill and Quantum stand out (even Goldeneye feels much more mission based then revenge) Like I said as long as it can be done in an interesting and different way like those two films Bond 25 could sit comfortably in my top 10 list.
Personally the idea of a Bond film titled Blofeld works for me I wouldn't be thrilled or upset if bond 25 was titled Blofeld but honestly if that is the final film for Blofeld and spectre (for a while anyways) I am fine with ti being the title of the final confrontation
The Switch from Spectre to Quantum is incredibly Lazy and with people praising the New spectre (even though they are doing largely what Quantum did in Royale and Solace and Spectre did in thunderball kind of annoys me)
People Complaining about Quantum's plan for controlling the water supply in Bolivia REALY need to pay attention to Thunderball as clearly a lot of their schemes there (and indeed in From Russia with Love) are small scale project to get money and influence through Embezzlement Drug Trafficking and Espionage. I was shock in how low key all the other schemes were compared to Number 2's Nato Project and even that when compared to Stromberg and Drax's plans (and indeed Blofeld's own plans in You Only live twice-diamonds are forever) seems rather well low key....
This is a post from another thread, but I think it does a good job of summarising the evolution of the organisation, if you take it in the context of retroactive continuity, which you have to...
Furthermore, it's only a small part in the movie, besides finding that tape of Vesper, the photos in the destroyed MI6 building and some dialogue, Spectre has its own story.
You could even easily re-edit the movie omitting those things.
That's why I think, they did a marvelous job.
As some have already speculated, it could be to simply twist the knife into Bond just a little bit more, so to speak. He already has the whole "step-brother" thing in play with Bond, and putting it out there that all of the other pain that Bond has been inflicted with over the past three films has been his doing is basically just a case of piling on.
I don't know if I go for that explanation, as it's clear that they meant for SPECTRE to be behind it all, at least within the confines of the story that Spectre is telling. But, at the same time, I think that the filmmakers at the time of Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, and Skyfall meant for their events and villains to be what they are depicted as in their films, not having been left open to be folded into something unknown later on. Given the damage that Spectre does to Craig's other three films, I tend to choose to discount the events of Spectre because, firstly, it's a poor film and, secondly, doing so maintains the integrity of Craig's first three films without Spectre's retcon of them being able to take away from their impact.