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So do I. In fact, I prefer it to OHMSS.
Not sure if this is controversial, but I’ve always felt Octopussy was Barry’s weakest score by a long shot. The slower pieces that use All Time High are beautiful, but the action themes just don’t click with me.
I wouldn't say it's in my top 10, but when I see it near the bottom of some people's pile, I find that hard to swallow. Like you said, the Pepper stuff is extremely ill conceived, but Scaramanga is excellent. Nic Nac is a different take on a henchmen, and the film has a nice exotic feel.
I have to give special praise to Roger Moore in this, too. I think he gives a wonderfully cynical performance, one of his best. He genuinely seems angry at everyone in this, even Goodnight. And the scene with him and Scaramanga at the dinner table is one of the best passive-aggressive scenes in the series.
Agree with you on this. It's not bad, but its a way behind his best work in OHMSS and YOLT
Ditto.
I used to think OP was my least favorite Bond score, but now I find myself wondering if I prefer it to OHMSS. I love the score and it has plenty of superb pieces, but I like the action theme a bit less than most people, and since it's heard quite often, that keeps the score from being a favorite (relatively speaking, of course).
Interestingly, I recall a 1981 interview a fan conducted with John Barry over the phone, which I listened to the other day, and IIRC, OHMSS was the fan's favorite score, which makes you wonder if even then, OHMSS had already risen to the status of best Bond score in the eyes (ears?) of many Bond fans.
I was just a young fan then, but I was an OHMSS soundtrack convert even then. My uncle had several Bond soundtracks on LP and 8 track tapes and OHMSS and DAF always stood out for me and still top my list.
Although I am not a huge GF fan overall, I do count the score as influential as the film itself. It set the tone for '60s spy music and I like the way instead of taking music that matches the locales, Barry makes it about gold and creates signature themes for the characters themselves. The laser table is top-notch suspense music and the instrumental GF theme only used on the soundtrack is simply one of the best high-energy tracks of the series.
I used to like OP's soundtrack a lot but have found it going down my last couple of listens. I like the action theme, the chase bomb theme and the tune set at the Monsoon Palace when Orlov and Kamal are plotting. AVTAK is Barry's weakest for me. Never cared for the military march married to rock guitar on the action theme and the suspense music just doesn't measure up. I'd have preferred another composer take on that film and save Barry's talents for a more memorable film like LTK or GE.
DAF certainly has some big highlights. I think I like/respect the TLD score more than most, if for no other reason than it showed Barry stretching himself a bit toward the end of his career when he easily could've just rested on his laurels. It's not common to see an artist that late in their career diverge/experiment. So I appreciate it for that reason (and I also really like the score, so that helps).
Agree about those. Much else to love as well. I like it a lot, it is just that most of his oeuvre is too good.
Back when I was around 10 years old or so, in the late 70s, I had the Geoff Love Orchestra LP of covers of Bond themes. And I played the OHMSS cover more often than I played the others. Now that I’ve tracked it down on YouTube I still think Geoff Love’s cover is excellent.
So, if the views of a 10 year old fan count, then yes, by the late 70s OHMSS was the favourite
The two things that bring GF down a peg for me are the middle act where he's crawling around in the vents and then when Goldfinger back down in the laser scene he loses a lot of his menace to me. If you're going to give him line as great as "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die" you can't have him reverse himself a few moments later.
I would also probably rather watch NSNA on a given day than TB. Better pacing and it has the novelty of being an "old Bond" movie while I think TB is the least distinctive of Connery's entries. All of his other ones have unique settings and usually some kind of distinctive plot element.
I liked Spectre a good deal when I first saw it and still like it. There's a few things you could change (get rid of the brother subplot, trim some of the "mission control" scenes, have Blofeld's behavior at his lair make more sense) but overall it is my second favorite from Craig and in my top ten of the franchise.
Good, she deserves it. One of the best Bond Girls, behind just Tracy and Vesper for me. If Dalton's Bond knew there were all these people crapping on her he'd find them and throw them into an industrial shredder or something. He was very protective of her.
Agreed - problems and all, SP does enough right for me to keep it afloat at the edge of my Top 10.
And I love “Can’t you see I’m grieving?” ... “No.”
And I love Blofeld’s entrance into the Spectre meeting, silhouetted in the door, sitting down, tapping the microphone.
And I love a hundred other little things too. There are far too many such touches of quality for me to bin this film.
Agree on a lot of the dialog scenes being good. I do really like the PTS and train fight, though.
The 'Licence Not To Kill' speech is probably the best moment in the film. There in lies the problem.
I liked it. It was the only thing I did like about the film, though.
It doesn t make any sense.