Controversial opinions about Bond films

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  • Last_Rat_StandingLast_Rat_Standing Long Neck Ice Cold Beer Never Broke My Heart
    Posts: 4,581
    The topic of third acts made me realize how good the final act of TMWTGG is. From the time we see the plane and Barry's rendition of the song, the tour of the island, lunch and the final duel inside and out is quite fun and tense. Only detractor being Goodnight turning on the machine with her butt.
  • Posts: 7,414
    BT3366 wrote: »
    jobo wrote: »
    The climaxes / third acts of the Craig era aren't their strong suit.

    I'd argue climaxes/third acts is not a strong suit of the franchise as a whole. They are usually the weakest in most Bond films regardless of which era we're talking about.

    I've felt the same thing for years. SP is the biggest non-climactic offender, IMO. It's the ride getting there that I get the most pleasure from in a Bond film. Those examples from other posters above as to strong finishes I'll go with.

    It makes one ponder why they don't just come up with something as captivating for the ending as far as huge stunt to cap the thing rather than for the precredit teaser. [/quote]

    Why cant we have both? OHMSS and LTK did it!
    I do think SP missed a trick by not having that fight sequence with Hinx at the end, instead of that lame boat vs chopper ending!
  • Posts: 1,917
    Mathis1 wrote: »
    BT3366 wrote: »
    jobo wrote: »
    The climaxes / third acts of the Craig era aren't their strong suit.

    I'd argue climaxes/third acts is not a strong suit of the franchise as a whole. They are usually the weakest in most Bond films regardless of which era we're talking about.

    I've felt the same thing for years. SP is the biggest non-climactic offender, IMO. It's the ride getting there that I get the most pleasure from in a Bond film. Those examples from other posters above as to strong finishes I'll go with.

    It makes one ponder why they don't just come up with something as captivating for the ending as far as huge stunt to cap the thing rather than for the precredit teaser.

    Why cant we have both? OHMSS and LTK did it!
    I do think SP missed a trick by not having that fight sequence with Hinx at the end, instead of that lame boat vs chopper ending! [/quote]
    Or how about reviving the old "sting in the tale" that used to populate the '70s films where Hinx could've popped up when Bond has that self-satisfied smirk while taking out the Aston Martin at the end.
  • Last_Rat_StandingLast_Rat_Standing Long Neck Ice Cold Beer Never Broke My Heart
    Posts: 4,581
    BT3366 wrote: »
    Mathis1 wrote: »
    BT3366 wrote: »
    jobo wrote: »
    The climaxes / third acts of the Craig era aren't their strong suit.

    I'd argue climaxes/third acts is not a strong suit of the franchise as a whole. They are usually the weakest in most Bond films regardless of which era we're talking about.

    I've felt the same thing for years. SP is the biggest non-climactic offender, IMO. It's the ride getting there that I get the most pleasure from in a Bond film. Those examples from other posters above as to strong finishes I'll go with.

    It makes one ponder why they don't just come up with something as captivating for the ending as far as huge stunt to cap the thing rather than for the precredit teaser.

    Why cant we have both? OHMSS and LTK did it!
    I do think SP missed a trick by not having that fight sequence with Hinx at the end, instead of that lame boat vs chopper ending!
    Or how about reviving the old "sting in the tale" that used to populate the '70s films where Hinx could've popped up when Bond has that self-satisfied smirk while taking out the Aston Martin at the end.
    [/quote]

    Hinx pulls around the corner. Bond sees him they give that 4th wall smirk and we see the machine guns pop out the front and it ends with rapid gunfire.

    Yes it's a stretch. I know.
  • Agent_47Agent_47 Canada
    Posts: 330
    Controversial opinion...

    I actually quite like the fisticuff finale in The World Is Not Enough as well as A View To A Kill. There is this feeling of fatigue and desperation that elevates them, for me atleast.
  • Posts: 787
    BT3366 wrote: »
    SP does waste a lot of promise. My dissatisfaction with it comes even earlier during the snow action and the mini Q suspense. The train scenes make up for it a bit, but the rest is so underwhelming and disappointing it wipes out a lot of the goodwill.

    I also am not a fan of the last third of SF, save for the prologue, which feels pure Bond.

    I've long said that SP's greatest sin is just wasted potential. It's an OK movie, for what it is. But with an unlimited budget, a very keen viewing public, and unprecedented talent both sides of the camera . . . well, it really should've been more than just OK.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,181
    Madonna’s song is not only good it blows away all the other mediocre Brosnan song titles.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,546
    Madonna’s song is not only good it blows away all the other mediocre Brosnan song titles.

    I can't have you saying things like that about Tina. ;)
  • mattjoesmattjoes Julie T. and the M.G.'s
    Posts: 7,021
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Only detractor being Goodnight turning on the machine with her butt.

    Detraction!?! I love that bit, always have!

    That part is assential viewing for sure. When we realize Goodnight has now placed Bond in great danger, that's a real butt clencher.

    Asstill remember the thrill I felt watching the scene for the first time. Butt incredibly, it has become even more exciting today.

    Bottom line is derriere only one Britt Ekland.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,181
    TMWTGG is certainly ass.
  • OctopussyOctopussy Piz Gloria, Schilthorn, Switzerland.
    edited April 2020 Posts: 1,081
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    suavejmf wrote: »
    SaintMark wrote: »
    For me Craig was robbed a decent scene of morning the passing of Vesper simply due to the sinking house sequence which took away any chance of seeing the acting skills from both actors. Sadly EON and director chose this route.
    Lazenby had the advantage with a pure Fleming style ending and he really hit the ball out of the ballpark.

    +1

    Even though I like CR's climax, I do agree with this statement.

    +1
    TMWTGG is certainly ass.

    Agreed. I've never liked it having watched it the other week, I must say, I find it as boring as ever. The only redeeming feature is Christopher Lee as Scaramanga, IMO. Moore kicking that kid in the face too.
  • Posts: 2,917
    Even Christopher Lee isn't at his best. I forget who originally made the point, but they rightly observed that Lee was so glad to play a non-monster character that his performance lacked the menace he usually brought to villainous roles.
  • Posts: 1,394
    Revelator wrote: »
    Even Christopher Lee isn't at his best. I forget who originally made the point, but they rightly observed that Lee was so glad to play a non-monster character that his performance lacked the menace he usually brought to villainous roles.

    I disagree.Lee is excellent in this film as Scaramanga.Like Bond,hes charming and well spoken but is extremely deadly in an instant.The way he quickly turns from engaging dinner host,to the way he gets the drop on Bond in the dinner scene is my favourite scene in the film.

    Despite the scripts shortcomings and his slightly anti-climactic death,i would rate him as the best of Moores Bond villains.
  • Posts: 1,596
    I'd rate him just below Zorin and Drax, but he's certainly fantastic in the film. Great performance. Nuanced, constant low simmer.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,181
    Lee is good with what he’s given, but the film doesn’t give him much. Like Christopher Walker, he could have easily been the best villain of Moore’s run if he was given more to do.
  • Posts: 2,917
    AstonLotus wrote: »
    I disagree. Lee is excellent in this film as Scaramanga. Like Bond, hes charming and well spoken but is extremely deadly in an instant.

    He's good at being charming and all that, but never deadly enough. He doesn't have the charismatic menace that comes through in so many of his other films. I think the filmmakers made a mistake in trying to make Scaramanga Bond's evil mirror-image. There's far more sizzle in a scenes like Scaramanga fondling Andrea's face with his golden gun. The character's fetishism and perversity should have built up instead of his charm and gentlemanly qualities. Bond villains are at bottom freaks and monsters.
    Lee is good with what he’s given, but the film doesn’t give him much. Like Christopher Walker, he could have easily been the best villain of Moore’s run if he was given more to do.

    It also doesn't help that Walken and Moore don't have much chemistry together. It sometimes feels like they're acting in different rooms. The same could be said for Moore alongside Grace Jones or Tanya Roberts. The only performer Moore has much of a rapport with in the film is Patrick Macnee.
  • mattjoesmattjoes Julie T. and the M.G.'s
    Posts: 7,021
    I think the film has a certain take on the character of Scaramanga, and Christopher Lee brings the right amount of menace to the role, given that take. As said before, it's a low simmer performance. In fact, I don't think the average Bond villain is more menacing than he is. I'm thinking of Dr. No, Goldfinger, Blofeld and Largo, among others in a long list. There are only a few exceptions, such as Sanchez, Zorin and Silva. A greater sense of menace is not something I think is essential for a successful Bond villain.

    Part of the reason I think Lee plays it right is that he displays, as said before, a certain charm and relaxation, and this quality is consistent with Scaramanga's luxurious lifestyle, his reputation and his confidence in his own abilities as a marksman. He could've taken a page from, say, Sanchez, and played certain moments with a greater sense of menace and rage —provided the script allowed for them, which this one doesn't in the same way as LTK does—, but this would've diminished the similarity between Bond and Scaramanga that is embedded, by accident or by design, in the film. Part of the charm of the film has to do with the fact that Scaramanga is like Bond. Both their jobs involve death, and they're good at them. They both have women, gadgets. Both operate mostly by themselves (no real henchman army for this villain). So it's fun to see these two characters who exude a certain cool go up against each other.

    Had Scaramanga been, for instance, a psychotic like Zorin, a sense of distance would've been created between 007 and Scaramanga, and between the audience and Scaramanga. It's just as it happens in AVTAK, where we side with Bond and see the demented Zorin from afar, someone to be feared, and a fairly unrelatable figure. Whereas in this particular film, I think it's more gratifying to see these two cool-headed professionals in opposition to each other.
  • edited April 2020 Posts: 2,917
    mattjoes wrote: »
    In fact, I don't think the average Bond villain is more menacing than he is. I'm thinking of Dr. No, Goldfinger, Blofeld and Largo, among others in a long list.

    I would say the opposite. Someone like Dr. No is more menacing because he isn't bothering to be charming or even superficially human. The best Bond villains have something monstrous about them. Lee was a great Dracula and knew something about playing monsters, but in TMWTGG he was so relieved to depart from playing monsters that he made Scaramanga too ingratiating.
    Part of the charm of the film has to do with the fact that Scaramanga is like Bond. Both their jobs involve death, and they're good at them. They both have women, gadgets. Both operate mostly by themselves (no real henchman army for this villain). So it's fun to see these two characters who exude a certain cool go up against each other.

    But I think there's something superficial in this concept. I don't find Scaramanga charming, because at bottom he's just a sociopath who gets off on killing people. That's all he is when you get down to it. His hedonism is shallow and empty, like his sense of style, because it masks an inner void.
    He is profoundly different from Bond, who operates out of a sense of patriotism and the knowledge that he's killing people who want to do his country harm. Bond is not a sadist and he doesn't enjoy killing in cold blood. Scaramanga does, and he fetishizes guns and death, as the film shows in its few really effective moments (and as Fleming did). At bottom then he is a monster, and there is certainly something psychotic or sociopathic in his difference to human life. Lee's performance is almost a denial of this, and the film doesn't go as far as it could have in showing the evil of the character or making him as scary and dangerous as he should be. There's one good scene where Bond angrily tells off Scaramanga for claiming they're similar, but the rest of film doesn't call BS on Scaramanga's pretensions as effectively, and neither does Lee.
  • Posts: 1,394
  • mattjoesmattjoes Julie T. and the M.G.'s
    edited April 2020 Posts: 7,021
    Revelator wrote: »
    I would say the opposite. Someone like Dr. No is more menacing because he isn't bothering to be charming or even superficially human. The best Bond villains have something monstrous about them. Lee was a great Dracula and knew something about playing monsters, but in TMWTGG he was so relieved to depart from playing monsters that he made Scaramanga too ingratiating.
    I think I see where you are coming from, but for me, Scaramanga is one of several Bond villains that are in the same ballpark in terms of menace, though of course that depends on how one evaluates that concept. I roughly group all the villains I mentioned at the same level of menace, with a few others such as Zorin, Silva and Sanchez in a higher tier, because the latter group show a more pronounced emotional and mental imbalance, and/or a penchant for cruelty that seems more intense and sometimes spontaneous; it feels less businesslike, less born out of cold reasoning, if you will. When I watch the latter group of villains, I feel they create a certain expectation that they're going to avoid the stereotypical Bond behavior of being civil and then strapping Bond to a slow deathtrap, and instead just go crazy and kill him on the spur of the moment. This expectation doesn't quite materialize, of course, because there'd be no film otherwise, but the performances create the illusion. That said, I can see how the opposite --someone who is so cold and dispassionate, that causing death for them is as easy as taking another breath-- could be thought to be equally as menacing if not more so. I think for me, it is less so mainly because it is more common for 007 to deal with these kind of people (not that I dislike that-- it became a Bond trope for a reason).

    Revelator wrote: »
    But I think there's something superficial in this concept. I don't find Scaramanga charming, because at bottom he's just a sociopath who gets off on killing people. That's all he is when you get down to it. His hedonism is shallow and empty, like his sense of style, because it masks an inner void.
    He is profoundly different from Bond, who operates out of a sense of patriotism and the knowledge that he's killing people who want to do his country harm. Bond is not a sadist and he doesn't enjoy killing in cold blood. Scaramanga does, and he fetishizes guns and death, as the film shows in its few really effective moments (and as Fleming did). At bottom then he is a monster, and there is certainly something psychotic or sociopathic in his difference to human life. Lee's performance is almost a denial of this, and the film doesn't go as far as it could have in showing the evil of the character or making him as scary and dangerous as he should be. There's one good scene where Bond angrily tells off Scaramanga for claiming they're similar, but the rest of film doesn't call BS on Scaramanga's pretensions as effectively, and neither does Lee.
    Interesting thoughts. I think for me, the fact this is fiction we're watching allows for a certain latitude in how the characters in the story are judged or perceived. This creates the possibility of acknowledging that Scaramanga's reprehensible qualities, while at the same time still appreciating the character's resourcefulness, skill, charisma, style. It's the same with several other fictional villains, not just in Bond films.

    The similarities between 007 and Scaramanga, which I mentioned in my previous post, are admittedly superficial, to some extent. Generally speaking, they have to do mostly with the fact both their jobs involve the act of killing, and with their somewhat similar lifestyles. They are not related to their sense of morality and their underlying motivation for doing their respective jobs. For me, however, this doesn't negate the enjoyment that comes from seeing these parallels at play throughout the film.

    Bond rightly tells off Scaramanga at the lunch scene, because as you say, deep down, they are not really the same. But what's intriguing about that moment is that Scaramanga's words still suggest the possibility that Bond could become like that, given the circumstances. For Scaramanga, killing began not as act of pure sadism and hedonism, but as revenge against someone who harmed a creature that was "his only real friend". One could have moral reservations about the concept of revenge, but the motivation for his first kill wasn't cruel and cold-hearted. Did that moment eventually cause him to become evil, or did it merely reveal the innate evil within him? He says he "discovered that I enjoyed killing people even more", which sounds like he was like that all along, but the film seems to hint at an unhappy, lonely childhood, so I think there's some room for debate there. Given that, and Bond's violent and dangerous profession, could 007's moral compass become similarly corrupted one day? Could the frequent exposure to the death of friends, colleagues and lovers, not to mention the deaths he himself causes, eventually take a toll on him?

    Now, I don't think we're meant to think that's a real possibility, but merely to entertain the uncomfortable thought. It's fuel for the story, and food for thought. In this context, the superficial similarities between Bond and Scaramanga --their resourcefulness and charisma, women, gadgets, their appreciation of the finer things in life-- become a symbol of that idea.

    Lastly, regarding the film failing to explore Scaramanga's dark side thoroughly, I agree they could've done more with that, but as I suggested in my previous post, it's a trade off. You gain the dramatic intensity of showing that, and you lose a certain sense of fun in the dynamic between Bond and Scaramanga, as well as reducing certain parallels between the characters (had Bond been a hero and Scaramanga an outright monster, irredeemably despicable, this would've been a fairly different film). Both approaches are feasible. It's possible the one we didn't get would've been better, but I'm not completely sure. It could certainly make for one terrific Bond film, though.
  • GoldenGunGoldenGun Per ora e per il momento che verrà
    Posts: 7,110
    I absolutely adore Scaramanga, I think he might even be my favourite villain of the franchise. Then again, I've always liked TMWTGG more than most. It is definitely my favourite Moore entry and it sits comfortably around my top 5.

    Speaking of Moore's tenure, I must be one of the few people on this planet who actually prefers his lesser praised entries, TMWTGG, MR, OP and AVTAK, to his more popular entries LALD, TSWLM and FYEO.

  • Posts: 230
    Lee is good with what he’s given, but the film doesn’t give him much. Like Christopher Walker, he could have easily been the best villain of Moore’s run if he was given more to do.

    He first directly runs into Bond 3/4 through the movie and doesn't want to kill him and doesn't even seem the least bit concerned with him. I agree that more could have been done to build the tension. The great payoff at the climax seems a bit unearned.
  • Posts: 15,110
    My controversial opinion : Jaws is a very overrated henchman, while Tee Hee and Gobinda are underrated. Especially the former, who is one of the few musclemen villains of the franchise to be more than a grunting brute.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,181
    I like Jaws more in MR when he was treated as a joke, because he is one. I never got much menace out of him in TSWLM
  • Posts: 1,394
    Jaws is extremely threatening in TSWLM.The scenes where he kills Fekesh and Kalba are filmed like they are from a horror film.Of course he comes across ( deliberately ) as a clown in MR.
  • GoldenGunGoldenGun Per ora e per il momento che verrà
    Posts: 7,110
    Ludovico wrote: »
    My controversial opinion : Jaws is a very overrated henchman, while Tee Hee and Gobinda are underrated. Especially the former, who is one of the few musclemen villains of the franchise to be more than a grunting brute.

    Tee Hee and Baron Samedi are the highlights of LALD in my opinion, hilarious yet threatening the both of them!
  • Posts: 7,507
    AstonLotus wrote: »
    Jaws is extremely threatening in TSWLM.The scenes where he kills Fekesh and Kalba are filmed like they are from a horror film.Of course he comes across ( deliberately ) as a clown in MR.


    True, however, right after the murder of Kalba, the character takes a u-turn into comic relief and goof and remains there for the rest of the film.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,181
    AstonLotus wrote: »

    I'd probably agree with OHMSS being #1, if only Lazenby were not cast. Since he is, it can never reach that high in my rankings.
  • MaxCasinoMaxCasino United States
    Posts: 4,615
    I think Ralph Fiennes should stay for the next Bond. He’s fun, and not as overexposed as Judi Dench.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,181
    I wouldn't be surprised if he's game to stick around as M for awhile, assuming there's no recasting done by the filmmakers.
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