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Dalton on the other hand I can't see in many movies from before his tenure, probably just OHMSS, FYEO, and AVTAK, really. But I can imagine him doing all the movies that followed his (even DAD, with perhaps the smallest of tweaks). Apart from being better than the average Joe thinks, I think his tenure was much more transformative than usually appreciated.
And even more controversial, I like the Bondola bit. Ridiculous it certainly is, and this might be even more strange considering my Dalton fandom, but I love the carefree old-fashioned je-m'en-foutisme of this scene. The dog, the pigeon, the wine guy,... Sure it's not FRWL/OHMSS/TLD/CR, but sometimes I'm just in the mood for stuff like this too.
And I don't think Goldeneye's script did him any favors from the beginning. The incessant meta-commentary that movie does about some vague, generic concept of Bond that existed in the public consciousness was no way to recreate a character, and especially not for a guy who seems to lean hard on the script on a scene-by-scene basis.
But in my recent (successful) effort to appreciate Pierce more, I became really impressed with how good he is at everything. People mock the pain face, but it's a pretty good pain face. He should have just known better than to use it in, say, the PTS.
This is astute. I don't think the GE script defined the character of Bond enough to give Brosnan enough to play. And the constant meta references, while more or less fun, always take me out of the story when I should be focused on Bond and his mission. I blame Feirstein; he's the Mankiewicz of his era.
Compare CR, TLD, or OHMSS--there's a ton in each script for the new Bond actor to play.
I'd agree with this. Even watching the film now, it still find it remarkably interesting. I'd also disagree that the script doesn't define Bond well enough. The scripts for CR and TLD had the benefit of being remarkable shifts in tone from their respective predecessors which makes their intentions stand out a bit more, but I still get quite a lot out of who Bond would be (as a "modern" 90s man) in GE, and it is all there in the script.
Goldeneye has a lot of dialogue where characters discuss Bond's past. He used to "shoot in and out" of Russia a lot. He had a competitive relationship with his secret agent partner, all "for England". They "toppled dictators". He has endured multiple "sinister interrogations". He gave Valentin a limp.
This is all notable for not relating in any way to what we know from the 16 previous movies, and even more so for sounding a lot like what people would imagine Bond movies to be if they had never seen a Bond movie. I'm glad most fans like the movie more than I do, but I'm honestly totally bewildered that this doesn't stand out to people.
Goldeneye also has a lot of dialogue--probably even more--where characters give lengthy monologues about the character of cinema icon James Bond, and Bond just sits or stands there listening to a description of his character. These descriptions tend to lean into the "martinis, girls, and guns" generalization known even to people who have never seen a Bond movie, and to me frequently sound like a dramatic reading of a movie podcast transcript. It'd have been one thing if M did it and the writers got it out of their system, but Natalya, 006, and Valentin all indulge as well, more than once each. This just isn't how to do characterization, or really anything of value to a film.
Finally, while Pierce is a good actor and a good choice for Bond, and he does have good moments in the film, the first half has unusual stretches where he's not onscreen, in favor of Natalya, and features tropes played as generically as possible (car chase with Xenia, casino scene).
So to me, virtually all of the characterization of Bond in Goldeneye resembles a misremembered cliche. It could have been great if someone else could have scrubbed a lot of this out of the script. It occurs to me only now writing this that I might enjoy the movie more with the sound off...!
I think that's a good call: he's a great all-rounder. He may have struggled a little with some of Craig's possibly.
Connery is probably the most versatile of the lot though, it's a bit boring and not hugely controversial, but I don't think there's a Bond movie he couldn't have done.
One interesting thing he said on that GE watchalong was that he very intentionally aimed between Sean and Roger. Whether than ended up making him a slightly shapeless Bond, as you say, is debatable.
I was watching it recently and I was surprised how excited I got when the Bond theme starts jangling there. I think maybe it's perfectly placed in the film or something: you're just ready for some silly fun with Bond easily besting his enemies.
It's rubbish, and yet tremendous fun.
True. Goldeneye has a lot of tendentious dialogue, and much of it consists of potshots at Bond himself, who just sits there and takes it. It's the only Bond movie that's defensive (or even embarrassed) about being a Bond movie. One could argue this was a necessary evil, since at the time journalists were going on and on about how out-of-date Bond was after the end of the Cold War. Critics and journalists lapped up lines like the "misogynist dinosaur" one, and the movie's excessive self-awareness was a defense mechanism that worked. That said, I didn't like much of that dialogue at the time and I still don't now. And with the passing of time it's come to seem even more obvious and heavy-handed.
Wow - a genuinely controversial opinion there!
I don’t really like the Venice chase. I saw MR in the cinema (I was about thirteen) and I was squirming with embarrassment at the Bondola bit.
The Amazon chase though is great, mainly because they’re really detonating explosive charges in the water. They’d probably do it with CGI today. But someone’s driving a real boat through genuine explosive charges in MR and I find that completely thrilling.
I disagree: I think GE is assertive more than defensive: he's still here, he's still Bond, deal with it. It does come off as artificial, especially out of context, but it was imo the right move: a very Bond centric movie, maybe THE most Bond centric movie, where everyone else is peripheral, a reaction to LTK and an emphasis on the iconic elements. In the end, Bond in GE is less a character than an icon and that was the intention. I think it's also one of the reasons why it's Brosnan's best: he's always been more comfortable with the icon than the character. The complete opposite to Dalton, actually.
If you have a Bond movie where all the characters take turns criticizing Bond, how does that qualify as assertive? It's a classic defensive move--get in all the criticism before the critics do it. Bond himself accepts practically every criticism with a nod or passive stare. As I said, at the time this was probably a wise move on the filmmaker's part, but also badly obvious one that now counts as an aesthetic defect.
I beg to differ. DAD was Brosnan's best performance, because he had finally become comfortable with the character, instead of playing an uninvolving icon, which is what Bond is in GE.
I think the Dench scene is wonderful because we see Bond is already uncomfortable in the office with her as the new boss and is acting a little catty, likely because he doesn’t seem to be confident in her as the new M. She tries to relax him first with an offering of bourbon, which seems to surprise him at first, to his amusement. When he’s still acting catty about the analysts, she takes a new approach: let’s drop the facade and acknowledge we probably don’t like each other personally, “the thought had occurred”, says Bond mildly. Once that’s out of the way, she makes it clear he not only has a job to do but that she knows he’s the right man for it regardless of how she may think of him personally. That’s why that bit at the end with him smiling at “come back alive” is nice, because whatever awkwardness that was between them was done away with and now they can get back to work.
I think that’s perfectly in line with the sentiment Phoebe Waller Bridge said in how you deal with Bond with the changing of the times. You keep him relatively as he’s always been, and show he still has something to offer to a world that likely underestimates him.
I would agree that it's clearly defensive, but I don't even really see why it was a wise move. Obviously the movie was a success, but the narrative about it now, that everybody was wondering if Bond is relevant and blah blah blah is missing the mark I think. I'm quite sure most discussion of Bond's relevance in 1995 was to do with there being six years since the previous one, and probably double that amount of time since the last truly big hit.
Sure, keep Bond as he is. But Goldeneye doesn't. They turn him into a guy who shoots in and out of Russia, toppling dictators with his sidekick and enduring sinister interrogations. Again, it's all a misremembered cliche. It's not really Bond: it's more like they made the silhouette from one of the logos into a character.
As an aside, I don't think there's any reason to be hung up on the fact that Bond is repeatedly criticized without retort. Just the simple fact that people are monologuing about Bond's alleged character as if they own the VHS box set is terrible, terrible writing.
Those big bangs do totally make it, I agree. Possibly the only chase which is good purely because of the pyrotechnics! :D
Bond’s boat is very cool too though: I think it doesn’t get credit in the pantheon of cool Bond vehicles.
I don't think any of those things were new to Bond, to be honest. There have been plenty of sinister interrogations in the films (and there were a few in the books). Connery came up against the Russians, as did Moore (repeatedly) and Dalton. They are the old enemy, after all. And I never took Trevelyan's comments about "toppling dictators" quite so literally to mean that they always did it together. I don't think there's much revisionism going on. Considering a lot of the dialogue came from the villain in this case, it's fair to assume a lot of it is vague manipulation on his part. And it's why Bond is relatively unphased by it, even though he considered Trevelyan a friend at one point, and just gets on with the job afterwards.
I would not mind at all an updated MR, more threatening, tense, serious, etc. But moving it from all-England (sounds like a sports league) I still would employ. Giving Bond a sweetie I still would employ (if not already, please read MR and you'll see what I mean), KEEP the steel toed shoe up the butt scene from the book ! So maybe the snake could make a return -- even if not set in Brazil -- and Bond vs. The Snake (sounds like a wrestling match, which is not a bad description of how it turned out) could be great ! In fact, I'd "give" Bond a gadget -- such as the deadly pen -- but have it not work. Not that he drops it, but it doesn't work. So Bond would have to achieve success in some other manner ! Yes ! Bring back MR ! I know a lot of DAD was QUITE MR-ish -- again, with reference to the book -- so perhaps a Re-Do would do well to deliberately bring together useful elements -- yes, DAD-haters, with change of tone and more -- of DAD A-N-D MR together ! Moonrake Another Day ? (I know. I made a new verb there) I think just call it MR and have a line spoken in the plot to the effect that someone -- Bond, Villain, whomever -- would just have to wait and could die another day...but not today.
Well, Alec's very existence is a significant case of revisionism! But I don't see how "toppling dictators" is Bruce Feirstein having Alec manipulating Bond. And Bond being unfazed (in fact not reacting at all) is the natural result of that. (I mean, would Bond be fazed if Alec wasn't engaging in manipulation?) And everything else he talks about is apparently true: "Hey James, you kill a lot of guys and bonk a lot of ladies and you like vodka martinis and your parents died in a climbing accident." I doubt the "toppling dictators" part was a lonely and meaningless misdirection.
Other revisionism comes from other sources. That Bond used to "shoot in and out" of Russia comes from Bond himself, and isn't true (although admittedly he did visit Siberia the one time). "Sinister interrogations" as well. I can't recall any from the films, honestly. Perhaps when he was in the chair with Kananga and Tee Hee?
I think Occam's Razor would lead us to the conclusion that all of this is just a sweeping revision in service of the (pretty decent!) plot of Goldeneye, and relies on largely inaccurate stereotypes of what the general public perceives Bond to be about.
I'm reminded of one of Red Letter Media's reviews of the (dreadful) Picard series. They make the point that most people don't know much about Picard, except maybe that he likes Earl Grey tea. So Earl Grey tea is brought up multiple times in the first episode, and there's a weird revisionism that makes Data his soulmate or something. It's nothing like Next Generation, it's done in service of the current project. So another mix popular cliche and retconning.
I agree. GE is way too meta for its own good.
It is one thing to have M and perhaps Zukovsky comment on the relevance and place of Bond in 1995--although it's also kind of irritatingly meta that Zukovsky even comments on "the new M being a lady." That line is clearly about a screenwriter loving his own idea.
But it's every character commenting on the relevance and actions of Bond, even Bond himself. He "shoots in and out of Russia." No, he doesn't; he's a spy, not Rambo.
An indication of bad screenwriting is when every character sounds the same. And in GE, that is exactly what happens.
Not really. We've had and seen other double-0 agents before, and been given indications that Bond had friendly relationships with them and taken vengeance on their behalf when they fell in the field. This is just an extension of that, not a revision of it. Trevelyan is very clearly offering up an emotionally charged reasoning for his choices. So yes, it is an attempt at emotional manipulation as far as I'm concerned. Not strictly for the purposes of convincing Bond of his righteousness, but as an attempt at throwing Bond off his game, fleetingly, so that he can be captured.
I'm not really sure what you mean by this. Would things be different for the protagonist if the villain who was going into depth about his reasons for his betrayal in an overly emotional way didn't do that? Yes, most likely. But it wouldn't necessarily be the polar opposite response. There's more than two options.
Those weren't the words used to describe it. I just said that I didn't take them literally. They're over the top as part of Trevelyan's spiel. There might be an element of truth to them but it doesn't mean the pair of them went around like Batman and Robin at the weekends defeating all the dictators in the world and giving each other high fives. :))
But it's fair enough that there are other intepretations of it. It's natural considering it's a Bond film that had to find ways of merging the old with the new and was tasked with finding a fresh audience. There will be points of contention. I just happen to be one of the people who find the points of contention to be interesting and mostly good, rather than poor.
That whole beach scene is one of the worst in the series, terrible dialogue and acting, and chocolate box visuals! Ugh!
It's like Bruce watched DAF, got to the line "You just killed James Bond!" and thought, "I'm gonna make my whole screenplay like this!" :)) (For the record, I think Tiffany's line is hilarious and perfect for that film...)
Precisely this. And you got me thinking: even if you're going to insist on including nine pages of hacky analysis in your script, you can at least make it interesting. What if 006 had called Bond a misogynist dinosaur, instead of M? I'm already on a more interesting path than the one Bruce took.
I'm sure I'm repeating myself from another thread, but the "misogynist dinosaur" speech is not good. Bond correctly points out that the new female M has been wrong about everything, and her response is to call him a sexist--this is closer to anti-feminist satire than it is to having Judi Dench's character be a strong one.
Goldeneye features a James Bond who works directly alongside another 00 with whom he shares pub-themed code words and the motto, "For England". And it's not a one-off deal: the film says this was routine. Nothing remotely resembling this appears in the series before or after this film.
Sorry, I know it was oddly put. I was referring to "it's fair to assume a lot of it is vague manipulation on his part. And it's why Bond is relatively unphased by it". Bond not being fazed by the "toppling dictators" part doesn't beg explanation, so I wasn't sure why you were offering an explanation for it. What does beg explanation is any reason for thinking that when Alec refers to he and Bond toppling dictators together that he means anything other than he and Bond used to topple dictators together. There's no reason to think he does, Bond doesn't indicate that he thinks he does, and it's hard to imagine the screenwriter expected audiences to glean anything from it beyond the text.
(As an aside, my favorite part of this scene is when Alec says "it's insulting to think I haven't anticipated your every move" and then puts him in an ineffective death trap and walks away! This would be brilliant satire had it been done intentionally!)
Hmmm...
It doesn't seem over the top. Bond doesn't seem to think it is either. I think this is special pleading.
It really is.
Anyway, sorry about the negativity over a beloved film. It's just so weird to me how "You just killed James Bond" and "This never happened to the other fellow" get so much negativity while a full two hours of it makes most top ten lists! :))
I agree.
I love GoldenEye but that whole scene was not good in my opinion.