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TMWTGG better then I remembered!
I have to give it to DC and others about TMWTGG, it is actually a pretty damn good Bond movie! I use to loath this movie but I decided to sit down tonight and watch it without any pre-determined ideas of what I thought of it from the past. It is still hindered by a few faults. However, I use to hold these faults in a much more detrimental way then I do now (after having re-watched the movie tonight). Roger is in top form in this movie and the only other movie I would say he is better in is probably FYEO, which is a personal favorite of the Roger movies for me. If you subtract the Goodnight character (thankfully her screen time is minimal), JD Pepper and some of the farce moments (whistle when the car jumps the bridge as an example) this is a top rate, very Connery inspired Bond movie. For me TMWTGG is better then the last two Connery movies and it scores almost equal to LALD which I hold in pretty high regard. TMWTGG has risen from about 20th to probably 10-12th in my movie rankings.... only time will tell as I am watching the movies in order yet again.
For the record, my wife has never seen all the Bond movies and she is watching them with me and she rates TMWTGG as her favourite thus far!
I always enjoy every Bond movie for something and with TMWTGG it was refreshing to watch it with an open mind. I'm curious if people rank this movie so low because of the faults I listed or if there is something else that irks them about his movie? I will say, I think the story is overall pretty strong, the locations are great and other then Goodnight and JD Pepper the characters are terrific (Christopher Lee is great!). If the directors had used a more imaginable way to incorporate the lighter stuff besides bringing back the redneck, I think this movie would have been received by fans much better.
For the record, my wife has never seen all the Bond movies and she is watching them with me and she rates TMWTGG as her favourite thus far!
I always enjoy every Bond movie for something and with TMWTGG it was refreshing to watch it with an open mind. I'm curious if people rank this movie so low because of the faults I listed or if there is something else that irks them about his movie? I will say, I think the story is overall pretty strong, the locations are great and other then Goodnight and JD Pepper the characters are terrific (Christopher Lee is great!). If the directors had used a more imaginable way to incorporate the lighter stuff besides bringing back the redneck, I think this movie would have been received by fans much better.
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Comments
[glances around] "You live well Scaramanga..."
Goodnight wasn't incredibly annoying - but she served absolutely no real purpose in the story.. what did she do except slow down Bond and nearly kill him while he was trying to remove the solex (with her arse no less lol)... her involvement wasn't needed - but one could say that about a lot of Bond girls... so, her i can let slide...
JW Pepper absolutely had no business in this movie - and he's even twice as unbearable as he was in LALD.... in that film, i could accept a bigot/racist hillbilly cop - because of the location... why on earth drag him across the globe for the next film?.... i guess they looked at the script and realized they had no dumb humor, and decided to crowbar in Pepper one last time..... ick...
but in another thread, i expressed TMWTGG as a film that had potential to be something unique and thrilling - but in the end, it whizzed itself down it's leg.. and i am not basing this off what i think it should have been, but how the film initially set itself up.... if you look at the PTS thru the scene at the Bottom's Up - it's very taut, dark, and Fleming - it had the makings of a good thriller... Bond being stalked by an expert assassin who only needs one shot... it had Bond guessing, and had him on edge.... the suspense is immediately killed off when Bond realizes he isn't the target, and never was (way to flush that tension down the toilet)... instead, the story now refocuses on the recovery of a completely useless mcguffin shoehorned into the script.... the only real enjoyable parts in this film were on Scaramanga's island... the rest is just drab with oriental window dressing...
locations were really boring - probably some of the worst in the franchise - once again, Scaramanga's island was the only highlight...
Barry's score was below average for his standards, and felt really phoned in... Martin's score to LALD and Hamlisch's score to TSWLM are both superior (thankfully Barry got back on track with his score to MR)... not to mention the title theme is painfully awful, and i always skip by it, or mute it... the end titles are much better, and should've been the opening (but what do i know)
Moore's performance was the only thing keeping this movie from going into cardiac arrest..... which it almost did on several occasions.
in all honesty - if you were to remove everything involving the Solex, and just made this about Bond being hunted by Scaramanga - the film would've been much much better.
That's an attitude I admire! I know exactly what you mean.
("Theres a useful four letter word - and you're full of it")
But it suffers from a rather sluggish middle section. The ninja sequence involving 2 little girls is embarrassing in this day and age and the car chase is routine par for the jump.
Brit Eckland's annoying and her only saving grace is that she's attractive.
One problem though is the rather sluggish, tired direction. Watching GG back in the 90s for the first time I even remember thinking "this feels routine" and I wasn't the smartest of kids.
It used to be in my bottom 5. However I watched it fairly recently and enjoyed it more - but not that much more.
:-bd TMWTGG is the best Bond film !! Welcome to the TMWTGG fan club !! :)>-
I'd love one of you to explain to me what it is youre watching because from where I stand it seems like a lazy, tired plod which very nearly sunk the series. Cubby really had to pull out all the stops with TSWLM after this dud to keep Bond going.
A few decent scenes with Christopher Lee and one amazing (but ruined) stunt is really all there is to see. Its not even as entertaining as DAF or DAD (although I would rank DAD below it) which make up the rest of my bottom 3.
Even as a child I thought the film felt "off".
I first saw TMWTGG in 1980 on a double bill with LALD. In 1980 it cost a thousand pounds to fly to Australia. Greece and Spain were the furthest you went on holiday. Florida was beginning to make an appearance (LakerAir anyone?) but the Far East was truly a dream destination. There was an element of no-go there. Vietnam had just finished, China was communist, Suharto was being a bitch in Indonesia, Cambodia had just got over Pol Pot and Hong Kong was surrounded by an increasingly hostile peoples republic of China.
Therefore Thailand and Hong Kong WERE big exotic destinations. For this small child brought up in an English village seeing the rock karsts of Phang Nga Bay, the Portuguese port of Macao and the floating markets of Bangkok was mindblowing. The locations were a highlight of the film.
It may not seem it nowadays when Vietnam is on The Amazing Race and the next door neighbour has seen Angkor Wat in Cambodia...but back then the Far East, because it was so inaccessible WAS exotic.
That why I put the locations of TMWTGG up there with QoS, YOLT and MR as the best in the series
Solid performance from Rog and good locations - I'll give you those.
Interesting plot - Which is pretty much discarded after 40 mins for a formulaic and uninspired 'hunt the Macguffin' slog.
Colourful secondary characters - Scaramanga is a very good villain and Andrea is reasonable. Goodnight and Hip are both a joke and Nic Nac whilst having that Flemingesque touch of the bizarre also becomes a joke in the dismal final reel.
lots of classic scenes and quotable lines - Er.. maybe the scenes with Scaramanga at the kickboxing and at dinner but how many more? We're hardly talking the Goldfinger laser table or TSWLM ski jump are we. And quotable lines? I like 'Phu Yuck' but the 'Come, come Mr Bond' exchange is about the only quotable scene and I think a lot of that is now down to Coogan and Brydon riffing on it in the Trip.
JW - I'm going to assume youre joking now.
Lots of hilarious humour that you laugh WITH the film - Now I'm sure you are joking. Elephants pushing people into canals, karate kicking school girls, Goodnights arse turning on the solex - is this what you call 'hilarious'. You should get hold of the Carry On box set then - you'll give yourself a hernia.
A great score from Barry - a reasonable score. Nothing really outstanding. Certainly way off YOLT and OHMSS.
Great sets - The QE yes but apart from that.... The control room is awful - like something out of Austin Powers and most of it seems to be miniatures.
Agreed.
Agreed.
Agreed.
Errrrr no thanks. QOS had pathetic and horrible locations, too many of them and not enough ground visited in each of them.
I am DEAD serious. JW Peppah is the best character in the franchise !! apart from Bond of course.
Err yes I am serious - the karate school girls scene is one of my favorite scene in the entire franchise !!
Horrible? Whats horrible about the The Palio in Siena? The floating opera house in Bregenz? The stunning deserts of Bolivia?
Horrible? The colours of the South American deserts are a character in their own right. And you can almost smell the roasting cuyo on the streets of La Paz. If you mean by horrible they were a little down at heel ie Port au Prince and La Paz. Well, Bond has always gone to rough parts of the world ie Kingston and Istanbul. Harlem and Rio are pretty gritty as well.
OK.I thought we were having a serious discussion but youre obviously just trying to wind me up so to quote Duncan Bannatyne 'I'm out'.
If there is to be a remake of an old Bond movie, it should be this one.
Lee's Scaramanga is the best Bond villain, Moore's Bond in this film is perfect.
The locations are great, even Nic Nac is great. Andrea is a great Bond girl. The golden gun, the gun itself, is beautiful and well thought, the story is not that dated, nowadays loads of companies invest milions of pounds to find the ultimate green energy, and other companies pay milions of pund not to find the ultimate green energy.
The best bond movie, and the most underrated Bond film...
No, he is the best !!
What about "I'm now aiming precisely at your groin. So speak or forever hold your piece"? That's a good line.
I have to completely agree with you here and a few other points you made too. This movie had the potential of being a GREAT Bond movie but was let down by the faults you and I mentioned and a good point you bring up, direction. This movie could have been terrific with a different director! I guess for me the annoyances didn't bother me as much as they use to.
However, don't get me wrong I'm not moving TMWTGG to my top ten! But it use to be in my bottom four (jncluding AVTAK, MR and WAY down at the bottom DAD), but has been moved up to the high teens (probably 13th or so).
I also agree with DC though, this is a very "Fleming" Bond movie. I'm currently reading the novels at the same time as re-watching the movies and for the first hour or so this felt more Fleming then anything since FRWL. Unfortunately the ending looses that feeling a little but not so much because of the story but because of Goodnight and the cringe worth JW Pepper.
Either way it was a pleasant surprise having not seen the movie in many years. Of course the opposite happened for DAF a few weeks ago which has now been lowered to the bottom four (likely)..:-)
The karate school scene up until the two girls come in ( I don't mind the two girls but they don't add to the scene) is classic Bond! The way Bond handles himself, the way he is so unorthodox is very typical Bond. Bond does not fight within the rules or do things the proper way, he does it the way he wants to get him out of whatever jam he is in. The kick to the head of the guy bowing, a few of the punches, hilarious! That is the type of humour Bond movies need, not some slapstick character like JW or Jaws part 2. Witty, smart humour is what the franchise has created at times over the years and is what they should stick with. And if the scene doesn't lend itself to humour then leave it out!
I hope I don't take this into a QOS thread as I started it as a TMWTGG discussion but minus the shaky camera scenes QOS is probably the most beautifully shot Bond movie ever! I'm hoping Deakins will surpass this with Skyfall but say what you will about QOS, but it looks stunning in the screen!
I don't think its moore's best film, TSWLM has that award, but its enjoyable and fun.