TND: A Hotel In Germany

BriggonSnow

I have no question to pose, but more of a musing/observation on a certain scene in a certain Bond movie. Now I have seen a lot of Brosnan bashing on the forums since looking around at conversations. Some valid opinions from different perspectives and varied tastes on what people think a "Bond" should be, and what a "Bond Movie" should be. I think it's fantastic that over 50 years we have had so many different flavors of the James Bond formula...and 6 different takes on the character of 007. We can essentially cherry-pick the films to create our own ultimate and ideal franchise while acknowledging the whole picture and grinning with pride that you consider yourself a fan of it all. I for one appreciate all of the Bonds, and can sympathize that in many ways the various actors were subject to the film styles of the times they made their movies in. In that regard, I feel that Brosnan's Bond movies were in a "growing pains" decade.

Long rambling intro...but just trying to adequately preface my opinion.

I think each actor has had a movie that hit the perfect "tone" of their time. For Connery it wasn't the Thunderball formula in my opinion, but the FRWL tone. For me, personally, for the Brosnan era, it is TND. Specifically, the character is perfectly channeled in the scene where James Bond sits in his hotel room waiting...with a drink...and a gun. Growing up and watching that scene...it was so evocative looking, brooding and completely cool. That image is burned into my brain as the ideal essence of the Brosnan era. Not the cartoonishness of DAD, but the....I can't even pin it down...the "whatever you want to call it-ness" of TND. Chalk it up to the look of the film, the action, the brassy-ness of the score....I just see it as all of the pieces falling into place for that Brosnan film.

I probably could have made the statement in fewer sentences, but there you are.

Any "perfect" scenes/images for you folks when it comes to the different Bonds and their movies?

DarthDimi

For me, being a fierce GE fan, TND was a let-down in many respects. However, over the years, I've come to appreciate the film. TND does indeed have a few perfect moments, the hotel scene where he unknowingly awaits Paris being my primary example. I think Brosnan pulls it off perfectly.

St_George

To my mind, TND has always been a clichéd 'film of two halves'; the first half is very good; the second rather lacklustre.

The first half is in many ways an excellent opening half of a Bond film. The plot plays out nicely, the pacing's on the money and The Brozzer's Bond looks, sounds and works very well throughout, especially in the aforementioned, terrific hotel room scene (the only downsides, for me, are the dull location of Hamburg - why couldn't they have gone somewhere more visually satisfying like Prague, Paris or Berlin? - and Pryce's misjudged, scenery-chomping villain).

Conversely, the closing half changes location dramatically (no bad thing at all), but along with it the quality of plotting, character and dialogue fizzles out - clearly this half took the brunt of the on-set re-wrting that plagued the production. Admittedly, the cracks are papered over somewhat by the quality of the action in the second half, but it leaves the whole - the whole film, that is - as a missed opportunity.

However...

BriggonSnow wrote:

I think it's fantastic that over 50 years we have had so many different flavors of the James Bond formula...and 6 different takes on the character of 007.

... I agree with that 100 percent. :)

As to individual Bonds and their perfect moments, I'll have a think about it and post my thoughts when they've come to me...

Baltimore_007

Do I detect a chance at some Tomorrow Never Dies bashing? :-t

As stated above, it's a James Bond release of two halves for me also, always has been, always will, once we leave Hamburg (well we don't see much of it) it's downhill all the way for me and the second half in Saigon and surrounding areas have the same sleep factor as Goldfinger sometimes

Johnathan Pryce, an actor of caliber, seems wasted here, and he simply offers little threat or malice, but does present one supreme moment of oscar winning material with a ludicrously stupid (and hilarious) typing scene when Wai Lin and Bond gets captured and he starts 'typing' out his headlines

Fine opening at the arms fair, most excellent Sheryl Crow music, nice Daniel Kleinman title designs, and a fun opening half hour as Pryce hams it up but it nearly always gets to a certain stage where I feel 'do I really want to watch anymore of this'

That can't be a sign of a good Bond movie and I sometimes do struggle to get to the end of this certain James Bond 'adventure'

Getafix

Although not a fan of Brozza, TND is by some considerable measure his best film. As noted above, the first half is actually not that bad.

Like QoS it is well-paced, taught and relatively punchy compared to the flabby overblown offering that preceded it (that applies to GE and CR).

boldfinger

St_George wrote:

(the only downsides, for me, are the dull location of Hamburg - why couldn't they have gone somewhere more visually satisfying like Prague, Paris or Berlin?

Hamburg is in fact very satisfying visually. The presentation in TND is below mediocre. It feels very poorly location-scouted.

As for the thread´s topic, the freefall scene in TND always grips me. No music, just Bond in what looks like a freefall from space down to earth.
Also, Bond telling Carver he´d be adrift writing a novel is brilliant. One of the few moments where Brosnan controls the scene.