The James Bond Questions Thread

17778808283210

Comments

  • RC7RC7
    Posts: 10,512
    BondBug wrote: »
    NicNac wrote: »
    I've got a feeling this argument is going one way only, so I would like to ask you guys to put it aside now.
    We have covered the query about Bond's escape from the bank, so we can move on.
    Thanks.

    Thank you Nic Nac. I came here to talk about James Bond, not to be attacked. From this point on I will exercise restraint and not respond to those kind of attacks.

    You're not being attacked, lighten up.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    edited January 2016 Posts: 9,117
    BondBug wrote: »

    Stuff that you need in an emergency, like a rope, doesn't just magically appear, in the real world or in the early films or novels.

    The rope being long enough by chance is no different to every gadget ever.

    'Oh cripes. A villain has got in the passenger seat and forced me at gunpoint to drive my own car. If only by some quirk of fate I had say an ejector seat available to fire him out of the car.'

    'Lummy. I'm in a pretty pickle here. There's a guy shooting at my car and despite there being a bulletproof shield and all the glass being bulletproof anyway I need some way of disabling him. What I really could do with now is some powerful water jets to knock him off his feet even though there is clearly no room inside the car for such large tanks and no mechanism to pump it out.'

    'What a stroke of luck - here's Osato's safe. It's a shame I haven't got a safe breaking gadget conveniently in my pocket for just such an occasion.'

    Just because Q gives Bond something first that can only be used in conveniently the exact situation Bond finds himself in an hour later doesn't make it any less ridiculous or lazy screenwriting.
    BondBug wrote: »

    I never said that I find "everything he does so ridiculous." Even the things I think could be better in the movies don't prevent my enjoyment. I am not one of those who are highly critical of Spectre. Overall, I think it was terrific. If I could only ever watch another 25 movies, I would choose to watch only Bond movies. My credentials as a Bond fan should not be questioned.

    Well you shouldn't enjoy it. It is full of 'ridiculous' moments.

    Bond landing on the sofa - there's a stroke of luck.

    Bond deliberately crashing his plane to stop some cars must have annoyed you as you only like Bond doing a big stunt if 'there are no other options available.' I would contend that there were numerous options available to him rather than the insane notion of knocking the wings off his plane. (Strikes me the whole plane crash sequence adheres to your cheap and lazy 'thinking of stunts and then applying it the screenplay' cardinal sin given that nobody in their right mind would think crashing a plane they were flying was a sound course of action.)

    I don't think anyone ever questioned your Bond fan credentials (except for the mystery of why you bother given all Bond films are packed with implausibility and ridiculous moments.

    The question that perplexes me is why you are so vexed about this conveniently long length of rope but seem unwilling to apply the same pedantry microscope to the other films?

    Did the TWINE PTS run off with your missus or something?

  • SzonanaSzonana Mexico
    Posts: 1,130
    NicNac wrote: »
    Szonana wrote: »
    Silly but curious question
    In the world is not enough : did M new Bond cheated in his medical check up ??

    When she gets the results from James Tomography and she says something like it seems like you healed very quick. Did she knew those results were fake and still let him go to protect Elektra ??

    She(M) first made it clear Bond shouldn't go back to work till he recovered from the incident but did she changed her mind thought what the hell he is a professional and sent him knowing he didnt fully recover yet ????
    just like in Skyfall who sent Bond to a mission even though he didnt past the tests.


    By the time M had seen the results she had already had a conversation with Bond about her involvement in Electra's kidnapping, and the fact that 'your terrorist is back'.

    As such and because Bond had figured so much out I think M was more than willing to overlook Bond's clean bill of health. She needed him more than ever.

    Or at least I think that was the order of events.


    Thanks, that was the order of events I wasn't sure if she overlooked that detail or she really thought he now readd to get back to work but it does make sense and again mommy was very bad lol.

    When we thought she was worried about his health, she sends him back to work knowing his arm didnt heal like it should.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,976
    Agreed, @TheWizardOfIce, and well said. I made a rather lengthy post in reply to yours, but alas, the Internet gods have decided against it; couldn't save my draft, post it, or even copy it, so my incoherent ramble of a post is now gone.

  • The 1st bomb which was targeted at Miami is captured and defused offscreen. One of the main reasons the TB climax is utterly devoid of tension IMO. SPECTRE never come close to detonating either bomb.

    I am not a great fan of the 'few seconds to disaster' conclusions which to my mind are gratingly contrived and often do not produce excitement, not least because they usually are preceded by a turgid gunfight (yes I'm looking at you YOLT and TSWLM).

    The thunderball finale is not great because the underwater battle goes on too long and is not half as interesting as the filmmakers seem to think it is. Plus the awkward speeded up and poorly edited fight onboard. A better finale could have been conceived but imo its not necessary to have imminent danger to the world for the finale to be exciting.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    edited January 2016 Posts: 9,117
    Creasy47 wrote: »
    Agreed, @TheWizardOfIce, and well said. I made a rather lengthy post in reply to yours, but alas, the Internet gods have decided against it; couldn't save my draft, post it, or even copy it, so my incoherent ramble of a post is now gone.

    I've had that happen to me too after typing out a particularly cathartic rant. So infuriating.

    Never mind old chap - your support is noted and appreciated.

    The 1st bomb which was targeted at Miami is captured and defused offscreen. One of the main reasons the TB climax is utterly devoid of tension IMO. SPECTRE never come close to detonating either bomb.

    I am not a great fan of the 'few seconds to disaster' conclusions which to my mind are gratingly contrived and often do not produce excitement, not least because they usually are preceded by a turgid gunfight (yes I'm looking at you YOLT and TSWLM).

    The thunderball finale is not great because the underwater battle goes on too long and is not half as interesting as the filmmakers seem to think it is. Plus the awkward speeded up and poorly edited fight onboard. A better finale could have been conceived but imo its not necessary to have imminent danger to the world for the finale to be exciting.

    I take your point and largely I agree with you. However I would contend that a film where the central premise is the hijacking of nuclear weapons and holding the world to ransom needs precisely the world being in jeopardy and such a countdown. The villain's threat is to explode a bomb. The excitement, drama, tension etc should come from Bond trying to stop then delivering on that threat. When one bomb (which may or may not be armed - we never find out) is recaptured hundreds of miles away off screen and the other cannot be armed because it's fuse has been thrown overboard then where is said drama and tension?


  • RC7RC7
    Posts: 10,512
    BondBug wrote: »

    Stuff that you need in an emergency, like a rope, doesn't just magically appear, in the real world or in the early films or novels.

    The rope being long enough by chance is no different to every gadget ever.

    'Oh cripes. A villain has got in the passenger seat and forced me at gunpoint to drive my own car. If only by some quirk of fate I had say an ejector seat available to fire him out of the car.'

    'Lummy. I'm in a pretty pickle here. There's a guy shooting at my car and despite there being a bulletproof shield and all the glass being bulletproof anyway I need some way of disabling him. What I really could do with now is some powerful water jets to knock him off his feet even though there is clearly no room inside the car for such large tanks and no mechanism to pump it out.'

    'What a stroke of luck - here's Osato's safe. It's a shame I haven't got a safe breaking gadget conveniently in my pocket for just such an occasion.'

    Just because Q gives Bond something first that can only be used in conveniently the exact situation Bond finds himself in an hour later doesn't make it any less ridiculous or lazy screenwriting.
    BondBug wrote: »

    I never said that I find "everything he does so ridiculous." Even the things I think could be better in the movies don't prevent my enjoyment. I am not one of those who are highly critical of Spectre. Overall, I think it was terrific. If I could only ever watch another 25 movies, I would choose to watch only Bond movies. My credentials as a Bond fan should not be questioned.

    Well you shouldn't enjoy it. It is full of 'ridiculous' moments.

    Bond landing on the sofa - there's a stroke of luck.

    Bond deliberately crashing his plane to stop some cars must have annoyed you as you only like Bond doing a big stunt if 'there are no other options available.' I would contend that there were numerous options available to him rather than the insane notion of knocking the wings off his plane. (Strikes me the whole plane crash sequence adheres to your cheap and lazy 'thinking of stunts and then applying it the screenplay' cardinal sin given that nobody in their right mind would think crashing a plane they were flying was a sound course of action.)

    I don't think anyone ever questioned your Bond fan credentials (except for the mystery of why you bother given all Bond films are packed with implausibility and ridiculous moments.

    The question that perplexes me is why you are so vexed about this conveniently long length of rope but seem unwilling to apply the same pedantry microscope to the other films?

    Did the TWINE PTS run off with your missus or something?

    Lovely stuff.
  • edited January 2016 Posts: 1,009
    Look what I found while browsing the famed site TV Tropes:
    "TV wrote:
    The Criterion laserdisc editions of the first three James Bond movies reportedly feature commentary so controversial they have since been banned from ever getting the rights to release any Bond movie ever released. Forever.
    Anyone knows how those commentaries were?
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,976
    What a shame. I could see some of the earlier movies easily making it onto Criterion if that wasn't the case, too.
  • SarkSark Guangdong, PRC
    Posts: 1,138
    Gerard wrote: »
    Indeed. Now a question about Thunderball. Given that the bomb set to blow up in Florida was off the coast of Miami, what kind of damages could SPECTRE expect ? All right, probably a tsunami, but apart from that ? Has any tests been realized with a submerged nuke that would give us an idea as to what Floridians might expect, aside from some heavily radioactive water ?

    If I recall it isn't so much "off the coast of Miami" as it is within half a mile of downtown Miami. So the damage would be what you'd expect from an atomic explosion from half a mile away. Here's a few videos of underwater nuclear tests.





  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    Look what I found while browsing the famed site TV Tropes:
    "TV wrote:
    The Criterion laserdisc editions of the first three James Bond movies reportedly feature commentary so controversial they have since been banned from ever getting the rights to release any Bond movie ever released. Forever.
    Anyone knows how those commentaries were?

    I'm at a bit of a loss as to what could be so controversial about those early films and who might have said it.

    I can imagine people might have things to say about the production of SP which will never see the light of day but the production of those first three was fairly straightforward wasn't it?

    The only things I can come up with would be:

    1. Sean slagging off Cubby & Harry about them cutting him out of the money bonanza that flooded in.

    2. John Barry slagging off Monty Norman and claiming the Bond theme was all his.

    3. Nikki Van Der Zyl coming out with some sort of controversial revelation. There are still some of us round here who remember Nikkigate from several years ago.
  • In Dr No why is Bond's dialogue so blatantly speeded up when talking to Leiter in Pussfellar's bar? I can't believe Sean (or anyone) would talk that fast. Only thing I can think is the original dialogue was shorter so it had to be speeded up to sync it.

  • Posts: 1,009
    Look what I found while browsing the famed site TV Tropes:
    "TV wrote:
    The Criterion laserdisc editions of the first three James Bond movies reportedly feature commentary so controversial they have since been banned from ever getting the rights to release any Bond movie ever released. Forever.
    Anyone knows how those commentaries were?

    I'm at a bit of a loss as to what could be so controversial about those early films and who might have said it.

    I can imagine people might have things to say about the production of SP which will never see the light of day but the production of those first three was fairly straightforward wasn't it?

    The only things I can come up with would be:

    1. Sean slagging off Cubby & Harry about them cutting him out of the money bonanza that flooded in.

    2. John Barry slagging off Monty Norman and claiming the Bond theme was all his.

    3. Nikki Van Der Zyl coming out with some sort of controversial revelation. There are still some of us round here who remember Nikkigate from several years ago.

    Only this? Somebody at EON must be quite susceptible.

    And while we are at it, what was the Nikkigate about, may I ask?
  • ggl007ggl007 www.archivo007.com Spain, España
    Posts: 2,541
    Look what I found while browsing the famed site TV Tropes:
    "TV wrote:
    The Criterion laserdisc editions of the first three James Bond movies reportedly feature commentary so controversial they have since been banned from ever getting the rights to release any Bond movie ever released. Forever.
    Anyone knows how those commentaries were?
    You can download them here: http://the007dossier.com/007dossier/post/2011/04/21/Banned-James-Bond-Commentaries

    39 things from the banned commentaries: http://filmschoolrejects.com/features/39-things-learned-banned-dr-no-commentary.php?utm_content=buffere4f8f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

    Actually, they are not so "controversial", I think...

  • And while we are at it, what was the Nikkigate about, may I ask?

    I believe WizardOfIce is referring to the banning of Nikki Van der Zyl from a goldfinger convention and Roger Moore withdrawing his foreword from her book.

    If you didn't know, she dubbed quite a lot of the early bond girls. Moore certainly went down in my estimation as a true gentlemen after that because he didn't contact her to explain and it looks like he was leaned on.

    From her website, she comes across as very boastful, full of herself, and understandably bitter about what has happened, so not saying she's perfect by any means, but it looks like Eon wanted to airbrush her contribution from history.

    I would be happy for there to be another explanation but none has been provided, which you would expect if there was an innocent reason.
  • edited January 2016 Posts: 1,009
    ggl007 wrote: »
    Look what I found while browsing the famed site TV Tropes:
    "TV wrote:
    The Criterion laserdisc editions of the first three James Bond movies reportedly feature commentary so controversial they have since been banned from ever getting the rights to release any Bond movie ever released. Forever.
    Anyone knows how those commentaries were?
    You can download them here: http://the007dossier.com/007dossier/post/2011/04/21/Banned-James-Bond-Commentaries

    39 things from the banned commentaries: http://filmschoolrejects.com/features/39-things-learned-banned-dr-no-commentary.php?utm_content=buffere4f8f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

    Actually, they are not so "controversial", I think...

    What a bundle of joy.
    ¡Muchas gracias, otra vez!

    And while we are at it, what was the Nikkigate about, may I ask?

    I believe WizardOfIce is referring to the banning of Nikki Van der Zyl from a goldfinger convention and Roger Moore withdrawing his foreword from her book.

    If you didn't know, she dubbed quite a lot of the early bond girls. Moore certainly went down in my estimation as a true gentlemen after that because he didn't contact her to explain and it looks like he was leaned on.

    From her website, she comes across as very boastful, full of herself, and understandably bitter about what has happened, so not saying she's perfect by any means, but it looks like Eon wanted to airbrush her contribution from history.

    I would be happy for there to be another explanation but none has been provided, which you would expect if there was an innocent reason.

    You said enough, and made a very neutral account, as well, Scaramanga, thanks!

    She made a great job voicing Andress, Bianchi, and most of the other girls. If it's like you say, it's a story of mutual butthurt like the ones we read about almost every day in cinema gossip, with both parts having more or less understandable reasons to be so.

    Overall, I also think it's something that got a bit overblown, and the connection Nikkigate-"Criteriongate" seems very, very likely (probably along with other reasons, especially the most well known of the ones named by WizardOfIce: the James Bond Theme controversy).
  • TreefingersTreefingers Isthmus City, Republic of Isthmus
    Posts: 191
    I wonder: Sir Frederick Gray, was he a tory?
  • Posts: 1,009
    I wonder: Sir Frederick Gray, was he a tory?
    I always thought it depended on the movie and the current governing party in the UK by then.
  • SarkSark Guangdong, PRC
    Posts: 1,138
    Why didn't Stromberg kill the crews of the submarines?
  • Posts: 1,165
    Was there ever anything said by an official source as to why John Doe Baker and Charles Gray were recast after such a short a period of time?
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    TR007 wrote: »
    Was there ever anything said by an official source as to why John Doe Baker and Charles Gray were recast after such a short a period of time?

    As he was just a John Doe, no one seemed to recognize him.
  • edited January 2016 Posts: 1,009
    TR007 wrote: »
    Was there ever anything said by an official source as to why John Doe Baker and Charles Gray were recast after such a short a period of time?

    As he was just a John Doe, no one seemed to recognize him.

    :)) Good one!

    But let's try to answer @TR007's question. I found it interesting.

    My opinion, and I state it's an opinion and not a fact, is that their first performance impressed EON enough to consider them for a role without having to pass an audition. Another option would be that they gained the friendship and trust of the crew in their past appearances.
  • Posts: 1,165
    Apologies. One can only blame auto-correct.
    I shall hang my head in shame.
  • Posts: 1,165
    It doesn't bother me either. I was just wondering if anyone in the production ever gave an official reason for it.
  • RC7RC7
    Posts: 10,512
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Yes, EON was more concerned with the present production than overall continuity. Which doesn't bother me.

    Absolutely. It surprises me some fans still haven't twigged that this is their MO and always has been.
  • AnthraxAnthrax Sweden
    Posts: 77
    Ah TV Tropes, among the best sites on the internet.
  • Posts: 1,009
    Anthrax wrote: »
    Ah TV Tropes, among the best sites on the internet.
    Yes, yes it is. Are you a troper, too?
  • edited January 2016 Posts: 1,009
    Im I the only one who in the circus scene from OP has the sensation that Bond gives the cold shoulder and a chilling look (brilliant moment by Sir Roger) to the officials and soldiers stationed in Germany when they cheer him and celebrate his disarming of the atomic bomb?
    IMHO, he reacts like: "So you chased and tried to gun me down, called me a madman and if not for Octopussy you all would be dead for not listening. Morover you forced me to dress like THIS. And NOW you go and congratulate and pat me? Screw you all, I'm outta here".
  • Posts: 4,325
    Im I the only one who has the sensation that Bond gives the cold shoulder and a chilling look (brilliant moment by Sir Roger) to the officials and soldiers stationed in Germany when they cheer him and celebrate his disarming of the atomic bomb?
    IMHO, he reacts like: "So you chased and tried to gun me down, called me a madman and if not for Octopussy you all would be dead for not listening. Morover you forced me to dress like THIS. And NOW you go and congratulate and pat me? Screw you all, I'm outta here".

    I always thought it was his reaction to their American enthusiasm :)

  • AnthraxAnthrax Sweden
    Posts: 77
    Yes, yes it is. Are you a troper, too?
    [/quote]

    Yes, but I go by a different name there, Sleeping_Beauty. I do edits there, but for the most part, I spend my time reading. I did one small edit on Pierce Brosnan's section about the trope "Always save the girl".

Sign In or Register to comment.