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@timmer, you gave me a good chuckle there, haha. As painful as it is to point out, I'm afraid most of the world's population don't share our massively encyclopedic Bond knowledge or our fixation on continuity and/or tiny details. It'd be a tender world, but alas it's not to be.
I have had moments where I was discussing a Bond film, and somebody would maybe respond warmly to it, or give a review of it in a sentence. "It was good," "I liked it," "It was pretty cool," etc. I'd smile, finding my views vindicated, but inside my brain I was thinking, "Yeah, you liked it, but what about [this thing] and [that thing] that you've not even begun to see the meaning of." I wanted to pour my brain out to them and tell them all the minute details of the production, all the subtleties of the leading man's performance, what themes were in the script, and anything else they may've missed.
Then I realized that some people just watch Bond films to unwind, and can watch even films like FRWL by treating them as regular romps, never thinking of them again beyond recollecting how cool an action scene was. They are okay with missing out on the details and the themes, the subtleties of the performances by the cast, and what the film did for the rest of the series after its release. As Bond fans this hurts, as it's such a big part of our lives it's inconceivable to imagine that people watch them and forget them without looking deeper or reading into the history. It's become second nature for us to spit out all the information on a film you could hope to hear-I know you and I could give a filibuster history lesson on Connery's movies that could last days-that we often fail to realize that people might not be interested in hearing it.
I'm trying to get better at that myself, discovering which people in my life tolerate my rambling about Bond and which ones I need to tame myself around. It's all about finding a nice balance, and reigning in the obsession a little bit to save everyones' sanity, no matter how tempting it is to inform or correct them on a point. Even when people call the train scenes of FRWL boring, blind to all the building drama between Connery and Shaw. Even when people like GF for a painted lady and not the underlying them of female oppression that colors it. And yes, even when they don't recognize that a Aston Martin's steering wheel has switched sides.
Do people not pay attention?!
Has the DB5 ever been used for anything else, though? It was used in a deal with Aston in GF and TB, and appears so that big star Connery driving it around would make people gravitate towards it and buy one of their own. Essentially, a car commercial masquerading as action sequences. The idea is that as a car company having James Bond drive your cars is a goldmine for your business, and the promotion of your vehicle in a blockbuster film is the end all be all. Part of why I don't get upset about the DB5's reappearance is because it's my favorite car, but most of the reason beyond that is because it has always served the same purpose. Its function in the plot is minimal, its marketing value maximum. It was true back in the day, and it's true now. In a backwards kind of way, because the DB5 is outdated and you can't just buy one at any dealership around you, SF and SP's use of it doesn't come off as a film trying to sell you a car. It's then able to feel-to me-more like an object used to build a character who is inherently a traditionalist.
But it's important not to forget that its main purpose in the films is to serve as advertisement, which GF started off.
Chances are it'll at least cameo with a Craig return. If Bond drove off in it at the end of SP, we'll likely see it again when he appears on screen in whatever area he's settled around.
I reminded here of the David Brent quote 'I've got stuff to say if only people would listen. But they won't!!'
Patched up about as well as if you got a monkey with a paintbrush and a tin of Dulux to restore the Mona Lisa.
For someone bemoaning people not caring about the minutiae of Bond I can't allow such factual inaccuracy to stand.
Certainly with the Lotus in TSWLM and Brozza's BMW's it was about trying to increase sales but with GF Aston really didn't get it. EON found it very difficult to convince them it was in their interests to give them free cars and actually had to buy the cars they needed.
It was only when GF went stratospheric that it became clear that an association with Bond drove sales hence the chairman of Lotus bending over backwards to get the Esprit into TSWLM.
I may be wrong but was the DB5 the inception of modern product placement in films?
Certainly it was Bond that invented toy tie ins with the Corgi DB5 rather than George Lucas, although he did perfect the concept (early bird certificate shambles excepted).
I disagree sir. The thing had gadgets. That's slightly (nay, a lot) more than marketing.
Would have been good for at least 100 pages of discussion.
I'm detecting a right-side bias, maybe a Sam Mendes anti-CR bent too!
One of the greatest mysteries, enigmas of the Bond cinematic universe.
Alas, never to be resolved.
It will haunt forever, like Blofeld sans socks.
I wake up in a pouring sweat most nights trying to figure out how Bond shifted the car during his two-wheel stunt in DAF. The question consumes me.
Yes it was but it was in Qs hand in SP !....
Even in the original timeline, there were two DB5s. The original BMT216A in GF and TB, later revived in the second timeline in SF, and BMT214A in the Brosnan films. The Bahamas-registered left-hand drive car sticks out like a sore thumb. Just not the same vehicle, except for being a DB5.
Precisely.
It was lame in GE. Once they'd gone there it was just about OK in TND and TWINE. It was pretty desperate in CR. In SF even though it worked in the context of the 50th it was excessive. By the time we've got to SP I loathe the thing.
It's basically Arsene Wenger - sensational to start with, then progressively more embarassing as time goes on to the point now where it's tarnished its legacy for good and you just wish someone would put finally put the thing out of everyone's misery.
The mystery isn't as exciting at you super sleuths would wish. I think poor old Dimitrios drove exclusively in countries where traffic travels on the right, and Bond, being an Englishman, had to give that wheel a switch over to go on the left side of the road. ;)
The only moment in the Connery era where the bulge seemed to have a purpose!
It's shown in infra red at the end when R is searching for Bond.
Keep up son.
I don't think that counts. And I never noticed it. Well another reason to watch TWINE.