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Comments
The mission was cool and the fight on the satellite tower was tops. Great stunts and all. Natalya is the best girl of the Brosnan films (and the only one who has any chemistry with Brozza)
I thought Desmond was miscast and too old and it is obvious he is reading cue cards. They had replaced M (Dench) and Moneypenny (Samatha Bond) why did they keep Desmond? Plus Brosnan was a little uncomfortable in his first outing. That is to be expected. Pity his later films did not maintain this high quality.
I was listening to an audiobook of FRWL a few months back and it struck me how little Bond actually featured - despite the plot being about him. Even when he does appear (well over half way through) Fleming seems more interested in the characters and situations around him (like Kerim Bey, the Gypsy camp and the Orient Express). This is sort of the case in GE in that Bond is just "there" amongst a bunch of flamboyant supporting characters.
I think the problem with the Brosnan era wasn't so much the "blandness" but the cheesiness. They got away with it in GE because the action was impressive and didn't outstay its welcome - but after that the writers got lazy.
Am I the only one who finds this too much A-team and too little Bond?
Even Martin Campbell and Michael Wilson joke about it on the DVD commentary
Good eye, @BAIN123. I'd like to take credit for doing that consciously, but it's a total typo. What the heck, I'll take credit for it anyway! >:D<
CHARACTER FACTS-
- At that time Timothy Dalton officially announced his resignation, the script was being written under the assumption that he would be renewing the role of Bond. It was written to match Dalton's darker, more realistic portrayal of 007.
- Before Pierce Brosnan was cast as James Bond, Liam Neeson, Mel Gibson, Sam Neill, Hugh Grant and Lambert Wilson were all rumoured to be in the running for the role. Brosnan is the last Bond actor who was cast by founding James Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli.
- Pierce Brosnan was officially introduced to the press as the new James Bond on June 8th, 1994 at the Regent Hotel in London. He was sporting a full beard as he was about to start production on Robinson Crusoe the next day.
- Brosnan hurt his hand in his bathroom at home in Malibu before shooting began, so in several shots his hands were doubled by his adopted 22 year old son Christopher Harris Brosnan, who was an assistant trainee on the second unit. These include: pulling on a hand-brake in the Aston Martin DB5, flipping open the glove compartment to reveal a bottle of chilled Bollinger champagne, using the laser in the opening bungee jump and cutting through the floor of the train with the laser in 007's wristwatch.
- Pierce Brosnan and George Lazenby are the only 007 actors born outside the United Kingdom. Lazenby was born in Australia, and Brosnan in Ireland. Unlike Lazenby, Brosnan moved to the UK when fairly young.
- Although it is alleged that Pierce Brosnan's contract to play James Bond specifically prohibited him from appearing in other movies wearing a tuxedo, he nevertheless appears in a tuxedo in the film The Mirror Has Two Faces which followed Brosnan's first James Bond appearance in GoldenEye by more than a year.
- Actresses considered as Bond girls at the time were Elizabeth Hurley and Elle Macpherson. Paulina Porizkova and Eva Herzigova were both offered the role of Natalya but turned it down.
- Izabella Scorupco (nee Izabela Skorupko) was born in Poland and moved to Sweden with her mother at the age of 8. In addition to her native Polish, she is also fluent in Swedish, English, and French. Originally a model, she is perhaps more well known in Sweden as a pop singer with a gold record to her credit. Her first marriage to Polish ice hockey player Mariusz Czerkawski, then a player for the Edmonton Oilers. produced a daughter in 1997. In early 2003 she married an American named Jeffrey Raymond, and had a son that July. She has residences in both Los Angeles and New York City.
- Sean Bean, who would play 006, Alec Trevalyan, previously auditioned for the role of James Bond in The Living Daylights.
- Trevalyan's original first name was Augustus, and written as a much older character and a former mentor of Bond. The producers were keen to hire Anthony Hopkins for the part, but he turned it down. Alan Rickman also turned down the role, stating that he was tired of playing villains. Finally, Sean Bean was cast after the part was rewritten. Elements of the original idea survive in the finished version, though instead of the character remembering the 1940's, his parents managed to escape execution but committed suicide some time later, when Alec was a small child.
- German singer/actress Ute Lemper turned down the offer to play Xenia Onatopp. The part eventually went to Dutch actress Famke Janssen instead.
- Janssen was cast after director Martin Campbell saw her in early rushes of the Clive Barker film Lord of Illusions.
- Janssen was originally a model in the 1980's before switching to acting in the early 1990's. A middle child, her older sister Antoinette is a director and younger sister Marjolein is also an actress.
- First 007 movie in the series to feature a female - Judi Dench - in the role of M, head of the UK's security agency MI6 (Foreign Intelligence). Dench's character was reportedly inspired by the career of Stella Rimington, former Director-General of the UK's MI5 (Domestic Intelligence) and first woman to head that organization. Original Moneypenny Lois Maxwell had made the initial suggestion of having a female M in 1985. Martin Campbell revived that idea for this movie.
- Fans were initially skeptical about the idea of Bond taking orders from a female M until they saw Judi Dench's performance.
- Scottish actor Robbie Coltrane's scenes as former KGB agent turned Russian gangster Valentin Zukovsky were shot on the first day of production, 16 January 1995.
- In the script, M's real name is Barbara Mawdsley.
- The only Bond film where James Bond, M and Miss Moneypenny are all recast with different actors. The only holdover is Desmond Llewelyn as Q.
- The second appearance in a Bond film of Joe Don Baker, after playing a villain in The Living Daylights. In GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies he played the role of CIA agent Jack Wade, a Bond ally. Precedents were Walter Gotell who played villain Morzeny in From Russia with Love and ally General Gogol in The Spy Who Loved Me and other movies; and Charles Gray who played ally Dikko Henderson in You Only Live Twice and villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever.
- Jack Wade was created as a replacement for Felix Leiter, who had lost his leg (and presumably retired from field work as a result) in the previous Bond movie
Licence to Kill.
- The Jack Wade character was named for screenwriter Kevin Wade, who wrote a draft of the screenplay.
- General Leonid Pushkin, James Bond's ally in The Living Daylights, was in the first draft of Goldeneye and was to play a major part in the film. Just like in The Living Daylights, he was to be used as a pawn in the major villain's scheme.
- This is the first time that MI6 Chief of Staff character Bill Tanner had appeared in the series since For Your Eyes Only. The character was meant to return for the next Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies but actor Michael Kitchen, who had played him here, was unavailable to return. Kitchen did get to return as Tanner in The World Is Not Enough.
PRODUCTION NOTES-
- Final James Bond movie viewed by Cubby Broccoli, who passed away in 1996.
- First James Bond movie produced by Barbara Broccoli (with Michael G. Wilson) as a fully fledged main producer.
- The first James Bond movie produced and released after the end of the Cold War.
- Long-standing visual effects supervisor Derek Meddings died of natural causes a few months after filming was completed, hence the dedication of the film to him.
- First opening titles sequence directed by title designer Daniel Kleinman. He took the baton from long-standing designer Maurice Binder, who had died in 1991.
- First James Bond movie in the official series to be directed by a non-British director. This was Martin Campbell, who was recommended on the strength of his TV series Edge of Darkness. Later, Die Another Day would be directed by fellow New Zealander Lee Tamahori. Campbell would later return to direct Casino Royale.
- Directors John Woo and Renny Harlin were first offered to direct this film and both declined.
- Several changes had to be made to the script during production because the plot was virtually identical to the movie True Lies which was being released at the time.
- After Licence to Kill, Michael G. Wilson and Alfonse Ruggiero wrote a script treatment for a Bond film intended to be released in 1991 under the title "The Property of a Lady," the title taken from an Ian Fleming short story. According to what little evidence is available about this script (and is printed in the book "The Bond Files" by Andy Lane and Paul Simpson), the film would have taken place in Hong Kong. Legal squabbles over the ownership of James Bond, disappointing box office results on Licence to Kill, and the death of Richard Maibaum contributed to the long delay. Several title and concept changes changed The Property of a Lady concept into this film.
- Further information about Dalton's planned third film can be found here on the MI6 website- http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/movies/bond17.php3?t=&s=articles&id=01930
- Because the series was caught up in litigation, the six-and-a-half-year hiatus between the release of Licence to Kill and GoldenEye is the longest gap between Bond films since the series first started in 1962.
- The Bond series traditional home at Pinewood Studios was unavailable, having being booked to shoot First Knight ironically starring original James Bond - Sean Connery. So, the producers created a new studio from a former Rolls Royce aircraft engine factory and aerodrome. This studio, at Leavesden in Hertfordshire, was named Leavesden Studios. It was subsequently used for Sleepy Hollow and Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. GoldenEye was the first film to shoot at Leavesden Studios and when built, it was nicknamed by the production as "Cubbywood".
- The film is credited with having the largest amount of model and miniature work ever utilized in a James Bond movie.
- Computer graphics were used to create the famous "gun barrel" opening. This was the first Bond movie to use this technology, also known as CGI.
- Features the highest bungee jump from a structure in a movie. The drop was over 722 ft. The man who did the jump later has a cameo as the black-haired Tiger helicopter pilot shot by Onatopp.
- The motorcycle stunts during the opening sequence were performed by uncredited
British stuntman Ray De-Haan.
- Judi Dench's glass of bourbon is really apple juice with two lumps of light glass passing for ice cubes. Pierce Brosnan drank iced water instead of the famous Vodka Martini.
- The pen grenade given to 007 by Q in this movie is actually a stainless steel Parker Jotter.
- The satellite dish at the end of the film is the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, which also appeared in the film Contact. It took about ten minutes for the crew to walk along the walkway from the periphery to the center of the dish.
- Near the end of the film a computer displays "Pevsner Commerzbank GmBH", a reference to executive producer Tom Pevsner.
- The first draft of GoldenEye contained four action sequences that all ended up in future Bond films. Bond and Natalya, who was originally named Marina, escaping from a Nuclear explosion underground and another scene with them avoiding helicopters with giant buzz saws both ended up in The World Is Not Enough. The American Government and Mi6 to attempting destroy the space based weapon Tempest, renamed GoldenEye, ended up in Die Another Day as the attempt to destroy the Icarus weapon. Last, the free fall sequence ended up in Quantum of Solace.
- A number of scenes from the original screenplay failed to make it to the finished film:
1. During his attack on the Arkangel Chemical Weapons Facility, Bond would have seen off two guards while they played chess. This, and other cut scenes can be seen on the Ultimate Edition DVD.
2. M's first meeting with Bond originally ended with the line "...whose boyish charms I might actually have succumbed to ten years ago," implying that there may have been a relationship of some sort in the past. The dialogue was wisely changed to the less ambiguous "...whose boyish charms, although wasted on me..."
3. There was more of Jack Wade's gardening obsession, which only survives obliquely in the finished film.
4. When Bond and Wade arrived at Zukovsky's, they were originally to have passed a sort of car boot sale where all the goods on offer were illegal weaponry. Inside, Zukovsky would have first been seen dismissing one of the traders who is trying to sell him counterfeit goods.
HANGING OUT WITH THE RAINIERS-
- Xenia's hand when James Bond arrives in the Monte Carlo casino is two face cards and a seven, or 007. Bond's final hand when he plays with Xenia is two face cards and a six, or 006.
- The ID number on the badge of Admiral Chuck Farrell (Billy J. Mitchell) of the Canadian National Defence was No. 2488. In the original script, Admiral Farrell was to be an American. According to David L. Robb's book "Operation Hollywood" this was changed at the request of the US Pentagon.
- The yacht "Manticore", seen in the Monte Carlo sequence was actually called
"Northern Cross". The $15 million dollar yacht was owned by Finnish businessman Jorma Lillbacka of the power machine company Finn-Power.
- Xenia was far less over the top in the original screenplay. She killed men by using her hands to induce heart attacks instead of using her legs to strangle them. The latter method was mentioned in The Living Daylights, when Q describes a female KGB assassin who strangles men with her hands or thighs. Moneypenny comments: "Why James, she's just your type!" The scene where Xenia kills Admiral Farrell with her thighs during sex marks the first explicit sex scene in a Bond movie
- For the scenes in which Xenia Onatopp is seen flying the Tiger helicopter, a male pilot had to be made up to look like Famke Janssen.
SWINGING IN ST.PETERSBURG- TANKS FOR THE MEMORIES
- The first Bond film to be made after the downfall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, and thus, the first Bond film to actually shoot in the traditional spy genre cold war country of Russia, specifically the city of St. Petersburg . However, Epsom Downs Racecourse in Surrey doubled up as St. Petersburg airport, while much of the tank chase was actually shot in London and at the new Leavesden studios. This was to reduce expenses and to cut on security concerns--the entire unit would have needed bodyguards.
- Jack Wade asks Bond if he knows anything about birds. This is a reference to the source for Bond's name. Ian Fleming took the name from a book titled "Birds of the West Indies'', by the ornithologist James Bond.
- Famke Janssen broke a rib during the sauna fight scene according to her interview for Everything or Nothing: The Untold Story of 007.
- The tank chase took approximately four weeks to film.
- Boris Grishenko's email address was [email protected]
- After the scene where the tank crashes through the Perrier truck, the company allegedly had every single can collected off the ground. Whether the can was perfect, crumpled, or flattened, the company apparently didn't want its product placements to be used for selling of false non-Perrier mineral water.
- Alec Trevelyan's dark coloured locomotive in the movie was known on the set as
the "Darth Train".
- There are two real places within Russian borders with the name of Severnaya. Severnaya Zemlya is an archipelago in the Russian high Arctic. It is located off mainland Siberia's Taymyr Peninsula across the Vilkitsky Strait. Severnaya Verf (Northern Shipyard) is a shipyard in St. Petersburg, and a major shipyard producing both naval and civilian ships. It was originally founded for exclusive military shipbuilding. The shipyard was formerly known as Soviet Shipyard No. 190,[1] and between 1935–1989 as Zhdanov Shipyard. The priority market for the modern Severnaya shipyard is military exports to Asian countries as India, China and Vietnam.
PROMOTIONAL NOTES-
- Third James Bond film to use the word "gold" or "golden" in the title. The other two films are Goldfinger, and The Man with the Golden Gun.
- The first of the James Bond films ever to be released on DVD.
- First MGM/UA Dolby Digital release.
- The most successful Bond film since Moonraker.
- The opening weekend box office gross was slightly altered to $26,205,007. The same last three digits were used in the reports for the opening weekends of the next two Bond films as well.
- The World Premiere of GoldenEye was held on 13th November 1995 at New York City's famed Radio City Music Hall. This was the first for any Bond film to be held in New York and the second in the USA for an official series Bond pic after A View to a Kill and third overall for any Bond movie after that movie and Never Say Never Again. The after-premiere party was held at New York's Museum of Modern Art. The British and European Royal Premiere was held on 21st November 1995 at London's Leicester Square Odeon Theatre in the presence of British Royal Prince Charles. The post-premiere party was held at the Imperial War Museum. Pierce Brosnan boycotted the French premiere in support of Greenpeace and in protest of that country's nuclear testing in the South Pacific. The premiere was then canceled. The French military had supplied the frigate FS La Fayette and a Eurocopter Tiger helicopter for use in the movie.
- The literal translations of some of the movie's foreign language titles include Operation GoldenEye (Greece); 007 Against GoldenEye (Brazil); 007 and the GoldenEye (Finland); Gold Eye (Slovenia/Slovakia); James Bond 007 - GoldenEye (Germany); The Eye of Fire (French Canadian) and Agent 007 GoldenEye (Italy).
- Product placements, brand integrations, promotional tie-ins and sponsorships for this movie include Perrier Mineral Water; British Airways; IBM Computers; Parker Pens; Jack Daniel's Black Label scotch whiskey; Omega Watches, James Bond wears an Omega Seamaster watch; BMW, the first part of their three picture deal featuring the BMW Z3 roadster convertible; Smirnoff Vodka; Yves Saint-Laurent; Sharper Image; British Telecom and Nintendo's spin-off video-game, GoldenEye and later Electronic Arts's GoldenEye: Rogue Agent.
- The previous 007 movie, Licence to Kill, used a contest advertising campaign to help generate interest for the film. The winner of the contest was promised a cameo role in the next James Bond picture. Unfortunately, due to many production issues, work on GoldenEye did not begin for many years. Nevertheless, the contest winner was given a scene after the long delay. She does not have a speaking part, but you can see her in a lovely gold and black evening dress looking over Bond's shoulder as he plays Baccarat against Xenia Onatopp.
- The film was voted The Best Marketed film of 1995 at the Film Information Council.
FROM THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORTATION-
- In the opening car chase between Bond's Aston Martin and Onatopp's Ferrari, Famke Janssen performed her own driving stunts. She confirmed this in an interview with Jay Leno in 1995.
- Nails had to be attached to the tires of the Ferrari F355 for the skid in the car chase with James Bond's Aston Martin. This Ferrari was actually rented and, after colliding with 007's car, had to be repaired overnight at a cost of $80,000.
- Vehicles featured included Xenia Onatopp's red Ferrari Spider F355 GTS sports car with fake French rego plates; a surprise tractor; a blue BMW Z3 roadster convertible car; the return of the silver birch Aston Martin DB5 which had originally appeared in Goldfinger and Thunderball; Alec Trevelyan's Train, a dark colored black gray British Rail Class 20 No. D8188 locomotive with additional Russian-looking armored plating; a T-55 tank adapted to look like a T-80BV Russian tank; Eurocopter 355 Twin Star, Robinson R-22 Beta, Bell 204 HUEY, and black Eurocopter PAH-2 Tiger Stealth helicopters; the French stealth ship La Fayette; a speedboat; a Mercedes-Benz 280E; the Manticore Yacht; a GAZ-3102 Volga passenger car; a Mera Cagiva 600 W 16 motorcycle; a Zaporozhec; several VAZ 2106 police cars and UAZ army jeeps pursuing Bond's tank; a Pilatus PC-6/B2-H4 Turbo-Porter airplane; three Russian Mikoyan MiG-29 jet fighter aircraft; a Perrier merchandise truck; and a blue Moskvich car and Cessna 172 airplane both belonging to Jack Wade.
- This was the first time a German sports car, in this case the BMW Z3, was used as the primary Bond vehicle. The product placement of the BMW Z3 Roadster has been considered to be one of the most successful in film history according to The Hollywood Reporter and the book "Product Placements" by L. Kinney and B.
Sapolsky. It reportedly cost $3 million but recouped the company $240 million in advance sales, partially due to exposure in the news media. A limited edition "007 Model" of the BMW Z3 was sold out in a day of it going on to the market. This picture represented the first of a three picture deal with BMW to promote their cars.
- The small single-engine aircraft flown by James and Natalya (tail number N96816) is a 1984 Cessna 172P with a Lycoming O-320 series, 180 horsepower engine. As of December 2011, it was privately registered to an individual in Caguas, Puerto Rico.
MUSICAL CHAIRS AND GAMING NOTES-
- John Barry was first approached to score the film, but as he had already taken on two projects in "Cry, The Beloved Country" and the IMAX 3D film "Across The Sea Of Time", plus had recently fathered a son, he declined.
- When it was clear Barry would not score the film, MGM/UA turned to music composer agent Richard Kraft with an eye towards a brand new Bond sound. Kraft convinced them that his client, French composer Eric Serra, was a cutting edge composer and would be a good choice. To that point, Serra had only composed film scores for his friend and countryman, Luc Besson. Serra initially declined the offer until his record label president said he was "nuts" to do so, and was given ample assurances by EON that they were big fans of his work on "Léon: The Professional" and wanted a similar result.
- Serra proceeded under the assumption he had free reign to write whatever he wanted after his initial samples were approved, only to discover later that EON had become nervous about and uncomfortable with his synth/orchestral hybrid sound and wanted wholesale changes, which he refused to make. EON responded by reducing the volume of the music in the completed film to barely audible background noise, only allowing the louder instruments to come through on each track. Serra would later admit in hindsight that he had been unprofessional in his refusal to accomodate EON's wishes, and that he would have composed something different to avoid the issues the producers and many fans would later have with the style of the soundtrack.
- The new arrangement of the Bond theme used in the opening was disliked by many fans and was replaced by a more traditional version in future films.
- Composer John Altman provided the music for the tank chase, after it was decided that Eric Serra's initial arrangement was not to be used, in order to use a more traditional rendition of the James Bond theme. It appears on the soundtrack CD as "A Pleasant Drive in St. Petersburg". As such, the collaboration for this incidental music in the movie is the only instance in the film series that this has occurred.
- The film's title song did not chart in the USA but in the UK it went to the No. #7 spot on the charts. The song was written by Bono and The Edge of 'U2' and performed by Tina Turner. All three were neighbors to each other living in the south of France. One day, the U2 members went over to Turner's place whereupon The Edge played the song on Turner's piano. Bono's inspiration for writing the song was his honeymoon stay with his wife at Ian Fleming's Jamaican beach house Goldeneye, which is also the name of the movie's title.
- Swedish pop music group Ace of Base was originally slated to perform the title theme song. Ace of Base recorded the song, written by the band's Jonas Berggren, but it was pulled out of the project by their then record label. Ace of Base later re-wrote the lyrics to the song, renaming it "The Juvenile", and put it on their album, "Da Capo", released in Europe in late 2002. The song was even released as a single off of that album in Germany in December 2002. With the lyrics, the words "The Juvenile" replaced '"The Goldeneye", both having the same number of syllables whilst the lyric "Tomorrow's foe is now a friend" clearly refers to Alex Trevelyan.
- The Rolling Stones were offered the chance to sing the title song, but declined.
- The song "The Experience of Love", which appears during the end credits is actually a sped-up version with lyrics of a select sequence from Eric Serra's score from his previous film, "Léon: The Professional"
- The Goldeneye title has been used extensively in the James Bond filmed universe. It was used in the title of: the 1995 movie; a 1989 television biopic of Ian Fleming, Goldeneye; the James Bond video game GoldenEye and its remake GoldenEye 007 as well as another Bond video game, "GoldenEye: Rogue Agent", which used this name to take advantage of the popularity of the first game, but had a wholly different story. These all make 'Goldeneye' the most ever used phrase for a title in the filmed James Bond universe.
- A three-issue comic book adaptation of this film by Topps Comics was planned to be released, but by unknown reasons this comic book tie-in was cancelled after the first issue had been published, which carried a January 1996 cover date.
FLEMING AND OTHER REFERENCES-
- First completely original James Bond film, without reference to any Ian Fleming novel or short story.
- Second and last Bond film to be turned into a novel by then-current James Bond writer, John Gardner.
- Goldeneye is the nickname of Bond creator Ian Fleming's beachfront house in Jamaica where (between 1952 and 1964) he wrote the Bond novels and short stories. It was named for the contingency plan that the SIS, whose members included Fleming himself, devised in the event of a Nazi invasion of Spain. The Goldeneye title was also used for a 1989 television biopic of Fleming "Goldeneye", a James Bond video game GoldenEye and then another video game GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, which used this name to take advantage of the popularity of the first game, but had a wholly different story. These all make Goldeneye the most ever used title for movies and video games in the James Bond universe.
- Loelia Ponsonby, James Bond's secretary in the early novels, was written in the first draft of GoldenEye. Miss Moneypenny originally was not meant to be in this film.
CAMEOS-
Michael G. Wilson- the producer appears as a member of the Russian Security Council.
Martin Campbell- the director as one of the cyclists who get toppled over when James Bond and Xenia Onatopp race past them.
Minnie Driver- As Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky's (Robbie Coltrane) mistress, Irina. She sings "Stand By Your Man" by Tammy Wynette in the nightclub.
Kate Gayson- One of the extras in the casino scene. She is the daughter of Eunice Gayson, who played Sylvia Trench in Dr. No and From Russia with Love.
Regarding the story, doesn't it take a few hints from Moonraker (the novel of course)?
I really don't think they were even almost close to getting Barry according to what was written in the Burlingame book. He had entirely too much on his plate as far as his new baby and prior commitments and it was just bad timing. He was a whole lot more available for TND, for whom he eventually recommended David Arnold, which I'll discuss in greater detail next week.
Some very key character elements of my favorite Fleming novel were most definitely used for this one, as well as for it's 1979 namesake film, and some of it made it into Octopussy as well.
We share the same Fleming novel then, Sir Henry.
Really? I haven't, well not in the UK at least. There's nothing natural about cancer as far as I'm concernd. Thanks for the tip, anyway.
Looking forward to the next review.
I think it is something that people dread and quite rightly don't really like to talk about. Indeed, who can blame them?
No, certainly not. As I wrote in another thread, my father died from it, so it has already touched my life and the lives of countless others. It's just one of those things in life that has to be faced up to, I guess.
1. One of the long held and accepted philosophies when it comes to Bond films is that "Bond may go wildly beyond the probable but not beyond the possible". Prior discussions here in this thread have proven that the big stunt in the PTS of the movie betrays this philosophy. In addition, the Brosnan backflip on the satellite dish ladder and Trevalyan's survival of his big fall, let alone the difference in their appearances after such a fight, fit the same premise as far as defying the laws of physics. Now that we are all aware that this is so, do these facts negatively affect your opinion of the overall film, or do you still enjoy the whole experience regardless and dismiss it as merely ill-advised attempts to bring the series back with a big bang after a 6 year hiatus?
2. We know that GoldenEye is the 17th official film in the series. The trivia I released yesterday tells us that the film was originally to have been called "Property Of A Lady", a Fleming short story title whose material was already used in prior films, and up until the time the screenplay had morphed into what it had originally been to what we get for the finished product, the part was still being written with Dalton in mind. And now the obvious question that we have never discussed here- does the movie feel more like a Dalton film with Brosnan playing his part, or do you feel that Brosnan did enough to differentiate the overall tone from Dalton?
3. This question is more for the originals and for those old enough to remember. The six years between Licence To Kill and this film was the longest in the 51 year history of the canon. Try and think back to that time and tell us, did the thought that Bond films were either finished or would no longer be commercially viable should they return ever enter your mind, or did you steadily keep the faith that Bond would be back and that the public would still be interested?
4. Although Bond soundtracks in the past had strayed in part from the Barry formula regarding tones brought forth by different instrumentation, they were always primarily orchestrally based. The soundtrack presented here by Eric Serra is a radical departure from an orchestral base into a synthesized hybrid that nearly all long time Bond fans didn't recognize as "Bondian" past the occasional theme cue. I've given the background of what transpired in the trivia notes regarding the music and what happened, and now a two part question- (1) was hiring Serra and someone of his avant-garde musical style a major mistake all by itself on the part of MGM/UA and EON, or was their failure to convey what they expected of the composer regarding fitting his style to the Bond sound the real culprit, and (2) is this the worst soundtrack in series history or not? If you choose to say it's not, to stir further debate, name one you like even less. And if you would choose to go as far as to defend the soundtrack as a good one and accept the flak you will doubtless get, why is it so great in a Bondian context?
5. Was it me, or didn't those Marine helicopters of Jack Wade's appear too quickly out of nowhere in the final scene, like someone dropped them from a cable and piped in helicopter sounds? Bad editing?
2) That's a very interesting question. It's difficult for me to imagine anyone but Brosnan starring in GE. I think that Dalton could have done it but it doesn't necessarily feel like his film. I think that it was a natural extension of the Dalton era and I do believe that Pierce made it his own. They almost had to have a new Bond starring in this because the whole theme of the film was about change or perhaps, to be more accurate, coping with change. It just fit to have a change in the lead role.
3) I never believed that the films were finished. Perhaps it was the over optimistic fanboy inside of me but I believed that James Bond was still very much commercially viable. After GE became a huge hit with audiences I felt extremely validated in my belief.
4) It was a mistake to hire him in the first place because you shouldn't have to convey to the composer what a Bond film should sound like. There's nothing wrong with doing something different as long as you can fit it in the general framework of the Bond sound. Bill Conti flirted dangerously close with straying too far at times. Anyway, I don't know if it's the worst. I'm really not crazy about the DN soundtrack (beyond the Bond theme obviously) but I'm not a musician so it's difficult to say.
5) It's been a while since I've seen GE so I can't comment on the editing. I'm in the middle of a Bondathon at the moment and haven't gotten that far yet. I do remember them seeming to appear out of nowhere as you described though.
Oh, and thanks to @Beatles for the entertaining reviews and @SirHenry for the thought provoking questions. I don't get the chance to post on MI6 as much as I would like to but I always check out this thread when I'm here. Kudos to both of you.
2. I could easily see Dalton it this, although Brosnan more or less made it his own.
3. I never gave up. And towards the end of the wait I sensed a Brosnan debut coming.
4. Hiring Serra was a mistake- Bond movies have a sound that he deviated from too much, but I still liked Conti's score a bit less.
5. They sure popped in there right quick! But it was in the service of the gag, so.....
:-??
@Beatles brings up the dilemma we realized when our panel did our initial reviews of this film- why is Onatopp not considered a Bond girl? Well, while technically she is as much as any woman with a prominent role, there are categories to be considered within this format. There are the women who appear that Bond sleeps with, and then there are the villainous ones with which he often doesn't. Fiona Volpe, Helga Brandt, MayDay as examples fit into both categories and have to be considered for both, and then there are women like Naomi from Spy and Onatopp who don't fit that criteria. It didn't seem to matter anyway, as you obviously felt Natalya earned the perfect 5 all by herself, and I think almost everyone agrees that this was a highly entertaining and original cast of villains that also earns top marks. If this confused you, wait until you get to Skyfall and look at M and even more so Moneypenny. Here's what we decided- think Marlohe and Sotiropoulou. M and Moneypenny despite their more prominent roles have to remain in the support category, believe it or not.
BROSNAN- You sum up my feelings better than I often can. It's exactly why I am lukewarm to the guy, as much as I love his first two films. He's a "jack of all trades but a master of none" in my estimation. And you're right, I prefer the Alpha Bond that I get with Connery, Dalton, and Craig. If the Bond actor doesn't radiate a strong sense of being a highly volatile and dangerous person in the right situations, for me that is huge. I just can't imagine being scared of either Moore nor Brosnan. They are almost too charming, they radiate more of that than anything else. And the boyish charm is a very interesting comment of yours now that I consider what I just said, and I think you've nailed another of my issues as far as why I see him at #5 out of the 6 actors we've had. He can't pass the "holy trinity" any more than Sir Roger can, yet he can't be the worst because he can act and that alone makes him better than Lazenby. And why he can't beat Sir Roger is because Moore's take on the lighter stylings with the sly humor and boyish charm, although the term "roguish" might be a better description for Moore, came first. Pierce doesn't surpass him for that. I'll never argue that Pierce wasn't the right guy to play Bond when he did, the franchise badly needed his name recognition and public popularity to kick start the series after 6 long years, but as many have conjectured is was a safe choice and no matter whose fault it was that the Alpha didn't happen very often and mostly not at all, Pierce's Bond became a "greatest hits" type that doesn't take many chances as far as the "ruthless aggression" of the trinity, which ironically was the one thing Lazenby was really great at. For me, his best take on the role came next, but I'll defer my thoughts on that until you've said your piece.
VILLAINS- If you really think about it, as much as I agree that Janssen/Onatopp absolutely steals the show, Onatopp answers to Trevalyan and as such that makes Bean/Trevalyan the main antagonist. You are dead on though about the timeline between being a child during WW2 and 1995- Bean was too young looking for a man who should have been at least in his mid-50's like some of us here actually are.
Does that make Trevalyan an original? :))
HUMOR- You seemed to list mostly the humor coming from the usual crew. I thought this was much better than you did. The humor from both Brosnan and Sam Bond was both weak and juvenile at best- Dench and Llewellyn had better lines- no, the real humor comes from the rest of the cast. Zukovsky steals the show here like Onatopp, Wade is good, Natalya, Boris, I died laughing listening to Minnie Driver and that accent butchering a classic, I really did laugh a lot in a good way- just not at Pierce nor Sam. @OHMSS69 mentions Desmond and his age, which was definitely very noticeable by then how much he had since LTK, but there was no way they wouldn't have let him continue until he said enough or his age or a medical condition left him unable to continue as it did Bernie Lee. More on that when we revisit TWINE.
ACTION- Here I also disagree, hence my thesis statements. The great action they did show was at times tempered by ill advised attempts that went too far from their long standing philosophies. Here's another example I didn't mention, try and deliver a knockout shot while hanging upside down. Very difficult. I hated that introduction period and the line was very weak as well.
The last thing I'd have to say is about an erroneous statement regarding the music that I know the trivia answered. Serra's original tank chase music, which was organ with a hard rock beat, was rejected by EON and John Altman composed what we hear in the film. Which along with the title song comprises the entire musical highlights of the film as far as I am concerned. I was not very pleased with the previous efforts of Conti nor Hamlisch, but this effort exceeds both as the most un-Bondian soundtrack in series history. If Barry had scored this, it would easily be a top ten film for me, but between that and everything written above it becomes a film that while overall excellent, memorable, and very entertaining, just doesn't quite reach my expectations of true greatness.
2.Thinking about this I can only conclude Brosnan was lucky it was written for Dalton as it gave him a chance to shine, unlike later entries written for himself.
3. GE beeing the first for me in the cinema thanks to that 6 1/2 year delay I can not answer the question. I was just extremely thrilled they made a new one.
4. As you showed in the trivia, mistakes were made all around. EON shouldn't have listened, Serra should have declined or at least tried to keep in line with Bond. Besson makes very good films, but the sounds are not interchangeable.
5.Those are called drop-in-choppers. You can buy them at your local grocery's. just add water ;-)
If you mean just the helicopters, it was not glaringly bad to me, because it was a joke - I'll look more closely at it again to see if it was really that poorly edited (not watching it until Fri or Sat).
4. Serra being hired was a mistake. But I'm glad to read he regretted not altering his music after he was told you; that was a professional error. This is my overall least favorite soundtrack.
3. I never thought Bond was finished; no. I chafed at the wait, but it never seemed to me that they would ditch the series. Not after Moore had successfully taken over from Connery (the critical point of the series being dropped was after OHMSS, in my opinion, if there even was a critical point for that yet). I was ever hopeful, yes. Just didn't appreciate the long wait; I grumbled more than any of my friends.
2. I cannot see Dalton easily in this one, even though he was not so dark in TLD. I would have loved another film from Dalton that was lighter in every way than LTK, but this does not feel like a Dalton film to me. It feels like Brosnan. Brosnan is more of the kind of Bond that Moore was, yes, yet I enver felt he was copying Moore. He had moments, especially in the next film, that were serious and darker and compelling. So Goldeneye with Dalton? It would have to have been a bit different from what we got, to feel like a Dalton film for me.
1. None of that bothered me - it was not so wildly ridiculous that it stopped the enjoyment of the story for me. I expect Bond to do things normal people cannot do. It was not so outrageously unbelievable to me to a degree that it would be detrimental to the film, no.
Now, regarding the questions.
1. It doesn't affect me much, to be honest.
2. It is a Dalton script played by Brosnan, but Brosnan did a good job with it. I have difficulty in imagining film A with actor B, what I usually do is to imagine how certain lines would be delivered by other actors, and I think Dalton would have made a great work with some of them ;)
3. Bond was always there for me, the fact that GE came out the very year I was old enough to go watch it in the cinema meant that I never fealt the absence of Bond. I would never imagine it would not be successful, it was a Bond film!
4. This is a complicated matter, since the soundtrack doesn't sound Bond at all. Still, when I think of Goldeneye, I couldn't imagine anything else. I think Eon planned a bold move, unfortunately it didn't pay for many reasons, one of them because Sierra was too lazy (in my opinion) to create an original sound for the film. Instead, he just recycled some of his old work. It doesn't bother me too much but I have to admit there is no other soundtrack in the Bond franchise I like less. It's quite a shame, I like the title song a lot!
5. :)) Chia marines indeed. I thought it was ridiculous, why did they have to finish the film like that! Why didn't Bond notice there was something obviously wrong with that hay? Why didn't they lay on the hay (more confortable)? Why is Bond smiling like a jerk at Natalya? Didn't bother me when I was 12, now it's too much for me to handle.
I think the film would have been a tour de force for Dalton and I'm sure they would have made it darker and played to Dalts strengths.
I don't think Dalton would have been driving a tank thru the streets of St Petersburg and straightening his tie as he laid waste to Russian police cars and monuments.
The bungee jump, the meeting with Janus and reveal that Alec is evil, the scenes with Xenia...these would have carried more impact and were tailor made for my man, Dalton.
I think it's fair to say that, at that time, people didnt want a Bond film that was "darker".
In some ways I think GE is similar to SF in that both have more "audience pleasing" moments as well as the intense sequences. They also come after more controversial entries.
So unlike LTK, we have a handsome leading man with a light touch who can do a one-liner, the Aston Martin DB5, a Russian femme fetale, Russians and a Cold War theme, a space theme and big scale climax, gadgets and innuendo.
Unlike LTK, there is no easy to follow narrative, the villain is a bit lame compared to Davi, the plot holes are massive and it's not that credible.
With TND, they put back the Bond theme and Barry sound, but dropped the ball in other areas.
I wasn't crazy about GE, it was one of those like FAulks DMC in that it tries to be all things, a FRWL espionage flick and space age DAF type Bond and yeah, the jokes should have been better. You can say that for most of the Brosnan Bonds.
2. Didn't really see GE as a Dalton film (don't know why), but even from the off thought of PB as a cross between Connery and Moore, was just disappointed that Dalton had retired from the role. I could imagine a better film with Dalton, maybe not darker, just better.
3. Didn't think the films were finished, but was worried why it was taking so long to start the next one - and a the back of my mind was the fact that Dalton was getting older and would he return. I remember someone saying at work saying that a new Bond film was in the offing and Timothy Dalton was doing it. Then we learned he had retired from the part…
4. Hideous soundtrack, and when recently watching the blu-ray let the film run on with the end credits (I normally watch the end credits, but hadn't for GE) and heard the god-awful song. Don't know what other work Serra has done. Has he done other soundtracks? if so, what? But a poor choice.
5. Now this really did make me sit up more than the plane dive or dish fall. How could they not have heard 'copters so close? or do they travel at warp speed? I just remember thinking where the f did they come from?
2. If Dalton had starred in this film, the tone of it I feel would have been completely different to the version we were presented with. GE is unmistakingly a Brosnan Bond film.
3. Yes, I'll be the first to admit that by 1993 I had given up hope on Bond ever returning to our screens. I remember going to the cinema throughout '91, '92 and '93 and the summer previews in the back of the programme always announced Bond 17 would be released "next summer." Of course my interest in Bond picked up again when GE was finally announced to the world in '94.
4. A terrible soundtrack by Serra and poor judgment on EON's behalf. The fact that John Altman was hired to re-score the tank chase because EON were unhappy with Serra's version just about says it all really.
5. The last scene was silly and tongue in cheek but I didn't mind. Too bad those Marines couldn't have taken care of Serra before he started warbling out "The Experience of Love" over the end credits.
Personally I think the main potentially "Dalton-y" scene was the statue park sequence.