Was the invisible car that bad???

24

Comments

  • Posts: 11,189
    I always quite liked the sonic ring Bond has. That's a far more credible gadget.

    "you know you're cleverer than you look"
    "Hmm still better than looking cleverer than you are"

    That line got a big laugh at the cinema I remember - as did the VR scene at the end.
  • Posts: 12,526
    I had an uncomfortable feeling about it before i saw the film. I heard rumours and read stuff. However in the back of my mind i had read about the American Military developing this kind of technology.

    And thought it was done ok. Thankfully there were shots of what the Americans had done with the Tank. And comparing that with the effects in the film? There were a few similarities. So it sits with me ok now, unlike the para surfing scene. X_X
  • edited August 2012 Posts: 12,837
    bondsum wrote:
    Interesting that you should only focus on the invisible car, thelivingroyale, when there are so many other terrible things going on in this mess of a movie. For me the movie stops dead when Bond can control his heart and stops it to fool M so he can make his escape. Everything that follows is a steaming pile of dreck right up to the end titles; the car, Jinx, the gene therapy, CGI effects, Icarus, Rupert (the Bear) Graves, robocop suit, virtual display goggles, are just another long list of screw-ups.

    I did mention some of that stuff in the opening post, and fair enough Icarus, the gene therapy, Jinx, the CGI, the robocop suit is all pretty stupid, but I just don't think the invisible car was any worse than an underwater car or some of the other Bond cars/gadgets.

    The execution wasn't the best but the actual idea of an invisible car isn't as stupid as some people make out when you think of what we've had before.
    RogueAgent wrote:
    And thought it was done ok. Thankfully there were shots of what the Americans had done with the Tank. And comparing that with the effects in the film? There were a few similarities. So it sits with me ok now, unlike the para surfing scene. X_X

    That's basically how I feel.
    doubleoego wrote:
    The invisible car sucked and was/is to this day a crappy and horribly executed idea. Period.

    It wasn't well executed, but is it really that crappy an idea when you think about other Bond cars/gadgets? Is it that bad?
  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    Posts: 14,590
    Yeah, funny how no one complains about a watch-size cutting laser...
  • edited August 2012 Posts: 11,189
    QBranch wrote:
    Yeah, funny how no one complains about a watch-size cutting laser...

    That's because it doesn't seem as OTT

    Personally for me the Invisible car isn't really a big problem (I know I'm going to get jumped on) compared some of the other stuff

    "Switch it off...Or I'm going to be half the girl I used to be" (Jinx while she's tied to that robot table thing)

    Actually everything Jinx says in that film is crindge worthy
  • Posts: 1,492
    [
    Didn't we do that before though? My point is, is an invisible car really any less realistic than any of the past cars and gadgets? Is it really that much worse than an underwater car?

    .

    There have been submersibles around since the American civil war. It is perfectly feasible for a car to be practically turned into one. The same with the car-plane.

    But invisible?

    It defies the laws of physics and just goes into the realm of fantasy that verges on fairytale. There is a line that the submersible car doesn't cross but the invisible car does.

    And Tamahori crosses it. I still would be interested whose idea it was. Have Purvis and Wade dropped any hints?
  • Posts: 1,999
    This is a series that has always had parallel story lines: the Bond story and the gadgets story. Early on the gadgets seemed plausible and complimentary, but then the series went further and further off the rails. It seemed as if producers would come up with something ourtrageous and the story was made to fit it, often defying common sense: i.e. the gondola with wheels in Moonraker. This is just one example among dozens.

    One doesn't criticize the attache case in FRWL because it was key to Bond's survival. As for so much of the rest, weak and embarrassing. Q was omniscient to the point of straining credibility.

    I would have liked to have seen a scene at the end of a film in which Bond returns a gadget to Q and says, "I didn't need it."
  • Posts: 11,189
    I do quite like the scene that introduces it though:

    "Maybe you've been down here too long"

    "Why don't you aquaint yourself with the manual...should be able to shoot through that in a couple of hours"

    (Bond throws book in the air causing it to be shot by car's machine guns)

    "Just took a few seconds Q"

    "I wish I could make you vanish" (a nod to his "I wish you were a mouse" line in Fawlty Towers)
  • Posts: 1,817
    It's completely over the top, but it isn't the worst thing in DAD, in my opinion. That honor belongs to the final VR scene of Moneypenny.
  • actonsteve wrote:
    [
    Didn't we do that before though? My point is, is an invisible car really any less realistic than any of the past cars and gadgets? Is it really that much worse than an underwater car?

    .

    There have been submersibles around since the American civil war. It is perfectly feasible for a car to be practically turned into one. The same with the car-plane.

    But invisible?

    It defies the laws of physics and just goes into the realm of fantasy that verges on fairytale. There is a line that the submersible car doesn't cross but the invisible car does.

    And Tamahori crosses it. I still would be interested whose idea it was. Have Purvis and Wade dropped any hints?

    The technology (for an invisible car), will exist soon enough. I thought the car plane was much worse. The closest thing we have to a flying car now, in 2012 almost 40 years later, uses a parachute to lift off. And in 1974, a car just grows wings and flies away??? Sorry, I don't buy that.

    The execution wasn't the greatest but the idea, imo, wasn't that bad. Most of the complaints against DAD are justified but I don't get this one. And I think it was Purvis and Wades idea tbh. Tamahori has made some great films so I don't think DAD was entirely his fault like people make out.
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 8,266
    actonsteve wrote:
    [
    Didn't we do that before though? My point is, is an invisible car really any less realistic than any of the past cars and gadgets? Is it really that much worse than an underwater car?

    .

    There have been submersibles around since the American civil war. It is perfectly feasible for a car to be practically turned into one. The same with the car-plane.

    But invisible?

    It defies the laws of physics and just goes into the realm of fantasy that verges on fairytale. There is a line that the submersible car doesn't cross but the invisible car does.

    And Tamahori crosses it. I still would be interested whose idea it was. Have Purvis and Wade dropped any hints?

    The technology (for an invisible car), will exist soon enough. I thought the car plane was much worse. The closest thing we have to a flying car now, in 2012 almost 40 years later, uses a parachute to lift off. And in 1974, a car just grows wings and flies away??? Sorry, I don't buy that.

    The execution wasn't the greatest but the idea, imo, wasn't that bad. Most of the complaints against DAD are justified but I don't get this one. And I think it was Purvis and Wades idea tbh. Tamahori has made some great films so I don't think DAD was entirely his fault like people make out.

    Well, the flying car has existed since 1937(!)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_car_(aircraft)

    Right now here in Holland they're testing one that works like an autogiro in the air. It's ready for mass production in about 5 years and the many people are already placing orders. At the same time there's one in the States going into production as well. So how unfeasable was it in '74, when the first flying car flew in '37?

    The invisible car however, has too many poblems with it. Yes, cloaking technology is around:


    but on a car, it has some major problems. Try cloaking the tires. The material has to endure quite a lot and the projectionrate has to be extremely fast. How about the windows of the car? That's nearly impossible. And those little camera's themselves have to be extremely fast and extremely good lenses. And they have to be cloaked as well.

    Then the car obviously leaves prints in the snow and makes a lot of noise. So, in the end, that car is extremely over the top and we won't see that kind of technology for a long time.

  • edited August 2012 Posts: 12,837
    @commanderRoss I did say there were flying cars, but one where you can just attatch the wings and fly away? Nah, the flying cars we've seen have very specific designs for flying. The TMWTGG car is stupid in the 70s because of the way it works, when the flying cars we have in 2012 aren't close to that.

    Here's the Holland flying car.



    Here's the one from TMWTGG



    They just attatch wings, flip a button that adds plane controls, and BAM! flying car. If they'd used something similar to the Holland car or the Parajet Skycar, fine. But the way they did use it is just as unrealistic as the invisible car.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,187
    BAIN123 wrote:
    as did the VR scene at the end.

    This, for me, is handsdown the WORST of DAD's mistakes. It never got a laugh out of me. There's no saying how out-of-this-world the VR concept is. There's no scientific plausibility in this, not even on a basic level. The physics of Bond's training session are all screwed up! In fact, more on the matter [url="http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/2127/the-james-bond-debate-thread-142/p98 "]here[/url]. :-)
  • The worst of DAD's mistakes for me was the CGI parasurfing. The VR scene was pretty bad but I cringed at the parasurfing.
  • edited August 2012 Posts: 11,189
    DarthDimi wrote:
    BAIN123 wrote:
    as did the VR scene at the end.

    This, for me, is handsdown the WORST of DAD's mistakes. It never got a laugh out of me. There's no saying how out-of-this-world the VR concept is. There's no scientific plausibility in this, not even on a basic level. The physics of Bond's training session are all screwed up! In fact, more on the matter [url="http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/2127/the-james-bond-debate-thread-142/p98 "]here[/url]. :-)

    I must admit I've never had any problems with that scene. I love how Brosnan walks into the office with the big grin on his face and the gentle version of the Bond theme playing in the background. That's another "He is Bond" moment for me.

    I'm with @thelivingroyale in that worst of DAD's mistakes is rocketing through Iceland (I remember laughing at the moment the toy rocket fell over the cliff) and of course the CGI windsurfing.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    edited August 2012 Posts: 9,117
    actonsteve wrote:
    There have been submersibles around since the American civil war. It is perfectly feasible for a car to be practically turned into one. The same with the car-plane.

    But invisible?

    It defies the laws of physics and just goes into the realm of fantasy that verges on fairytale. There is a line that the submersible car doesn't cross but the invisible car does.

    And Tamahori crosses it. I still would be interested whose idea it was. Have Purvis and Wade dropped any hints?

    This hits the nail on the head. I had heard about it but went into the film with an open mind thinking it will just be camouflaged as in the Mercedes ad someone posted but not totally invisible.

    When that trolley rolled into the station with it totally invisible, not even an outline I knew that the film was holed below the waterline.

    DAD starts off fine but Jinx and the car are the two icebergs that mean its going down with all hands. After this the CGI parasurfing is just the bit where the good ship DAD stands on end and makes an awful creaking sound as it slips beneath the waves - yeah its the most horrific moment but the ship was doomed a long time before it got to this point.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    edited August 2012 Posts: 6,306
    DAD starts off fine

    The opening sequence of Bond surfing is pretty awful/out of character, IMHO.

  • echo wrote:
    DAD starts off fine

    The opening sequence of Bond surfing is pretty awful/out of character, IMHO.

    What is out of character about it? It's a cool stunt. Ok, it doesn't make much sense (why are they surfing to get there???), but how was it out of character?
  • Posts: 7,653
    echo wrote:
    DAD starts off fine

    The opening sequence of Bond surfing is pretty awful/out of character, IMHO.

    What is out of character about it? It's a cool stunt. Ok, it doesn't make much sense (why are they surfing to get there???), but how was it out of character?

    I saw it as a way to sneak into Korea but to call things "out of character" should be read as "I do not like it but want not leave the impression it is stricly personal".

    It was actually a difficult stunt done by experts and us such very much in character with the EON series, in comparison with the CGI scene in the same movie.

    The Vanish never bothered me, I found it the escapism I enjoy in a 007 movie.

  • Samuel001Samuel001 Moderator
    edited August 2012 Posts: 13,355
    The first big mistake for me was having an entire army of Koreans navigate a minefield that Bond has just barely managed to get across himself - by hovercraft.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 6,306
    SaintMark wrote:
    echo wrote:
    DAD starts off fine

    The opening sequence of Bond surfing is pretty awful/out of character, IMHO.

    What is out of character about it? It's a cool stunt. Ok, it doesn't make much sense (why are they surfing to get there???), but how was it out of character?

    I saw it as a way to sneak into Korea but to call things "out of character" should be read as "I do not like it but want not leave the impression it is stricly personal".

    It was actually a difficult stunt done by experts and us such very much in character with the EON series, in comparison with the CGI scene in the same movie.

    The Vanish never bothered me, I found it the escapism I enjoy in a 007 movie.

    No, I think of surfing as very American/Australian and laid-back, not the sort of activity in which a British agent would be adept.

    I feel the same way about snowboarding, by the way. And yes, I didn't like it in AVTAK.
  • Posts: 1,492
    DarthDimi wrote:
    BAIN123 wrote:
    as did the VR scene at the end.

    This, for me, is handsdown the WORST of DAD's mistakes. It never got a laugh out of me. There's no saying how out-of-this-world the VR concept is. There's no scientific plausibility in this, not even on a basic level. The physics of Bond's training session are all screwed up! In fact, more on the matter [url="http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/2127/the-james-bond-debate-thread-142/p98 "]here[/url]. :-)

    By that stage I was so punch drunk from the blows that were raining down on me from DAD I didn't think it could get any worse. But DAD is a film where things seem to be on a conveyer belt to worsedom.

    So they have VR at MI6. They use it to simulate exercises - Oh yes, fine,. I can live with that. But what else do they use it for? .........the answer is rather sordid.

    Samanthas Bond is laid on the desk doing god knows what to herself with a virtual image of Pierce. She'll go blind..

    Can you imagine the great Lois Maxwell doing that, The character of Moneypenny hits rock bottom.

  • Like I said in the debate thread, the VR training scene should've been a simulation, with people pretending, and using blank rounds. That way the audience still thinks it's real, but it's not stupid sci fi crap.

    The VR scene with moneypenny got some laughs at the cinema I was in, but they should've probably taken that out altogether.
    echo wrote:
    No, I think of surfing as very American/Australian and laid-back, not the sort of activity in which a British agent would be adept.

    There are plenty of British surfers, go down to Cornwall. I really don't see where you're coming from here.
  • edited August 2012 Posts: 11,189
    actonsteve wrote:
    DarthDimi wrote:
    BAIN123 wrote:
    as did the VR scene at the end.

    This, for me, is handsdown the WORST of DAD's mistakes. It never got a laugh out of me. There's no saying how out-of-this-world the VR concept is. There's no scientific plausibility in this, not even on a basic level. The physics of Bond's training session are all screwed up! In fact, more on the matter [url="http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/2127/the-james-bond-debate-thread-142/p98 "]here[/url]. :-)

    By that stage I was so punch drunk from the blows that were raining down on me from DAD I didn't think it could get any worse. But DAD is a film where things seem to be on a conveyer belt to worsedom.

    So they have VR at MI6. They use it to simulate exercises - Oh yes, fine,. I can live with that. But what else do they use it for? .........the answer is rather sordid.

    Samanthas Bond is laid on the desk doing god knows what to herself with a virtual image of Pierce. She'll go blind..

    Can you imagine the great Lois Maxwell doing that, The character of Moneypenny hits rock bottom.

    MP was rock bottom with Caroline Bliss. Her scene with Dalts in TLD is the most unconvincing, unsuggestive, unfunny scene in the series in my book. Yes OK the VR scene in DAD was OTT but at least I could believe SB and PB were comfortable around one another.
  • Posts: 1,146
    This story gets off to a good start, then abruptly falls apart. Everything up to... Cuba was cool, but there was this dodgy shot of Halle diving backwards (?!) into the water, and it was all downhill from there...
  • edited August 2012 Posts: 3,494
    Mod edit: offensive language removed.

    Poor Moneypenny. Sent out [***] on top of a desk like a [***]. Not that I have anything against [***], mind you. But that's NOT Moneypenny under any circumstances. I can only pray that Lois never got to see her famous character reduced to this before she sadly passed in 2007.

    Sorry Bain my friend, but Bliss' Moneypenny is at least respectable and tries to show some class. I'll take that over what we got in the Brosnan era. To the point that I'd be totally fine if they didn't bring back the character anytime soon.

    If BB truly has the feminist agenda some accuse her of, I can't imagine she would approve of this.
  • Posts: 5,634
    Maybe Samantha Bond's Moneypenny was a bit 'inappropriate', for the part, sometimes, what I mean is, got up to some actions or dialog that some would seem questionable compared to the sensible days of Maxwell and Bliss. Maybe we've moved on from the sugar coated days of the earliest years and characters today have a bit more license to be harder edged or daring, is the best way I can describe it

    But this is not about Moneypenny, and we can talk about Die Another Day all we want (there's a specific thread that caters for it somewhere with about 257 pages), but the fact of the matter is that, 'Was the Invisible Car that bad',... ?

    I changed my mind after some initial rolling of eyes, as in, Yes, it was a stupid idea, but the car is not really Invisible, it's designed to appear as such, I often think in hindsight it wasn't quite as bad a concept as some make out, but Yes, something we could of done without..
  • The Moneypenny gets her man idea in the end was butchered. I can understand AR as a training simulator, but having that as sort of a fantasy-sex dream machine is totally bogus. The movie could've had the same comedic effect had Moneypenny just woken up from a dream.
  • edited August 2012 Posts: 11,189
    Mod edit: offensive language removed.

    Poor Moneypenny. Sent out [***] on top of a desk like a [***]. Not that I have anything against [***], mind you. But that's NOT Moneypenny under any circumstances. I can only pray that Lois never got to see her famous character reduced to this before she sadly passed in 2007.

    Sorry Bain my friend, but Bliss' Moneypenny is at least respectable and tries to show some class. I'll take that over what we got in the Brosnan era. To the point that I'd be totally fine if they didn't bring back the character anytime soon.

    If BB truly has the feminist agenda some accuse her of, I can't imagine she would approve of this.

    And fails. The problem was that the chemistry between the two just wasn't convincing. That's the key difference between Bliss and Maxwell/Bond.

    Although I will say that while I don't mind the VR scene the very last scene of DAD is pretty bad. Brosnans alrite but Halle?? Urgh. It's sickening.
  • Posts: 3,333
    I thought the car plane was much worse. The closest thing we have to a flying car now, in 2012 almost 40 years later, uses a parachute to lift off. And in 1974, a car just grows wings and flies away??? Sorry, I don't buy that.
    But the "flying AMC Matador" was real. Sure, it could only make a 1,640 ft flight so for the film's aerial sequences it was replaced by a meter-long remote controlled model, but that doesn't stop the car from being any less real. Sadly for the inventor his engine cut out whilst flying (yes, flying) over some mountains on a demo and crashed killing him outright.
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