Is LICENCE TO KILL the edgiest Bond film?

CraigMooreOHMSS

@ColonelSun, is it true that the complex/facility exploding at the end of the sequence wasn't achieved through any miniature work, but simply through strategically placing gas tanks with nozzles (essentially flamethrowers) on them around the site? I remember reading that and thinking it was quite clever and straightforward.

mtm

Oh there's loads of foreground miniatures in Bond: probably the best and most famous ones are in the PTSs of FYEO and OP, and the bridge in TLD is an amazing one.

This LTK one I always thought is a bit obvious, because if there really were a giant door in the floor that opens up, you wouldn't shoot it from that angle. It kind of admits to you that it's fake.

ColonelSun

mtm wrote: »

Oh there's loads of foreground miniatures in Bond: probably the best and most famous ones are in the PTSs of FYEO and OP, and the bridge in TLD is an amazing one.

This LTK one I always thought is a bit obvious, because if there really were a giant door in the floor that opens up, you wouldn't shoot it from that angle. It kind of admits to you that it's fake.

Yep, as u say, loads of good use of F/G miniatures in earlier Bond films. I do agree with you about the angle of the shot in LTK, but it's still a well photographed F/G miniature.

Revelator

Dragonpol wrote: »

So they made it on the cheap with a reduced budget. They did a very good job of making it look both striking and real in my book.

In his memoirs Glen writes that "MGM/UA were giving us a bit of a hard time about budget control since Licence Revoked was budgeted at approximately the same level as every Bond film since Moonraker. This hadn't posed too much of a problem with For Your Eyes Only, but by the end of the 1980s it was becoming a bit of a struggle to make ends meet without compromising the quality expected of a Bond film. We remained economically minded and extremely efficient, but we were making first-division action films on a fraction of the budget available to our principal competitors in the US."
It seems insane that the studio didn't bother acknowledging a decade's worth of inflation!

Glen adds that the "Thatcher government's unfriendly attitude towards filmmakers in England" promoted the move away from Pinewood and to Mexico. Unfortunately Churubusco studios in Mexico City was dilapidated and "everything was smaller than we had been used to and not all the stages were available to us." Crest's warehouse, brought up earlier in this thread, was among the sets built at Churubusco.

Glen writes "The fact that we were based in Mexico meant that much of the casting was done from local or American agencies," which explains why much of LTK's cast was familiar to American TV watchers.

DAF and LALD were also made with reduced budgets, and this shows in the climaxes of both films. LTK is the reverse--parts of its first half feel low-budget, but the climax is grade-A. I prefer the LTK approach.

Pierce2Daniel

I never really get the sense that LTK was a thrifty production. It's certainly a smaller film, but that felt by design. The world isn't in danger and Sanchez has more modest goals than say Drax or Blofeld. Though I do appreciate that it LTK lacks a more glossy veneer. I think it has something to do with the film sacrificing the usual globetrotting and romantic European locations.

Revelator wrote: »

I think it's hard to think of the film and not take into account that it was the first "this time it's personal" Bond. But I say that as someone who saw every Bond film from '89 onward in chronological order. Someone discovering the films in reverse order might have a very different reaction if they've grown up thinking of almost every Bond film as "personal." Yet even then I think LTK still stands up, because unlike Spectre and some of the later films, the personal nature of Bond's mission is not contrived; it's the organic driving force of the film, and Dalton really sells Bond's seething thirst for vengeance.

In dramatic fiction a cliche is a concept grown stale through mechanical repetition and lack of feeling. In LTK what became cliched in later films is still fresh and deeply felt. The film not only expresses Bond's need for revenge but questions it. Bond's headlong obsession imperils not only himself but Pam and others. He interferes with the narcotic agents and helps get them killed. He finally has to admit that he can't go it alone and accepts the help of Pam and Q. How many other Bond films show Bond genuinely screwing up and being forced to change his ways? That's part of what keeps LTK fresh and interesting.

This nails it. I was genuinely involved with Bond when re-watching and questioning his motivations. The threat Bond is facing really feels huge and Sanchez is not the guy to monologue. Bond actually feels in danger. Moreover, the more I think about it, the more I realise that the characters are actually very well sketched. For example, Sanchez believes Bond is loyal to him and even in their last scene is unsure why Bond has turned on him. For Sanchez, maiming Leiter was a negligible and forgettable act. But for Bond it was his driving force.

The scenes where Bond goes renegade are not just atypical for the franchise but inspired overall (gone is the heroic sheen). You get the sense that Bond has become the villain (which harkens back to Fleming's CR novel). There's a steely menace to Dalton that is so threatening. For the first time in the series' history, you're actually afraid of Bond. He's dangerous, ruthless and damn sexy. This more angsty Bond is actually reminiscent of Batman....Which is more interesting given that in '89 the Batman character hadn't been depicted like this. It's only in recent incarnations has he moved in this direction. So....Dalton was first.