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The second part, although it had some good scenes, is the closest we got to Carry On Bond before DAD.
I would very much doubt it as that would have given unwanted retrospective legitimacy to a bastardised (and unofficial non-Eon) film version of James Bond.
No, @Thrasos, I didn't know that. Fascinating. :)
I get why we have to get our hands on a sample of a golden Scaramanga bullet. I get that while we could have just supplied Q with one from some dusty archive, it was more fun to have Bond travel to Beirut for a little adventure instead. But...
Issue 1
We're obviously in a studio. There's no exotic establishing shot, no wide vista to give us a glimpse of the area, nothing. We cut from an indoor conversation with MP to an indoor shot of Bond smoking a cigar in a room with belly dancers. Yes, yes, budget constraints and all that. But its travelogue quality is the holy grail of Bond films, including some of the cheaper ones. Now it really looks as if Bond opened a door in MP's office and walked right into this Beirut chamber.
Issue 2
Bond's just there: a Westerner consuming drinks, enjoying the dances, and spending money. He's neither causing trouble nor doing obvious spying while he's just sitting there. And yet for some mysterious reason, the bald man has his eyes on Bond (okay, fine, he's a foreigner), calls 'Achmed' (why?), points to Bond like he's doing something very suspicious (he's just sipping drinks and smoking), and is obviously ready to rough him up. Why, though? I understand them getting a little flustered when this man suddenly disappears behind the curtains, but why they were already eye-killing a potentially affluent customer before that, is beyond me.
Issue 3
Okay, Saida likes this man. And the times were different. But she's "selling it" very quickly and unconditionally. Oh, Bill? Yes, poor Bill... Say, mister who-the-bleep-are-you, why don't you get on your knees and kiss my belly? Okay, fair enough, it's how the Bonds used to do things, and not until the likes of Peaceful did the girl remark that she's not that kind of girl and whatnot. But screenwriters, surely you could have come up with something slightly more interesting and more credible?
Issue 4
That fight. I mean, we've got several big blokes and a girl crammed inside a tin can of a room with almost no space for the boom mic to hide from our view (oh wait...). What, the broom closet was the only empty room at the 007 studios that day? And shaving cream beats tough guys? Or is that intentional comedy, like the urine sample from NSNA? And again, we're just barging in to kick ass? Nothing along the line of "Who are you?" or "You want some, you pay for it, mister." (Even Showgirls got that right.) The script demanded a fight, so like they do things in porn movies, we just deliver the goods without any story reasons to worry about?
The scene is harmless and I might as well "roll with it". But the problem is that I simply expect better from a Bond film. It now feels like something thrown together half an hour before shooting, improvised and filmed with almost no money left. Moore's acting saves the day, but it remains a missed opportunity. The Lazar scene, while similar in simplicity, is already ten times better developed. If Bond needed a bullet so badly, the script could have provided us with a very exciting couple of minutes of breaking in, stealing the bullet, having an exciting fight, whatever. This scene has less air in it than a similar scene in Our Man Flint, where Derek Flint is tasting a bouillabaisse before being confronted by an enemy agent. The Beirut segment in TMWTGG could have taken lessons from that '60s spoof, IMO.
DAPPER! At no point in the SC and GL films did I ever regard Bond as dapper.
There’s so much wrong with TMWTGG it’s kind of fascinating. Not least: Scaramanga isn’t really doing anything to deserve Bond coming to murder him. He’s not a great guy, no: but initially he’s framed by Andrea for putting a death threat on Bond (he literally says “I have nothing against you”) and although he kills Hi Fat to get the Solex… well what has that got to do with Bond or MI6? He’s not threatening the UK, or anywhere in fact. His plan is to sell clean energy power stations. Is that evil?!
It’s not like he even stole the Solex from the U.K.: Gibson apparently leaves of his own free will and develops it while he’s working for Hi Fat. Maybe he’s under an exclusivity contract to the U.K. which he’s breaking, but there’s no indication of that.
Ultimately it’s unclear what he’s done to deserve Bond turning up to murder him and steal his product.
Well done. You've pinpointed exactly when this film goes wrong.
But it does happen for not other reason than he's James Bond and just has to have a fight wherever he goes. Maybe if Bond had clocked her boyfriend or a rival for her affections and locked him in a cupboard so he could get to her first and the other fella had got out: something to explain what their issue with him is!
The "you have no idea what it went through to get here" gag is a cracker though.
I think it's fake glass, much like the bottle that gets smashed earlier in that fight. It's the sort of thing that shatters extremely easily. Add the sound effects in post and there you go. It does shatter and fall in a way that looks extremely pre-planned and satisfying though.
1. Moore is probably at his best here, in what is his most Fleming performance, and he looks the coolest in the role at this point, just the right age. He is bad ass Bond throughout, the closest he will ever get to the likes of Connery/Craig/Dalton's portrayal.
2. Scaramanga - Lee is probably the coolest villain of all, to the extent that we are almost rooting for him, even though as @mtm highlighted, there isn't much point to him or his `evil' plot. He outdoes Bond in the gadget stakes here, beds the women, and has his own badass moments throughout (building his gun from a lighter and pen and then taking over as `chairman of the board').
3. The locations. Hong Kong is my favourite city, so seeing this location being used extensively, and getting a travelogue glimpse into life as it was in the 70's is very appealing to me, even down to seeing the interior hotel rooms of the Peninsula.
4. John Barry, with another cool retro 70's score.
5. It's one of the few Moore films which actually feels relatively grounded, despite the silly JW Pepper scenes. This isn't a mad megalomaniac villain with a plot to destroy the earth, and there aren't too many outrageous back screen backdrops used which often age the older Bond films, not too many naff special effects either (looking at you, DAF).
6. I prefer the Bond films where the ending becomes a personal dual between Bond and the villain (similar to the likes of FRWL, LTK and SF), rather than a finale that includes a gang of baddies in black fighting a bunch of good guys in orange, in a Ken Adam villains lair while everything around them blows up (YOLT, TSWLM, etc.). I find these types of endings in a Bond film the most tedious, even though they are the most traditional.
Yeah, I say it a lot, but give Scaramanga his own spin-off. He basically is an alt-Bond, so you wouldn't need 007. He's handsome, suave, cool, does cool things and has cool quips, stylish, has expensive tastes, has gadgets (he's even got a gadget car), has his own instantly recognisable iconography (even today the golden gun is one of the most recognisable Bond props) - he's even got his own theme tune.
But as he's working on the other side, it wouldn't just feel like a Bond story without Bond, because he is different enough. He's also a gun for hire, which means that I imagine he wouldn't particularly care if sometimes he does work for the goodies. As long as he gets his million I doubt he minds.
I could imagine an Amazon Prime series where we follow a rebooted Scaramanga as he works his way through his career, getting his gun made, going on missions, maybe crossing paths with SPECTRE occasionally etc.
It'd be better than Citadel anyway :D
Same here: the battle climaxes leave me cold.
Now there's a great idea for a spin-off.
=D>
The fight is nonsensical. Clearly it's not anyone from Scaramanga's team, why would the bar want to rough up Bond? An old enemy, we aren't sure, and if it is this, why does Bond sit nonchalantly in the audience without a care in the world?
In terms of the film, I go back and forth on this one. Sometimes I rank it highly and other times it's not viewed as favourably. I am now in a less flattering view of this movie. I find Bond to be full of anger and piss. He's a cad with Goodnight and stuffing her in the dresser. M is also angry through out the film. Q seems miffed quite a bit. Lt Hip is a bland character and simply disappears from the film. Overall it is not a great Bond adventure.
I wonder if it's any coincidence that Hamilton's films included a few more such small-space fights. There's the PTS fight in GF, the elevator fight in DAF (which I really like), and then the Beirut fight in TMWTGG. Of the three, I find the latter the least interesting. The others feel like they're making sense in the story, even if we barely have a clue of things (GF PTS).
I do agree with the more personal Bond vs. villain fights during the climax being more interesting.
Good points about Bond and M. I do find it interesting that M and the other MI6 members seem to have much hostility towards Bond during that initial briefing (Bond literally says ‘good morning’ and they stare him down with that rather odd pause.) While understandable that an agent having a death warrant over their head during a crucial mission isn’t satisfactory it’s an odd reaction nonetheless.
I’ve always said that TMWTGG has the most potential to be ‘readapted’ in a future Bond film. While not especially done very well in this film it’d be interesting seeing an MI6 that’s a bit hostile to Bond in the circumstance. Or a Bond who’s a bit more of a ‘cad’ at the start of the film and has to redeem himself through his actions by the end.
I think it was nice that they finally introduced the character of Bill Tanner in the Bond films here but he didn't have a lot of do apart from attempt to scare Bond witless. There was certainly none of the friendliness or camaraderie that was present in the character from the Fleming Bond novels. The same was the case with Tanner in FYEO who was also a gruff authority figure. The only Tanner actor to have come close to the kind of relationship the Chief of Staff had with Bond in the novels is the great Michael Kitchen in GE and TWINE.
Let's get real here, okay? The Connery films (even DAF) were the s**t. Even the best of the Moore films were just a slight step above DAF IMHO. Which makes them good, but not stellar.
I read somewhere that this hostility towards Bond from each of the regular characters was reflecting what was happening behind the scenes with Harry and Cubby (this would be their last film together).
Didn’t know that. Like I said I find it an interesting dynamic, just one that’s not especially well done or utilised to it’s full potential.
It is quite funny how crusty M is at times though. He outright says at one point that he almost wished Bond had died on the mission. So unnecessary, haha. Not something I can even imagine Fleming’s M saying.
In GF it's bubbling, with M getting stern when Bond sleeps with Jill. He's authoritative when telling Bond to draw the gold bar from Q.
In DAF he's clearly upset at Bond being nonchalant when they meet Sir Donald. Rolling his eyes when reminding Bond that they do function in his absence. (one wonders if that was a dig by EON at Connery?)
In LALD he responds to Bond's magnetic watch comment about deflecting a bullet with "I have half a mind to try that theory out now".
TMWTGG he is clearly agitated by Bond calling the golden bullet a trinket. He gets off a good line about the amount of people wanting Bond dead. He bawls out Bond and Hip on the Queen Elizabeth.
By Spy and MR this animosity is gone and the old M portrayal seems to be back. Even Glen kept things for the most part like the Fleming M.
It reminds me a bit of Q's progression in the early series. In GF he plays the role as a sort of exasperated teacher rolling his eyes at a misbehaving student. As the series goes on Llewelyn's warmth starts to come through and by the end he's more a sort of tinkerer with even a bit of a mischievous side to him.
Maybe Hamilton felt most comfortable directing authority figures in that way? I know he was the one who instructed Llewelyn to act in that manner in GF.
Agreed. It's all too easy to have an M who's antagonistic towards Bond or vice versa (SP and NTTD fall into the latter trap) whether that's for comic or dramatic effect. It's another to have a respectful, but nuanced relationship between these characters.
Yes I agree. I recall a few times in the books when the relationship became more personal, particularly if the meeting started with M using Bond's first name. I think this happened in Moonraker, also in the short FYEO story, also M asking Bond personal questions about his love life with Tiffany Case (FRWL). One bit made me laugh was when M discusses Bond's good looks in regards Tania falling for Bond, while his mouth turned downwards as if sucking on a lemon. :))
Their relationships reaches its most personal in the last 2 books (YOLT), when M is debating whether to fire a depressed 007, and then TMWTGG when brainwashed Bond enters M's office to kill him.