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Comments
The two Daltons do have some things you could exchange to improve the others, Sanchez in particular being a great villain whereas Whitaker and Koskov are among the worst, for example. I still prefer TLD as an experience and all-around more balanced Bond film.
I feel that they wasted the talents of Krabbé in the part, but Whitaker is, imho, one of the worst villains in the entire series.
Prior to TLD, Krabbe, who I'd never heard of, played an evil villain in a Richard Gere detective movie that wasn't a hit, but I took notice of him and was disappointed with his TLD depiction, although some fans appreciate the difference from the Orlov, Gogol or Orumov portrayals of Russian generals.
I don't know that any actor could've done justice to Whitaker. An arms dealer has potential, but he's like Stromberg and just sticks to his home base and just doesn't do anything memorable. I like the final shootout and the concept of the war museum but Whitaker is treated more like unfinished business rather than the grand finale of the villain you want to see Bond take down who has made his life hell for the entire film. Anti-climactic is how I'd put it.
Compare that to the Bond-Sanchez confrontation with "Don't you want to know why?" That's one of the best Bond-villain finales.
But that sequence was a coda, a cherry on top. The C-130 fight with Necros,the true nemesis of TLD, was the climax. And the excellent jeep/escape stunt.
Wasn't TLD only available in the DVD set at first? It didn't get an individual release until later on. I don't remember there being any trouble in getting it on VHS.
Compared to the DVD, you had a better chance of finding rocking horse shit.
I love The Living Daylights short story and they nailed that tone and captured the feeling perfectly
+1
Perhaps my favorite Flemingesque moment from the entire series...
+2
Pure perfection.
Just like how Spectre should have ended at the crater base, TLD should have ended in Tangiers with Bond mopping things up with Whitaker and Koskov. All the stuff about diamonds and dope could have been explained in a few lines of dialogue. We didn't need to go to Afghanistan and put Bond into the middle of it. The third act may have worked with Moore or Brosnan but Dalton can't really pull off the gun-happy action hero. LTK's finale, where Bond destroys Sanchez's entire drug operation while being unarmed was a far better way to make Dalton's Bond look badass.
Barry's music is evocative as always, but the third act piles in so much new stuff that it feels like a different movie altogether. After Bond and Kara get drugged we're suddenly introduced to diamonds, opium, Kamran, and the Mujahideen, and in a totally new setting. A basic rule of screenwriting is to not introduce major elements in the third act, which is there to tie up the first two acts. Maybe if the movie had somehow introduced some of these elements earlier on (Pushkin's gun and all that) it might have worked, but I always lost interest in TLD once Bond and Kara are on Koskov's plane.
It's an interesting take and you state your points well, but I have to side with CraigMooreOHMSS. It's a mystery that has deepened and I like that Bond enters into a whole new part of the adventure. I can't imagine how flat the film would've been if it had gone with what you suggested previously and ended up dealing with Whitaker and Koskov at his compound.
Besides, TLD is hardly the first Bond film to have introduced something completely different in its final act. Nobody knows what the mysterious Dr. No is up to until Bond heads to Crab Key. Bond is trying to merely follow Goldfinger's smuggling activities and it's revealed his actual target is to detonate a bomb in Fort Knox. Bond is trying to find out what happened to the Moonraker shuttle and ends up in outer space. And so on.
I also have to take exception here. Dalton's Bond is hardly the gun-happy action hero here. He grabs a machine gun and fires it to distract the troops when he's found out so he can stay alive and plot his next move and looks damn cool in the process if I do say so, far more convincing than Moore or Brosnan ever did in that way. But that's as far as it goes. He's not blowing away minions left and right. He's more intent on how he's going to either escape or destroy that plane and that's where it's a good scene, especially considering all the dangers he faces, some at the same time, when its airborne. Lots of action and suspense combined here.
At the same time, I also love taking down Sanchez's operation on his own. I just don't see one detracting from the other. Both are great representations of Bond at his best.
I don't necessarily mean dealing with them in the compound, but I think the filmmakers should have had the third act stay in or around Tangiers. Or maybe the finale could have happened on Koskov's plane, where we could've had a similar scene to TLD's actual finale, then Bond goes back to take out Whitaker. I think the Mujahideen stuff is unnecessary and distracts from the main plot. My feelings on this have nothing to do with 9/11, either, because I felt the same way about it back when I first saw TLD in the 90s.
Yeah but all that stuff is built up to, with all the major elements being introduced throughout the course of the plots. TLD's diamonds, opium, and Mujahideen are all dumped on us in Act 3 and it feels incongruent with everything that came before. Maybe if some of that had been introduced earlier, like if Bond came across the diamonds somehow or if Kamran Shah had some sort of mysterious presence in the plot, it might have worked better.
I don't dislike TLD by any means, the first 2/3 are about as good as it gets when it comes to Bond, and Dalton is my personal favorite actor in the role, but ultimately it ends up as one of my "okay" Bonds along with FYEO, TWINE, and TB.
Collapsing is far from the right word. It's just nog as "engaging" as LTK.
But more diverse (locations, sequences, protagonists), more good use of Fleming material, more adventurous, less 'American', more atmospheric and with a far better score.
I like LTK, but it's still an average Bond film to me, with some very strong sequences and villains.
Both but for different markets, I believe - the gunbarrel movie scenes was the UK poster and the white dress was for the US. The French poster I have also uses the dress artwork.