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Comments
It's certainly not a coincidence. DAF to TWTGG is arguably the laziest, uninspired run of films of the series.
Maybe the blame can't be laid entirely at Guy's door. I think Cubby and Harry's rather acrimonious divorce might be to blame if the films of era time feel rather churned out as they probably had their minds on other matters.
NO SCHOOLGIRL MARY GOODNIGHT!!!
NO SHERIFF PEPPER
NO COMEDY KUNG FU
NO BOND FIGHTING NICNAC
A different director
(This is not spam. I am just using caps for emphasis).
Oh, and get someone other than Guy Hamilton to direct.
I actually had an idea for a Bond film along the lines of The Most Dangerous Game with Shatterhand as the main villain. The PTS would have been Shatterhand's son setting Bond up a la TMDG, Bond bests him and kills him as the titles role and the film is Shatterhand seeking revenge on Bond. Obviously with some sub plots and Shatterhand having some evil plan in the pipeline.
Wow. That's a very intelligent response(!)
It's certainly pithy, but true of all Bond films that strayed too far from the work of the Master - Ian Lancaster Fleming.
Indeed. Very Fleming, but not written by Fleming himself. A masterful part of the film, for me.
But oh what a very bizarre and surreal cartoon it was, Sir Henry.
No J.W. Pepper, he should've just stayed in LALD.
No fight where schoolgirls beat fighters.
Instead of a Solex Agitator (or something like that), make Scaramanga be a top assassin all over the world, killing government officials, CIA, MI6, KGB, etc. but being anonymous with just a gold bullet.
End the film with Bond and Goodnight escaping the island on the boat. No M on the phone or a Nick Nack fight.
I didn't like the solex plot or subplot, but wonder if there shouldn't still have been an extra motivations apart from the duel. It was definitely shoehorned, but I do think it matters that a villain in a Bond movie should represent a threat to someone else than Bond. In the novel, there was no outlandish scheme like in other books, but it was clear Scaramanga was an active threat to the Western world.
I'm being a bit pissy, sorry. But it's 100% true. They had a chance to remake the Bond series when Moore took over and it could have been something great(er). Moore is my favorite Bond but some of his films are lacking.
They should have gotten the rights back for CR, did that as his first film in a sort of reboot way in '71, then do DAF straight from the novel with Moore, then maybe MR straight from the novel and then TMWTGG from the novel. After that they could have done whatever but think of the possibilities. With it has his 4th film, he's already established in the role as an actor and we as the audience understand what he's all about. It becomes even more shocking when he attacks M. He's beaten up after the first 3 adventures, he's world weary, he's injured, he's a mess.
The first four Connery films were so good b/c they stayed true to the books, end of story. Yes, they were great in other ways but if you look at the great films in the series, they stay closer to Fleming. YOLT strayed and it was a huge step down from TB and then it went back up great again with OHMSS.
All well and good but your argument is deficient in several areas:
1. I don't think they didn't have the rights to CR by choice. They simply weren't available otherwise EON would have snapped them up. And even if they did have them they wouldn't release another CR 4 years after Feldman's. Anyway to film CR straight after OHMSS makes absolutely no sense even if the concept of reboots had been around in 1970.
2. Rog in straight adaptations of Fleming as a world weary Bond? Is that really going to work? I love a Roger romp as much as the next man but he wasn't signed on to deliver that sort of Bond.
3. You can't do TMWTGG straight from the novel unless you first do YOLT straight from the novel and unless you do OHMSS straight from the novel before that.
Now if Laz had stayed on you may be onto something.
Make his second film YOLT in all but name with differing locations and Bond girl but ending up with him heading to Vladiostok with amnesia.
Then his 3rd is TMWTG and the assassination attempt on M is the PTS and then we follow the book reasonably closely - just throw in an extra few scenes and action sequence in the first act when he is tracking down Scaramanga to bolster what is a pretty thin tale much the way they did with CR06.
Then Colonel Sun as his 4th? PTS of M getting kidnapped?
Although it is all starting to sound a bit like the Brozza/Craig era with M being overused somewhat it sounds an awesome quadriolgy which would go down a storm today but back then probably would have sunk the series for being too depressing.
Anyway thanks to the lukewarm public reception to George and that arsehole Ronan O'Reilly we instead started down the comedy romp path in 71 which would last 5 films and deny us any proper closure for Tracy except the delicaf*****gtessen in stainless steel.
"****ing yeah!" ;-)
Whenever my mate and I go for dinner, it inevitably descends into this. Arguably less funny.
Incidentally I took my girlfriend to that restaurant on her birthday. It's damn good. Bond would approve.
My mate went to a BBC screening. He said it was awesome, but slightly less quotable than series 1. He also said that they break character more than in 1. Apparently there's a scene where Brydon does a critique of Coogan as Parkinson and Coogan genuinely breaks and laughs. Can't wait to see it.
Michael Winterbottom deserves credit. There aren't many directors who allow the improvisational fluidity that he encourages in a lot of his work. The risk is that sometimes it doesn't quite work (A Cock and Bull story) but with The Trip he's definitely hit gold!