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If Die Another Day had featured Wai Lin again instead of Jinx -OR- could it HAVE been fixed at all?

chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
edited September 2013 in Bond Movies Posts: 17,835
All things admittedly yucky staying the same, if Michelle Yeoh had reprised her Wai Lin character in DAD instead of Halle's Jinx, would this movie be so hated? Granted, it would still have its (major) problems, but isn't Jinx the biggest jinx of this movie? :-?
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Comments

  • Samuel001Samuel001 Moderator
    edited September 2013 Posts: 13,356
    Michelle Yeoh was to replace Rachel Grant's character. Halle would have still been the main star of the film. Whatever happened, there's still far, far too much wrong to redeem this film.
  • BeatlesSansEarmuffsBeatlesSansEarmuffs
    Posts: 3,566
    I don't think so. DAD would have still had the really cheesy CGI without Jinx...it would have still had the totally unbelievable genetic facelift for our main villain...it would have still had Madonna. There is no saving this film with just one substitution, even a major one. DAD is still DOA.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,835
    Samuel001 wrote:
    Halle would have still been the main star of the film. Whatever happened, there's still far, far too much wrong to redeem this film.
    But I'm saying what IF the badly performed Jinx was instead a superbly performed Wai Lin? Wouldn't that be enough to put DAD in at least DAF or TMWTGG territory?
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,360
    Hey @chrisisall, maybe retitle this thread to "Fix Die Another Day" But anyway, I recently posted this in my art thread. Should Wai Lin had replaced Jinx, this too should have happened.

    Replace Jinx with Wai-Lin. Yes have a main Bond girl return! something that hasn't been done before.

    Snip the para-surfing scene.

    At least make Mr. Kil into something more dignified like Mr. Killian.

    Dump Anything Icarus and Diamond related. (Post PTS)

    Have Bond reflect on his torture and give emotion from it.

    Make the tone closer to that of Licence to Kill.

    Keep Moon as the villain. He could have easily got rich and changed his whole identity. With his wealth. (Without the use of Gene Therapy.) Anyone who tried to reveal who he would need a little more than Hey, that guy is evil.

    Iceland can stay. The Ice Palace was very Ken Adam inspired.

    Miranda should be an Agent taught by Bond who later betrays him.

    And keep the Aston Martin visible. James Bond doesn't need to hide. He should strike fear into the hearts of his opponents.

    Have Moneypenny talk to Bond in the Infirmary Boat after M. To try to ease his pain but only make him confess some sort of feelings for her.
  • SoundofthesinnersSoundofthesinners
    Posts: 3,236
    Well, some of the dialogue would have been less awful, and Wai Lin would certainly have seemed far more competent than Jinx, but the previous two posters are right. @BeatlesSansEarmuffs pretty much nails it with "DAD is DOA".
  • Samuel001Samuel001 Moderator
    edited September 2013 Posts: 13,356
    chrisisall wrote:
    Samuel001 wrote:
    Halle would have still been the main star of the film. Whatever happened, there's still far, far too much wrong to redeem this film.
    But I'm saying what IF the badly performed Jinx was instead a superbly performed Wai Lin? Wouldn't that be enough to put DAD in at least DAF or TMWTGG territory?

    It would fix one area, yes but there are so many more issues it still wouldn't be as good as the other two films you mention, in my eyes.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,835
    Murdock wrote:
    Hey @chrisisall, maybe retitle this thread to "Fix Die Another Day"
    Done, sort of...
    :D
  • Samuel001Samuel001 Moderator
    Posts: 13,356
    http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/1290/fix-a-bond-film

    You could continue here then but Die Another Day being what it is, may need it's own thread!
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,835
    Samuel001 wrote:
    Die Another Day being what it is, may need it's own thread!
    Possibly.
    I mean, mentally replace Ursula Andress with Halle Berry for a moment.
    Does Dr. No suddenly turn to cow pie? It does for ME.
  • PerdoggPerdogg
    Posts: 686
    chrisisall wrote:
    All things admittedly yucky staying the same, if Michelle Yeoh had reprised her Wai Lin character in DAD instead of Halle's Jinx, would this movie be so hated? Granted, it would still have its (major) problems, but isn't Jinx the biggest jinx of this movie? :-?

    I think that it would have still been bad. jinx was not the problem. It appears in watching Everything or Nothing that neither Brosnan nor Pike could hide his or her general distain for the movie. Apparently, it goes beyond casting and script. Strangely enough it still feels to me to more of a Bond film than SF or QoS.



  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    edited September 2013 Posts: 17,835
    Perdogg wrote:
    Strangely enough it still feels to me to more of a Bond film than SF or QoS.
    That's because of tradition, proper gunbarrel, Bond not being a Bourne-like superbadass, and connection to the 20th...
    Personally I like QOS a LOT better than DAD, and SF a bit more.
    Depending on my mood.
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,360
    To me DAD feels like A twist between YOLT and DAF. It has a combination of the 60's fantastical elements like exotic villain lair and unique looking henchmen and the 70's campiness that went on to water down Bond until the late 80's. Die Another Day was simply trying to hard to appeal to the masses and pay homage to 40 years of past films. It's a clusterbomb of a movie. It has a lot of good ideas and visual elements but the writing and direction ruined what could have been a great sendoff to Pierce.

    Pros:
    The PTS
    Bond being captured and Tortured
    Bond in Cuba
    Fight at Blades
    Meeting with M in the Metro
    The Ice Palace
    The Car Chase
    Arnold's score
    Moon and Miranda's relationship. (Had we learned more about this rather than some info dump from M this would have been really cool.)
    Zao
    Mr. Kil (Aside from the dumb name, he was a rather good opponent against Bond.)
    Bond and M's scene on the boat.
    The father and son drama. (This could have been great if done correctly but much like Bond being tortured, it went nowhere fast.)



    Cons:
    The gene therapy stuff
    Jinx's character. (I don't blame Berry for the character's failure. That goes to writing.)
    Graves. (It should have just been Moon and Moon only.
    wasting Michael Madsen's time. (Falco could have been a brilliant character. instead we get a 5 minute cameo. Michael Madsen is a good actor. It was a shame to see his talents wasted.
    The writing. Now I heard on this very forum that P&W's script was better. I'd like to see it but until then There writing for this movie sucked.
    Tamahori. hiring a director that believes in the Codename theory is a big no no.
    Icarus. (Why retread old ground by redoing a villain's plot from 71? Was the doomsday satellite relevant in 2002 or something?
    Bond being fine after a shave 10 minutes into the movie. Way to abandon your project right in the beginning.

    Fix the cons and you could have GoldenEye 2.0. It's not the worst Bond movie ever, but It has big faults that make it mediocre. Oddly enough DAD feels like the typical hollywood garbage of today where Today's Bond is excelling and quality cinema. Kudo's to EoN for that.
  • timdalton007timdalton007 North Alabama
    Posts: 155
    The more I go back and watch DAD, the more I think that Jinx was a problem but not the only problem. Jinx as a character wasn't well-written to begin with and I don't think Halle Berry's performance did the character any favors either. Oddly I think DAD suffered from the same problem that QOS did: the "secondary" Bond girl was far better written and performed than the "main" one.

    Going back to the question in the OP for a moment: Yes it would have helped the movie some (and given a nice piece of continuity along the likes of Zukovsky in TWINE) but it would not have made the film really that much better.

    timdalton007
  • identigraphidentigraph
    Posts: 1,052
    There are of course countless terrible moments in this film that don't feature Jinx but I think if Wai Lin featured and the awful dialouge between Bond and Jinx was removed it would be somewhat less excrutiating.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 15,233
    It certainly wouldn't have saved the film. It may have made it less awful, but worst case scenario it would have turned Wai Lin into a joke.
  • SaintMarkSaintMark
    Posts: 7,653
    Hurray, another DAD bash thread!

    We most certainly do not have enough of those yet.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,835
    Ludovico wrote:
    It certainly wouldn't have saved the film. It may have made it less awful, but worst case scenario it would have turned Wai Lin into a joke.
    I disagree; DAD didn't turn Bond into a joke, it just surrounded him with questionable moments. I believe Wai Lin would have survived intact as well.
    And I think if she were in it we'd be bandying about whether the film was a little or a lot better than DAF...
  • saunderssaunders Living in a world of avarice and deceit
    Posts: 987
    Admittedly Halle Berry's performance was terrible, but is Wai Lin really that highly regarded that her reappearance could possibly be deemed as an asset? I thought she made an unmemorable Bond girl, not particularly attractive or well acted, and her fight scenes, though energetic, seemed to be a case of EON pandering to her Asian action star reputation at the cost of the franchises credibility (In much the same way the awestruck EON team let Madonna churn out such a pile of crud for the DAD theme song).
    If the idea of replacing Jinx with a previous Bond girl to try and salvage the film, then I would of thought bringing back Natalya Simonova and the whole GE feel-good factor would of been a better bet. I know a Russian programmer wouldn't make as much sense as a Chinese agent, but this is DAD we're talking about, when did any of it make sense?
    Even so, would bringing back a previous Bond girl make this film better? No it's so flawed as a Bond film that any actress regardless of their talent would of been dragged down with it, in much the same way Pierce Brosnan was.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    edited September 2013 Posts: 17,835
    saunders wrote:
    is Wai Lin really that highly regarded that her reappearance could possibly be deemed as an asset?

    :O Dude, she was one of the BEST Bond girls ever....
    SaintMark wrote:
    Hurray, another DAD bash thread!
    We most certainly do not have enough of those yet.

    And we can branch out to bash even more, it seems.

    I actually enjoy DAD from time to time myself.
  • saunderssaunders Living in a world of avarice and deceit
    Posts: 987
    chrisisall wrote:
    saunders wrote:
    is Wai Lin really that highly regarded that her reappearance could possibly be deemed as an asset?

    :O Dude, she was one of the BEST Bond girls ever....

    Really? That does surprise me, mind you I'm probably not the best one to judge considering Dr Christmas Jones is in my all time top 5. :)
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,835
    saunders wrote:
    Dr Christmas Jones is in my all time top 5. :)

    Easy on the eyes, but she couldn't fight worth a damn. No Bond girl is Wai Lin's equal in THAT arena.

    It's just that Jinx is (IMO) Halle's worst performance ever, and badly written to boot. I honestly enjoyed her turn as Catwoman much better. And it strikes me that a better Bond girl might have made a lot of the crap in DAD a whole lot more palatable.
  • saunderssaunders Living in a world of avarice and deceit
    edited September 2013 Posts: 987
    Maybe I'm just a sexist, misogynist dinosaur but I don't really want to see Bond girls fight, I'd rather they just wore bikinis, gasp 'Oh James' and wobble wherever possible! ;)

    You make a fair case for replacing Jinx to improve the film, but honestly Halle Berry's dire performance was well down the list of grievances I had with the film when I left the cinema on the first viewing. This is such a deeply flawed film on so many levels that nothing short of starting again from scratch would in any way redeem it, even marginally!
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    edited September 2013 Posts: 17,835
    saunders wrote:
    This is such a deeply flawed film on so many levels that nothing short of starting again from scratch would in any way redeem it, even marginally!
    Well actually, let me recount the good: with the exception of Berry, I think the cast is great. The movie moves at a nice, rapid clip. It's very well photographed. The fight scenes are well done, particularly the sword duel. Arnold's score is fine.
    The OTT sci-fi aspects, the diamonds-stuck-in-the-face thing, the abrupt gear-change after Bond's escape and Jinx seem to me to be the real drawbacks.

    I really think this movie has become the whipping boy for the entire franchise.
  • thelivingroyalethelivingroyale
    edited September 2013 Posts: 12,837
    There are some good bits and I don't think the film is as bad as many make out (I've read posts calling it one of the worst films of all time and saying it's on par with Batman and Robin, it's not that awful imo), but overall it is pretty crap.

    Controversial, but I reckon if you trimmed down the action, added more dialogue and took out the space stuff (just have the finale in the island base), then Nightfire (the computer game out that year), could've made a much better Bond film.
  • StirredNotShakenStirredNotShaken Toronto
    Posts: 2,402
    SaintMark wrote:
    Hurray, another DAD bash thread!

    We most certainly do not have enough of those yet.

    We can never have enough of them, methinks.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,835
    StirredNotShaken wrote:
    SaintMark wrote:
    Hurray, another DAD bash thread!

    We most certainly do not have enough of those yet.

    We can never have enough of them, methinks.
    That's actually NOT why I started this thread- it was to examine precisely why DAD doesn't live up to expectations, and possibly for some of us to realise that it's NOT the total loss many believe it to be.
  • saunderssaunders Living in a world of avarice and deceit
    Posts: 987
    I think your aim is noble @chrisisall , it's just I remain to be convinced that DAD isn't a total loss, I watched it two nights ago and as always I went into it with an open mind, genuinely wanting it to of improved with time, hoping to see even a glimmer of a decent James Bond adventure. I like and respect Babs, MGW and the EON team, I'd love to be able to of seen what they thought was the next progressive step in the Bond series with this film, but I can't, I honestly don't see the redeeming features that you and others do. So what would you change (apart from Jinx) to make this, in your eyes live up to expectations?

  • BAIN123BAIN123
    Posts: 11,189
    I liked Wai Lin. Agreed she probably wasn't on the same level as Natalya but I felt that Yeoh, while not the greatest of actresses, is a likeable screen presence and of "Bond's equals" she and perhaps Pam Bovier are the best (Bach was also a good character but I felt that her slightly robitic tone hindered her a bit). Unlike Jinx, Wai Lin seemed like a vaguely believable agent.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,835
    saunders wrote:
    So what would you change (apart from Jinx) to make this, in your eyes live up to expectations?
    Well you can't actually make a top tier movie out of it given the script, but you could probably edit 15 of the most offending minutes out and make it a little more streamlined. Fix the dodgy CGI while you're at it.
  • BAIN123BAIN123
    Posts: 11,189
    Errrmm...get rid of Mr Kil too. Worst character ever!!!
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