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Comments
Thanks for the advice.
You know, it's crazy but I've been doing some reading up and it appears there is a growing hunger in the consumer base for massive TVs.
Last Christmas stores actually had to take down there 40 inch screens from shelves so they could fit in more 65 inch and 75 inch monsters. I think in a few years 55 inch won't be considered big, but standard for the average living room. That's crazy to me. I'm not that old, but when I got my 32 inch Samsung I was very impressed by the size of the screen. Oh well, DN and FRWL look stunning on Bluray as it is, I can't wait too see what those two look like on a proper 'big' screen! :D
Personally, however, I like it - aside from the abysmal PTS and the stupid ending. Without those, there aren't many stupid moments, and it certainly isn't quite as outrageous as some of Moore's other entries.
Very far from perfect, but certainly something I could still rate as "good" (if only just).
I think OP and TLD had a certain edge that wasn't there in the 70's except when it was forced out of Moore because they didn't understand his Bond yet.
I assume that was just a sign of the times, because I believe Hollywood actioners were getting quite brutal during the 80's as well. Bond was still relatively tame compared to the likes of Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, and the numerous Sly/Arnie vehicles. Not to mention Chuck Norris and the other Expendables' staples.
I only always previously noticed LTK as being noticeably darker and more violent from that period.
But unquestionably, Glen chose a darker way of killing off Bond's allies (and sometimes his enemies). But I appreciate that (and the fact that there's still some goofiness), which is why I like the 80's Bond films.
The Living Daylights
Things that link TLD to FYEO, the last one I viewed in said Bondathon -
Max the Parrot
Tasting raw opium
Sleigh rides baby!
Timothy Dalton is supremely impressive in his début outing as 007. The plot is well written, and boasts a tight script. The film benefits from a great attention to detail, and the fantastic elements of espionage are well tempered with some classic action. Dalton also enjoys a convincing relationship with leading lady, Maryam d'Abo, in this well rounded thriller.
Worst Bit – Scene with Rosika Miklos and her breasts.
Best Best – Interrogation of Pushkin.
Spectre
This is the first time I watched SP on home video. Oh, and it shares locations with the TLD, so that's a filmic link.
Did I enjoy SP in the comfort in my own home, or has SP slightly palled?
Did it hell. Up until the sequence at Blofeld's lair, I was seriously considering placing SP at the top of the tree. Craig has an unbelievable presence, in the vein of Connery and Moore. And Dr. Swann, and those eyes. Tragic, vulnerable and haunting. Gives great depth, when arguably the character doesn't have.
Worst Bit – Blofeld's connection with Bond.
Best Bit – Bond and Hinx's fight. I was genuinely scared for Bond the first time I watched, and it hasn't lost the impact.
Royale's Ranking
From Russia With Love – 10/10
Casino Royale – 9.5
Dr. No – 9.5
Licence to Kill – 9
The Living Daylights - 9
Goldfinger – 9
For Your Eyes Only – 8.75
Spectre – 8.5
Quantum of Solace – 8.5
GoldenEye – 8.5
Live and Let Die – 7.5
A View To A Kill - 7
Moonraker - 7
Diamonds Are Forever - 7
Die Another Day - 7
1. CR
2. LALD
3. MR
4. DAD
5. DAF
6. FRWL
7. DN
8. GF
9. AVTAK
10. LTK
11. QoS
12. GE
13. FYEO
14. TLD
15. SP
16. OP
17. TB
18. Spy
19. TND
20. OHMSS
21. YOLT
22. TMWTGG
23. TWINE
24. SF
Connection to Spectre -
Ivory Dinner Jacket
The Oberhauser connection
Golly, do I love OP or what! It has everything from an involving story, great action, dastardly villains, touching romance between Bond and his gal and to top it all off, there is an engaging performance from Sir Rog. A couple of missteps – Tarazn yell and the humour in the Tuk-Tuk chase - are not too serious to disrupt the enjoyment I get out of watching OP.
Worse Bit – Tazan Yell
Best Bit – The confrontation between Bond and Orlov.
Either that, or Sir Rog's reaction to when Vijay tells Bond that his backhand has improved.
Royale's Ranking
From Russia With Love – 10/10
Casino Royale – 9.5
Dr. No – 9.5
Licence to Kill – 9
The Living Daylights - 9
Goldfinger – 9
Octopussy – 8.75
For Your Eyes Only – 8.75
Spectre – 8.5
Quantum of Solace – 8.5
GoldenEye – 8.5
Live and Let Die – 7.5
A View To A Kill - 7
Moonraker - 7
Diamonds Are Forever - 7
Die Another Day – 7
Looking at my ranking, there is only a couple of films left that can trouble the top six, so in answer to @Birdleson's question earlier in this thread, GF is pretty much safe. Guaranteed a top ten, at the least.
1. CR
2. LALD
3. MR
4. DAD
5. DAF
6. FRWL
7. DN
8. GF
9. AVTAK
10. LTK
11. QoS
12. GE
13. FYEO
14. TLD
15. SP
16. OP
17. TB
18. Spy
19. TND
20. OHMSS
21. YOLT
22. TMWTGG
23. TWINE
24. SF
Couldn't agree more. OP is a classic Moore romp! =D>
Which bit of SPECTRE do you wish had gone?
I watch SP most nights. Its good 'have it on in the background' viewing. Not to damn with faint praise, of course.
Wow, that makes a lot of sense, come to think of it.
Personally I would have changed this:
Bond and Vesper are enjoying their meal after beating Le Chiffre, when Vesper recieves a phone call from 'Mathis' and leaves. While Bond sits alone in silence, we're supposed to believe that the mention of Mathis has triggered something in Bonds mind, as moments later he sprints out of the room to catch up Vesper. Now, we don't know yet what this revelation is, but when Bond gets outside Vesper is being kidnapped on the street, and suddenly we're into a high speed chase. It's only after Bond has totaled his car and is captured by Le Chiffre that we get this line:
" It appears you're friend Mathis is really my friend Mathis." Ok, so Mathis is a traitor.
But hold on a minute, skipping ahead to Quantum of Solace it is revealed that Mathis was actually an innocent man (they are still unsure at the end of CR). So Le Chiffre just assumed that Bond had suspected Mathis, or anyone for that matter. How did he know that Bond had made the connection at all. That line makes it sound like, "well, we both know whats happened, so there's no point keeping secrets". Does anyone actually think that Le Chiffre thought he was telling bond new information with that line? But anyway, I'm not just griping on a bit of clunky dialogue, so let's continue...
Its not till Bond and Vesper are back together, sunning themselves on a beach that the audience is filled in on this betrayal. Mathis told Le Chiffre that Bond knew about his tell, and that helped Le Chiffre to trick Bond and beat him. Ohhhh, OK. Gee, It's a shame the audience didn't know this information when it was an important motivator for Bond, but after the fact. Remember, up until this point the only mention of the betrayal was: "It appears your friend Mathis is really my friend Mathis." We didn't even know how Mathis was supposed to have betrayed Bond.
Anyway, I want to move ahead again (trust me, I'm going somewhere with this) to the end. This sequence has a very similar set up, except this time its Bond on the phone, not Vesper. Bond receives a call from M who is still waiting for the funds to be transferred. Surprised, Bond (just like in the other scene) chases after Vesper, leading to a shootout inside a building that's collapsing. Again, like before, we are given minimal information with which to piece together what is going on. Vesper has the money and is taking it to someone else, so she could have been the traitor all along. Once Bond finally gets to her, she is trapped inside a lift. As Bond tries to free her, she inexplicably locks herself in. Eh? What's she doing that for? Well don't worry, we will find out later after it doesn't matter anymore.
After reading all that, I bet your thinking "look mate, I'm busy, what's your point". Well don't worry, because its time for me to dovetail all this together by talking about audience expectation. When asked about why he made his films out of chronological order all the time, Quentin Tarantino once said, and I'm paraphrasing, that there is a tether between the film and the audience which should never be broken. More specifically, he said:
" the audience doesn't mind being momentarily confused if they feel they are in good hands."
What he is basically saying is that audiences want to feel like they have a grasp of what in happening on screen. They want to feel clued in. For instance, if three characters are standing in a room with guns and a shot is fired, the audience wants to know who got shot and who did the shooting pretty quickly. Sure, they don't mind a second or two of confusion, but if they have to wait till later in the film to find out what happened, they get frustrated because they aren't sure of who is alive and who is dead, and that harms their ability to understand the stakes, which in turn damages their investment in what is happening.
I feel like there are several points during Casino Royale where the audience is left to wonder what is happening, as Bond leaps into action and as a result, aren't fully invested in the action. It doesn't help that nearly all the action starts with a phone conversation in which important information is said. The audience doesn't have time to grasp the implications of such a revelation and Bond is off. Twice the discovery of an earpeice is involved. If we learn about a betrayal, then we should at least know the basics and how that effects the current situation. How does Mathis' betrayal of Bond relate to Vesper being kidnapped. Couldn't she have been kidnapped anyway, whether Mathis was the turncoat or not? If so, why have Bond realise this betrayal at all. What if he got up and followed Vesper to check out her body, smiling to himself at a job well done, when suddenly she is taken. Then we are invested immediately, we're not thinking we must have missed something. We can still work in the Mathis red herring stuff later, but this way they don't awkwardly overlap in a way that's distracting. And the same goes for Vespers suicide. I feel they really dropped the ball here. She is happily in love, carefree in one scene and deliberately drowns herself in the next. They try really hard to make it seem tragic, but I was just thinking- what? If you want to have a character suddenly switch like that, you need to foreshadow appropriately. The only foreshadowing they do is give Vesper one strange look on the beach. That's it. The book, on the other hand has tonnes of foreshadowing. Vesper becomes more anxious and hysterical as time goes on. Her and Bond slowly drift apart, and he doesn't understand why. Then when he reads her note, we are shocked, but we had a feeling something must have been going on. In the film, its out of nowhere. What reason does she have to believe that Bond could not keep her safe if she told him everything?
I'm about done here, I just want to talk for a sec about that opening parkour bit. I'll be breif, I promise. These are just minor gripes. First off, why is Bond now instructing a younger agent, just after being granted 00 status. That strikes me as a bit odd, personnaly. Secondly why is this sequence so universally beloved? Alright I know from an action standpoint its stupendous, but we have no idea who this guy is that Bond is chasing, but we're supposed to feel invested for this 8 minute chase. It's pointlessly overelaborate if you ask me. If you want a big elaborate action sequence, we should at least understand what is at stake, and not, again, by having it told to us after the fact through exposition. Compare this to the skyfleet sequence later on. Everything is set up nicely with Bond tailing the guy and we learn what is happening during the action, not after. Out of the three the plane action is the best, then the sinking house, then the parkour.
I don't care how well the action is choreographed, if it's purely self-indulgent, its got to go.
Anyway, rant over. I just want to say that I don't hate Casino Royale, Its still a top ten Bond film, despite these gripes. Like I said I actually enjoyed the film more than I usually would, so there's a positive to take away.
It's a classic in every sense of the word. Spectacularly spectacular.
OCTOPUSSY/THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
GOLDFINGER
QUANTUM OF SOLACE
LIVE AND LET DIE
LICENCE TO KILL
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
DR. NO
GOLDENEYE
SPECTRE
The first half of TND contains many excellent scenes, and the plot moves at a good pace. Pryce is as entertaining as ever as media mogul Carver, and the dialogue between M and Admiral Roebuck is superb. But the second half isn't half dull. The non-stop action and machine gun fire is what stops TND ever reaching more than the middle of the pack in my ranking. I'm just left feeling bored by it all.
OCTOPUSSY/THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
GOLDFINGER
QUANTUM OF SOLACE
LIVE AND LET DIE
LICENCE TO KILL
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
DR. NO
GOLDENEYE
SPECTRE
TOMORROW NEVER DIES
I last saw TB on New Year's Day. Usually I wait a few more months before seeing the film again. Luckily, despite the four month break, TB was an entertaining as ever.
A perfect, epic Bondian adventure, featuring Sean Connery at his most virile best. All the elements work; the plotting, sets, action, music, tension, violence, sex and the quips. I’ve complained before about the hijack of the Vulcan, saying it’s too slow and Young’s direction is anal, particularly the shots of the frogmen nailing the net in place, but not this time. It is an epic film, it’s only on for two hours, that’s time to be spent in Bond's world, so what’s the rush? I just let the film wash over me, savouring Thunderball’s magnificent “epicness”.
Worst Bit – I wish Peter Hunt's preferred editing job, on the underwater climax, was accepted, instead of the producers extended run.
Best Bit – Anything between Connery and the voluptuous, the ravishing, the pulchritudinous vision of beauty that is Luciana Paluzzi.
Royale's Ranking
From Russia With Love – 10/10
Casino Royale – 9.5
Dr. No – 9.5
Licence to Kill – 9
The Living Daylights - 9
Goldfinger – 9
Thunderball - 8.75
For Your Eyes Only – 8.75
Spectre – 8.5
Quantum of Solace – 8.5
GoldenEye – 8.5
Live and Let Die – 7.5
A View To A Kill - 7
Moonraker - 7
Diamonds Are Forever - 7
Die Another Day - 7
1. CR
2. LALD
3. MR
4. DAD
5. DAF
6. FRWL
7. DN
8. GF
9. AVTAK
10. LTK
11. QoS
12. GE
13. FYEO
14. TLD
15. SP
16. OP
17. TB
18. Spy
19. TND
20. OHMSS
21. YOLT
22. TMWTGG
23. TWINE
24. SF
My work here is done, then.
I can see several reasons why the public at that time might have had difficulties with this movie, besides the more obvious one, being Lazenby as the new Bond.
- it takes its time to tell the story,
- it uses a new visual language; especially during the action scenes the editing is frantic and the tempo is speeded up,
- Lazenby gives us a more vulnerable Bond: when chased on Christmas Eve, before Tracy finds him, he looks genuinely scared for his life,
- for a substantial part, this is a romantic movie, as the connection between Bond and Tracy reaches a level beyond what we saw in the Connery movies. And of course his wedding. That must have been quite a shock.
- but not as big a shock as Tracy's demise. In a franchise where every movie ended in triumph for Bond, the fans now end the movie with their hero almost in tears (but not quite, as Hunt decided to do a retake of the scene, but without the tears Lazenby had produced in the first take). I always find this a moving scene. The triumphant Bond-theme over the end-credits almost feels misplaced after the tragic end.
Personally, I find all of these aspects enriching for the character. But I'm speaking as a Bond-fan who was first introduced through Moore, then Dalton and in between discovered the Connery and Lazenby Bond-movies - non sequentially.
So I can imagine for the cinema public from that day, OHMSS was too big of a change. Quite a gamble the producers took. Especially after they had done their best to create this Bond universe that had certain rules. Too many rules were broken, I imagine. Not only did they get a new actor, but James Bond didn't seem the same either - fortunately there was the actor-scapegoat. Bond was broken and it was Lazenby that did it.
Too bad for Lazenby, because I believe he might have given us a good show. But glad the producers took the gamble, because now we have this wonderful one-of-a-kind Bond-movie.