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^This. He lives for danger, I think some of the earlier film trailers alluded to that.
He does the fly fishing and at sea adrift lines in AVTAK and TND too.
The underwater lotus is more unbelievable than the water tank in the Aston. Yes they've done it in real life but not as seamless as they've portrayed in the movie
No, I just thought yours was a bad point, badly made.
Lots of different people will have issues with TB for varied reasons. Trying to make out that those who don't particularly rate TB are suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder and can't cope with a slower paced story is patronising and annoying.
The issues I have with TB relate to it not being nearly as good as Young's first two Bond films - it's represents a distinct step backwards for him as a director. Perhaps it's the fact that the action (arguably for the first time in the series) begins to overwhelm the story. That actually makes TB closer to contemporary thrillers and action movies, where plot and narrative are secondary to balletic action and visuals.
Sorry you feel that way, but you made it out to mean that, not me. I was merely stating that the advent of fast, hyper-kinetic editing has most likely skewed peoples view of the average necessary pacing of a film. I used the most extreme, 'ADD' examples as a means to illustrate my point.
Whether it is then patronizing or not depends on the receiver, as far as I'm concerned. Such 'offence' is taken, not given.
Having said hat I can see why it may have seemed patronizing. But I'm not into 'PC' analyzing of my posts each time I write one just to make sure that nothing in it might cause offence...
Hmm, yes perhaps FYEO is the truer 'shift'...
TSWLM & MR were definitely transitions in the way the films were polished & edited.
Utterly risible. 3 best films of a time? They aren't even the 3 best Connery Bonds.
Where are these many people? I don't see many teenagers commenting in this thread saying TB isn't as good as Transformers.
Most of the people who are posting in this thread that TB is a tedious slog of a film are knowledgable Bond fans who rate the slow DN and FRWL higher.
TB has 10 times the action of FRWL but somehow manages to be 100 times more boring.
FRWL is a slow burn yes but when it finally explodes we get the best fight in cinema history.
I find your argument rather facile because it suggests if you don't like TB you won't like the other early Bonds either.
Most intelligent people on here have FRWL top 5 and DN there or there abouts along with OHMSS which also has long periods where not a lot happens.
If TB is slagged off its because it's not very good not because it's a bit slow in parts.
It seems it's becoming fashionable in these parts to rate TB highly for some reason I don't understand--maybe for iconoclasm. The story is not that compelling, the pace is off, most of the actors bar Palluzzi sleepwalk through their parts (especially Celi and Auger), and the underwater scenes go on and on and on. People criticize DN for its rear projection but the final yacht fight is just as poorly projected.
I agree, especially with the emboldened. Thunderball is the only film in the series, except maybe TSWLM (but then again, both Stromberg and Anya have their moments), where both the main Bond girl AND Bond villain are utterly lifeless.
Couldn't agree more chaps. Celi is just an uninspired Bond villain pastiche and Auger seems like she'd be less exciting in bed than a mannequin.
Take out Palluzzi and the cast is utterly moribund. Sean by this stage is on autopilot (although hes still very entertaining and carries the film along with Luciana). Van Nutter is a charisma free poor mans Jack Lord who just hands Bond equipment. Pinder, Paula and Vargas are all utterly bland and superfluous.
The story relies on the ludicrous coincidence that Bond checks into Shrublands and stumbled into the plot and thence made the connection to Domino.
Once Bond is in the Bahamas there is nary a sense that the bombs are a threat as he spends his time splashing about or eating and dancing. Even at the climax there is zero sense of threat with the bomb just easily disarmed in Miami and the other in the middle of the sea so even if it is detonated the effect would be just the same as a nuclear test which were ten a penny in the 60s.
Apart from the SPECTRE meeting and the bomb hijack (which although it goes on too long is well done) the rest is painfully dull. The only scenes worth watching are those featuring Fiona.
The bottom line is that for all the fighting between Mcclory and Fleming it's not a very good story. We the audience know everything already so we just sit there for 2 hours waiting for Bond to catchup.
True, the camourflaging of the Vulcan bomber was a tad overlong.
I'd rather see a slower moving film, than one that goes by at warp speed, and doesn't allow the audience to see, or comprehend what's going on in the film. e.g. QOS.
TB is quite frantic in comparison to the slowness of some films, Sergio Leone Westerns for instance, where the characters just stare at each other for 5 minutes, before something happens.
Is TB overrated? I can emphatically answer NO. I'm with bondjames on this one in ranking TB way ahead of GF. It uses the "formula" to greater effect, the score is wonderful, the photography lush, and Connery gives the best Bond performance ever. For me, the movie is exhilarating and doesn't drag at all. Young's direction is great as always and I almost enjoy it as much as DN and FRWL (those two being in my top 5, with FRWL my perennial favourite since 2006).
Your line of argument is totally flawed because a lot those who have issues with TB also really enjoy DN and FRWL. Ergo their problem with TB is not that it lacks Michael Bay SFX or crazy editing. Their issue with the film is that it's often ploddingly dull.
Hey! Kids! Don't make me come back there!! Behaaaaave yourselves!
If it's too slow for you, it's too slow for you. If you think it plods, it plods.
I love the film, but then I come from a different time.
A time of fire discovery & thunder worship...
Yeah, but isn't that the whole point of discussions / argumentations, to dissect their flaws? It'd be sodding boring otherwise :>
Anyhow, I still hear plenty of 'complaints' from Bond fans, other than on this forum, that the 60's & 70's entries are too slow in general. TB may have some of the slower scenes due to the nature of the aquatic environment, but that film is also a product of it's time... if it has been made in this era of cinema the editing would have been frantic just to keep the audience involved.
Well, TB does feature the sped up fight and boat scenes, which are arguably the 'shaky cam' and crazy Bourne style editing of their time...
My point is that I (and most members on here) are perfectly aware that all the films are a product of their time. That's what we love about them. You should respect other members and not imply they're all idiots who can't appreciate some old fashioned film making.
Being a product of their time doesn't automatically make them great films however. I love all the 60s Bond with the exception of TB, which I consider just not very well done, regardless of what era it was made in.
I remember watching it as a kid after having seen FRWL (which I obviously loved) and thinking how naff, gimmicky and uncool the TB PTS is. I still can't stand it even today - one of the worst in the series.
Now that's just putting words into my mouth (or is it 'into my keyboard'...?).
But on the other counts I can see your point.
Thunderball is underated.
You are not as alone as you think. I totally agree and, honestly, I personally don't really understand the discord expressed here. Maybe if you look at the film exclusively through the eye of hindsight it looks less than it is, but a purer more empirical look will likely yield what the documentary aptly called "The Thunderball Phenomenon". People went APE for this movie in 65. Did the whole world share some sort of mass delusion? I think not.
For me the film embodies the core of what Bond movies are founded on: unapologetic escapism. The pacing, acting, action, story, whatever, is fine. If it weren't I wouldn't have been able to sit through it the last dozen or so times through.
... I believe a lot of people have forgotten how ground-breaking that stuff was in '65. An entire unit had been put together to come up with the tools, the designs (Adam for the most part) and photography techniques. No wonder that if you're going to spend so much money on underwater stuff, you're going to put a lot of that stuff in your film too. Perhaps a better edit could have been pulled from the existing material but I'm willing to bet it was a form of showing off. "Look what we can do that others can't!" And they were right to show off too.
The argument that hijacking the bombs and then covering up the plane takes too much time, is something I have gone with too for a long time. However, I think that if you go back to TB, you may notice it's not as long a scene as we're often made to think. Divers bring the net, they knock some hooks in the ocean floor and swim away. Then we get another shot of the Vulcan and that's it. It's all relatively quickly done with.
I personally love the mood. There's something about spending time in this unlikely place - I don't do ocean diving so to be surrounded by water and all, is both cosy and frightening. Barry's relaxing, exotic music adds to the underwater mystery. And to get such clear images was, indeed, a stellar technical achievement by all involved. But I admit that slow pace and such isn't necessarily a problem for me. 2001: A Space Odyssey is my favourite Kubrick film, Star Trek The Motion Picture is my favourite Star Trek movie with the 'old' crew. I guess I can take some beating in this department. Compared to the Enterprise flying towards V'ger in STTMP, TB's underwater scenes are incredibly exciting. ;-)
As others have pointed out, it's the nature of water that things are a bit slower. Fleming could bypass that fact in his writings but the movie has to show us things. Swimming, even with some kind of jet propulsion, isn't something you do with the speed of a sportscar. So in a way, rejecting the slower pace of things in TB is equal to rejecting the very fabric of nature. That is, if we're exclusively talking about the underwater scenes. There's stuff on the land and in the air that could have been edited a bit better IMO. When Lippe and his thugs bring Derval's corpse in the Spa and Bond witnesses the whole thing, it really feels like several seconds could have been cut here and there. And when Bond and Leiter fly over the water, randomly looking for the Vulcan, I'm not sure that was the most exciting element of the film either.
Yes, TB is a bit slower in parts, I agree. But I never think of that slowness as being a problem. The PTS isn't to my liking but everything else works quite well IMO. And despite Satan McClory's undeserved cameo and producer's credit in the film, TB is one of my favourite Bond films. Not top 5, certainly top 10.
The underwater stuff is undoubtedly stunningly filmed and looks fantastic. Visually those scenes are a feast. And Barry's score is brilliant. So many elements of the film are wonderful, but as a whole it really doesn't work for me. I just don't think Young was able to manage this 'bigger' type of Bond movie. It lacks the narrative drive and dramatic tension of his first two Bonds and the action, while beautifully choreographed and filmed, lacks any excitement.
I actually think it's much closer to Guy Hamilton's later entries in terms of direction. The film needed someone like Glen on board to manage the action more effectively.
However, I must admit that most Bond films, IMO, have the weakness of not giving us those good scares. Other than a few of the "countdown clocks" climaxes (e.g. GF, OP, AVTAK, GE), I'm usually not feeling it. One might even say that MR has one of the tenser climaxes for me, what with the globes about to enter our atmosphere and all.
I guess that's why I prefer films with a different level of threat. Take CR. The threat is vastly more sophisticated. LeChiffre has to lose and we know why. This isn't about the world about to be destroyed or anything, at least not by one bomb that's ready for launch. Films like FYEO, LTK and CR managed to build tension in a completely different way and I like it.
I certainly agree that TB fails in that respect. NSNA failed too in that respect.
Some say he's bored and detached, but I don't think so. Connery in the 3 Young films is menacing and credible to my eyes. I didn't feel quite the same with him in GF, where I sensed some goofiness in parts (in his mannerisms and behaviour as well as facial expressions).
So, there are many things to like in TB for me, but Connery is the #1 attraction.
GF remains a definitive Connery Performance for me. He's transitioning from the first two films into the more self parody type mode of his last few, but remains steely and convincing.
I accept that GF flags in Kentucky, although Adam's sets and the Oddjob face off maintain my interest. However, the opening half to two thirds of the film are so brilliantly done that this makes up for any failings at the end. So many Bond movies fail to quite make it over the finishing line, but there is too much that is first class about GF for me to buy into all this trendy revisionism about it not actually being all that.