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Which Bond Films Are the Most Unique?
I'm setting up this thread to pose this question to the MI6 Community: which Bond films stand out to you as the most unique in the series, meaning entries that seem not to have much in common with the rest of the films? Specific examples explaining why would be great!
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TB cause of the heavy underwater action. Somehow the film makers make this work with action and some eerie feelings. Bond is rather tender with Domino and has some nice chemistry compared to some of his other leading ladies. I recall his hand shaking when he hands Domino her brother's watch and dog tags. Subtle but you see some emotion.
MR cause we send Bond to space! While looking on it now it was a weird and rather silly movie. It is unique for being so OTT. Thankfully it has a grounded villain who conveys menace and some degree of seriousness. I could have done without Jaws returning.
QOS here we have a depressed Bond focussed very much on revenge and silencing his demons. His portrayal is very un-Bondian. He drinks to excess and seems to fine with self destruction. He doesn't romance the leading lady and there is very little romance in this film.
Those are three that stand out. If I am forced to choose one, then I pick QOS as the most unique of the series!
MR
LTK
SF
However, I recently read a column from a writer in our daily newspaper who is normally very strict on German-language rules (and where there's logic involved, the same applies to English). He said that the connotation of comparatives had changed to the extent that if you use them in comparisons, a "fuller" glass means a glass that is closer to being full than an "emptier" one, and that that is becoming accepted since everyone knows what is meant. Likewise, one must read "more unique" as being closer to uniqueness than something else, and "more optimal" to be closer to the ideal. Let's just leave it at that.
That's also basically what the comment on Quora says.
MR feels 100% 70's Bond and doesn't divert from expectations til the last 20 minutes or so.
CR
Live And Let Die. White guy is the shy guy and we have black villian. No Q, till CR comes. Till Jeffrey Wright it introduce actor who played Felix two times.
Diamonds Are Forever: James Bond in Amsterdam!
Quantum of Solace. Shortest Bond movie and the cinema aloud us to see it include end credits.
Daniel Craig era is uniek in that maintitle and lyrics tell something about what will happen in the future with reminders of the past. The mirrors. No Time To Die if Daniel Craig last one will give us maintitle with open future and mabey will again more on movie it self.
It's for that reason that I mentioned them.
The villains, Moore and the score are a strength. The score is nothing like ‘a Barry’ but is still one the coolest, best and unique of the series.
Strange to think Live And Let Die was only the second film not to feature SPECTRE, and Kananga the first non-Blofeld antagonist since Emilio Largo. The film needed a strong threat and the quietly menacing Kananga provides. He is a more complex villain than most, his obsession with Solitaire and use of the occult adding interesting layers to the character.
But Baron Samedi steals the show. Tall, flamboyant and with a laugh to trouble a seismometer, Samedi is the most enigmatic character to appear in a Bond film. Presumably ‘Samedi’ is merely a stooge hired by Kananga to impersonate the mythical Loa, but such is the presence and charisma of the late Geoffrey Holder that he could easily be the real thing. His final reappearance on the front of the train is a wonderful stylistic touch – and brilliantly atypical for a Bond film. Samedi is the bridge between the relative ‘realism’ of Kananga and the shifting, spiritual elements of voodoo and tarot running through the film.
The most significant Bond ingredient missing from “Live and Let Die” is Q, whose gadgets still play a central role (007 uses his electromagnetic watch to unzip a girl’s dress and a pressurized air bullet to defeat Kananga). The film also offers a few key additions, including an illuminating glimpse of Bond’s home — a swanky bachelor pad with loud, ’70s-style decor.
LALD is Moore’s best Bond film.
MR - The space element and the over the top humour reaching a peak.
LTK - Bond going rogue and a much more gritty, realistic tone.
QOS - The first film to directly follow on from the previous film, the shortest running time for a Bond movie.
LALD: the supernatural element.
LTK: Bond goes rogue for the first time. Brutal scenes too at times.
QOS: Bond at its most arty.
TWINE-the misogynist film with a female villain.
Hahahahaha well done.
If fairness - I don't think most people have issues with the main antagonist being black. It was bound to happen given 24 films. People complain about the fact that the black antagonists are selling drugs, participating in tribal, superstitious rituals, and imprisoning a white woman.
Yes - LALD also made Kananga and his gang much smarter than the white people in the movie and the biggest idiot in the film was a white guy. LALD even included yet another version of perpetual-derptitude white Leiter. Ironically, it took a black actor to make Leiter competent. Critics of the film's racial undertones often leave this information out.
In a fair analysis of the movie, these points are all on-the-table points.
The boat chase in particular shows various individuals thinking ahead and strategising, and their colour is completely irrelevant, with both whites and blacks shown as skilled speedboat drivers, skilled thinkers, skilled at taking opportunities and thinking fast on their feet.
Having said that, I did read once that Yaphet Kotto was not invited to attend the premier of the film that he had been the villain in, which is awful if true.
OHMSS - For Lazenby alone, but there are other reasons as well as has been mentioned.
LALD - The supernatural element.
MR - Space / the sheer levity of it.
QOS - Almost anti-Bond in its execution.
Hell yeah. Felix Leiter has to be at least pretty competent and resourceful to be both an ally and friend of James Bond. Jeffrey Wright is the exemplar of this (although, I might argue, so is Hedison's Felix in LTK).
Thank you for agreeing re: the nuance. But I DID agree that in retrospect, at least, there are some troubling elements as well.
Van Nutter was the worst. Bond yelling at him to lower the copter. Getting punched in the gut being kept from saying "007". :)
Every time I hear "They got a lot closer to you in Jamaica" I about howl in laughter as he stands there poolside in his '50s suit and Ted Knight Caddyshack hat. He's part of the reason I don't hold GF in higher standing.
I agree, by far my least favourite Felix.
OHMSS has aesthetics and ideas that make it quite unique. It's Peter Hunt's declaration of intentions, possibly the most personal film of the saga. Sometimes it looks even experimental.
DAF is the definite parody of the saga. A funny and outrageous romp made to make Connery happy. I love is as much as its predecessor and always watch them back to back, as I feel they complement each other nicely, especially if we we are willing consider that Bond is on a revenge spree on the pre-credits sequence (then again, this is a purely personal choice or, as the young 'uns say, headcanon).
LALD marks the first of the four Bond films that follow the current cinema trends (and I even think we can add Octopussy to the equation. Is it supposed to be a response to the Indiana Jones saga?), and as such we have that gritty look no other Bond film has, based on blaxplotation, then we have TMWGG based on martial arts films, MR on Star Wars and LTK on those wonderful 80s action flicks, looking overall like a glorified Cannon/Golan-Globus film (and maybe that's why LTK my fav film of all time).
James’ brother from Langley.
(I really like Jack Lord too)
I agree that Terry and Lindor were really bad too.