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You could've also added Koskov as another rogue Russian general just 2 films before GE. The concept was well worn, but they had to explore the whole fall of the iron curtain theme and went back to the well yet again. You can also look at Onatopp as a blatant copy of NSNA's Fatima Blush. Though it was fresh at the time, you can look at Trevelyan the first of the traitor in the department villains that the MI series would run with and wear out over the next several years.
I also am not a big fan of GE and find it vastly overrated. But I can't accept TWINE as having anything over it as it's my least favorite film of the series. I noted in another thread recently about how the cinematography was cold and grey for the most part and generally unappealing. TWINE is a mess, wanting to be a deeper spy film and drama and isn't involving in either way and Bond just seems like a sap for not seeing through the whole charade and we don't even get decent action to distract us from all that.
It's why I actually prefer TND as my favorite Brosnan film as it is up front about being a tried-and-true stop WWIII storyline focusing on the action and we get some decent spying thrown in with a minimum of the this time its personal theme that would overwhelm the series. DAD does this to that degree as well, although I have a tougher time defending it, but I had a much better time than with TWINE.
"there's no point in living if you can't feel alive" ?
Bond went and confronted Elektra about this. I didn't feel like Bond was being played like a fool at all. At best he struggled to apprehend Elektra because of his feelings towards her, not necessarily because he's in the dark.
And Renard knew all about Bond’s “shhhouuuulder”…. 😣
In TWINE’s defense, I think EON wanted a bit more drama. Michael Apted was known for directing actors in great performances, so that’s why I think he got the job. I see TWINE as honoring the past, while showing us a bit of the future of Bond. That’s why it’s tone is a bit all over the place. I still like it simply because it was my first Bond movie, and the N64 game was even better than the movie. That’s my controversial opinions on TWINE.
Now for GE. I can write a story about Alec Trevelyan, simply because of his connection to Bond. I can’t do that with Silva, because he’s too M focused. Trevelyan is one of the few Bond villains that could lead a spinoff book, or get built up as a bad guy in a series of movies. It’s kind of hard to do that with other Bond villains (apart from Blofeld, and maybe Goldfinger and Scaramanga).
Apted is an interesting director. I'm not overly familiar with his other films, but having looked up a few interviews with him about his non-Bond work, he seems to me like a more commercial version of Ken Loach in a weird way. The only major difference I can see is he channelled his concerns of class/how it affects people through genre films and his early soap opera/documentary work.
That's not to say such a director couldn't make a great Bond film. Especially considering that the main villain is a rich, psychopathic oil heiress. I think the only thing that really separates Apted's work on Bond from the likes of Sam Mendes, or in the literary context Kingsely Amis (both of whom had similar concerns they channeled into their work) is that Apted by his own admission wasn't much of a Bond fan. I suspect it wasn't something he was interested in or understood that deeply. By comparison Mendes and Amis really understood Bond and were certainly fans.
It's a shame because he really was a very accomplished director. Just the wrong choice.
I like the idea of Bond spin-offs in the literary world, not the cinema world. Blofeld, Goldfinger and their second hand muscle deserve a full book to themselves.
Michael G Wilson needs to fully retire.
Blofeld needs to be reintroduced as much as Bond himself. It’ll be hard to keep an actor quiet from the internet now nowadays.
Ralph Fiennes should stay on as M. He can now play Sir Miles.
M’s death at the end of SF feels like a tribute to Judi Dench herself, over M.
Martin Campbell shouldn’t come back. He got lucky, because he directed the series when it was at a low point.
Adam West should have played Bond in Diamonds Are Forever. The movie is basically a giant Batman ‘66 episode, inside a Bond movie.
I can partially agree with that: it has a great premise. A diamond smuggling pipeline disappearing bit by bit and Bond has to track the dying pipeline and also save the girl that is his contact. Then also with Bond tracking the diamonds to the lab and investigating there.
I think the plot issues come later though, with the Plenty drama et cetera. Basically anything after the hour mark.
DAF and MR are in my top 10
The book? Interestingly yes, the film? I may disagree with you.
I wish the film adapted the book very closely, and no maybe another controversial opinion, but DAF Blofeld (Charles Grey) is a lot more worse than the Spangs, at least the Spangs were a bit menacing, Grey's Blofeld was played for joke.
DAF book is not even in my bottom tier of Bond books.
The difference is, Fleming made a deep research regarding Diamond smuggling (even had a book dedicated to it in 'The Diamond Smugglers'), so the book was a bit realistic in that regard, now, the film, came from the producers whom I doubt cared about Fleming's researches and deep knowledge of such issues due to them tweaking the plot and changing it, messing it more, the worse was, they may little did know about Diamond Smuggling, to which I strongly suspect, based on how the film turned out (plot wise), I think my suspicions are true, they may had little knowledge about Diamond Smuggling to which Fleming had great knowledge into.
The satellite stuff is a great idea and it's a good use of the Macguffin.
LALD has a paper thin plot if you compare it to this one.
The book has an advantage in being vastly stronger in characterization. Film Tiffany is a silly bimbo next to the literary version, book Felix is far more vivid, and even Shady Tree is more interesting on the page. And while the Spangs aren't Fleming's strongest villains, on film they would have probably worked better than Gray's effete Blofeld.