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YOLT: All style and no substance?

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  • MartinAstonMartinAston
    edited January 2015 Posts: 238
    In comparison this was particularly silly. I mean think about it, to hollow out a volcano and move thousands of tons of rubble would take a huge effort. Never mind the practicalities, after all there are no roads leading to the volcano. And then Blofeld has to get all that steel in to make the fake lake. So its pretty far out compared to the movies that went before it.

    And yes, the plot is foiled in the end but Tiger must go down as the most useless spy ever, he is the David Niven of spies. Wouldn't have come across as bad if he wasn't so damn smug.

    In answer to the OP, the film had me fooled as a kid but as I have grown older and much wiser it has kind of lost its appeal.
  • OHMSS69OHMSS69
    Posts: 2,341
    I agree with most of your observations. Why even have Kissy in the film? Aki qualifies more than adequately as the main heroine. She is pretty, almost Bond's equal and a more than competent agent to boot.

    Blofeld's introduction was just so lame. I liked the idea of Blofeld just being a puppet master and pulling strings behind the scenes with Osato as the principal villain. He and Bond never actually meet and this would not result in the plot flaw in OHMSS when the two meet for the first time. Donald Pleasance was not a very good choice. Blofeld should always be a towering and larger than life character. Telly Savalas' portrayal will always be my favorite. some of my favorite scenes in the series was seeing Blofeld in OHMSS actually getting his hands dirty and then fighting Bond on that bobsleigh.

    That being said, along with Felix Leiter the film versions have rarely done justice to Ernst.
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    Posts: 23,883
    OHMSS69 wrote: »
    That being said, along with Felix Leiter the film versions have rarely done justice to Ernst.

    Very true. We are still waiting for the definitive portrayal of ESB. Hopefully we get it either in SP or in B25.
  • HASEROTHASEROT has returned like the tedious inevitability of an unloved season---
    edited January 2015 Posts: 4,399
    doubleohdad wrote: »
    HASEROT wrote: »
    doubleohdad wrote: »
    I think EON should have been more supportive/patient with Laz instead of gooing for the gags and parody.

    can't get more patient than a reported 9 picture deal that Lazenby was offered - which he turned down on the advice of his agent..

    Yes, quite the idiot. By accepting it, he would have maintained the awesome tone of OHMSS throughout the 70's.

    the only thing about this though - is how much the general public didn't take to Lazenby and OHMSS.. had he stayed on, would the public had just grown to accept Laz, or would the series had slowly died off?... Moore was much better received in LALD after Connery "officially" hung it up after DAF.... I'm inclined to think that as much as we all love OHMSS now, that Laz's 1 off might very well had been a blessing in disguise, as the series might have died a slow terrible death in the 70s.....

    interesting to think about what would have been.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    edited January 2015 Posts: 17,791
    HASEROT wrote: »
    interesting to think about what would have been.
    *Alternate Earth NYT Movie review from 1975*
    The Man With The Golden Gun
    George Lazenby is back. Again. Oh my.
    Yes, his debut in On Her Majesty's Secret Service was rather fresh, but as we learned in Diamonds Are Forever when he killed Blofeld, this Bond only has that one 'look'. Is it angry? Is it morose? One thing it seems to be is very useful. In Live And Let Die he used it when he blew Kananga up. When dispatches the villain in his latest movie, there it is again. Please George, for God's sake take some acting lessons will ya? You made your co-star Christopher Lee visibly smirk in spots that couldn't be edited.
    Too bad he did more than one, he might have been looked back on more fondly as a good Bond. Connery, oh how we miss you.
    119 minutes. At area theatres.

  • CraterGunsCraterGuns
    Posts: 618
    The night-time launches of those SPECTRE rockets could be seen by anyone on land or sea -- with their naked eyes -- within a 100-mile radius. (And the Ama islanders live fairly close by, don't they?)

    YOLT is utterly ludicrous.
  • Problem_EliminatorProblem_Eliminator Ojai, CA
    Posts: 613
    its always been a little bit disappointing to me, not on same level of first 4 connery films
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy My Secret Lair
    Posts: 13,384
    To be honest, you sort of wonder after the first four fantastic films,
    What they were thinking coming up with YOLT. ;)
  • NapoleonPluralNapoleonPlural
    Posts: 512
    True, but then at the time they may have wondered just how much longer the Bond bubble would last, and with that, why not put the money up on the screen, especially to differentiate from all the other spy spoofs out there.

    I agree with the premise; Bond films sort of have a mental age. Dr No seems to me aimed at folk in their early 30s, the adult metropolitan crowd, the cocktail part set. GF is so popular, and with the jokey car, that that appeals to everyone, including teenagers, but the sex thing is still potent, quite erotic still.

    With YOLT you have a film aimed at the pre-pubescent, with the gadgets and Thunderbirds stuff, and less at the adult. It even seems less erotic to me and the jokes just aren't as smart.
  • talos7talos7 New Orleans
    Posts: 8,206
    For me YOLT is like a great party that's winding down; it's still pleasant but the great vibe of earlier in the night is gone.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 15,115
    I find it borderline criminal the did not make a more faithful adaptation of the novel. I know it was out of sync with the events of the novels, but still.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,791
    Okay, let me be the harsh critic here.
    After the near perfection of FRWL, they made GF which while fun, changed the direction of the films drastically. It was a success in that it widened the appeal, but it left some basics in the dust too. The next film went bigger and even sillier at times, and when this one came about, it was either pull back or get bigger still. They chose the latter. And it was a success on many levels, but so far from its beginnings. They pulled back in the next film, and got taught a lesson. Big and/or outrageous sells.
    Sadly.
    But anyway, give me a big crazy Bond like this or TND, or give me a smaller more Fleming Bond like FRWL or TLD... it works for me either way.
  • mcdonbbmcdonbb deep in the Heart of Texas
    Posts: 4,116
    Yeah me too... both have added to Bond's longevity and appeal. If it wasn't for YOLT wouldn't gotten OHMSS and if not DAD would not have gotten CR. YOLT despite flows has survived and become iconic... it did mark a downfall and the decline if the first golden age of Bond ..but nobody does it better :D
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited January 2015 Posts: 18,270
    It all comes down to the changing perception of popular culture (and everything else) as we inevitably age. That said, to me YOLT is still a visually very impressive film even to this day. It's lack of fidelity to the original Fleming novel however does make it rank very low indeed in my personal ranking of the Bond films though.
  • ChangChang
    Posts: 107
    You can't beat those contrasted shoes Bond was wearing in the office scene.

    I like YOLT, it's aged the best for me out of the Connery movies.
  • doubleohdaddoubleohdad
    Posts: 1,146
    This is still an impressive picture for me, and the volcano set was just audacious for its day.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,791
    Chang wrote: »
    You can't beat those contrasted shoes Bond was wearing in the office scene.
    I like YOLT, it's aged the best for me out of the Connery movies.
    I agree, however, people in Japan might feel differently.
    ;)
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy My Secret Lair
    Posts: 13,384
    I'd love to see Bond back in Japan, the country has changed so
    Much since the 60s.
  • ColonelShatner008ColonelShatner008
    Posts: 18
    Aki, the de facto main love interest or/and secondary protagonist, getting killed off dramatically was not bad in of itself and is a very tense, heartfelt moment (see Judi Dench's M, Vesper, Tracy, etc) but it wasn't capitalised on properly and a underwritten Hama couldn't fill the void.

    YOLT feels a bit disjointed and uneven, but it had the right mix of silliness and seriousness like Goldfinger and Thunderball (which it tried to outdoor in the gadgets, action, and sets, which it did pretty well, with a relatively disinterested Connery letting the team down).
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,791
    Birdleson wrote: »

    No, ALIENS really sucked.
    You mean the Cameron movie?
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    edited January 2015 Posts: 15,716
    chrisisall wrote: »
    Birdleson wrote: »

    No, ALIENS really sucked.
    You mean the Cameron movie?

    You mean the movie director Cameron? :)
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    YOLT is decent but too padded out. The story is a simplistic mess of US vs the USSR and Bond solving a plot not too different in Thunderball. It's obvious they weren't sure what to do and it shows. Once Bond meets Tiger the movie comes to a halt. The whole Ninja school/ Bond becoming a Japanese fisherman should have been cut out. Bond meeting Blofeld should have happened a good 45 minutes earlier.
  • ThomasCrown76ThomasCrown76 Augusta, ks
    Posts: 757
    It needed a better writer
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,791
    Murdock wrote: »
    YOLT is decent but too padded out.
    Yeah, much like TB I would have trimmed it quite a bit. But being ancient as I am, I can easily handle the slow parts. Long, long ago I learned the tricks of timing the fridge searches & bathroom stops.

  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    chrisisall wrote: »
    Murdock wrote: »
    YOLT is decent but too padded out.
    Yeah, much like TB I would have trimmed it quite a bit. But being ancient as I am, I can easily handle the slow parts. Long, long ago I learned the tricks of timing the fridge searches & bathroom stops.

    Unfortunately I found myself drifting off to sleep in my last viewing. :))
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,791
    Murdock wrote: »
    Unfortunately I found myself drifting off to sleep in my last viewing. :))
    Start the movie BEFORE the Martinis, not AFTER.
    ;)
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    chrisisall wrote: »
    Murdock wrote: »
    Unfortunately I found myself drifting off to sleep in my last viewing. :))
    Start the movie BEFORE the Martinis, not AFTER.
    ;)

    Sorry. I got it the wrong way. But so did Henderson. ;)
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,791
    Murdock wrote: »
    Sorry. I got it the wrong way. But so did Henderson. ;)

    Glad you got it right. :D
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    chrisisall wrote: »
    Murdock wrote: »
    Sorry. I got it the wrong way. But so did Henderson. ;)

    Glad you got it right. :D

    My drinks aren't hard to get wrong. :P
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,791
    Murdock wrote: »
    My drinks aren't hard to get wrong. :P
    I was referring to the leg. :))
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