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Comments
I agree. Never bothered me much.
No. Star Wars changed the entire business model of the film industry. SW showed how much business could be gotten from repeat male teenager viewers--and blockbusters became squarely aimed at that demographic for generations. It continues through Marvel today.
As for FYEO, I really like the PTS, but as someone once suggested, it would have been worked better as a dream sequence, with Moore standing in the graveyard at the end. Imagine Moore delivering the line: "We had all the time in the world." Smash cut to titles.
(Still, I'm not sure that a dream would have been definitive enough for Cubby to stick it to McClory circa 1980.)
I don't share in the hate for Sheena Easton and the theme song. It worked then for me, and it still works now. It's not in the top tier of Bond songs, but sits solidly in the second.
Recast Melina. She's too young for Moore. And she's kind of stiff.
Get rid of the hockey scene, and trim down several other scenes (the car chase at dawn).
Bibi is fine for what her role requires, but tone down some of the "Carry On"-level lines and dial back the performance. Her best moments are in the mountaintop scenes when she's confronting real danger. And her last moment with Colombo is a sweet one.
I would not for the world recast Roger since this is one, if not his best, performance as Bond.
Agreed. But if I had to change one thing, it would be the underwater sequence which goes on a bit too long. Other then that this film is pretty much perfect and probably the Bond film I've seen the most.
SW was a bigger blockbuster than any of those, and the game changer.
The people who understood The Magnificent Seven reference are not the same audience (kids) who laughed at Jaws dropping the rock on his foot in TSWLM and all of his increased shenanigans in MR.
Lots have pointed out that it was an attempted 'course-correction' after the indulgence of MR. Fair enough - we open with Bond at the grave of his dead wife. But within the very same PTS, we've got Blofeld in a cervical collar offering to buy Bond a delicatessen. This is far, far too jarring: it's not like it's a little black humour, it's broad, stupid, needless humour that's built on the back of Tracy's death.
Similarly, the hockey game does nothing for the dramatic stakes, but more than that, it simply doesn't make sense. Were these men sent to kill Bond? In hockey equipment? Why? It's played for laughs, but why? It all sits too awkwardly.
The women are equally jarring: Melina, the tortured and vengeful daughter, the Countess who's fallen from grace, and . . . Bibi Dahl. Why is she in this film? How does she suit the tone or advance the plot?
At close, a tormented Melina finally finds peace, and at the same time Bond threads the 'detente' needle with the Soviets. A solid ending. But then a parrot is on the phone with Thatcher? Why? How does that help advance things?
Is this supposed to be 'grounded, brutal' Bond? Is it supposed to be a 'slap and tickle' romp?
Above all, the biggest fix is for EON to decide what they want the film to be, and work from there.
No point in his being a contact for Bond. He's introduces 007 to Kristatos and tell him what a reliable, wonderful guy he is, which goes really far in throwing us off that he's the real villain. Bond could've made contact by other means.
They needed a sacrificial lamb, but Countess Lisl fits that role far better, why invent another? Wilson and Maibaum could've come up with another way of dropping the dove pin someplace to put Bond onto him.
It's funny people complain often about Conti's score being too disco, when it also had a huge influence on Marvin Hamlisch's TSWLM score. He even admitted to listening to a lot of Bee Gees at the time. I don't hear anybody taking this score or him to task as a negative for that film.
I just don't have a problem with Hamlisch's disco composition and find it quite 'funky', even now. It sounds like Saturday Night Fever in a way, and I love that track. The Conti compositions during the Citreon and ski sequences don't do it for me though. They don't have that same 'cool' & 'suspenseful' factor to my ears.
I do like Conti's score during other parts of the film though. Particularly when Bond arrives at Cortina and goes up to his hotel (first class imho) and of course during the underwater St. George's sequence (the Bond theme track entitled Submarine). Also the piano bit when Loque and 'Charles Dance' are following him up on the ski lift to the jump.
I agree entirely. Barry's past two scores were a little disappointing, and he didn't get his mojo back until AVTAK. Conti brought splashy liveliness back to Bond's musical world. Like Barry he wrote big, memorable, dramatic pulsing themes with eclectic instrumentation. Whereas Hamlisch couldn't fully combine disco with the big Bond sound, Conti pulled that off with a funkier edge, as shown below.
"A Drive in the Country" is propulsive 80s synth-funk with a Spanish tinge (appropriate for the setting) that sinuously works in the Bond theme, and has that characteristically Contian mix of the romantic and the contemporary:
"Runaway" amps up the big Bondian horns Barry had by then dropped for strings, and has a globetrotting, strutting, rich sound that screams "Bond!". I'm not surprised it was re-used in Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. My college marching band used to play it too, with satisfyingly punchy results.
Edit them out and the film is all the better for it.
I disagree 're the titles. I think Binder did well here and Eastons appearance was unique and well done, I like the theme too.
FYEO is entertaining enough, though OP is better imho.
More like Inspector Clouseau.
I wish there was a shot in the movie like that in fact. The poster sells the film.
I do find the music annoying and dated (not in a good way) at times. Mainly, I dislike a lot of disco (just my personal taste; though I do like a few songs) and during action sequences, especially I find it jarring. The title song is not bad. I find quite a lot of the music in FYEO annoying to me; really don't enjoy it.
As for TSWLM, the score does have some music I don't care for. Loved that title song even more, though.
Ferrara was fine and I did not find him too bumbling, no. His character gave Bond another warm comrade to lose and want to avenge. I like the side characters, supporting actors in this film.
No one. Just drop the figure skating part all together.
Not a bad idea at all. Like most Bond films, FYEO could stand to lose at least 10 minutes.