Title is fairly self explanatory. I was watching A VIEW TO A KILL recently and have always found the scene with Bond and Aubergine... odd, from start to finish. Right off the bat, the actor playing Aubergine seems to be playing him as a comically French stereotype. Bond isn’t noticing the commotion with May Day taking out the butterfly puppet master. Right before he dies, Aubergine refers to himself in a third person like he’s in some parody. Then of course May Day kills him with a poison coated fish hook butterfly to the face. All this is perplexing, but the strangest is what Bond says “there’s a fly in his soup”. Sure, Bond isn’t one to let an opportunity of spouting a one liner pass, but why over Aubergine’s expense? Usually that’s reserved for the bad guys, and it probably would have been funny with Bond killing a henchman at the table and cracking the line. Here it just seems like Bond’s being a dick.
My theory: Aubergine’s presence just makes people say and do weird things. Even M has a weird line like “what did you learn from Aubergine before his untimely demise?” which always struck me as an odd way of phrasing things, and rather something I’d hear on a satire. Then again, this is A VIEW TO A KILL, that indulges in weird touches like focusing on a street bum when Bond rescues Stacey.
I’m sure you all can share some one-liners you find off putting. Take for instance: every single one-liner Lazenby delivered in OHMSS. Every. Single. One.
Comments
Personally, I found the "waste of scotch" line in SF rather offensive and in poor taste.
Another reason why my philosophy on here is it’s Bonds last mission,he is not as ‘savvy’ as he used to be and couldn’t react.
The quip is just Roger’s Bond...his defence mechanism.
In that instance it's Lazenby's delivery I'm not crazy about. A ton of the one-liners do feel like they were written with Connery in mind though.
I like it not as a one-liner per se but as a way of Bond throwing off the guards as he's about to attack, and that his sudden attack was his real answer to Silva's question of how he felt about Severine's murder.
There was a notion that any line deliered with a cocked eyebrow and pithy phrasing automatically became an innuendo. But more often than not it was just nonsensical or, at best, adolescent. I remember watching many of those lines and thinking "what does that even mean?"
Also agree with Octofinger's comment above. I don't know if Brosnan was underserved by the scripts or it was him or both.
“I am Mr. Kil.”
“Now there’s a name to die for.”
I feel bad just for typing that!
I can’t think of a bad one liner from Sir Roger,with his natural delivery.
I love that line. Like the song goes "the coldest blood runs through my veins". Admittedly it might have been more in character for Connery or Dalton as CraigBond is a bit more sentimental.
The infamous "Christmas only comes once a year" line has to take the cake here. It's only funny as anti-humor (laughing at what a unfunny joke it is) and becomes even more lane when you realize the only reason they named a character Christmas was so they could do that line.
Whilst on the subject of Sir Roger "That ought to keep him in Curry" was a pretty ropey one. For different reasons to the above, mind you.
Was it racist?
Not in 1983 for sure,otherwise they wouldn't have used it.
It does strike me as something that might be a reference to an event that took place in the 1960s that audiences would have immediately understood, but 50 years later doesn’t really ring a bell for today’s audiences. I hope someone here can help with that.
DR. NO also had similar bit where Bond recognizes a famous painting at Dr. No’s living room, a painting that was at the time stolen and reported all over the press. Audiences in 1962 would have recognized it and understood the gag, whereas today it just comes off as a strange moment of Bond being fixated by a painting.
I believe it was just an (inverted) reference to this successful 1942 war film. The phrase had presumably entered into the lexicon by the time FRWL was released:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_of_Our_Aircraft_Is_Missing
If Bond had made a Sex and the City reference in QoS, we fans would have freaked out! It's fascinating how timelessness was an absolute non-issue in the early films.
Sorry, @barryt007! I always thought that was what out was from. It's either that, or One of our Dinosaurs is Missing... ;)
*shudder*
I HATE that one!
I think Pierce does a great job of delivering one liners, but even he sounds like he’s disgusted with himself when he delivers that line!
Moneypenny: "You always were a cunning linguist, James."
Jeez...
Now that one is pretty near the knuckle! I have to say that that one went totally over my head though when I saw the film in the cinema as a thirteen year old in January 1998! It was my first Bond film in the cinema. ;))
Makes sense! :D
I don't know the general perspective about this one inhere, but I always HATED the “This never happened to the other fella” line. I can understand why they did it at the time, but watching it now, I don't think breaking the fourth wall was a good idea.
Definitely a little below the belt!😉