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Comments
I much prefer LALD and FYEO to it. And even, dare I say, TMWTGG. Though would certainly take TSWLM over MR, OP or AVTAK. It's right in the middle of Rog's tenure for me.
The cartoon-like gags in Egypt just ruin the sequence, unfortunately.
It's Roger Moore's favourite Roger Moore Bond too ;)
As a piece of cinema TSWLM is great, but parts of it are a bit naff. I always find the rooftop fight unintentionally hilarious and yes I'm one of those Barbara Bach Bashers (ahem!). She always sounds spaced out when reading her lines.
I'd go for Thunderball in this regard.
True.
@suavejmf, I was going to post the same thing yesterday, but didn't want to endure the backlash of arguing against GF. You're a brave soul.
Ha ha. Thunderball is a better film than GF. Better script, locations, girls, plot, score, Villains, scope, action and Director......it also has sharks. It is physically impossible for Guy Hamilton to top Terence Young....because Young quite frankly 'get's Bond' more than any other Director ever....or ever will. TB is Connery's second best film after FRWL, but I wouldn't begrudge anyone who thought that TB was the very best Bond film.
Watched TB again the other night. it didn't seem as slow as i remember it. But it is beautiful to look at, and has some of the best dialogue! I dont rate the final battle in TSWLM, tedious imho, but TB finale is terrific and visually superb! Still has one of Connerys best delivered one-liners, Domino, "What sharp little eyes you have!"....Bond, "Wait til you get to my teeth!"
@suavejmf, you shall get no argument from me on any of that. TB already wins against GF by default because Bond actually does things in the movie. I'm doing an edit of my long form review on it right now to post on my blog, and reading back what I've written I fall in love with it all over again. It's a very special film that does what few others have ever been able to since. To comprehend the logistical hurdles of the production alone is just mind-boggling, and that's without adding in all the extras, the Bondmania hoopla, the down to the wire production and all the other craziness that had to be balanced. Young and his team showed their genius at being able to bring it all in successfully and it's quite frankly a miracle it's as great as it is considering the mountain of issues that stood in its way.
It's also the water Bond film, and no other movie can say that.
I agree, I've never really thought of TB as "slow". I'd say it's more leisurely.
I agree that some of the characters should have either been developed more or dropped entirely but generally I always find it an entertaining watch.
+1.
Fair enough. But I prefer Thunderballs plot which is closer to Flemings Vision. I also feel that Largo is a superior more menacing villain to Goldfinger.....as well as Celli being a better actor than Frobe. Largo is among the best villains in the series. Domino and Volpe are certainly up there in the sex appeal stakes too!
Yes, the secondary character such as Vargas or Kutze, for example, should have been beefed up, but alas they went down the route of more spectacle and less character development.
I agree with this post. Oh Wait....;)
That pretty much sums up my feelings. I think I also prefer TB's score, although GF's is pretty darn good as well.
Agreed. I have a hard time even caring about what is going on when I watch TB, and the ending is anticlimactic and weak IMHO. Largo always felt non-threatening, like a cartoon villain. The PTS is good though.
It's got some nice images and a few nice shots, but overall it just doesn't hold up. It revels in writing Bond like an idiot, easily representing the worst he has ever performed/acted in the series, and everything after the Swiss factory makes zero sense, resulting in what I find to be one of the weakest scripts in the series. Goldfinger runs his mouth to gangsters for no reason at all, only because the writers were desperate to clue audiences into what was going on and needed to toss in a random dialogue scene. Solo dies in an awkward scene with Oddjob when he could've just been killed with the others in the planning room, but why not waste time going on a boring tangent. Bond's only plan is to sleep with Pussy in one of the most uncomfortable scenes in the franchise, but never actually knows if he's even successful with "turning her." But when he goes to the Fort Knox raid and sees people fall limp after he thinks the gas is dispersed, he has a blank reaction despite the fact that he thinks all the people are now dead. It's impossible to tell if Pussy's pilots know they aren't killing people, and it makes zero sense that many civilians in the town are faking dead too, since only the military at the base would be aware of the plan Goldfinger had. The whole film commences with the exciting images of...Bond going down in an elevator and then him being tossed around by Oddjob in what is one of the lamest fights in the entire series that only makes the henchman seem all the more overrated.
This isn't even to consider that Goldfinger's plan would not work even close to how he described or planned it, and when the scheme is nothing but the worst of junk science you wonder what the point is.
It's a good thing people liberally give it credit for starting so many Bond traditions, because without them I honestly don't think we'd be talking about it much. It's the least artful, structured, written, directed, shot and choreographed movie of the early 4, to an embarrassing degree. The powers of nostalgia.
Is someone actually going to argue that Jill, Tilly, Oddjob, Solo and basically anyone that isn't Pussy or Goldfinger were well developed characters in GF? Because it would entertain me immensely. One dies in two minutes, another is given slightly double the time with the same lack of dialogue, the third is a mute and the last is...just there.
I was far more intrigued by Vargas' lack of sin and why that may be then I was with any questions that could've been posed by GF's cast of characters. Kutze also represents an interesting bit of symbolism in TB, showing that SPECTRE are able to break good men and force them into working against their ideals for better pay. Kutze also gets more moments on screen for his character to have an actual personality and sympathy about him as Largo's corrupted (then redeemed) partner than Mr. Ling gets working by Goldfinger in the previous film, with barely two scenes to his name and given nothing to do before being shot in a random moment.
They have far more interactions than that, and in those scenes a lot of great animosity is built between the quiet jabs Bond and Largo give each other than there is in GF. In GF Bond calls Goldfinger badly bred and teases him about overhearing his plan, but that's kind of it. In TB Bond forces his way into Largo's card game, calls out that he's a SPECTRE agent to his face, beats him in cards while continuing to mock him, steals his woman, goes to his house to flirt with his mistress, beats his ass at clay pigeon shooting while emasculating him with more barbs, breaks into his house soon after while causing his own men to kill each other in a staged skirmish, sleeps with his mistress (underwater!), wipes out all his support staff and fellow conspirators during a parade, then goes on to unravel Largo's transportation of the nukes without breaking a sweat. The only thing Bond doesn't do to Largo is kill him, but by that point he'd robbed the man of so much masculinity and pride that he might as well have in figurative terms.
In GF Bond is too busy getting knocked out or sleeping in his cell to do even a third of what he does in TB.
I think it's easily one of the most unique in the series, with literally nothing even close to it made sense. It's got variation in color and is the first use of silhouette in the series, the titles that started it all. It also ties in nicely to the theme of the film with the element of water, with Jones' song being a better anthem for the character of James Bond than anything we've heard since.
It's one of Binder's most original pieces too, which is a big deal considering he just kept repeating himself after that point until TLD and LTK had titles where he had a bunch of random women you could barely see in all the darkness shooting pistols in random close-ups into pools of water (?!). Now that is ridiculous and lazy.
I mean the sequence with the jet pack.
Oy, I read "pre" as "opening" somehow. I see titles and just picture credits. Sorry for the confusion.
No problem, my fault. Should have been clearer. ;)