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Understandable. A few years back I attempted to watch an episode, and it was so much worse than I'd remembered. Steph still looked amazing, though...
And on a slightly different, but also very similar note: around 1963, I remember seeing Patrick McGoohan (whom we all remember as "The Prisoner") starring on, of all things, the Walt Disney TV show as "The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh." This was a very startling entry for a multi-part Disney epic, with McGoohan playing a Robin Hood/Zorro/Batman type with a secret identity: Set around the time of the American revolution but in the marshes of the English coast, McGoohan plays the Reverend Dr. Syn, vicar of Dimchurch by day -- but by night he becomes a disguised, nearly supernatural figure: smuggler, tax protestor and fighter for the rights and freedoms of the peasants -- the Scarecrow! This was filmed at Pinewood Studios and also features Geoffrey Keen (whom we remember as Sir Fredrick Gray) in the role of General Pugh. I'd think that many Bond fans (especially those of us alive and consuming popular entertainment in 1963) would find this show entertaining -- so here's a link
I didn't know there was a blu ray. I hope you enjoy it when you do get around to watching it!
My research showed there was a disney limited release blu ray of the complete episodes (the one I bought), and a blu ray of an edited down European movie release which is thought to be more streamlined & worth getting (which I couldn't afford anyway). And speaking of McGoohan, I still need Ice Station Zebra...
Somebody referenced his 'inner 11 y/o', followed by references to the spy crace of the sixties. That's gotten me wondering, does for you, vintage fans, Bond still refer to this period? in other words: when you go see a Bond-film, does this bring back expectations you had from the early films? To my mind this might give a whole different set of expectations to the films. Personally I think the fact that GE was my first cinematic experience does make a difference. Brosnan was a 'best-off' Bond, but he fit the times as the nineties were all in all a 'best off' time. The cold war was over, and Brosnans' Bond showed us there was still place for Bond in a world that, to the general consensus, had found eternal peace and wealth. 'The end of history'. Obviously this was all nonsense, but it was the main message in the public debates. The fact that I was introduced to the 'light' Bond as my first, gave all the films afterward a different glow, and the ones before were just 'history' (however good they are, TB is and probably will always remain my favorite film).
Or it might be that there was no film in the cinema's when I was eleven, of course.
And to answer another question stated: yes, I think the sixties was a cumination of creative talent and experiments we haven't seen since, because after that conservatives stepped in, starting to recycle as much of the succesfull stuff as possible to keep on making money. There's been plenty of talent since, but never as concentrated in time as it was in the sixties.
Thanks for your input, @CommanderRoss. Did anybody actually use the phrase, "the end of history" at that time? I've never heard it before...and boy, whoever did use it couldn't have been more wrong!
I suppose I'll always think of Bond as a Cold War figure, even though the folks at Eon have taken great pains to de-politicize him. Of course, they've also been quite vigilant at keeping 007 up with the times as well. Sometimes successfully, other times less so. The "energy crisis" references in TMWTGG date that film terribly -- especially when one considers that Bond recovering the solex agitator ought to have made solar power cheap and plentiful, and rendered the entire petroleum industry obsolete! No such situation in our world, I'm sad to say...
Interesting that you reference TB as your own favorite Bond film -- one of the things that made that particular plotline a powerful to me at that time was that the threat of nuclear annihilation was a very real possibility to those of us growing up in the '60s! I can remember air raid drills occurring at my elementary school in a regular basis at that time... everybody being trained to duck & cover at a moment's notice... and yours truly thinking that the shelter of cowering under my school desk was going to be absolutely no protection against atomic radiation if the worst should indeed occur!
But I suppose I've always been in favor of Bond films reflecting their particular point in time, regardless of how the twists & turns of history might warp our perceptions of those stories. When Timothy Dalton's Bond found himself allied with the mujahideen in TLD, I couldn't help but think that there might well come a time when the idea of Bond fighting on the side of the jihad could be a touchy issue... while DAD (produced before 9/11 but hitting the screen shortly afterwards) really seemed to be out of touch with the mood of its' time through no fault of anyone actually connected to that film. I guess it's all a question of how our "inner 11 year old" debates these issues with our "inner 16 year old" -- who is usually a VERY, VERY serious student of these issues!
Well that's the thing, sometimes I feel I was 'too grown up' when I started watching Bond films. The funny thing is, I saw them once a year or so on tv anyway, and even though I loved watching them, they never came to life like they do in the cinema.
Funnily enough, we never did the 'duck and cover' drills in school in the eighties, here at least. My wife, who's from a former Soviet state, told me they did all the drills still up until the fall of the wall, and kept the gasmask drills even after that.
Fleming was way ahead of his time with the rogue terrorist group getting their hands on an nuclear device and using it for their own goals. I think that plot still holds water even today. Or maybe even moreso again today.
I also like the 'current' connection in Bond-films. Sadly though, at the same time, it makes you miss a lot when it comes to the details. Take the painting in Dr. No i.e., it's only fans that still know it was stolen, and I guess the line 'if you can't trust a Swiss banker, what's the world gone up to' is lost on younger generations completely ( I still chuckle at that one every time I see the film).
The painting in Dr. No was a total "huh?" moment for me when I first saw it in 1966. Somehow I'd hope that a reference to Swiss bankers should always be understood...unless something has happened that I missed in the last decade or so...
I don't know if Moore was roundly criticized for that scene--Raymond Benson's James Bond Bedside Companion from 1984 praises it (after saying he doesn't approve of slapping women), and I've heard other people do so. I think some fans were glad to see Roger act "tough," but to me it just made Bond look a cold jerk, which is a problem throughout TMWTGG.
Trying to make Roger look "tough" was very much an issue for Eon in the first few films... Roger's Bond was smoking cigars rather than cigarettes in LALD and TMWTGG in what I perceived as a failed attempt to toughen him up. They should have just let Roger be Roger from point A. And yes, his poor treatment of Goodnight didn't sit well with me either -- but Goodnight is pretty much a dolt at a couple of different points in the film as well, so maybe Bond was already aware of her tendencies in that department from previous experience...
He's probably still annoyed about the teaspoon in LALD
That's the rumor I heard around the office.
That is so fascinating. I respect your opinion though I consider TMWTGG as possibly one of the worst Bond films ever made, starting with the slide whistle and then going down hill from there.
From the other thread:
The Man With The Golden Gun is the best Moore Bond because:
Christopher Lee
John Barry
The quirky stuff
Rog looked GREAT
Goodnight rocked that bikini
Killer song (intro/outro)
Plus the other films had some egregious mis-steps...
In LALD Mr. Big pops like the balloon that doubled for him. What a cheesy let down...
TSWLM had the character of JAWS in it. So badly comic-book-y....
MR had, well, more nonsense messing it up than just JAWS....
FYEO would actually be my favourite except for the stupid fake underwater bubbles in close ups, & the terrible disco score. *Can we remaster & fix this one, please??? It was almost perfect!!!*
OP was a great & entertaining Bond except for the endless jokey BS & the somewhat cheap-looking In Like Flint style commando raid at the end. I could overlook the Tarzan yell...
AVTAK is just where Rog looked a bit done with it all.
Re: the TMWTGG stuff-
Slide whistle. A sound effect. It can easily be muted.
Getting rough with Andrea/lack of tears over her death. An unfortunate hold over from the Connery era. Not a nonsensical narrative deal breaker for me, though. Bond isn't supposed to be a swell guy....
The Kung Fu craze was briefly exploited here. Yeah, and so what?
The fact that the Solex Agitator didn't change the world as we know it. So sue me.
That's MY controversial opinion.
Yeah, it is my favourite Moore film as well, with OP behind it.
1) Why is the popping of Mr. Big more of a let-down than the slide whistle? Because the former is an important plot point and the latter is just a sound effect that can easily be ignored.
2) "The Kung Fu craze was briefly exploited here. Yeah, and so what?" So you seem to have forgotten the Kung Fu schoolgirls having to rescue Bond, then driving away and leaving him behind so that he has to have a boat chase where he ends up pushing the young child who has "fixed" the fuel line on his boat into the river. God, this whole sequence is so embarrassing I wish I could forget it!
3) Yes, the underwater bubbles in FYEO are pretty bad...but the worst of the "disco score" is heard poolside at the baddies' lair. It's intended to show just how bad the baddies ARE (in terms of their musical tastes.)
4) I wasn't a huge fan of OP when it was first released, but it has grown on me over the years. I like the circus girls' commando raid on Kamal Khan's HQ -- especially Q getting to experience a bit of the feminine attention that Bond's been enjoying for all these years! To my mind, this is an under-appreciated moment in the relationship between Bond and Q... Q seems a bit more understanding of Bond's attitude re: fieldwork after this sequence!
The world was simply a better place then, than it is today.
Is that a note of sarcasm I hear in your typing? ;)
For me the final confrontation in the funhouse and death of Scarmanga is a letdown and the lack of minions on the island always feels like they were short on budget instead of really having a clever self running/sustaining facility. BeatleSansEarmuffs already covered many of the other problems that drive me nuts about TMWTGG. I too, wish I could forget Bond's treatment of the child who saved his life on the boat.