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Connery and Moore as Bond - Octopussy vs. Never say never again.
They competed against each other in 1983. I was wondering which movie and actor performance do you like better.
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As for scores: without doubt John Barry's OP score is far and away a better all round score than Michel Legrand's score to NSNA. The latter has grown on me over the years and I acknowledge that JB's OP is not one of his better 007 efforts. But that merely confirms the oft-repeated view: John Barry's worst 007 score is still far better than anyone else's 007 score.
http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/2274/bond-movie-a-vs.-bond-movie-b-the-spy-who-loved-me-vs.-casino-royale
But OP is better.
You're right that OP was much better and I'll take an original adventure in DAF to a rehash of a film that was a million miles better and done right the first time in 1965. There was not one single improvement over TB, and much of it far worse. I'd take any of the 23 official films over NSNA and the early CR's.
No way in ach eee el el.
:))
Blofeld and SPECTRE hijack a plane with nuclear weapons and threaten to destroy a major city unless their demands are met.
Thoughts: It’s a remake of “Thunderball,” but nearly as good. On the plus side, Connery is wonderful, giving a sly, knowing, laid-back performance and he carries the movie. Barbara Carrera is also good as the femme fatale Fatima Blush (this film’s Fiona Volpe). Max von Sydow is also effective in his brief role as Blofeld. The dialogue is also pretty witty.
On the downside, the action and direction by Irvin Kirshner are leisurely at best. The film drags toward the end and is anti-climatic. Kim Basinger (in her first film role) is forgettable, showing none of the skill that would later net her an Oscar. Klaus Maria Brandauer, normally a good actor, doesn’t really register as Largo. The score by Michael LeGrand seems to have wandered in from a Riviera travelogue movie. The problem is the film simply lacks the scale and scope of the Eon Bonds. “Never Say Never Again” was plagued by production issues. The script was constantly being rewritten (which irked Connery) and inexperienced, first-time producer Jack Schwartzman was ill-equipped to handle a big budget action film. According to Robert Sellers’ “The Battle for Bond,” a typical example of the problems came early on when Kirshner commanded his second-unit to pick up some underwater shots with a double for Connery that could be used in long shots. When they returned with the footage, Kirshner was furious. The production had provided the unit with stills of Connery in “Thunderball” to work off of. The shots featured a double for Connery when he was 35. Of course, the actor was 18 years older now. The footage was useless.
“Never Say Never Again” cost $11 million more to make than “Octopussy,” but looks like the cheaper film.
Nevertheless, audiences were happy Connery returned, but the totals were less than “Octopussy.”
What’s interesting about watching “Octopussy” and “Never Say Never Again” back-to-back is how similar Connery’s and Moore’s performances are in terms of approach to the character. IT had reached the point where the character fit both men like a glove.
With the box-office victory of “Octopussy,” Albert R. Broccoli made another big offer to Moore for another Bond film. However, the actor made it clear the next would definitely be his last.
Continue there, folks.
Oh and IMO OP is 1000% better than NSNA (but i do like the Domination game scene and Fatima).
The computer game replacing the tedious inevitability of recurring casino scenes is genius. So is the tango scene ("Your brother's dead. Keep dancing."). The fortunate lack of a sped-up showdown is also welcome. So, at any rate, NSNA is better than at least one third of the official Bond movies. Definitely no highlight, but well up to the standard.
OP is a botched fairy-tale Bond film that Little Joey could have written as a grade school comic-book project, with plot holes galore, some of the most stupid gag ideas, and IMO a totally un-Bondish feel about it. It is gradually becoming my least-liked Moore film, meaning worse than AVTAK. Basically, it is a travesty that still takes itself more seriously than NSNA, which everyone at the time agreed was meant to be a satire: A Bond too old and challenged to do his physically demanding job, in need of some rehab - but at the same time three years younger than the "official" Bond still pretending he was on the physical level of a thirty-five year old. A raised middle finger for the official series, but not even meant to be a contender as a serious Bond film, while OP keeps yelling "Cringe! Cringe! Cringe!"
I also strongly remember that NSNA was generally received more favourably by critics in 1983 than OP. Not just because people decided that Connery was the real Bond as compared to the character growing sillier all the time in the official franchise. But also because where NSNA was ridiculous, it was satirically ridiculous showing the shortcomings of what the official series had become. I still share that feeling.
I had a huge crush on Ms Carerra and she plays the part of femme fatale with flourish and aplomb. The film starts to sag when she leaves the proceedings.
I do concede the music isn't up to Bond standards. I believe somewhere on YouTube there are NASA scenes with Barry music.
Paraphrasing from YOLT.
Why do all Bond films feel different?
You think NASA is better huh?
No. just different. Just like NASA and OP. But I love them both!
I was around then as well, but I recollect that the return of Connery was the main focus of positive reviews. Not that it wasn't merited, but there were numerous critics at the time who had a clear Connery bias such as Siskel and Ebert, who did a special on their review show that was basically a Connery love fest, and Rex Reed as well as a lot of other old school critics.
Most of the rest addressed how it unfavorably NSNA compared to TB as a whole with positive mentions of Brandauer and Carrera. Perhaps you saw a completely different set of reviews as I also never saw anything about NSNA being satirically ridiculous reflecting on the official series.
OP also received positive reviews and did well against competition including Return of the Jedi and Superman III, whereas NSNA didn't dominate in a season where there were few if any action adventure films.
OP all the way for me.
One could hardly blame critics of the time for being biased toward Connery. Moore had been playing Bond for years, but Connery had been away for over a decade. And great as Roger is, Sean was the greater star, and his performance in NSNA was his best since Thunderball, appropriately enough. NSNA probably has the edge over TB in its supporting cast--Brandauer's creepily jovial and pyschotic Largo is much more memorable than Celi's bland version, Basinger is no worse an actress than Auger, and Carerra's femme fatale is ultimately more memorable and unhinged than Volpe's. As for Octopussy, while Jourdan is a fine actor, he's not imposing enough to play a main villain, and Adams's Octopussy is, to quote Pauline Kael, "disappointingly warm and maternal--she's rather mooshy. (At one moment, she's a leader, and the next moment she's a dupe who doesn't know what's going on around her)."
So NSNA has the edge in the performances. But as an action/adventure film, OP is much better directed and has a bigger budget to work with. It feels more opulent, as a Bond film should. OP also has the advantage of a new plot, albeit a slightly over-complicated one, and ends in a series of climaxes while NSNA fizzles away after Fatima's death. But OP's dialogue and humor are less witty than the Connery film's and at times cringe-inducing. OP has its share of memorable scenes--the min-jet teaser, the dying OO9 in his clown costume, Bond defusing the bomb, Bond's revenge for OO9--but NSNA's are also strong--Bond's final confrontation with Fatima, Domino being informed of her death on the dance floor, the gloriously goofy and inventive video game match between Largo and Bond, the Shrublands fight, etc. Still, OP is clearly the better-made film. NSNA is ultimately less of a competitor than a companion-piece. At its best it does have the sort of panache, humor, and charisma that characterized the early Bonds and are not quite there in OP, despite its superiority.
I remember reviews for both NSNA and TLD.
Their verdict was that NSNA was "miles and miles better than OP."
While it was great to see Connery as Bond again, if you look at it his performance it isn't really that much different than what Moore was doing tone-wise. He brings the lighter touch throughout, almost an extension of what he began in DAF. The only really hard-edged scene I recall is the confrontation with the guard at the charity event. Even the fight at Shrublands is played more for humor than excitement.
One has a sense of the stakes with Moore in OP (especially in Berlin, as you note). Connery seems a bit too laid back (there is a feeling that he's phoning it in, at least to me).
It feels as if Connery liked the idea of returning to Bond, especially during the 1970s when it was still Warhead and James Bond of the Secret Service.
But when it all got cleared and came to actually filming it he just kind of wanted to get through it, especially when you hear him talk about the production afterward and his issues with producer Schwartzman and such.