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Where Did It All Go Wrong In The Brosnan Era?
GoldenEye was a really good film but was clearly a product of it's time. The 6 year gap since LTK, during which the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall came down, meant that GE could only have been made at that particular point.
It was a film that gave several knowing winks to the classic Bond's of the 60's and 70's (without wandering into parody) whilst at the same time had an eye on the future. It was retro, yet it felt fresh (a first ever reference to the death of Bond's parents hinted at real character development).
It should have been the perfect stepping stone to evolve the series but, instead, given the enormous success of GE, it felt like the decision was taken to continue in the same manner, which ultimately led to the next film becoming more spectacular, more outlandish than the last before eventually reached a critical mass with DAD, hence the decision to replace Brosnan with Craig and reboot the series with CR.
This was obviously not the first time in the series history that this happened (MR was so over the top that they could only go in one direction with FYEO) but I felt they missed a trick in taking Bond in a new direction with Brosnan. It does seem however that they are finally going this route with Craig.
The irony in all this is whilst I think GE is his best film, I think Brosnan is at his weakest here. He is outstanding in TWINE but the film fades badly in the second half. TND and DAD are just poor films full stop.
It was a film that gave several knowing winks to the classic Bond's of the 60's and 70's (without wandering into parody) whilst at the same time had an eye on the future. It was retro, yet it felt fresh (a first ever reference to the death of Bond's parents hinted at real character development).
It should have been the perfect stepping stone to evolve the series but, instead, given the enormous success of GE, it felt like the decision was taken to continue in the same manner, which ultimately led to the next film becoming more spectacular, more outlandish than the last before eventually reached a critical mass with DAD, hence the decision to replace Brosnan with Craig and reboot the series with CR.
This was obviously not the first time in the series history that this happened (MR was so over the top that they could only go in one direction with FYEO) but I felt they missed a trick in taking Bond in a new direction with Brosnan. It does seem however that they are finally going this route with Craig.
The irony in all this is whilst I think GE is his best film, I think Brosnan is at his weakest here. He is outstanding in TWINE but the film fades badly in the second half. TND and DAD are just poor films full stop.
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Comments
Tomorrow Never Dies. In Cinema's December 1997 (and we wont move that date despite the script being nowhere near ready).
Downwards from there!
Tomorrow Never Dies:
Bond - (to Paris Carver) "I can get you out of the country in 48 Hours"
Paris - "No one can protect me from him James, not even you."
The World is Not Enough:
Bond - (to cigar girl) "I can protect you."
Cigar Girl - "Not from him".
Time to lock this one up.
A bit samey, certainly. Aren't all Bond films post-Maibaum guilty of this a bit though?
Didn't Feirstein co-write TWINE. I thought DAD was the only film Purvis & Wade wrote by themselves, which pretty much sums it up
I Believe so. Either way his ideas weren't very good either.
Yes, he did. Popped the DVD in for the first time in years and watched a bit of TWINE yesterday.
I don't mind the film that much. The highlight is Brosnan's performance. He is very good in it. 1999 was clearly his year because he's wonderful in The Thomas Crown Affair.
The things I dislike about TWINE are Denise Richards, the underwritten central villain, Denise Richards, the underwhelming set pieces, (the two shootouts in the underground reactor and caviar factory are insipid. The budget must have been blown on the PTS!) and Denise Richards
Tomorrow Never Dies was good, highlights being Paris and Elliot Carver and the helicopter scene. It was no where near as thrilling as GE.
TWINE was...boring, to say the least. The plot was convulated and it seemed to drag on. Definately second to last place on my rankings.
I'm not even going to talk about Die Another Day...
Nobody should ever mention Die Another Day....
I agree. Pierce is great here - though his voice is a tad odd in some scenes. I think it's his strongest performance as Bond outside of GoldenEye, though I do like the more traditional Bond action film a la YOLT and LALD that is Tomorrow Never Dies.I like Elliot Carver as a more traditional villain too, mind. Die Another Day I was never really a fan of. Not really a Bond film at all - more sci-fi!
Indeed. Best forgotten about!
I know I'm breaking my promise about mentioning DAD here but when Brosnan says the line to M "The same person who set me up then has just set me up again, so I'm going after him" it is just the strangest accent I've ever heard. I remember it being used in the trailer and I didn't realise it was Brosnan speaking at first!
Yes, a criticism levelled at the Brosnan era films is that they were rather generic - that is certainly true of TND and DAD, which were both in their own respective ways clones of much earlier Bond films of the 1960s and 1970s.
Yes, even at the Royal Première of TWINE (which I have recorded somewhere) in 1999 Brosnan's accent kept changing in tone and he actually sounded quite affected, as if he was putting the while posh accent on (which he was).
Again, this is true. Strange.
http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3393/the-pierce-brosnan-era-rankings/p1
http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/1264/is-pierce-brosnan-really-all-that-bad-/p1
http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/141/what-is-your-least-favourite-brosnan-flick-/p1
These threads are similar enough to this one; the ideas of this thread can easily be placed there.
Come on, fellas, this is the housekeeping part we least enjoy but we can't have the place flooded with duplicates or with almost-duplicates. Thanks. ;-)