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 Posted:   Jul 11, 2014 - 3:30 PM   
 By:   'Lenny Bruce' Marshall   (Member)

I love how the pod people go right for "Moonraker" as their anti-Skyfall. Not "For Your Eyes Only", "From Russia With Love", "The Living Daylights", or even "Licence To Kill". Nope, "Moonraker" is your so-called "big gun" against the previous films.

Ha.


, ...or poor Michel Lonsdale having to ask why Bond killed the python in order to give us the worst joke in the whole series of films . .


Please, remind us .. smile
bruce

 
 
 Posted:   Jul 11, 2014 - 4:26 PM   
 By:   jenkwombat   (Member)

Perhaps better examples of not-so-good older Bond films would be "Live and Let Die" and "The Man With the Golden Gun". I recently re-watched the first 20 Bond films in chronological order, and those were the only two that had me wanting to take out the DVD or use the fast-forward.

Those two just didn't click. Very dull. (And don't get me started on that annoying sheriff character!!)

"The Spy Who Loved Me" and "Moonraker", for all their pigeons-doing-double-takes shenanigans, at least moved!! They were fun to watch. Silly "popcorn movies" perhaps, but fun.

 
 
 Posted:   Jul 12, 2014 - 3:03 AM   
 By:   Tall Guy   (Member)


, ...or poor Michel Lonsdale having to ask why Bond killed the python in order to give us the worst joke in the whole series of films .

Please, remind us .. smile
bruce



Sharn't.

 
 Posted:   Jul 12, 2014 - 11:36 AM   
 By:   MusicMad   (Member)

Given my feelings for Skyfall I'm torn about this.

JB007 has given me many hours of pleasure over many years but the last thing I want to see is another film in this vein ... I'd prefer another The Spy Who Loved Me (my least favourite until Quantum of Solace took that title).

So, delay in the hope that this ensures re-thinks, etc. ... but I still want to see Bond24 ... even if I'm not willing to go to the cinema to see it ... since it may bring back some of the good old-days when JB007 was ...

... JB007

Mitch

 
 Posted:   Jul 12, 2014 - 1:29 PM   
 By:   'Lenny Bruce' Marshall   (Member)

shouldn't that read "princiPAL photography is delayed"?

huh?

 
 Posted:   Jul 12, 2014 - 1:29 PM   
 By:   'Lenny Bruce' Marshall   (Member)


, ...or poor Michel Lonsdale having to ask why Bond killed the python in order to give us the worst joke in the whole series of films .

Please, remind us .. smile
bruce



Sharn't.


Oh, c'mon!

 
 
 Posted:   Jul 12, 2014 - 3:47 PM   
 By:   Mike_J   (Member)


, ...or poor Michel Lonsdale having to ask why Bond killed the python in order to give us the worst joke in the whole series of films .

Please, remind us .. smile
bruce



Sharn't.


Oh, c'mon!


It was something like "he developed a crush on me"

 
 Posted:   Jul 12, 2014 - 3:51 PM   
 By:   nuts_score   (Member)

Richard-W, you are full of shit and, to my eyes, have the least interesting and most pretentious-sounding opinions on the Bond franchise I have ever in my life had the misfortune of reading.

At least your enthusiasm for film music doesn't diminish your finer qualities.

 
 Posted:   Jul 12, 2014 - 4:38 PM   
 By:   BobJ   (Member)

The Spy Who Loved Me is a wonderful Bond film. It's a fun ride from start to finish. It was a huge hit and is beloved the world round. So I certainly wouldn't take Richard's word on this one.

 
 
 Posted:   Jul 12, 2014 - 5:04 PM   
 By:   Mike_J   (Member)

The Spy Who Loved Me is a wonderful Bond film. It's a fun ride from start to finish. It was a huge hit and is beloved the world round. So I certainly wouldn't take Richard's word on this one.

Couldn't agree more.

Not sure ai would take Dick's word on anything to be honest. We all have our respective opinions on the Bond movies but he talks in such an ill-informed way it is hard to respect his views.

 
 
 Posted:   Jul 13, 2014 - 11:41 AM   
 By:   Tall Guy   (Member)


, ...or poor Michel Lonsdale having to ask why Bond killed the python in order to give us the worst joke in the whole series of films .

Please, remind us .. smile
bruce



Sharn't.


Oh, c'mon!


It was something like "he developed a crush on me"



Yes, that's the one. You could put together a pretty substantial "Carry On Bond" clip show. Maybe I should pitch it to ITV - although to be honest some of it would feature a near elderly man trying to bed girls easily less than half his age and might be too near the knuckle in these troubled times.

Young, attractive shop assistant: "Can I help you, sir"

Past-middle-aged man: (raises eyebrow, leeringly) "I'm tempted to say yes immediately"

Shop assistant: (thinks) "Piss off, grandad"

 
 
 Posted:   Jul 13, 2014 - 10:54 PM   
 By:   Richard-W   (Member)

Richard-W, you are full of shit and, to my eyes, have the least interesting and most pretentious-sounding opinions on the Bond franchise I have ever in my life had the misfortune of reading.

At least your enthusiasm for film music doesn't diminish your finer qualities.



nuts-score, you are full of shit and, to my eyes, have the least interesting and most shallow opinions on the Bond franchise I have ever in my life had the misfortune of reading.

At least your enthusiasm for film music doesn't diminish your mediocrity.



Story Teller:
The Spy Who Loved Me
is a wonderful Bond film. It's a fun ride from start to finish. It was a huge hit and is beloved the world round. So I certainly wouldn't take Richard's word on this one.



A lot of people who know better than you share the view that The Spy Who Loved Me is an awful Bond film, unexciting, boring, woodenly acted, unfunny and stupid, stupid, stupid. It's like the children's version for retarded adults. A lot of know how bad it is, but no one wants to get attacked personally by expressing the opinion.

 
 
 Posted:   Jul 13, 2014 - 10:54 PM   
 By:   Richard-W   (Member)

...

 
 Posted:   Jul 13, 2014 - 11:08 PM   
 By:   BobJ   (Member)

Story Teller:
The Spy Who Loved Me
is a wonderful Bond film. It's a fun ride from start to finish. It was a huge hit and is beloved the world round. So I certainly wouldn't take Richard's word on this one.



A lot of people who know better than you share the view that The Spy Who Loved Me is an awful Bond film, unexciting, boring, woodenly acted, unfunny and stupid, stupid, stupid. A lot of people think so, but no one wants to get attacked personally by expressing their opinion.





Oh brother! Somebody whip out the zeppelin, we'll be able to fill it up and take flight in no time after that post.

 
 
 Posted:   Jul 13, 2014 - 11:16 PM   
 By:   Richard-W   (Member)


, ...or poor Michel Lonsdale having to ask why Bond killed the python in order to give us the worst joke in the whole series of films .

Please, remind us .. smile
bruce



Sharn't.


Oh, c'mon!


It was something like "he developed a crush on me"



Yes, that's the one. You could put together a pretty substantial "Carry On Bond" clip show. Maybe I should pitch it to ITV - although to be honest some of it would feature a near elderly man trying to bed girls easily less than half his age and might be too near the knuckle in these troubled times.

Young, attractive shop assistant: "Can I help you, sir"

Past-middle-aged man: (raises eyebrow, leeringly) "I'm tempted to say yes immediately"

Shop assistant: (thinks) "Piss off, grandad"




The sexist jokes and behavior got really bad in the 1970s Bonds. Especially in the Tom Mankiewics and Christopher Wood scripts. Audiences grimaced at them even then. This is one aspect I'm glad has been left in the past.

 
 Posted:   Jul 14, 2014 - 6:29 AM   
 By:   LeHah   (Member)

I made a passing quip on Twitter at the expense of Tom Mankiewics (basically asking "Did anyone in the 70s actually look forward to a movie like The Man with the Golden Gun?") and Tom's cousin Ben (who is apparently a film correspondent) or something replied with a "Not at all".

 
 Posted:   Jul 14, 2014 - 6:33 AM   
 By:   Jim Phelps   (Member)

I made a passing quip on Twitter at the expense of Tom Mankiewics (basically asking "Did anyone in the 70s actually look forward to a movie like The Man with the Golden Gun?") and Tom's cousin Ben (who is apparently a film correspondent) or something replied with a "Not at all".

With the largely lightweight content of the Bond films, should they have gone in another direction in 1973 and embraced a more "relevant" tone for the Moore era? Would a faithful adaptation of Live and Let Die jump-started the franchise that belonged to a genre that was downright unpopular when portrayed in a heroic light? Could Roger have played Bond with a dark, burned-out, and cynical attitude? Probably not, but most any other actor could.

For the silly, escapist second half of the 1970s Rog's Bond many have been just right, but for the gritty, burned-out early 1970s Bond is horribly out of step. Camp and over-the-top silliness amid Watergate and an ineffective British government was irrelevant in an era where political corruption, paranoia, and wiretapping ruled the day. Moore's effete 007 is at odds with films like The Conversation, The Parallax View, and Three Days of the Condor all of which reflected the mistrust of government agencies and the paranoid atmosphere that existed during the early 1970s. Should the Bond films have latched onto the grittiness of those times?

 
 Posted:   Jul 14, 2014 - 7:28 AM   
 By:   LeHah   (Member)

Should the Bond films have latched onto the grittiness of those times?

As opposed to John Barry's reaction of using a slide whistle for a stunt? wink

I'm not knocking the Moore era as a whole, simply that the whole "gag" aspect of those years really did a lot of damage, starting with Diamonds Are Forever. I can't help but wince when I see Bond riding horseback as the theme from The Magnificent Seven plays in the background or the hovercraft gondola or the really bad quips.

I guess there are people who liked that particular stuff but I've never met them and likely would not enjoy their company.

 
 Posted:   Jul 14, 2014 - 7:58 AM   
 By:   Jim Phelps   (Member)

Yeah, that damn slide whistle. lol What Bond needed circa '73-'74 was Jerry Fielding, Roy Budd, or Michael Small providing icy grittiness and the actor playing Bond being the ruthless son of a bitch he is in the novels. Roger Moore was so much more suited as Lord Brett Sinclair, a role that he *owned*.

Bond was comic book-y as soon as Goldfinger but no one complains about the Connery era (which I love, for better or worse) until DAF, which really got the comedy ball rolling.

As for this hatred of the Craig era, I enjoyed CR, thought QoS was excellent--I'm not a big shot intellectual and Bond expert like many here at FSM so I'm not sure what I was supposed to hate about that film.* Skyfall started out promising but then completely fell to pieces when he arrived at the nightclub and the lizard thing happened.

Also, that actress in the nightclub--Berenice Marlohe-- killed the momentum with her first utterance. I don't know who she is but my God was she awful. The very definition of anti-charisma. The movie only got worse from there.


*One thing I know, that title tune was putrid.

 
 Posted:   Jul 14, 2014 - 10:04 AM   
 By:   LeHah   (Member)

There is definitely a sense of "comic book" in terms of many of the 007 films. Thats basically the whole of You Only Live Twice, actually!

That said though: Bond is probably the last vestige of the noir era of film and the gunshoe pulp writing style. Sure, stuff gets reprinted by people like Howard and Hammet and others from that age - but Bond continues on with new stories and Fleming wrote him as a very dangerous, very particular kind of protagonist that doesn't exist today: the "devil may care" womanizing man.

In an age where movies are populated with people like Andrew "Weasel Face" Garfield and someone with the last name of baby ducks, the fact that there is still a character who came from an era where snub-nosed revolvers and jazz music should continue on as just that. That said...

I liked the first two Craig movies a lot. Casino Royale is in a lot of ways the perfect update to the Fleming style. Quantum Of Solace, though not for everyone, is really just the final third of CR and has a terrific moral point to the story. Skyfall seems to lack all that. it lacks an identity and a sense of what it wants to be: it has the gall of shooting a woman in the head but the stupid crassness of 007 making a joke at a dead woman's expense. (It also suffers for being a note for note remake of the Nolan Batman crap, a series of films that discards all believability just so Batman can repeatedly punch a Borg-Mouthed Man in the face) .

 
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