Controversial opinions about Bond films

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  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,000
    The only thing I don’t like in the beach scene is Brosnan’s poofy hair flapping back and forth in the wind. Guy looked like a hippie.
  • Posts: 15,785
    The only thing I don’t like in the beach scene is Brosnan’s poofy hair flapping back and forth in the wind. Guy looked like a hippie.

    His hair looks real long a few minutes earlier when he says " Don't push any of the button on that car."
  • ProfJoeButcherProfJoeButcher Bless your heart
    edited August 2021 Posts: 1,665
    If Bond supposedly toppled dictators in between films, then I suppose he did. Not a big deal.

    You're right on some level, of course. This all came out of a discussion of Bruce Feirstein's script not offering Pierce a solid characterization of Bond, and these recontextualizations, retcons, or revisions seemed to me like part of the problem, and "toppling dictators" is just one of them. His version of who James Bond is seems indistinguishable from that of a person who has never seen a James Bond movie. Without the other 23 (or then 16) films, a lot of this stuff is absolutely fine.

    Though I wouldn't mind getting to see one of those dictator-toppling buddy cop adventures!
  • Posts: 14,800
    I don't see what's the big deal about him doing some teamwork with another 00 either, to be honest. The PTS of GE being the one operation that got seriously wrong.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    edited August 2021 Posts: 8,009
    Sorry, I know it was oddly put. I was referring to "it's fair to assume a lot of it is vague manipulation on his part. And it's why Bond is relatively unphased by it". Bond not being fazed by the "toppling dictators" part doesn't beg explanation, so I wasn't sure why you were offering an explanation for it.

    Yes, it doesn't require an explanation. Which is why I wasn't really offering an explanation for it. That was just a note regarding Bond and Trevelyan's relationship not being what it has been accused of being, here. It was the whole conversation I was referring to, rather than just that one line. The only chink in my armour there is the line "I trusted you, Alec".
    What does beg explanation is any reason for thinking that when Alec refers to he and Bond toppling dictators together that he means anything other than he and Bond used to topple dictators together. There's no reason to think he does, Bond doesn't indicate that he thinks he does, and it's hard to imagine the screenwriter expected audiences to glean anything from it beyond the text.

    Anytime I think I might be overanalysing something, I will refer back to this comment as a control, @ProfJoeButcher! :)) You have me, here. I actually don't even know what to say back to it!

    I guess to me, none of these things are any more poorly done than any other transitionary film from actor to actor. The Craig era seems more egregious in its decision making as to Bond's attitudes, relationships, etc. But that's also in keeping with updating Bond for a new time. Obviously that has the benefit of being an obvious reboot - but while there's debate about timelines and things like that, I'm happy to not consider Brosnan's Bond as the same Bond as Moore or Connery or even Dalton. It was just another step in the series evolution while still being unmistakably Bond.
  • PrinceKamalKhanPrinceKamalKhan Monsoon Palace, Udaipur
    Posts: 3,262
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    It sounds more like a name from a 1960s spy craze spoof film taking off Bond than a name that should be in a modern Bond film. See, for example, Miss Goodthighs in the spoof version of Casino Royale (1967). I know it's only meant as a joke, but still. It doesn't really fit well with the tone of the surrounding story and film which is very dark and serious.

    I don’t think CR is as dark and serious as people hype it up. It’s still ultimately about a government agent sanctioned to spend their money in a game of luck. It may have a grittier aesthetic, but it’s still ultimately a fantasy spy film.

    +1. Despite the relatively more serious aspects of CR it's the most "fun" Craig Bond film for me.
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    I love the Venice boat chase in MR. Not only because it's phenomenal they actually shot that chase in Venice, taking full advantage of the scenery, but also because I think it's a well-executed action scene. That's not all, I'd say the Amazon chase later on, might even be my favourite boat chase of the franchise.

    And even more controversial, I like the Bondola bit. Ridiculous it certainly is, and this might be even more strange considering my Dalton fandom, but I love the carefree old-fashioned je-m'en-foutisme of this scene. The dog, the pigeon, the wine guy,... Sure it's not FRWL/OHMSS/TLD/CR, but sometimes I'm just in the mood for stuff like this too.

    +1. I'm a huge fan of both MR and Dalton Bond also. I think MR is for me what TSWLM is for many fans while TLD is my FYEO.
    I think George Martin’s score is crap. It takes me out of the film more than Eric Serra’s score did for GE.

    I disagree, but I can easily see why some people don’t like it. Personally I think the scores of the more recent films are much worse, but then I am a grumpy old man.

    The most controversial opinion I have is that only the Eon films up to and including MR are authentic James Bond films. All films from AVTAK onwards are fanfiction. Yes they are officially approved, canon, very enjoyable and watchable films, but they are still fanfiction.

    I have no logical arguments or evidence to support this other than my own feelings.

    It feels to me that something was lost after MR. I cannot put my finger on it at all, perhaps an aesthetic, or a confidence, or a swagger or something. But to me everything after MR is trying to be a James Bond film whereas everything up to MR is a James Bond film.

    I can see you what you're saying. MR was the last Bond film for Bernard Lee, Ken Adam, and (most likely) Shirley Bassey. In retrospect it was kind of an end of an era. I remember feeling let down when I first saw FYEO and the standard trope of Bond and the girl escaping from the villain's HQ as it exploded(which had, more or less, been there since Bond and Honey escaped from Crab Key at the end of DN) was discarded. With the exceptions of TLD, CR and OP, the remainder of the top half of my Bond film ranking list are all films from the 1962-1979 period due in no small part to the ambience and swagger they exude.

  • ProfJoeButcherProfJoeButcher Bless your heart
    edited August 2021 Posts: 1,665

    Anytime I think I might be overanalysing something, I will refer back to this comment as a control, @ProfJoeButcher! :)) You have me, here. I actually don't even know what to say back to it!

    :)) Well, we've apparently had some kind of miscommunication! I thought you were suggesting that Alec was being over the top in his conversation with Bond, and should not be taken literally. I do overanalyze sometimes, but here, I'm just wondering where you're finding subtext where it's not apparent. I'm hardly analyzing the text at all. As to the way I'm characterizing Bond and Alec's relationship, to state it simply, they were regular partners who shared a credo and went on political missions together to topple dictators and undermine regimes. I mean, that's what's in the movie.

    But I agree on each Bond kind of being its own thing. Continuity prior to Craig is just not an issue, obviously. But this one, and obviously I'm in a minority, strikes me as a major fundamental change to what Bond is supposed to be, and it's not applied only to the Brosnan era, it's applied retroactively. "Ready to save the world again?"

    (EDIT) Wasn't Trevelyan originally an older mentor figure instead of a 00 buddy Bond regularly worked with? Aside from allowing Alec's age to make some amount of sense given his Kossack backstory, it would have also been less of a shakeup....

    Anyway, I'll leave it here as I don't want to detail more than I have! Sixteen films of Bond generally going it alone against non-state actors are followed by a 17th that presents his history as being half of an equal partnership in undermining and dismantling enemy governments. That this is a (short-lived!) revision should be too uncontroversial for this thread anyway! ;)
  • silva13silva13 Australia
    Posts: 198
    I always here people complain about Silva knowing the exact place to plant explosives to drop the train on Bond but I've always read it as Silva was always going to detonate a bomb in the train station as a way to divert emergency services away from the inquiry- having Bond there was purely a bonus hence why Silva is waiting in the dark for him to catch up!
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    Yeah that makes sense. Also it's less that he knew exactly where Bond was going to be- of course he -or any pursuer- would come that way: it's the way that Silva has gone :) He's basically cutting off his escape route, it's not inconceivable to have planned that.
  • ProfJoeButcherProfJoeButcher Bless your heart
    Posts: 1,665
    Great points. Silva's plans have some farfetched aspects, but the bit with the tube bomb is not one of them...
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    edited September 2021 Posts: 8,000
    silva13 wrote: »
    I always here people complain about Silva knowing the exact place to plant explosives to drop the train on Bond but I've always read it as Silva was always going to detonate a bomb in the train station as a way to divert emergency services away from the inquiry- having Bond there was purely a bonus hence why Silva is waiting in the dark for him to catch up!

    That’s how I always viewed it.

    I think many fans read way too into the “he’s planned this for years” line by Q, as if Silva anticipated EVERYTHING to the last detail. Except he never anticipated things like Mallory jumping in front of M to take a bullet.
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 7,948
    silva13 wrote: »
    I always here people complain about Silva knowing the exact place to plant explosives to drop the train on Bond but I've always read it as Silva was always going to detonate a bomb in the train station as a way to divert emergency services away from the inquiry- having Bond there was purely a bonus hence why Silva is waiting in the dark for him to catch up!

    That’s how I always viewed it.

    I think many fans read way too into the “he’s planned this for years” line by Q, as if Silva anticipated EVERYTHING to the last detail. Except he never anticipated things like Mallory jumping in front of M to take a bullet.

    Well, there are a few more items, like the doors opening exactly after Q stupidly attached the network cable to Silva's laptop. Rather a stupid mistake tbh, when you work in a highly secure environment, but how would Silva time that one? Makes little sense to me. It would be far more convincing if that didn't happen directly, but i.e. hours later -> then the timing would make sense.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,000
    Intuitive improvisation is the secret of genius. ;)
  • silva13silva13 Australia
    Posts: 198

    silva13 wrote: »
    I always here people complain about Silva knowing the exact place to plant explosives to drop the train on Bond but I've always read it as Silva was always going to detonate a bomb in the train station as a way to divert emergency services away from the inquiry- having Bond there was purely a bonus hence why Silva is waiting in the dark for him to catch up!

    That’s how I always viewed it.

    I think many fans read way too into the “he’s planned this for years” line by Q, as if Silva anticipated EVERYTHING to the last detail. Except he never anticipated things like Mallory jumping in front of M to take a bullet.

    Well, there are a few more items, like the doors opening exactly after Q stupidly attached the network cable to Silva's laptop. Rather a stupid mistake tbh, when you work in a highly secure environment, but how would Silva time that one? Makes little sense to me. It would be far more convincing if that didn't happen directly, but i.e. hours later -> then the timing would make sense.

    Thats one mystery i cant solve. I like to pretend the guard is in on it, the one that says "going somewhere?", it is a strange but enjoyable moment !
  • ProfJoeButcherProfJoeButcher Bless your heart
    Posts: 1,665
    My general attitude about this stuff is that I don't tend to mind too much if some amount of contrivance or coincidence is present, so long as it works to the advantage of the villain.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    edited September 2021 Posts: 5,921
    My general attitude about this stuff is that I don't tend to mind too much if some amount of contrivance or coincidence is present, so long as it works to the advantage of the villain.

    That's a good point. Villains cheating or getting away with something easily feels very Fleming (and let's face it, tight plotting was not Fleming's strong suit).

    Yet somehow it feels unfair if it's too easy for Bond...LALD, I'm looking at your buzzsaw watch.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,518
    silva13 wrote: »
    I always here people complain about Silva knowing the exact place to plant explosives to drop the train on Bond but I've always read it as Silva was always going to detonate a bomb in the train station as a way to divert emergency services away from the inquiry- having Bond there was purely a bonus hence why Silva is waiting in the dark for him to catch up!

    That’s how I always viewed it.

    I think many fans read way too into the “he’s planned this for years” line by Q, as if Silva anticipated EVERYTHING to the last detail. Except he never anticipated things like Mallory jumping in front of M to take a bullet.

    Well, there are a few more items, like the doors opening exactly after Q stupidly attached the network cable to Silva's laptop. Rather a stupid mistake tbh, when you work in a highly secure environment, but how would Silva time that one? Makes little sense to me. It would be far more convincing if that didn't happen directly, but i.e. hours later -> then the timing would make sense.

    The timing here never really bothered me that much, it'd be safe for Silva to assume the higher priority would be getting him in that cage, and then he just set his computer to open the doors as soon as it was plugged in, which he could assume would be after they locked him up. Maybe I'm missing something though.
  • Posts: 14,800
    echo wrote: »
    My general attitude about this stuff is that I don't tend to mind too much if some amount of contrivance or coincidence is present, so long as it works to the advantage of the villain.

    That's a good point. Villains cheating or getting away with something easily feels very Fleming (and let's face it, tight plotting was not Fleming's strong suit).

    Yet somehow it feels unfair if it's too easy for Bond...LALD, I'm looking at your buzzsaw watch.

    No you don't read Flemimg for his plots. He is great at character and atmosphere, but he never was a great plotter.
  • Posts: 2,887
    True. It's also notable that the book Fleming and others regarded as his best--From Russia With Love--is one of his best plotted novels. I also think Thunderball benefits from being based on pre-plotted material, though it still relies on a couple of coincidences.

    But ultimately the Bond novels wouldn't be as memorable or as good as they are if they were tightly plotted in the manner of a classic detective story. Their atmosphere and characters and concepts are almost oneric--arguably they have more in common with surrealist works than detective stories. Fleming would sit down at the typewriter with only the loosest plot in his head; he would type headlong, never looking back for fear that he would lose his pace. The books have the spontaneity and headlong drive of vivid dreams. This also made them easier to adapt to film, the art form most suited to bringing dreams to life.
  • Posts: 1,545
    Yes, but he moved things along. So, while perhaps not a supreme plotter, at least he was not a plodder....well, I really worked to get to that one, I must say.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    echo wrote: »
    My general attitude about this stuff is that I don't tend to mind too much if some amount of contrivance or coincidence is present, so long as it works to the advantage of the villain.

    That's a good point. Villains cheating or getting away with something easily feels very Fleming (and let's face it, tight plotting was not Fleming's strong suit).

    Yet somehow it feels unfair if it's too easy for Bond...LALD, I'm looking at your buzzsaw watch.

    I love the buzzsaw watch as a gadget: it’s such a lovely design idea. But you’re right that it breaks the rule of gadget use: some you don’t have to set up (it’s fine for Bond to pull out his Sharper Image window unlocker credit card without us know about it as it doesn’t get him out of a scrape) but some you absolutely do have to be told about beforehand otherwise it looks too convenient and a magic solution. Sometimes it can come as a fun surprise (underwater Lotus) but sometimes it’s too much of a chest unless you know he’s got them.
  • Posts: 1,545
    What's all this I read about "Too much of a chest" ? Oh, no, dear ! It is not as though they ever had Russ Myer film veterans in the Bond films...What's that ? Typographical error for "cheat" ? Oh ! Never mind ! (with fondness for the late, great Gilda Radner)
  • mtm wrote: »
    echo wrote: »
    My general attitude about this stuff is that I don't tend to mind too much if some amount of contrivance or coincidence is present, so long as it works to the advantage of the villain.

    That's a good point. Villains cheating or getting away with something easily feels very Fleming (and let's face it, tight plotting was not Fleming's strong suit).

    Yet somehow it feels unfair if it's too easy for Bond...LALD, I'm looking at your buzzsaw watch.

    I love the buzzsaw watch as a gadget: it’s such a lovely design idea. But you’re right that it breaks the rule of gadget use: some you don’t have to set up (it’s fine for Bond to pull out his Sharper Image window unlocker credit card without us know about it as it doesn’t get him out of a scrape) but some you absolutely do have to be told about beforehand otherwise it looks too convenient and a magic solution. Sometimes it can come as a fun surprise (underwater Lotus) but sometimes it’s too much of a chest unless you know he’s got them.

    In defense of LALD's buzzsaw watch, they do set up in the post-titles scene that Bond is getting a new tricked-out watch. I actually rather like that we sometimes see Bond use gadgets that aren't set up during a briefing. Like the watch detonator in MR or the piton and rappelling wire in TWINE. They're fun, surprising little moments, and it makes sense that Bond has some equipment that wasn't invented purely for the one assignment.

    I think it does work better when they pop up mid-action sequence just to give Bond a little edge over the competition rather than as his one way out of certain doom, so I can see why the buzzsaw would feel like a screenwriting cheat, but the moment has never read that way to me. I don't think LALD's climax would have been improved any had Bond used his watch to slice M some fresh biscuits to go with his coffee. ;)
  • Posts: 1,879
    mtm wrote: »
    echo wrote: »
    My general attitude about this stuff is that I don't tend to mind too much if some amount of contrivance or coincidence is present, so long as it works to the advantage of the villain.

    That's a good point. Villains cheating or getting away with something easily feels very Fleming (and let's face it, tight plotting was not Fleming's strong suit).

    Yet somehow it feels unfair if it's too easy for Bond...LALD, I'm looking at your buzzsaw watch.

    I love the buzzsaw watch as a gadget: it’s such a lovely design idea. But you’re right that it breaks the rule of gadget use: some you don’t have to set up (it’s fine for Bond to pull out his Sharper Image window unlocker credit card without us know about it as it doesn’t get him out of a scrape) but some you absolutely do have to be told about beforehand otherwise it looks too convenient and a magic solution. Sometimes it can come as a fun surprise (underwater Lotus) but sometimes it’s too much of a chest unless you know he’s got them.

    In defense of LALD's buzzsaw watch, they do set up in the post-titles scene that Bond is getting a new tricked-out watch. I actually rather like that we sometimes see Bond use gadgets that aren't set up during a briefing. Like the watch detonator in MR or the piton and rappelling wire in TWINE. They're fun, surprising little moments, and it makes sense that Bond has some equipment that wasn't invented purely for the one assignment.

    I think it does work better when they pop up mid-action sequence just to give Bond a little edge over the competition rather than as his one way out of certain doom, so I can see why the buzzsaw would feel like a screenwriting cheat, but the moment has never read that way to me. I don't think LALD's climax would have been improved any had Bond used his watch to slice M some fresh biscuits to go with his coffee. ;)

    Interesting take. What makes that buzzsaw watch gimmick more frustrating is during that opening scene when Bond gets the watch they go out of the way to tease it having the ability to deflect the path of a bullet at long range but does nothing with that and instead produces something we didn't know about and is just too convenient.

    My problem with the rappelling watch is it's hard to accept that there was that much wire to go that far and that it was strong enough to hold two people. The GE version of that gadget was more acceptable.

    You'd have to think Bond would carry a few gadgets with him at any time. But when they seem too convenient is when it becomes a distraction. The worst offender is the artificial volcano climbing gear in YOLT. So Bond woke up that morning to investigate that cave where the poison gas came from and thought it would be good to have that gear with him cause you never know when you may encounter an artificial volcano you'll need to climb from the very top.

    An ironic reverse of that is Bond having the mini safecracker in YOLT that solves the code in about a minute and then reverting to a huge machine in OHMSS that takes a much longer time to solve.
  • BT3366 wrote: »
    My problem with the rappelling watch is it's hard to accept that there was that much wire to go that far and that it was strong enough to hold two people.

    That one only had to hold one person. There are many parts of every Bond film that stretch plausibility. Nearly every gadget produced by Q Branch falls under that category. That's what makes Bond sci-fantasy. This isn't one of the series' many creative liberties I lose sleep over. ;)
  • Posts: 14,800
    Revelator wrote: »
    True. It's also notable that the book Fleming and others regarded as his best--From Russia With Love--is one of his best plotted novels. I also think Thunderball benefits from being based on pre-plotted material, though it still relies on a couple of coincidences.

    But ultimately the Bond novels wouldn't be as memorable or as good as they are if they were tightly plotted in the manner of a classic detective story. Their atmosphere and characters and concepts are almost oneric--arguably they have more in common with surrealist works than detective stories. Fleming would sit down at the typewriter with only the loosest plot in his head; he would type headlong, never looking back for fear that he would lose his pace. The books have the spontaneity and headlong drive of vivid dreams. This also made them easier to adapt to film, the art form most suited to bringing dreams to life.

    I also think it's a generation thing: John Buchan before him was not a great plotter either (his novels were filled with contrived coincidences) and Raymond Chandler tend to get messy with plots.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    Yeah if we wanted a real Fleming-style Bond then he would be constantly winning and staying alive by pure luck! :D
    (Which we did get in CR to some extent, but I wouldn’t want that every time)
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,000
    Some Bond fans that get really fixated over plot points ought to take this advice:



    I have problems with TWINE, but stuff like Cigar Girl waiting for Bond’s head to pop up from the blast hole on MI6 so to shoot at him so to instigate an elaborate boat chase is the least of my problems with that film.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,518
    mtm wrote: »
    Yeah if we wanted a real Fleming-style Bond then he would be constantly winning and staying alive by pure luck! :D
    (Which we did get in CR to some extent, but I wouldn’t want that every time)

    Which is ironic considering he fails the mission lol
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    mtm wrote: »
    Yeah if we wanted a real Fleming-style Bond then he would be constantly winning and staying alive by pure luck! :D
    (Which we did get in CR to some extent, but I wouldn’t want that every time)

    Which is ironic considering he fails the mission lol

    Well, not massively ironic as that's how Fleming wrote it! :)
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