Both of them were disappointments. Elektra was underwhelming, and the less we say about Renard...
The James Bond Film Discussion Thread (With Bonus Lazenby!)
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Again, I like the concept of the seemingly main villain actually being the heavy/henchman that Bond has to overcome.
Hell, TWINE has a lot of amazing ideas that sound like it could have made a classic... easily the most disappointing in terms of a great concept mishandled.
Hell, TWINE has a lot of amazing ideas that sound like it could have made a classic... easily the most disappointing in terms of a great concept mishandled.
It's funny, I remember people dumping on Purvis & Wade for their work on TWINE and especially DAD, yet they're now hailed as the ones who cleaned up* John Logan's unholy messes on Skyfall and Spectre.
*or at least tried to
*or at least tried to
Not exactly. Purvis & Wade started SKYFALL and then John Logan came in after. They were originally going to leave after SF, saying they wanted to go off on a high note. John Logan then started work SPECTRE. At a certain point he hit a wall and left because of commitments to PENNY DREADFUL, so Purvis & Wade were brought into try to fix and finish what Logan left behind. That’s the only instance where Purvis & Wade had to finish someone else’s work as opposed to being the guys that typically broke down the premise and has other writers come in for rewrites/polishing.
I think Purvis & Wade are good at laying down the foundation for original Bond stories, and it helps when outsiders like Paul Haggis and John Logan are brought in to refine the scripts. Ultimately, they’re serving masters which is EON. For example, the idea of making Blofeld a long lost foster brother was Michael G. Wilson’s idea. The invisible car in DAD was Tamahori’s, which they both hated writing in. So not everything that’s put in the scripts is exactly theirs.
I think Purvis & Wade are good at laying down the foundation for original Bond stories, and it helps when outsiders like Paul Haggis and John Logan are brought in to refine the scripts. Ultimately, they’re serving masters which is EON. For example, the idea of making Blofeld a long lost foster brother was Michael G. Wilson’s idea. The invisible car in DAD was Tamahori’s, which they both hated writing in. So not everything that’s put in the scripts is exactly theirs.
Renard could have been something but he ended up being the brainy, campy henchman who dies in the third act trying to execute the villains' plan. Even his death was underwhelming. Plutonium rod(?) from a submarine's nuclear reactor through the body.
I felt there was a promising idea that got wasted. Renard feels no physical pain, whereas Bond has an injury that can inflict Brosnan's trademark PAINFACE. You think that would actually be building up to something, but it turns out Bond's shoulder injury never amounts to anything besides making him realize Elektra was in cahoots with Renard. I can imagine a scene in the climax where Bond has to overcome very excruciating pain in order to do something so simple that will win the day, which is something Fleming wrote a ton of in his novels. That doesn't really happen. All Bond has to do is cross pressure tubes and a plutonium rod shoots through Renard's body. Pretty underwhelming.
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Too much about the final Brosnan films feels like taking the quickest and easiest way out just to keep the frenetic pace going.
Surprised I never shared this. Last year I thought it would be interesting take John Barry's 1995 recording of the OHMSS theme and splice it into the ski chase in TWINE. I did this thinking maybe if Barry had returned for the gig in 1999 he would have reprised OHMSS much like in this very style, as his music became more traditionally orchestral during the 90s (no more electric guitars, moog synthesizers, etc). It's from his Moviola II album, where he reprises a lot of Bond tunes but done in the style that reflected his sensibilities in the 90s. May be the closest indication to what a Barry Bond score would have sounded like in the 90s.
And just to be clear, I left the sequence as it was originally edited, the only work being done was silence the surround channels that had music, in an effort to splice in Barry's music with most of the sound f/x still intact. It's not perfect, but I gave it a shot. One thing that stood out to me when doing this was that the ski sequence is... not great. It feels like it's cobbled together, with the editors not sure how to compile the raw footage. It's also not nearly as exciting as the previous ski chases in OHMSS, TSWLM, FYEO, and even AVTAK.
Anyway, here's something a little more authentic.
It's basically John Barry's original track composed specifically for the sequence, before Peter Hunt ultimately opted to use the James Bond Theme from DN. I'm of two minds of this. On the one hand, I think Hunt was right in that the battle needed the Bond theme in all its glory, but I think I would have preferred a brand new recording of it by Barry instead of cranking out the old 1962 recording. This would be the last time the filmmakers reused that very recording.
And just to be clear, I left the sequence as it was originally edited, the only work being done was silence the surround channels that had music, in an effort to splice in Barry's music with most of the sound f/x still intact. It's not perfect, but I gave it a shot. One thing that stood out to me when doing this was that the ski sequence is... not great. It feels like it's cobbled together, with the editors not sure how to compile the raw footage. It's also not nearly as exciting as the previous ski chases in OHMSS, TSWLM, FYEO, and even AVTAK.
Anyway, here's something a little more authentic.
It's basically John Barry's original track composed specifically for the sequence, before Peter Hunt ultimately opted to use the James Bond Theme from DN. I'm of two minds of this. On the one hand, I think Hunt was right in that the battle needed the Bond theme in all its glory, but I think I would have preferred a brand new recording of it by Barry instead of cranking out the old 1962 recording. This would be the last time the filmmakers reused that very recording.
I really love what you did with the first video; even if they hadn't been able to convince Barry to return, Arnold reprising the OHMSS theme in that sequence would have been a nice touch (though maybe not quite as 'out there' as his rendition on Shaken and Stirred).
This happened.
Yeah, those are terrible. At least the ones they did of Mark Hamill in Star Wars were still recognizably him.
Roger Moore looks like Cate Blanchett, and now I want a James Bond-esque movie starring Blanchett.
Craig’s actual daughter already looks enough like a female Bond with the same piercing blue eyes.
Craig's daughter looks a lot like Andrew G. Robinson's daughter who played Melanie in "The Visitor(DS9)"!
I'
I'd put Licence to Kill and For Your Eyes Only a bit higher, but otherwise...
Both of those are in my Top 10. One is even in my Top 5.
I would have them ranked higher, if there weren’t other movies I enjoyed more. Both LTK and QOS being ranked side by side seems fitting, as I used to like them much more over a decade earlier, but over the years I just don’t enjoy them as much. Funnily, both movies has something that the other could have used. QOS could have benefitted with fleshed out villains like in LTK, while LTK could have benefitted from high production values like QOS.
Deleted scenes from a Bond film that celebrated its 35th Anniversary just last month.
A concept that John Gardner beat the movie people to by 17 years. And in the case of Gardner's book...
she literally was a Blofeld.
Rest in Peace, Dame Diana Rigg.
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