What's keeping me out of the theatre....
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
I like Moonraker quite a bit... right up until the point that they blasted off into space... 
Moonraker didn't beat TMP at the box office. Unless you are talking about worldwide numbers, but that wouldn't be a surprise considering the enormous popularity of James Bond movies overseas.
ST-One
Vice Admiral
Anticitizen;3025189 I need only to see that [I said:
But if you will..it's the suits at the studios attention to the box office that really counts..not the critics, not anything else...otherwise we'd be seeing more Serenity movies..and the box office is where the NEW FANS come from...
not the opinions of fans on this board...
even my own...
trevanian
Rear Admiral
MR was the biggest worldwide success of the Bond franchise, which just goes to show that people were at least as stupid then as now, since MR (which we used to joke stood for MentallyRetarded, not MoonRaker) was the worst film up till that point.
It has barely been topped in that regard, only by TOMORROW NEVER DIES and VIEW TO A KILL and maybe the last 2/3 of DIE ANOTHER DAY (not even gonna bring CASINO into this, because I don't even think of it as a Bond movie ... SPY WHO LOVED ME is more Matt Helm than Bond, and CASINO is like a drugged-up Jason Statham or Bourne thing, not Fleming and not Bond.)
And yeah, I saw MR in the theater, because I was a teenager and that is what teenagers do, but geezus, I felt BAD afterward, like I'd said the prayers out loud while being forced to attend mass, or something equally insidious.
ST-One
Vice Admiral
Your contempt for the movie-going audience has no bounds, has it?
Everyone who likes an entertaining (yet somewhat stupid) film is also stupid?
Just so that you can cement your opinion of me: 'The Spy Who Loved Me' is probably my favourite Bond. And Roger Moore IS Bond. THE Bond.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Well, you didn't say Craig is Bond, so there might still be hope for you.
And no, you're jumping to looney conclusions again. How many dozens of posts have I made here talking about how much I enjoy the deliberately stupid ACTION JACKSON? ... answer is LOTS. Partly because it KNOWS it is stupid.
I do have contempt for people getting sucked into seeing and even liking stuff based on the need to be in line with everybody else who hits the theater on a given weekend, because we are programmed to do so. The 'event movie' mentality is appalling to me.
EDIT ADDON: and an extension of that is people raving about something not out of quality,but out of a pic's just doing something different (and not necessarily well.) While Penn's performance in MILK was utterly captivating, I found the first 2/3rds of the film to be seriously uninteresting, and it only caught fire once the 'will the bill pass?' issue was the focus. They didn't stat showing contrasting layers in his character until act 3, so it had a superficiality to it that surprised me given the talent involved in front and behind the camera. Perhaps they felt bowing to conventionality was the hook to get a broader audience, but if so, they hampered the impact of the film (with more character flaws visible, MILK could have been, pardon the expression, the gay PATTON, a really remarkable biography, instead of a flawed 'good try.' Yet critical response seems to have skimmed over these issues.
Dude, you gotta stop taking it personally when people don't like what you like. I like all of the Bonds (I feel Dalton was poorly served by a film style that was still stuck in Moore-era camp when he, as an actor, required something more serious but I saw his potential) and I can read trevanian's opinions without thinking he's calling me a moron. Chill.
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trevanian
Rear Admiral
To me, Lazenby was THEo Bond ... And Roger was Bond's fey uncle.
number6
Vice Admiral
Damn Straight! It's a shame they only made the one film with him. He wasn't happy in the role and they went ahead and paid Connery the money he wanted.. I do like Craig as Bond. He's not playing it for laughs. His Bond seems a little more plausible than the Bond of the last several films.
There have been Bond movies I've disliked but I think all of the "official" Bonds--Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan and Craig--have done good work in the role. Yes, even Brosnan.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Trouble is, Brosnan did that good -- nay, superb -- work in THE TAILOR OF PANAMA, not a Bond movie.
Yeah, that movie was great!
But I'm coming to Bond the way a lot of non-Trekkies who love this new movie are coming to Trek: it's a familiar cultural fixture that I have fond memories of and a fondness for (I've seen every Bond film since License Revoked--er, I mean to Kill--in the theatres) but I could never call myself an expert or even a fan--I've yet to read an Ian Fleming novel, for example. And so I'm not nearly as demanding and exacting as you are.
But I'm coming to Bond the way a lot of non-Trekkies who love this new movie are coming to Trek: it's a familiar cultural fixture that I have fond memories of and a fondness for (I've seen every Bond film since License Revoked--er, I mean to Kill--in the theatres) but I could never call myself an expert or even a fan--I've yet to read an Ian Fleming novel, for example. And so I'm not nearly as demanding and exacting as you are.
ST-One
Vice Admiral
Sorry, I just can't. I get angry when he talkes down to us from his high horse like that.
Even his reply to my post... so he enjoys to wallow in the mud that is mainstream entertainment with us easy-to-entertain simpletons from time to time. Whoopdee-fucking-doo.
But I do agree with you about the Dalton-Bonds.
What I think it comes down to, ST-One, is that everybody draws a different line as to how much "silly" they'll tolerate and where they'll tolerate it. TOS purists tend to think of TOS as those 30 or so episodes that stand up as serious SF adventure, discounting the so-so outings and the duds. That's what I do when I'm feeling very "pure" (and with my history of drug use and whoremongering, TOS is about the only thing I get to feel pure about these days 
). That's why my positive reaction to this new movie has been qualified by statements that, taken on their own, make me sound as if I hated it and, sadly, as if I'm insulting guys like you, who have a different take on TOS than I do. I think that's what's happening here with trevanian--he takes Bond more seriously than we do because he came into it from a more serious entry point. By contrast, he'll enjoy "silly" elsewhere--Action Jackson or Battle Beyond the Stars, for example.
I'm the same way with Alien. That movie is on a par with 2001, Blade Runner, eXistenZ*, The Man Who Fell to Earth and a select few others as my idea of "serious" SF. As much as I can enjoy Aliens as an action flick, I think it is a woefully unworthy sequel to the original--a silly, comic book smash 'em up that remakes the original's sublime and elegant beast into a weird and disturbing (and not in agood way) hybrid of a termite mound and the Viet Cong. In short, I think it's a stupid movie. It does not follow, however, that I think those who like it--even those who prefer it the original--are stupid as well, just that they look for different things in SF movies.
*eXistenZ is far more serious and, paradoxically, far more playful examination of the Phildickian "what is real?" conundrum than the much more celebrated original Matrix movie, released around the same time. It bombed at the box office, got a lukewarm critical response and it is one of my all-time favorite films.
). That's why my positive reaction to this new movie has been qualified by statements that, taken on their own, make me sound as if I hated it and, sadly, as if I'm insulting guys like you, who have a different take on TOS than I do. I think that's what's happening here with trevanian--he takes Bond more seriously than we do because he came into it from a more serious entry point. By contrast, he'll enjoy "silly" elsewhere--Action Jackson or Battle Beyond the Stars, for example.I'm the same way with Alien. That movie is on a par with 2001, Blade Runner, eXistenZ*, The Man Who Fell to Earth and a select few others as my idea of "serious" SF. As much as I can enjoy Aliens as an action flick, I think it is a woefully unworthy sequel to the original--a silly, comic book smash 'em up that remakes the original's sublime and elegant beast into a weird and disturbing (and not in agood way) hybrid of a termite mound and the Viet Cong. In short, I think it's a stupid movie. It does not follow, however, that I think those who like it--even those who prefer it the original--are stupid as well, just that they look for different things in SF movies.
*eXistenZ is far more serious and, paradoxically, far more playful examination of the Phildickian "what is real?" conundrum than the much more celebrated original Matrix movie, released around the same time. It bombed at the box office, got a lukewarm critical response and it is one of my all-time favorite films.
number6
Vice Admiral
I thought the Dalton Bond was ok, but I think the Bond franchise had become creatively exhausted. By the time Brosnan finally got his shot at Bond (The producers of Remmington Steele wouldn't let him out of his contract, once the buzz caught on that he might be the new Bond), the Bond creative team had run out of gas. Craig's Bond has reinvented the franchise. I like the direction they have taken with it. It is far less campy than the Moore era and certainly a little more contemporary than the Connery era.
