James Bond Canceled / MGM in Financial Mess

Well said!

I think out of everyone in this thread YOU truely GET Bond.

There are no BAD Bond films, just DIFFERENT Bond films.
In my mind at least, I have always sorta seen the name "James Bond" as an allias that is assigned to different "00" agents.
Kinda like a Mantel that is passed down
. I know this doesnt tie with the litterary Bond, but it sorta helps me justify the disjointedness of the films

The guy who directed the poor Die Another Day unfortunately thought the same thing about Bond being a code name. All the actors just had a different take and played to their strengths until Daniel Craig who is the first true different Bond.
 
Well said!

I think out of everyone in this thread YOU truely GET Bond.

There are no BAD Bond films, just DIFFERENT Bond films.
In my mind at least, I have always sorta seen the name "James Bond" as an allias that is assigned to different "00" agents.
Kinda like a Mantel that is passed down. I know this doesnt tie with the litterary Bond, but it sorta helps me justify the disjointedness of the films

Moonraker. 'Nuff said.
 
Moonraker. 'Nuff said.

Heh... Die Another Day being the other turd. It's a rip-off of XXX, which in turn is a Bond rip-off. :lol

What bugs me about the Brosnan movies is that they got the perfect guy to play Bond (old school suave Bond, not the cold and ruthless Craig type Bond) but they come up with mediocre storylines for him. The best of the Brosnan Bonds in my opinion is Tomorrow Never Dies, the rest are just rubbish.
 
Heh... Die Another Day being the other turd. It's a rip-off of XXX, which in turn is a Bond rip-off. :lol

What bugs me about the Brosnan movies is that they got the perfect guy to play Bond (old school suave Bond, not the cold and ruthless Craig type Bond) but they come up with mediocre storylines for him. The best of the Brosnan Bonds in my opinion is Tomorrow Never Dies, the rest are just rubbish.

Minor point, but the "cold, ruthless Bond" IS the "old school" Bond. The books started coming out in 1954, I think, and that's where that Bond is from.

That said, yes, Brosnan could've been a sublimely wonderful movie Bond if Bond wasn't going through an identity crisis at that point. With the end of the Cold War, what was Bond's relevance? They struggled with that for a while.

I think all of Brosnan's movies have good elements to them. Goldeneye was probably my favorite, though. I liked Tomorrow Never Dies, but mostly because Rupert Murdoch is the devil incarnate and I like the idea of Britain's top secret agent killing him. Plus I hated those damn Infiniti commercials. It started going off the rails really with The World is Not Enough, although even that has some decent moments, and Die Another Day, which still does one of the most daring things in Bond movie history by having Bond in captivity at the start, and then going off the reservation when he's been denied. But then it just goes completely insane with stupid stunts, and WAY worse quips.

At any rate, Brosnan had SO much potential as Bond, and you see it shine through in spite of the layers of crap they laid overtop him with bad scripts, dumb plots, and Bond girls named "Christmas Jones" (and the obligatory godawful pun associated therewith).
 
It definitely has its moments, but it also has its bad/goofy parts.

Christmas Jones? Really? REALLY?
 
True but all of the Brosnan films are like that. The World is Not Enough is the only one I can watch completely as a movie and not as action scenes tied together. Plus Sophie Marceau! I actually think they toned down Denise Richards natural beauty in this film too. There is a really hot image of her in a Supergirl t-shirt. Goldeneye is good at times but it just doesn't sound like a Bond movie.
 
While Sophie Marceau is indeed exquisite, Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist just totally spoiled it for me. :lol
 
The only Brosnan film I can sit through without squirming is Goldeneye. TND was terrible except for the opening sequence, TWINE was even worse IMO.

I really liked Craig, brought back the Bond that Flemming created. I'm a huge fan of the books and every actor that has played Bond has brought forth different parts of that character. The only one that I really didn't care for entirely was Roger Moore.
 
I think out of everyone in this thread YOU truely GET Bond.

I've read all the books, seen all the movies, read countless books about the movies and books, interviews with Ian Flemming.

I "get" Bond.

It is simply put, if all the Bond movies had been true to the books, there would have been one Bond movie ever. And you wouldn't even know the name James Bond.

Bond is famous because of the movies. Period. Most of the books are weak. Most of the movies are great.

You guys would probably have asked Kubrick what 2001 was about and then been mad at him when he didn't tell you.

All entertainment is completely subjective, no one person can get it more than another. That's ludacris.
 
No.

This is Ludacris.

ludacris.jpg



THAT is ludicrous.


But I digress. The first two Bond films pretty faithfully follow the books on which they're based. They do take some dramatic license, introducing SPECTRE and the like, but for the most part, they're pretty faithful. It's only when you hit Goldfinger that you REALLY hit the 1960s Movie Bond in full force (although plot-wise it follows the book pretty well).

Don't get me wrong. I like the early Bond movies. I love the 60s Bond, with ninja commando raids, evil faceless villains petting persian cats, even the quips. But that formula got really really tired by the time they hit DAD, and it was taken to RIDICULOUS extremes.

I think that what I missed from the Bond books is not so much the absolute 1:1 parallel between the books, but rather the closer portrayal of the literary character. Yeah, the gadgets are cool sometimes, but if Bond just has a gadget for LITERALLY every situation (And he always seems to) and knows all manner of esoteric knowledge about...whatever...then he ceases to be someone who impresses with heroism. What I love most about the literary Bond is the following:

1.) He's tough and resourceful. He almost NEVER has gadgets. Watch Dr. No for the best showing of this. Bond's escape from his cell is the kind of stuff I'm talking about, or when he plucks one of his own hairs, licks it, and sticks it to his closet door just so he can see if it's been disturbed when he returns. No scene of Q saying "Now, pay attention 007. This device is an ultraviolet motion sensor. You can plug it into your attache case's USB port to determine whether anyone has tripped it within the last 48 hrs." Just resourcefulness.

2.) He's ruthless...but not impervious. The quips in the 60s films were put in, as I understand it, largely because they helped soften the blow of what was -- at that point -- pretty violent stuff. In only ONE of the movies does Bond REALLY seem ruthless, and that's Dr. No where he points out that the dude he's up against has a Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistol -- then shoots him -- and says "And you've had your seven." (Implying that he knows the gun's empty.) But that's not the same as saying something like "Next time, keep your powder dry" or decapitating the guy and saying "Not a great way to GET A HEAD in life" or somesuch nonsense. Part of why Austin Powers 1 was so good was that it parodied this thing PERFECTLY.

Moreover, the books really get across that Bond DOES feel this stuff. He's not JUST a ruthless killing machine...although part of him might prefer that. In some ways, he really hates himself and his job, but he's also driven by duty and the thrill of it. That leaves him in constant conflict, internally, which is why he indulges in the finer things in life -- to forget.

Brosnan, I thought, really captured this well. Sure, he comes across like a goofy schoolboy, or a ruthless killer at times, but once in a while the armor came down and you got to see who he really was. I think Brosnan was really trying to get more of that into the films (DAD missed that entirely, though).

Anyway, it's true that Casino Royale done in the 60s would've been.....slow and dull. Nothing like the 60s Bond films we saw. Even the movie version we have now sexes it up quite a bit with a LOT more action than is in the book. That was fine with me, though. They still captured the character and most of the book's important plot points fantastically well.
 
Back
Top