prfsnl_gmr wrote:Yes. Connery’s later Bond films are DIRE, and Moore really reinvigorated the franchise.
I still like Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun, but Moore really didn't become his own bond until The Spy Who Loved Me. He's a little wooden in Live and Let Die, like he wasn't sure how to play it yet. Lots of people don't like Golden Gun and claim he was trying to be a Connery clone in it but it didn't work. I really don't mind him in either.
marurun wrote:I think one of my favorite Bond films is actually On Her Majesty's Secret Service. While Lazenby isn't my favorite Bond, I think this film is just very well done, and the characters feel a bit more human.
I think Lazenby would have been even better if he played Bond one more time. One thing I don't like about OHMSS is how Lazenby's voice is dubbed for like half the movie.
Watching all the Bonds for the first time as a kid, I was massively confused by OHMSS. "So wait, if that's Blofeld, then why doesn't he recognize James Bond?" I know now that it's because they wanted to keep it as close to the book as possible, even though that screws everything up. It either recons something, or puts OHMSS in it's own universe. Which it can't be the later because they added that seen of Lazenby looking at his mementos from previous films and playing those films' theme songs while he does it.
Usually when I watch the Bond films, I'll watch them in release order. But just recently I tried something for the first time. I skipped OHMSS and watched Diamonds Are Forever after You Only Live Twice (don't worry, I still will watch OHMSS). This is interesting because it's almost as if they made the opening to Diamonds work as a pickup to either YOLT or OHMSS, but I think it works best when directly following YOLT. Of the montage of Bond questioning people where Blofeld is, the first scene is in Japan. Which is perfect because that's where YOLT leaves off. It's as if Blofeld escapes at the end of YOLT but Bond stays hot on his trail. The only thing that doesn't work is that Blofeld goes from bald with scar to hair with no scar. But since he's making a double with that plastic mud surgery thing, I just chalk it up to that.
Which, by the way, Donald Pleasence played the best Blofeld.
The Connery films, as far as Blofeld is concerned, work better when viewed on their own. But the rest of the films after Connery seem to use OHMSS in the sense that Blofeld kills Tracy. The line in Spy Who Loved Me, "Once married..." And also in License to Kill. Then there's the opening sequence in For Your Eyes Only, where James does battle with Blofeld after visiting Tracy's grave. And Blofeld is wearing a neck brace, as he is at the end of OHMSS.
pilgrimteeth wrote:Spamming my own thread here, but felt necessary to split things up. Inspired by the Bond talk, something I love to talk about:
My Top 10 Bond Themes (In No Order):
Unabashedly modern and I'll probably catch some shit for it, but god, most of the last long stretch of themes have been so great.
My Top 1 Always Skipped Bond Theme (No Offense):
Madonna - Die Another Day
I like a lot of the modern theme songs. I also like too many of the old ones, I probably would have a hard time making a top 10 for myself.
Die Another Day... I pretend doesn't exist. When I'm watching the movies in release order, I skip this one and never watch it. I saw it twice in theaters and then ignored it for the longest while. A couple of years ago I decided to give it another watch since it's been so long. And, I think it's actually WORSE than I remember it! It is by far the worst Bond movie. Anything bad you could ever say about the Bond movies, this one beats all of it by a mile. As campy as some of the 60's stuff got, and as silly as some of the Moore stuff got, Die Another Day is still loads worse. It's like they couldn't be bothered writing a real Bond movie so they went to EA and bought one of their ideas for a video game.
Bond doesn't have funny one-liners, he has old dad jokes and the movie is littered with them. The special effects are garbage, even at it's release. There's too many recycled elements for no reason (like Honey Ryder). And the plot involves a diamond powered space laser. Hmm, where have I seen that before? I know some of the Q gadgets are a little fantastic, but they were always just this side of plausible. The invisible car just took it too far. Perhaps if the rest of the movie was good, I could just accept the invisible car. But since the rest of the movie is garbage, no, the invisible car is just too fantastic. It has a couple of almost half decent action scenes, but it's ruined by the rest of the movie around it. But it also has some really lame action scenes. And yes, the sword fight. I'm not saying James Bond can't have a sword fight, but it just felt so force. Like, "Hey, let's have Bond get in a sword fight because sword fights are cool!" - "OK, how are we gonna do that?" - "Who cares, let's just have it happen!" And it doesn't have any really nice locations or set pieces (something you come to expect in Bond films). Nothing memorable, anyway. And the ice palace at the end would have worked in a Bond game maybe but not a movie. It's as if a child wrote a Bond fan fiction and sent it into to EON production and they used it.
I've been a huge Bond fan since the 5th grade, but I just loathe Die Another Day. The only good thing to come out of that movie was Casino Royale. For Die Another Day, the pendulum swung waaaaay too far to the silly/fantastic side and Casino Royale was the reaction to it.
