I have been making my way through the James Bond franchise.˙ I thought I would share some thoughts on the movies I watched so far.
I have a new 4K box set of all the Eon produced Sean Connery movies. All
the movies have commentary tracks, but they also have new Dolby Atmos
sound.˙ I decided to skip the commentaries and listen to the Dolby Atmos tracks, but I did occasionally sample bits of the commentaries. The rest
of the movies I have on blu-ray.˙ They all have commentaries. Some I listened to the commentary, some randomly have text commentaries and
some I just watched with movie audio while occasionally sampling the commentaries. I'll be referencing both my thoughts on some of the movies
and the trivia from the commentaries.
"Dr. No." and "Goldfinger" were watched, but I have no comments.
"From Russia with Love" - While I consider myself a huge James Bond fan,
a lot of the movies I've only ever watched 2 or 3 times, and many I only vaguely remember.˙ "From Russia with Love" falls into the category of a movie I only ever saw maybe twice, and I only vaguely remember.˙ I could have sworn that this movie ended with a fight scene between James Bond
and a female villain on top of a train.˙ I was actually looking forward
to seeing that ending and was genuinely surprised when it didn't happen.
In one of the Connery movies, maybe "Thunderball" I was surprised when
Bond extorted a woman into sleeping with him.˙ By modern standards, that would be rape.˙ Thunderball is another Bond movie I've only ever seen
maybe twice and was really unfamiliar with the plot going in.
I already mentioned I watched the 1967 Casino Royale in a different thread.
"On Her Majesty's Secret Service" - I've always really enjoyed this Bond movie.˙ Was this the first Bond movie to involve Bond on skis?˙ Bond
skiing would definitely become a regular occurrence going forward.˙ I
sample a bit of the commentary and they mentioned this one had a score instead of a song because they didn't think it was possible to make a
good song with "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in the lyrics.˙ That
being said, I actually really like the score.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1dkxFH9hFg
"Diamonds are Forever" - I don't have much to say about this one, other
than I never cared much for it.˙ I grew up watching Roger Moore's "Bond"
and was always more of a fan of his "Bond" films.
"Live and Let Die" the first Roger Moore movie and one of my favorites growing up.˙ It doesn't really hold up that well as an adult, but I
still like it.˙ I watched with the cast and crew audio commentary track
and there was lots of good bits of trivia.˙ Yaphet Kotto, who played the Bond villain was on the commentary and discussed how playing a Bond
villain went to his head.˙ He said he started to act like James Bond,
and for several years after the movie, he was still acting like Bond in
real life, living a very extravagant life, until he finally came to his senses and stopped wasting money.˙ Another bit of trivia that caught me
by surprise was when they mentioned Roger Moore being in the running to
play Bond since "Dr. No."˙ That made *no* sense to me until they also
said Roger Moore is actually older than Sean Connery.˙ That blew my mind
to hear.
"The Man with the Golden Gun" - Another Bond flick I've only ever seen
about twice.˙ For some reason it always feels to me like it was the
first Roger Moore, "Bond" movie.˙ Maybe because both this and "Live and
Let Die" were both released before I was born, so their release order
didn't make a difference to me and I just never saw this one until much later so it felt like an earlier movie.˙ The commentary on this one was really good because it had Christopher Lee himself talking about the
making of the movie.
"The Spy Who Loved Me" Lewis Gilbert, director of "You Only Live Twice" directed this one.˙ The plot has Bond trying to stop an evil billionaire
who plots to wipe out human civilization.˙ But before Bond can stop him,
he has to get past a henchman called "Jaws" played by Richard Kiel.
After the movie, I thought wasn't this the same plot as "You Only Live Twice" and googled if it was a remake.˙ According to google it's not a remake but simply has the same director.˙ So, I learned my lesson and
will never again question if two Bond movies have the same plot or not.
"Moonraker" Lewis Gilbert, director of "You Only Live Twice" directed
this one.˙ The plot has Bond trying to stop an evil billionaire who
plots to wipe out human civilization.˙ But before Bond can stop him, he
has to get past a henchman called "Jaws" played by Richard Kiel.˙ No comment.˙ OK, a few comments. This was one of my favorites growing up.
Or at least I love the pre-title opening sequence when Bond jumps out an airplane without a parachute, beats up the bad guy and takes the bad
guy's chute.˙ One other thing I'll say, I was eating when they
introduced the "Bond girl," "Dr. Holly Goodhead," I nearly spit my food
out when they said the name.
"For Your Eyes Only" - This one stands out to me as the first Bond I can remember watching on TV when I was a kid.˙ I remember the pre-title
opening where Bond kills "Blofeld" even though he's never acknowledged
to be "Blofeld" it wouldn't be until many, many, years later before I understood the connection of who Blofeld was and why Bond killed him,
other than the obvious self-defense.˙ The other thing that stood out for
me as my first Bond movie, was the wonderful theme song, and opening credits.˙ That was definitely a way to get a young boy hooked on Bond.
This has to be the very first time I have ever watched this movie and noticed that "M" was not in it.˙ The actor who played him, Bernard Lee,
had passed away.˙ This might also be the movie where I first realized
that Lois Maxwell who plays "Miss Moneypenny" had been reprising the
role since "Dr. No."˙ Because I came into the series so much later in
life, my perspective on "Miss Moneypenny" growing up was that they
changed the actress every other movie.˙ I just never realized it was the same actress just getting older.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kNksLL0sv4
"Never Say Never Again" - Not a "Eon" produced Bond movie, but I was
hardly going to skip it!˙ It was directed by the same guy who directed
The Empire Strikes Back, how bad can it be?˙ Sean Connery is back in
this remake of "Thunderball" although I certainly didn't see many similarities.˙ In spite of Bond showing his age (I'm telling you,
Connery's Bond, *is* older than Moore's Bond!) it's still a fun outing.
And the video game scene still holds up today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUT5CpgYXMM
And I still love the catchy theme song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_aJbGrgH-Y
"Octopussy" - I have not seen this one in forever.˙ I was really,
really, looking forward to seeing this one again.˙ I used to watch this
all the time on cable when I was a kid.˙ When they stopped airing "For
Your Eyes Only" in constant rotation, it was replaced by "Octopussy." On
the commentary they said the new "M" was replaced Bernard Lee was a
friend of Roger Moore and Moore recommended him for the part.˙ I
honestly thought maybe the same actor played "M" for all the pre Judi
Dench Bond movies, so this viewing is the first time I learned the
original actor died and they replaced him half way through.
I still remember way back when, watching both "Never Say Never Again"
and "Octopussy" back to back on TV with the host comparing the two
movies and the two Bonds.˙ That was probably the first time the
comparison was brought to my attention and I actually thought about it.
And I'm pretty sure "Never Say Never Again" was the first time I ever
saw a Sean Connery "Bond" movie.
"A View to a Kill" - There's not much to say about this one.˙ Overall, I guess I will finally admit, maybe, just maybe, this isn't a good Bond
movie.˙ OK, there I said it.˙ But, I lived in San Francisco when they
filmed this movie.˙ It was a *huge* deal, especially to a 7-year-old
child.˙ So, it will always hold a special place in my heart.
"The Living Daylights" - Timothy Dalton takes over as Bond.˙ This is one that for whatever reason I sort of glossed over growing up.˙ I
definitely remember the news stories about Dalton taking over as Bond,
but the movie itself seemed to just come and go so quickly that it never registered with me and fell through the cracks.˙˙ Watching it again I
think it holds up pretty well.
"License to Kill" - Now this one on the other hand, it seemed to
overshadow "The Living Daylights" perhaps because it's just so much
better that everyone forgot "The Living Daylights" even existed.˙ I
think I appreciate this one much more as an adult than I ever did as a
kid.˙ Basically Bond goes on a rage fueled killing spree after his best friend Felix (David Hedison who reprised the role from "Live and Let
Die") is fed to a shark.˙ There is so much more that I noticed about the movie that I never noticed before, especially when it comes to the cast.
˙The movie full of so many recognizable actors, whose names I didn't
know in 1989, but I know today.˙ And this might be the first time I
noticed Benicio del Toro played a lead henchman.˙ I *knew* I recognized
the face, but not that the face was del Toro's.
And that's as far as I've gotten so far.˙ I should have the rest of the movies finished by the end of the month.--
"A View to a Kill" - There's not much to say about this one.
"From Russia with Love" - While I consider myself a huge James Bond fan,
a lot of the movies I've only ever watched 2 or 3 times, and many I only >vaguely remember. "From Russia with Love" falls into the category of a >movie I only ever saw maybe twice, and I only vaguely remember. I could >have sworn that this movie ended with a fight scene between James Bond
and a female villain on top of a train. I was actually looking forward
to seeing that ending and was genuinely surprised when it didn't happen.
In one of the Connery movies, maybe "Thunderball" I was surprised when
Bond extorted a woman into sleeping with him. By modern standards, that >would be rape. Thunderball is another Bond movie I've only ever seen
maybe twice and was really unfamiliar with the plot going in.
"On Her Majesty's Secret Service" - I've always really enjoyed this Bond >movie. Was this the first Bond movie to involve Bond on skis? Bond
skiing would definitely become a regular occurrence going forward. I
sample a bit of the commentary and they mentioned this one had a score >instead of a song because they didn't think it was possible to make a
good song with "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in the lyrics. That
being said, I actually really like the score.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1dkxFH9hFg
"Diamonds are Forever" - I don't have much to say about this one, other
than I never cared much for it. I grew up watching Roger Moore's "Bond"
and was always more of a fan of his "Bond" films.
"Live and Let Die" the first Roger Moore movie and one of my favorites >growing up. It doesn't really hold up that well as an adult, but I
still like it. I watched with the cast and crew audio commentary track
and there was lots of good bits of trivia. Yaphet Kotto, who played the >Bond villain was on the commentary and discussed how playing a Bond
villain went to his head. He said he started to act like James Bond,
and for several years after the movie, he was still acting like Bond in
real life, living a very extravagant life, until he finally came to his >senses and stopped wasting money. Another bit of trivia that caught me
by surprise was when they mentioned Roger Moore being in the running to
play Bond since "Dr. No." That made *no* sense to me until they also
said Roger Moore is actually older than Sean Connery. That blew my mind
to hear.
"The Man with the Golden Gun" - Another Bond flick I've only ever seen
about twice. For some reason it always feels to me like it was the
first Roger Moore, "Bond" movie. Maybe because both this and "Live and
Let Die" were both released before I was born, so their release order
didn't make a difference to me and I just never saw this one until much >later so it felt like an earlier movie. The commentary on this one was >really good because it had Christopher Lee himself talking about the
making of the movie.
"The Spy Who Loved Me" Lewis Gilbert, director of "You Only Live Twice" >directed this one. The plot has Bond trying to stop an evil billionaire
who plots to wipe out human civilization. But before Bond can stop him,
he has to get past a henchman called "Jaws" played by Richard Kiel.
After the movie, I thought wasn't this the same plot as "You Only Live >Twice" and googled if it was a remake. According to google it's not a >remake but simply has the same director. So, I learned my lesson and
will never again question if two Bond movies have the same plot or not.
"Moonraker" Lewis Gilbert, director of "You Only Live Twice" directed
this one. The plot has Bond trying to stop an evil billionaire who
plots to wipe out human civilization. But before Bond can stop him, he
has to get past a henchman called "Jaws" played by Richard Kiel. No >comment. OK, a few comments. This was one of my favorites growing up.
Or at least I love the pre-title opening sequence when Bond jumps out an >airplane without a parachute, beats up the bad guy and takes the bad
guy's chute. One other thing I'll say, I was eating when they
introduced the "Bond girl," "Dr. Holly Goodhead," I nearly spit my food
out when they said the name.
"For Your Eyes Only" - This one stands out to me as the first Bond I can >remember watching on TV when I was a kid. I remember the pre-title
opening where Bond kills "Blofeld" even though he's never acknowledged
to be "Blofeld" it wouldn't be until many, many, years later before I >understood the connection of who Blofeld was and why Bond killed him,
other than the obvious self-defense.
The other thing that stood out for
me as my first Bond movie, was the wonderful theme song, and opening >credits. That was definitely a way to get a young boy hooked on Bond.
This has to be the very first time I have ever watched this movie and >noticed that "M" was not in it. The actor who played him, Bernard Lee,
had passed away. This might also be the movie where I first realized
that Lois Maxwell who plays "Miss Moneypenny" had been reprising the
role since "Dr. No." Because I came into the series so much later in
life, my perspective on "Miss Moneypenny" growing up was that they
changed the actress every other movie. I just never realized it was the >same actress just getting older.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kNksLL0sv4
"Octopussy" - I have not seen this one in forever. I was really,
really, looking forward to seeing this one again. . . .
"A View to a Kill" - There's not much to say about this one. Overall, I >guess I will finally admit, maybe, just maybe, this isn't a good Bond
movie. OK, there I said it. But, I lived in San Francisco when they
filmed this movie. It was a *huge* deal, especially to a 7-year-old
child. So, it will always hold a special place in my heart.
"The Living Daylights" - Timothy Dalton takes over as Bond. This is one >that for whatever reason I sort of glossed over growing up. I
definitely remember the news stories about Dalton taking over as Bond,
but the movie itself seemed to just come and go so quickly that it never >registered with me and fell through the cracks. Watching it again I
think it holds up pretty well.
"License to Kill" - Now this one on the other hand, it seemed to
overshadow "The Living Daylights" perhaps because it's just so much
better that everyone forgot "The Living Daylights" even existed. I
think I appreciate this one much more as an adult than I ever did as a
kid. Basically Bond goes on a rage fueled killing spree after his best >friend Felix (David Hedison who reprised the role from "Live and Let
Die") is fed to a shark. There is so much more that I noticed about the >movie that I never noticed before, especially when it comes to the cast.
The movie full of so many recognizable actors, whose names I didn't
know in 1989, but I know today. And this might be the first time I
noticed Benicio del Toro played a lead henchman. I *knew* I recognized
the face, but not that the face was del Toro's.
Aug 25, 2025 8:43:41 AM PDT Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org>:
"A View to a Kill" - There's not much to say about this one.
The only thing you can say about it is: Tanya Roberts.
I have been making my way through the James Bond franchise. I thought
I would share some thoughts on the movies I watched so far.
I have a new 4K box set of all the Eon produced Sean Connery movies.
All the movies have commentary tracks, but they also have new Dolby
Atmos sound. I decided to skip the commentaries and listen to the
Dolby Atmos tracks, but I did occasionally sample bits of the
commentaries. The rest of the movies I have on blu-ray. They all have commentaries. Some I listened to the commentary, some randomly have
text commentaries and some I just watched with movie audio while occasionally sampling the commentaries. I'll be referencing both my
thoughts on some of the movies and the trivia from the commentaries.
"Dr. No." and "Goldfinger" were watched, but I have no comments.
"From Russia with Love" - While I consider myself a huge James Bond
fan, a lot of the movies I've only ever watched 2 or 3 times, and many
I only vaguely remember. "From Russia with Love" falls into the
category of a movie I only ever saw maybe twice, and I only vaguely remember. I could have sworn that this movie ended with a fight scene between James Bond and a female villain on top of a train. I was
actually looking forward to seeing that ending and was genuinely
surprised when it didn't happen.
In one of the Connery movies, maybe "Thunderball" I was surprised when
Bond extorted a woman into sleeping with him. By modern standards,
that would be rape. Thunderball is another Bond movie I've only ever
seen maybe twice and was really unfamiliar with the plot going in.
I already mentioned I watched the 1967 Casino Royale in a different thread.
"On Her Majesty's Secret Service" - I've always really enjoyed this
Bond movie. Was this the first Bond movie to involve Bond on skis?
Bond skiing would definitely become a regular occurrence going forward.
I sample a bit of the commentary and they mentioned this one had a
score instead of a song because they didn't think it was possible to
make a good song with "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in the lyrics.
That being said, I actually really like the score.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1dkxFH9hFg
"Octopussy" - I have not seen this one in forever. I was really,
really, looking forward to seeing this one again. I used to watch this
all the time on cable when I was a kid. When they stopped airing "For
Your Eyes Only" in constant rotation, it was replaced by "Octopussy."
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
"From Russia with Love" - While I consider myself a huge James Bond fan,
a lot of the movies I've only ever watched 2 or 3 times, and many I only
vaguely remember. "From Russia with Love" falls into the category of a
movie I only ever saw maybe twice, and I only vaguely remember. I could
have sworn that this movie ended with a fight scene between James Bond
and a female villain on top of a train. I was actually looking forward
to seeing that ending and was genuinely surprised when it didn't happen.
This was a great movie. It was produced from one of the later novels
because John F. Kennedy said publicly that he'd just read that novel and thought it would make a good movie.
This has the epic fight with Red Grant, and damn, that was one of the
best choreographed movie fights we've ever seen (but the fight in the elevator in Diamonds Are Forever, with the same stuntman, is just as
good). Lotte Lenya was terrific as the the henchwoman. Audiences at the
time who were too young to remember saw her made up as an evil-looking
hag but she was truly a great beauty in her younger days.
In one of the Connery movies, maybe "Thunderball" I was surprised when
Bond extorted a woman into sleeping with him. By modern standards, that
would be rape. Thunderball is another Bond movie I've only ever seen
maybe twice and was really unfamiliar with the plot going in.
So what was your opinion of the underwater set piece action sequence?
I've always loved it, but this movie has severe critics that the
sequence goes on far too long and should have been better edited.
Did you notice that, because he lost the copyright battle to Kevin
McClory, Ian Fleming received no credit for Thunderball?
James Bond, despite being dressed in the finest evening clothes (that transformed Sean Connery from working class to someone who could move
around in the circles of power), is a thug. He assasinates and murders people,
mission. He outright murdered Prof Dent in Dr. No. In the pre-credit
revenge sequence in Diamonds Are Forever, which was mostly a comedy with
high camp and farcical elements, he tortured a woman for information by strangling her with the top of her two-piece bathing suit till she was convinced to talk.
Roger Moore used one of Q's gadgets to start stripping a woman naked,
clearly misappropriation of British taxpayers' monies.
But the most shocking of all was Daniel Craig romancing the neglected
wife of the terrorist, who desperately wanted to boink him, then failing
to do his duty and satisfy the lady. Her husband murdered her anyway. I shouldn't joke about this one as she was set up to be liked by the
audience. Her death was upsetting and we felt her interaction with James
Bond led to her demise and would have wanted hin to save her.
"On Her Majesty's Secret Service" - I've always really enjoyed this Bond
movie. Was this the first Bond movie to involve Bond on skis? Bond
skiing would definitely become a regular occurrence going forward. I
sample a bit of the commentary and they mentioned this one had a score
instead of a song because they didn't think it was possible to make a
good song with "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in the lyrics. That
being said, I actually really like the score.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1dkxFH9hFg
Forcing the novel's title into the lyrics of the main theme was a
terrible decision. Now, From Russia With Love and Diamonds Are Fovever
are lyrical and do work, but plenty of the other novel titles don't work
at all. The main theme for Dr. No has no lyrics; I'm not counting Three
Blind Mice.
I think it was in reaction to the idiotically stupid lyrics for
Thunderball. Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was written for that movie, and
Shirley Bassey recorded it. There's also a Dionne Warwick cover of it.
That it was rejected was a disappointment.
Yes, the skiing sequence was a first for James Bond. Skiing in the
tobaggan run was an incredible action sequence. The same stunt team was
used for the excellent skiing action sequences in For Your Eyes Only.
I will also point out that OHMSS would not have been a straight
adaptation of the novel if Sean Connery hadn't resigned after You Only
Live Twice.
was given the opportunity to direct. He wanted to avoid another
Goldfinger and the excesses of YOLT, and wasn't given a production
budget large enough to induldge in YOLT's excesses anyway.
If it had been Connery, Hunt wouldn't have directed and it would have
been along the lines of Goldfinger.
The Blofeld trilogy of novels -- FRWL, OHMSS, and YOLT -- were filmed
out of sequence. The winter that year in Switzerland was so bad they put
off production of OHMSS and moved up production of YOLT. The audience
was supposed to ignore Bond and Blofeld not having met. Hell, Blofeld is
dead at the end of YOLT. Yes, I know he got better for DAF.
"Diamonds are Forever" - I don't have much to say about this one, other
than I never cared much for it. I grew up watching Roger Moore's "Bond"
and was always more of a fan of his "Bond" films.
You're supposed to ask, What happened to Lana Wood?
supposed to kill him? Didn't we just see much of this plot in YOLT? What
was the creamation scene about? And the "Alimentary, Mr. Leiter" gag
doesn't work at all because that means that James Bond had to...
All that being said, the broad comedy largely works. Mr. Wynt and Mr.
Kidd steal every scene they were in. The biggest gag is seeing them
murder so many of the intermediaries when shutting down the diamond
smuggling pipeline, which doesn't faze the audience, but watching them
skip away holding hands is shocking.
"Live and Let Die" the first Roger Moore movie and one of my favorites
growing up. It doesn't really hold up that well as an adult, but I
still like it. I watched with the cast and crew audio commentary track
and there was lots of good bits of trivia. Yaphet Kotto, who played the
Bond villain was on the commentary and discussed how playing a Bond
villain went to his head. He said he started to act like James Bond,
and for several years after the movie, he was still acting like Bond in
real life, living a very extravagant life, until he finally came to his
senses and stopped wasting money. Another bit of trivia that caught me
by surprise was when they mentioned Roger Moore being in the running to
play Bond since "Dr. No." That made *no* sense to me until they also
said Roger Moore is actually older than Sean Connery. That blew my mind
to hear.
You have to understand that Moore was a very good friend of Albert Broccoli's. Also, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan was considered years earlier.
I don't remember why Moore wasn't considered for OHMSS.
From Broccoli's and Saltzman's perspective, it worked out that Moore
came later. By then, he was an internationally known and well liked
tv star thanks to The Saint.
Interesting story about Kotto.
What do you think about the chase in the bayou? This is criticized for
going on way too long. This time, I agree.
It's simply got the greatest pre-credit sequence in any James Bond
movie.
And you gotta ask, How were characters killed off in Dr. No resurrected
for this movie? Once again, they didn't film the novels in the order
they were written in.
"The Man with the Golden Gun" - Another Bond flick I've only ever seen
about twice. For some reason it always feels to me like it was the
first Roger Moore, "Bond" movie. Maybe because both this and "Live and
Let Die" were both released before I was born, so their release order
didn't make a difference to me and I just never saw this one until much
later so it felt like an earlier movie. The commentary on this one was
really good because it had Christopher Lee himself talking about the
making of the movie.
Casting Lee as a villain was both obvious and brilliant. It's too bad it wasn't a better movie.
This had huge problems. Fleming was dying when he wrote this. He didn't
have a lot of new ideas and essentially redid the train sequence from
FRWL in this novel. The novel opened with a James Bond who had lost his
mind trying to kill Blofeld at the end of YOLT; he'd been shot and
poisoned, as I recall, and abandoned by his service. The opening was interesting but not used in the movie.
The draft novel needed a major rewrite that Fleming couldn't do. It
wasn't completed. Kingsley Amis, who would be assigned to write several
Bond novels by Fleming's estate, finished the novel to the extent it
could be published. This and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and a short story collection with an added story that I think hadn't been published in
Playboy were published posthumously.
The solar energy stuff was original to the movie.
The Mary Goodnight character doesn't work too well in the plot, but
Britt Ekland is in a bikini and spends more time in it as her costume
than Tiffany Case (Jill St. John) did in DAF. It's impossible to dislike
her.
The most serious problem is that the plot doesn't know what to do with
Andrea Anders
Scaramanga's lover. She doesn't exactly commit to being on the side
of, er, light. She's afraid to leave him and tries to get Bond to kill
him for her. When Scaramanga kills her, it should have meant more to
the audience. It doesn't help that she's gotten the Maguffin away from Scaramanga and into Bond's hands in an absurd plot development, despite having already been killed.
They brought her back for Octopussy and she's the best thing in that
movie.
I just spotted a mean-spirited article criticizing her for having the
nerve to turn 80 and not looking like the Swedish model and actress she
had been in her heyday. I think she still looks good.
After TMWTGG, Harry Saltzman sold his half of EON to United Artists. In
part, he wanted to fuck with Broccoli, but the studio would have outbid Broccoli regardless. This action accounts for the huge gaps between
certain Bond movies. The Heaven's Gate (1980) destroyed UA. Its
conglomerate wanted out of movies in the worst way. Kirk Kerkorian, who
had already bought MGM out of bankruptcy, bought UA and would merge it
into MGM. MGM would then go bankrupt again... and again. This tied
Bond's future to the disaster that was MGM and there were a lot of years
that MGM just didn't have the cash for a big-budget production. This is
why the John Glen directed Moores tended to have smaller budgets after Moonraker, although I didn't miss the excess, Timothy Dalton "played"
James Bond for six years waiting for his third script to get produced
(it never would be), then the very long delay when Pierce Brosnan
wouldn't get his fifth script produced (I believe there was a script)
and Columbia Studios financed the first two Daniel Craig's. Getting
Columbia on board prevented them from suing MGM over Casino Royale
rights, which Columbia owned, or maybe it didn't. It's confusing.
"The Spy Who Loved Me" Lewis Gilbert, director of "You Only Live Twice"
directed this one. The plot has Bond trying to stop an evil billionaire
who plots to wipe out human civilization. But before Bond can stop him,
he has to get past a henchman called "Jaws" played by Richard Kiel.
After the movie, I thought wasn't this the same plot as "You Only Live
Twice" and googled if it was a remake. According to google it's not a
remake but simply has the same director. So, I learned my lesson and
will never again question if two Bond movies have the same plot or not.
I'm with you. It's a remake. Stromberg (Curt Jurgens) is Blofeld from
YOLT. However, he's a great villain and I don't mind. And yeah, I always confuse which aspects of the space sequences were in YOLT and Moonraker,
and did they just substitute submarines for space craft.
Also, Jaws is a super-human version of Oddjob.
The movie's biggest problem was the obvious dubbing of Barbara Bach, a disservice to her as American audiences just assumed she couldn't act.
There are recordings of her doing the Russian accent in character as
Anya and there's a certain warmth to it.
The second problem was John Barry was effectively fired by Broccoli.
They brought in Marvin Hamlisch who had (undeservedly) won an Oscar for orchestrating Scott Joplin's piano rags for The Sting. Hamlisch's score
is big orchestrated music with a disco beat. It's stuck in the movie era
of Vinnie playing Tony in Saturday Night Fever (1977). Even though
Barry's music is of the '60s, it's iconic. Hamlisch is derivative here.
I like Carly Simon singing the theme song even though, yet again, the
novel's title got forced into it.
You may know that when Fleming sold his (remaining) adaptation rights to Saltzman and Broccoli, he did not sell them rights to this novel. They
could use the title, only. Fleming's novel was a woman's revenge story
that's got James Bond forced into the novel's final third. Fleming
considered the novel to be a failure.
The opening stunt with the parachute is just the greatest such movie
stunt ever. Hell, the story of performing the stunt would make an
exciting movie.
"Moonraker" Lewis Gilbert, director of "You Only Live Twice" directed
this one. The plot has Bond trying to stop an evil billionaire who
plots to wipe out human civilization. But before Bond can stop him, he
has to get past a henchman called "Jaws" played by Richard Kiel. No
comment. OK, a few comments. This was one of my favorites growing up.
Or at least I love the pre-title opening sequence when Bond jumps out an
airplane without a parachute, beats up the bad guy and takes the bad
guy's chute. One other thing I'll say, I was eating when they
introduced the "Bond girl," "Dr. Holly Goodhead," I nearly spit my food
out when they said the name.
Oh, c'mon. You never spotted Fleming's double entendre with Pussy
Galore, which became a triple entendre the way Connery pronounced it?
Sorry but I despise this movie. The novel, with a plot that was stuck in
the 1950s, was Fleming's best novel. I've always wanted the novel
adapted straight, set in the 1950s, maybe for television.
"For Your Eyes Only" - This one stands out to me as the first Bond I can
remember watching on TV when I was a kid. I remember the pre-title
opening where Bond kills "Blofeld" even though he's never acknowledged
to be "Blofeld" it wouldn't be until many, many, years later before I
understood the connection of who Blofeld was and why Bond killed him,
other than the obvious self-defense.
With regard to acting, Moore always relied upon wink wink nudge nudge
raise the eyebrow higher back to his days playing The Saint. Well, there
are certain scenes in this movie in which Moore isn't playing his Bond
from TSWLM but Fleming's Bond, especially when he kicks the car the
henchman is in off the ledge so very coldly.
It makes you wish that Moore had had more confidence in his ability to
act over the years.
John Glen yelled at Moore to force him to act.
The parrot is unforgiveable. Otherwise, this was a great movie.
"Octopussy" - I have not seen this one in forever. I was really,
really, looking forward to seeing this one again. . . .
I have fond memories of this as I saw it with my father in theater when
it first came out.
I like Maud Adams a lot in this.
This movie is heavily criticized for putting James Bond in a clown
costume. The critics are wrong. The movie has a circus theme, so it's
part of the circus theme. What, you forgot Sean Connery in the alligator
suit in the stupid Goldfinger pre-credit sequence?
Gaston as a supervillain doesn't quite work,
superduper henchman. Note that the villain's backstory gets re-used for Goldeneye.
"A View to a Kill" - There's not much to say about this one. Overall, I
guess I will finally admit, maybe, just maybe, this isn't a good Bond
movie. OK, there I said it. But, I lived in San Francisco when they
filmed this movie. It was a *huge* deal, especially to a 7-year-old
child. So, it will always hold a special place in my heart.
I've mentioned before that a long-ago Usenet poster, who was a real-life
film editor, explained that this movie could have been saved in editing. There was enough good stuff to edit it into a good movie.
Why would you have John Steed in your movie, only to kill him off early?
Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny, a real life friend of Moore's, leaves the
series.
"The Living Daylights" - Timothy Dalton takes over as Bond. This is one
that for whatever reason I sort of glossed over growing up. I
definitely remember the news stories about Dalton taking over as Bond,
but the movie itself seemed to just come and go so quickly that it never
registered with me and fell through the cracks. Watching it again I
think it holds up pretty well.
Dalton is a great actor. The script's a bit weak and his performance is
so much better than the script. He wears evening clothes in every single scene.
Walter Gotell's last time playing General Gogol. For reasons I've never understood, the character was not used in the Pierce Brosnan movies.
"License to Kill" - Now this one on the other hand, it seemed to
overshadow "The Living Daylights" perhaps because it's just so much
better that everyone forgot "The Living Daylights" even existed. I
think I appreciate this one much more as an adult than I ever did as a
kid. Basically Bond goes on a rage fueled killing spree after his best
friend Felix (David Hedison who reprised the role from "Live and Let
Die") is fed to a shark. There is so much more that I noticed about the
movie that I never noticed before, especially when it comes to the cast.
The movie full of so many recognizable actors, whose names I didn't
know in 1989, but I know today. And this might be the first time I
noticed Benicio del Toro played a lead henchman. I *knew* I recognized
the face, but not that the face was del Toro's.
I love this movie. I love the set-piece chase... with tanker trucks!
Spell it the British way! Licence! (This was controversial at the time.)
John Glen's last time directing Bond. Robert Brown's last time playing
M. Caroline Bliss would not return to play Moneypenny in the Brosnan
movies. What was that asshole Wayne Newton doing in this movie?
Felix Leiter getting married then losing his arm was from the novel
Live and Let Die, so it made sense not to recast Leiter for the 274th time.
You've now got six years to wait for Brosnan's movie to be released into theaters! MGM has gone bankrtupt again!
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
"From Russia with Love" - While I consider myself a huge James Bond fan,
a lot of the movies I've only ever watched 2 or 3 times, and many I only
vaguely remember. "From Russia with Love" falls into the category of a
movie I only ever saw maybe twice, and I only vaguely remember. I could
have sworn that this movie ended with a fight scene between James Bond
and a female villain on top of a train. I was actually looking forward
to seeing that ending and was genuinely surprised when it didn't happen.
This was a great movie. It was produced from one of the later novels
because John F. Kennedy said publicly that he'd just read that novel and thought it would make a good movie.
This has the epic fight with Red Grant, and damn, that was one of the
best choreographed movie fights we've ever seen (but the fight in the elevator in Diamonds Are Forever, with the same stuntman, is just as
good). Lotte Lenya was terrific as the the henchwoman. Audiences at the
time who were too young to remember saw her made up as an evil-looking
hag but she was truly a great beauty in her younger days.
In one of the Connery movies, maybe "Thunderball" I was surprised when
Bond extorted a woman into sleeping with him. By modern standards, that
would be rape. Thunderball is another Bond movie I've only ever seen
maybe twice and was really unfamiliar with the plot going in.
So what was your opinion of the underwater set piece action sequence?
I've always loved it, but this movie has severe critics that the
sequence goes on far too long and should have been better edited.
Did you notice that, because he lost the copyright battle to Kevin
McClory, Ian Fleming received no credit for Thunderball?
James Bond, despite being dressed in the finest evening clothes (that transformed Sean Connery from working class to someone who could move
around in the circles of power), is a thug. He assasinates and murders people,
mission. He outright murdered Prof Dent in Dr. No. In the pre-credit
revenge sequence in Diamonds Are Forever, which was mostly a comedy with
high camp and farcical elements, he tortured a woman for information by strangling her with the top of her two-piece bathing suit till she was convinced to talk.
Roger Moore used one of Q's gadgets to start stripping a woman naked,
clearly misappropriation of British taxpayers' monies.
But the most shocking of all was Daniel Craig romancing the neglected
wife of the terrorist, who desperately wanted to boink him, then failing
to do his duty and satisfy the lady. Her husband murdered her anyway. I shouldn't joke about this one as she was set up to be liked by the
audience. Her death was upsetting and we felt her interaction with James
Bond led to her demise and would have wanted hin to save her.
"On Her Majesty's Secret Service" - I've always really enjoyed this Bond
movie. Was this the first Bond movie to involve Bond on skis? Bond
skiing would definitely become a regular occurrence going forward. I
sample a bit of the commentary and they mentioned this one had a score
instead of a song because they didn't think it was possible to make a
good song with "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in the lyrics. That
being said, I actually really like the score.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1dkxFH9hFg
Forcing the novel's title into the lyrics of the main theme was a
terrible decision. Now, From Russia With Love and Diamonds Are Fovever
are lyrical and do work, but plenty of the other novel titles don't work
at all. The main theme for Dr. No has no lyrics; I'm not counting Three
Blind Mice.
I think it was in reaction to the idiotically stupid lyrics for
Thunderball. Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was written for that movie, and
Shirley Bassey recorded it. There's also a Dionne Warwick cover of it.
That it was rejected was a disappointment.
Yes, the skiing sequence was a first for James Bond. Skiing in the
tobaggan run was an incredible action sequence. The same stunt team was
used for the excellent skiing action sequences in For Your Eyes Only.
I will also point out that OHMSS would not have been a straight
adaptation of the novel if Sean Connery hadn't resigned after You Only
Live Twice.
was given the opportunity to direct. He wanted to avoid another
Goldfinger and the excesses of YOLT, and wasn't given a production
budget large enough to induldge in YOLT's excesses anyway.
If it had been Connery, Hunt wouldn't have directed and it would have
been along the lines of Goldfinger.
The Blofeld trilogy of novels -- FRWL, OHMSS, and YOLT -- were filmed
out of sequence. The winter that year in Switzerland was so bad they put
off production of OHMSS and moved up production of YOLT. The audience
was supposed to ignore Bond and Blofeld not having met. Hell, Blofeld is
dead at the end of YOLT. Yes, I know he got better for DAF.
"Diamonds are Forever" - I don't have much to say about this one, other
than I never cared much for it. I grew up watching Roger Moore's "Bond"
and was always more of a fan of his "Bond" films.
You're supposed to ask, What happened to Lana Wood?
supposed to kill him? Didn't we just see much of this plot in YOLT? What
was the creamation scene about? And the "Alimentary, Mr. Leiter" gag
doesn't work at all because that means that James Bond had to...
All that being said, the broad comedy largely works. Mr. Wynt and Mr.
Kidd steal every scene they were in. The biggest gag is seeing them
murder so many of the intermediaries when shutting down the diamond
smuggling pipeline, which doesn't faze the audience, but watching them
skip away holding hands is shocking.
"Live and Let Die" the first Roger Moore movie and one of my favorites
growing up. It doesn't really hold up that well as an adult, but I
still like it. I watched with the cast and crew audio commentary track
and there was lots of good bits of trivia. Yaphet Kotto, who played the
Bond villain was on the commentary and discussed how playing a Bond
villain went to his head. He said he started to act like James Bond,
and for several years after the movie, he was still acting like Bond in
real life, living a very extravagant life, until he finally came to his
senses and stopped wasting money. Another bit of trivia that caught me
by surprise was when they mentioned Roger Moore being in the running to
play Bond since "Dr. No." That made *no* sense to me until they also
said Roger Moore is actually older than Sean Connery. That blew my mind
to hear.
You have to understand that Moore was a very good friend of Albert Broccoli's. Also, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan was considered years earlier.
I don't remember why Moore wasn't considered for OHMSS.
From Broccoli's and Saltzman's perspective, it worked out that Moore
came later. By then, he was an internationally known and well liked
tv star thanks to The Saint.
Interesting story about Kotto.
What do you think about the chase in the bayou? This is criticized for
going on way too long. This time, I agree.
It's simply got the greatest pre-credit sequence in any James Bond
movie.
And you gotta ask, How were characters killed off in Dr. No resurrected
for this movie? Once again, they didn't film the novels in the order
they were written in.
"The Man with the Golden Gun" - Another Bond flick I've only ever seen
about twice. For some reason it always feels to me like it was the
first Roger Moore, "Bond" movie. Maybe because both this and "Live and
Let Die" were both released before I was born, so their release order
didn't make a difference to me and I just never saw this one until much
later so it felt like an earlier movie. The commentary on this one was
really good because it had Christopher Lee himself talking about the
making of the movie.
Casting Lee as a villain was both obvious and brilliant. It's too bad it wasn't a better movie.
This had huge problems. Fleming was dying when he wrote this. He didn't
have a lot of new ideas and essentially redid the train sequence from
FRWL in this novel. The novel opened with a James Bond who had lost his
mind trying to kill Blofeld at the end of YOLT; he'd been shot and
poisoned, as I recall, and abandoned by his service. The opening was interesting but not used in the movie.
The draft novel needed a major rewrite that Fleming couldn't do. It
wasn't completed. Kingsley Amis, who would be assigned to write several
Bond novels by Fleming's estate, finished the novel to the extent it
could be published. This and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and a short story collection with an added story that I think hadn't been published in
Playboy were published posthumously.
The solar energy stuff was original to the movie.
The Mary Goodnight character doesn't work too well in the plot, but
Britt Ekland is in a bikini and spends more time in it as her costume
than Tiffany Case (Jill St. John) did in DAF. It's impossible to dislike
her.
The most serious problem is that the plot doesn't know what to do with
Andrea Anders
Scaramanga's lover. She doesn't exactly commit to being on the side
of, er, light. She's afraid to leave him and tries to get Bond to kill
him for her. When Scaramanga kills her, it should have meant more to
the audience. It doesn't help that she's gotten the Maguffin away from Scaramanga and into Bond's hands in an absurd plot development, despite having already been killed.
They brought her back for Octopussy and she's the best thing in that
movie.
I just spotted a mean-spirited article criticizing her for having the
nerve to turn 80 and not looking like the Swedish model and actress she
had been in her heyday. I think she still looks good.
After TMWTGG, Harry Saltzman sold his half of EON to United Artists. In
part, he wanted to fuck with Broccoli, but the studio would have outbid Broccoli regardless. This action accounts for the huge gaps between
certain Bond movies. The Heaven's Gate (1980) destroyed UA. Its
conglomerate wanted out of movies in the worst way. Kirk Kerkorian, who
had already bought MGM out of bankruptcy, bought UA and would merge it
into MGM. MGM would then go bankrupt again... and again. This tied
Bond's future to the disaster that was MGM and there were a lot of years
that MGM just didn't have the cash for a big-budget production. This is
why the John Glen directed Moores tended to have smaller budgets after Moonraker, although I didn't miss the excess, Timothy Dalton "played"
James Bond for six years waiting for his third script to get produced
(it never would be), then the very long delay when Pierce Brosnan
wouldn't get his fifth script produced (I believe there was a script)
and Columbia Studios financed the first two Daniel Craig's. Getting
Columbia on board prevented them from suing MGM over Casino Royale
rights, which Columbia owned, or maybe it didn't. It's confusing.
"The Spy Who Loved Me" Lewis Gilbert, director of "You Only Live Twice"
directed this one. The plot has Bond trying to stop an evil billionaire
who plots to wipe out human civilization. But before Bond can stop him,
he has to get past a henchman called "Jaws" played by Richard Kiel.
After the movie, I thought wasn't this the same plot as "You Only Live
Twice" and googled if it was a remake. According to google it's not a
remake but simply has the same director. So, I learned my lesson and
will never again question if two Bond movies have the same plot or not.
I'm with you. It's a remake. Stromberg (Curt Jurgens) is Blofeld from
YOLT. However, he's a great villain and I don't mind. And yeah, I always confuse which aspects of the space sequences were in YOLT and Moonraker,
and did they just substitute submarines for space craft.
Also, Jaws is a super-human version of Oddjob.
The movie's biggest problem was the obvious dubbing of Barbara Bach, a disservice to her as American audiences just assumed she couldn't act.
There are recordings of her doing the Russian accent in character as
Anya and there's a certain warmth to it.
The second problem was John Barry was effectively fired by Broccoli.
They brought in Marvin Hamlisch who had (undeservedly) won an Oscar for orchestrating Scott Joplin's piano rags for The Sting. Hamlisch's score
is big orchestrated music with a disco beat. It's stuck in the movie era
of Vinnie playing Tony in Saturday Night Fever (1977). Even though
Barry's music is of the '60s, it's iconic. Hamlisch is derivative here.
I like Carly Simon singing the theme song even though, yet again, the
novel's title got forced into it.
You may know that when Fleming sold his (remaining) adaptation rights to Saltzman and Broccoli, he did not sell them rights to this novel. They
could use the title, only. Fleming's novel was a woman's revenge story
that's got James Bond forced into the novel's final third. Fleming
considered the novel to be a failure.
The opening stunt with the parachute is just the greatest such movie
stunt ever. Hell, the story of performing the stunt would make an
exciting movie.
"Moonraker" Lewis Gilbert, director of "You Only Live Twice" directed
this one. The plot has Bond trying to stop an evil billionaire who
plots to wipe out human civilization. But before Bond can stop him, he
has to get past a henchman called "Jaws" played by Richard Kiel. No
comment. OK, a few comments. This was one of my favorites growing up.
Or at least I love the pre-title opening sequence when Bond jumps out an
airplane without a parachute, beats up the bad guy and takes the bad
guy's chute. One other thing I'll say, I was eating when they
introduced the "Bond girl," "Dr. Holly Goodhead," I nearly spit my food
out when they said the name.
Oh, c'mon. You never spotted Fleming's double entendre with Pussy
Galore, which became a triple entendre the way Connery pronounced it?
Sorry but I despise this movie. The novel, with a plot that was stuck in
the 1950s, was Fleming's best novel. I've always wanted the novel
adapted straight, set in the 1950s, maybe for television.
"For Your Eyes Only" - This one stands out to me as the first Bond I can
remember watching on TV when I was a kid. I remember the pre-title
opening where Bond kills "Blofeld" even though he's never acknowledged
to be "Blofeld" it wouldn't be until many, many, years later before I
understood the connection of who Blofeld was and why Bond killed him,
other than the obvious self-defense.
With regard to acting, Moore always relied upon wink wink nudge nudge
raise the eyebrow higher back to his days playing The Saint. Well, there
are certain scenes in this movie in which Moore isn't playing his Bond
from TSWLM but Fleming's Bond, especially when he kicks the car the
henchman is in off the ledge so very coldly.
It makes you wish that Moore had had more confidence in his ability to
act over the years.
John Glen yelled at Moore to force him to act.
The parrot is unforgiveable. Otherwise, this was a great movie.
"Octopussy" - I have not seen this one in forever. I was really,
really, looking forward to seeing this one again. . . .
I have fond memories of this as I saw it with my father in theater when
it first came out.
I like Maud Adams a lot in this.
This movie is heavily criticized for putting James Bond in a clown
costume. The critics are wrong. The movie has a circus theme, so it's
part of the circus theme. What, you forgot Sean Connery in the alligator
suit in the stupid Goldfinger pre-credit sequence?
Gaston as a supervillain doesn't quite work,
superduper henchman. Note that the villain's backstory gets re-used for Goldeneye.
"A View to a Kill" - There's not much to say about this one. Overall, I
guess I will finally admit, maybe, just maybe, this isn't a good Bond
movie. OK, there I said it. But, I lived in San Francisco when they
filmed this movie. It was a *huge* deal, especially to a 7-year-old
child. So, it will always hold a special place in my heart.
I've mentioned before that a long-ago Usenet poster, who was a real-life
film editor, explained that this movie could have been saved in editing. There was enough good stuff to edit it into a good movie.
Why would you have John Steed in your movie, only to kill him off early?
Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny, a real life friend of Moore's, leaves the
series.
"The Living Daylights" - Timothy Dalton takes over as Bond. This is one
that for whatever reason I sort of glossed over growing up. I
definitely remember the news stories about Dalton taking over as Bond,
but the movie itself seemed to just come and go so quickly that it never
registered with me and fell through the cracks. Watching it again I
think it holds up pretty well.
Dalton is a great actor. The script's a bit weak and his performance is
so much better than the script. He wears evening clothes in every single scene.
Walter Gotell's last time playing General Gogol. For reasons I've never understood, the character was not used in the Pierce Brosnan movies.
"License to Kill" - Now this one on the other hand, it seemed to
overshadow "The Living Daylights" perhaps because it's just so much
better that everyone forgot "The Living Daylights" even existed. I
think I appreciate this one much more as an adult than I ever did as a
kid. Basically Bond goes on a rage fueled killing spree after his best
friend Felix (David Hedison who reprised the role from "Live and Let
Die") is fed to a shark. There is so much more that I noticed about the
movie that I never noticed before, especially when it comes to the cast.
The movie full of so many recognizable actors, whose names I didn't
know in 1989, but I know today. And this might be the first time I
noticed Benicio del Toro played a lead henchman. I *knew* I recognized
the face, but not that the face was del Toro's.
I love this movie. I love the set-piece chase... with tanker trucks!
Spell it the British way! Licence! (This was controversial at the time.)
John Glen's last time directing Bond. Robert Brown's last time playing
M. Caroline Bliss would not return to play Moneypenny in the Brosnan
movies. What was that asshole Wayne Newton doing in this movie?
Felix Leiter getting married then losing his arm was from the novel
Live and Let Die, so it made sense not to recast Leiter for the 274th time.
You've now got six years to wait for Brosnan's movie to be released into theaters! MGM has gone bankrtupt again!
8/25/2025 12:53 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
"Diamonds are Forever" - I don't have much to say about this one, other >>>than I never cared much for it. I grew up watching Roger Moore's "Bond" >>>and was always more of a fan of his "Bond" films.
You're supposed to ask, What happened to Lana Wood?
Who?
And you gotta ask, How were characters killed off in Dr. No resurrected
for this movie? Once again, they didn't film the novels in the order
they were written in.
Which character?
I don't recall any particular ties to the other movies
in this one. Although I thought the guy who drove the boat looked a
little familiar, was that supposed to be the same character?
Gaston as a supervillain doesn't quite work,
Gaston?
. . .
On 8/25/2025 12:53 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
. . .
Forcing the novel's title into the lyrics of the main theme was a
terrible decision. Now, From Russia With Love and Diamonds Are Fovever
are lyrical and do work, but plenty of the other novel titles don't work
at all. The main theme for Dr. No has no lyrics; I'm not counting Three >>Blind Mice.
I think it was in reaction to the idiotically stupid lyrics for >>Thunderball. Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was written for that movie, and >>Shirley Bassey recorded it. There's also a Dionne Warwick cover of it.
That it was rejected was a disappointment.
I have a CD set of James Bond songs, with the Dionne Warwick version of
Mr. Kiss, Kiss Bang Bang. I don't think I knew there was a Shirley
Bassey version.
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
8/25/2025 12:53 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
"Diamonds are Forever" - I don't have much to say about this one, other >>>> than I never cared much for it. I grew up watching Roger Moore's "Bond" >>>> and was always more of a fan of his "Bond" films.
You're supposed to ask, What happened to Lana Wood?
Who?
"I'm Plenty. Plenty O'Toole." She vanishes from the movie and then
someone tells Bond she's been murdered. There's a big scene that got cut
from the movie.
And you gotta ask, How were characters killed off in Dr. No resurrected
for this movie? Once again, they didn't film the novels in the order
they were written in.
Which character?
Quarrel. The character got replaced by Quarrel Junior. There's another character from the novels I've forgotten.
I don't recall any particular ties to the other movies
in this one. Although I thought the guy who drove the boat looked a
little familiar, was that supposed to be the same character?
It should been, yes.
Gaston as a supervillain doesn't quite work,
Gaston?
Louis Jordan's most famous character, from Gigi
. . .
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
On 8/25/2025 12:53 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
. . .
Forcing the novel's title into the lyrics of the main theme was a
terrible decision. Now, From Russia With Love and Diamonds Are Fovever
are lyrical and do work, but plenty of the other novel titles don't work >>> at all. The main theme for Dr. No has no lyrics; I'm not counting Three
Blind Mice.
I think it was in reaction to the idiotically stupid lyrics for
Thunderball. Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was written for that movie, and
Shirley Bassey recorded it. There's also a Dionne Warwick cover of it.
That it was rejected was a disappointment.
I have a CD set of James Bond songs, with the Dionne Warwick version of
Mr. Kiss, Kiss Bang Bang. I don't think I knew there was a Shirley
Bassey version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d91d8p7rry0
On 8/25/2025 10:11 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
On 8/25/2025 12:53 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
. . .
Forcing the novel's title into the lyrics of the main theme was a
terrible decision. Now, From Russia With Love and Diamonds Are Fovever >>>> are lyrical and do work, but plenty of the other novel titles don't work >>>> at all. The main theme for Dr. No has no lyrics; I'm not counting Three >>>> Blind Mice.
I think it was in reaction to the idiotically stupid lyrics for
Thunderball. Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was written for that movie, and
Shirley Bassey recorded it. There's also a Dionne Warwick cover of it. >>>> That it was rejected was a disappointment.
I have a CD set of James Bond songs, with the Dionne Warwick version of
Mr. Kiss, Kiss Bang Bang. I don't think I knew there was a Shirley
Bassey version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d91d8p7rry0
Thanks! Interesting, but I'm so use to the Dionne Warwick version that
this version sounds wrong. And the music in the Bassey version sounds a
bit more...jazzy.
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
8/25/2025 12:53 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
"Diamonds are Forever" - I don't have much to say about this one, other >>>> than I never cared much for it. I grew up watching Roger Moore's "Bond" >>>> and was always more of a fan of his "Bond" films.
You're supposed to ask, What happened to Lana Wood?
Who?
"I'm Plenty. Plenty O'Toole." She vanishes from the movie and then
someone tells Bond she's been murdered. There's a big scene that got cut
from the movie.
In general none of the movies were straight adaptations of the books. Especially after Connery Eon would use the books as inspiration forAnd you gotta ask, How were characters killed off in Dr. No resurrected
for this movie? Once again, they didn't film the novels in the order
they were written in.
Which character?
Quarrel. The character got replaced by Quarrel Junior. There's another character from the novels I've forgotten.
I don't recall any particular ties to the other movies
in this one. Although I thought the guy who drove the boat looked a
little familiar, was that supposed to be the same character?
It should been, yes.
Gaston as a supervillain doesn't quite work,
Gaston?
Louis Jordan's most famous character, from Gigi
. . .
In general none of the movies were straight adaptations of the books. >Especially after Connery Eon would use the books as inspiration for
their own stories to film. A number of the extras I watched showed the >Broccoli children talking about that.
Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
In general none of the movies were straight adaptations of the books.
Especially after Connery Eon would use the books as inspiration for
their own stories to film. A number of the extras I watched showed the
Broccoli children talking about that.
Of course I agree. Even Thunderball had a few changes despite having started life as a movie script. On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Dr. No had changes but both were nearly straight adaptations.
The most important change was making SPECTRE the all-purpose villain.
SPECTRE was in Thunderball, only, and not in the two later books in the Blofeld trilogy. Technically EON had no rights for this expanded use of SPECTRE and McClory kept suing so SPECTRE was dropped after Diamonds Are Forever, till the Daniel Craig movie.
From Russia With Love failed to keep the Russians at the main enemy,
which was really stupid considering the plot. They became fake Russians fronting for SPECTRE.
Goldfinger threw out quite a lot of Fleming's plot... for the better as
it was one of the weaker novels. It made for a very entertaining movie.
Plot elements from the short stories got moved around. The auction scene
in Octopussy was from "Property of a Lady" (a short story in the
Octopussy collection), for instance.
The movies with heavy science fiction and space elements -- You Only
Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moonraker --
were essentially written directly for the screen with minor bits of
FLeming plots kept.
After the Moore era, they had used all of the titles of novels and nearly
all the short story titles. Quantum of Solace (one of the worst Bond
movies) was used as the title of a Craig movie, and The Living Daylights
was used as a title in the Dalton era.
Refreshing my memory, in the For Your Eyes Only collection, the story
titles Risico (characters used in the movie FYEO) and The Hildebrand Rarity (characters used in Licence to Kill movie) have not been used as movie titles. The third edition of the Octopussy collection also has "007 in
New York", which is kind of about Bond warning another spy but just
wandering around New York.
On 8/26/2025 8:57 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
In general none of the movies were straight adaptations of the books. >>>Especially after Connery Eon would use the books as inspiration for
their own stories to film. A number of the extras I watched showed the >>>Broccoli children talking about that.
Of course I agree. Even Thunderball had a few changes despite having started >>life as a movie script. On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Dr. No had >>changes but both were nearly straight adaptations.
The most important change was making SPECTRE the all-purpose villain. >>SPECTRE was in Thunderball, only, and not in the two later books in the >>Blofeld trilogy. Technically EON had no rights for this expanded use of >>SPECTRE and McClory kept suing so SPECTRE was dropped after Diamonds Are >>Forever, till the Daniel Craig movie.
From Russia With Love failed to keep the Russians at the main enemy,
which was really stupid considering the plot. They became fake Russians >>fronting for SPECTRE.
Goldfinger threw out quite a lot of Fleming's plot... for the better as
it was one of the weaker novels. It made for a very entertaining movie.
Yeah, but the one thing that always bugged me about "Goldfinger" is Bond >communicates Goldfinger's plan to the CIA. And the CIA then
communicates this to the government / military. They all agree that
they will allow Goldfinger to gas them, on the assumption that the gas
will be swapped out for something nonlethal. Then on top of that
everyone will (presumably without practice) faint in unison when the
plane flies overhead. And the fake fainting in unison also has to be >communicated to any random civilians or visitors who may happen to be on
the base that day. And presumably they communicate the plan back to
Bond so he's in on it. And it all happens off screen, except for of
course the fake fainting in unison.
I don't know. That scene takes a whole heck of a lot of willing
suspension of disbelief.
Plot elements from the short stories got moved around. The auction scene
in Octopussy was from "Property of a Lady" (a short story in the
Octopussy collection), for instance.
Wait, the actually book was called "Octopussy?"
. . .
Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
On 8/25/2025 8:59 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:First she got thrown out of the high rise into a pool. (The mobster who
8/25/2025 12:53 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
"Diamonds are Forever" - I don't have much to say about this one, other >>>>>> than I never cared much for it. I grew up watching Roger Moore's "Bond" >>>>>> and was always more of a fan of his "Bond" films.
You're supposed to ask, What happened to Lana Wood?
Who?
"I'm Plenty. Plenty O'Toole." She vanishes from the movie and then
someone tells Bond she's been murdered. There's a big scene that got cut >>> from the movie.
ordered it told Bond he didn't know there was a pool there.)
What kind of wood doesn’t float?
A cut
scene was filmed that showed her coming back into the room while he's
seducing Tiffany Case (Jill St. John). Then when Bond is waiting for
Case at her house, O'Toole's body is in the pool there.
So who killed her and why?
And does Tiffany case have a house in Las Vegas?
(I watched the 50th anniversary box set plus the last two movies just a
couple months ago.)
In general none of the movies were straight adaptations of the books.And you gotta ask, How were characters killed off in Dr. No resurrected >>>>> for this movie? Once again, they didn't film the novels in the order >>>>> they were written in.
Which character?
Quarrel. The character got replaced by Quarrel Junior. There's another
character from the novels I've forgotten.
I don't recall any particular ties to the other movies
in this one. Although I thought the guy who drove the boat looked a
little familiar, was that supposed to be the same character?
It should been, yes.
Gaston as a supervillain doesn't quite work,
Gaston?
Louis Jordan's most famous character, from Gigi
. . .
Especially after Connery Eon would use the books as inspiration for
their own stories to film. A number of the extras I watched showed the
Broccoli children talking about that.
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
On 8/25/2025 8:59 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
8/25/2025 12:53 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
"Diamonds are Forever" - I don't have much to say about this one, other >>>>>> than I never cared much for it. I grew up watching Roger Moore's "Bond" >>>>>> and was always more of a fan of his "Bond" films.
You're supposed to ask, What happened to Lana Wood?
Who?
"I'm Plenty. Plenty O'Toole." She vanishes from the movie and then
someone tells Bond she's been murdered. There's a big scene that got cut >>> from the movie.
And you gotta ask, How were characters killed off in Dr. No resurrected >>>>> for this movie? Once again, they didn't film the novels in the order >>>>> they were written in.
Which character?
Quarrel. The character got replaced by Quarrel Junior. There's another
character from the novels I've forgotten.
I don't recall any particular ties to the other movies
in this one. Although I thought the guy who drove the boat looked a
little familiar, was that supposed to be the same character?
It should been, yes.
Gaston as a supervillain doesn't quite work,
Gaston?
Louis Jordan's most famous character, from Gigi
. . .
Oh! I was thinking of the Disney's Beauty and the Beast. To mean Louis
Jordan will always be Anton Arcane from "Swamp Thing."
To me, he’ll always be the most faithful version of Dracula.
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
On 8/25/2025 12:53 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
"From Russia with Love" - While I consider myself a huge James Bond fan, >>>> a lot of the movies I've only ever watched 2 or 3 times, and many I only >>>> vaguely remember. "From Russia with Love" falls into the category of a >>>> movie I only ever saw maybe twice, and I only vaguely remember. I could >>>> have sworn that this movie ended with a fight scene between James Bond >>>> and a female villain on top of a train. I was actually looking forward >>>> to seeing that ending and was genuinely surprised when it didn't happen. >>>This was a great movie. It was produced from one of the later novels
because John F. Kennedy said publicly that he'd just read that novel and >>> thought it would make a good movie.
This has the epic fight with Red Grant, and damn, that was one of the
best choreographed movie fights we've ever seen (but the fight in the
elevator in Diamonds Are Forever, with the same stuntman, is just as
good). Lotte Lenya was terrific as the the henchwoman. Audiences at the
time who were too young to remember saw her made up as an evil-looking
hag but she was truly a great beauty in her younger days.
In one of the Connery movies, maybe "Thunderball" I was surprised when >>>> Bond extorted a woman into sleeping with him. By modern standards, that >>>> would be rape. Thunderball is another Bond movie I've only ever seen
maybe twice and was really unfamiliar with the plot going in.
So what was your opinion of the underwater set piece action sequence?
I've always loved it, but this movie has severe critics that the
sequence goes on far too long and should have been better edited.
The underwater sequence was OK. Going in, the underwater sequence was
the only thing I even vaguely remembered about Thunderball.
Did you notice that, because he lost the copyright battle to Kevin
McClory, Ian Fleming received no credit for Thunderball?
No. I was watching the opening credits for all the movies, but more for
the music and visuals. I wasn't really paying attention to the cast and
crew.
James Bond, despite being dressed in the finest evening clothes (that
transformed Sean Connery from working class to someone who could move
around in the circles of power), is a thug. He assasinates and murders
people,
Yeah, the said almost exactly that on one of the commentary tracks. It
might have been for this movie. LOL. But I didn't watch any of the
Connery movies with the commentaries, only snippets for specific scenes
I was curious what they had to say about.
and he fails to assist at times if it could delay or derail the
mission. He outright murdered Prof Dent in Dr. No. In the pre-credit
revenge sequence in Diamonds Are Forever, which was mostly a comedy with >>> high camp and farcical elements, he tortured a woman for information by
strangling her with the top of her two-piece bathing suit till she was
convinced to talk.
Roger Moore used one of Q's gadgets to start stripping a woman naked,
clearly misappropriation of British taxpayers' monies.
If you are referring to the scene with the magnetic watch, they talked
about that on the commentary. They said it was extremely difficult and
uncomfortable to film. I don't get why, all they did was lower a
zipper. But apparently to hide the mechanics of lowering the zipper in
a confined space it was harder than it looked.
But the most shocking of all was Daniel Craig romancing the neglected
wife of the terrorist, who desperately wanted to boink him, then failing >>> to do his duty and satisfy the lady. Her husband murdered her anyway. I
shouldn't joke about this one as she was set up to be liked by the
audience. Her death was upsetting and we felt her interaction with James >>> Bond led to her demise and would have wanted hin to save her.
I don't remember this. I should hopefully get to the Craigs really soon.
"On Her Majesty's Secret Service" - I've always really enjoyed this Bond >>>> movie. Was this the first Bond movie to involve Bond on skis? Bond
skiing would definitely become a regular occurrence going forward. I
sample a bit of the commentary and they mentioned this one had a score >>>> instead of a song because they didn't think it was possible to make a
good song with "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in the lyrics. That
being said, I actually really like the score.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1dkxFH9hFg
Forcing the novel's title into the lyrics of the main theme was a
terrible decision. Now, From Russia With Love and Diamonds Are Fovever
are lyrical and do work, but plenty of the other novel titles don't work >>> at all. The main theme for Dr. No has no lyrics; I'm not counting Three
Blind Mice.
I think it was in reaction to the idiotically stupid lyrics for
Thunderball. Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was written for that movie, and
Shirley Bassey recorded it. There's also a Dionne Warwick cover of it.
That it was rejected was a disappointment.
I have a CD set of James Bond songs, with the Dionne Warwick version of
Mr. Kiss, Kiss Bang Bang. I don't think I knew there was a Shirley
Bassey version.
But they could have tried lyrics for Dr. No. How about, "Doctor Nooo.
He's the man, the man with the iron hand. A grip of death..." LOL
Yes, the skiing sequence was a first for James Bond. Skiing in the
tobaggan run was an incredible action sequence. The same stunt team was
used for the excellent skiing action sequences in For Your Eyes Only.
I will also point out that OHMSS would not have been a straight
adaptation of the novel if Sean Connery hadn't resigned after You Only
Live Twice.
They mentioned on the commentary that it was a straight adaptation. I
think they said the director wanted it that way.
Things were in disarray. Peter Hunt, a second-unit director,
was given the opportunity to direct. He wanted to avoid another
Goldfinger and the excesses of YOLT, and wasn't given a production
budget large enough to induldge in YOLT's excesses anyway.
If it had been Connery, Hunt wouldn't have directed and it would have
been along the lines of Goldfinger.
The Blofeld trilogy of novels -- FRWL, OHMSS, and YOLT -- were filmed
out of sequence. The winter that year in Switzerland was so bad they put >>> off production of OHMSS and moved up production of YOLT. The audience
was supposed to ignore Bond and Blofeld not having met. Hell, Blofeld is >>> dead at the end of YOLT. Yes, I know he got better for DAF.
"Diamonds are Forever" - I don't have much to say about this one, other >>>> than I never cared much for it. I grew up watching Roger Moore's "Bond" >>>> and was always more of a fan of his "Bond" films.
You're supposed to ask, What happened to Lana Wood?
Who?
WHy did the car flip in the alley?
Now for that scene, I went back wand rewatched with the commentary!!! LOL >> They said they didn't notice the error until after they had wrapped up
filming and left the location and by that time it was too late to
anything about it, so they dubbed in a line where Bond says to lean the
other direction.
They always say that in interviews and yet there’s a shot where they actually show the car reversing directions from the inside.
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
On 8/26/2025 8:57 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
In general none of the movies were straight adaptations of the books.
Especially after Connery Eon would use the books as inspiration for
their own stories to film. A number of the extras I watched showed the >>>> Broccoli children talking about that.
Of course I agree. Even Thunderball had a few changes despite having started
life as a movie script. On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Dr. No had
changes but both were nearly straight adaptations.
The most important change was making SPECTRE the all-purpose villain.
SPECTRE was in Thunderball, only, and not in the two later books in the
Blofeld trilogy. Technically EON had no rights for this expanded use of
SPECTRE and McClory kept suing so SPECTRE was dropped after Diamonds Are >>> Forever, till the Daniel Craig movie.
From Russia With Love failed to keep the Russians at the main enemy,
which was really stupid considering the plot. They became fake Russians
fronting for SPECTRE.
Goldfinger threw out quite a lot of Fleming's plot... for the better as
it was one of the weaker novels. It made for a very entertaining movie.
Yeah, but the one thing that always bugged me about "Goldfinger" is Bond
communicates Goldfinger's plan to the CIA. And the CIA then
communicates this to the government / military. They all agree that
they will allow Goldfinger to gas them, on the assumption that the gas
will be swapped out for something nonlethal. Then on top of that
everyone will (presumably without practice) faint in unison when the
plane flies overhead. And the fake fainting in unison also has to be
communicated to any random civilians or visitors who may happen to be on
the base that day. And presumably they communicate the plan back to
Bond so he's in on it. And it all happens off screen, except for of
course the fake fainting in unison.
I don't know. That scene takes a whole heck of a lot of willing
suspension of disbelief.
Plot elements from the short stories got moved around. The auction scene >>> in Octopussy was from "Property of a Lady" (a short story in the
Octopussy collection), for instance.
Wait, the actually book was called "Octopussy?"
Actually, the full title is
Octopussy and The Living Daylights
Wikipedia elaborates
The book originally contained two stories, "Octopussy" and "The Living Daylights"; subsequent editions also included "The Property of a Lady" and then "007 in New York".
The movies with heavy science fiction and space elements -- You Only
Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moonraker -- >>> were essentially written directly for the screen with minor bits of
FLeming plots kept.
After the Moore era, they had used all of the titles of novels and nearly >>> all the short story titles. Quantum of Solace (one of the worst Bond
movies) was used as the title of a Craig movie, and The Living Daylights >>> was used as a title in the Dalton era.
Refreshing my memory, in the For Your Eyes Only collection, the story
titles Risico (characters used in the movie FYEO) and The Hildebrand Rarity >>> (characters used in Licence to Kill movie) have not been used as movie
titles. The third edition of the Octopussy collection also has "007 in
New York", which is kind of about Bond warning another spy but just
wandering around New York.
"Live and Let Die" the first Roger Moore movie and one of my favorites >growing up. It doesn't really hold up that well as an adult, but I
still like it. I watched with the cast and crew audio commentary track
and there was lots of good bits of trivia. Yaphet Kotto, who played the >Bond villain was on the commentary and discussed how playing a Bond
villain went to his head. He said he started to act like James Bond,
and for several years after the movie, he was still acting like Bond in
real life, living a very extravagant life, until he finally came to his >senses and stopped wasting money. Another bit of trivia that caught me
by surprise was when they mentioned Roger Moore being in the running to
play Bond since "Dr. No." That made *no* sense to me until they also
said Roger Moore is actually older than Sean Connery. That blew my mind
to hear.
On 8/26/2025 8:57 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
In general none of the movies were straight adaptations of the books.
Especially after Connery Eon would use the books as inspiration for
their own stories to film. A number of the extras I watched showed the
Broccoli children talking about that.
Of course I agree. Even Thunderball had a few changes despite having started >> life as a movie script. On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Dr. No had
changes but both were nearly straight adaptations.
The most important change was making SPECTRE the all-purpose villain.
SPECTRE was in Thunderball, only, and not in the two later books in the
Blofeld trilogy. Technically EON had no rights for this expanded use of
SPECTRE and McClory kept suing so SPECTRE was dropped after Diamonds Are
Forever, till the Daniel Craig movie.
From Russia With Love failed to keep the Russians at the main enemy,
which was really stupid considering the plot. They became fake Russians
fronting for SPECTRE.
Goldfinger threw out quite a lot of Fleming's plot... for the better as
it was one of the weaker novels. It made for a very entertaining movie.
Yeah, but the one thing that always bugged me about "Goldfinger" is Bond communicates Goldfinger's plan to the CIA. And the CIA then
communicates this to the government / military. They all agree that
they will allow Goldfinger to gas them, on the assumption that the gas
will be swapped out for something nonlethal. Then on top of that
everyone will (presumably without practice) faint in unison when the
plane flies overhead. And the fake fainting in unison also has to be communicated to any random civilians or visitors who may happen to be on
the base that day. And presumably they communicate the plan back to
Bond so he's in on it. And it all happens off screen, except for of
course the fake fainting in unison.
I don't know. That scene takes a whole heck of a lot of willing
suspension of disbelief.
Plot elements from the short stories got moved around. The auction scene
in Octopussy was from "Property of a Lady" (a short story in the
Octopussy collection), for instance.
Wait, the actually book was called "Octopussy?"
The movies with heavy science fiction and space elements -- You Only
Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moonraker --
were essentially written directly for the screen with minor bits of
FLeming plots kept.
After the Moore era, they had used all of the titles of novels and nearly
all the short story titles. Quantum of Solace (one of the worst Bond
movies) was used as the title of a Craig movie, and The Living Daylights
was used as a title in the Dalton era.
Refreshing my memory, in the For Your Eyes Only collection, the story
titles Risico (characters used in the movie FYEO) and The Hildebrand Rarity >> (characters used in Licence to Kill movie) have not been used as movie
titles. The third edition of the Octopussy collection also has "007 in
New York", which is kind of about Bond warning another spy but just
wandering around New York.
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
On 8/26/2025 8:57 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
In general none of the movies were straight adaptations of the books.
Especially after Connery Eon would use the books as inspiration for
their own stories to film. A number of the extras I watched showed the >>>> Broccoli children talking about that.
Of course I agree. Even Thunderball had a few changes despite having started
life as a movie script. On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Dr. No had
changes but both were nearly straight adaptations.
The most important change was making SPECTRE the all-purpose villain.
SPECTRE was in Thunderball, only, and not in the two later books in the
Blofeld trilogy. Technically EON had no rights for this expanded use of
SPECTRE and McClory kept suing so SPECTRE was dropped after Diamonds Are >>> Forever, till the Daniel Craig movie.
From Russia With Love failed to keep the Russians at the main enemy,
which was really stupid considering the plot. They became fake Russians
fronting for SPECTRE.
Goldfinger threw out quite a lot of Fleming's plot... for the better as
it was one of the weaker novels. It made for a very entertaining movie.
Yeah, but the one thing that always bugged me about "Goldfinger" is Bond
communicates Goldfinger's plan to the CIA. And the CIA then
communicates this to the government / military. They all agree that
they will allow Goldfinger to gas them, on the assumption that the gas
will be swapped out for something nonlethal. Then on top of that
everyone will (presumably without practice) faint in unison when the
plane flies overhead. And the fake fainting in unison also has to be
communicated to any random civilians or visitors who may happen to be on
the base that day. And presumably they communicate the plan back to
Bond so he's in on it. And it all happens off screen, except for of
course the fake fainting in unison.
I always thought bond substituted knockout gas
I don't know. That scene takes a whole heck of a lot of willing
suspension of disbelief.
Plot elements from the short stories got moved around. The auction scene >>> in Octopussy was from "Property of a Lady" (a short story in the
Octopussy collection), for instance.
Wait, the actually book was called "Octopussy?"
The movies with heavy science fiction and space elements -- You Only
Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moonraker -- >>> were essentially written directly for the screen with minor bits of
FLeming plots kept.
After the Moore era, they had used all of the titles of novels and nearly >>> all the short story titles. Quantum of Solace (one of the worst Bond
movies) was used as the title of a Craig movie, and The Living Daylights >>> was used as a title in the Dalton era.
Refreshing my memory, in the For Your Eyes Only collection, the story
titles Risico (characters used in the movie FYEO) and The Hildebrand Rarity >>> (characters used in Licence to Kill movie) have not been used as movie
titles. The third edition of the Octopussy collection also has "007 in
New York", which is kind of about Bond warning another spy but just
wandering around New York.
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
On 8/26/2025 8:57 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
In general none of the movies were straight adaptations of the books.
Especially after Connery Eon would use the books as inspiration for
their own stories to film. A number of the extras I watched showed the >>>> Broccoli children talking about that.
Of course I agree. Even Thunderball had a few changes despite having started
life as a movie script. On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Dr. No had
changes but both were nearly straight adaptations.
The most important change was making SPECTRE the all-purpose villain.
SPECTRE was in Thunderball, only, and not in the two later books in the
Blofeld trilogy. Technically EON had no rights for this expanded use of
SPECTRE and McClory kept suing so SPECTRE was dropped after Diamonds Are >>> Forever, till the Daniel Craig movie.
From Russia With Love failed to keep the Russians at the main enemy,
which was really stupid considering the plot. They became fake Russians
fronting for SPECTRE.
Goldfinger threw out quite a lot of Fleming's plot... for the better as
it was one of the weaker novels. It made for a very entertaining movie.
Yeah, but the one thing that always bugged me about "Goldfinger" is Bond
communicates Goldfinger's plan to the CIA. And the CIA then
communicates this to the government / military. They all agree that
they will allow Goldfinger to gas them, on the assumption that the gas
will be swapped out for something nonlethal. Then on top of that
everyone will (presumably without practice) faint in unison when the
plane flies overhead. And the fake fainting in unison also has to be
communicated to any random civilians or visitors who may happen to be on
the base that day. And presumably they communicate the plan back to
Bond so he's in on it. And it all happens off screen, except for of
course the fake fainting in unison.
I always thought bond substituted knockout gas
On 8/29/2025 10:33 AM, anim8rfsk wrote:
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:No, he substituted something harmless for the poison gas.
On 8/26/2025 8:57 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
In general none of the movies were straight adaptations of the books. >>>>> Especially after Connery Eon would use the books as inspiration for
their own stories to film. A number of the extras I watched showed the >>>>> Broccoli children talking about that.
Of course I agree. Even Thunderball had a few changes despite having started
life as a movie script. On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Dr. No had >>>> changes but both were nearly straight adaptations.
The most important change was making SPECTRE the all-purpose villain.
SPECTRE was in Thunderball, only, and not in the two later books in the >>>> Blofeld trilogy. Technically EON had no rights for this expanded use of >>>> SPECTRE and McClory kept suing so SPECTRE was dropped after Diamonds Are >>>> Forever, till the Daniel Craig movie.
From Russia With Love failed to keep the Russians at the main enemy,
which was really stupid considering the plot. They became fake Russians >>>> fronting for SPECTRE.
Goldfinger threw out quite a lot of Fleming's plot... for the better as >>>> it was one of the weaker novels. It made for a very entertaining movie. >>>>
Yeah, but the one thing that always bugged me about "Goldfinger" is Bond >>> communicates Goldfinger's plan to the CIA. And the CIA then
communicates this to the government / military. They all agree that
they will allow Goldfinger to gas them, on the assumption that the gas
will be swapped out for something nonlethal. Then on top of that
everyone will (presumably without practice) faint in unison when the
plane flies overhead. And the fake fainting in unison also has to be
communicated to any random civilians or visitors who may happen to be on >>> the base that day. And presumably they communicate the plan back to
Bond so he's in on it. And it all happens off screen, except for of
course the fake fainting in unison.
I always thought bond substituted knockout gas
Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
On 8/29/2025 10:33 AM, anim8rfsk wrote:
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:No, he substituted something harmless for the poison gas.
On 8/26/2025 8:57 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
In general none of the movies were straight adaptations of the books. >>>>>> Especially after Connery Eon would use the books as inspiration for >>>>>> their own stories to film. A number of the extras I watched showed the >>>>>> Broccoli children talking about that.
Of course I agree. Even Thunderball had a few changes despite having started
life as a movie script. On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Dr. No had >>>>> changes but both were nearly straight adaptations.
The most important change was making SPECTRE the all-purpose villain. >>>>> SPECTRE was in Thunderball, only, and not in the two later books in the >>>>> Blofeld trilogy. Technically EON had no rights for this expanded use of >>>>> SPECTRE and McClory kept suing so SPECTRE was dropped after Diamonds Are >>>>> Forever, till the Daniel Craig movie.
From Russia With Love failed to keep the Russians at the main enemy, >>>>> which was really stupid considering the plot. They became fake Russians >>>>> fronting for SPECTRE.
Goldfinger threw out quite a lot of Fleming's plot... for the better as >>>>> it was one of the weaker novels. It made for a very entertaining movie. >>>>>
Yeah, but the one thing that always bugged me about "Goldfinger" is Bond >>>> communicates Goldfinger's plan to the CIA. And the CIA then
communicates this to the government / military. They all agree that
they will allow Goldfinger to gas them, on the assumption that the gas >>>> will be swapped out for something nonlethal. Then on top of that
everyone will (presumably without practice) faint in unison when the
plane flies overhead. And the fake fainting in unison also has to be
communicated to any random civilians or visitors who may happen to be on >>>> the base that day. And presumably they communicate the plan back to
Bond so he's in on it. And it all happens off screen, except for of
course the fake fainting in unison.
I always thought bond substituted knockout gas
Right, but I figured it was harmless knock out gas.
On 8/29/2025 7:15 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:
Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:And how would they be able to set the knock out gas dose to just the
On 8/29/2025 10:33 AM, anim8rfsk wrote:
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:No, he substituted something harmless for the poison gas.
On 8/26/2025 8:57 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
In general none of the movies were straight adaptations of the books. >>>>>>> Especially after Connery Eon would use the books as inspiration for >>>>>>> their own stories to film. A number of the extras I watched showed the >>>>>>> Broccoli children talking about that.
Of course I agree. Even Thunderball had a few changes despite having started
life as a movie script. On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Dr. No had >>>>>> changes but both were nearly straight adaptations.
The most important change was making SPECTRE the all-purpose villain. >>>>>> SPECTRE was in Thunderball, only, and not in the two later books in the >>>>>> Blofeld trilogy. Technically EON had no rights for this expanded use of >>>>>> SPECTRE and McClory kept suing so SPECTRE was dropped after Diamonds Are >>>>>> Forever, till the Daniel Craig movie.
From Russia With Love failed to keep the Russians at the main enemy, >>>>>> which was really stupid considering the plot. They became fake Russians >>>>>> fronting for SPECTRE.
Goldfinger threw out quite a lot of Fleming's plot... for the better as >>>>>> it was one of the weaker novels. It made for a very entertaining movie. >>>>>>
Yeah, but the one thing that always bugged me about "Goldfinger" is Bond >>>>> communicates Goldfinger's plan to the CIA. And the CIA then
communicates this to the government / military. They all agree that >>>>> they will allow Goldfinger to gas them, on the assumption that the gas >>>>> will be swapped out for something nonlethal. Then on top of that
everyone will (presumably without practice) faint in unison when the >>>>> plane flies overhead. And the fake fainting in unison also has to be >>>>> communicated to any random civilians or visitors who may happen to be on >>>>> the base that day. And presumably they communicate the plan back to >>>>> Bond so he's in on it. And it all happens off screen, except for of >>>>> course the fake fainting in unison.
I always thought bond substituted knockout gas
Right, but I figured it was harmless knock out gas.
right amount for the troops to wake up at the right time? Also the
senior officer was the one to order everyone up once the Chinese troops
had entered the compound.
I don't know. That scene takes a whole heck of a lot of willing
suspension of disbelief.
And then there's that scene at the end of Moonraker where Q is asked
what Bond is doing......
I have been making my way through the James Bond franchise.˙ I thought I would share some thoughts on the movies I watched so far.
And that's as far as I've gotten so far.˙ I should have the rest of the movies finished by the end of the month.
Die Another Day - This one was just plain bad. I'm not sure if I ever noticed how bad this movie was before now. It's like they weren't even trying. And that horrible theme song is by far the worst Bond song
ever. The one bright spot is Halle Berry as the Bond girl, a CIA agent named, Jinx. I didn't watch this movie with the commentary, but for
certain select scenes I did turn on the commentary. I had the
commentary on for Halley's Berry's entrance, and to quote Pierce Brosnan
on the commentary, "freeze frame, rewind, freeze frame."
Anyway, here's a 100% accurate pitch meeting for this movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3ll9gp6UXQ
On 8/25/2025 8:43 AM, Arthur Lipscomb wrote:
I have been making my way through the James Bond franchise.˙ I thought Isnip
would share some thoughts on the movies I watched so far.
And that's as far as I've gotten so far.˙ I should have the rest of the
movies finished by the end of the month.
I finished making my way through the Bond franchise.
I picked up with the Pierce Brsnan movies.
Golden Eye - After a 6 year absence from cinemas, Pierce Brosnan takes
over as Bond. And Judi Dench takes over as M. This was the first time
I ever saw Bond in a theater. Bond vs. The X-men. At least 2 of them.
And it has a really good opening theme song. It was worth the wait.
Tomorrow Never Dies - After the success of Golden Eye they start to
crank out the Brosnan Bonds regularly. This one teams up Bond with a >Chinese secret agent played by Michelle Yeoh. It doesn't have the best >plot, but who watches Bond for the plot. At least the villain, Jonathan >Pryce, chewed the scenery like he was auditioning to play Dr. Evil.
The World Is Not Enough - This one is notable for being Desmond
Llewelyn's last movie as Q before he died in a car accident. The movie >gives him a nice (although unintentional) send off, and introduces his >replacement, "R" played by John Cleese. But now I have to double check
my calendar, because I thought Christmas only comes once a year.
Die Another Day - This one was just plain bad. I'm not sure if I ever >noticed how bad this movie was before now. It's like they weren't even >trying. And that horrible theme song is by far the worst Bond song
ever. The one bright spot is Halle Berry as the Bond girl, a CIA agent >named, Jinx. I didn't watch this movie with the commentary, but for
certain select scenes I did turn on the commentary. I had the
commentary on for Halley's Berry's entrance, and to quote Pierce Brosnan
on the commentary, "freeze frame, rewind, freeze frame."
Anyway, here's a 100% accurate pitch meeting for this movie: >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3ll9gp6UXQ
This movie was so bad it killed the franchise for a while.
Daniel Craig takes over and the series slowly transitions from The
Bourne Identity to a full on proper Bond movie.
Casino Royale - First up they completely reboot the franchise leaving no >trace of the old franchise remaining. They get rid of the theme song
that has the movie's name in it. And by the way, this movie has
probably the second worse theme song in the entire franchise. They get
rid of Moneypenny, Q, and gadgets. Bond does not murder any helpless >henchmen. And Bond only has one woman the entire movie. Not only does
he only sleep with one woman the whole movie, he falls in love with her.
They bring on Daniel Craig as the new Bourne, I mean Bond. And they
bring on Judi Dench as the new M. Wait a minute, something's not quite >adding up with this whole rebooting the franchise idea. Anyway, as the >rip-offs of the Bourne Identity go, this was a pretty good one. But one >thing I just didn't get. So, the plot involves Le Chiffre (Mads
Mikkelsen) needing 100 million fast or he will be killed. To get the
money Le Chiffre sets up a poker game with a $10 million buy in. Bond
buys into the game in the hopes of winning and leaving Le Chiffre with
no choice but to cooperate with MI6. Except, they *already* know where
Le Chiffre is going to be and by the movie's logic, he already has no
choice but to cooperate. Why not just snatch him up when he shows up to
the game?
Quantum of Solace - Picking up right where the last movie ended, Daniel >Craig returns as Bourne, I mean Bond, to stop Spectre, I mean Quantum,
from doing whatever evil scheme they were plotting. Still no
Moneypenny, Q or gadgets. And they didn't even try to work Quantum of >Solace into the opening theme song. :-/ I know everyone likes to hate
this movie, but I actually like it. Technically, I like all of the
Daniel Craig Bond movies. And I was mistaken, there was a theme song
with the movie's title in it. ;-) >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6CoNUE5Zho
Skyfall - Daniel Craig finally gets to play Bond in a proto Bond movie.
We finally get Moneypenny and Q. And Q even gives Bond a gun and a
radio. What would Bond do without Q's toys? I mean, that radio comes
in real handy when Bond needed to call someone. Not given to him by Q,
but Bond even gets to drive an Aston Martin with an ejector seat. And
they finally put the movie's title in the opening theme song. This was
a good one.
Spectre - They decided to try and make an actual Bond film for this one.
Unfortunately, they forgot to put the movie's title in the theme song.
But they did remember to include Moneypenny and Q. And they even let
Q give Bond a gadget. It was only a watch, but that's start. This time >Bond goes up against Ernst Blofeld (Christoph Waltz). And Blofeld even >straps Bond into an overly complicated but easily escapable trap. So,
they were definitely trying to make this a real Bond movie. Actually, I >found that torture scene to be really disturbing to watch. It lacked
the playfulness that you would usually get with a Connery or Moore Bond.
They had a scene with Bond on a mountain covered with snow. Bond
didn't actually ski, or jump from the mountain with a union jack
parachute, but I'll still give them an A-for-effort. They even threw in
a henchman (Dave Bautista). Overall, this was another good one.
No Time to Die - Finally a full-on classic Bond adventure. The movie's >theme song has the name of the movie in it, check. Bond drives a car
loaded with gadgets, check. Q gives Bond lots of futuristic technology
to save the day, check. Multiple Bond women, check! Picture of original
"M" which means this *might* be in continuity with the other movies,
check. Henchman with a gimmick, check. Bonus points for Bond using the >henchman's gimmick to kill him with. Bond straight up murders a
(different) helpless henchman, check. Bonus points for the henchman
being helpless and Bond going out of his way to murder him out of spite.
They play the classic Bond music (not only the 007 theme, but also the
theme from "On Her Majesty's secret Service"), check. Bond has a
vehicle that transforms into a submarine, check. Bond says, "We have
all the time in the world," and they play that song too, check. Bond
villain has secret lair on an island, check!!! Now this is a Bond movie!
I finished making my way through the Bond franchise.
I picked up with the Pierce Brsnan movies.
Golden Eye - After a 6 year absence from cinemas, Pierce Brosnan takes
over as Bond. And Judi Dench takes over as M. This was the first time
I ever saw Bond in a theater. Bond vs. The X-men. At least 2 of them.
And it has a really good opening theme song. It was worth the wait.
Tomorrow Never Dies - After the success of Golden Eye they start to
crank out the Brosnan Bonds regularly. This one teams up Bond with a >Chinese secret agent played by Michelle Yeoh. It doesn't have the best >plot, but who watches Bond for the plot. At least the villain, Jonathan >Pryce, chewed the scenery like he was auditioning to play Dr. Evil.
The World Is Not Enough - This one is notable for being Desmond
Llewelyn's last movie as Q before he died in a car accident. The movie >gives him a nice (although unintentional) send off, and introduces his >replacement, "R" played by John Cleese. But now I have to double check
my calendar, because I thought Christmas only comes once a year.
Die Another Day - This one was just plain bad. . . .
This movie was so bad it killed the franchise for a while.
Daniel Craig takes over and the series slowly transitions from The
Bourne Identity to a full on proper Bond movie.
Casino Royale - First up they completely reboot the franchise leaving no >trace of the old franchise remaining. They get rid of the theme song
that has the movie's name in it. And by the way, this movie has
probably the second worse theme song in the entire franchise.
They get
rid of Moneypenny, Q, and gadgets. Bond does not murder any helpless >henchmen. And Bond only has one woman the entire movie. Not only does
he only sleep with one woman the whole movie, he falls in love with her.
They bring on Daniel Craig as the new Bourne, I mean Bond. And they
bring on Judi Dench as the new M. Wait a minute, something's not quite >adding up with this whole rebooting the franchise idea. Anyway, as the >rip-offs of the Bourne Identity go, this was a pretty good one. But one >thing I just didn't get. So, the plot involves Le Chiffre (Mads
Mikkelsen) needing 100 million fast or he will be killed. To get the
money Le Chiffre sets up a poker game with a $10 million buy in. Bond
buys into the game in the hopes of winning and leaving Le Chiffre with
no choice but to cooperate with MI6. Except, they *already* know where
Le Chiffre is going to be and by the movie's logic, he already has no
choice but to cooperate. Why not just snatch him up when he shows up to
the game?
Quantum of Solace . . .
I know everyone likes to hate this movie, but I actually like it.
Skyfall - Daniel Craig finally gets to play Bond in a proto Bond movie.
We finally get Moneypenny and Q. And Q even gives Bond a gun and a
radio. What would Bond do without Q's toys? I mean, that radio comes
in real handy when Bond needed to call someone. Not given to him by Q,
but Bond even gets to drive an Aston Martin with an ejector seat.
And
they finally put the movie's title in the opening theme song. This was
a good one.
Spectre . . .
No Time to Die - Finally a full-on classic Bond adventure. The movie's >theme song has the name of the movie in it, check. Bond drives a car
loaded with gadgets, check. Q gives Bond lots of futuristic technology
to save the day, check. Multiple Bond women, check! Picture of original
"M" which means this *might* be in continuity with the other movies,
check. Henchman with a gimmick, check. Bonus points for Bond using the >henchman's gimmick to kill him with. Bond straight up murders a
(different) helpless henchman, check. Bonus points for the henchman
being helpless and Bond going out of his way to murder him out of spite.
They play the classic Bond music (not only the 007 theme, but also the
theme from "On Her Majesty's secret Service"), check. Bond has a
vehicle that transforms into a submarine, check. Bond says, "We have
all the time in the world," and they play that song too, check. Bond
villain has secret lair on an island, check!!! Now this is a Bond movie!
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
Casino Royale - First up they completely reboot the franchise leaving no
trace of the old franchise remaining. They get rid of the theme song
that has the movie's name in it. And by the way, this movie has
probably the second worse theme song in the entire franchise.
I just love the opening credits. If you don't know, that's based on the artwork of Ian Fleming who had designed the book cover for the first
edition of the hardcover.
And I think Chris Cornell's song is effective.
They get
rid of Moneypenny, Q, and gadgets. Bond does not murder any helpless
henchmen. And Bond only has one woman the entire movie. Not only does
he only sleep with one woman the whole movie, he falls in love with her.
They bring on Daniel Craig as the new Bourne, I mean Bond. And they
bring on Judi Dench as the new M. Wait a minute, something's not quite
adding up with this whole rebooting the franchise idea. Anyway, as the
rip-offs of the Bourne Identity go, this was a pretty good one. But one
thing I just didn't get. So, the plot involves Le Chiffre (Mads
Mikkelsen) needing 100 million fast or he will be killed. To get the
money Le Chiffre sets up a poker game with a $10 million buy in. Bond
buys into the game in the hopes of winning and leaving Le Chiffre with
no choice but to cooperate with MI6. Except, they *already* know where
Le Chiffre is going to be and by the movie's logic, he already has no
choice but to cooperate. Why not just snatch him up when he shows up to
the game?
I liked Craig bringing back the thuggish aspects of the character.
However, I've heard people who grew up on Goldfinger and the fun aspects
of the Roger Moore movies criticize this movie for its darker tone, but
I liked bringing Bond back to Fleming. And it's interesting, after
"leading men types" as Bond -- George Lazenby (model), Roger Moore,
Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan -- we get someone with a much harder
look who could be English working class.
And the iconic moment of Craig rising from the water is not meant to be
the male version of the entrance of Honey Ryder (Ursula Andres) in
Doctor No. He was supposed to be swimming but encountered a sand bar.
The freerunning sequence is the movie's most exciting set piece.
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
On 8/25/2025 12:53 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
. . .
Forcing the novel's title into the lyrics of the main theme was a
terrible decision. Now, From Russia With Love and Diamonds Are Fovever
are lyrical and do work, but plenty of the other novel titles don't work >>> at all. The main theme for Dr. No has no lyrics; I'm not counting Three
Blind Mice.
I think it was in reaction to the idiotically stupid lyrics for
Thunderball. Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was written for that movie, and
Shirley Bassey recorded it. There's also a Dionne Warwick cover of it.
That it was rejected was a disappointment.
I have a CD set of James Bond songs, with the Dionne Warwick version of
Mr. Kiss, Kiss Bang Bang. I don't think I knew there was a Shirley
Bassey version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d91d8p7rry0
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
I finished making my way through the Bond franchise.
I picked up with the Pierce Brsnan movies.
Golden Eye - After a 6 year absence from cinemas, Pierce Brosnan takes
over as Bond. And Judi Dench takes over as M. This was the first time
I ever saw Bond in a theater. Bond vs. The X-men. At least 2 of them.
And it has a really good opening theme song. It was worth the wait.
This movie has a decent script, excellent moments of drama, wonderful
stunt set pieces with one of the best motorcycle to aerial transition
movies have ever done, gorgeous women, an evil Alan Cumming who gets a memorable death scene, and Arecibo Observatory which was allowed to
collapse during the first Trump administration. It was just so cool
looking and an irresistable location for both movies and television.
Tomorrow Never Dies - After the success of Golden Eye they start to
crank out the Brosnan Bonds regularly. This one teams up Bond with a
Chinese secret agent played by Michelle Yeoh. It doesn't have the best
plot, but who watches Bond for the plot. At least the villain, Jonathan
Pryce, chewed the scenery like he was auditioning to play Dr. Evil.
One of the most expensive Bonds ever produced adjusted for inflation, completely underwhelming; waste of a good cast
The World Is Not Enough - This one is notable for being Desmond
Llewelyn's last movie as Q before he died in a car accident. The movie
gives him a nice (although unintentional) send off, and introduces his
replacement, "R" played by John Cleese. But now I have to double check
my calendar, because I thought Christmas only comes once a year.
That's one of the very best puns, but Denise Richards has been acting
for six years at this point and somehow managed to turn in a worse performance from one movie to the next. Her scenes are awful.
Elektra (Sophie Marceau) was a great villainess. Pierce Brosnan's final confrontation with her is a well-acted scene. He's truly hurt that he's forced to kill her.
Die Another Day - This one was just plain bad. . . .
I'm sure I'll agree with your comments but I don't want to think about
them. I despise this movie.
This movie was so bad it killed the franchise for a while.
No. MGM did that of its own accord with yet another bankruptcy.
Daniel Craig takes over and the series slowly transitions from The
Bourne Identity to a full on proper Bond movie.
Casino Royale - First up they completely reboot the franchise leaving no
trace of the old franchise remaining. They get rid of the theme song
that has the movie's name in it. And by the way, this movie has
probably the second worse theme song in the entire franchise.
I just love the opening credits. If you don't know, that's based on the artwork of Ian Fleming who had designed the book cover for the first
edition of the hardcover.
And I think Chris Cornell's song is effective.
They get
rid of Moneypenny, Q, and gadgets. Bond does not murder any helpless
henchmen. And Bond only has one woman the entire movie. Not only does
he only sleep with one woman the whole movie, he falls in love with her.
They bring on Daniel Craig as the new Bourne, I mean Bond. And they
bring on Judi Dench as the new M. Wait a minute, something's not quite
adding up with this whole rebooting the franchise idea. Anyway, as the
rip-offs of the Bourne Identity go, this was a pretty good one. But one
thing I just didn't get. So, the plot involves Le Chiffre (Mads
Mikkelsen) needing 100 million fast or he will be killed. To get the
money Le Chiffre sets up a poker game with a $10 million buy in. Bond
buys into the game in the hopes of winning and leaving Le Chiffre with
no choice but to cooperate with MI6. Except, they *already* know where
Le Chiffre is going to be and by the movie's logic, he already has no
choice but to cooperate. Why not just snatch him up when he shows up to
the game?
I liked Craig bringing back the thuggish aspects of the character.
However, I've heard people who grew up on Goldfinger and the fun aspects
of the Roger Moore movies criticize this movie for its darker tone, but
I liked bringing Bond back to Fleming. And it's interesting, after
"leading men types" as Bond -- George Lazenby (model), Roger Moore,
Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan -- we get someone with a much harder
look who could be English working class.
I forgot. While you waited the six years for this movie to be released,
I should have suggested that you watch Layer Cake (2004), which is why
Craig got cast, and then you could have cleared up confusing plot points
for me (pretty much the whole plot).
Craig bulked up and didn't eat carbs for months. Then he let his body go
to hell to play Mikael Blumkvist in The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo
(2011) in which he whines and complains while Lisbeth tends to his
wounds, spoofing his James Bond performance.
And the iconic moment of Craig rising from the water is not meant to be
the male version of the entrance of Honey Ryder (Ursula Andres) in
Doctor No. He was supposed to be swimming but encountered a sand bar.
The freerunning sequence is the movie's most exciting set piece.
Quantum of Solace . . .
I know everyone likes to hate this movie, but I actually like it.
I want this movie transferred to nitrate film stock then burned.
Worst directed Bond movie with average shot length of, what, 1/3 of a
second? The director made it impossible to follow any of the action sequences. I saw it once in theater, once too many times.
Skyfall - Daniel Craig finally gets to play Bond in a proto Bond movie.
We finally get Moneypenny and Q. And Q even gives Bond a gun and a
radio. What would Bond do without Q's toys? I mean, that radio comes
in real handy when Bond needed to call someone. Not given to him by Q,
but Bond even gets to drive an Aston Martin with an ejector seat.
It's supposed to be one of the actual customized cars for Goldfinger but
I have no idea if it was.
And
they finally put the movie's title in the opening theme song. This was
a good one.
This was the best-directed of Craig's Bonds. The Shanghai sequences, especially the all-glass office interior, were artistic. I like Adele's
title song, truly reminiscent of a John Barry song.
If you don't know, they wanted to get Sean Connery for the Skyfall
scenes for stunt casting but he refused to come out of retirement.
Also, if you don't know, Fleming's Bond was both a thug and the
consumate English gentleman and snob, truly Fleming himself (which is
why he envisioned David Niven as Bond in the 1950s, actually in the 1967 movie). But Fleming wrote the novels to get rich from movie adaptations.
He opposed Connery but then fell in love with him after he saw the performance and how much money the movie made.
In a late novel (I think From Russia With Love), Bond got retconned as
having Scottish ancestry although I think Skyfall itself was new to the movie. I've forgotten.
Spectre . . .
For whatever reason, this movie makes very little impression on me
except for the Mexico City set piece; step down from Skyfall but still entertaining.
No Time to Die - Finally a full-on classic Bond adventure. The movie's
theme song has the name of the movie in it, check. Bond drives a car
loaded with gadgets, check. Q gives Bond lots of futuristic technology
to save the day, check. Multiple Bond women, check! Picture of original
"M" which means this *might* be in continuity with the other movies,
check. Henchman with a gimmick, check. Bonus points for Bond using the
henchman's gimmick to kill him with. Bond straight up murders a
(different) helpless henchman, check. Bonus points for the henchman
being helpless and Bond going out of his way to murder him out of spite.
They play the classic Bond music (not only the 007 theme, but also the
theme from "On Her Majesty's secret Service"), check. Bond has a
vehicle that transforms into a submarine, check. Bond says, "We have
all the time in the world," and they play that song too, check. Bond
villain has secret lair on an island, check!!! Now this is a Bond movie!
The nostalgia is turned up to 11 in this movie.
If there's continuity in Bond movies, it's unintentional.
Hell, there was little continuity in the novels. After all, Bond was a
WWII Navy officer veteran... then stopped aging. He was perpetually mid
30s and no longer fought in WWII.
On Mon, 1 Sep 2025 08:37:16 -0700, Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
On 8/25/2025 8:43 AM, Arthur Lipscomb wrote:
I have been making my way through the James Bond franchise.˙ I thought I >>> would share some thoughts on the movies I watched so far.snip
And that's as far as I've gotten so far.˙ I should have the rest of the
movies finished by the end of the month.
I finished making my way through the Bond franchise.
I picked up with the Pierce Brsnan movies.
Golden Eye - After a 6 year absence from cinemas, Pierce Brosnan takes
over as Bond. And Judi Dench takes over as M. This was the first time
I ever saw Bond in a theater. Bond vs. The X-men. At least 2 of them.
And it has a really good opening theme song. It was worth the wait.
Tomorrow Never Dies - After the success of Golden Eye they start to
crank out the Brosnan Bonds regularly. This one teams up Bond with a
Chinese secret agent played by Michelle Yeoh. It doesn't have the best
plot, but who watches Bond for the plot. At least the villain, Jonathan
Pryce, chewed the scenery like he was auditioning to play Dr. Evil.
This was more or less Michelle Yeoh's first wide exposure to the
western audience as a female action star. Something she would return
to many more times.
On 9/1/2025 10:33 AM, shawn wrote:
On Mon, 1 Sep 2025 08:37:16 -0700, Arthur Lipscomb
<arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
On 8/25/2025 8:43 AM, Arthur Lipscomb wrote:
I have been making my way through the James Bond franchise.˙ I thought I >>>> would share some thoughts on the movies I watched so far.snip
And that's as far as I've gotten so far.˙ I should have the rest of the >>>> movies finished by the end of the month.
I finished making my way through the Bond franchise.
I picked up with the Pierce Brsnan movies.
Golden Eye - After a 6 year absence from cinemas, Pierce Brosnan takes
over as Bond. And Judi Dench takes over as M. This was the first time
I ever saw Bond in a theater. Bond vs. The X-men. At least 2 of them.
And it has a really good opening theme song. It was worth the wait.
Tomorrow Never Dies - After the success of Golden Eye they start to
crank out the Brosnan Bonds regularly. This one teams up Bond with a
Chinese secret agent played by Michelle Yeoh. It doesn't have the best
plot, but who watches Bond for the plot. At least the villain, Jonathan >>> Pryce, chewed the scenery like he was auditioning to play Dr. Evil.
This was more or less Michelle Yeoh's first wide exposure to the
western audience as a female action star. Something she would return
to many more times.
I definitely saw her first starring with Jackie Chan in Supercop, but I >probably didn't know her name until this movie.
Then of course she
followed up with Crouching Tiger. I had no idea how big of a star she
was until much later. I saw an old interview with her where she said
when the producers approached her, she at first thought they wanted her
to play Bond.
I saw an interview the other day where someone asked Michael Jai White
who is the best female action star and he immediately said Michelle
Yeoh. The interview started to question him about various American >actresses and he replied with something like, you asked about the star,
not the stunt person. Michelle does her own stunts. >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du2LeN47QIw
On 8/25/2025 8:43 AM, Arthur Lipscomb wrote:
I have been making my way through the James Bond franchise.˙ I thoughtsnip
I would share some thoughts on the movies I watched so far.
And that's as far as I've gotten so far.˙ I should have the rest of the
movies finished by the end of the month.
I finished making my way through the Bond franchise.
I picked up with the Pierce Brsnan movies.
Golden Eye - After a 6 year absence from cinemas, Pierce Brosnan takes
over as Bond. And Judi Dench takes over as M. This was the first time
I ever saw Bond in a theater. Bond vs. The X-men. At least 2 of them.
And it has a really good opening theme song. It was worth the wait.
Tomorrow Never Dies - After the success of Golden Eye they start to
crank out the Brosnan Bonds regularly. This one teams up Bond with a Chinese secret agent played by Michelle Yeoh. It doesn't have the best plot, but who watches Bond for the plot. At least the villain,
Jonathan Pryce, chewed the scenery like he was auditioning to play Dr.
Evil.
The World Is Not Enough - This one is notable for being Desmond
Llewelyn's last movie as Q before he died in a car accident. The movie gives him a nice (although unintentional) send off, and introduces his replacement, "R" played by John Cleese. But now I have to double check
my calendar, because I thought Christmas only comes once a year.
Die Another Day - This one was just plain bad. I'm not sure if I ever noticed how bad this movie was before now. It's like they weren't even trying. And that horrible theme song is by far the worst Bond song
ever. The one bright spot is Halle Berry as the Bond girl, a CIA agent named, Jinx. I didn't watch this movie with the commentary, but for
certain select scenes I did turn on the commentary. I had the
commentary on for Halley's Berry's entrance, and to quote Pierce
Brosnan on the commentary, "freeze frame, rewind, freeze frame."
Anyway, here's a 100% accurate pitch meeting for this movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3ll9gp6UXQ
This movie was so bad it killed the franchise for a while.
Daniel Craig takes over and the series slowly transitions from The
Bourne Identity to a full on proper Bond movie.
Casino Royale - First up they completely reboot the franchise leaving
no trace of the old franchise remaining. They get rid of the theme
song that has the movie's name in it. And by the way, this movie has probably the second worse theme song in the entire franchise. They
get rid of Moneypenny, Q, and gadgets. Bond does not murder any
helpless henchmen. And Bond only has one woman the entire movie. Not
only does he only sleep with one woman the whole movie, he falls in
love with her. They bring on Daniel Craig as the new Bourne, I mean
Bond. And they bring on Judi Dench as the new M. Wait a minute, something's not quite adding up with this whole rebooting the franchise idea. Anyway, as the rip-offs of the Bourne Identity go, this was a
pretty good one. But one thing I just didn't get. So, the plot
involves Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) needing 100 million fast or he
will be killed. To get the money Le Chiffre sets up a poker game with
a $10 million buy in. Bond buys into the game in the hopes of winning
and leaving Le Chiffre with no choice but to cooperate with MI6.
Except, they *already* know where Le Chiffre is going to be and by the movie's logic, he already has no choice but to cooperate. Why not just snatch him up when he shows up to the game?
Quantum of Solace - Picking up right where the last movie ended, Daniel Craig returns as Bourne, I mean Bond, to stop Spectre, I mean Quantum,
from doing whatever evil scheme they were plotting. Still no
Moneypenny, Q or gadgets. And they didn't even try to work Quantum of Solace into the opening theme song. :-/ I know everyone likes to hate
this movie, but I actually like it. Technically, I like all of the
Daniel Craig Bond movies. And I was mistaken, there was a theme song
with the movie's title in it. ;-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6CoNUE5Zho
Skyfall - Daniel Craig finally gets to play Bond in a proto Bond movie.
We finally get Moneypenny and Q. And Q even gives Bond a gun and a
radio. What would Bond do without Q's toys? I mean, that radio comes
in real handy when Bond needed to call someone. Not given to him by Q,
but Bond even gets to drive an Aston Martin with an ejector seat. And
they finally put the movie's title in the opening theme song. This was
a good one.
Spectre - They decided to try and make an actual Bond film for this
one. Unfortunately, they forgot to put the movie's title in the theme song. But they did remember to include Moneypenny and Q. And they
even let Q give Bond a gadget. It was only a watch, but that's start.
This time Bond goes up against Ernst Blofeld (Christoph Waltz). And
Blofeld even straps Bond into an overly complicated but easily
escapable trap. So, they were definitely trying to make this a real
Bond movie. Actually, I found that torture scene to be really
disturbing to watch. It lacked the playfulness that you would usually
get with a Connery or Moore Bond. They had a scene with Bond on a
mountain covered with snow. Bond didn't actually ski, or jump from the mountain with a union jack parachute, but I'll still give them an A-for-effort. They even threw in a henchman (Dave Bautista). Overall,
this was another good one.
No Time to Die - Finally a full-on classic Bond adventure. The movie's theme song has the name of the movie in it, check. Bond drives a car
loaded with gadgets, check. Q gives Bond lots of futuristic technology
to save the day, check. Multiple Bond women, check! Picture of
original "M" which means this *might* be in continuity with the other movies, check. Henchman with a gimmick, check. Bonus points for Bond
using the henchman's gimmick to kill him with. Bond straight up
murders a (different) helpless henchman, check. Bonus points for the henchman being helpless and Bond going out of his way to murder him out
of spite. They play the classic Bond music (not only the 007 theme,
but also the theme from "On Her Majesty's secret Service"), check.
Bond has a vehicle that transforms into a submarine, check. Bond says,
"We have all the time in the world," and they play that song too,
check. Bond villain has secret lair on an island, check!!! Now this is
a Bond movie!
On 9/1/2025 10:33 AM, shawn wrote:
1 Sep 2025 08:37:16 -0700, Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org>:
Tomorrow Never Dies - After the success of Golden Eye they start to
crank out the Brosnan Bonds regularly. This one teams up Bond with a >>>Chinese secret agent played by Michelle Yeoh. It doesn't have the best >>>plot, but who watches Bond for the plot. At least the villain, Jonathan >>>Pryce, chewed the scenery like he was auditioning to play Dr. Evil.
This was more or less Michelle Yeoh's first wide exposure to the
western audience as a female action star. Something she would return
to many more times.
I definitely saw her first starring with Jackie Chan in Supercop, but I >probably didn't know her name until this movie. Then of course she
followed up with Crouching Tiger. I had no idea how big of a star she
was until much later. I saw an old interview with her where she said
when the producers approached her, she at first thought they wanted her
to play Bond.
I saw an interview the other day where someone asked Michael Jai White
who is the best female action star and he immediately said Michelle
Yeoh. The interview started to question him about various American >actresses and he replied with something like, you asked about the star,
not the stunt person. Michelle does her own stunts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du2LeN47QIw
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
On 9/1/2025 10:33 AM, shawn wrote:
1 Sep 2025 08:37:16 -0700, Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org>:
Tomorrow Never Dies - After the success of Golden Eye they start to
crank out the Brosnan Bonds regularly. This one teams up Bond with a
Chinese secret agent played by Michelle Yeoh. It doesn't have the best >>>> plot, but who watches Bond for the plot. At least the villain, Jonathan >>>> Pryce, chewed the scenery like he was auditioning to play Dr. Evil.
This was more or less Michelle Yeoh's first wide exposure to the
western audience as a female action star. Something she would return
to many more times.
I definitely saw her first starring with Jackie Chan in Supercop, but I
probably didn't know her name until this movie. Then of course she
followed up with Crouching Tiger. I had no idea how big of a star she
was until much later. I saw an old interview with her where she said
when the producers approached her, she at first thought they wanted her
to play Bond.
I saw an interview the other day where someone asked Michael Jai White
who is the best female action star and he immediately said Michelle
Yeoh. The interview started to question him about various American
actresses and he replied with something like, you asked about the star,
not the stunt person. Michelle does her own stunts.
She probably trains stunt performers! She's amazing.
On 9/1/2025 6:04 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
On 9/1/2025 10:33 AM, shawn wrote:
1 Sep 2025 08:37:16 -0700, Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org>:
Tomorrow Never Dies - After the success of Golden Eye they start to >>>>>crank out the Brosnan Bonds regularly. This one teams up Bond with a >>>>>Chinese secret agent played by Michelle Yeoh. It doesn't have the best >>>>>plot, but who watches Bond for the plot. At least the villain, Jonathan >>>>>Pryce, chewed the scenery like he was auditioning to play Dr. Evil.
This was more or less Michelle Yeoh's first wide exposure to the >>>>western audience as a female action star. Something she would return
to many more times.
I definitely saw her first starring with Jackie Chan in Supercop, but I >>>probably didn't know her name until this movie. Then of course she >>>followed up with Crouching Tiger. I had no idea how big of a star she >>>was until much later. I saw an old interview with her where she said >>>when the producers approached her, she at first thought they wanted her >>>to play Bond.
I saw an interview the other day where someone asked Michael Jai White >>>who is the best female action star and he immediately said Michelle
Yeoh. The interview started to question him about various American >>>actresses and he replied with something like, you asked about the star, >>>not the stunt person. Michelle does her own stunts.
She probably trains stunt performers! She's amazing.
IIRC she wasn't "trained" as a stunt performer, she was a dancer. Which >meant she already knew how to learn and remember the choreography as
well as being in excellent physical condition.
On 9/1/2025 10:59 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
I finished making my way through the Bond franchise.
I picked up with the Pierce Brsnan movies.
Golden Eye - After a 6 year absence from cinemas, Pierce Brosnan takes
over as Bond. And Judi Dench takes over as M. This was the first time
I ever saw Bond in a theater. Bond vs. The X-men. At least 2 of them.
And it has a really good opening theme song. It was worth the wait.
This movie has a decent script, excellent moments of drama, wonderful
stunt set pieces with one of the best motorcycle to aerial transition
movies have ever done, gorgeous women, an evil Alan Cumming who gets a
memorable death scene, and Arecibo Observatory which was allowed to
collapse during the first Trump administration. It was just so cool
looking and an irresistable location for both movies and television.
Tomorrow Never Dies - After the success of Golden Eye they start to
crank out the Brosnan Bonds regularly. This one teams up Bond with a
Chinese secret agent played by Michelle Yeoh. It doesn't have the best
plot, but who watches Bond for the plot. At least the villain, Jonathan >>> Pryce, chewed the scenery like he was auditioning to play Dr. Evil.
One of the most expensive Bonds ever produced adjusted for inflation,
completely underwhelming; waste of a good cast
The World Is Not Enough - This one is notable for being Desmond
Llewelyn's last movie as Q before he died in a car accident.
Not surprised.gives him a nice (although unintentional) send off, and introduces his
replacement, "R" played by John Cleese. But now I have to double check
my calendar, because I thought Christmas only comes once a year.
That's one of the very best puns, but Denise Richards has been acting
for six years at this point and somehow managed to turn in a worse
performance from one movie to the next. Her scenes are awful.
Elektra (Sophie Marceau) was a great villainess. Pierce Brosnan's final
confrontation with her is a well-acted scene. He's truly hurt that he's
forced to kill her.
Die Another Day - This one was just plain bad. . . .
I'm sure I'll agree with your comments but I don't want to think about
them. I despise this movie.
This movie was so bad it killed the franchise for a while.
No. MGM did that of its own accord with yet another bankruptcy.
Daniel Craig takes over and the series slowly transitions from The
Bourne Identity to a full on proper Bond movie.
Casino Royale - First up they completely reboot the franchise leaving no >>> trace of the old franchise remaining. They get rid of the theme song
that has the movie's name in it. And by the way, this movie has
probably the second worse theme song in the entire franchise.
I just love the opening credits. If you don't know, that's based on the
artwork of Ian Fleming who had designed the book cover for the first
edition of the hardcover.
And I think Chris Cornell's song is effective.
They get
rid of Moneypenny, Q, and gadgets. Bond does not murder any helpless
henchmen. And Bond only has one woman the entire movie. Not only does
he only sleep with one woman the whole movie, he falls in love with her. >>> They bring on Daniel Craig as the new Bourne, I mean Bond. And they
bring on Judi Dench as the new M. Wait a minute, something's not quite
adding up with this whole rebooting the franchise idea. Anyway, as the
rip-offs of the Bourne Identity go, this was a pretty good one. But one >>> thing I just didn't get. So, the plot involves Le Chiffre (Mads
Mikkelsen) needing 100 million fast or he will be killed. To get the
money Le Chiffre sets up a poker game with a $10 million buy in. Bond
buys into the game in the hopes of winning and leaving Le Chiffre with
no choice but to cooperate with MI6. Except, they *already* know where
Le Chiffre is going to be and by the movie's logic, he already has no
choice but to cooperate. Why not just snatch him up when he shows up to >>> the game?
I liked Craig bringing back the thuggish aspects of the character.
However, I've heard people who grew up on Goldfinger and the fun aspects
of the Roger Moore movies criticize this movie for its darker tone, but
I liked bringing Bond back to Fleming. And it's interesting, after
"leading men types" as Bond -- George Lazenby (model), Roger Moore,
Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan -- we get someone with a much harder
look who could be English working class.
I forgot. While you waited the six years for this movie to be released,
I should have suggested that you watch Layer Cake (2004), which is why
Craig got cast, and then you could have cleared up confusing plot points
for me (pretty much the whole plot).
I know I've seen Layer Cake. And I liked it too. But I can never
remember it.
Craig bulked up and didn't eat carbs for months. Then he let his body go
to hell to play Mikael Blumkvist in The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo
(2011) in which he whines and complains while Lisbeth tends to his
wounds, spoofing his James Bond performance.
And the iconic moment of Craig rising from the water is not meant to be
the male version of the entrance of Honey Ryder (Ursula Andres) in
Doctor No. He was supposed to be swimming but encountered a sand bar.
The freerunning sequence is the movie's most exciting set piece.
Quantum of Solace . . .
I know everyone likes to hate this movie, but I actually like it.
I want this movie transferred to nitrate film stock then burned.
Give them a little slack. It was made during a writer's strike so there were limits on what they could fix as they made it. I think I read somewhere once that Craig himself was trying to rewrite the script as
they filmed to fix various plot holes.
I'll admit, I did have to occasionally turn to Wikipedia to figure out
the plot. In particular the movie ends with Bond confronting a man, and
I had *no* idea who the guy was. According to Wikipedia the character
was essentially an unseen character from the first movie. So you never
see him in the first movie. I'm not even sure if he's named or not.
Then he shows up in the final scene of second movie. Again, I don't
think he's even named on screen. And the audience is supposed to know
who this guy is? And the guy is sitting there unarmed and helpless.
Bond could have at least murdered him! LOL
Worst directed Bond movie with average shot length of, what, 1/3 of a
second? The director made it impossible to follow any of the action
sequences. I saw it once in theater, once too many times.
Skyfall - Daniel Craig finally gets to play Bond in a proto Bond movie.
We finally get Moneypenny and Q. And Q even gives Bond a gun and a
radio. What would Bond do without Q's toys? I mean, that radio comes
in real handy when Bond needed to call someone. Not given to him by Q,
but Bond even gets to drive an Aston Martin with an ejector seat.
It's supposed to be one of the actual customized cars for Goldfinger but
I have no idea if it was.
And
they finally put the movie's title in the opening theme song. This was
a good one.
This was the best-directed of Craig's Bonds. The Shanghai sequences,
especially the all-glass office interior, were artistic. I like Adele's
title song, truly reminiscent of a John Barry song.
If you don't know, they wanted to get Sean Connery for the Skyfall
scenes for stunt casting but he refused to come out of retirement.
I know. It hurt watching and knowing it should have been Connery.
Also, if you don't know, Fleming's Bond was both a thug and the
consumate English gentleman and snob, truly Fleming himself (which is
why he envisioned David Niven as Bond in the 1950s, actually in the 1967
movie). But Fleming wrote the novels to get rich from movie adaptations.
He opposed Connery but then fell in love with him after he saw the
performance and how much money the movie made.
In a late novel (I think From Russia With Love), Bond got retconned as
having Scottish ancestry although I think Skyfall itself was new to the
movie. I've forgotten.
Spectre . . .
For whatever reason, this movie makes very little impression on me
except for the Mexico City set piece; step down from Skyfall but still
entertaining.
No Time to Die - Finally a full-on classic Bond adventure. The movie'sThe nostalgia is turned up to 11 in this movie.
theme song has the name of the movie in it, check. Bond drives a car
loaded with gadgets, check. Q gives Bond lots of futuristic technology
to save the day, check. Multiple Bond women, check! Picture of original >>> "M" which means this *might* be in continuity with the other movies,
check. Henchman with a gimmick, check. Bonus points for Bond using the >>> henchman's gimmick to kill him with. Bond straight up murders a
(different) helpless henchman, check. Bonus points for the henchman
being helpless and Bond going out of his way to murder him out of spite. >>> They play the classic Bond music (not only the 007 theme, but also the
theme from "On Her Majesty's secret Service"), check. Bond has a
vehicle that transforms into a submarine, check. Bond says, "We have
all the time in the world," and they play that song too, check. Bond
villain has secret lair on an island, check!!! Now this is a Bond movie! >>
If there's continuity in Bond movies, it's unintentional.
Hell, there was little continuity in the novels. After all, Bond was a
WWII Navy officer veteran... then stopped aging. He was perpetually mid
30s and no longer fought in WWII.
You get the same thing with any long running series. I stopped watching
the Simpsons a *long* time ago, but before I did stop, I think I saw
three different flashback episodes that established Homer and Marge met
in three different decades. And how long is Magneto going to be a
holocaust survivor? Unless one of his powers is eternal youth, that's
just not going to fly much longer. Although in the case of Bond, I made
up this back story that he's really a Time Lord and that's why his face keeps changing, but his history remains the same.
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