James Bond Thread of 2019

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > James Bond Thread of 2019

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Last thread

I am randomly in a James Bond mood and I wanted to post about it on here and ask questions but the last thread was locked. I hope nobody minds me making this, especially since the last thread did not exactly have the most extensive OP ever. I know very little about Bond and could not make a huge detailed post about the franchise even if I wanted to.

I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s so Brosnan is my Bond. I've seen all his movies, although I haven't re-watched any of them in many years. I went back and watched some older stuff at various random points, namely Goldfinger and The Man With the Golden Gun. I also remember seeing on TV one Bond movie where a guy got shoved in a room and exploded. That scared me.

I have pointedly not watched any post-Brosnan Bond films because I can be pretty bitchy and everyone saying Craig and his movies were the absolute greatest thing that ever happened to Bond irritated me. I'm sure Craig and his movies are fine but all the talk of a "hardcore gritty Bond" also turned me off. But I'm older now and also bored and just figured it's time I gave them a chance. Well, I'll be doing that after i re-watch all of Brosnan's films to see if my opinion has changed. I remember thinking:
Goldeneye was great.
The World Is Not Enough was okay.
Didn't like Tomorrow Never Dies
I fell asleep in the theater in Die Another Day

# ¿ Apr 23, 2019 19:40

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# ¿ May 18, 2025 18:17

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Jose Oquendo posted:

iTunes has the Daniel Craig movies in a bundle for $30 today. Not a bad deal for 4 movies. They're also in 4K, which I don't think any other service has.

That's loving awesome. Talk about great timing.

Thanks.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2019 19:45

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Goldeneye might have unfairly overshadowed Perfect Dark but goddam, its music is so good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhNUcDw-9dk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDEzwcQCHTQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-AtPN2aexg

I remember TWINE game being good, too.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2019 21:52

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

I like the theme in Goldeneye that Bond is a "dinosaur" "a relic of the Cold War." M says it early on but the whole move is ostensibly about technology and computers and Bond is so clearly out of his element. Natalya is the one who finds out the second Goldeneye is in Cuba and as she explains this to Bond he's basically "wha-". Later on Natalya hacks into the computer to thwart Travelyan's plans while Bond is forced to just throw a big wrench into it.

I'm a big Metal Gear Solid fan so I can't help but think of Solid Snake. Bond and Snake are two guys, tough as nails and far from stupid but still old-fashioned and not exactly adaptable. They don't exactly have a place in the modern world.

IfJames Bond was antiquated in the mid-90-s, how does Craig Bond stay relevant?

# ¿ Apr 25, 2019 01:26

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Timby posted:

Like two Bond threads ago, someone described Brosnan as a "Greatest Hits" Bond, which fits, in that he's got the charm and sensuality of Connery, the comedy and absurdity of Moore, and occasionally he shows off the intensity and brutality of Dalton.

Some people try to say this is a bad thing, like Brosnan had no soul and was just copying the others. I think that's a lot of BS, of course. He simply was so good he could encapsulate every aspect of Bond while also adding a layer of vulnerability that I did not re member.

He actually seems to care about the woman in his life and is perturbed by their death or betrayal. I've heard it's a Bond cliche that in every film the first woman he sleeps with dies. Brosnan Bond is hurt by Paris' murder however.

But Carver is such a wonderful villain, I had forgotten this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nBZ-u1ilBI

I just watched the scene where he did his mock Kung-fu and it was amazing.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2019 06:06

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Timby posted:

Die Another Day and Spectre are both utterly miserable slogs. TWINE is rough and way too long, and pretty much everyone but Robert Carlyle is sleepwalking through it, but it has enough cool set pieces and a killer theme song to be watchable.

That poor lady from Starship Troopers(Denise Richards?), nobody likes her.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2019 22:33

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

peekaboo gangster posted:

Ahh, my post was missing words, should have read "which is itself another bad song" - my opinion of the Brosnan themes is not exceedingly high. Dalton, on the other hand? Not a single one with a clunky theme song; something about Gladys Knight's License to Kill just does it for me every time.

don't get me started on how the best theme is attached to one of the worst films, A View to a Kill. How you waste Chris Walken as a James Bond villain is beyond me.

I thought the movie was okay but a lot of folks hate The World Is Not Enough while also thinking its theme is amazing. Because it is.

I've never ranked the Bond themes but it's up there for me.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2019 07:13

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

AFewBricksShy posted:

I really liked Sophie Marceau in that movie. I'd easily put her up there with my favorite bond Villains, and outside of Vesper, she's probably the best love interest Bond has had as well.

Elektra was definitely a highlight of that movie for me as well. I was never really sure what the chain of events was though. She hated her father all along? She was kidnapped and changed her mind when he refused to pay? She was suffering Stockholm Syndrome? Was she using Renard all along?

In any event, mentioning good Bond Love Interests makes me remember how I was very confused when I watched Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies as a little kid. Where did Natayla go in TND? My innocent little pea brain couldn't grasp Bond ends the movie with a girl and then she's just...gone in the next movie, never to be thought of or mentioned again.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2019 15:26

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

I never even heard of this lady doing the new Bond song. I guess it's like somebody elsewhere said, Katy Perry - who was the new pop star on the block for me when I got out of high school - is now old person music. She's the last pop star I know of.

I do generally listen to older music, though. Speaking of Die Another Day, I really like Madonna but that song sucks.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2020 00:43

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

The only Bond songs that have stuck with me are The World Is Not Enough and The Living Daylights.

And Goldfinger has a sort of "meme" status to it so I know it as well. I haven't seen the film in forever, though.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2020 19:09

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

On the whole, did Brosnan average out better than Craig in terms of good/bad Bond movies?

# ¿ May 14, 2020 01:17

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

I cannot for the life of me remember my first Bond for certain but I'd guess it was Goldeneye because I was born in '88 and Goldnee on the N64 was the hottest poo poo ever in 1997/1998. As such I had to see the movie too. Like many I was confused about how you have to minimize scientist casualties in the game but the first thing they do in the film is murder some random scientist.

I know I in particular was confused by Natalya not being in any of the other movies. Bond ended up with her at the end so why didn't she come back? I legit asked this of my grandmother. I was so young and innocent and stupid.

I guess 10 is pretty different from 5, though. I dunno if I'd show this to my GF's little girl who is turning 5 this year.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2020 21:32

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Drink-Mix Man posted:

TWINE is pretty middling in my book. All the set pieces are kind of theme parky and lack suspense, and the plot is neither complex nor campy enough to be interesting. Brosnan, Dench, and Sophie Marceau are all really good in it though and the lady villain was a good character. Azerbaijan was a cool location for a Bond flick too.

When I was re-watching the Brosnan films a couple years ago now (I love the thread title being the same here on the cusp of 2021) I had a discussion elsewhere about if Bond is a toxic protagonist.

quote:

Bond has improved at least. You say sexist and mention his being a manslut but that's not really the problem. Now think of one of Bond's most famous movies, Goldfinger, and how James Bond slaps a woman on the rear end and tells her to run along while the men have important talk. That is yikes.

You won't see that today, thank god. I recently did a re-watch of the Brosnan Bonds and the lady leads get a lot of credit even beyond the new M. A big theme of the movies is society moving on without Bond. In Goldeneye for example it is emphasized how a man like Bond is outdated in this technological age. Natalya is the one who, with her computr savvy, saves the day. Bond literally is forced to do nothing more than throw a big wrench in the works to stop the villain.
And of course Elektra King was the real villain and mastermind of The World Is Not Enough while Christimas Jones was a nuclear scientist.

James Bond is unusually suave and sexy dumb muscle.

And somebody responded with one of my favorite summations of why Bond is so enduring:

quote:

The thing is, the 'Bond film' genre has become broad enough that it depends a lot on what the director or writer wants to say with him. As you say, a lot of the Brosnan films do have this sense that the world is moving on, that Bond is antiquated and unprepared for the world of the end of the 20th century, and we see the character struggling to establish his continuing relevance. So Judi Dench's M is introduced as a symbol of this new MI6, a creature of the new world, but one whose willpower is every bit as strong as Bond's: an iron lady who definitely a match for her toughest employee. The tension between Bond and M in the changing world adds a lot of spark to those films.

But then consider the Daniel Craig Bonds, in the late 00s and early 10s. (By which I mean Casino Royale and Skyfall, which are the only ones I remember much about. I did see Quantum of Solace once, but it was crap and I can remember almost nothing from it; and then I never saw Spectre.) Skyfall is another film that's very concerned with the question of Bond's place in the world, and which now has Ben Whishaw's Q to tell Bond how obsolete he is. Yet, in a move I find very interesting, by Skyfall it's Dench's M who now comes to make a vigorous defense of Bond's relevance, and now she herself comes off as the dinosaur. Skyfall tries to defend the importance of Bond even while acknowledging that he's a creature of the past: we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, but that which we are, we are. One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will.

Which in some ways feels like a reflection where the whole Bond series is now. What does James Bond mean? What did he ever mean? What are Bond films about?

Seriously, I think that's an important question, and its answer has evolved over the almost sixty years of the films' existence. Is Bond just an adolescent power fantasy; just male wish fulfilment, the dream of being a sexy, stone-cold bad rear end who saves the world, dresses in style, has impeccable taste in drinks, and who finds sexy women draping themselves all over him? Or is Bond a celebration of British patriotism; the British Empire made manifest, a searching for Britain's place in the new Cold War world, a passionate argument for Britain's relevance between the superpowers (e.g. You Only Live Twice; the Americans and Soviets are blundering fools, while the British suss out the truth, or Tomorrow Never Dies, where again we see MI6 threading the needle between China and mass media interests), all celebrated in the figure of this archetypally British polymath? Is Bond just schlocky entertainment, even for kids; think of the overt silliness, even slapstick elements at times, of Roger Moore's Bond? Or is Bond a political thriller, a serious examination of geopolitics, albeit through the lens of a superspy, with the themes you get in films like Skyfall, of a changing world full of invisible enemies; or compare the nuclear paranoia that was even back in Dr. No, or the attempt (albeit silly and absurd) to look at the militarisation of space in Moonraker. Or should we see Bond mostly as a venue for personal drama; if we consider something like Casino Royale, politics and empire barely come into it, and the film is mostly about a jaded, emotionally broken man placed in a high-stakes environment, with the relationship with Vesper at the centre?

I think you have to admit that James Bond is all of those things and more besides. If I go back to Skyfall or something, I can almost see the film struggling to resolve two images of what Britain is: the 'old' Britain, represented by Bond, which has a more imperial sensibility, is nostalgic, aristocratic in places, patriarchal at times, and is ethnically or culturally defined (that is, British in the ethnic rather than the civic sense), and the 'new' Britain, which is high-tech, diverse, multicultural, and more feminist. I can see the old Britain in scenes like this: the Aston Martin, the grumpy old gamekeeper, Bond's family manor, and so on. James Bond comes from a world of posh public schools and landed estates and stiff upper lips and tea and crumpets. Meanwhile the new Britain is perhaps best personified by the new Moneypenny: a mixed-race, dark-skinned woman who noticeably doesn't engage in the sort of casual flirting that the old Moneypenny did. That sort of benignly sexist workplace is no longer appropriate. This is the modern Britain that the posh sexist old dinosaur Bond doesn't belong in any more.

James Bond is not a simple character, and neither is his series very simple. it can look simple, but a series that has been running for this long and evolved this much definitely has a lot to say.

Bond is a time capsule or snapshot of when his films were made in a really distinctive way.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2020 21:26

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Is the Bond franchise one of those oddities where it's produced more for a foreign audience?

Like, is it more popular in America than in Britain?

# ¿ Aug 3, 2021 19:40

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

LionArcher posted:

Is his first the World is Not Enough, his truly most underrated film and the best score of the last twenty years of Bond Films?

(Skyfall is pretty good, No Time To Die is growing on me)

I've always really liked that movie, and I think the N64 version was way better than Goldeneye, but nobody cared about either in comparison.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2021 00:42

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Grandpa Palpatine posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDHdDtZ8aQA

I remember far more of the music in the game than the movie. And it's awesome music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4gUkUVElBI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6hsdWGF0no

# ¿ Jan 18, 2023 06:26

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUpnRD-Sd9Q

I wouldn't have posted this save for how he points out in the Bond 50 set we see Bond Girls with their respective films and for TWINE it shows Elektra, not Christmas. Poor Denise Richards, indeed. She'll always have Tammy and the T-Rex. And was she in Starship Tropers? Again, playing the main female love interest who all the fans dislike compared to the other female love interest?

Oh well, Elektra is great, Renard is great, I like this movie.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2023 18:14

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Name Change posted:

The big Denise Richards movies are Starship Troopers, The World Is Not Enough, and Wild Things. One of these movies is even good!

I like two of those movies, although "good" might be stretching things in terms of SST. I dunno what to call it. I just feel kinda bad for her cuz she's so totally overshadowed by Sophie Marceau.

Then again, now I think on it, is Natalya a big part of why people like Goldeneye? I think more people probably remember Xenia, too.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2023 19:40

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Dog Doggleman posted:

I get nervous and pre-angry every time I see unread posts that they�ve confirmed the next actor.

I just love my thread is still named 2019 here on the cusp of 2025.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2024 17:14

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

gohuskies posted:

Recast Denise Richards with almost anyone else and TWINE instantly becomes a top tier Bond movie. There�s a lot of good in there.

That poor lady, outshone by the other female love interests in both Starship Troopers and TWINE.

Anyway I like TWINE and Renard. I don't think Elektra would work without the fakeout provided by him. Also as per last time it came up, M is the real villain.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2024 00:15

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Ghost Leviathan posted:

Maybe if you're a loving corward.

Space whales are popular, why not space sharks.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2025 04:32

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# ¿ May 18, 2025 18:17

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Quantum of Phallus posted:

TWINE rules

I've always liked it. (it's also the superior N64 Bond game adaptation)

But I think Denise Richards hurts it.I've said it before but I kinda feel bad for her. She's the main love interest in two movies from my childhood and everybody is like "yeah, the fake love interest was way better."

But yeah, apart from her, I thought everyone was fantastic. TWINE and Goldeneye both benefit from having a cast of great characters across the baord. TND was fun but mainly due to Carver, IMO. TWINE had Elektra, Renard, M in a major role, and we even got to see Valentin again.

Also has one of my favorite Bond themes.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2025 13:43

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