shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
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Post by shutupbanks on Sept 1, 2018 7:15:23 GMT
Oh, and their influence on modern media is just staggering. Moonraker and Thunderball are the two novels I'd put as required reading for a university course on the genre. One pretty much invented the "megalomaniac with a rocket" scenario you'd see time and time again, while the other practically invented the Broken Arrow, theft of a nuclear weapon, for popular culture. Both were really revolutionary concepts at the time and one is still very much thriving in things like Mission Impossible: Fallout today. They're actually in the Canadian public domain on things like Project Gutenberg if anyone wants to look at them. So you're saying I should read the books before watching the films? What's the order to read them? Read them in publication order: they develop Bond and his world over the course of the series. He does grow and change over time. And the writing is really fantastic: Fleming was a great describer of settings and setter of scenes. The first few chapters of Thunderball are really blackly comic and a bit surreal, while the relationship between Bond and Felix Leiter is one of the great proto-bromances. He also isn't afraid to put Bond into a difficult situation, not just physically but ethically and morally as well.
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
Likes: 5,669
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Post by shutupbanks on Sept 1, 2018 9:49:16 GMT
And to get back on track, I love the Dalton films: I really felt that he had a great handle on the part and they felt less like action fantasies and more like adventures.
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Post by iainmclaughlin on Sept 1, 2018 13:04:55 GMT
OHMSS is my favourite of the series, just edging From Russia With Love. It's pretty much the same with the books, actually. I marathoned my way through all of the films recently, from the 1954 Casino Royale through to SPECTRE. Some stood out for me. From Russia With Love benefits from a terrific bunch of villains, a solid plot and possibly the best and most brutal fight of the series. OHMSS has a heart that the other lack. Live and Let Die is just delicious fun and The Spy Who Loved Me is a huge cartoon Bond and it's fabulous. I like For Your Eyes Only for its pared back nature, both Daltons had a lot going for them, particularly Dalton's take on 007. Goldeneye was really good... all of Brosnan's others were nearly really good but suffer from falling away in their last hours becoming average action films. Casino Royale and Skyfall were solid. Quantum of Solace bored my bum off despite being short. SPECTRE disappointed slightly. So, yeah, OHMSS and From Russia With Love for me.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2018 16:18:03 GMT
I believe that Ian Fleming was a brilliant novelist who was way ahead of his time. For several months last year I was able to say what I liked about the Bond novels in my role as a critic. Unfortunately I only got as far as The Spy Who Loved Me before the site's editor lost interest and stopped updating it. Short story: I think they're a brilliant set of books that deserve a more discerning readership. Oh, and their influence on modern media is just staggering. Moonraker and Thunderball are the two novels I'd put as required reading for a university course on the genre. One pretty much invented the "megalomaniac with a rocket" scenario you'd see time and time again, while the other practically invented the Broken Arrow, theft of a nuclear weapon, for popular culture. Both were really revolutionary concepts at the time and one is still very much thriving in things like Mission Impossible: Fallout today. They're actually in the Canadian public domain on things like Project Gutenberg if anyone wants to look at them. I am pleased someone has pointed that out about Moonraker. I was positive when reading it years back, that a key scene, where the main villain details his plans to Bond who is tied up, but nonetheless taunts him on the absurdity of his ambitions, was the basis for a near identical scene in the final episode of Blackadder the second. In this, Blackadder is bound prisoner whilst the German count details his plans for domination. Blackadder taunts him about how he was no doubt bullied at school. I am pretty sure the routine mirrored that in Moonraker, which I believe was being referenced. I could not take it seriously past that, but perhaps Bonds flippant attitude has gained traction in popular culture due to scenes such as this, to the point that they seem cliched and comical at times.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2018 1:48:54 GMT
Oh, and their influence on modern media is just staggering. Moonraker and Thunderball are the two novels I'd put as required reading for a university course on the genre. One pretty much invented the "megalomaniac with a rocket" scenario you'd see time and time again, while the other practically invented the Broken Arrow, theft of a nuclear weapon, for popular culture. Both were really revolutionary concepts at the time and one is still very much thriving in things like Mission Impossible: Fallout today. They're actually in the Canadian public domain on things like Project Gutenberg if anyone wants to look at them. I am pleased someone has pointed that out about Moonraker. I was positive when reading it years back, that a key scene, where the main villain details his plans to Bond who is tied up, but nonetheless taunts him on the absurdity of his ambitions, was the basis for a near identical scene in the final episode of Blackadder the second. In this, Blackadder is bound prisoner whilst the German count details his plans for domination. Blackadder taunts him about how he was no doubt bullied at school. I am pretty sure the routine mirrored that in Moonraker, which I believe was being referenced. I could not take it seriously past that, but perhaps Bonds flippant attitude has gained traction in popular culture due to scenes such as this, to the point that they seem cliched and comical at times. I always find it fascinating to see what particular tropes have become so commonplace that people don't even notice them anymore as tropes. They just become part of the furniture. Particularly the ones that have managed to cross not only genres, but mediums. Any video game with a jungle temple is going to have an Indiana Jones-style spike trap in there somewhere. Nowadays, it'd be odd if it didn't. A lot of the Bond tropes are much the same, they turn up in the most unique places. There's a key scene in Revenge of the Cybermen which seems to riff on a similar situation in Moonraker's novel. Fleming has always had this fascination with mania in his villains. From Blofeld to Dr. Julius No, they all talk about how their passions elevate them to glory. Their fanaticism, in their eyes, makes them great men. Drax might be one of his more visibly petty villains, his actions more deplorable than awe-inspiring (particularly to someone of Bond's loyalties). In contrast, the films are -- for the most part -- all about villains that can't be goaded and yet curiously enough that megalomaniac archetype has still stuck over the years. To the point of parody and even shooting the moon back into seriousness. And to get back on track, I love the Dalton films: I really felt that he had a great handle on the part and they felt less like action fantasies and more like adventures. It's such a shame that we never got any more films from him after '89. Particularly given at least one of the scripts that came in: Michael France's original screenplay for Goldeneye never fails to impress me when I re-read it. It gives its final counterpart a serious run for its money, I think it could easily have been Dalton's Goldfinger if fate had shimmied the other way.
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Post by Trace on Sept 8, 2018 6:06:15 GMT
I am a Bond fanatic! I have them all—including 1967 Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again. As a completist fan of anything having to do with Bond, I must admit it doesn’t make for really good discussion (people like to talk about dislikes more than likes) but, I literally could sit through every single film over and over again. I love the Bond girls, the villains, the gadgets, the cars the one liners, all the various Bond actors, the songs, the action, the humor, the title sequences...I literally get goosebumps when they start! In fact, I love all the themes so much that I had to get them all on iTunes! I have a Bond playlist which even includes the obscure Bond songs, like end credits songs, etc. And contrary to the rest of the known world, I think Madonna’s song Die Another Day is bloody brilliant in its uniqueness and electronic vibe!
Yes, I even love the ones that don’t seem to get much love: Die Another Day, The Man with the Golden Gun, Moonraker, Never Say Never Again, A View to a Kill, Octopussy, Quantum of Solace, SPECTRE...
I can’t find fault with any, because each one has brought me great joy!
BUT—Top 3? Goldfinger, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Live and Let Die.
Runners up... Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale, You Only Live Twice, Die Another Day
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2018 7:14:37 GMT
I have my favourites as i have already mentioned but For Your Eyes Only is memorable for me as it was the first time i had seen Bond in the Cinema
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Post by pawntake on Sept 8, 2018 8:21:39 GMT
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Post by Timelord007 on Sept 8, 2018 8:24:50 GMT
Diamonds shift in tone doesn't help becoming more tongue n'cheek humour compared to the more drama based OHMSS, they skipped over Bonds vengeance during the pre credit sequence so by the time the actual film begins Bond's more or less forgotten he was married.
Diamonds has a naff ending, Blofeld killed Bonds wife he should've been taking out his henchmen to get to Blofeld & had Bond kill him but nah played for laughs with the crane, battlesub sequence.
And don't even get me started on Moonraker or I'll be here all day.
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Post by Timelord007 on Sept 8, 2018 8:26:38 GMT
License To Kill is very underrated, there's so many Bond films i love i can tell you the one's i don't like, Casino Royale 1967, Never Say Never Again & Quantum Of Solace.
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Post by glutamodo on Sept 8, 2018 8:35:52 GMT
Well it depends on what you consider legit entries, and I don't really consider CR67 and NSNA part of that. Quantum, okay I'll give you that, it was a bit on the weak side.
I said it above but I really thought Dalton was a great Bond and deserved more (not unlike my opinion of the 6th Doctor)
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2018 9:24:24 GMT
Diamonds shift in tone doesn't help becoming more tongue n'cheek humour compared to the more drama based OHMSS, they skipped over Bonds vengeance during the pre credit sequence so by the time the actual film begins Bond's more or less forgotten he was married. Diamonds has a naff ending, Blofeld killed Bonds wife he should've been taking out his henchmen to get to Blofeld & had Bond kill him but nah played for laughs with the crane, battlesub sequence. I have my favourites as i have already mentioned but For Your Eyes Only is memorable for me as it was the first time i had seen Bond in the Cinema I want to reply to both these together, For Your Eyes Only is my favourite of the Moore films. Juuuust beating out The Spy Who Loved Me, by a hair. I like to look on it as the spiritual successor to OHMSS, what with how the teaser plays out and all. I really enjoy the older, wiser and warier edge that Bond's acquired, particularly when its thrown against Melina's quest throughout the film:It's all implicit, but I like to think that he's realised that he can't ever come back from where he is now and spends most of the story trying to stop her from following the same path. Carries over very nicely into Licence to Kill too, we get to the end of the film and the expression on his face in the desert is -- It's finished. And I'm alive... It's finished and I'm alive.
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Post by Trace on Sept 8, 2018 16:55:42 GMT
I have my favourites as i have already mentioned but For Your Eyes Only is memorable for me as it was the first time i had seen Bond in the Cinema Actually, me too!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2018 23:08:07 GMT
I have my favourites as i have already mentioned but For Your Eyes Only is memorable for me as it was the first time i had seen Bond in the Cinema Actually, me too! I must say, that seeing The Spy Who Loved Me in 77, the year I saw Star Wars (technically early 78 for UK actually, but same period) - these were the biggest Cinema experiences I had, of all the films I was taken to see, until Superman (79) and the Empire Strikes Back (80). It really is made for the big screen, with what was the biggest stage set ever at the time for the interior of the Tanker - a purpose built studio which is still in use and is now dedicated to the Bond films. The Lotus underwater, the Union Jack parachute, the scenes with Jaws as executioner in the Valley of the Kings, the underwater lair of the villain, it is all Big Screen stuff. The later films never matched it for me on the big screen, though Goldeneye was the last big screen outing for me of the series. On a tangent now, regrets. I had the original official film tie-in editions from the first three films until my parents threw them out when I had flown the nest. Are they collectible now? They weren't mint (read but not tatty or torn), but I liked the celluloid holes in the cover for From Russia with Love, whilst Dr No was pleasingly low key, with Sean Connery an unknown actor, with as much emphasis given to Joseph Wiseman on the illustrative aspect. Goldfinger meanwhile was, well, Gold, with a wraparound of the titles model. Seems the Doctor has a rival on this forum...
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