Best of the Films
1) Casino Royale
2) Skyfall
3) GoldenEye
4) Goldfinger
5) Thunderball
Best of the Bonds
1) Sean Connery
2) Daniel Craig
3) Pierce Brosnan
4) Roger Moore
5) Timothy Dalton
6) George Lazenby
Best of the Songs
1) You Know My Name
2) The Living Daylights
3) Live and Let Die
4) The World Is Not Enough
5) For Your Eyes Only
Best of the Villains
1) Goldfinger
2) Max Zorin
3) Scaramanga
4) Blofeld (YOLT)
5) Trevelyan
and just for fun...
Best of the Incidental Animals
1) Melina's parrot
2) Stacey's cat
3) Blofeld's cat
4) Sanchez's iguana
5) The rat that stands up and looks at Bond in the pipeline in DAF
and just for fun...
Best of the Incidental Animals
1) Melina's parrot
2) Stacey's cat
3) Blofeld's cat
4) Sanchez's iguana
5) The rat that stands up and looks at Bond in the pipeline in DAF
Which incarnation of Blofeld's cat though?
FRWL's cat eats fighter fish.
YOLT's cat gets 'nam flashbacks and disappears, which is pretty funny on its own.
OHMSS it's basically thrown to the table after he gets the call that the Englishman escaped.
Diamond's cat is diamond encrusted and is particularly luxurious at that time aswell as hissing and has clones of its own.
I'd rank the Diamonds or the YOLT cat above the rest just because it was so entertaining to see.
Largely agree with the rest of your picks though.
Give us a kiiiiss Give us a kiiiiss Give us a kiiiiss caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
The Diamonds cat with its own jewellery and its own duplicate comes out on top for me. I like the moment when Connery takes out the Blofeld double with the help of the cat.
Purely a case of purrsonal preference...
Does Blofeld's cat from Never Say Never Again count? Is its performance disqualified by virtue of being outside of Eon Productions? Is it canon? What about Blofeld's cat's athletic leap off his lap in the PTS of FYEO, a spectacular stunt? Are these two fantastic performances unfairly neglected? What do you think?
It all becomes clear now. Blofeld's cat, escaping the oil rig at the end of DAF, adopted a suitable disguise and then continued its trail of crime, allying with a strangely familiar bald man in order to take down 007 in FYEO. It is thus the cat, not Blofeld, who Bond achieves a cathartic symbolic revenge over. However, cats are good climbers and this one easily escaped the tall chimney after landing on its feet.
Eventually the cat fell into the employ of Zorin Enterprises and acted as a spy, monitoring Zorin's associate Stacey Sutton at his behest. At the end of the film the cat is still alive and lurking near 007...who knows how dangerous it might be...
This fan theory should give you paws for thought at least... )
When the cat appears in DaF with its diamond necklace catching the light, and meows, setting off the twinkling motif of the main theme song, that may just be the best single moment in the entire series.
Certainly the best precredits to credits transition.
Other than that my brain can't do this ranking thing, so carry on.
And please indicate is 1 or 5 is meant to be best, because every other poster is flipping the sequence.
When the cat appears in DaF with its diamond necklace catching the light, and meows, setting off the twinkling motif of the main theme song, that may just be the best single moment in the entire series.
Certainly the best precredits to credits transition.
I've rewatched that so many times, certainly one of my favourite shots ever from Bond. Such a description of the movie too.
Wonder if Bond went "here kitty kitty" to try and get its necklace but only got bit instead.
no definitely not Thunderball, not for me.
I don't like the fight with "the widow", I don't like the jetpack, the appearance of the Aston is anticlimactic after the silly jetpack, and the Aston's stunt with the watercannon is unimpressive.
so that precredits has me kind of grumpy when the song finally begins.
"shocking, poshitively shocking" is infinitely better, and the prototype of all that followed. But not so good as that cat meowing.
the opening of the Union Jack parachute of course is a contender.
And of the more recent films, I think Craig's apparent drowning in SkyFall is up there with the best of them.
Hey I almost made a list of five! I wouldnta thought my brain could do that!
I may have to watch Thunderball again just to doublecheck, but I didn't notice it as such last time I watched.
And the thrill of that moment is one thing I definitely always watch for in a Bondfilm.
Barbel what do you like about the transition in Thunderball?
I just rewatched the Thunderball precredits/credits
hmmm, so I see, the blast of watercannon is the last thing we see, the water covers the lens, and it crossfades into the underwater light patterns of the first classic Binder title sequence, accompanied by that swaggering hook of the themesong...
I'd say the title sequence itself, imagery and song, is one of the greatest ever and historically significant, but I'm not impressed with the final image of the precredits enough to say the transition is amongst the greatest ever.
More like something mediocre just ends and something great begins, but there is the relation in the imagery of the water to water. Clever now that I notice it, but i never really noticed it before.
But now that I've asked, I myself can't quantify why that cat meowing is so thrilling. Maybe its a beautiful image? funny yet decadent and as noted above somehow creepy? I just think it really really works.
cp, it's pretty much as you described above- the "real" water cross-fades into the "animated" water and we're plunged (pun intended) into the title sequence.
Stacey's cat is a bit of a cheap jumpscare, something that the 80s director did in every movie iirc...and she does drop in during the shower bang scene so pretty meh.
Kinda cute tho.
I never saw the creepy aspect of the cat, but it's definitely interesting it can be perceived that way.
"While I don't rank most of DAF very highly I think it has the best cat."
The only category DAF will probably ever win in my opinion...
"Stacey's cat is a bit of a cheap jumpscare, something that the 80s director did in every movie"
Fair enough it is cheap but it made me jump the last time I watched AVTAK somehow...
The cheap jumpscare by a random animal happens in every 80s film. It is a bird (a dove?) in FYEO, a pigeon in OP, a cat in AVTAK, a monkey in TLD, and a pigeon again (I think) in LTK. Pity it doesn't do a double-take, now that would have been really impressive...
I been trying to think how and why an effective precredits-to-credits transition should work.
The precredits should be a concise mini-adventure, and the action setpiece should continually escelate.
Just when you think it cant get more intense it somehow leaps to another level.
Then the action should resolve, like a release of tension, almost orgasmic.
Then there should be an unexpected punchline, either literally as in Goldfinger, or visually like the parachute or the cat, or something so unexpected as our hero drowning.
and here the timing has to work, like a comedian who knows exactly how long it will take for the audience to get the joke and how long they will laugh...
As the surprise of the "punchline"settles in, then they can hit us with the first hook of the main theme, and it has to sound like a proper BondTheme to fulfill that satisfaction.
The twonote brass hit of GF, the twinkling motif in DaF, the descending piano of tSwLM, That Note that introduces the Adele song.
If all these ingredients fall into place, and do so in a stylish and original manner, then when the main theme and credits finally roll I am in my Happy Place.
Title sequence transitions is a interesting topic. I'm quite partial to:
the fighter jet smashing the glass apart in TND
the slow musical intro played over Hamilton's fainting corpse in LALD
the bloodstains turning into a volcanic sunset in YOLT
the gunbarrel blood becoming playing cards in CR
In comparison I don't much care for:
Bond somersaulting, hands clapping and "Fill her up, please" in OP (groan)
Bond simply getting up and leaving at the start of the TWINE titles (legend has it Pierce Brosnan's acting ability did the same)
Bond firing a gun in the desert in Quantum (how generic can you get?)
Comments
I think I got these the wrong way around 18 years ago.
7. LALD 8. TWINE 9. Skyfall 10. AVTAK 11. CR 12. TLD 13. YOLT
14. TMWTGG 15. Moonraker 16. TSWLM 17. Thunderball 18. FRWL
19. Dr. No 20. DAF 21. LTK 22. DAD 23. QoS 24. Spectre 25. NTTD
1) Casino Royale
2) Skyfall
3) GoldenEye
4) Goldfinger
5) Thunderball
Best of the Bonds
1) Sean Connery
2) Daniel Craig
3) Pierce Brosnan
4) Roger Moore
5) Timothy Dalton
6) George Lazenby
Best of the Songs
1) You Know My Name
2) The Living Daylights
3) Live and Let Die
4) The World Is Not Enough
5) For Your Eyes Only
Best of the Villains
1) Goldfinger
2) Max Zorin
3) Scaramanga
4) Blofeld (YOLT)
5) Trevelyan
and just for fun...
Best of the Incidental Animals
1) Melina's parrot
2) Stacey's cat
3) Blofeld's cat
4) Sanchez's iguana
5) The rat that stands up and looks at Bond in the pipeline in DAF
"The spectre of defeat..."
FRWL's cat eats fighter fish.
YOLT's cat gets 'nam flashbacks and disappears, which is pretty funny on its own.
OHMSS it's basically thrown to the table after he gets the call that the Englishman escaped.
Diamond's cat is diamond encrusted and is particularly luxurious at that time aswell as hissing and has clones of its own.
I'd rank the Diamonds or the YOLT cat above the rest just because it was so entertaining to see.
Largely agree with the rest of your picks though.
Give us a kiiiiss
Give us a kiiiiss
Give us a kiiiiss
caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Purely a case of purrsonal preference...
Does Blofeld's cat from Never Say Never Again count? Is its performance disqualified by virtue of being outside of Eon Productions? Is it canon? What about Blofeld's cat's athletic leap off his lap in the PTS of FYEO, a spectacular stunt? Are these two fantastic performances unfairly neglected? What do you think?
"The spectre of defeat..."
But that said that particular feline did display the same behavioural pattern as the YOLT cat, so that's pretty neat.
I've said Never to Never Say Never Again so that's probably why I didn't consider that either
Eventually the cat fell into the employ of Zorin Enterprises and acted as a spy, monitoring Zorin's associate Stacey Sutton at his behest. At the end of the film the cat is still alive and lurking near 007...who knows how dangerous it might be...
This fan theory should give you paws for thought at least...
"The spectre of defeat..."
Certainly the best precredits to credits transition.
Other than that my brain can't do this ranking thing, so carry on.
And please indicate is 1 or 5 is meant to be best, because every other poster is flipping the sequence.
I've rewatched that so many times, certainly one of my favourite shots ever from Bond. Such a description of the movie too.
Wonder if Bond went "here kitty kitty" to try and get its necklace but only got bit instead.
TB...?
I'm partial to "This never happened to the other fella" myself.
I don't like the fight with "the widow", I don't like the jetpack, the appearance of the Aston is anticlimactic after the silly jetpack, and the Aston's stunt with the watercannon is unimpressive.
so that precredits has me kind of grumpy when the song finally begins.
"shocking, poshitively shocking" is infinitely better, and the prototype of all that followed. But not so good as that cat meowing.
the opening of the Union Jack parachute of course is a contender.
And of the more recent films, I think Craig's apparent drowning in SkyFall is up there with the best of them.
Hey I almost made a list of five! I wouldnta thought my brain could do that!
If a cat had been present in GoldenEye maybe we would have been treated to this exchange:
"For England, cat?"
"No. For meow."
"The spectre of defeat..."
And the thrill of that moment is one thing I definitely always watch for in a Bondfilm.
Barbel what do you like about the transition in Thunderball?
hmmm, so I see, the blast of watercannon is the last thing we see, the water covers the lens, and it crossfades into the underwater light patterns of the first classic Binder title sequence, accompanied by that swaggering hook of the themesong...
I'd say the title sequence itself, imagery and song, is one of the greatest ever and historically significant, but I'm not impressed with the final image of the precredits enough to say the transition is amongst the greatest ever.
More like something mediocre just ends and something great begins, but there is the relation in the imagery of the water to water. Clever now that I notice it, but i never really noticed it before.
But now that I've asked, I myself can't quantify why that cat meowing is so thrilling. Maybe its a beautiful image? funny yet decadent and as noted above somehow creepy? I just think it really really works.
Kinda cute tho.
I never saw the creepy aspect of the cat, but it's definitely interesting it can be perceived that way.
The only category DAF will probably ever win in my opinion...
"Stacey's cat is a bit of a cheap jumpscare, something that the 80s director did in every movie"
Fair enough it is cheap but it made me jump the last time I watched AVTAK somehow...
The cheap jumpscare by a random animal happens in every 80s film. It is a bird (a dove?) in FYEO, a pigeon in OP, a cat in AVTAK, a monkey in TLD, and a pigeon again (I think) in LTK. Pity it doesn't do a double-take, now that would have been really impressive...
"The spectre of defeat..."
The precredits should be a concise mini-adventure, and the action setpiece should continually escelate.
Just when you think it cant get more intense it somehow leaps to another level.
Then the action should resolve, like a release of tension, almost orgasmic.
Then there should be an unexpected punchline, either literally as in Goldfinger, or visually like the parachute or the cat, or something so unexpected as our hero drowning.
and here the timing has to work, like a comedian who knows exactly how long it will take for the audience to get the joke and how long they will laugh...
As the surprise of the "punchline"settles in, then they can hit us with the first hook of the main theme, and it has to sound like a proper BondTheme to fulfill that satisfaction.
The twonote brass hit of GF, the twinkling motif in DaF, the descending piano of tSwLM, That Note that introduces the Adele song.
If all these ingredients fall into place, and do so in a stylish and original manner, then when the main theme and credits finally roll I am in my Happy Place.
the fighter jet smashing the glass apart in TND
the slow musical intro played over Hamilton's fainting corpse in LALD
the bloodstains turning into a volcanic sunset in YOLT
the gunbarrel blood becoming playing cards in CR
In comparison I don't much care for:
Bond somersaulting, hands clapping and "Fill her up, please" in OP (groan)
Bond simply getting up and leaving at the start of the TWINE titles (legend has it Pierce Brosnan's acting ability did the same)
Bond firing a gun in the desert in Quantum (how generic can you get?)
"The spectre of defeat..."