TND Pre-title sequence
Walther 00
Posts: 31MI6 Agent
Hello all,
Just wondered what Bond's actual mission was before he escaped in the jet with the nuclear torpedos. Was he to designate the cruise missile strike, assassinate an arms dealer or just set up surveillance?
Any thoughts welcome,
Walther
Just wondered what Bond's actual mission was before he escaped in the jet with the nuclear torpedos. Was he to designate the cruise missile strike, assassinate an arms dealer or just set up surveillance?
Any thoughts welcome,
Walther
Comments
However, I can offer you my opinion of the PTS.
In my books, the PTS is at the bottom of the list.
Why? To begin with. When 007 is on assignment, there should never, NEVER, N-E-V-E-R......(did I say NEVER?) be a scene where Bond's actions are monitored by Anybody, let alone M.
Just because the technology exists...it does not have to be used.
Look, Bond is a spy of the old school. He dives into dangerous situations, alone and undercover. Days could go by before contact is made with M. That is the essence of spies, ESPECIALLY 007.
I remember feeling deflated when I first saw this PTS. Bond on a secret mission...with M watching? Its just not Bond, old boy. Worse, its mediocre film-making.
Has anyone else noticed an ugly trend in action movies the last few years. We see the hero in action, and this is intercut with people watching and/or working on computers.
Examples? Crimson Tide, Enemy of The State, The Matrix Trilogy, Mission Impossible 1-3, etc.
If Jaws or Predator were made now there is no way the audience would feel the same isolation the characters feel. Because you just know nowadays, they would cut back to shore in Jaws. (Which they never do in the movie).
Technology is rampant, but focusing on it does not constitute exciting film-making. In fact, cutting to a guy on a computer DESTROYS the flow of action. Which brings me back to TND.
Bond is the lone hero at its finest. And lone heroes do not require a satellite link-up with HQ around the world.
The less wired 007 is...the better.
What else? Well...the PTS is a mess. The editing is mind-numbing. Look, I got spoiled by Peter Hunt and John Glen. Their editing was, at best, coherent and electrifying. For the first 17 films, I knew exactly what has happening in every action scene. Clear and precise.
Check out the PTS in TND to witness the devolution of Bond action editing. A flurry of cuts and explosions, with no sense of grace in any Bond movement. (Even the jet-fight felt lame) All sound and fury (and more explosions)...signifying nothing.
Quite simply, a loud mess. IMO, the least interesitng PTS in the entire series. A real downer after living off the high of GE for 2 years, and also, a not-very healthy sign of things to come. (DAD anyone?).
"Backseat driver"
I thought the PTS for DAD was poor as well, but I quite like TND's. None of them live up to GF though, "shocking, simply shocking"
Classic.
Walther
And editing? Yes, it's getting worse and worse. I can't even watch TWINE without going cross-eyed. Last time I watched it with the missus, she kept asking me "what's going on?" and rightly so. The scenes were so disjointed and unfocused you couldn't tell.
cuz we do live in a surveillance society now,
with Congress passing bills to allow tapping of our phones, archiving our emails to govt databases, theres cameras everywhere in public and private space, satellites that can supposedly read newspaper headlines in Baghdad etc etc
if 007 were a real spy operating in the contemporary world, this is the technology hed be using and even if he still did more running round and blowing things up than any actual espionage, his every move would be tracked in much this way
and given we all know thats whats going on in contemporary espionage it would be noncredible to show a modernday James Bond operating as if it were still 1954
not saying I wouldnt prefer a period007 but if hes going to drive this years model BMW and use a laptop and deal in situations following the collapse of the USSR, there are going to need to be updates to the way he does his job too
btw Enemy of The State, wasnt that the Will Smith film where Gene Hackman seems to reprise his role from The Conversation? if so, I like that one, and I really liked The Conversation!
Is life now being lived at some kind of lifeless meta-level? That is, as a society have we actually come to a place/time in which young men are watching Bond not so as to vicariously and imaginatively participate as secret agents, but instead to sit back, as if at home staring at a computer screeen, and to identify themselves with those who are watching the one being watched?
Can we all have become so literal-minded? Can filmmakers have lost all sense of movie magic? Has a generation been reared that, instead of letting themselves participate in an action sequence, needs/wants to be told, via pictures no less, that "you are watching a man in action because that man in action is being watched by high-tech surveillance equipment, just like we ourselves are being watched by said equipment".
Sorry for the excursion into babble. Hope I haven't jacked this thread. Please ignore and carry on.
ASP
Why couldn't PB or TD have a great script that never let them down? (TLD is the exception and TWINE to a lesser degree.)
James Bond- Licence To Kill
Surely you mean, "Shocking, positively shocking..."
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