John Glen's back projection myopia
crawfordboon
Posts: 126MI6 Agent
I was reduced to tears of laughter and utter disbelief watching some extras on one of the John Glen Bond films Ultimate Edition, think it was AVTAK. He basically said that he was proud of how realistic the back projection and front projection looked in the films, and how it is really hard to spot the real shots from the fakes.
Well sorry JG, but bad back projection has always been a massive Achillies Heel of the Bonds (along with Bond usually having THE EXACT GET-OUT-OF-JAIL GADGET for every moment, including a heart defibrilator in his glovebox!), and given that your films were made in the 80s, when standards elsewhere were getting better, there's no much excuse for some of the cheapo effects we got.
The firetruck chase in AVTAK is a great example, as is the Golden Gate Bridge /Blimp scene, but there are so many littered over the series. How the man can say that with the passing of time is utterly absurd, and it's not just a case of "it looekd real back then", it didn't. Take a scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when Ford and Connery are in a biplane over Turkey gettign attacke by two German planes, it wasn't for years afterwards, on DVD and HD, that it became obvious they filmed a lot of it in front of a blue screen.
It was well shot and appeared seamless at the time, but the same can't be said for Roger Moore on top of a train (OP), falling through mid air (MR, in a scene directed by then second unit director Glen), on an ice tractor (AVTAK), or being chased by a heat-seeking missle (OP again).
Well sorry JG, but bad back projection has always been a massive Achillies Heel of the Bonds (along with Bond usually having THE EXACT GET-OUT-OF-JAIL GADGET for every moment, including a heart defibrilator in his glovebox!), and given that your films were made in the 80s, when standards elsewhere were getting better, there's no much excuse for some of the cheapo effects we got.
The firetruck chase in AVTAK is a great example, as is the Golden Gate Bridge /Blimp scene, but there are so many littered over the series. How the man can say that with the passing of time is utterly absurd, and it's not just a case of "it looekd real back then", it didn't. Take a scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when Ford and Connery are in a biplane over Turkey gettign attacke by two German planes, it wasn't for years afterwards, on DVD and HD, that it became obvious they filmed a lot of it in front of a blue screen.
It was well shot and appeared seamless at the time, but the same can't be said for Roger Moore on top of a train (OP), falling through mid air (MR, in a scene directed by then second unit director Glen), on an ice tractor (AVTAK), or being chased by a heat-seeking missle (OP again).
Comments
Nitpickophilia, Sir, surely!
(Pedantic Barbel strikes again
Yes, my mistake -- it is I who am suffering from nitpickophobia!
I feel like Steve Martin talking about the best advice he ever got:
My uncle would say, "ALWAYS..." No no, wait, it was "NEVER..."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
talk about turning the wheel without effect
-{
Very true JFF, incredibly that was worse than anything in the Moore era. Positively shocking!
In this post-Jurassic Park era, however, there is no excuse for it; which makes the horrendous back projection during the hovercraft chase in DAD and (especially) behind Valenka when she climbs on the boat in CR so horrific.
@merseytart
Yeah, but at least that wasn't the worst part of the movie (cough *plot, Halle Berry*)
I do give Glen a lot of credit, though. For me, he brought re-energised the series after Lewis Gilbert's big budget extravaganzas and Guy Hamilton's joke fests- both of those had seen their best days in the Bond franchise.