Thunderball vs You Only Live Twice

chrisisall

It may be sacrilege here, but I actually like YOLT better than TB by a little bit. Both were Bond entering the purely cinematic phase, but if you're gonna DO it, DO it BIG!

broadshoulder

TB and just for that otherworldy underwater locations..

YOLT is a nearly....with excellent locations....ie japan

AlphaOmegaSin

TB has the Breath taking underwater Scenes, whilst YOLT shows us some amazing Japanese Scenery -{ I would go for YOLT.

Peppermill

My vote goes to YOLT.

BIG TAM

TB for me. Better story & characters which aren't lost in the spectacle. YOLT is undoubtedly entertaining but the production design is the star of that film.

Thunderpussy

Tough choice both great films, but I'd go with TB.

Blackleiter

chrisisall wrote:

It may be sacrilege here, but I actually like YOLT better than TB by a little bit. Both were Bond entering the purely cinematic phase, but if you're gonna DO it, DO it BIG!

Sacrilegious or not, I'm with you. YOLT it is! -{

King Kamal

YOLT may be a little slow at times but it never seems rushed, it the way that an epic film shouldn't. Locations are beautiful, enhanced by the beautiful Sinatra/Barry soundtrack. Grander and more original plan, some mystery and intrigue, Spectre at their pinnacle. Menacing and creepy Donald Pleasance, epic and inventive base, excellent ally in Tanaka and brilliant rapport between him and Connery. Aki especially is a good and effective Bond girl. Sean perhaps doesn't give his "usual" performance here but its more reserved, experienced kind of performance which he pulls off equally well and nice to see a bit of a change.

I kind of feel TB is a touch incompetent and rushed, YOLT is a film that you can just get immersed in and not fail to be amazed by what everyone managed to achieve. A true piece of cinema.

Moore Than

Logic says Thunderball......when taking into account the story, the villain, Bond girls, and a considerably better performance by Sean Connery. But I do find it a bit ponderous at times, and the ending is rather spoiled by the cartoonish sped up back projection during the fight on Largo's boat......I actually prefer You Only Live Twice. Yes, it is overblown and OTT at times but I find it more entertaining, a guilty pleasure. I particularly enjoy the Japanese characters, Bond's burial at sea, and most of all the epic score of John Barry that contains my favourite piece of all Bond music 'The Wedding'.

Silhouette Man

It's Thunderball for me as it has a more believable plot and has much more fidelity to Ian Fleming than YOLT of course.

Thunderpussy

I was wondering as both TB and YOLT were the biggest of the Bonds
For scale and spectacle, and probable far too expensive to film today.
Would anyone like to see the sort of grand "CGI" scale attack, action
Sequences ( if done correctly) as in Transformers or Avatar. Hundreds
Of soldiers involved in an attack on a villains' huge lair ?

Blackleiter

Thunderpussy wrote:

I was wondering as both TB and YOLT were the biggest of the Bonds
For scale and spectacle, and probable far too expensive to film today.
Would anyone like to see the sort of grand "CGI" scale attack, action
Sequences ( if done correctly) as in Transformers or Avatar. Hundreds
Of soldiers involved in an attack on a villains' huge lair ?

In a word - nope! I like the direction the series has taken with Craig's Bond, and I wouldn't like to see it go back to the days of grand spectacle (my love for YOLT notwithstanding). "Transformers"? UGH! :v

Barbel

Blackleiter wrote:

and I wouldn't like to see it go back to the days of grand spectacle (my love for YOLT notwithstanding).

Oh, I don't know- if done right ie with no CGI (beyond hiding safety harnesses, etc) with a truly impressive set....

Thunderpussy

) some times you have to play Devil's advocate.
I was thinking more to add a few solders here and there, or help
With explosions or created some intricate set designs etc.

Barbel

Then you're in "Star Wars" territory!

One of the great strengths of the bigger Bond movies was the set design- Ken Adam's volcano, tanker interior, space station, etc were done for real and populated with real people. CGI can't match that.

Thunderpussy

Agreed, but I doubt the budget for any film can match those
Early movies fantastic designs, hence why I was wondering
If there'd be much "hatred" for the idea. Of CGI " tweaking "
Set designs a bit.
..... Maybe throw in a few Stormtroopers, after all DC is playing
One now. )

Barbel

Remember the chess match set at the start of FRWL? Most of that was real, with the ceiling being a matte painting (so the camera had to stay static). Nowadays, they could use CGI for the ceiling to allow the camera to move. Is that what you mean, using CGI to assist rather than dominate?

Thunderpussy

Yes, instead of " foreground miniatures " and the old Matte work. Although
It's also great at creating crowds etc, hence why I was thinking if you could
Only have a hundred soldiers, you could "double" their numbers. Or have a
Action sequence in places you never could, like the house of commons or
Buckingham palace. In that they could be part solid set with part CGI.

broadshoulder

Thunderpussy wrote:

Agreed, but I doubt the budget for any film can match those
Early movies fantastic designs, hence why I was wondering
If there'd be much "hatred" for the idea. Of CGI " tweaking "
Set designs a bit.
..... Maybe throw in a few Stormtroopers, after all DC is playing
One now. )

I thought they learned their lessons with cgi with DAD. Bond and cgi do not mix. Do it for real or not at all...

Blackleiter

broadshoulder wrote:

Thunderpussy wrote:

Agreed, but I doubt the budget for any film can match those
Early movies fantastic designs, hence why I was wondering
If there'd be much "hatred" for the idea. Of CGI " tweaking "
Set designs a bit.
..... Maybe throw in a few Stormtroopers, after all DC is playing
One now. )

I thought they learned their lessons with cgi with DAD. Bond and cgi do not mix. Do it for real or not at all...

You do realize there was cgi in Skyfall, right?

DevilMayCare007

TB all the way ! IMO YOLT is the first bond to get outrageous and Connery looked bored.
In TB Connery is at his peak, you have wonderful girls, a good Felix and a decent villain.
In YOLT you have none of that

chrisisall

Blackleiter wrote:

You do realize there was cgi in Skyfall, right?

That's most annoying.

Colonel Shatner

I find that You Only Live Twice trumps Thunderball by a moderate margin - more polished production values, more memorable foreign locations, with a poignant emotional core to it despite the lead actor being a bit staid. In both movies we get one of the better depictions of a world threatening quasi-corporate crime syndicate in fiction.

If we have Bond films go back to depicting Ken Adams type villain lairs, the Marvel movies would be a good example to follow in the era of smaller sets against green screen and extras replicated digitally...

broadshoulder

Blackleiter wrote:

broadshoulder wrote:

Thunderpussy wrote:

Agreed, but I doubt the budget for any film can match those
Early movies fantastic designs, hence why I was wondering
If there'd be much "hatred" for the idea. Of CGI " tweaking "
Set designs a bit.
..... Maybe throw in a few Stormtroopers, after all DC is playing
One now. )

I thought they learned their lessons with cgi with DAD. Bond and cgi do not mix. Do it for real or not at all...

You do realize there was cgi in Skyfall, right?

Oh you mean the helicopter at the end? Well, thats fine but we haven't had anything like the cgi tsunami which looks like it was drawn with a child's etchasketch..

Hopefully they learn't from that....hopefully...

Colonel Shatner

The troop helicopter at the end seemed was very real, but examples of somewhat wobbly but sensibly used CGI (to meet budget restraints or safety concerns) are the scorpions, iguana lizards, and Royal Navy helicopters.

AlphaOmegaSin

One of the Stunt men in the Volcano Set missed the landing Net when an Explosion went off -{

DEFIANT 74205

Silhouette Man wrote:

It's Thunderball for me as it has a more believable plot and has much more fidelity to Ian Fleming than YOLT of course.

Same for me. The fact that Thunderball is a more faithful adaptation of the source material than You Only Live Twice is reason enough.

While Thunderball was a classic, with a believable plot, Tom Jones' song, Connery at his best, great villains and Terence Young's direction. I don't dislike You Only Live Twice, but to me, it just doesn't quite measure up to the first four Connery Bonds.

InternationalExports

Thunderball. Yolt is my most annoying film, the novel has so much in there about bond struggling after Traceys death, and Tanaka's more prominent in the novel. There are great cat & mouse arguements while Tanaka is teaching bond Japanese tradition that was left out. Thunderball is a great concept I much prefer the action. To be fair to Yolt I still think the volcano layer is the greatest set build for any bond film

broadshoulder

Colonel Shatner wrote:

The troop helicopter at the end seemed was very real, but examples of somewhat wobbly but sensibly used CGI (to meet budget restraints or safety concerns) are the scorpions, iguana lizards, and Royal Navy helicopters.

You know I had not thought of the scorpion. I thought they were real

The komodo's? How else are you going to get huge lizards around your set that will eat the cameraman. Below is Steve Backsall with the komodo's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcTg9mt4eAk

Colonel Shatner

Thunderball is a good straight transfer from a solid book to a solid movie, but flawed as it is I go back to YOLT more (it's not as good as FRWL, but gives Goldfinger a run for its money and set the stage for Bond movies being their own self-sustaining entities).

Silhouette Man

Colonel Shatner wrote:

Thunderball is a good straight transfer from a solid book to a solid movie, but flawed as it is I go back to YOLT more (it's not as good as FRWL, but gives Goldfinger a run for its money and set the stage for Bond movies being their own self-sustaining entities).

Very much agreed there on the Bond movies becoming self-sustaining entities away from the books point - GF and YOLT certainly cemented that tradition more than any of the other early Bond films.