Worst Bond Director

LPFilms

Who is, in your book, the absolute worst Bond director? For me, it has to be Guy Hamilton. I love Goldfinger and LALD, with LALD being in my top 5, but my god, the man pushed out what I believe are the two worst films in the whole series: DAF and TMWTGG. I've heard him in interviews and he seems like a cool guy, and he is a great director, but I feel like DAF and TMWTGG are just on a whole other league of awful.

Obviously, Lee Tamahori and Marc Forster are contenders, but:
1.) They both only did 1 film.
2.) The first half of DAD was fantastic, it's only really after the sword fight do things turn bad.
3.) QoS was a decent turn-off-your-brain action flick, heavily flawed but good outside of the Bond franchise.

DAF: A few good jokes, but still a pretty dull and boring film. My initial hatred comes from the fact it ignores OHMSS, but even when I forget about that, it still isn't good on it's own merrits.

TMWTGG:
Can't decide what it wants to be. One moment it excellently executes a tough, serious spy moment, the next there's a Bond eating a gold bullet and making a remark about it coming out the next day. One moment there's a chilling death of a troubled character, the next there's a slide whistle accompanying one of the best car stunts in film history. I love it when TMWTGG does the serious spy-thriller aspects because it does them extraordinarily well, but it's brought down by horrible comedy that isn't funny but rather embarrassing. Pepper's comic relief in LALD was a bit over the top at parts, but that's because he's an over the top character and the film didn't go overbaord with using him. TMWTGG does. Then there's the flying car, the sub-plot involving the solar agitator that becomes the main focus (when the main focus should have been Bond vs. Scaramanga), the third worst Bond girl (only good by Christmas Jones and Jynx standards), and Scaramanga is one of the best villains in the series! It's too bad he's in such a bad film. There's also too much missing potential here, which makes it a disappointment. On it's own, though, it's still a really bad movie, even beyond just Bond films.

Sorry about my rambling, haha. What are your opinions, everyone?

welshboy78

TMWTGG is such a waste. If only it was not in the Moore era, such a great iconic villain in a poor film. Would have been awesome with a more serious script. In saying that it is prob not near the bottom of my list which is testament to the great Christopher Lee and sections of the film which are enjoyable.

DAF is prob the one film out of the entire EON series that I rarely view. Mainly due to

1) The intro being terribly naff (How they went from OHMSS to that is beyond me)
2) Connery out of shape and past it (kind of spoils his legacy in a way)

Sometimes I view DAF as the start of the cheesy EON era heavily associated to Moore. Just watch the intro, poorly slapped together and naff.

QOS gets off to a poor start with the dreadful editing of the car scene. I hope we see DC in a decent car chase scene before he retires. CR was too brief and QoS a mess

Absolutely_Cart

The guy who directed Quantum of Solace is a possible candidate. It seems like he was a young liberal-minded guy who was going for a visionary political soap opera full of symbolism and all of the elements he thought would make a film a masterpiece. Maybe the fast-paced editing was supposed to be avant-garde, but his directing (and writing) just didn't work.

LPFilms

I view DAF as the start of the Moore campiness as well. I like the idea of the intro, but horribly executed (though I really love the bit where Blofeld tells his man to disarm Bond, only to have his hand chomped by a metal gadget Bond had hidden in his holster).

And yeah, forgot to mention, QoS was too fast paced but an even larger problem in the film is the writing. It is the worst written Bond film. Even though it doesn't have the cheesey dialogue from the 70s, most of the script doesn't feel right. For everything the character say, it's acted well, but doesn't go together well. An example is when M says to Bond "You look like hell. When's the last time you slept?" only for Bond to not reply and M to immediately talk more giberish about the plot. There really should've been more of a pause between M and Bond in that scene, as in a situation like that you would wait at least two seconds before you realise the persona you're talking to has nothing to say about your remark. The writer's strike at the time really ruined some extra potential QoS had.

broadshoulder

Oh it has to be Lee Tanahori

Why? Just how many reasons do you need?

Purvis and Wade had scripts and ideas. Then Tamahori came along. The reason he got the job was that he convinced Babs and Mickey G that they had to move with the times. The old fashioned stuntwork should be jettisoned for cgi that quick editing was the way forward.He admits to appearing to the MTV generation.

"Whoa dude, Bond is surfin, look at him shredd!!, "whoa dude, thats the guy from fast and the furious bro", "cgi rawks!", "Halle Berry is hot, I wanna bone her", "LOL, keeping my tip up! Thats funny dude..", "Look at those sweet cards bro!", "whoa, Bond is surfing dude.."

He is also on record that the Bonds were like the Carry On films so got Purvis and Wade to do rewrites and submitted godawful dialogue ever committed to a Bond film. No wonder Brosnan looks unhappy.

One day Tamahori will be put on trial for sins against Bond films. Along with Michael Apted.

AlphaOmegaSin

I don't think there has been a 'worst Bond Director' Even Tanahori -{

MooseWithFleas

Even though I enjoyed DAD more than TWINE. Tamahori did a much worse job directing. You can tell that DAD has some good elements from the onset. They handle the torture scenes well at the beginning, but there is just no cohesion and you can tell it has the director's fingerprints all over it.

Blackleiter

MooseWithFleas wrote:

Even though I enjoyed DAD more than TWINE. Tamahori did a much worse job directing. You can tell that DAD has some good elements from the onset. They handle the torture scenes well at the beginning, but there is just no cohesion and you can tell it has the director's fingerprints all over it.

I agree.

MilleniumForce

Lee Tamahori. Whilst I think QoS is the worst in the franchise, it is at least a sort of decent action film. But Tamahori because he is clearly better for sci fi spy than Bond.

Dutchfinger

It's a toss up between Lee Tamahori and Marc Foster. And I would probably go with Marc Foster. Tamahori was atleast able to tell the story he wanted to tell, which I can't say for Marc Foster. You could say the writers strike had something to do with it as well in his defence. I wasn't a fan of the fast cutting as well. (Couldn't even tell who got hit when the guy fired the gun during the Mr. White interrogation!)

It's funny this thread was made, a while back I remember starting a thread with the exact opposite subject of who the best Bond director is.

Gassy Man

None of the Bond directors has been incompetent. They are all skilled in their own way setting up shots, blocking actors, and getting varying degrees of performances from actors. A lot of what is blamed on directors is really the result of the scripts and editing rather than the directors, though they also influence those issues.

In this respect, the worst of them has been John Glen. Of his Bonds, two are very good -- For Your Eyes Only and The Living Daylights -- two are middling -- Octopussy and Licence to Kill -- and one awful -- A View to a Kill. His problem is that he is so pedestrian. There is not much imagination shown in his technique. He also gets mundane performances from too many actors. Taliso Soto and Tanya Roberts were not just awful, they were painfully so. Other actors are uneven, too. Guy Hamilton, for instance, was smart enough to imitate Blake Edwards with his 1960s films, but by the 1970s, he had lost a lot of his sense of imagination. But he still managed to pull good performances out of his actors, and there is still more creativity to his films than Glen's. Some films -- Die Another Day and Quantum of Solace, for instance -- may pale in comparison to better Bond films, but their parts are still greater than the whole, whereas in Glen's films that's often not the case.

broadshoulder

Gassy Man wrote:

None of the Bond directors has been incompetent. They are all skilled in their own way setting up shots, blocking actors, and getting varying degrees of performances from actors. A lot of what is blamed on directors is really the result of the scripts and editing rather than the directors, though they also influence those issues.

In this respect, the worst of them has been John Glen. Of his Bonds, two are very good -- For Your Eyes Only and The Living Daylights -- two are middling -- Octopussy and Licence to Kill -- and one awful -- A View to a Kill. His problem is that he is so pedestrian. There is not much imagination shown in his technique. He also gets mundane performances from too many actors. Taliso Soto and Tanya Roberts were not just awful, they were painfully so. Other actors are uneven, too. Guy Hamilton, for instance, was smart enough to imitate Blake Edwards with his 1960s films, but by the 1970s, he had lost a lot of his sense of imagination. But he still managed to pull good performances out of his actors, and there is still more creativity to his films than Glen's. Some films -- Die Another Day and Quantum of Solace, for instance -- may pale in comparison to better Bond films, but their parts are still greater than the whole, whereas in Glen's films that's often not the case.

Sorry but Lee Tanahori is the worse especially for that "cgi surfing" scene. The worse Bond scene in history. And easily avoided or jettisoned. It should never have been allowed.

John Glen gave us human interaction not to mention good performances from Carole Bouquet, John Rhys Davies, Stephen Berkoff and Robert Davi

Higgins

People may be surprised, but I want to defend Marc Foster here.

Foster has his own style of shooting and editing so the Bond people knew, what they've been buying upfront.

QoS but is not bad directing - the directing and editing is just not my taste.

Thunderpussy

I find myself agreeing with Higgins, ( although it is early morning and I'm
Not firing on all cylinders yet )

Higgins

) ) )

Thunderpussy

For worst Bond director, I'd go with the shower who made
CR67. )

broadshoulder

Thunderpussy wrote:

I find myself agreeing with Higgins, ( although it is early morning and I'm
Not firing on all cylinders yet )

I am agreeing with Higgins. Some of the shots were superb. And besides - Forster was Austrian.

Higgins

Thunderpussy wrote:

( I'm
Not firing on all cylinders yet )

When was the last time that this did happen? Last Millennium? :v

Higgins

broadshoulder wrote:

Thunderpussy wrote:

I find myself agreeing with Higgins, ( although it is early morning and I'm
Not firing on all cylinders yet )

I am agreeing with Higgins. Some of the shots were superb. And besides - Forster was Austrian.

Where have gone the good times where every post of mine was highly controversal?
Am I loosing my edge?

In Forster's defense, his QoS trailer #1 was excellent - probably the best 007 trailer ever!

Thunderpussy

I've a v12 under my bonnet, baby !
Don't worry Higgins, you'll post something silly soon, this run of
Coherent thought, can't last ! )

Higgins

broadshoulder wrote:

- Forster was Austrian.

He was born in Germany and grew up in Switzerland

Thunderpussy

He couldn't wait to get out ?

Higgins

no, his father owned a medical company and was pretty wealthy.
In the 70s we had a terrorist group RAF that killed and/or kidnapped rich and influencial people and they where in fear of that so they moved to Switzerland.

Thunderpussy

Well that killed, that joke, stone dead.
I was going to do something about the RAF causing trouble before..
..... But I won't.

Higgins

) ) )

Maybe we should talk about the RM or Roger Moore?

Thunderpussy

Yes, from an earlier post, I'm proud of the regiment of Roger Moore's
We have, ready to go into action when needed. Raising an eyebrow in
Some of the worlds danger hot spots. Telling innuendo filled jokes, and
Shagging anything that moves, as bullets fly over head ! )
It's what made Britain Great !

Higgins

Thunderpussy wrote:

Telling innuendo filled jokes, and
Shagging anything that moves, as bullets fly over head ! )
It's what made Britain Great !

Too bad that only Sir Roger could make a living from it

Higgins

@ Barbel
Your pm inbox is full!
Did TP spam you again with his "Art Collection"?

AlphaOmegaSin

As long as his 'Art' is tasteful )

Higgins

No, it's not.
We are talking about TP, don't forget

Thunderpussy

Some tasteful specialist gentleman's reading material.
There are some great articles on cars and the books of
Jean-Paul Sartre.