For Your Eyes Only VS. A View to A Kill
ironpony
Posts: 57MI6 Agent
The reason why I feel like comparing those two is cause I just finished the series again, and decided which Bond entries I liked, compared to the ones I felt were the missfires. However, there are two I cannot decide on that are right down the middle line for me, and it's these two.
Basically For Your Eyes Only I felt had two bland girls, (perhaps 3 as the countess was not that great either), and bland villains. I felt Kristatos was too on the nose and nothing more, same with pretty much the henchmen.
I do like Columbo though and I like the Cold War plot overall.
And for A View to A Kill, I think the villain and henchwoman are much better and more memorable, but the plot is not as good, and didn't really get behind the whole Silicon valley thing. That would be a like a Bond villain trying to take over Facebook or something in today's Bond movies. But I really like the villains more than usual. Some of the elements of FYEO feel more fresh compared to AVTAK where they are more worn out by then.
For example, a lot of Moore Bond movies end with MI6 not knowing where Bond is, and then they catch him in an awkward situation at the end, played for laughs. But I felt that the parrot moment in FYEO, felt more fresh, compared to the shower moment, with the robot in AVTAK. In fact, they never really made good use of that robot and it feels like a last minute re-write to make up for a forgotten gadget. But that's just an example.
What do you think?
Basically For Your Eyes Only I felt had two bland girls, (perhaps 3 as the countess was not that great either), and bland villains. I felt Kristatos was too on the nose and nothing more, same with pretty much the henchmen.
I do like Columbo though and I like the Cold War plot overall.
And for A View to A Kill, I think the villain and henchwoman are much better and more memorable, but the plot is not as good, and didn't really get behind the whole Silicon valley thing. That would be a like a Bond villain trying to take over Facebook or something in today's Bond movies. But I really like the villains more than usual. Some of the elements of FYEO feel more fresh compared to AVTAK where they are more worn out by then.
For example, a lot of Moore Bond movies end with MI6 not knowing where Bond is, and then they catch him in an awkward situation at the end, played for laughs. But I felt that the parrot moment in FYEO, felt more fresh, compared to the shower moment, with the robot in AVTAK. In fact, they never really made good use of that robot and it feels like a last minute re-write to make up for a forgotten gadget. But that's just an example.
What do you think?
Comments
Plus, when it comes to FYEO, does anyone else have a huge problem with Carole Bouquet's acting though? I just found her performance to be extremely wooden, and she has a blank expression on her face most of the time, and the actress dubbing her, sounds like she is underacting it as well, or is it just me?
Tanya Roberts is not a great actress either, but I thought she was still able to exude more emotion in comparison, to the blank and deadpan Bouquet. But what do you think?
Eyes would win out as an overall good entry but as a decent Bond film, it would have to be View To A Kill.
As for the plot, I have trouble seeing microchips as a finite commodity like the supply of gold. But that was thirty years ago, now we all have 16gb USB drives attached to our keychains, and we know the growth of physical capacity has been growing exponentially since the dawn of computing, maybe in the 80s people really did have to worry if they lost a few microchips they'd never ever find another? dated technology aside, I like all the details about how to flood Silicone Valley. Very evil, and very specific science needed to do that.
Where as Walkin and Roberts were actually better actors. Or is this just me?
Also in the end, Kristatos turns out to not even be the big baddy. Kristatos is yet another hired contractor. The real power manipulating events behind the scenes is Bond's old frenemy Gogol.
Tanya Roberts's character is very screamy, a weak woman after several strong female leads in a row. Acting-wise I'm not persuaded she is a professional geologist, but I guess could be. I preferred her acting in That 70s Show, she delivered some hilarious lines in that series.
Midge: "I didn't know we had that, that stuff in our neighbourhood! and to think of all the times we had to drive to the other side of town to..."
Bob: "ixnay, Midge, ixnay"
I understand that they wanted Glover to be play it understated but I felt he played it too understated to the point where there is nothing interesting about him perhaps. I mean even the villain in Casino Royale, is understated but still played it better, or the villain in Never Say Never Again, is understated but still plays it better. They show more emotion than Glover, who just again talks in a blank way I thought most of the time.
Plus I thought the villain was uninteresting in the sense that he wants to get a figure skater into winning the Olympics in his spare time. What kind of a lame Bond villain subplot is that. Every time I watch the movie I always think why did they write this subplot for the villain?
Burnt out, tired and needing of rest??? And what exactly is "wooden"? I don't think the movie registered with you the same way it was received generally by viewers. By what you said, "on paper," are you assuming how the script had her, because how can we know? Or did you mean the short story, in which the character, nature girl Judy Havelock was under developed?
Bouquet definitely played her part better than Roberts. Her smoldering anger had just the right amount of subtlety that lent her class and dignity that accentuated her classical beauty, unlike Robert's character, or for the matter, every American Bond girl from AVTAK onwards (the scriptwriters are partially to blame, IMO) who all played it crass and over-expressive. The fact of the matter is, Melina's character is reserved, one not having any discernible career specialty (vs. Holly Goodhead's scientist/astronaut/spy and even Stacy Sutton's geologist), but whose non-eventful life is suddenly shattered; yet her resolve to commit vengeance kills surprises the viewer each time she skewers someone. This is in contrast to someone like Pam Bouvier, or Jinx, who telegraphs her intentions so that there's no surprise, just as Stacy Sutton demeanor is so transparent, like how a poodle would react to stimuli.
A pretty good example of what Hannah Arendt called "the banality of evil", I'd say.
I also like the contrast between the reserved Kristatos and the larger-than-life Colombo. The latter is a man with a real lust for life — one gets the impression that he and Lisl have a lot of laughs and a lot of fun together — whereas Kristatos only really comes to life when he is attempting to murder Bond and Melina at sea.
By script I meant I assume that the screenplay had Melina as a more interesting character than what turned out later. I actually like Pam Bouvier and didn't think she was over expressive per say, but maybe that's my taste. As for Melina, I realize she is suppose to be revenge bent, which means she is not going to be cheerful and lively, but even for someone out for revenge, I felt it was underacted.
If you compare her to Timothy Dalton in revenge mode in Licence to Kill, who would you say acted in revenge mode better? Dalton or Bouqett? I just feel that Bouqett should have shown more anger and violence in her perhaps for revenge.
I never thought of American Bond girls being over-expressive compared to non-American. If this is true, why are the American ones more expressive?
1. I am sure every unique individual experiences revenge mode differently. Your revenge mode would probably be different than my revenge mode.
In fact, to make a 100% honest confession I don't think I could do revenge mode, it sounds mighty stressful and probably wouldn't really work out the way I imagined it would, so why not just go far a walk on the beach and think deep thoughts?
sorry to be a wuss, but I'd be happy to hear all about your exciting revenge mode adventures after you make it back alive.
...so Bond is a professional trained killer and probably slips into revenge mode quite easily and efficiently. Plus in your example he is not just any Bond, but nervous twitchy DaltonBond. You don't want to torment that Bond just to see what happens. On the other hand, ConneryBond traded witticisms with his wife's killer, he was a bit more casual about these life-challenges.
whereas Melina is, what, an archeologist or university student or something? I don't think she is going to react the same way as the trained professional killer. its more of an impulse she has not thought through, and she's going on pure adrenaline. MooreBond's dialog pretty much tells us this. She would have been dead if he had not showed up at that swimming pool too, by coincidence. And he then provides her the guidance and discipline to achieve her goal properly and still come out alive in the end. I think she reacts to this unusual offer of help about the way a serious academic type would.
2. why should American girls be more expressive? not to pick on my American friends too much, but there's stereotypes about Americans in general being "expressive". May have something to do with the revolution, representative democracy, and/or the first amendment's right to freedom of speech, I don't know. But you can always tell which are the American tourists when you're travelling. And then there's the especially-extra-expressive subset of Americans called NooYawkers. Though Stacy Sutton is a Northern Californian, she oughta be a bit more chillaxed.
Bond is a professional and can handle revenge. Melina cannot. Come back when you've learned the characters' names.
So does anyone mind Kristatos having a figure skating protege, or does anyone feel it's a pretty dull character subplot for a Bond villain?
Bond may be sexist in assuming that Melina doesn't know what she's doing, but the way she goes about getting revenge does not show proper planning. She's an amateur at getting revenge and does it immaturely. Compare it to the way Bond does it in Licence to Kill. He tries to get close to Sanchez before offing him.
I don't mind Kristatos having a protoge. It gives him a reason for being in Cortina and it shows a human side. He's not supposed to immediately seem like a villain. Compare it to Drax in the previous film, when he's introduced as an incredibly rich man who is a cartoon villain with well-trained Dobermans and beautiful women at his command. Kristatos comes off as a down-to-earth person at first, partially because of his care for Bibi.
For Your Eyes Only is supposed to be the opposite of Moonraker, and it mostly is apart from the opening sequence and the ski chase. The whole film is down-to-earth, especially with having various types of relatable characters. Bond himself seems most human in this film.
I don't get Bibi's remark about Kristatos being too old for her. He gets emotional when watching her skate in Cortina. I never got the impression he wanted more from Bibi in that sense. Her remark was purely out of spite, because he disrupted her plans to compete competitively.
" I don't listen to hip hop!"
I agree. I think he only intended for Bibi to be his protoge, not a lover. But Brink he might have had other plans for.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
He's beloved John Steed. And all of the Moore/MacNee (Templar/Steed) scenes together are wonderful to watch, they are a well-oiled comedy duo, obviously old friends in real life milking the in-joke for the knowing viewer's pleasure.
In fact the first time I watched the film, I did not recognise who the actor was, and I was wondering why he was getting so much screen time and stealing laughs from Moore. His scenes may not make sense if you don't know the in-joke.
Well I didn't say I liked AVTAK better necessarily, they both have pros and cons and it's hard to decide if I should put either of them in my list of good Bond entries or not.
I didn't mind the silly moments in FYEO and thought, like other Moore Bond's, it was a good balance, accept maybe the hockey fight scene, which, the idea that they would actually take on Bond with hockey sticks was too silly perhaps.
Yeah I read Carole Bouquet was dubbed. I've noticed they have done this with a lot of Bond girls back then compared to today. Couldn't they just get Carole to be able to speak English or get an English speaking actress, in order to get a better performance? I am not saying she is to blame, but the filmmakers are perhaps to blame for choosing to dub her, thus giving her a less convincing performance, if that was the case.
When you say cf the sacrificial lamb, what do you mean by that? Are you saying that McNee's death was done better? I can agree with that since we got to know his character better before his death.
One thing about AVTAK, I don't necessarily like is the horse drugging subplot that takes up a lot of the first half of the movie. Bond's mission is to find out about what is going on with microchips of Zorin's company, but he decides to investigate the possibility of horses being drugged instead, which I thought didn't make a lot of sense for Bond to do, since that wasn't his assignment. When you are assigned to go after someone for a suspected crime, why decide to investigate him for a completely different crime instead, all of a sudden? So that part takes me out of it somewhat.
did you really find all the others were either 100% good or bad?
maybe you should post some of your observations in the film specific Pros & Cons threads
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Paris Carver counts, but they mostly moved away from it after Dalton.
Correct. Below is a partial list I took from the Mi6 forum, from GE to SF. Some weren't developed on screen enough for viewers to form an emotional attachment, unlike the traditional sacrificial lambs:
* Dimitri Mishkin
* Paris Carver
* Robert King
* General Moon
* Solange Dimitrios
* Strawberry Fields
* Severine
* Sacrificial Lamb for SP?