AJB live commentary on NSNA

Higgins

Time for another group-viewing, this time, it‘s

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN







London Summertime: 20:00
Paris Summertime: 21:00
New York local time 15:00
LA local time 12:00


PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT WE ARE ALL STARTING 10 MINUTES LATER !

The 19:00 deadline is set so that everybody has enough time to find their DVDs/Blu Rays, boot their players and get done with the menus and pause right after the Orion logo

WE ARE STARTING PRECISELY AT 19:10


- Please make sure that everybody has their BluRay/DVD/VCR ready and start the player latest 19:00 GMT to get done with all the dodgy menus.
- PAUSE YOUR PLAYER RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE AFTER THE LOGOS
- HIT PLAY PRECISELY AT 19:10.
I‘ll post some timecodes during the thread just in case that somebody has messed it up

Higgins

I haven‘t watched the movie for quite some time

I may get flamed, but I like the PTS and how it merges to the 007 pattern.
The title song before the weak refrain is not too bad.
Barbara Carrera is very sexy though can‘t hold up with the wonderful Luciana Paluzzi!

I like the French Med vibe in parts.

Brandauer was a sensation for the german speaking world.
Unfortunately it‘s a bit the same like with Christoph Waltz.
A highly respected actor playing in a 007 movie and very very much disappoints in the end!

Number24

I too haven't watched NSNA in a long time. I like Rowan Atkinson and Kim Basinger, but in very different ways

Barbel

1983
Barbel sees "Octopussy" in the cinema. "Not bad at all" he thinks, "Roger is getting on a bit, but he's still cool. Good villains and plot (though a bit of confusion over the 2 Fabergé eggs), lovely ladies, and an adequate John Barry score (though he had done much, much better). Still, can't wait for "Never Say Never Again" cos Sean Connery will be back".

Later in 83
Barbel sees "Never Say Never Again" in the cinema. "This can't be right", he thinks, "it's got Sean Connery, it's basically "Thunderball" which you like, and yet... it's terrible. The music's the worst I've heard in a Bond film (GE hadn't been made yet), the action scenes stink like a week old corpse, and it feels like the director had come fresh from "Plan 9 From Outer Space" rather than "The Empire Strikes Back". Tell me it's not true, and I'll grow to love it."

2020
Barbel regards OP as a true classic Bond film and NSNA as a sad aberration. Sighs heavily at the prospect of watching it on Friday.

Barbel

Ok, the ladies look good.

Barbel

Ok, the ladies look terrific!

Shady Tree

No question about how good the ladies look!

As Barbel recalls, NSNA had to go head to head with OP in the year of its release - and it always will have to bear comparison with TB. I think NSNA inadvertently proved a point which works against it: there had been more to the cinematic magic of Connery's Bond than just the presence and performance of Connery himself; the Eon production team around him had created the legend collaboratively, and Broccoli had since harnessed the same team to establish Moore as successor. So when a rogue 007 film came along made by other, less Bondian hands, it somehow just wasn't the same, even with Connery at the centre. That said, I'm long since over it: NSNA is in many respects an entertaining movie and, despite its flaws, it certainly has its moments as a *Bond* film.

But Michel Legrand was a disaster.

emtiem

Higgins wrote:

- Please make sure that everybody has their BluRay/DVD/VCR ready and start the player latest 19:00 GMT to get done with all the dodgy menus.
- PAUSE YOUR PLAYER RIGHT BEFORE THE GUNBARREL
- HIT PLAY PRECISELY AT 19:10.

Remember: nobody press pause or play until you see that gunbarrel!

Higgins wrote:

I like the French Med vibe in parts.

I kind of like it but it is a bit weird to set it in two different luxurious sunny coastal resorts- they don't exactly contrast with each other. Octopussy was set in India and Germany- two visually different places. Yes they needed to stay near the boat (or did they?) but even so.

Higgins wrote:

Brandauer was a sensation for the german speaking world.
Unfortunately it‘s a bit the same like with Christoph Waltz.
A highly respected actor playing in a 007 movie and very very much disappoints in the end!

He didn't disappoint: he's a great villain.

Notice how the next Eon film had a villain who's younger than the usual, with blond hair and a scary extreme psychopathic streak. I wonder where they got that idea from...

Shady Tree

In NSNA's favour, on the question of tone... Something I remember from 1983 is that OP felt rather jingoistic, alluding in its PTS to the Falklands War in a tone of comic triumphalism which I found distasteful. In the UK, Thatcher had polarised British politics, activating a flag-waving patriotism. By contrast with OP, NSNA lightly satirised right-wing rhetoric in the joke about Bond being tasked to eliminate "all free radicals". And Algernon's complaint about how cutbacks were affecting his work was jokingly topical, given Thatcher's disdain for the public sector. I found this mildly irreverent style of humour more palatable than what I took to be the 'Daily Mail' sensibility of OP. Rowan Atkinson had sent up Whitehall types before, as well as oily Thatcherites, in 'Not The Nine O'Clock News'; and Brit screenwriters Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais brought to the NSNA Q scene exactly the sort of humour found in popular TV shows like 'Minder', which was full of amusingly carping Algernon types.

emtiem

Gymkata wrote:

Another thing in this film's favor: Bernie Casey as Felix Leiter. He's one of the best incarnations of the character, and the film uses him quite a bit with (and without) Connery.

I think NSNA in general has pretty amazing casting. Carrera is brilliantly mad, Basinger is Basinger, Brandauer is scarily insane and dangerous, you've got Edward Fox, Ronald Pickup, Max Von Sydow (a bit cuddly perhaps, but still: Max Von Sydow!), Pamela Salem is a really good Moneypenny and it's shame not to see more from her, Rowan Atkinson... it's a pretty perfect Bond cast.
It's also got some fantastic lines, better than the dialogue in the Eon series at this point. "My martini is still dry" is right up there at the top of the tree if you ask me. And there are plenty of cool little moments too: Bond spinning the guard's pistol and dumping it in an ice bucket is one of the most James Bondy moments there is

Shady Tree wrote:

In NSNA's favour... Something I remember from 1983 is that OP felt rather jingoistic, alluding in its PTS to the Falklands War in a tone of comic triumphalism which I found distasteful.

More Cuba than Argentina, surely?

Shady Tree wrote:

By contrast with OP, NSNA lightly satirised right-wing rhetoric in the joke about Bond being tasked to eliminate "all free radicals"

Yeah okay, maybe a bit of a stretch, but maybe.
Funny that you mention Minder as, like FYEO, it has a bit of a Euston Films early 80s feel to it like no other Bond film does. It's a bit grimy and nasty-looking, despite being pretty opulent. Shrublands looks fairly horrible like an old dingy school when Bond and Lippe are having their fight. Almost everything seems to have been shot on location rather than the Eon way of building sets as much as possible, and it loses that kind of stylistic approach as a result- it feels a bit more ad-hoc and actually cheap as a result.

Incredibly, despite Octopussy featuring epic train chases, incredible plane stunts, rich palaces, globe trekking and the rest, it actually cost much less to make than NSNA, and I'd say if you look at the two side by side you'd definitely guess that Octopussy was the more expensive of the two. Cubby knew how to get the money on the screen and the Eon films were a really well-oiled machine at this point.

Shady Tree

emtiem wrote:

Shady Tree wrote:

In NSNA's favour... Something I remember from 1983 is that OP felt rather jingoistic, alluding in its PTS to the Falklands War in a tone of comic triumphalism which I found distasteful.

More Cuba than Argentina, surely?

Well, it's not made explicit that it's Argentina, but the imagery with the Exocet missile and the Union Jack livery on the Acrojet would pretty obviously have associated the sequence with The Falklands Conflict at the time. I once had the chance, at the BFI, to ask John Glen about this, and he said it was the case.

Funny, I never got much of a Euston Films vibe from FYEO but when I watch it again I'll bear it in mind. Maybe poolside with Gonzales and his goons. I get that Euston Films sense much more from NSNA precisely because, as you say, some of the scenes set in England look relatively cheap... but mainly because of the brief of Clement and La Frenais to Brit-ify the screenplay. Algernon is certainly a 'Minder' type, and Lippe, in this film, has the look of a Euston Films heavy.

emtiem

Shady Tree wrote:

emtiem wrote:

Shady Tree wrote:

In NSNA's favour... Something I remember from 1983 is that OP felt rather jingoistic, alluding in its PTS to the Falklands War in a tone of comic triumphalism which I found distasteful.

More Cuba than Argentina, surely?

Well, it's not made explicit that it's Argentina, but the imagery with the Exocet missile and the Union Jack livery on the Acrojet would pretty obviously have associated the sequence with The Falklands Conflict at the time. I once had the chance, at the BFI, to ask John Glen about this, and he said it was the case.

Fair enough, I guess the South American imagery is enough to associate them, despite the appearance of 'Castro'. And don't forget 'Thatcher' was actually in his previous film!

Shady Tree wrote:

Funny, I never got much of a Euston Films vibe from FYEO but when I watch it again I'll bear it in mind. I get that sense much more from NSNA precisely because, as you say, some of the scenes set in England look relatively cheap... but mainly because the brief of Clement and La Frenais to Brit-ify the screenplay contributes to that effect. Algernon is certainly a 'Minder' type, and Lippe, in this film, has the look of a Euston Films heavy.

Yeah certainly, especially with that boiler suit on! That Shrublands location is an odd one: it looks a pretty amazing place with those huge incredible fireplaces in the rooms, and yet somehow it ends up looking horrible. And M's office is clearly a real, very grand ornate room, but somehow looks much worse than the fairly simple set the Roger Moore films were using. It's like you get a sense they're just sort of squatting in this room, making do with it because they don't have any other option. It's so strange that a real location -and a nice one at that- can feel cheaper than a fake set on a soundstage.

Shady Tree

Agreed. (Also, come to think of it, on your point about FYEO, Kristatos and Columbo are half-way house between Bond's world and an episode of 'Minder'.)

emtiem

Shady Tree wrote:

Agreed. (Also, come to think of it, on your point about FYEO, Kristatos and Columbo are half-way house between Bond's world and an episode of 'Minder'.)

Yeah I think it's part of the gasworks opening, plus that sort of early 80s UK film misty-vision you get in scenes like the casino bit and Lisl stuff. It feels like it part of that Euston/Long Good Friday period just briefly. Even Locke feels like he could be in a film with Bob Hoskins in grimy London in a way that anyone from Octopussy doesn't.

Number24

emtiem wrote:

Incredibly, despite Octopussy featuring epic train chases, incredible plane stunts, rich palaces, globe trekking and the rest, it actually cost much less to make than NSNA, and I'd say if you look at the two side by side you'd definitely guess that Octopussy was the more expensive of the two. Cubby knew how to get the money on the screen and the Eon films were a really well-oiled machine at this point.

I think I know the answer to this, but who was paid the most at the time - Connery or Moore?

emtiem

You'd imagine Connery would have been as he was a producer on it as well.

Number24

I think so to. Perhaps Connery's main reason for leaving the EON Bond films was not being paid enough.

Number24

I'm watching "The making of Never Say Never Again". The voice-over offers this gem; "Connery, as youthful and fit as ever, does his own stunts. Including the start of the swing accross a chasm". )

caractacus potts

You guys are making some good defenses of NSNA!
Nice to see a more nuanced examination of the unloved fakeBond film.
Perhaps you should review this thread for some more discussion points?
Does anyone regard 'Never Say Never Again' as better than Bonds 1-24?

Here in the Colony of Upper Canada we're having an early heatwave, expected to break with thunderstorms Friday afternoon. If that forecast holds, I might just wrap up "working from home" early and join you. I have a new-to-me copy of NSNA I haven't tried playing yet.

Since comparisons to Octopussy are inevitable, perhaps that should be your next film? I believe you're up for another Moore anyway.

Number24

I think TB, NSNA and OP is a good sequence for us.

Thunderbird 2

Bloddy Hell... I haven't got this one. Or (shudders) CR-67. (Eye twitches. Dangerously...)

Barbel

Can you watch it online, TB2?

Thunderbird 2

Barbel wrote:

Can you watch it online, TB2?

Possibly Barbel... I have access to Netflix and YouTube?

Barbel

Great, it'd be a shame if you weren't watching with the rest of us.

Shady Tree

Thunderbird 2 wrote:

Bloddy Hell... I haven't got this one. Or (shudders) CR-67. (Eye twitches. Dangerously...)

TB2: Try going on a 60 mile round trip to test drive that twitching eye. Who knows? Hopefully you'll be able to see your way to joining us for that NSNA viewing )

As a side note, I guess SPECTRE did well to get Jack Petachi to fake a retinal scan rather than a compromised Chief Advisor. He must put me in touch with his ocularist...

Thunderbird 2

This is Thunderbird 2.....

We are ready for lift off!

Higgins

{[] {[] TB 2!


55 minutes till watching.

Please load up your discs in 45 minutes

Number24

I'm not sure I can find my NSNA DVD! if it doesn't turn up I won't be joining you tonight.

Shady Tree

Thunderbird 2 wrote:

This is Thunderbird 2.....

We are ready for lift off!

F.A.B.

Shady Tree

Number24 wrote:

I'm not sure I can find my NSNA DVD! if it doesn't turn up I won't be joining you tonight.

Good luck with the search...

Barbel

Reporting in.