Seiko was always a bit of a strange product placement in terms of some exclusivity.
All the electronic hardware, be it Sony or Philips was fine as this was just kit that did not belong to Bond or was not his choice. The watch should always have been Rolex at that time.
Thunderbird 2East of Cardiff, Wales.Posts: 2,817MI6 Agent
Did someone mention Gin?! (Re The Fast Show)
I am glad several people mentioned the baby romper from Goldfinger. Beats the Safari suits Sir Roger wore.
I am not bothered by the Ford in CR, for me its the dismal fact that in the new Bond universe, Sony seems to have eliminated all electronics competition! Everyone has a Viao laptop or a Sony Er Phone, or both. Though from a costuming standpoint Tom Ford's clothing is painfully blatant. - On Daniel Craig the actor, it works. Mr Craig is the theatre world's answer to Mr Beckham in that sense. On James Bond the character, it doesn't. I wonder how many real MI6 agents wear a one name designer wardrobe when on assignment?
This is Thunderbird 2, how can I be of assistance?
I think it was a bit wacky to give Bond an Italian sports car (the Lotus). The Aston Martins may be a little over the top, but at least they're British.
I think it was a bit wacky to give Bond an Italian sports car (the Lotus). The Aston Martins may be a little over the top, but at least they're British.
I think it was a bit wacky to give Bond an Italian sports car (the Lotus). The Aston Martins may be a little over the top, but at least they're British.
pmsl.
i dunno why but i just laughed my arse off at this.
I think it was a bit wacky to give Bond an Italian sports car (the Lotus). The Aston Martins may be a little over the top, but at least they're British.
Lotus is British.
Well, then I take it all back.
From Wiki on the Lotus Esprit: "A mid-engined sports car, launched in the early 1970s. It was styled by Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro"
I suppose that's where I got the idea it was Italian. Okay, an Italian-styled sports car, then.
I think it was a bit wacky to give Bond an Italian sports car (the Lotus). The Aston Martins may be a little over the top, but at least they're British.
Lotus is British.
Well, then I take it all back.
From Wiki on the Lotus Esprit: "A mid-engined sports car, launched in the early 1970s. It was styled by Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro"
I suppose that's where I got the idea it was Italian. Okay, an Italian-styled sports car, then.
S'okay.
The DB4 was an Italian design also and the DB5 was pretty much a DB4 with SeriesV/DB4GT/Zagato headlights so they're also both Italian designed British cars. The V8 from The Living Daylights(my favorite car ever, Bond or not) looks like late sixties American muscle. I love AM but they weren't that original.
I have a Seiko Macchina Sportiva designed by Guigiaro. It's still Japanese.
I'll probably get some comments on this one but the casting of George Lazenby.
Had Connery been Bond in OHMSS it would have been so much better. Certainly one of the best from a story stand point, just not leading actor.
I'll probably get some comments on this one but the casting of George Lazenby.
Had Connery been Bond in OHMSS it would have been so much better. Certainly one of the best from a story stand point, just not leading actor.
Please! On Her Majesty's Secret Service if one of the best movies!
If you can't trust a Swiss banker, what's the world come to?
I'll probably get some comments on this one but the casting of George Lazenby.
Had Connery been Bond in OHMSS it would have been so much better. Certainly one of the best from a story stand point, just not leading actor.
Please! On Her Majesty's Secret Service if one of the best movies!
Agreed. I could see a Connery version of the same story being just as good at OHMSS, if anything, but not much better. George Lazenby isn't Sean Connery but George Lazenby is definitely James Bond... or, at least, he was for a brief period of time.
"The secret agent. The man who was only a silhouette..." -- Ian Fleming, Moonraker
1) The Spy Who Loved Me 2) On Her Majesty's Secret Service 3) GoldenEye 4) Casino Royale 5) Goldfinger
I would agree with the above post that George Lazenby is certainly no Sean Connery. However, I suppose I could see where he "was Bond" if for a very short time. I understand it always boils down to personal preference, but I'll always take Connery over Lazenby. And given his short tenure in the role, its fairly clear what fans thought of Lazenby as well. My 0.02 anyway.
Worst choice in my opinion was fitting the AMV8 in LD with a cheap Phillips stereo that you could pick up from K-Mart. At least the DB5 in GE had an Alpine headunit. If you can afford an Aston please either fit a beautiful sound system or trawl around for an original radio from the cars period of manufacture.
Worst choice in my opinion was fitting the AMV8 in LD with a cheap Phillips stereo that you could pick up from K-Mart. At least the DB5 in GE had an Alpine headunit. If you can afford an Aston please either fit a beautiful sound system or trawl around for an original radio from the cars period of manufacture.
go boil your bottom, you empty headed food trough waitaaaaaaaa!!
that bloody coffee maker in LALD, M had it nailed with the line "is that all it does?".
in my mind, our hard hitting secret agent just wouldnt be arsed with all that crap, i'd see him better suited to getting up whenever he feels, blowing up the alarm clock with a claymore then shooting his way into the fridge to retrieve and down in one a chilled pint glass of absinthe.
Invisible Aston Martin Vanquish in DAD. The whole 'creeping along in the snow so as not to get noticed' was pathetic. I mean have you heard the ticking over engine noise that one of those things has??! Don't get me started on the surf boarding CGI atrocity in the same film.
The Mondeo in CR isn't a problem to me - seems more than a reasonable offering for a hire car.
Invisible Aston Martin Vanquish in DAD. The whole 'creeping along in the snow so as not to get noticed' was pathetic. I mean have you heard the ticking over engine noise that one of those things has??! Don't get me started on the surf boarding CGI atrocity in the same film.
The Mondeo in CR isn't a problem to me - seems more than a reasonable offering for a hire car.
Have to say this is the best reply so far.... Spot on {[]
Invisible Aston Martin Vanquish in DAD. The whole 'creeping along in the snow so as not to get noticed' was pathetic. I mean have you heard the ticking over engine noise that one of those things has??!
I disagree.
If they could turn the car virtually invisible I'm sure they could have made it super quiet as well.
I mean how'd 2 blackhawk helicopters fly right into Bin Laden's compound and no one even heard them, and at night no less, when sound carries best?
Invisible Aston Martin Vanquish in DAD. The whole 'creeping along in the snow so as not to get noticed' was pathetic. I mean have you heard the ticking over engine noise that one of those things has??!
I disagree.
If they could turn the car virtually invisible I'm sure they could have made it super quiet as well.
I mean how'd 2 blackhawk helicopters fly right into Bin Laden's compound and no one even heard them, and at night no less, when sound carries best?
Fair point on the Blackhawks I guess, but having owned one, I can tell you that other than turning it off there is no way to make a v12 "stealth" silent when it's moving..
But hey, this thread is as dubious as the fantasy it criticizes after all...
I would like to state for the record that I am a James Bond fan. Have been since I was 9 and always will be. However I can not say that there is nothing wrong with the James Bond series of films.
I do have a few gripes about the films and here they are.
First of all I don't mind the Mondeo in Casino Royale at all - but the music and the way in which the scenes were filmed make it look very much like a car advert - which in essence it is but shouldn't the adverts be placed before the movie - not a quarter of the way into the movie. Also 007 looking at his phone when driving isn't a good example when hundreds of people die from people using mobile/cell phones when driving. If Bond doesn't smoke because it's bad for people's health then why does he do this?
I hate the slow-motion effects during the opera fight in Quantum of Solace - it just seems far too 'arty' for a Bond film - if the scenes had been edited in a faster more traditional Bond film style then it'd have been a cracking scene. I loved the editing and pacing of the opening Aston Martin chase and then the following rooftop chase. This makes me think that the editor of Quantum of Solace had some kind of split-personality disorder. Editing by Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde anyone?
Die Another Day was a good film until Bond arrives in Iceland. Aston Martin that goes invisible. Jet Glider thing that look more at home in Star Wars the Phantom Menace. And don't get me started on the CGI. Can't help but think that Lee Tamahori's mind was elsewhere at times (perhaps he was deciding what dress he was going to wear that evening). Also what’s with the plot of this film. Diamond power laser in space. Bad guys having surgery to look different… remind you of any other film? Why not have Bond drive the invisible Aston Martin down a narrow alleyway on 2 wheels and have Pierce Brosnan wear a dead stoat on his head for the duration of the film if we’re going to copy from Diamonds are Forever? And the use of a scene of a rocket being launched from Tomorrow Never Dies instead of new footage - lazy film making anyone? I think so especially when us Bond fans are known to scrutinise every last scene of a film!
Speaking of Tomorrow Never Dies, I think it suffered in the editing department - but that’s understandable as there was a short space of time between the end of filming and the release of the movie. However I hate the scene where the helicopter is chasing Bond and Wai Lin on the motorbike and the rotor blades of the helicopter start cutting things and slicing them up - this is so unrealistic and to the best of my knowledge the copter would have crashed the minute something would have hit one of those blades. I also think that Paris Carver is painfully under-used as a character in the film. I hope that this is just because Teri Hatcher was pregnant and they had to shorten the amount of time she spend on set.
Now don’t call me Scrooge - but I just simply hate Christmas when it comes to The World Is Not Enough! I mean apart from disarming a couple of nuclear bombs in the film what does she add to the film? Can’t help but think that she was used to up the amount of female flesh on view in this movie. I’m sure that all female nuclear scientists that want to be taken seriously by their sexist male colleagues run round in crop tops and hot-pants! (I hope that you are all appreciating the sarcasm here). She looks like some kind of would be Lara Croft! I guess the other reason for her is that cringe-worthy joke at the very end of the movie! Why did Bond need her help - not like he’s diffused bombs before is it… or sorry I forgot Goldfinger, The Spy Who Loved Me, Octopussy, and The Living Daylights.
Goldeneye was a great film - the first one I got to see at the cinema - (I was only 10 when LTK came out at the cinema - curse that 15 rating it got) and it really was like a Bond film of old. But I hate the scene when Onatopp is getting all hot under the collar and screaming like a bitch on heat when killing the people in the Satellite control room - because it both seems a little weird - and it is so obviously badly dubbed!
Now onto Roger Moore’s tenure as Bond. First of all I would like to state that I’m not going to mention fashion when writing about Jolly Roger as the 70’s and 80’s were not known as an era of high fashion and all of the outfits were stylish at the time of the films being released.
Live and Let Die - great debut for Roger Bond - but you can’t forgive EON for their being no Q and Q-Branch scene. Instead we get a bedroom farce with a magnetic watch undressing a sexy stereo-typed Italian who’d be more at home in a Carry-On film. And it’s nice to know that Bond knows how to work the worlds largest and most complicated coffee machine - if he ever hands in his licence to kill then at least he can get a job in Starbucks.
I can’t be talking about this film without talking about the demise of Kananga. You can’t help but think that someone was being sarcastic when mentioning this in a script development meeting and then someone else thinking it was a good idea and then the whole thing snowballed. It is so obvious a Kananga Balloon and when it (or should that be he), explodes where did all the blood and guts go?
However I have to mention this very real news story - which not only is true, but will probably appeal to the fans of But Plugs in this forum;
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (The Blaze/AP) — A New Zealand truck driver said he blew up like a balloon when he fell onto the fitting of a compressed air hose that pierced his buttock and forced air into his body at 100 pounds a square inch.
Steven McCormack was standing on his truck’s foot plate Saturday when he slipped and fell, breaking a compressed air hose off an air reservoir that powered the truck’s brakes.
He fell hard onto the brass fitting, which pierced his left buttock and started pumping air into his body.
“I felt the air rush into my body and I felt like it was going to explode from my foot,” he told local media from his hospital bed in the town of Whakatane, on North Island’s east coast.
“I was blowing up like a football,” he said. “I had no choice but just to lay there, blowing up like a balloon.”
McCormack’s workmates heard his screams and ran to him, quickly releasing a safety valve to stop the air flow, said Robbie Petersen, co-owner of the trucking company.
He was rushed to the hospital with terrible swelling and fluid in one lung. Doctors said the air had separated fat from muscle in McCormack’s body, but had not entered his bloodstream.
McCormack, 48, said his skin felt “like a pork roast” — crackling on the outside but soft underneath.
********************************
So maybe it’s not too far fetched for Kananga to die in this way? As for Mr McCormack - it must have come as quite a blow to him. He must have felt very under pressure. He found that the inflation rates had gone up? (Now enough with the puns - you’re not in a 70’s Bond film).
The Man With The Golden Gun - two main gripes. The first is that Goodnight brings nothing to the film at all - lets face it when Bond shuts her in that wardrobe t the coat hangers have better acting skills than Britt Ekland. I’m glad that she finds the Mushrooms interesting on Scaramanga island because I would find Fungus more fun than her role in this film.
Secondly why is JW Pepper holidaying in Thailand? Lets face it this redneck would find a holiday in his back garden exotic!
The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker - when I think of flaws I think of Jaws! I think the early scenes with him at the Pyramids show and the killing in the club are suspenseful as are and he seems like a sinister baddie - but by the time he’s flapping his arms round trying to fly at the beginning of Moonraker it’s like watching the antics of Tom and Jerry. But it is lucky for Jaws that there appeared to be an American Circus in the middle of the desert somewhere between Africa and the UK for him to land on. If Jaws had either been killed off by the sharks or remained silent and sinister then he would be in the same league as Oddjob but instead he’s just Nick Nack super sized!
For Your Eyes Only - always makes me wish I had a delicatessen made from stainless steel. If only I had a contraption the size of an early 80’s video recorder that I could use to control a helicopter. After all I am a character who can’t be named due to copyright issues! The beginning scenes of the film are excellent - apart from the fact that the ‘blofeld-esque’ character is used. If it had just been some kind of minion used and the line about the deli could have been dropped along with the baddie down the chimney then this would have been a great opener to a brilliant Bond film.
Octopussy - why when you’re trying to get through the jungle without the baddies hunting you down do you scream like Tarzan? Doh!
And now for A View To A Kill. Where to start. OK, let me start by saying that I really like this film. However I know it’s not without it flaws. Like when Bond snuggles up to that woman on the iceberg submarine it looks like she’s about to **** her Grandfather.
Due to the editing of the film some of the great stunts are spoilt by you being able to see that it is obviously a stuntman in the firing line not 007. Whilst I don’t for one second think that the 007 actors do all their own stunts (although I believe some do more of them than others), it is very noticeable - especially in the scenes where the Renault Taxi is cut in half and when Bond jumps down onto the roof of the lift on the Eifel Tower.
And then there’s Stacey Sutton - a Bond Girl so wooden she gave 007 splinters!
Dalton’s due of films are not without their annoying bits - in Licence To Kill, and I speak as a married man here, shouldn’t it have been Della that fed Felix to the sharks for keeping her waiting at the altar? (I’m only joking darling if you’re reading this). But it’s nice to know that the DEA can not function in Leiter’s absence.
In The Living Daylights it’s amazing how the keyring finder changes size so much?
What about On Her Majesty’s Secret Service - the film that went from being the black sheep of the family into the golden child? Well there’s just a couple of things I’d change - first of all I would prefer it if George Lazenby had not been dubbed in the scenes when he is masquerading as Sir Hilary Bray. It just seems plain weird and I’m sure that no matter how much of a poor actor Lazenby was he would have been better than dubbing him - not all that well - with a voice that sounds too old for him.
Also it annoys the hell out of me that Blofeld and Bond don’t recognise each other as they spent time talking face to face in the previous film. It’s just frustrating that this was left unsaid in the films. I mean there’s the line about Blofeld cutting off his earlobes - couldn’t they just mention that he cut off his earlobes and had a new face added for good measure and that Bond then had to go after him to check that it really was the Blofeld he was after?
And last of all - I come to the films of one Sean Connery - some might consider them the best of the crop but there’s still some faults.
In Dr No how come he gets Miss Taro’s address wrong and she agrees that he is correct when he’s ordering the taxi - but yet the taxi with the police man turns up on time and at the right address. Shame there’s not a taxi service that efficient near my house.
In From Russia With Love there is a coaster with a secret message from a secret organisation but is this really a very secure way to send a message? I mean what if a different bartender had taken the drink to him could Kronsteen have ended up with a message saying “Chess Club - For The Best Pawn’s Around” or something else.
In Goldfinger when the Delta 9 Nerve Gas is released in Goldfiner’s rumpus room why do flashing red lights come out of nowhere whilst the gangsters are dropping to their death? Maybe they decide to have a Gangsters Disco in their last seconds of life?
In Thunderball I don’t get why a recently widowed lady would wait to have the car door opened for her. I would have thought that the Adam’s apple hairy legs rough voice and the fact that she peed standing up would have been more of an indication.
And I know that in today’s economic climate we have to watch the pennies but it’s good to see that back in 1967 during the filming of You Only Live Twice EON Productions were leading the penny pinching ways by crudely gluing the article about Bonds apparent death onto the front of a newspaper. Very much in the style of Blue Peter - I wonder if Ken Adams had one that he made earlier?
And then there’s Diamonds Are Forever! Proof that there is such a thing as a polished turd! I don’t think that there’s anything in the film that can warrant Connery’s mega bucks payout for this film. What with Bond’s arch nemeses reduced to walking through a Las Vegas casino in drag, looking like a female character from Last of The Summer Wine, a climatic fight that like a dud firework fizzles out instead of going out with a bang and the nemesis being used to bulldoze a building as his grand exit from the film - well to be it does not excite me in the least.
And the pre-credits - what that bloke having a bath in what looks like baby poo got to do with plastic surgery? Wouldn’t that gun he’s using just blow up on him - and does anyone else think he looks a bit like Scaramanga himself Christopher Lee??
All in all now I have vented my frustrations I can now retreat to my secret lair in the hope that I don’t get any negative comments, hate mail, or fluffy white Persian cat poo through my letterbox because of these comments
Comments
All the electronic hardware, be it Sony or Philips was fine as this was just kit that did not belong to Bond or was not his choice. The watch should always have been Rolex at that time.
NMS
Really? It's the quintessential gin, surely?
http://apbateman.com
I am glad several people mentioned the baby romper from Goldfinger. Beats the Safari suits Sir Roger wore.
I am not bothered by the Ford in CR, for me its the dismal fact that in the new Bond universe, Sony seems to have eliminated all electronics competition! Everyone has a Viao laptop or a Sony Er Phone, or both. Though from a costuming standpoint Tom Ford's clothing is painfully blatant. - On Daniel Craig the actor, it works. Mr Craig is the theatre world's answer to Mr Beckham in that sense. On James Bond the character, it doesn't. I wonder how many real MI6 agents wear a one name designer wardrobe when on assignment?
I will rephrase that, Bond should have Apple gadgets but unlikely!
Lotus is British.
-Wanting to drink warm champagne, almost as bad as listening to The Beatles without earmuffs.
-Phu-yuck?
pmsl.
i dunno why but i just laughed my arse off at this.
Vive le droit à la libre expression! Je suis Charlie!
www.helpforheroes.org.uk
www.cancerresearchuk.org
Well, then I take it all back.
From Wiki on the Lotus Esprit: "A mid-engined sports car, launched in the early 1970s. It was styled by Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro"
I suppose that's where I got the idea it was Italian. Okay, an Italian-styled sports car, then.
S'okay.
The DB4 was an Italian design also and the DB5 was pretty much a DB4 with SeriesV/DB4GT/Zagato headlights so they're also both Italian designed British cars. The V8 from The Living Daylights(my favorite car ever, Bond or not) looks like late sixties American muscle. I love AM but they weren't that original.
I have a Seiko Macchina Sportiva designed by Guigiaro. It's still Japanese.
Now the BMW. Uh, no. Hell no
Damn right
Had Connery been Bond in OHMSS it would have been so much better. Certainly one of the best from a story stand point, just not leading actor.
Please! On Her Majesty's Secret Service if one of the best movies!
Agreed. I could see a Connery version of the same story being just as good at OHMSS, if anything, but not much better. George Lazenby isn't Sean Connery but George Lazenby is definitely James Bond... or, at least, he was for a brief period of time.
1) The Spy Who Loved Me 2) On Her Majesty's Secret Service 3) GoldenEye 4) Casino Royale 5) Goldfinger
go boil your bottom, you empty headed food trough waitaaaaaaaa!!
Vive le droit à la libre expression! Je suis Charlie!
www.helpforheroes.org.uk
www.cancerresearchuk.org
oh yeah and the Ford fucus.
037
in my mind, our hard hitting secret agent just wouldnt be arsed with all that crap, i'd see him better suited to getting up whenever he feels, blowing up the alarm clock with a claymore then shooting his way into the fridge to retrieve and down in one a chilled pint glass of absinthe.
Vive le droit à la libre expression! Je suis Charlie!
www.helpforheroes.org.uk
www.cancerresearchuk.org
The Mondeo in CR isn't a problem to me - seems more than a reasonable offering for a hire car.
Have to say this is the best reply so far.... Spot on {[]
I disagree.
If they could turn the car virtually invisible I'm sure they could have made it super quiet as well.
I mean how'd 2 blackhawk helicopters fly right into Bin Laden's compound and no one even heard them, and at night no less, when sound carries best?
Fair point on the Blackhawks I guess, but having owned one, I can tell you that other than turning it off there is no way to make a v12 "stealth" silent when it's moving..
But hey, this thread is as dubious as the fantasy it criticizes after all...
Semper fi
I do have a few gripes about the films and here they are.
First of all I don't mind the Mondeo in Casino Royale at all - but the music and the way in which the scenes were filmed make it look very much like a car advert - which in essence it is but shouldn't the adverts be placed before the movie - not a quarter of the way into the movie. Also 007 looking at his phone when driving isn't a good example when hundreds of people die from people using mobile/cell phones when driving. If Bond doesn't smoke because it's bad for people's health then why does he do this?
I hate the slow-motion effects during the opera fight in Quantum of Solace - it just seems far too 'arty' for a Bond film - if the scenes had been edited in a faster more traditional Bond film style then it'd have been a cracking scene. I loved the editing and pacing of the opening Aston Martin chase and then the following rooftop chase. This makes me think that the editor of Quantum of Solace had some kind of split-personality disorder. Editing by Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde anyone?
Die Another Day was a good film until Bond arrives in Iceland. Aston Martin that goes invisible. Jet Glider thing that look more at home in Star Wars the Phantom Menace. And don't get me started on the CGI. Can't help but think that Lee Tamahori's mind was elsewhere at times (perhaps he was deciding what dress he was going to wear that evening). Also what’s with the plot of this film. Diamond power laser in space. Bad guys having surgery to look different… remind you of any other film? Why not have Bond drive the invisible Aston Martin down a narrow alleyway on 2 wheels and have Pierce Brosnan wear a dead stoat on his head for the duration of the film if we’re going to copy from Diamonds are Forever? And the use of a scene of a rocket being launched from Tomorrow Never Dies instead of new footage - lazy film making anyone? I think so especially when us Bond fans are known to scrutinise every last scene of a film!
Speaking of Tomorrow Never Dies, I think it suffered in the editing department - but that’s understandable as there was a short space of time between the end of filming and the release of the movie. However I hate the scene where the helicopter is chasing Bond and Wai Lin on the motorbike and the rotor blades of the helicopter start cutting things and slicing them up - this is so unrealistic and to the best of my knowledge the copter would have crashed the minute something would have hit one of those blades. I also think that Paris Carver is painfully under-used as a character in the film. I hope that this is just because Teri Hatcher was pregnant and they had to shorten the amount of time she spend on set.
Now don’t call me Scrooge - but I just simply hate Christmas when it comes to The World Is Not Enough! I mean apart from disarming a couple of nuclear bombs in the film what does she add to the film? Can’t help but think that she was used to up the amount of female flesh on view in this movie. I’m sure that all female nuclear scientists that want to be taken seriously by their sexist male colleagues run round in crop tops and hot-pants! (I hope that you are all appreciating the sarcasm here). She looks like some kind of would be Lara Croft! I guess the other reason for her is that cringe-worthy joke at the very end of the movie! Why did Bond need her help - not like he’s diffused bombs before is it… or sorry I forgot Goldfinger, The Spy Who Loved Me, Octopussy, and The Living Daylights.
Goldeneye was a great film - the first one I got to see at the cinema - (I was only 10 when LTK came out at the cinema - curse that 15 rating it got) and it really was like a Bond film of old. But I hate the scene when Onatopp is getting all hot under the collar and screaming like a bitch on heat when killing the people in the Satellite control room - because it both seems a little weird - and it is so obviously badly dubbed!
Now onto Roger Moore’s tenure as Bond. First of all I would like to state that I’m not going to mention fashion when writing about Jolly Roger as the 70’s and 80’s were not known as an era of high fashion and all of the outfits were stylish at the time of the films being released.
Live and Let Die - great debut for Roger Bond - but you can’t forgive EON for their being no Q and Q-Branch scene. Instead we get a bedroom farce with a magnetic watch undressing a sexy stereo-typed Italian who’d be more at home in a Carry-On film. And it’s nice to know that Bond knows how to work the worlds largest and most complicated coffee machine - if he ever hands in his licence to kill then at least he can get a job in Starbucks.
I can’t be talking about this film without talking about the demise of Kananga. You can’t help but think that someone was being sarcastic when mentioning this in a script development meeting and then someone else thinking it was a good idea and then the whole thing snowballed. It is so obvious a Kananga Balloon and when it (or should that be he), explodes where did all the blood and guts go?
However I have to mention this very real news story - which not only is true, but will probably appeal to the fans of But Plugs in this forum;
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (The Blaze/AP) — A New Zealand truck driver said he blew up like a balloon when he fell onto the fitting of a compressed air hose that pierced his buttock and forced air into his body at 100 pounds a square inch.
Steven McCormack was standing on his truck’s foot plate Saturday when he slipped and fell, breaking a compressed air hose off an air reservoir that powered the truck’s brakes.
He fell hard onto the brass fitting, which pierced his left buttock and started pumping air into his body.
“I felt the air rush into my body and I felt like it was going to explode from my foot,” he told local media from his hospital bed in the town of Whakatane, on North Island’s east coast.
“I was blowing up like a football,” he said. “I had no choice but just to lay there, blowing up like a balloon.”
McCormack’s workmates heard his screams and ran to him, quickly releasing a safety valve to stop the air flow, said Robbie Petersen, co-owner of the trucking company.
He was rushed to the hospital with terrible swelling and fluid in one lung. Doctors said the air had separated fat from muscle in McCormack’s body, but had not entered his bloodstream.
McCormack, 48, said his skin felt “like a pork roast” — crackling on the outside but soft underneath.
********************************
So maybe it’s not too far fetched for Kananga to die in this way? As for Mr McCormack - it must have come as quite a blow to him. He must have felt very under pressure. He found that the inflation rates had gone up? (Now enough with the puns - you’re not in a 70’s Bond film).
The Man With The Golden Gun - two main gripes. The first is that Goodnight brings nothing to the film at all - lets face it when Bond shuts her in that wardrobe t the coat hangers have better acting skills than Britt Ekland. I’m glad that she finds the Mushrooms interesting on Scaramanga island because I would find Fungus more fun than her role in this film.
Secondly why is JW Pepper holidaying in Thailand? Lets face it this redneck would find a holiday in his back garden exotic!
The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker - when I think of flaws I think of Jaws! I think the early scenes with him at the Pyramids show and the killing in the club are suspenseful as are and he seems like a sinister baddie - but by the time he’s flapping his arms round trying to fly at the beginning of Moonraker it’s like watching the antics of Tom and Jerry. But it is lucky for Jaws that there appeared to be an American Circus in the middle of the desert somewhere between Africa and the UK for him to land on. If Jaws had either been killed off by the sharks or remained silent and sinister then he would be in the same league as Oddjob but instead he’s just Nick Nack super sized!
For Your Eyes Only - always makes me wish I had a delicatessen made from stainless steel. If only I had a contraption the size of an early 80’s video recorder that I could use to control a helicopter. After all I am a character who can’t be named due to copyright issues! The beginning scenes of the film are excellent - apart from the fact that the ‘blofeld-esque’ character is used. If it had just been some kind of minion used and the line about the deli could have been dropped along with the baddie down the chimney then this would have been a great opener to a brilliant Bond film.
Octopussy - why when you’re trying to get through the jungle without the baddies hunting you down do you scream like Tarzan? Doh!
And now for A View To A Kill. Where to start. OK, let me start by saying that I really like this film. However I know it’s not without it flaws. Like when Bond snuggles up to that woman on the iceberg submarine it looks like she’s about to **** her Grandfather.
Due to the editing of the film some of the great stunts are spoilt by you being able to see that it is obviously a stuntman in the firing line not 007. Whilst I don’t for one second think that the 007 actors do all their own stunts (although I believe some do more of them than others), it is very noticeable - especially in the scenes where the Renault Taxi is cut in half and when Bond jumps down onto the roof of the lift on the Eifel Tower.
And then there’s Stacey Sutton - a Bond Girl so wooden she gave 007 splinters!
Dalton’s due of films are not without their annoying bits - in Licence To Kill, and I speak as a married man here, shouldn’t it have been Della that fed Felix to the sharks for keeping her waiting at the altar? (I’m only joking darling if you’re reading this). But it’s nice to know that the DEA can not function in Leiter’s absence.
In The Living Daylights it’s amazing how the keyring finder changes size so much?
What about On Her Majesty’s Secret Service - the film that went from being the black sheep of the family into the golden child? Well there’s just a couple of things I’d change - first of all I would prefer it if George Lazenby had not been dubbed in the scenes when he is masquerading as Sir Hilary Bray. It just seems plain weird and I’m sure that no matter how much of a poor actor Lazenby was he would have been better than dubbing him - not all that well - with a voice that sounds too old for him.
Also it annoys the hell out of me that Blofeld and Bond don’t recognise each other as they spent time talking face to face in the previous film. It’s just frustrating that this was left unsaid in the films. I mean there’s the line about Blofeld cutting off his earlobes - couldn’t they just mention that he cut off his earlobes and had a new face added for good measure and that Bond then had to go after him to check that it really was the Blofeld he was after?
And last of all - I come to the films of one Sean Connery - some might consider them the best of the crop but there’s still some faults.
In Dr No how come he gets Miss Taro’s address wrong and she agrees that he is correct when he’s ordering the taxi - but yet the taxi with the police man turns up on time and at the right address. Shame there’s not a taxi service that efficient near my house.
In From Russia With Love there is a coaster with a secret message from a secret organisation but is this really a very secure way to send a message? I mean what if a different bartender had taken the drink to him could Kronsteen have ended up with a message saying “Chess Club - For The Best Pawn’s Around” or something else.
In Goldfinger when the Delta 9 Nerve Gas is released in Goldfiner’s rumpus room why do flashing red lights come out of nowhere whilst the gangsters are dropping to their death? Maybe they decide to have a Gangsters Disco in their last seconds of life?
In Thunderball I don’t get why a recently widowed lady would wait to have the car door opened for her. I would have thought that the Adam’s apple hairy legs rough voice and the fact that she peed standing up would have been more of an indication.
And I know that in today’s economic climate we have to watch the pennies but it’s good to see that back in 1967 during the filming of You Only Live Twice EON Productions were leading the penny pinching ways by crudely gluing the article about Bonds apparent death onto the front of a newspaper. Very much in the style of Blue Peter - I wonder if Ken Adams had one that he made earlier?
And then there’s Diamonds Are Forever! Proof that there is such a thing as a polished turd! I don’t think that there’s anything in the film that can warrant Connery’s mega bucks payout for this film. What with Bond’s arch nemeses reduced to walking through a Las Vegas casino in drag, looking like a female character from Last of The Summer Wine, a climatic fight that like a dud firework fizzles out instead of going out with a bang and the nemesis being used to bulldoze a building as his grand exit from the film - well to be it does not excite me in the least.
And the pre-credits - what that bloke having a bath in what looks like baby poo got to do with plastic surgery? Wouldn’t that gun he’s using just blow up on him - and does anyone else think he looks a bit like Scaramanga himself Christopher Lee??
All in all now I have vented my frustrations I can now retreat to my secret lair in the hope that I don’t get any negative comments, hate mail, or fluffy white Persian cat poo through my letterbox because of these comments
APPLAUSE!
Thanks for the movies critique, made for some enjoyable and yet interesting reading on a boring Sunday night.
Thanks You! First time I've ever posted anything remotly essay like on here!