The Living Daylights?
Redz
Posts: 2MI6 Agent
Hello
Names Alex.Im new to the site.
This is the first Bond related forum ive signed upto.So if im about to spout a bunch of nonsense and i sound stupid please be patient.
For me Connery is by far and a way the best Bond.Even when i thought he wasnt on form in his later films,he seemed like the most natural actor of the role.And my favorite.
Closely followed by Brosnan (he was the Bond of my childhood) then Moore.I think Craig has the charm of a rocking chair but thats a different story.
Ive always dismissed Daltons films to be too serious and hard to watch.But now ive matured a little,and the more ive watched it his first film, IMO The Living Daylights can rank alongside FRWL,Goldfinger etc.Yet Dalton seems dismissed?I dont rate LTK...But its because of the storyline more than Dalton. as a one off film,is The Living Daylights one of the best?
I understand peoples opinion on the best/favorite bond actors or particular films can have alot of variation.But is TLD up there with the best Bond films or not?Top 2-3?
It seems to have everything.Decent story.Not too cheesy.Superb opening sequence.And Dalton is superb
Id like peoples opinions?Or am i talking ****?haha
Names Alex.Im new to the site.
This is the first Bond related forum ive signed upto.So if im about to spout a bunch of nonsense and i sound stupid please be patient.
For me Connery is by far and a way the best Bond.Even when i thought he wasnt on form in his later films,he seemed like the most natural actor of the role.And my favorite.
Closely followed by Brosnan (he was the Bond of my childhood) then Moore.I think Craig has the charm of a rocking chair but thats a different story.
Ive always dismissed Daltons films to be too serious and hard to watch.But now ive matured a little,and the more ive watched it his first film, IMO The Living Daylights can rank alongside FRWL,Goldfinger etc.Yet Dalton seems dismissed?I dont rate LTK...But its because of the storyline more than Dalton. as a one off film,is The Living Daylights one of the best?
I understand peoples opinion on the best/favorite bond actors or particular films can have alot of variation.But is TLD up there with the best Bond films or not?Top 2-3?
It seems to have everything.Decent story.Not too cheesy.Superb opening sequence.And Dalton is superb
Id like peoples opinions?Or am i talking ****?haha
Comments
You are off to a smashing start, my friend! Welcome to the group! -{
Although perhaps you were a little unfair to rocking chairs.
............ most of us do !
But I got past that, and the fact that Dalton is great in the serious scenes and not so great in the more-lighted hearted ones. Miryam D'Abo isn't always held in high regard, but I thought she was great, and it didn't hurt that she looked a lot like a former girlfriend. What I didn't like about the movie was Joe Don Baker's villain. He was just a buffoonish thug. I never cared much for Robert Brown's M, and Moneypenny is just blah.
Clothes, cars, and sets are topnotch, though, and while John Glen gets a lot of flack for being a workmanlike director, he obviously tried a lot harder in this film than any of the others he made -- there are moments that should be more celebrated than they are (the initial assassination scene, Bond's confrontation with and later faked assassination of Pushkin, the Aston Martin chase, Bond's escape with Kara, Bond's interaction with Saunders and other agents, and so on).
And there's John Barry's last Bond soundtrack, a very good one. I've never been a huge fan of the A-Ha song -- I wish that the Duran Duran song had been the theme for this movie, lyrics adjusted -- but the incidental stuff is solid.
All in all, The Living Daylights makes it into the Top 10 for me.
I prefer LTK of Dalton's two films.
Out of all the Bonds, and my opinion constantly changes, I'd say my least favourite were the RM or GL ones. Although RM is an extremely nice chap and I admire him for his charity work and friendly nature, some of his films just got a bit silly, with AVTAK just being plain old worn out from the start. I honestly think Rog should have bowed out a little earlier, never the less, he did a fairly decent job and I think the daftness can't be all laid at his door.
I dislike GL because he should have done more. It's so bloody irritating to sit watching OHMSS and seeing scenes like Tracy's death, the pts, the deal with draco and wondering how good the next film will be only to realise there was no next film.
We're all quick to judge, but I think some people are way too harsh on DC. Personally I think he and Sam Mendes make a great team, and you can't explain the ratings and monies raised by the DC films if he was as bad as people make out. Bear in mind that in his era of films, social networking really took off, and craigisnotbond etc is just petty online bullying. Seeing this kind of action effect people such as olympic altheletes etc, i think DC does a stirling job of brushing it all off.
Back to TLD's though, I'd say it has everything in it, car chase, explosions, action, emotional bits, great acting. The only thing that let the whole shebang down......
Kara X-(
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Here I agree with you, TP! -{
But in general, Dalton sucks as Bond IMO
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
TLD: The entire Afghanistan/Hercules flight/toy soldier fights combos are confusing and far away from Fleming
LTK: the appearance of the HK agents and the "temple" scenes later are not thrilling - rather uninspired imo and have nothing to do with Fleming
It seems that people calling these films pure Flemingesque have a very selective memory
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
Perhaps you may have mentioned it once or twice...
No, it's when you agree with him that you are doing something wrong.
Simply for me, Dalton was THE best. Without Dalton's style there would not have been a Craig. Much the same as without Connery's take on Bond there wouldn't have been a Brosnan.
TLD and LTK I see as stand alone films. Much like the Craig films are now. Connery, Lazenby, Moore and Brosnan all shared the same timeline but Dalton & Craig exist in there own 'universe' which is why they stand out as superb additions.
I'm with you all the way! -{
No, not a selective memory. The films were being selective in their approach to Fleming. They were trying to make them more like the novels, but they were still trying to appeal to an audience with a long memory of the Moore films and the way EON kept leaving in the "Rules of How to Make a Bond Film - Make Them All Like Thunderball". That's why you still had the third acts with multitudes of men shooting and explosions and plain action and the LTK temple scenes (and the truck chase). It's why you still have the same third acts in even the rebooted Craig's.
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
Yep!
+1!
In the 1980's, yes!
No. EON was responsible for the parts having nothing to do with Bond's character. Moore was just an actor being paid to show up and do his work however they made it. The parts of the films (particularly the third acts of action) are not bad, they just became a tired crutch of a repeat that EON thought they could not do without (and still can't) since TB. They toned them down somewhat and made them more real in the Craig films, but the formula is still there.
I realize Fleming put some of these types of endings in his novels - GF, TB, OHMSS, but these were actually integral to the scales of the plot and more realistic. Also with TB and OHMSS in particular, he was now writing for an audience that was seeing the first films and probably figured they needed explosive climaxes with Bond mixed in with a force of men taking on the villains. He dropped it in YOLT leaving Bond facing Blofeld one on one, but went back to the big action climax in TMWTGG.
Would he have continued writing these in future novels? Hard to say.
EON feels compelled to keep them in, particularly since they are competing with other large action films that always include such large third acts of action.
I won't have a problem with this as long as they continue to keep it scaled down to a more real level so Bond is not just an action figure killing off dozens of men. I don't need it in the PCS anymore than in the climax. I was fine with the end of CR and SF (though I still have a problem with someone just dropping dead from a knife throw) and I prefer a more realistic kill as in LTK with Sanchez as opposed to the end of TLD with the silly toy soldiers.
He crazyness of the fanatic Timboys goes so far that they only realize the better part in their idol's movies.
Dalton said that his interpretation would be a hard - edged Bond but it was at the end more a wimpy schoolboy what came out with an at best a self-conflicted note which totally lacks Connerys or Moores self-confidence (admittedly the Fleming Bond was like that but not weepy
If Moore for example would have brought the "salt corrosion line", the Dalton fanboys would go 8-) - Dalton in their opinion did it cool.
Realistic - down to eath? What happened then with the policemen's legs when the laser cut them in pieces?
What is simply laughable is that weaker parts of the Dalton movies " have been done with Moore still in mind" and the better parts have been invented by Dalton at least.
That I wanted to emphasize with my sarcastic note.
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
done his research, knows the Bond of the Novels and brings his A game to the screen. -{
Maybe I'm too caught up in the story or the action, but I don't see this weepy eyed, emotionally
overflowing agent. -{ Then again I guess you'd say I was wearing my Dalton tinted glasses.
Good points that show this are in TLD when he is preparing the rifle, LTK when he meets Sanchez in the office for the first time face to face, when he draws down on Pam on the bed, and numerous other scenes when he is supposed to be being mean and serious.
and everything seems fine, to my eyes at least.
see it, but I'll keep looking as I enjoy his films LTK being one if my favourites.