The point about Connery being an unknown in '62 doesn't hold as much water given that the audience back then had no preconceived expectations of how Bond ought to look. The most enthusiastic initial critic of Connery's appearance and mannerisms during the production of Dr. No was a certain Mr Ian Fleming(!). An interesting piece of trivia...
As I understand it Dalton wanted to return for GE in 1994 but was told "you can't only do one." I guess Dalton wanted to make it a hat-trick since GF and TSWLM had both been the most successful films of his predecessors...
"Having said this, when the Bond Franchise was on a decline ( your argument - not mine) how do you explain the success of GE?
And please don‘t make it easy by using the ‚Bond fans where drought out by the long wait and thus ran the theatres‘ argument.
People wanted Brosnan, people where happy to see Brosnan as Bond and voted with their wallets."
Challenge duly accepted. I'll try to avoid the 'long wait' argument and instead look at two others...
1) In the mid-1990s, there was a wave of cultural nostalgia for the 1960s. British music (Oasis, Blur) and art drew on the 1960s for inspiration. This cultural affection for British exports eventually became Cool Britannia and this generated nostalgia for the 60s Connery Bond films. Thus Bond was again viewed with warmth by the general public and not derision, and GoldenEye was released at exactly the right framing moment to capitalise on this phenomenon.
2) GoldenEye is qualitatively much better than LTK, with a more exotic Bond 'feel', inventive action and dynamic direction. As such it was positively reviewed by contemporary critics and thus drew significantly higher box office returns.
There you have it, two decent reasons separate from the "long wait" and "specific demand for Brosnan" arguments. Howzat?
Good points SoD. I would also suggest similar regarding Skyfall in 2012. Yes, it was good film, but its success may have factors attributed to it (to name a few highlights of 2012);
- The UK economy was stable and on the up after the global recession
- David Cameron (like it or not) was a popular Prime Minister (then!) and the 'Special Relationship' with the US, under another
popular leader Barack Obama, was as strong as ever
- London hosted a 'critically acclaimed' Olympics and Paralympics, including great performances for UK athletes in both. (The opening ceremony also included Bond and the Queen of course)
- Andy Murray, won the Olympic Tennis Gold and made the final of Wimbledon
- Bradley Wiggins won Olympic Gold in Cycling and also became the first Briton to win the Tour de France
- The tallest building in Europe (The Shard) opened in London
- To top it all the Queen was celebrating her Diamond Jubilee
There was a sense of optimism in the UK (I know not everyone, or everywhere) and Britain seemed to be Great again. A sense of pride had returned. So, when a very good Bond film came out in October on the back of what had already been an great year, and included some fantastic UK locations and a starring role for the iconic DB5, it sat well with the UK public, that went to see it in their droves.
Also there's the fact that the parallel between Skyfall and GoldenEye being that both grossed more money than the franchise had ever before, GoldenEye grossed more than Moonraker and Skyfall grossed more than any other at about a billion dollars breaking internal records and being the UK's most profitable movie yet iirc
Makes me wonder which others have that same parallel. But I agree, there's always more to it than just the movie because Bond is like it or not a cultural icon.
And I agree that Dalton, as much as I enjoy his stuff, just didn't have the muscle...figuratively and literally for the 80s.
"Good points SoD. I would also suggest similar regarding Skyfall in 2012. Yes, it was good film, but its success may have factors attributed to it (to name a few highlights of 2012)"
Very interesting points, the Red Kind and others, re the cultural context of Bond. It can work both ways, as well. Whereas SF was partly so successful because of a general feeling that Britain was on the up, and so a healthy dose of jingoism was felt to be in order in 2012, a comparable phenomenon happened with the background of TSPWLM- which involved a sense of moody decline.
Like Skyfall, Spy arrived in time for a big Royal event, in this case the 1977 Silver Jubilee, and the title sequence refers fairly obviously to this sort of patriotic imagery.
But in 1977:
Britain had just had to go to the IMF in 1976 for a bailout, an unheard-of humiliation at the time.
The politics of détente under the unpopular Jimmy Carter meant that the US and UK were grappling with a general sensation of the West having lost their way, fallen behind, morally as well as in our case fiscally bankrupt...
With all this in mind, Spy provided an escape from the drudgery and a return to, variously, unbridled patriotism, exotic glamour and a UK acting as a muscular world power in concert with the US and USSR to take down Stromberg. Bond can flourish in tough as well as positive times...
If we apply the cultural argument to LTK, Bond was seen as superfluous to requirements- the Cold War was ending, the Russians would soon be inducted into the Western orbit, and such multipolar confrontations would simply cease. (see Fukuyama's The End of History.)
Perhaps this contributed to a sense that the Bond films would be pointless in the peaceful free-thinking Nineties? GE effectively dealt with this problem by actually tackling the Soviet Union's collapse head-on as part of the plot.
If times are good, people storm theatres in a good mood
If times are bad, they need an escape from it and storm the theatres.
Many factors above apply for the UK only, so that can hardly explain the lack of success in the US and other countries.
Do we have weatherdata for TLD or stellar constellations, that could explain TLDs lack of success better than that the issue was the main man?
President of the 'Misty Eyes Club'.
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
No star charts to hand unfortunately, though I do have something else- numbers.
For Your Eyes Only (1981) worldwide gross: $195,300,000.
Octopussy (1983) worldwide gross: $187, 500,000.
A View to a Kill (1985) worldwide gross: $152, 627,960.
The Living Daylights (1987) worldwide gross: $191, 200,000.
Licence To Kill (1989) worldwide gross: $156, 200, 000.
As we see here, the downward trend in ticket sales started a good six years before Dalton took on the role.
The only film to notably reverse this decline was (shock horror!) TLD.
These figures would suggest important reasons at play other than Dalton singlehandedly poisoning the franchise. The logical conclusion to be made here I think is that Dalton wasn't the deciding factor.
Hello, my agents. I saw this for the first time yesterday. I just like the films of Connery, Moore and a little Talton, because I think he is a hero who fights against the Cold War. Today I start the Pierce Brosman phase, which is certainly very good. Anyway, this 1987 film is great. Action, beautiful women, and it's because it's the 80's, my favorite phase of cinema. You have to take the AIDS era into account, why don't you see James Bond having sex. The scene of James on the plane gave me distress, just like Octopussy (1983). And about Roger Moore's last film, I really liked it. I didn't care at all about the actor's age. The villain is great, the women are beautiful (Especially the one in the bathtub), and the action scenes are good (Yes, I know they were stuntmen).
BIG TAMWrexham, North Wales, UK.Posts: 773MI6 Agent
I wanted a change of pace for Bond in 1989. Without wishing to sound like a blood-lust junkie LICENCE TO KILL wasn't violent enough! Des Llewelyn's doddery Q felt well out of place - a sop to fans unable to cope with a radical change of pace. Dalton's brooding intensity felt thrilling but it was evident he wouldn't endear himself to the Saturday night crowd. He's grim throughout but I suppose when your best mate's been fed to a shark you're probably not too disposed to fun & japes. The simplicity of narrative helps & again Glen feels energised by his leading man. But the tough stuff doesn't feel entirely natural. Bruce Wills bloodily disposes of baddies with stylish ease in DIE HARD. There's something not quite right about Bond's similar ruthlessness. Looking at it now it feels that little bit forced, as though everyone's consciously making a violent film. I don't know. It's still a good watch & one must commend EON for trying something different (indeed ahead of its time) but tastes change & these days I'm more likely to prefer the comfort blanket of the Moore era.
There is a lot to touch upon in your essay, but for now I'll comment on the plot. I think the plot of LTK is one of the strongest in the series. The way Bond manipulates events and the villain himself to bring him down is smart and interesting. Sanchez actually kills more of his closest crew than Bond does. LTK has fewer gaping plot holes than most action films, including Bond films.
In my opinion (and many others) Sanchez is among the best Bond villains. He's believable, but still larger than life. He's scary, but still seductive. You comment on Bond going rogue. Now the hero going rogue has been over-used. Ethan Hunt has barely been on an impossible mission where he isn't a rogue agent and Bond himself needs some missions where he doesn't go rogue. But back in 1989 this wasn't a problem. Back then this was fresh and exciting. Bond hadn't done it before, but the attack on his best friend and the killing of Della was enough motivation to make it believable and acceptable.
i agree with everything. LTK is probably in my top 3, the plot being the reason mostly. Bond systematically and thoroughly destroys every aspect and element of Sanchez' operation. I dont think we've every seen a more efficient Bond than in LTK. Plus the Gladys Knight's theme song is #1 for me.
I enjoyed Spectre of Defeat's original post and agree with much of it. However... while films like Lethal Weapon and Die Hard are said to be bloodthirsty and gritty, to my mind they simply brought the action movie into the present. More importantly, and crucially even, they had leading men in Willis and Gibson who could do witty one-liners that were also genuinely funny. Dalton really did not do that and no attempt at that could make it work.
So cinemagoers checked out his first film, saw that was the case, and only did the second one out of patriotic duty. A bit like voters going for Corbyn the first time round, second time round, nah. You lost us.
Along with that, Dalton did not seem like a young stud against the old Moore. His look was outmoded - like the 70s Gareth Hunt from The New Avengers. He did not look like the short haired square jawed stars of the late 80s - Arnie, Bruce, Mel. His torso did not look athletic and when he got his kit off in this there was no narcissism and nothing to admire. He was not ripped.
On top of all that, Die Hard and Lethal Weapon were really more like Bond films than the Bond films were. Both had better Bond villains, both played by British actors. The latter followed the set piece rule. The former looked great, sort of noirish
These films reinvented the action genre and how badly that was needed. In contrast, the Bond films still had John Glen and had been bamboozled by the fanboys saying, hey make one like Fleming! Make it serious! But without that knowing humour, it was thought back in the 50s that Fleming's stuff was a B-movie thing, the kind Rank pictures did. Saltzman and Broccoli added the knowing humour, so Dr No was above the pack. LTK omitted that - so it was a B-movie.
One final point, In another thread I'll maybe talk about the three-card trick that most Bond films require. It basically distracts you from the fact that the plot is a bit pants and has been seen before - it's money for old rope.
Even Die Hard does that. It's not just about terrorists in a skyscraper. It's set at night. Willis is a New York cop in LA - fish out of water. He's there by accident. He's trying to win back his wife - who is hostage. A white cop strikes up a poignant rapport with black cop outside. There's a lot going on. It juggles plates.
In many Bond films there's a subtext going on to make it more interesting, it's a distraction technique. LTK really doesn't have that. So if you don't go for the whole revenge plot against Leiter - never, frankly, a consistent and successful Bond character - then you don't really have much to go on. LTK is Bond with his pants down.
I'm looking forward to you talking about the three card trick, NP, it's definitely worth going into. Your point about juggling plates also makes sense. GF is possibly the best example of both those points, though obviously more modern ways of carrying them out is the priority.
I agree Dalton needed shorter hair and more muscle tone. They should've made sure Dalton was trained by someone from the SAS or SBS - that would have made him even more belivabel also. You could see the influence from Bond in other 80's action movies, but I I can't remember any villans in them where they were typical Bond villans. Their villans usually had much more limited plans and usually lacked good lairs.
There was no need to distract from a plot that was " a bit pants". LTK had one of the best plots in the series.
"Connery said in an interview had read three Fleming novels. I think this was while he was making DAF. One of the novels was TB, I can't remember the others."
I watched this interview for the first time the other night. Connery says he read TB to prepare for Dr. No, and later on read GF and LALD. You can tell in this clip, a BBC interview, that by the time of DAF Connery was done with Bond. He's generally a bit terse and dodges answering some of the questions fully.
Q: What does Bond mean to you?
A: Bond means different things to different people...
It is amusing to compare with modern interviews, where Craig lavishes praise on Fleming and the series' history, and then go back to Connery's obviously tired and fed up demeanour here. However, to be fair Connery still manages to have a laugh and charm the interviewer at times even when discussing a subject he's grown to dislike immensely, so there is that.
"On top of all that, Die Hard and Lethal Weapon were really more like Bond films than the Bond films were. Both had better Bond villains, both played by British actors. The latter followed the set piece rule. The former looked great, sort of nourish.."
Agree regarding Die Hard's overall look and tone. I'd never thought of Alan Rickman in DH as imitative of Bond villains, yet he is arguably more like a traditional Bond villain than both of Dalton's. Die Hard also has a big blond henchman evoking memories of the various Red Grant clones, suitably played by Andreas Wisniewski from TLD...
Was Die Hard really more like Bond films than the Bond films of the time? Die Hard had only one small location, the villans' plots were limited in scope, the villan had no lair, the women were not noted for their importance for the plot or their great beauty, the hero was an American in a T-shirt ....
I think the main simularities were that traditional Bond movies and Die Hard were both action francihises where the hero sometimes cracked a joke. That's a bit like saying "four weddings and a funeral" and Goldfinger were alike because they both had a good looking and funny leading man.
I've recently started watching again the four 'Lethal Weapon' movies, for their nostalgia value, and I've got as far as #2. The Michael Kamen scores bring to mind LTK, as do parallels between Sanchez's murder of Della and the ways in which successive 'Lethal Weapon' villains menace Murtaugh's family - making it personal, as was vogueish in late 80s actioners. In #2 (released in '89, like LTK), the climactic punch-line is Murtaugh's. Murtaugh shoots dead a consular villain, played by Joss Ackland, who's claimed, "Diplomatic immunity!": "Just revoked!" The punch-line is a pay-off the audiences loved. That moment made me think how condescending to Bond audiences it was when a decision was made, in the same year, to re-name Bond #16, originally 'License Revoked', because it was apparently thought that American cinema-goers might not have understood what "revoked" means!
Critics and material I don't need. I haven't changed my act in 53 years.
Interesting stuff. To my mind, neither "Licence to Kill" nor "Licence Revoked" sound particularly Bondian- the former sounds a bit obvious for a Bond film, and the latter comes across as unwieldy.
Side note- I watched Pacino's Scarface again the other night and there's a curious moment where Michelle Pfeiffer's character suggests to a high-ranking drug dealer that someone might try to kill him. The drug dealer laughs and says casually, "Who the hell would want to do that?", shrugging it off. This moment is, of course, repeated almost verbatim during Bond's meeting with Sanchez at the casino...
Comments
The point about Connery being an unknown in '62 doesn't hold as much water given that the audience back then had no preconceived expectations of how Bond ought to look. The most enthusiastic initial critic of Connery's appearance and mannerisms during the production of Dr. No was a certain Mr Ian Fleming(!). An interesting piece of trivia...
As I understand it Dalton wanted to return for GE in 1994 but was told "you can't only do one." I guess Dalton wanted to make it a hat-trick since GF and TSWLM had both been the most successful films of his predecessors...
"The spectre of defeat..."
Good points SoD. I would also suggest similar regarding Skyfall in 2012. Yes, it was good film, but its success may have factors attributed to it (to name a few highlights of 2012);
- The UK economy was stable and on the up after the global recession
- David Cameron (like it or not) was a popular Prime Minister (then!) and the 'Special Relationship' with the US, under another
popular leader Barack Obama, was as strong as ever
- London hosted a 'critically acclaimed' Olympics and Paralympics, including great performances for UK athletes in both. (The opening ceremony also included Bond and the Queen of course)
- Andy Murray, won the Olympic Tennis Gold and made the final of Wimbledon
- Bradley Wiggins won Olympic Gold in Cycling and also became the first Briton to win the Tour de France
- The tallest building in Europe (The Shard) opened in London
- To top it all the Queen was celebrating her Diamond Jubilee
There was a sense of optimism in the UK (I know not everyone, or everywhere) and Britain seemed to be Great again. A sense of pride had returned. So, when a very good Bond film came out in October on the back of what had already been an great year, and included some fantastic UK locations and a starring role for the iconic DB5, it sat well with the UK public, that went to see it in their droves.
Very true!
Makes me wonder which others have that same parallel. But I agree, there's always more to it than just the movie because Bond is like it or not a cultural icon.
And I agree that Dalton, as much as I enjoy his stuff, just didn't have the muscle...figuratively and literally for the 80s.
Very interesting points, the Red Kind and others, re the cultural context of Bond. It can work both ways, as well. Whereas SF was partly so successful because of a general feeling that Britain was on the up, and so a healthy dose of jingoism was felt to be in order in 2012, a comparable phenomenon happened with the background of TSPWLM- which involved a sense of moody decline.
Like Skyfall, Spy arrived in time for a big Royal event, in this case the 1977 Silver Jubilee, and the title sequence refers fairly obviously to this sort of patriotic imagery.
But in 1977:
Britain had just had to go to the IMF in 1976 for a bailout, an unheard-of humiliation at the time.
The politics of détente under the unpopular Jimmy Carter meant that the US and UK were grappling with a general sensation of the West having lost their way, fallen behind, morally as well as in our case fiscally bankrupt...
With all this in mind, Spy provided an escape from the drudgery and a return to, variously, unbridled patriotism, exotic glamour and a UK acting as a muscular world power in concert with the US and USSR to take down Stromberg. Bond can flourish in tough as well as positive times...
"The spectre of defeat..."
Perhaps this contributed to a sense that the Bond films would be pointless in the peaceful free-thinking Nineties? GE effectively dealt with this problem by actually tackling the Soviet Union's collapse head-on as part of the plot.
"The spectre of defeat..."
This navelgazing is highly entertaining:
If times are good, people storm theatres in a good mood
If times are bad, they need an escape from it and storm the theatres.
Many factors above apply for the UK only, so that can hardly explain the lack of success in the US and other countries.
Do we have weatherdata for TLD or stellar constellations, that could explain TLDs lack of success better than that the issue was the main man?
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
Not only for the 80s - generally! {[]
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
For Your Eyes Only (1981) worldwide gross: $195,300,000.
Octopussy (1983) worldwide gross: $187, 500,000.
A View to a Kill (1985) worldwide gross: $152, 627,960.
The Living Daylights (1987) worldwide gross: $191, 200,000.
Licence To Kill (1989) worldwide gross: $156, 200, 000.
As we see here, the downward trend in ticket sales started a good six years before Dalton took on the role.
The only film to notably reverse this decline was (shock horror!) TLD.
These figures would suggest important reasons at play other than Dalton singlehandedly poisoning the franchise. The logical conclusion to be made here I think is that Dalton wasn't the deciding factor.
I rest my case...
"The spectre of defeat..."
One of the best fights in the series in my view...
Welcome Mr. Powers. Unfortunately the sharks in LTK are not equipped with laser beams on their heads, that would have improved the film considerably
"The spectre of defeat..."
i agree with everything. LTK is probably in my top 3, the plot being the reason mostly. Bond systematically and thoroughly destroys every aspect and element of Sanchez' operation. I dont think we've every seen a more efficient Bond than in LTK. Plus the Gladys Knight's theme song is #1 for me.
So cinemagoers checked out his first film, saw that was the case, and only did the second one out of patriotic duty. A bit like voters going for Corbyn the first time round, second time round, nah. You lost us.
Along with that, Dalton did not seem like a young stud against the old Moore. His look was outmoded - like the 70s Gareth Hunt from The New Avengers. He did not look like the short haired square jawed stars of the late 80s - Arnie, Bruce, Mel. His torso did not look athletic and when he got his kit off in this there was no narcissism and nothing to admire. He was not ripped.
On top of all that, Die Hard and Lethal Weapon were really more like Bond films than the Bond films were. Both had better Bond villains, both played by British actors. The latter followed the set piece rule. The former looked great, sort of noirish
These films reinvented the action genre and how badly that was needed. In contrast, the Bond films still had John Glen and had been bamboozled by the fanboys saying, hey make one like Fleming! Make it serious! But without that knowing humour, it was thought back in the 50s that Fleming's stuff was a B-movie thing, the kind Rank pictures did. Saltzman and Broccoli added the knowing humour, so Dr No was above the pack. LTK omitted that - so it was a B-movie.
One final point, In another thread I'll maybe talk about the three-card trick that most Bond films require. It basically distracts you from the fact that the plot is a bit pants and has been seen before - it's money for old rope.
Even Die Hard does that. It's not just about terrorists in a skyscraper. It's set at night. Willis is a New York cop in LA - fish out of water. He's there by accident. He's trying to win back his wife - who is hostage. A white cop strikes up a poignant rapport with black cop outside. There's a lot going on. It juggles plates.
In many Bond films there's a subtext going on to make it more interesting, it's a distraction technique. LTK really doesn't have that. So if you don't go for the whole revenge plot against Leiter - never, frankly, a consistent and successful Bond character - then you don't really have much to go on. LTK is Bond with his pants down.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Roger Moore 1927-2017
...you're not related to Silhouette Man, by any chance...?
There was no need to distract from a plot that was " a bit pants". LTK had one of the best plots in the series.
I watched this interview for the first time the other night. Connery says he read TB to prepare for Dr. No, and later on read GF and LALD. You can tell in this clip, a BBC interview, that by the time of DAF Connery was done with Bond. He's generally a bit terse and dodges answering some of the questions fully.
Q: What does Bond mean to you?
A: Bond means different things to different people...
It is amusing to compare with modern interviews, where Craig lavishes praise on Fleming and the series' history, and then go back to Connery's obviously tired and fed up demeanour here. However, to be fair Connery still manages to have a laugh and charm the interviewer at times even when discussing a subject he's grown to dislike immensely, so there is that.
"On top of all that, Die Hard and Lethal Weapon were really more like Bond films than the Bond films were. Both had better Bond villains, both played by British actors. The latter followed the set piece rule. The former looked great, sort of nourish.."
Agree regarding Die Hard's overall look and tone. I'd never thought of Alan Rickman in DH as imitative of Bond villains, yet he is arguably more like a traditional Bond villain than both of Dalton's. Die Hard also has a big blond henchman evoking memories of the various Red Grant clones, suitably played by Andreas Wisniewski from TLD...
"The spectre of defeat..."
I think the main simularities were that traditional Bond movies and Die Hard were both action francihises where the hero sometimes cracked a joke. That's a bit like saying "four weddings and a funeral" and Goldfinger were alike because they both had a good looking and funny leading man.
Side note- I watched Pacino's Scarface again the other night and there's a curious moment where Michelle Pfeiffer's character suggests to a high-ranking drug dealer that someone might try to kill him. The drug dealer laughs and says casually, "Who the hell would want to do that?", shrugging it off. This moment is, of course, repeated almost verbatim during Bond's meeting with Sanchez at the casino...
"The spectre of defeat..."
"The spectre of defeat..."
Perhaps "Eye for an eye" or some clever version of it?