When did Bond films stop being family oriented?
opal
Posts: 32MI6 Agent
When did Bond films stop being family oriented?
I would say with Licence to Kill. Up till then the Bond films were an extravaganza of stunts, good soundtracks, humour, glamour and escapism, that the whole family could enjoy.
Now, they are just spy thrillers, with violence.
I would say with Licence to Kill. Up till then the Bond films were an extravaganza of stunts, good soundtracks, humour, glamour and escapism, that the whole family could enjoy.
Now, they are just spy thrillers, with violence.
Comments
I watch Spectre now in my 20s and the drilling scene disturbs me.
My mind went to Goldeneye. There was some violence in early connery sure, but by the time you reach Brosnan you have the Onnatopp scenes which were definitely not designed for anyone who hadn't been through puberty.
-Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
I also ask: should Bond movies be family oriented?
Exactly!
While the movies have not been as brutal and sexist as the novels, the movies where directed to a more adult audience right from the beginning.
They became more compatible with the younger folks during the Moore age a decade later, but imo the question is missing the point.
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
At least the way I interpret it, Bodn movies should be family oriented and they were untiul they stopped being that. I think every part of that is wrong. Bond shouldn't be family oriented and the level of adultnes has always varied.
When Dr No came out it set new standards for sex and violence in the cinema.
It was not a family film. There were plenty of other films for families like Mary Poppins, but Dr No was escapist wish fulfillment for grownups.
A decade later when Moore took over, the films were something parents took their kids to, an old fashioned nostalgic romp. If you wanted cinematic violence, there were films like Deliverance or Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Arguably Dr No opened the door for this type of graphic disturbing film, but somewhere over the last decade James Bond style violence got left behind and was now seen as kid-friendly and harmless.
And if you wanted graphic sex in the cinema, there was anew generation of more explicit films for grownups, in "specialised" theatres and even for a while in trendy mainstream theatres.
Definitely Licence to Kill was a change in tone, back to images of violence only a grownup should see. It may still be the most disturbing film in the series in terms of atrocities to the human body.
Somebody above suggests Die Another Die as a return to Moore-era family friendly fare. Maybe the violence is more cartoonish, but Halle Berry fakes an orgasm, and Brosnan grunts and rolls his eyes then relaxes. This is the first naturalistic depiction of sex we've actually seen in 20 films. Coitus in Bond films had previously been represented as two adults lounging round in a strategically placed bedsheet drinking champagne and making nudge-nudge-wink-wink puns.
but sure it depends what you want your kids to see. If i had kids I'd want them to enjoy at least a decade of innocence before exposing them to nightmare inducing imagery.
Mr Whites suicide in SPECTRE shocked me!
Well I got into them as a kid. Apparently Pierce Brosnan first saw Goldfinger when he was 11 or so, it's a story he hardly ever tells.
Didn't most of us get into Bond when we were kids? What age were you, No.24?
I think I read the books when I was a teen and haven't looked at them much since because they're silly.
Also, the killing of Rosie Carver in it was shocking to me, as was the general atmosphere and voodoo element.
The only family aspect was the boat chase and Sheriff J.W. Pepper.
Adult movies, with several countries
Censoring parts. Such as the train
Fight in FRWL, but from GF on they
seemed to become less violent.
Even DAF seemed to have set the
Template for the Moore Bonds, becoming
A family night out movie.
I agree that with CR they made Bond
Dangerous again ( after trying with
LTK ) although with Skyfall and Spectre
They seem to be moving back to a family
Audience, as more bums on seats means bigger profits.
I too remember LALD in 73, so you're
Not alone sirso
It was like a Tintin adventure, except for boys who were just starting to think about girls.
It is probably is the most cartoonish of all the films, but... there was all that cleavage!!
Interesting the interpretations we all have. Imho the films are sillier than the books which inspired them. I read the Fleming novels at school and have picked them up again over the years, and always thoroughly enjoy them. -{
I guess it's how you look at it. I think you could say that Roger's films -which put their tongue very much in their cheek and let you know they think it's very silly- are more grown-up about it than the books which treat all of this nonsense about giant squids and men with metal hands terribly earnestly and seriously
I guess when it starts to get into the stairwell fight and how terrified that makes Vesper, it starts to get a bit more viceral and potentially scary for a kid to watch.
Used to record them on TV3 early-mid 90s - back when TV3 was actually good , sigh
I could (and can) only get NRK due to all the mountains around here.
the cinema since. DN was pretty daring for its time in its frank portrayal of sex but the big shocker was the scene where Bond kills Prof Dent. Prior to DN, film heroes did not execute villains, much less one with an empty gun and shoot them multiple times and in the back. It still stands as one of the most violently jarring portrayals of cold blooded violence ever put on the screen. GF, while the blueprint for the "epic" Bond still has some pretty nasty moments of violence, in particular in the PTS when Bond uses the woman as a shield against his attacker and then proceeds to electrocute his would be assassin by throwing a fan into the bath tub. Of course, one cannot forget my favorite as an 8 yr old seeing Bond in TB pinning one of Largo's henchmen to a Palm Tree with a well placed shot through the neck with a spear gun. All good clean family fun, IMO.
Memories can be deceiving. It was not as violent as a spear in the neck.
GE was more fun than LTK but can never really fill the Bank Holiday Monday Bond slot and none of them subsequently do.
It's a shame because really some of them should have, at least one or two. But they were trying to distance the films from the previous family fun stuff, even toning down the colour I think.
Fans of Spectre forget the eye-gouging scene which is cut from TV prints, along with Craig's gruelling kill in Haiti (the cuts improve both films greatly imo).
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Dr No was basically boiled alive in his own nuclear reactor. Even before LTK, there was at least one death where it would appear gruesome. The snowplough in OHMSS, the KGB agent being thrown into the propeller and there's even a deleted scene in The Living Daylights, where it was implied that Saunders was bisected with the glass door.
I don't think the sex scenes have been expicit before Goldeneye
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