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The James Bond Thread: RIP Robbie Coltrane


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The first five Connery films sort of have continuity in that the SPECTRE plot follows through, save for Goldfinger where the only reference to the previous two films is Bond mentioning Jamaica to Felix. Still, you literally don't miss any critical story or plot lines if you watch them out of order. If the early ones aren't doing it for you, try a Brosnan one like GoldenEye, or definitely Casino Royale.

As Georgy said, sometimes there's the odd mention of an event from a past film but otherwise, each film is a standalone adventure. The only exception is Quantum of Solace which ties up the loose ends from Casino Royale.

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I downloaded the entire Bond series and tried watching them. I really did. I just couldn't get into them. I watched Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. I will admit Goldfinger was the best of those three.

If you watched those particular three and didn't like Bond I have a feeling you are never going to like Bond. Those three are Bond at his best.

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I downloaded the entire Bond series and tried watching them. I really did. I just couldn't get into them. I watched Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. I will admit Goldfinger was the best of those three.

If you watched those particular three and didn't like Bond I have a feeling you are never going to like Bond. Those three are Bond at his best.

Connery at his best. I will say OHMSS, The Spy Who Loved Me, The Living Daylights, Licence to Kill, Goldeneye, Casino Royale and Skyfall are worth watching.

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The ones I mentioned are Bond films I can watch over and over again. I should add For Your Eyes Only and From Russia with Love to that list.

Live and Let Die is a lot of fun too. A View to a Kill gets a bad rap because Roger Moore was nearly 60 and Tanya Roberts was annoying, but it was a rather fun film.

Goldfinger and From Russia WIth Love are the only Connery films I can watch over and over again. With all this praise he gets I find him overrated. I find myself preferring George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig. Roger Moore was great until Octopussy when he became old and a parody of himself. Fun film but it a hair from being a spoof.

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I'll add Thunderball to Connery's brilliance. He's one of my favorite actors in general so I have a major bias towards his Bond. Until Thunderball, he was perfect. I'm one who actually prefers Thunderball to Goldfinger. Thunderball is Goldfinger's formula cranked to 11, even though Goldfinger had more iconic elements for the franchise as a whole. Thunderball is tied with From Russia With Love as my favorite Connery film.

You could tell stress and dissatisfaction with the role was getting to him in You Only Live Twice. His performance in Diamonds is okay but nothing to write home about. I actually think his best "last" performance is Never Say Never Again, even though I'd rather watch the previous two "last" films.

A View To A Kill is the lone Bond film I find to be an absolute bore. I just don't like it. Not even just Roger's age, but in general. Walken is good but I've just never been intrigued by it. That and Diamonds rank at the bottom of my list.

As mentioned before, Octopussy is my favorite Roger Bond. Sometimes criticisms are so focused on the clown suit and the Tarzan scene that they forget all the good about the film. The pre-title sequence, Roger's performance, the awesome backgammon scene at the hotel, the train sequence, the plane sequence, and so on - all add to make it an incredibly enjoyable entry in the series. The clown suit never bothered me (it's a disguise - I can accept it) and the Tarzan scene takes up literally two seconds of film.

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Thunderball had advantages over Goldfinger. Claudine Auger was hot, Connery got more physical than he did in the previous film. In Goldfinger he was rescued by US forces, in Thunderball they assisted him and Domino proved herself a worthy Bond girl.

There are a few scenes in AVTK when Roger looks frightening.

Vijay stole the show with his tennis racket.

Watching every film in order of release can be a chore but it is interesting seeing the times change. One obvious change is the violence in the film. In the early Connery a guy gets shot or stabbed and dies right away. This kind of occurs until Octopussy when you see 009 get stabbed horribly but he is alive long enough to make his way to the Embassy. I can imagine people squirming in their seats over that. I believe Octopussy provides the series with its first headshot. That scene when Bond confronts the Russian general he shoots a guy square in the head. Moore often voices his distaste for violence and in his last film he was horrified by the scene where Zorin shoots dozens of miners. One of the reasons Licence to Kill didn't do well is because it was so violent. I guess people weren't ready for it. Die Hard kind of revolutionized violence in cinema.

Edited by Georgy Zhukov
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GoldenEye sure brings back memries. This is the film that got me into Bond. Saw it when I was 7. They did have to alter some of the score though. The Aston/Ferreri car chase music was cringe worthy.

Judi Dench is by far the best M. The other two came off as idiots. No disrespect to them, but Bond was clearly smarter than them.

Edited by Georgy Zhukov
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Bernard Lee was the man. Great relationship with Bond - on the surface he was the authority figure and came across like he didn't give a shit about Bond, but deep down he had a great fondness and respect for Bond. I think one of the best scenes, which would become his last incidentally, is in Moonraker when M believes Bond is on to something. The Minister tells M to pull Bond off the mission, but Lee suggests Bond take a leave of absence, and asks where he might go. When Bond replies "I've always wanted to go to Rio" or whatever, M goes right along and says "I think I can recall you mentioning it!" before mentioning that if Bond screws up, they're both done in the business.

Never cared for Robert Brown's M, though we don't see a whole lot of him.

Dench was fantastic and now was the right time for her to move on. Fiennes actually reminded me a bit of Lee's M, like in his first meeting with Bond, as he's leaving the room and stops to say "Don't cock this up, 007" or something like that. Just like Lee's M would have. The new relationship between Fiennes and Craig's Bond is one of the things I'm most looking forward to in Bond 24.

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I liked how M was proud of Bond impressing him in front of Gogol. But I find it funny how Bond is a dick to him over his taste in brandy.

Robert Brown felt like a temporary replacement. I don't think he was ever called M.

Dench was fantastic but Skyfall showed her age and how she grew out of touch. Kind of a message that Western Intelligence found it's match with Chinese. Fiennes is going to be a great M.

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I don't think Roger's Bond ever directly called Brown "M" but he'd say to other characters "Call for M" or "have M send the details" and stuff like that. Not sure if Dalton ever called him M. I agree though, I don't think he was ever given enough material to work with to really establish himself in the four films he did, whereas Lee had eleven films. It was also never made clear if Brown's M was the same character as Lee, or a promoted Hargreaves (the character Brown played in The Spy Who Loved Me).

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According to Roger's new book, Lee announced to the producers just before For Your Eyes Only that he would be too ill for filming. Not wanting to leave him out of the film, the producers suggested that he come by, no pressure, and try out the scene anyways. Roger said Lee had little focus and struggled to say his lines, at which point he turned to the producers as if to say "I told you I can't do this" and then it was decided that, out of respect for Lee, his lines would just be given to Tanner and the Minister rather than recast the role right away. Lee died during production.

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The Essential James Bond, by Georgy Zhukov.

From Russia with Love

Goldfinger OR Thunderball

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

The Spy Who Loved Me

Live and Let Die or Moonraker

For Your Eyes Only or Octopussy

The Living Daylights

Licence to Kill

GoldenEye

Casino Royale

Skyfall

The rest are worth a watch but not priority.

Edited by Georgy Zhukov
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I can agree with that list. I'd drop Moonraker though. I actually enjoy it for what it is - it's fun and more or less just a second part to The Spy Who Loved Me, but between that and Live and Let Die I'd say Live and Let Die is definitely the "must watch" of the two.

I actually gave Never Say Never Again a watch last night. I briefly looked at the cover and thought of the irony that it's probably the most valuable DVD I own now. :lol:

My opinion is still the same - starts promising, Connery is great as are the villains and Bond girls, but the second half is a bore. Most uneventful climax to any Bond movie too. Aside from some awful visual effects and the much maligned video game sequence, the first half, or even two thirds, is pretty solid. It cries for some real Bond music though - I know the Bond theme was out of the question but some more exciting cues would have been nice. The jazz cue that accompanies the motorcycle chase sounds like it came from The Tick or another cartoon of the sort.

I don't mind Q or Moneypenny (not that you see much of either of them), but Edward Fox's M is horrible. Sounds and acts like Jim Carrey's Grinch.

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The Essential James Bond, by Georgy Zhukov.

From Russia with Love

Goldfinger OR Thunderball

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

The Spy Who Loved Me

Live and Let Die or Moonraker

For Your Eyes Only or Octopussy

The Living Daylights

Licence to Kill

GoldenEye

Casino Royale

Skyfall

The rest are worth a watch but not priority.

Scrap the Moonraker option and I agree.

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Moonraker removed. I would add another Brosnan but his films just seem like effortless. They are predictable and just emphasize on the action. I will have to see The World is Not Enough but from what I remembered a lot of Brosnans intense scenes seemed forced. It was like he has no idea what he is suppose to be pissed about. It is weird because in GoldenEye he looked he knew what he was doing but after that, he didn't.

I watched Everything or Nothing, they made it seemed that Connery was out to get Cubby. Nice he called and made up though. He seemed to hate Cubby at the time.

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The World Is Not Enough is an awkward film because it tries to give the characters some depth and add some more suspense, intrigue, and drama, but unfortunately it falls flat with poorly fleshed out characters and shoehorned action. Basically, it's Skyfall done wrong. It was like they wanted to give Pierce a better film but were afraid to lose the action. Hardly any of the action scenes complement the story and each scene feels kind of just thrown in there. There's also too much going on at times.

Elektra is decent but Renard is a wasted opportunity. Huge build-up to him but ultimately his character is a lame disappointment. Same with everything else in the film - great build-ups but disappointing conclusions. Also, I mentioned before that the scene where Bond confronts Elektra is one of, if not the worst acted scenes in the Bond series.

Still, I have a soft spot for it because it was the first one I saw in theatres.

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