April is the cruellest month: a day-by-day game (year 2)

Special Interest Games
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I agree (again, I know, how boring of me). But I always liked the tsunami surfing because it is typical Bond: getting out of a situation by daring to do the impossible, with tongue in cheek firmly planted.

I bet EON was assured the CGI would look much better… but time or budget apparently made them sign off on the sequence before it was finished.

These days, with so many movies featuring CGI which is clearly detectable, it does not stand out that badly anymore. It’s just a modern equivalent to obvious rear projection.

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Both are British patriots.
Both are of Scottish descent and employ Scottish house keepers
Although having slim builds both possess exceptional physical strength and grey eyes
Both are documented as excessive tobacco users with occasional drug use. Bond would take Benzedrine before a difficult assignment or to stay sharp during a high stakes card game.
The theories that Mycroft Holmes was the first “M.” and that Bond and Holmes are related by marriage can be discussed elsewhere.

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Nope, this was a dumb – and doomed – scene from inception. There’s only so far you can stretch things without breaking, and the tsunami surfing bit crosses that line. The motorcycle-to-plane transfer in GE features a process shot that’s equally lousy, but the audience that I saw it with was willing to buy into that one. The surfing scene drew derisive laughter, and not because we were judging the quality of CGI, but because the whole notion was so stupid at its base. The same reaction was given to another scene in another film and for the same reason: in one of the Schumacher Batman films, the Batmobile drives straight up the side of a building. It was done okay from a technical standpoint I guess (I’ve never seen a car do that so I can’t say for sure) but that didn’t make it any less stupid. Obviously in both cases, someone said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if…?” and in both cases, there should have been warm-spirited laughter in the room followed by a producer saying, “Okay, thanks for the chuckle but obviously we’re not spending money on that. Who’s got a serious suggestion?”

Just because something was fun to do with your action figures at age 8 doesn’t mean it belongs in your movie when you end up a director.

I’m not sure they realized how bad it was even when it was turned in. My DVD (wherever it is) has a behind-the-scenes feature with the effects team going on at some length about how it was conceived and executed, and everyone seems pretty proud of themselves.

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Well, they are not stupid. And definitely not stupid enough to say in a PR-documentary: „We were shocked and frustrated and would have preferred to redo the whole sequence.“

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I tend to be quite fond of Kananga’s demise. Considering that it had been 4 straight films where Bond had not disposed of the villain, having Sir Rog deliver a pretty brutal pay-off, all things considered, is not the worst statement. Like DAD, the effects couldn’t keep up with the idea, but the idea isn’t bad!

Karate nieces - my position is known.

Bibi Dahl - once again, it’s execution rather than the idea. And in defense of all, especially Johnson, it’s a tough role to pull off considering the arena - it’s a Cubby 80s Bond film after all, family entertainment etc etc, so, even with Sir Rog there to leaven the “creepiness” of it all (please read the esteemed Jim’s 007th Minute - thank you Sir, the gift that keeps on giving), Bibi has to be a bimbo for us to relax and have a larf (tribute typo Jim!).

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At the time I sensed there was an idea for DAD to be something of a launchpad for a new way to present Bond movies. Black and white sequences, speed ramping, slowing down time, and more CGI. It didn’t take off, but the option was there before the reboot. I agree with you about the ice wave. I’ll post this comment I made a while back. I feel the same now.

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Karate Nieces - dreadful idea, executed as well as it could be
Kanaga death - good idea filmed poorly.
Bibi Dahl - potentially brilliant idea very poorly executed

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Has inspired me towards another game. Later, maybe.

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I admit the ice tsunami, taken in isolation, may not have disappointed me so greatly (who knows?) but at the time it was the straw that broke the camel’s back in a Bond era that was rife with ridiculously stupid “stunts” (that weren’t actual stunts because they can’t be performed in reality as we know it).

First there was the bike-to-plane transfer in GE, then the TND helicopter that actually goes slower instead of faster when tilted nose-down and purposely impacts multiple objects with its rotors with no harm to the aircraft, and then we get the tsunami in DAD. Leading up to the tsunami, Bond speeds along in a rocket sled at record-breaking speed to escape a space laser, which conveniently slows to a crawl when he reaches a point he can go no further, and patiently waits while he disassembles the sled, taking the parachute – which makes sense I guess given the height he’s at – and a skid because…well, because he’s read the script and knows that next the face of the iceberg will slide into the water, creating a tsunami. Naturally. He achieves this act of vehicle demolition by pounding on the rocket car/sled with his hands and feet, which proves again that Detroit ain’t what it used to be.

Anyway, I remember thinking that we finally had the answer to all those critics who belittled the Bond films for starting with a list of stunts and then trying to find a plot to wrap around them. The Brosnan era proved the flip side is worse: leave the screenwriting and stunt planning to guys whose idea of physics and logic never got past crashing their action figures together in the bathtub and driving their Hot Wheels up the side of their bedpost, and when the stunt team says their ideas are impossible, the answer is always, “That’s why there’s CGI.”

So I revile the scene as a symbol of, for me, the lowest ebb in the franchise. In isolation, maybe it’s not so bad, but as the cherry on top of a heaping crap sundae, it was and is too much for me.

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He doesn’t. Although he probably felt he was very accurate. According to his view.

And since the films are time capsules of the zeitgeist, the depiction of women changed with it. Enough? Guess so. Madeleine is a strong working single mother. Lynch‘s 007 is tough, intelligent and funny.

Maybe we can start from there with the next film?

(This post was approved by my wife.)

Two more April days to go, Jim…

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As if on cue…

April 29: An Aston Martin with the horsepower of a Renault Megane and a handgun first issued in 1931; all that casino gambling, buttonhole flowers and dressing like a doorman – James Bond, it’s just so old, isn’t it? Heritage themepark stuff at best, now.

April 30: Ah! You have reached the end of the month having escaped the grave once more and to celebrate this achievement, you’ve booked yourself and your companion of choice / companion within budget, onto the Orient Express for a couple of sordid nights.

Little did you know that in their pursuit of extremely hostile takeovers of catering establishments, SPECTRE have hijacked the dining car and you and your betrothed / bewitched / bothered / bewildered / bought will be presented with not just a choice of menus – try the scallop carpaccio (N.B. red wine with fish remains gauche) – but also a choice of suffering. Choose your table, but bear in mind all the other tables’ diners will be tied to the back of the train and dragged, skin a-flay and rapidly dead, through the Balkans (fnarr). A bit like inter-railing.

You and your… thing have to sit at the same table. No-one else would want to sit next to that, after all.

A: Ian Fleming, the invisible car, Elvis, Fiona Volpe.

B: Torture scene (Casino Royale 2006), Chang (or Charr or however it’s pronounced), Jim Fanning (film version), BurtonLeiter.

C: The Spy who Loved Me ski jump, Whitaker’s death, Diamonds are Forever train chase scene (novel); The Writing’s on the Wall.

D: Penelope Smallbone, Baron Samedi (film version), Chuck Lee, Lotus Esprit (TSWLM version).

E: LordLeiter, Nobody Does it Better, Countess Lisl, LlewelynQ.

F: Vijay, BMW Z3, LeeM, the volcano set from You Only Live Twice (the dining car has girth, y’know. Bit like your companion).

April has ceased its annual struggle.

In June, Deathmatch will return.

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I guess Fleming didn’t write women well, though I’d offer he just didn’t pay attention. The characters were there because expectations demanded them. To an extent they are plot devices, existing to bathe Bond in an heroic light.

As for the films - well, they reflected the times. Not until Rigg (FRWL an exception perhaps but ultimately the female lead of heft is Klebb) were those characters much more than what Fleming offered.

So there you go, EON do do faithful adaptations…

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April 28th

Thankfully, for the most part they were changed. He wrote I think, everyone badly, but situations and plot and things ( consumable throwaway things ).really brilliantly…
I think when they got it right they were true to the situation
Thunderball as a case in point. Domino, dreadful on page, but the relationship between her and Largo is sketched brilliantly.
The relationship is one that to this day can be seen in real life.
Probably stems from Connery’s assessment of Fleming, a snob who was an iconoclast he hated everyone including himself and his creation, but was fascinated by the psychodrama of every relationship he observed.
Perhaps Peter Sellers in Casino Royale is as faithful a performance as any.

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In order for an actress not to be “miscast against what was on the page,” you’d have to prove the existence an actual human being who DID resemble any woman Fleming wrote. Since that’s a non-starter, I think the films have done just fine.

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Solid point. I write that Mrs Jim has some May-like qualities only in the probably misguided belief that she will never read that.

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Absolutely. But you’re on to something big here.

A heritage themepark. Bond-World.

EON, that is the way to make big bucks in between the movies! No more waiting for studios to „regroup“ (bankrupt themselves, infighting, drenching billion dollar bonuses from the production budget). Just build your own themepark as a self-sustaining budget reservoir and make Bond movies from it!

The perfect circle of life for Bond!

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Bondworld! Spend a day as James Bond!!

Also gives further employment to writers, art departments, stunt teams, practical effects and costume designers. I have a friend who worked at Disneyland/world/cruises, she said even the Belle costume was a horrible plastic that made her boil in seconds, so Eon would already be one up there.

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There is something to be said here. In all honesty it’s why literary Bond is a niche market at best and celluloid Bond always bending to the trends of marketplace. In a strange way, while our fan pride might chafe at comparisons to MI, Bourne, what-have-you, it speaks to the series’ ability - and more importantly, need, to keep up with the times.

The era of Bond setting the trends is long, long gone; the series’ survival depends on its ability to metamorphasize as tastes evolve. The series success relies on how well it does that.

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A: Fleming would chain-smoke me to death while making racist comments faster than I can hide in the invisible car, and while the idea of having one night with Fiona before she delivers me to Elvis might be helpful, it is as unrealistic as the usual invisible car. So, I pass on this table.

B: They all sound like torture to me, so… no.

C: Yes. I‘m afraid I like them all.

D: Fine with me, too, and at least Baron Samedi will laugh at my jokes.

E: Lovely, especially after I have hidden Lord‘s sunglasses so he has to go off searching for them.

F: No problem here. I just hope the Volcano is not too drafty for my sensitive throat.

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Once again, thank you so much for these April quizzes, starting my day with the kind of levity only meditation (or medication as my auto correct wisely suggests) can bring.

Can’t wait for June. Although I will have to. Why do people say „can’t wait“? We all must wait. Can’t fast forward to the good bits. This isn’t a Bond film. Although I would never do that, of course.

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