Count me in as the one who also loves the Bond-Moneypenny banter in OHMSS particularly those at the wedding scenes, it still brokes my heart up to this day.
So that would be my vote!
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For September 23
Greetings, peoples of this made-great-again nation!
(Peoples as a plural - yes, that’s still just about the situation, regrettably).
I am so overcome with joy that you all wanted to take advantage of an impromptu open day visit to the Parliament building on Krystle Carrington Boulevard, although I don’t recall the Chief Privy Precentor to the Leader’s Diary ever having mentioned it. That might be because I had his lips sewed up when he didn’t sufficiently praise my hair extensions.
I am so sorry that I could not join you but I had an otherwise unscheduled appointment with a helicopter and several gin crates of classified documents that I unilaterally decided to immediately unclassify (the reason is classified), and I address you from my polo club and swamp palace, still in power accordng to everyone around me (those whose lips still move, anyway).
I admire your enthusiasm to come away from your looms and pebble-washing, and celebrate in such an exuberant fashion my record of justice and reason, although a) does your mother know you dress like that? b) get your feet off my desk and c) may I have my lectern back?
I see your gathering as a solid endorsement of how ideaologically clear-eyed I am, and how prepared I am to be unpopular at home and overseas in pursuit of my goals. Although I’m not unpopular. People are saying I am super-duper and Big Chief Sexy Time. Albeit at sabrepoint. It’s just more efficient like that, surprisingly effective in cutting out the um and er in such adulation, and the liver.
I wonder what it can be that drove you to such an outpouring of love for the technicalities of my complex and action-orientated legislative programme, although I suspect it could be one of more of the following:
- Tax breaks for the wealthy to trickle down to their families;
- Deregulation of kittenshredders; we must be competitive and ensure that the nation’s cats do not remain insufficiently wounded;
- Heavy taxation of blinking (it is so,so contrary to productivity, you workshy scutters);
- Zero-rate taxation on things that prevent blinking, like cocktail sticks and barbed wire;
- Abolition of Tuesday;
- Abolition of all import tariffs on kunckledusters, iron maidens, Chinese surface-to-air missiles (and thanks for all that money, guys!) and cress;
- The ban on a word appearing more than once in the title of a book or film in a series.
If I make it through the next ten minutes, when I ultimately look back on a long and happy life, it may be the last one that is my legacy. That and the… war… thing.
Despite domestic issues, and it is a challenging time for many (not me, I feel smashing), I must still drive the agenda upon which I was “elected”. It may be hurting (massively (good)) but it’s certainly working. In the incinerator recently have gone Speed 2: Cruise Control; Halloween 2 onwards; Avatar 2 onwards (in advance, you’ll thank me) and all of the Charlie’s Angels films (because they are cack).
Accordingly, whilst I summon the Equerry to the Fusebox of the Court of St. Limahl to fix the Parliament Exploder Button which I keep jabbing but doesn’t work (probably the chicken grease leaking into it from my navel (I address you naked, as always)), this time around the word to el-im-in-ate is “Kill”, despite it being one of my very favourites.
Only one can survive:
- From a View to a Kill
- A View to a Kill
- Licence to Kill (novelisation - still on my “to do away with” list (it is a long list, to be fair))
- Licence to Kill (film)
- High Time to Kill
- WIth a Mind to Kill
- A Hard Man to Kill
- Shoot to Kill
0 voters
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Oh, man some tough choices. I love both the novelization and film Licence To Kill as well as the novel High Time To Kill. With A Mind To Kill is a nice touch at finishing off an important part of Bond’s life also. But I have to go with the film Licence To Kill. It is my favorite Bond film. I’d hate to lose that. High Time To Kill would be my second choice, if it were possible. It’s a great novel.
I voted 6 times, for the period between TB and TMWTGG is really Peak Maxwell for me, with the pinnacle being those Navy whites in YOLT and " I…Love…You."
I also love her sass in TMWTGG (“Because he couldn’t find the bullet…DARLING.”
After GG she unfortunately became a victim of Bad 70’s Hairdo’s.
I’ll go with From A View To A Kill title from Fleming’s short story, Fleming was really creative when it comes to his titles and this one’s one of them, I’m still wondering where did Fleming get that?
Apparently from verse 3 of D’ye Ken John Peel although there the line is “From a view to a death in the morning.”
It’s about a huntsman, so probably appropriate - is another one of those times Fleming took a phrase and twisted it.
Presumably picked in favour of the opening of the second verse which is “D’ye ken that bitch whose tongue was death?” - although “The Bitch whose Tongue was Death” would be a magnificent Bond title in the vein of “The Man with the…” archetype. However, some idiot would use it for a sidebar “article” on [insert choice of inexplicably ire-inducing female personality / member of Royal Family… here].
All better than “When we’re waked by his horn in the morning”, which is utter filth. The Man with the Morning Horn. He has a powerful weapon…
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NB - this one we will come back to as it has the first vestiges of a new game.
For September 24
Your Bond time capsule.
James Bond is going to end, inevitably. We are lucky that we are at a point in time to enjoy it, but (and sorry to break this to you) in due course we will be gone and it will fade as a cultural memory (ooh), like Bulldog Drummond, vaudeville or cowpox.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to put 5 Bond things in a time capsule so that generations to come on whatever will be left of the planet, can fully appreciate it.
Without naming them (that’ll come in a new game, once I have thought it through properly (hah!)), of those five things (limited in this instance to the novels (incl. short stories) by any Bond author, and the films) - and assuming the technology is there to play films and the ability remains to read books (doubtful even now):
My five-item time capsule will be:
- All books
- All films
- More books than films
- More films than books
0 voters
As I say / dictate (I’m like that), we’ll come back to this, probably in December, for a proper go when we can all list our thingies. And the books and films.
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I went with all films. The books are important, but James Bond reached his peak and continues to be more popular and reaches a wider audience with the films so I went that way. If I had the option for 10 items, then I’d be more inclined to go with a combination.
More films than books. With due respect to Fleming, the movies have had a much larger impact on pop culture, and if the object is to explain to future-dwellers what all the fuss was about, it’s more important for them to have the films. If some care is taken with the picks, you could get across not only the longevity of the franchise, but also provide little snapshots of history beyond Bond; the fashions, technology and attitudes of each era, captured on celluloid. It’d be on the researchers of that future time to figure out how much they’re seeing was reflective of the real world and how much was some mutually experienced fever dream.
That said, a couple of novels would have to go in to give context, if nothing else to show how far we were willing to stretch, morph and occasionally up-end the source material just to keep the Bondwagon rolling. (It helps in my computations that I consider only Fleming’s works worth saving).
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Agreed with David M - predomintantly celluloid with a smattering of the printed page. It would be an interesting exercise to decide which; I’d offer a faithful adaptation with its source (say TB or OHMSS) and then at least a pair to demonstrate the difference - pick your poison from YOLT, TMWTGG.
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All films, my reasons why:
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Films reached a wider audience than the books.
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I’d rather watch a film than to read a book (I’m still reading but it depends on my mood), mainly because those scenes in the book could be easily visualize by films, reading a book depends on mood because it needs a lot of time and understanding, but I could watch a film at every mood because you could get a lot more entertainment, you don’t need to get stressed trying to analyze some words and trying hard to picture them in your head, when you could just watch a film and see those scenes.
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Films have overshadowed the books, almost half of the world knows the Bond of the films more than the books, having more books than films would remove James Bond (the character) from World Popularity and being iconic.
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Films could be at any ages, Bond should be for every ages, general audiences, every nationalities, it should be for all. Books could not be for everyone because who could expect a 5 year old kid for example to read a novel? But a 5 year old kid could easily understand and enjoy a film because it’s more on visualization than deep understanding, (just think about those kids who grew up watching Bond films) same for different nationalities, because there’s a specific languages used in writing a book or a novel, a film doesn’t require any understanding of other languages, yes, while there might be some captions or dubbings, it’s still more easy than understanding the languages written in the book, and in the books, there’s no censorship unlike in the films where it could be friendly at any ages, everyone could watch a film than reading a book, book chooses a specific readers, films could be for everyone, and that’s what I want for Bond, be for everyone.
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For September 25:
September 25? Saint Euphrosyne of Alexandria’s Day already? Where’s the year gone?
Thinking on matters of time, which of the below is the most effective “ticking clock” / countdown to doom sequence of the Eon series?
- Goldfinger - Three more clicks…
- You Only Live Twice - The codeword is imminent…
- Diamonds are Forever - …and countink…
- The Spy who Loved Me - The submarines are in position…
- Moonraker - Chasing the globes…
- Octopussy - There’s a bomb in there…
- A View to a Kill - May Day and the bomb…
- The Living Daylights - The bomb is still on the 'plane…
- GoldenEye - The satellite is in range…
- Tomorrow Never Dies - Missile aimed at Beijing…
- Die Another Day - Icarus burns the DMZ…
- Spectre - Madeleine all tied up and MI6 about to go bye-bye…
- No Time to Die - …where doom finally wins one (RIP).
- Another one not on this list
0 voters
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I went with Octopussy. Bond knows he’s got a deadline by which time he has to diffuse the bomb, but everything seems to be working against him. First he gets knocked off the train carrying the bomb. Then he has to hitchhike on foot, but no one will pick him up. Then, the one couple that does pick him up, drives very slowly to the next town. Then, just as he is about to find a phone to call for help and let the U.S. Air Force Base know of their imminent threat, a woman beats him to the phone box and takes her time talking on the phone ignoring his pleas to hurry. So he steals her car and gets involved in a car chase to race to the air force base. But once there, he has no time for explanations as the West German police are hot on his heels and he has to trespass onto the base. Then when he can go no farther in the car, he has to beat it on foot with the whole base’s military police surrounding him and looking for him. The only way to slip past them is to dress up disguised like a clown.
All the while this is going down, we get periodic glimpses of the bomb’s clock ticking down further enforcing the imminent danger. When Bond finally gets to the circus tent, he can’t immediately diffuse the bomb because the MPs are all around him. His only option to stop the bomb is to get the USAF base general’s attention. But dressed as a clown, he doesn’t take him seriously, even when Bond breaks cover and tells the general who he is. It’s very Hitchcockian. Realizing he has nothing to lose, Bond makes a break for the bomb, but the circus performers and MPs either slow or stop his progress as he is prevented from revealing the bomb just after he reaches his objective.
It’s only by Octopussy’s trust in him that saves the day when she willing takes a chance on exposing her smuggling plot by shooting the cover off the bomb. And when she does so, there is only about 10 seconds or so till the bomb goes off. The general orders Bond released and he immediately sets about diffusing it as we can clearly see the final seconds tick off.
What I love about the scene is that as Bond is pulling out the detonator, the countdown still continues, and we see the detonator go off just after Bond has cleared the charging mechanism with not a second to spare. It is the closest that a bomb or countdown to doom scenario has ever come to succeeding in a Bond film and, in my opinion, the best.
Goldfinger for me, the only scene where Bond didn’t saved the day but another character did.
It’s full of tension watching that scene, when you’re afraid that Goldfinger’s gonna win.
Especially when Bond’s finding a way to stop it but it’s already 10 seconds, and it keeps running, it’s very nervous.
Honorable mention goes to YOLT, but I’m not sure if it’s the scene where Bond’s trying to stop the SPECTRE from hijacking the ship by destroying the button, is it that?
What a delightful thread which for some reason my computer only alerted me to today…
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I’m actually surprised how difficult it is to answer this one. There are a lot of great “countdown” sequences in the films.
That said, I’m going to have to echo Double-OhAgent here and go with OP. I have lots of favorite sequences in the series: bits I’ll pop in a DVD to watch, then eject the disc without committing to the whole film. None have been more watched than the extended chunk (not a sequence, more like a string of them) in OP that starts with Bond’s great confrontation with Orlov (“You’re going to stop that train”) and ends with clown-Bond pulling out the detonator with a second to spare.
This segment of the film is unusually dense with action – the car being shot at, transferring to railroad tracks, Bond leaping from car to train, the fight on top of the train, a knife fight, a car chase, etc – but powering it all is the tick-tick-tick of that threatened explosion, so there’s a purpose to everything: it doesn’t just feel like a string of stunts in search of a plot.
Anyway that’s my vote today. If you ask me tomorrow I might give a different answer.
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OP? Predominantly becomes it’s the climax of an almost exhaustive stretch of top-notch stuntwork - the train, the car chase etc.
Honorable mention to TLD and TD really sells it (as if there was ever a moment across 2 films that he didn’t).
Have said before (and it’s not my observation) GF is perhaps the most important, in that Bond has no influence on the outcome. Absolutely none. The last time in the series…?
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Not true. If Bond had not fought OddJobb the bomb would have gone off.
I actually like GF because Bond does not know everything and gets in one bad situation after another, improvising his way out of it. It is more of a thriller than a „the man who can do it all“-story.
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You are correct. What I meant to say (or what was said by an author all those years ago), is that it’s perhaps the only time in the series that when faced with the “ticking clock” Bond is not the direct solution. Fast forward to any other moment and Bond is the man who takes care of it - from key in YOLT, to TLD, Bond stops the countdown. In GF, Bond, and by extension we, are saved by the man in the glasses who shoos Bond away with that rather disdainful look!!!
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True. But that’s what I Iike about GF and that moment. Imagine Bond would have accidentally set off that bomb.
And this even heightens the danger of that countdown. Bond might have bought us time. But he has no clue how to deal with that kind of bomb.
Of course, afterwards M sent him to a retreat where he learned all about that. Which made Bond so fat and lazy he had to be sent to Shrublands.
Damn, now I really want to see GF again.
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