The Dr. Kaufman scene is creepy enough to be described as Flemingesque. The first half of the movie is nearly perfect.
I’d agree,but…
Is the Paris Carver bedroom scene in the first half? That’s perhaps the worst scene in the Bond franchise.
Lest we forget
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He did say nearly…
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Promise to never mention it again 
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Hey, I like Teri Hatcher. 
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I like Teri Hatcher too. Best Lois Lone in my opinion.
It’s a great fight. It has a really good balance of humour and violence that makes Bond Bond.
And the BMW 750iL is the trademark Brosnan car in my opinion.
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[quote=“Gobi-1, post:27, topic:648, full:true”]
I like Teri Hatcher too. Best Lois Lone in my opinion.
[/quote]She was incredible as Lous Lane! Her comic timing was spot on and she nailed the ridiculousness of the script. I’ll never forget her reaction when she met HG Wells in a lift!
Sadly she went down the Melrose Place route in TND and the results were far from super! 
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I love the part in Hamburg where Gupta has just told 2 assistants to be careful with the satellite because it’s so expensive, and 2 minutes later, Bond pushes it over and breaks it!
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This was the first one I ever saw in theaters so it holds a special place for me.
I actually liked Jonathan Pryce quite a lot. He’s arrogant and theatrical in the tradition of the best megalomaniac Bond villains, rationalizing and justifying mass murder, elevating himself in the pantheon of history, and as such, he’s fun to hate. I liked that his ultimate motivation was foreshadowed in the earlier exchange with M, and I still didn’t make the connection. I still remember the “big reveal”: “And what do you get?” “Oh, nothing… Just exclusive broadcasting right in China for the next hundred years.” I gasped. It was, on the one hand, world domination of a different kind (influence over every person on Earth), and at the same time, it was a sense of “he’s willing to kill that many people just for THAT?!” Again, makes him all the more detestable. I wanted him to die and relished not only the way the scene itself played out (with the villain’s helpless death screams) but that it was a particularly grisly death, ground up like hamburger in his own contraption.
As much as it borrows from YOLT & TSWLM, the switch is that he not only has a plan to start a war, but to end it. I thought that was novel.
The big downside is that General Chang is a huge player in the plot, an equal co-villain in the scheme of things, but the character is reduced to a wordless walk-on and the devil’s bargain they made – thus the crux of the whole plot – no more than hurriedly explained.
I know I am in the minority for preferring the Sheryl Crow song to the k.d. lang one. Lang has the better vocal, and the trumpet riff is good. I’m torn on the lyrics, they’re specific to the script and yet, at the same time, feel a bit stiff and by-the-numbers. Now Crow’s song, the lyrics are generic to Bond but different enough from “the usual” (sorry, Don Black) to be interesting. The melody and unusual arrangement – the unusual instrumentation in the “hook” that starts the piece (possibly a combo of practical & electronic), the guitar lick that sounds like someone sneaking around a corner, the crescendo to the high note that kicks off the chorus (major 2nd against a minor triad) – were all just so much more inspiring to me than the rather rote and typical “Surrender”. Interestingly enough, “The World is Not Enough” was structured a LOT like “Surrender”, with one interesting innovation: starting a chorus with a crescendo to a high note that happened to be a major 2nd against a minor triad… just like Sheryl Crow’s “Tomorrow Never Dies”.
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I had to google General Chang. Even though this is one of my favourite Bond films, I couldn’t for the life of me remember who he was.
I don’t know how these things enter my mind, but I thought I’d share this comparison with you guys.
Bond in conversation with the villain while a gun wielding goon sneakily gets into position to take a shot.
MR: “As you said, such good sport.”
TND: “Sorry about that. I tuned out there for a moment Elliot.”
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Nice write-up. Thanks for sharing.
Carver is somewhat of a departure from the norm in terms of Bond villains (was there ever a married Bond villain before? Or one with such a public profile, as opposed to the rather reclusive, elusive figures). More human. I almost feel bad for him after his launch party fails.
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The story is very good I like how they based it in real life with the fake news that is going on around the world. I only liked the film until Germany. The problem with this film is it has too much action and it becomes boring. The motorcycle chase goes on for too long and the fight with Wai Lin was very unnecessary and the stealth ship action scenes were boring. The 1st half had enough action. This is what Casino Royale did better they focused on the action in the 1st half and then they focused on the dialogue in the 2nd half. This is what makes Tomorrow never dies a poor film but it had potential.
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Good point about him being the only main villain who was married.
Some of the lesser bad guys were married, eg. Fekesh in TSWLM, Dimitrios in Casino Royale and Sciarra in Spectre.
That’s interesting, because though I like CR I find it imbalanced in this respect. As for TND, I feel the stealth ship at the end is too violent and explosive, though I never get on with sea excursions anyway.
It’s most similar to the finale of TSWLM, although Bond had the benefit of a friendly army assisting him. Nonetheless, Moore is still seen firing a machine gun several times and mowing down enemies. In the absence of backup, I think Bond would be willing to go to war by himself, just as in Tomorrow Never Dies. The scenario doesn’t give him much else choice. I find it very fun.
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You’re right, it’s definitely a re-tread of the TSWLM climax. In fact, both films as a whole are quite similar in scope.