Starting with:
J.W Pepper in TMWTGG.
I’ve always felt like GG was written for me. It ticks all my boxes, and although I would have preferred Clifton James be left out of the Bangkok chase, after a few drinkies I’m willing to forgive anything. I’d rather enjoy a Bond film than denigrate it.
Who else has ‘forgivable’ moments in otherwise thoroughly enjoyable entries?
For me, it’s the silly Mrs Thatcher ending with the parrot in FYEO.
After a mostly serious entry, they went very silly at the end! But I always enjoy it!
Good idea for a thread.
I found the montgolfiere ‘assault’ in OCTOPUSSY an annoying element in an otherwise largely enjoyable romp. With the mellowness of age I can view it as a Monty Python-esque homage to Münchhausen - like the larger spirit of the series - and take it in stride.
I am with AMC_Hornet about J.W. Pepper, but have yet to reach the forgiveness plateau he has (I rarely drink so that may be my problem). The last time I watched TMWTGG, Pepper’s entrance so completely threw me out of the movie that I turned it off which is something I rarely do.
Pierce’s terrible suits that scream 90s and embarrassingly date his films, that said, I’m not sure any of the Bond actors look better than Brosnan does in the tux in Goldeneye. Of course, I don’t know if any look worse than Brosnan does in the three-piece tux in Tomorrow Never Dies. I will say his fashion doesn’t ruin the immersion for me as much as Dalton’s LTK drug lord haircut or Moore’s Suuuuuper high waisted pants.
Spontaneously, I would say: the telephone call between Bond and Felix at the end of LTK. After a whole film of Bond avenging the terrible murder of Della and the shark attack on Felix, his friend really is a half glass full-guy, seemingly in high spirits again.
Yes, I know, the film is supposed to wrap up on a happy ending. And maybe Felix is just still high on opiates. But I really would have preferred Bond visiting Felix, giving it a more sombre, honest ending.
Oh, and then Pam gets to be 12 years old again, sobbing for mistaking Bond choosing another girl, soap opera-like, after all the “I’m a tough CIA operative”-shtick. And instead of just going to her, Bond jumps into the pool. And then the fish winks as if the whole film was just not meant to be taken so seriously.
Well… I might as well enjoy that this ending suggests that Bond will go back to his typical “hey, just family entertainment”-ways.
The Bombastic (early) explosive climax to DAF is all wrong , should have been something crazy like an Erol Flynn/ Basil Rathbone swordfight in the control room between Connery and Gray, but hey I nearly always skip that bit and go straight to the boat.
I occasionally fast forward to the flying car bit.
Blofeld in drag
That would have given panache to the whole sequence.
That one I’d agree with wholeheartedly. It’s such a radical shift! Like they’d missed the two hours before.
“What do you mean someone was burnt alive JUST before this scene?”
„Felix, I just used your lovely gift to give Sanchez a complete burnout.“
„Oh, James, I feel so much lighter now…“
Then laughter and a freeze frame ending. FIN
“I’ll always carry a torch for you and Della.”
A genuine Felix lighter
I’ve also been thinking about AVTAK in the context of this thread.
I’d probably have to go with the infamous “Kananga balloon” scene in LALD, a gag too far in a film where I’d already happily accepted leaping boats, strolls over the backs of crocodiles and dear old JW himself. Still working on “enjoying” that scene, but I’ve come to accept it as the price to pay for a film I love.
I choose to observe it as a socio-political comment on the dangers of runaway inflation in the early 70s.
As an aside, I always figured those of us who “came in late” to Bond were at an advantage, in that whatever arguably ill-advised or regrettable moments the series had seen prior to our arrival were already set in stone and thus “acceptable.” When I hopped on board, we were already up to MWTGG, so anything in those films was “canon” to me and a “done deal.” But once I got into my head my personal idea of what James Bond “should be,” I’d never judge another entry so uncritically again. I always felt sorry – and still do – for those “there from the start” curmudgeons who refused to accept any Bond after Connery. What a lot of fun they missed.
That’s precisely what I resist doing. Since I am not on the production team and have absolutely no influence over what BB and MGW are going to approve, I just accept what comes, without complaining that it doesn’t meet my expectations. And I wouldn’t want to be first to see the script in development and be the one responsible for making the decisions that half of fandom will hate me for.
So I’m happy to adopt all the orphan Bonds that others reject: TB, TMWTGG, OP, DAD (although I draw the line at the aforementioned ginger-rinsed step child featuring Tanya Roberts).
I was totally, entirely, completely in the throes of uncritical Bond-mania when I discovered Bond at ten - so much so that even outlandish entries like YOLT and TSWLM in my juvenile mind tallied perfectly with Fleming’s books.
Mind you, I did notice that Moonraker, my first Fleming, seemed to exist in a parallel world to THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, my first film. I just didn’t mind the gap between the page and the screen. Two years later, 1979, I even imagined what a Moore Bond film following Fleming closely would look like - or how Fleming might have written the film tie-in.
Which just goes to show how much of a mark Bond can put on a young and impressionable mind…
I think the danger of caring a lot about any franchise is developing a sense of entitlement or ownership, and I try to resist it.
I will say Craig was a breath of fresh air because he and his films were and are so completely removed from any concept I had of Bond. After years of watching the series tiptoe around the edges of creativity only to keep crawling back to limp retreads of the same formula, it was invigorating when EON threw the whole thing out the window and started from scratch. I still think CR is the bravest entry in the series, and it helps that any comparisons to Craig’s predecessors are irrelevant. To me, it’s a different character.