James Bond

All done for real and in one take. Just sayin...

BTW, Richard Hammond did a really good documentary about the cars used in the Bond films and talked to the guys behind that mad jump.

Details here:

http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/11/29/top-gear-and-50-years-of-bond-cars/

That clip still kind of illustrates my point. It's a great stunt, but it does not need the added cartoonish sound effects.

Anyway, I just finished Licence To Kill. And I liked it. Much more than I thought I would in fact. Definitely an improvement over Daylights, which I found entertaining but fairly average. It's not my new absolute favorite or anything, but it's up there. I kind of wish Timothy Dalton had gotten at least one more movie. Not sure if I'd take him over Pierce Brosnan in Goldeneye, but maybe if they'd had just one more with him somewhere in the early 90's. It's just too bad that people apparently weren't ready for that kind of darker take on James Bond until about 15-20 years later.

edited 17th Feb '13 8:47:13 PM by CombatC122

Yeah, those sound effects nearly killed that stunt, now I look at it in isolation. Still cool as fuck that they managed to do the stunt in one of the least aerodynamically efficient motorcars ever built though.

I don't think they would do that shot for real now. Really expensive to get insurance and all that...

Knowing they did that stunt for real, and the first time to boot... yeah, that's damned impressive enough that the added sound effect merely detracts from it instead of threatening to kill it.

With the sound off, the stunt was amazing.

The public apparently loved Sherrif J Dubya Peppa' by the way - he appeared in the trailer. So blame the idiot public for the annoying bastard turning up in a second film!

Of course they loved him, he was American.

He turned up in The Man With The Golden Gun because Albert "Cubby" Broccoli loved him so much.

But in the trailer because the public liked him enough. Author Appeal doesn't justify a trailer-appearance on its own.

Keep in mind that there was more wrong with The Man With The Golden Gun that just Pepper. Plus, the movie was made in 1974; uncultured redneck characters were more popular then than now.

Hey, I'm American and I don't like that guy. Then again, I can't really speak for audiences in the 70's.

Anyway, I think I'm starting to realize that even though I enjoyed Golden Gun, it would be almost unwatchable for me without Christopher Lee propping it up pretty much singlehandedly.

edited 18th Feb '13 4:10:26 PM by CombatC122

I have a special spot for TMWTGG because it was one of the first Bond movies I saw.

I just watched Quantum of Solace for the first time since I saw it in theaters. I remember I wasn't terribly impressed with it, which is part of the reason why it took me this long to track it down again. But really, compared to the rest of the series as a whole, it's not that bad, just maybe a little disappointing in its averageness compared to Casino Royale and now Skyfall.

Also, random thought, does it sort of bug anyone else that none of the Daniel Craig movies have begun with the gun barrel sequence yet? I mean, not that it detracts from my enjoyment of them from having it at the end, and Casino Royale gets a pass in my book for being an origin story and working it into the actual plot, but still, they had been using it at the beginning of 20 movies for the first 40 years of the franchise's existence. I had kind of come to expect it before Craig came along. Minor nitpick I know, but something I hope they'll start doing again in the future.

That would clash with the tone of the Craig era. Iconic though it may be, the gun barrel and elaborate title sequences come across as, obsolete would be one way to put it, in a post-Bourne world.

Is that why everyone got pissed off when they did an elaborate title sequence for Skyfall? I thought it was pretty cool.

That's probably why.

Besides, the new tradition is to have the gun barrel at the end of the film. Get used to it.

I loved Sheriff J Dubya Pepper. Just sayin'.

Aw, but I liked Skyfall's opening title sequence. Sure, the movie would have been just as good without it, but it was still memorable. The icing on the cake, as it were. Anyway, I don't mean to imply that messing with things like this takes away from the Craig era in any way (far from it given how much I enjoyed Skyfall, and Casino Royale for that matter), but they're just iconic parts of the series I've learned to accept I guess.

That's why it's more important to stick to tradition. Not every post-911 spy movie needs to be stylistically a Bourne clone. Iconic is important, Craig-era be damned.

I have watched a lot of the three Bourne films. I have not watched anything of the Craig-era Bond films other than the trailers and what footage the various review sites showed.

I preferred Bourne. Even though the films were a pale imitation of the original Robert Ludlum books, but that is an argument for another time.

Sam Mendes talks about the gun barrel sequence.

Given how Skyfall ended, I did sort of read into the gun barrel's placement at the end of the film as being like their way of saying "Okay, you just witnessed the set-up of MI 6 as you remember it from the classic movies". It was almost like a second origin story in a way, taking the modern reinvention established in Casino Royale and QOS and getting back to the classic style with it. That's one reason why I almost expect the gun barrel back at the beginning by the next movie.

...But the start of Casino Royale did have the gun barrel sequence (leading into the opening credits), and in a really well-done way too.

Yes, it's not quite the same thing that starts every other movie, but it's just so awesome that it's hard to care too much.

@Crimson Zephyr: Tradition is one thing, but keeping the tone of the movie is another. Daniel Craig's Bond is NOT the kind that of hero that would feel appropriate with a flashy show of how awesome he is. In fact "Flashy" is one thing this Bond does without, so therefore the flashy pre-title intro of the old-school Bond would be inappropriate.