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The James Bond Series

sandman

By sandman,
in Film, TV & Radio

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gone fishin

gone fishin

Posted
Posted

Fifty years! From Comingsoon.net

Are you sure that's true? I thought part of the Spiderman deal with Sony (where MGM swapped the Spiderman rights for Sony's Casino Royale rights) also gave MGM/EON access to McClory's Bond stuff, hence why Never Say Never Again is released on DVD by MGM these days, like the original Casino Royale.

It's also why the second remake of Thunderball - Warhead 2000 - was never made (it would have been good to have had Dalton in that, mind you).

Blofeld was a strange one - while EON did kill him off unceremoniously in For Your Eyes Only, he was a Fleming character first. I think the part that McClory owned was how Blofeld "looked".

Anyway, if it is all cleared up then they should drop Craig for the next one, get Nolan and Bale in and do a trilogy around the Blofeld story arc in Thunderball, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice.

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Smoothy

Smoothy

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Are you sure that's true? I thought part of the Spiderman deal with Sony (where MGM swapped the Spiderman rights for Sony's Casino Royale rights) also gave MGM/EON access to McClory's Bond stuff, hence why Never Say Never Again is released on DVD by MGM these days, like the original Casino Royale.

Wasn't that just the distribution rights? Notice that while MGM sells Never Say Never Again, it's still sold standalone.

MGM/Danjaq may finally have the rights, but doesn't mean that they'll use the character, but it'll make any future legal decisions regarding these properties far far easier probably (maybe for the Bond films in question they have, up till now, pay Kevin McClory/Kevin's estate a certain percentage - now they won't have to). Hopefully they won't, anyway, his time has long passed.

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Goose

Goose

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Yes, this was for the rights to the final elements that they'd not already won/negotiated for - as in the use of Blofeld and Spectre, along with probably a few less headline grabbing things. But yes, the 50 year thing is correct.

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gone fishin

gone fishin

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Posted

The end of the Thunderball issue is a bit of a shame, the thought of Warhead 2000 with Timothy Dalton sounded good.

I can't remember if it was McClory or someone else, but does anyone else remember the awesome (but insane) 90s story/script where the name "James Bond" was literally just a name passed to the latest 007 agent?

And that the original 007 - "James Bond" (Sean Connery) had gone nuts and was trying to partake in a bit of Global Domination. The current "James Bond" (Timothy Dalton) had to then recruit the other retired Bonds (Moore and Lazenby) to defeat the crazy 007 (Connery). Something like that.

That would have been amazing.... maybe too much like the 67 Casino Royale.

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Glasgowchivas

Glasgowchivas

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This doesn't mean they'll actually have Blofeld, right? I want to know more about this Quantum organisation and its roster of ineffectual Euro villains from arthouse movies.

I'm guessing that Blofeld will be introduced as being the man behind Quantum and it depresses me that I'm actually excited for that to happen.

Who's a famous Euro Arthouse pussy-stroker?

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Monkeyboy

Monkeyboy

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On 26/08/2013 at 10:23, Silent Runner said:

The Spy Who Loved Me

I started watching the Bond films earlier this year when I realised that I hadn’t seen about 80% of them. I’ve been watching them in order but I haven’t watched one for a while, I found Golden Gun and Live And Let Die slightly hard work. So yesterday I got back on the horse with The Spy Who Loved Me, a Bond film that’s as the same age as I am.

The plot here borrows heavily from You Only Live Twice. A megalomaniac steals a couple of Nuclear submarines in this film opposed to spaceships in YOLT. He plans to destroy the surface of the Earth and live forever under the sea, Little Mermaid style. The UK and the USSR have to team up to stop him. Bond is partnered with Major Amasova, Russias top agent. She’s smoking hot, of course, but is also in mourning for her partner who was killed on a mission a few weeks earlier. Unknown to her, he was killed by Bond.

This was fantastic. Easily my favourite Roger Moore so far and probably somewhere in my top 5 overall. They tone down the jokiness and silliness of previous Moore efforts and let him act a bit, giving his Bond a bit of depth (submarine joke). The story is exciting but nothing new and despite a serious running time it never gets tiring.

The other cast and characters are wonderful. Barbara Bach as Major Amasova is a highlight. She’s Bonds equal in the field and is one step ahead of him for a lot of the film. Stromberg is a great (but slightly clichéd) baddie and has there ever been a better henchman than Jaws? A relentless, scary monster that can’t be killed – a proto Terminator.

The locations are beautiful. Great desert shots in Egypt, lush Italian country side and beeches. These locations are perfect to show off Q’s latest toy; the underwater car! The sequence when Bond and Amasova escape a helicopter by driving into the sea is rightly famous. And I really liked that the car had an important part in the plot by enabling them to explore Stromberg underwater lair. And what a lair it was. The volcano base will always be my favourite baddie hide-out but Strombergs Atlantis is glorious.

As if all that wasn’t enough there's also:

  • An amazing theme song
  • A brilliant pre-credit sequence that Alan Partridge loves so much
  • A seduction sequence on a train where Bond and Amasova get undressed while on opposite side of a door.
  • A ridiculous sequence when American, British and Soviet sailors fight side by side inside the tanker. I love that Stromberg kept this army of trained soldiers alive inside his base instead of killing them after they were captured.

I reckon this is the high-point for Roger Moores Bond but I am quite looking forward to watching the rest of his movies.

4/5

 

On 26/08/2013 at 22:56, Monkeyboy said:

Spy Who Loved Me is excellent. I love how the traditional Bond soundtrack is infused with a disco beat. It's one of my favourite scores for an action movie, knowing when to use silence -- sometimes several times within one action scene -- to create more impact. The underwater sequence with the Lotus, and the bit leading up to it, is a perfect example of this.

 

I'm on a bit of a youtube uploading splurge at the minute, putting up clips of Bond movies. The Lotus sub scene below. :wub:

 

 

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