The Best of BOND; Let's get this over with - Page 238

Having not seen the show in 20 years, I always wondered about the logistics of James Bond, Jr. Bond is notoriously an orphan, so who is Jr.'s father?

I think a cartoon about a squad of Bond's illegitimate children would be a better idea. Of course it would be on Adult Swim.

Yeah, I always thought it was implied that James Bond jr was Bond's bastard. Didn't he fight Goldfinger's daughter, Goldie Finger?

Naw, I'm pretty sure there was a major plot arc about how Junior was the bastard son of James and Solitaire.

I think Arjen has a point. Theme song is obviously lying.

Watched License to Kill a few days ago, and then caught the last half hour of The Living Daylights on tv last night. I have to say, I prefer the latter. LtK feels very small by comparison, and I never buy the circumstances of the plot. Bond and Leiter never feel close (and Leiter's wife sure keeps kissing Bond a lot), and Bond's resigning from MI6 feels very forced compared to, say, Die Another Day or Quantum of Solace when it's really sold that he's gone rogue. The locales feel restricted, lacking an international feel, and the action is too straightforward and lacks any clever set pieces.

Compare that to TLD. The climax has Bond taking off in a jet, Kara driving into it, they barely take off in time to avoid another plane that collides with a pursuing jeep, Bond has a fight hanging out of the plane, barely deactivates a bomb, drops the bomb on a bridge to help Al-Qaeda win, and then runs out of gas and has to use the jeep fastened with a parachute to escape. Each obstacle naturally escalates from the last, builds based on character, and the whole time Dalton's Bond has this great expression of exasperation like he can't believe he's pulling this shit off. This is then followed up by a clever shootout in Joe Don Baker's equivalent of the Joker's giant prop factory. If only he and Bond had fought on a giant typewriter...

Ebert made a good point, however, in his review of License to Kill: this is a Bond that looks like he'd rather be killing than making love. Dalton never convinces with the romance, especially when he palms the entirety of Kara's head while kissing at the end of The Living Daylights. 

While I'm not a fan of LTK, the making of on the DVD is really good. The road where the climax was shoot is supposed to be haunted.

While grocery shopping I heard some Eurythmics and I realized that Annie Lennox would be prefect for a Bond theme.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chaz 

While grocery shopping I heard some Eurythmics and I realized that Annie Lennox would be prefect for a Bond theme.

She'd be a good choice; it actually seems like she should have done one by now. Can we go back in time and have her do License to Kill?

I've been hoping for Florence Welch to do one soon. She's got the perfect Bond theme voice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Stockslivevan 

I still wish Eric Clapton did the song for LTK as originally planned.

That probably would have been better than what we got.

It also pretty much entirely misses the point of the emotional concept Fleming came up with when he coined the phrase. I chuckled when Craig got himself into all sorts of problems trying to explain how respectful of the original story they were being. To paraphrase..."Well, Bond, he's on a journey to get revenge. A sort of closure. Almost like he is looking for that last bit of comfort, that Quantum of Solace."

No, Dan. That's not what Ian meant. You don't have to slavishly follow him, but you'd be best advised sterring clear of conceptual contortions in a vain attempt to justify some kind of unnecessary lineage.

If Quantum wasn't an excellent name for the secret cabal (they're not terrorists), I might have a problem with it. I don't think the title of the film is a reference to the organization, rather the title is using the word as a noun, but not a proper noun.

I think it was a retrospectively overreached attempt to retrofit a very oblique title for a peculiar drawing room tragedy of manners disguised as a spy story on to an unsuccessful attempt to reboot the concept of a Big Bad for Bond. 

And if it wasn't a reference to the organisation - which, by the way, it totally was at least as a double-entendre - it failed completely since Bond's successful revenge would bring a measure of comfort far in excess of a quantum. 

It seems at least 75% of the titles are interchangeable. It's one of the things that makes them cool. My favorite is probably The Living Daylights, because of the scene where Bond has to use the phrase. 

Doesn't Brosnan also say the title of his Bond film somewhere in the film itself? For some reason I have an image of him saying "die another day" or "the world is not enough". I maybe just wished it.

Tacked on or no, I kind of wish Daniel Craig got to say "quantum of solace!" somewhere.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Stockslivevan 

Or like this:

Camille: "How much solace can vengeance bring?"
Bond: "Only a quantum."
*shags*

A few minutes later...

Bond lies in bed, drinking a post-coital Heineken. Camille, lying across his chest looks up at him.

"James?"

"Hm?"

"When you said "quantum", did you mean a discrete amount proportional to the intensity of solace you felt, or were you referring to an absolute, abstract quantity of any size? And if the latter, was that large or small relative to, let's say, a statistical mean of solace that might be felt all other things being equal?"

*Door slams*

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Stockslivevan 


FIFY.

Haha.