James Bond In Skyfall - Part 8

[Dark Raven]

Jonathan Pryce was Bond-villain-lite. Wasn't Anthony Hopkins once rumoured for that role? He would've been much better. It's as if for TND they couldn't attract a big enough talent.

I didn't really like Michelle Yeoh either. She was the start of this recent "this is the strongest Bond girl yet" phase that each actress has been saying since then up until Naomie Harris said something different.

TND was a very generic Bond film, as if an amateur fed into a computer all the classic elements of the old Bond movies and only produced something half-assed because both he and the computer didn't fully understand what made them classic.

That said, Dominic Greene was a very lame villain and didn't seem like a credible threat to Daniel Craig at all. He seems more like a weasel who might beg for mercy and get sent packing with his tail between his legs than being the head of Quantum and big Bond villain.

 

[The Englishman]

Jonathan Pryce was Bond-villain-lite. Wasn't Anthony Hopkins once rumoured for that role? He would've been much better. It's as if for TND they couldn't attract a big enough talent.

I didn't really like Michelle Yeoh either. She was the start of this recent "this is the strongest Bond girl yet" phase that each actress has been saying since then up until Naomie Harris said something different.

TND was a very generic Bond film, as if an amateur fed into a computer all the classic elements of the old Bond movies and only produced something half-assed because both he and the computer didn't fully understand what made them classic.

That said, Dominic Greene was a very lame villain and didn't seem like a credible threat to Daniel Craig at all. He seems more like a weasel who might beg for mercy and get sent packing with his tail between his legs than being the head of Quantum and big Bond villain.

He did get sent packing with his tail between his legs and he wasn't the head of Quantum...

 

[chamber-music]

Jonathan Pryce played Carver like a panto villain but unlike Alan Rickman in Robin Hood he wasn't good at it.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

He did get sent packing with his tail between his legs and he wasn't the head of Quantum...

He may not have been the head of Quantum but he had a particularly undignified death befitting his uselessness.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

See that's the way I feel about Diamonds Are Forever. TMWTGG has enough in it to keep it entertaining, even if it is pretty stupid. The karate sequence, the famous car stunt, the two duels, Nick Nack (who I thought was pretty fun), some of the best banter in the series between M and Q, and most importantly a delightful performance from Christopher Lee. Lee is fantastic and every scene he is in drips with an enthusiasm that is never present in DAF. DAF just seems half-assed. Connery seems bored through the whole thing, Blofeld is boring, there were not one but two musicians cast in lead roles and it shows, even the car chase was poorly done with them just circling the block a few times and ends with a stunt that was obviously messed up but they never bothered to go back and correct. Even the final shootout is boring. Sure Scaramanga doesn't have a great death, but at least there is some real tension and excitement in his funhouse duel with Bond. In DAF, Bond doesn't even get a final confrontation with Blofeld which is disgraceful after their fantastic bobsled fight in the previous film. DAF is just lazy and boring. TMWTGG was bad, but at the very least there was more effort and it was ultimately more entertaining. At the very least Scaramanga is one of the great Bond villains, easily the best of the Roger Moore films, and probably one of my top two or three in the entire series.

I still like Stromberg more. Curd Jurgens was born to play a Bond villain, and I love how crazy he is without going over the top with it.

And I don't disagree about DAF, maybe I'm giving it more credit than it deserves (even if I do call it the second worst Bond movie) because it is Connery. And you forgot one of the worst aspects of DAF, this movie is the piece of s**t that followed OHMSS, which to me makes it the most disappointing movie in the series. I mean, Blofeld killed his wife, and outside the first 30 seconds of the movie (which is the best part of the movie), Bond acts like the worst tng Blofeld did to him was give him a parking ticket.

And you're talking about the famous car stunt that was ruined by that terrible sound effect? It killed the scene. It's the second worst sound gaffe in the series, behind using California Girls in the Ski scene for A View to A Kill.

TND isn't great and is kind of a bland action film, but there is nothing really actively bad in it. Wai Lin is a far better character than either of the girls in QoS, and Jonathan Pryce's Rupert Murdoch clone, while again not one of the best villains of the series is still decent and Pryce gets to chew some nice scenery. The villains of QoS (aside from Mr. White who is in like two scenes) are outright pathetic. I've long said that Whitaker and Koskov from TLD were the lamest villains in the franchise, but Greene and Medrano are even worse. They aren't threatening in the slightest and are the types of villains that Bond usually dispatches with ease in the 5 minute PTS.

The worst part though is the action. TND being inspired somewhat by Hong Kong action films has some great action scenes, among the best in the series. The standout being the motorcycle chase in Saigon. QoS has about the worst. It is a poorly edited, befuddled mess that tries to mimic the Bourne series but with none of the flare. Craig is good, but whenever he does anything you can barely see what is going on and those segments (such as the chase in the PTS) are virtually unwatchable.

TND isn't a great Bond film, but it is alright. QoS is near the bottom.

Elliot Carver was an awful villain, one of the worst. I could never take him seriously, and he was a joke. That part where he mocks Wai Lin's Kung fu is full of awfulness.

But other than that, TND is just an average Bond movie. Nothing else really sticks out as terrible, but nothing really makes it distinct. It felt like a by the numbers Bond movie. I feel like the media

Nah I don't agree, I do like Wai Lin but Elliot Carver can go **** off!

Elliot Carver sucked ass.

Yes, he did. He's terrible.

 

[Gold Samurai]

TND just turned James Bond into a gun toting action hero

Carver/Pryce was pure cheese.

The absolute LOW point was his mockery of Wai Lins martial arts. Carver dialogue was also laughable

"Mr Stamper, would you please KILL THOSE BASTARDS!"

And then Carver does the most predictable thing a bond villain can do. He starts to tell Bond his plan for getting out instead of shooting him.


I do have to give credit for Moby's James Bond theme used during TV spots

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Those TV spots were awesome

In 40 years this picture is going to be as classic as the Connery behind the scenes photos. It has that quality to it.

 

[THUNDERSTRIKE]

the only Roger Moore's I ever REALLY enjoyed were The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only...

with Tim Dalton, The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill were each good in their own ways...

Pierce Brosnan was only effective performance-wise as James in Goldeneye...

with Daniel Craig, Casino Royale was pretty powerful, but Quantum really was lacking...

 

[Golgo-13]

Love a woman with long fingers.

 

[Homer J. Fong]

I wonder if Pierce Brosnan's movies are crapped on this much all over. I like Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough a lot.

 

[vanson]

i think his first 3 movies are decent bond flicks..

 

[Roose Bolton]

The only one I hated was DAD.

 

[The Joker]

Elliot Carver sucked ass.

Yes, he did. There was potential for him to be a good villain but it was all handled badly. The fact he had a wife who had a romantic history with Bond could have made for an interesting rivalry but after she's murdered it's all just glossed over. He wears the SAME clothes through the whole thing. I can understand Blofeld doing that since he is basically a disfigured shut in who never goes in public. But Carver was a media man.

The best villain in TND was Dr. Kaufman and he's only in it for about 2 minutes.

Jonathan Pryce played Carver like a panto villain

"There's no news like bad news"

 

[Cobblepot]

I recently watched QoS again, and the pace and action is almost non-stop. 25 minutes into the movie and there's hardly any dialogue. Nowhere near as good as CR, but I think it still is a nice addition to the series.

That's what I loved about Qos (action and a decent running time), I liked it better then Casino Royale. Movies these days tend to get dragged out way to much. I'd love a shorter cut of Casino Royale (and TDK aswell).

 

[Rowsdower!]

Pryce was so ridiculous in that role. I was only about 15 or 16 when that movie came out (and had very low standards for movies at that point in my life) and I still thought he was god-awful. It was so hammy I almost expected him to throw on a top hat and tie the heroine to a set of train tracks somewhere in the movie. The movie was kinda bland overall for a Bond film but his performance/character took it to another level of bad.

 

[Homer J. Fong]

Jonathan Pryce is hammy, but too hammy for a Bond villain? Please. The Elliot Carver character is a case of a great idea that's not quite fulfilled - the media mogul megalomaniac as Bond villain is a great concept, and a perfect one for that time that still works now - but I still like the character and Pryce's performance.

 

[regwec]

The modern Bond villain should be an inept and overpaid investment banker.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Yes, he's too hammy for a Bond villain. Even with their ridiculous plans, Bond villains still have some restraint to the point in which you can take them seriously. The further the movie went on, the more ridiculous the character became, and by the end before his death he was pretty much a complete joke.

Indeed the media mogul megalomaniac as a Bond villain is a great concept, but the concept goes largely unexplored and underdeveloped. I think he could have done much more to use his media power even further.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Yes, he's too hammy for a Bond villain. Even with their ridiculous plans, Bond villains still have some restraint to the point in which you can take them seriously. The further the movie went on, the more ridiculous the character became, and by the end before his death he was pretty much a complete joke.

Indeed the media mogul megalomaniac as a Bond villain is a great concept, but the concept goes largely unexplored and underdeveloped. I think he could have done much more to use his media power even further.

Exactly. For example, if Carver had uttered the famous line, "No Mr. Bond... I expect you to die" it would have come out more like:

"No Mr. Bond... I expect you to DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!! YOU'RE GONNA DIE ALL KINDS A DEAD!!!"

 

[Homer J. Fong]

^Oh, come on, he's not that bad.

I think the only villains that don't work for me because they're too campy/hammy are Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever and Gustav Graves in Die Another Day. The other villains that don't work don't work because they're so boring: Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only, Whitaker and Koskov in The Living Daylights, Dominic Greene in Quantum of Solace.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Graves sucked but I actually think Carver was worse because Carver turned a mediocre movie into a bad one. Graves was just one of many cogs that made DAD awful.

Greene I actually liked because he came off like a genuine creep to me. I just wish they hadn't given him such a boring name.

 

[Gold Samurai]

Yes, he's too hammy for a Bond villain. Even with their ridiculous plans, Bond villains still have some restraint to the point in which you can take them seriously. The further the movie went on, the more ridiculous the character became, and by the end before his death he was pretty much a complete joke.

Indeed the media mogul megalomaniac as a Bond villain is a great concept, but the concept goes largely unexplored and underdeveloped. I think he could have done much more to use his media power even further.

Agreed. Carver could have turned James Bond into a high priority terrorist with Bond's face plastered all over the world.

Instead we get a small headline with

"British Secret service agent and Chinese agent found dead in south china sea"


Carver could have used satellites to find bond. Bugged his NOKIA phone.

Greene I actually liked because he came off like a genuine creep to me. I just wish they hadn't given him such a boring name.

It's the eyes. He could have been one of the greats.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Yeah, exactly. If that dude moved into my neighborhood, I'd expect to see him going around door-to-door telling everyone about his past sex offenses.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

^Oh, come on, he's not that bad.

I think the only villains that don't work for me because they're too campy/hammy are Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever and Gustav Graves in Die Another Day. The other villains that don't work don't work because they're so boring: Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only, Whitaker and Koskov in The Living Daylights, Dominic Greene in Quantum of Solace.

Blofeld, Graves and Green I'll give you.

Koskov and Whitaker were cocky, but not boring. Plus, that movie had Necros, who's awesome.

Kristatos was kind of boring, but I think it's more because he's not as overly ambitious as other Bond villains. That goes with the whole smaller scale of For Your eyes Only, which you can make the argument has the smallest scale of any Bond movie.

Agreed. Carver could have turned James Bond into a high priority terrorist with Bond's face plastered all over the world.

Instead we get a small headline with

"British Secret service agent and Chinese agent found dead in south china sea"


Carver could have used satellites to find bond. Bugged his NOKIA phone.

He also could have turn the rest of the world against MI-6 in general, and could have uncovered or faked things that MI-6 done. The media mogul villain was incredibly underused.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

The more I think about it, the worse I find Tomorrow Never Dies because of this thread, I must confess. The villain, the underwhelming plot, and the fact that Brosnan's Bond uses his machines guns more than his wits all hurt the movie. I do like Michelle Yeoh, and I'm pretty neutral on Teri Hatcher.

 

[chamber-music]

Mathieu Amalric is a creepy looking guy and although he wasn't physically threatening he did a have slightly slimey vibe as Dominic Greene.


I still prefer Dominic Greene to Elliot Carver.

Elliot Carver doing mock kung fu at Michelle Yeoh was just goofy
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