Die Another Day

[Gizzard]

QUOTING SPOILERS
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Hand of Evil says:

You also see Bond getting captured and interogated, not your normal beginning for a Bond movie.

Chain Lightning says:

Bond has never been captured before

Huh? He's frequently captured! It's such a cliche, hence the phrase "Before I kill you Mr. Bond..." Doesnt this dialogue snippet sound familiar?:

Bond: "Do you expect me to talk?"
Villian: "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die! (Hahaha)"

As far as stretching the boundaries goes, wasnt Bond even "killed" at the beginning of one of the older movies? Perhaps thats the problem with the franchise; by the time you do 20 movies everything has been done before, and probably done better.

-edit-

Actually, one interesting thing is to look back at the old Bond movies; they're a little slice of history preserved. I caught a screening of "Dr. No" (I believe that was the one) a while back at a revival theater. Do you notice how much time Bond spends drinking and smoking in that movie? He avoids an assassins plan to poison the Scotch in his hotel room (!) because he carries his own bottle of Scotch around in his luggage. Lol. On the other hand, my Asian friends didnt find the portray of Asians very funny. Not lol at all. Welcome to the early 60's; a place where about half of the Civil Rights movement is still in the future.

 

[Chain Lightning]

Gizzard wrote:

Huh? He's frequently captured! It's such a cliche, hence the phrase "Before I kill you Mr. Bond..." Doesnt this dialogue snippet sound familiar?:

Y'know, I didn't phrase that correctly. Typing too fast. What I meant was, Bond has never been successfully captured. Sure, captured...but always escaped or rescued. This time he was captured. For the longest time too. Would've been longer if they didn't do a prisoner trade (which doesn't count as a rescue).


Hand of Evil wrote:

The tech to make an invisible car is not that far away, they have been working on it for a little while, mostly with body armor. Sure it may not work just like the car but...

Actually I've been following some of that future soldier stuff too in Popular Mechanics (and other mags). True, the chameleon camoflauge technology is not that far of. But invisibility/cloaking is still far far far away. (The ability the Bond car had)

Being able to change surface color and pattern is different from invisibility. Even though you match colors and patterns with your local enviroment, light still falls on you normally. With invisibility, light seems to ignore you entirely. With chameleon camo you still cast shadows and the surface texture still absorbs light. Bond's car didnt' change colors. It turned near invisible. It simulated light passing through it from ALL angles!

Anyways, its not THAT big of a deal for me. I think I would've let it slide if the VR Glasses would've been taken out and the directing stronger. If the invisibility car was the only 'off-Bond' thing about the movie I would still like it.

Heck, I didn't even mind him surfing. I didn't mind him disguising himself as a clown, I didnt' mind him wearing a kilt and I didnt' mind that it took him a week to become a ninja . . So I guess the invisibility car is no biggie. I just personally wouldn't have gone so far out of the established parameters (of the Bond universe).

By the way Gizzard, noticed how with Roger Moore's Bond he stopped drinking and smoking so much? Make fun of Dalton all you want, but he brought the drinking and smoking back. With Pierce, I think he only drinks.

Oh, before I close this post.......can I mention again how charming and subtlely hot Rosamund Pike is? Hmmm.....indeed.

 

[Bagpuss]

Actually I've been following some of that future soldier stuff too in Popular Mechanics (and other mags). True, the chameleon camoflauge technology is not that far of. But invisibility/cloaking is still far far far away. (The ability the Bond car had)

Being able to change surface color and pattern is different from invisibility. Even though you match colors and patterns with your local enviroment, light still falls on you normally. With invisibility, light seems to ignore you entirely. With chameleon camo you still cast shadows and the surface texture still absorbs light. Bond's car didnt' change colors. It turned near invisible. It simulated light passing through it from ALL angles!

Which is impossible, since if the micro-video screen was showing me a picture of what I see from one point then it would be showing the wrong thing to someone standing two foot to my left.

That's ignoring the fact dirt would cover the "micro-video screens" after he drove it along that dirt road, or the fact it must have snowed to cover the tracks it left the first time he used its ability. Wouldn't a layer of snow floating in mid-air give the game away.

Yeah the invisible car sucked.

By the way Gizzard, noticed how with Roger Moore's Bond he stopped drinking and smoking so much? Make fun of Dalton all you want, but he brought the drinking and smoking back. With Pierce, I think he only drinks.

Actually if I remember correctly he is smoking a big fat havanna ciger when Halle comes out of the sea. I remember thinking blowing smoke in the girls face can't be that seductive.

 

[Krug]

I liked it for the action, but the final part had too much CGI. The iceberg surfing scene looked ridiculous. Bond films have always been about great stunts; they had actual people doing some of them, and the latter half of the movie becomes a CGI feast. I didn't mind the buddy thing; Halle Berry still required Bond to rescue her. I don't think Jinx deserves a movie on her own though. Furthermore, it'll dilute the Bond movies.

I think it should rake in US$150 million and much more globally. Action's an easy genre to sell. Furthermore, it raises the profile of older bond movies and that means additional revenue for MGM, which has had a really bad time at the box office the past two years.

 

[Villano]

I have a question: Is this movie worth my $9? I like the Bond films in general, but the last one stunk, IMO. Should I just wait for this one to come to cable or see it now?

I have mixed feelings about seeing this film. I absolutely hated the last one, too. OTOH, the first two were excellent.

I was hoping that this one would make up for The World Is Not Enough, but then I discovered that the same writers worked on Die Another Day.

I still may go see it next week (optimist that I am).

Example: In the Bond universe, his gadgets are fantastical. However, they always maintained a level of possible realism. You looked at them and thought, "yeah I could see that being made in about 5-10 years" or "yeah, I could see someone building one of those if they had enough money and motivation to do it." But Bond gadgets were never....never....never so far Sci-Fi into the future like they have been in this movie.

I haven't seen Moonraker in years, but that was the "Bond in space, fighting with lasers" movie. I think that one takes the cake in terms of sci-fi gadgets.

Actually, I think it started heading down the "stupid equipment" road again with the X-ray specs in the last film.

That brings me to a disturbing observation about the new writers: They're fans of the Roger Moore years.

Just looking at the last film, we had more outrageous gadgets, comedy (John Cleese), the infra-red viewing of Bond in bed with the woman at the end (I think every Moore film ended with a variation of that), and an unbelievably bad actress in a horribly miscast role (Denise Richards as a nuclear phycisist). Now I hear Bond surfs in this one (please tell me that the music doesn't change to California Girls by the Beach Boys in the middle of the scene).

What's worse is the apparent trend in breaking away from what makes Bond, well, Bond. The last film had a "love story" wrapped up in it (which wasn't remotely believable to me), brought back a supporting character (the Russian from Golden Eye), had a more graphic love scene, and bland villains.

I sense the dreaded "reinventing for a new generation".

Beyond that, all the injokes I hear that are supposedly in Die Another Day makes me think that they've fallen into the trap of hiring fanboys to write for them. That can be a good thing if they understand the property and want to put a new spin on it (Jason X), but disasterous if they don't have a clue as to what makes it work (The Simpsons).

And, from what I saw in The World Is Not Enough, they don't.

Still...I dreaded seeing Attack Of The Clones, and that was better than I though (like it could have been worse! ).

Argh! I'm still on the fence. I may just go with my fingers crossed.

 

[Black Omega]

I generally liked the movie. Yes, spoilers!
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The opening broke formula in a good way. I didn't expect Bond to get caught that early. The novelty of the opening credits for me was not the fire and ice theme for the women but how they worked in images of Bond getting worked over into it.

Halle Berry's Jinx was competant, but not nearly as much so as Michelle Yoeh's character two movies previously. Jinx wasn't so much skilled as rather lucky and still had to be saved more than once. While Michelle Yoeh's spy seemed a match for Bond in some areas.

And I'll join in by agreeing Rosamund Pike was the real find in this movie.

 

[WayneLigon]

I haven't seen a Bond movie since before Timothy Dalton, and I did enjoy this one a great deal.

High Points: the sword fight between Graves and Bond, the giant space weapon, the fight on the airplane, the verbal sparring in Cuba.

What I Would Have Changed:
1. There is no real explanation of why Graves cannot sleep anymore. The dream machine is a cool idea, since if you don't dream you go nuts, but it also strikes me that it would make a far more effective torture/interrogation device. Under-used.

2. The plot point with the scorpions early on. Later in the movie, Graves should have tried to use a scorpion to kill Bond in some way; Bond is of course now immune because of his horrible experience in Korea, and survives.

3. I really thought they'd use this: it just shows how old I am When they mentioned that they had a space device, and that there were diamonds coming from no-where, I thought that either Graves had managed to take control of the diamond sattilite from Diamonds Are Forever or managed to retrieve it and recover all those diamonds. That, I think, would have been a pretty cool idea.

 

[Crothian]

I enjoyed the movie. Nice action and fight scenes. However, the dialogue was dry joke after dry joke and way too much innuendo.

 

[Krug]

I haven't seen a Bond movie since before Timothy Dalton, and I did enjoy this one a great deal.

High Points: the sword fight between Graves and Bond, the giant space weapon, the fight on the airplane, the verbal sparring in Cuba.

The verbal sparring? The one between him and Jinx? I thought that was terrible... Every low class sexual innuendo and the two leads trying to ham it up to not much success.

 

[Chain Lightning]

Crothian wrote:

I enjoyed the movie. Nice action and fight scenes. However, the dialogue was dry joke after dry joke and way too much innuendo.

Krug wrote:

The verbal sparring? The one between him and Jinx? I thought that was terrible... Every low class sexual innuendo and the two leads trying to ham it up to not much success.

My personal perception agrees and disagrees. I actually hate hammy lame innuendoes and silly one liners. BUT.....in Bond I totally am comfortable with it. If these lines had been served up in any other film, I would've groaned. But its Bond....and that has always been part of the recipe. Always. Before Schwarzenegger, before Stallone. The difference however is....when Bond says them, he's not taking his world or the lines...seriously. That's Bond.

But, that recipe isn't for everyone. Some like Italian food, some don't.

Villano wrote:

I haven't seen Moonraker in years, but that was the "Bond in space, fighting with lasers" movie. I think that one takes the cake in terms of sci-fi gadgets.

It does seem so in our memories doesn't it? But actually, I watched a few months back and I feel its still closer to realism than "Die Another Day" In "Moonraker", everything in there I can still see us having given enough motivation, need, and money. The only fantastical thing was the laser guns. But there weren't Star Wars blasters, they were just lasers. The spaceships (space shuttles) and space station were still realistic. As were the manuevering packs each had. But yah...still a silly Bond movie. It goes 2nd behind "Die Another Day" 's technology as most 'outside' the established parameters of the Bond universe.