"Every anarchist I've ever met loves nothing more than the consolidation of corporate power in the hands of a single entity." - Priceless Matt Wiggins quote for the ages.
They don't mention it, but the last scene with Q you can tell Bond really cares about having him around. His line: "You're not retiring anytime soon... Are you?" Brosnan's inflection on that line is so well done. You can tell there's a slight worry in his tone. It's a nice piece of subtext showing that he really does like Q.
I do like how this movie is in parts a reverse Bond Movie. -Bond gets seduced so he is distracted and doesn't do his job. -Bond doesn't kill the incredibly dangerous henchman when he has the chance and instead wastes his time attempting to extract information whilst he loses control of the situation. I'm sure there are other reversals. It is a shame it doesn't land as a cohesive whole.
You didn't bring up that early in the film, when Elektra is giving the "So many people want me dead" presentation, Elektra asks Bond if he's lost anybody close to him, and he says "No" in a "You are pushing my buttons and the answer is yes but in order to stay emotionally distant I can't say that so I'm going to say no instead" manner - and after I watched the film a couple times, I got the impression that Elektra was asking a question she already knew the answer to - she just wanted to know how Bond was going to answer it - and that combined with Renard knowing about Bond's *very* recent injury makes for great foreshadowing. Also, I absolutely love the "The Insurance Company is never going to believe this" line - particularly as someone from Oregon where, 50 years ago this year, ODOT tried to dispose of a dead whale that washed on shore with dynamite, causing someone's Oldsmobile to get crushed by a giant piece of flying blubber. (No one was inside at the time). EDIT #2: One other thing - the song is explicitly a villain song! They drop the big villains' big wham line "There's no point in living if you can't feel alive" in the lyrics!
About the flames coming out of the ground in the place where Davidov is having his meeting: "Azerbaijan" means "land of eternal fire" (it's also a reference to a regional administrator of the Persian empire, but that's not relevant to the point) because it has pockets of natural gas near the surface, and those pockets of gas regularly spill out and sometimes ignite. Fire has been coming out of the ground in Azerbaijan for literal millennia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanar_Dag
To be fair, the tree trimming helicopter things are something that people use, according to a quick google search...they have several smaller circular saws in a straight line instead of 5 huge blades in a chevron pattern, and they hang down from a pole or cable instead of hooked directly to the helicopter's chassis (which is honestly a great way to crash a perfectly good aircraft, IMO), but they do exist.
On the flip side, the suspended saw array just being attached via a very long cable dangling off the bottom of a helicopter makes the entire thing WAY MORE TERRIFYING, because the reason they're doing that in the first place is for the purpose of utility line clearance in remote locations with no roads... meaning they're piloting a helicopter with this enormous stick of saw blades dangling from the bottom directly next to LIVE POWER LINES. They can't possibly pay those pilots enough for that.
@@matthewyoho5422 Oh, you haven't seen the people who service high-voltage power lines from helicopters, have you? THOSE guys (both the pilots of the helicopters and the technicians who nearly crawl out onto the wires) have serious stones.
47:40 by the way, you were incorrect: giant saw blades hanging from a helicopter to trim trees around pipelines and power lines are a real thing. They don't have this triangle formation, they just hang straight down, but it's totally legit.
Apparently it was invented in 1985 by Aerial Solutions, Inc. and everyone (understandably) thought they were crazy! But it works, and it's supposed to be very useful in difficult-to-reach areas.
The circular saws are real, but usually they're in a straight vertical line. They use them in the alps a lot to cut the trees around powerlines and cable cars/skyways
The one thing this movie has that a lot of Bond movies don’t execute well are villains motivations. The reason Electra wants revenge on her father & M is understandable and Renard wanting to give her everything she wants before he dies knowing that he wont live a full live is also relatable. Certainly 1000x more logical compared to the reasoning behind Elliot Carvers reasoning to his scheme in tomorrow never dies
@@ricardocantoral7672 no way in hell he wouldn’t have gotten caught if his long term plan to keep rating was to keep creating the news himself. Obviously everyone with half a brain would have figured out he was behind everything considering how quickly he would have knowledge on the events he reports, which made his plan in my opinion absolutely stupid. They said as much during the review that it would be very obvious the he was behind these incidents somehow considering how quickly he would have coverage and reports on them before intelligence agencies knew anything about them
@@vegas_party_animal7737 Forgive me, however I feel I must counter your argument, for I feel that there are real life examples which show this to be the case, most evidently with William Randolph Hearst, who was so blatant with his yellow journalistic tricks that he caused war between the United States and Spain by fanning the flames of the conflict. Newspapers today manage to sway public opinion by carrying hugely biased pieces which have little to no facts behind them that they should really be considered fiction, yet a mass amount of people still seem to believe them. In some ways, I do agree that it would have been greatly suspicious for a mogul like Carver to have had access to such stories (before drones etc) before military intelligence does, however I'd counter that they point that out in the film, which leads to him being investigated by Bond. In ways, I feel it works for Carver's character as he is an egocentric, arrogant person who believes himself invulnerable behind his massive media network. Such people cannot see the wood through the trees and, as you say, sooner or later they do get caught. The telephone hacking scandal is a good example of journalist arrogance being caught out. In some ways, I feel Carver is reflective of today's social media giants, much like Weyland Yutani et al predicted companies like Amazon, which have yet to show their full potential in controlling governments.
@@vegas_party_animal7737 In real life, media barons are already making up news for ratings or for the sake of benefiting governments. Carver was not exaggerating when he said he only took things one step further. True, Carver should kept himself a considerable distance from that stealth boat but given this is Bond, I will accept a hands on villain. Besides, Elektra is not different given how this act of "terrorism" plan conveniently benefits her.
So since this show started, we've seen the passing of Sean Connery, Diana Rigg, Geoffrey Palmer and several others I'm forgetting right now... and now we're losing Arecibo? I would blame this podcast, but truly it is 2020's fault.
Podca...? No, this is LRR's violent manifesto, declaring to the world whom must pay for their crimes. Wait, do you guys think this is just a James Bond Rewatch Podcast?!?!
Twenty five years ago I suffered the same kind of shoulder separation that Bond is supposed to have here; I can attest that there is no way he could have even faked a return to active duty, much less dangle from chains and cables and go leaping through doorways head first. It's an agonizing injury and your range of movement only improves by fractions of an inch per day over many weeks. I do enjoy this film though quite a bit!
As a huge Garbage fan when this movie came out I have to say that unfortunately The World is Not Enough is probably the worst song they've ever released and Shirley's vocals are overpowered by the music. It wasn't actually written by Garbage but simply handed to them - Honestly it doesn't fit Garbage either.... Madonna got to write Die Another Day herself because she had the clout but it may have been better for everyone if they'd asked her to do The World is Not Enough BEFORE she went off the deep end and given Garbage Die Another Day to write and perform as that title would have fit their oeuvre far better {Heck they had an album track in 2001 called Til the Day I Die for goodness sake!}. It's still the best Bond theme of the Brosnan era but considering the other three themes from that era that isn't saying much. Goldeneye was a belter alright but it has no soul. Tomorrow Never Dies is lyrically weak and Sheryl Crow doesn't have the voice for it. and Die Another Day is just terrible.
This is the first one I saw in theaters. I was a kid at the time, but Elektra King (no relation :P) continues to be my favorite Bond villain. Christmas Jones was also memorable, but mostly because that was the point in my life when I wanted to be a nuclear physicist when I grew up. Didn't realize until I was an adult how weird that casting decision was.
Denise Richards said in her autobiography that her casting was a studio decision the film makers disagreed and this boiled over into filming as she was made to feel unwanted. She said the director didn't form much of a comradery on set which didn't help and she got depressed when reading the bad reviews as she had just followed the script. I get where she's coming from as a more appropriate casting choice would have struggled given the writing.
As I recall, the pitch from Purvis and Wade to Barbara Broccoli was "Bond thinks he's met a new Tracy, but she turns out to be Blofeld." The deliberate callbacks to OHMSS and FRWL are what make this one of my favorites. It's pure fan service, and I love it.
Eh... it kind of loses something in translation, I think. :-S And it seems they're trying with the Tracy stuff AGAIN with Madeline Swann, which I wish they wouldn't have; you can only get it so right once.
@@blofeld39 OHMSS's first act is pretty lackluster. If they want to introduce James Bond's wife or great love, they need more than one film to do so. I think Naomi Harris's Monneypenny fits it neatly -- even though, it certainly isn't what they were going for.
@@nitehunter91 The first act is meant to be paced that way -- it sets the scenes, introduces the characters; lets you know this isn't going to be your typical Bond film. If you did it with the same rapid pace as another Bond film, it wouldn't work as well -- and the climax and ending wouldn't hit nearly half as hard. (Plus, I like spending as much time with Diana Rigg as Tracy as the film allows the viewer to -- and getting a better read/bead on Lazenby's "new" Bond. :-) )
@@blofeld39 The excessive jumpcuts rob the action scenes of their momentum while, scriptwise and directionwise, the mysterious aura they place over Tracy makes it difficult to empathize with her and Bond at the same time. So, I had to pick either one or the other when the themes and the final message demanded we picked both. I'm not complaining about formula. I'm complaining about poor planning and stilted execution. The climax and the ending should've hit much harder than they did. Diana Rigg was underutilized like Honor Blackman before her. Telly Savalla was miscast and George Lazenby certainly DID NOT win me over the first act. His pronunciation is bad and his face lacked expression.
I think the point of the casino scene was to subtly (for a given value of subtle) communicate that Electra wasn't on the up-and-up, she's doing the thing Bond usually does in casinos of making a big show of herself and taking big risks to put people off guard, but while in Bond's case the people being put off guard would be the villain or their henchmen in this case it's Bond and Valentin, who we know are good guys. Her losing the big bet also makes it sort of a mirror of Bond's usual move where he makes the big bet and pulls a win out of nowhere.
Ya then you have things like the main theme is about her not bond, or we are told early on shes missing a chunk of her ear Like it or not, in this franchise the only people with scars and missing body parts before daniel craig were villains
They also do one of the best music videos by a band for a Bond song. This song made me a fan of Garbage, and they nail the Bond sound in this. For me it's right up there with Surrender which unfortunately isn't an official title song as it should have been.
...okay, so, I get the Tomb Raider reference with her outfit, but I honestly think that decision spoiled the character in a lot of people’s minds (not that the acting/writing/directing helped). Sure, hot young scientist lady in a Bond Film is always going to be an understandable thing... but first impressions matter a lot, and the majority of her initial scenes having her in that outfit, it really just sent a “...so, we’re not even bothering with the pretense?” signal to a lot of people...
I cannot believe that you guys don't like this opening title more. This is possibly my favorite Bond theme, certainly in the top three! My wife and I sing this all the time.
The really clever thing about the rocket powered speedboat is that it travels from Wapping to Greenwich, via an alleyway in Chatham Docks, Kent - 26 miles away.
Just started watching, Atomic Blonde had Charlize Theron wrap a rope around herself and a goon and jump out a window, pulling the goon. I guess they assumed people forgot that happened in this movie; I sure did.
The Z8s used for filming were actually more or less functional buggies, they had nothing in common technologically with the actual Z8, weren't even official preproduction cars. The one that gets cut up can be seen at a small museum in England, it really gives the illusion away when you see all the torn fiberglass.
This was the first Bond film I ever watched - and I went to the theater to watch it. My parents brought me along, as I was a child at the time. After the opening sequence when the credits rolled, my dad decided he wanted to be funny, saying "That's it! Movie's over. Time to go home". Of course, I had no idea that Bond films had content _before_ the opening credits, so I believed him. I got out of the seat and left. He caught up with me pretty quickly, but not before my mood had soured with a feeling that I had been cheated. I don't remember having much of an opinion of the film itself after that
I saw a fun theory about the Q gadgets. The logic is Q knows James is going to go to a mountain and simply thinks "what's the dumbest, most dangerous, thing that can happen to 007 there? An avalanche. I better get him something so he doesn't die"
How fortuitous that this is uploaded JUST as I finished the last episode. Thanks as always to Graham Matt and Matt for the great work- looking forward to watching this over the next few days!
A detail I remember someone pointing out for me was this: the theme song for "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was "We Have All the Time in the World" and leans into Bond marrying (and then losing) his wife. The film also introduced "the world is not enough" as the Bond family motto. These two facts put together foreshadow Tracy's death in the film, as well as Bond's doomed romantic prospects that we see otherwise throughout the series. Notably, TWINE also makes at least one reference to Bond's previous marriage, which is otherwise fairly rare.
Actually the family motto thing was a happy coincidence he worked into the story late into writing Since ian fleming found out late into writing that a real bond family Did have a motto- the World is Not Enough Fleming decided of course he should include it!
The chair device is called a garrote or garrote chair. Used as late as the 1970s in Spain for criminal executions. Historically it was used also by the church inquisition on heretics and witches.
Valentine Zhukovsky actually has a significant role in exposition first in the casino and then later in the caviar factory when Bond interrogates him. That leads to the last city in the movie and he saves Bond. I think his role in the movie is rather important and more interesting than cutting him out and using other characters instead.
CW: capital punishment, colonialism, fascism. The "antique torture device" (1:46:00) looks a lot like a garrote, but not the handheld wire kind. These were seats with restraints, where a screw was used to either tighten a cord around the victims throat or drive a peg into the back of their neck. These things were a common method of execution in Spain and (former) Spanish colonies. I don't think they were usually this ornate. From what I understand, not being particularly familiar with Spanish colonial and post-colonial history, this type of device was the standard method of execution in Spain and Spanish colonies for centuries, until Spain abolished capital punishment in 1978. The garrote was last used in Spain in 1974 by the fascist Franco regime to execute the tragic nobody Georg Michael Welzel (aka Heinz Chez) and Catalan militant anarchist Salvador Puig Antich. There's a lot of important, painful history here, and I'm not particularly qualified to educate anyone on this. Relevant Wikipedia articles: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrote (contains a very unpleasant photograph of an execution in progress) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Spain
Valentin has some of the best lines and delivery in any Bond film. “Bull, give them an inch. And make sure they lose it in *this* Casino. Also “I want you to set me up with Janus.” “What did he do to deserve you?”
I genuinely think that the core of this movie is a lot stronger than the core of Tomorrow Never Dies, but the glue that holds the whole movie together is made of peanut butter. The song is actually one of my favorites though.
"One... last.... screw." Considering I saw this movie once in 2000, I'm surprised how much I remember about it. I think I have more affection for this one than the predecessor, but both are definitely lesser than Goldeneye.
When you mentioned the 4 flying snowmobiles being something from the 60s, I noticed how the four black airborne assailants is very reminicest of the four spectre helicopters in You Only Live Twice combined with the Ski Chase in Her Majesty's Secret Service.
First Bond film that I saw in theaters. I was 8 years old and obsessed with Goldeneye, Goldeneye 64, and Tomorrow Never Dies. Seen every Bond film in theaters since.
@@williammcguire130 The Soviet Union abolished the Death Penalty in 1947 and reinstated it in 1950. The death penalty was imposed in the 1980s, for a variety of crimes, including high treason, espionage, terrorism, murder, and economic crimes. Vladimir I. Rytov, a deputy Minister of Fisheries, was executed in 1982 for smuggling millions of dollars worth of caviar to the West. The director of Gastronom 1, one of Moscow's most prominent gourmet food stores, was executed in 1984 for corruption. The chairman of Technopromexport was executed in 1984 for "systematically taking big bribes".
@@stvdagger8074 Not to mention that whether or not the death penalty is on the books is a fairly moot point if the Cheka/NKVD/MVD/KGB decides that your blood would look really nice on the sloped floors of the Lubyanka.
I may be misremembering, but those aren't fuel rods - they are control rods which slow the reaction(*), so they are oriented to go down into the pile and get raised up out of it to let the reaction go faster to make more heat. They are oriented this direction so if there's a mechanical problem, they will fall into the pile and slow the reaction down to minimum so it doesn't melt down while they fix the mechanism. So I think it would be correct to have the pile on the floor in the orientation the sub is intended to be at. (* they are there to absorb neutrons without re-emitting them, since the point of a nuclear reactor is that each decay throws a bunch of neutrons out which hit more uranium and make more decay, which throws more neutrons, etc, but if the neutrons hit the control rods instead of more uranium, the decay doesn't chain)
I absolutely ADORE Elektra King’s comment about Christmas Jones in the one scene they share. To my mind, “pretty little thing” is also a wonderful observation on the actresses’ relative merits: Sophie Marceau leaves Denise Richards in the dust in the space of three words.
I really like this film a lot, and whatever sins Denise Richards commits, they are more than outweighed by the main Bond girl, Sophie Marceau who doesn’t get enough credit here. What’s more - I actually feel the criticism that Zukovsky’s contribution is needlessly confusing applies more to GoldenEye, where they spend all this time setting him up as a rival to Janus and hatching a plan that goes nowhere, cos it’s just an excuse for an exposition dump interrupted by Xenia who takes him to Janus anyway. Here - the payoff, the nephew on the sub, the attack on the caviar factory, finally freeing Bond from the chair - I like that he’s involved all the way through. My only criticism is that I wish he still retained a bit more of his menace from his last appearance. This feels like a slightly different comic relief character.
It still blows my mind that the helicopter tree trimming thing is actually based on real life - there are real helicopter power line tree trimmers. They don't look as menacing as they do in this movie (which I think is intentional?) but, sure enough.
The one thing I remembered about this movie was loving the title drop. I thought the title was just an action movie word salad, then someone (Bond?) says it in response to "We could have had the world" and in that context it's an amazing line
The Renard head hologram just reminds me of the briefing in 'Return of the Jedi' - it's like the bullet path is marking the route the Falcon needs to take to destroy the Death Star #2 lol!
I do think this film is *almost* great. As stated, the villains are fantastic, the twist in the story well done, and bringing Judi Dench's M into the centre would be echoed by Skyfall later on. It's a shame it makes the slips it does, but it was so close. Also the main theme might be my favourite Bond theme. The video for it is also killer.
After hearing your take of the film, it is both better and worse than I remember. Also, for Editor Matt, your choice of graphic after Graham states how Matt is now free from the song, had me in stiches for laughing so much. You are brilliant! (And so is Graham and Matt)
The Hollywood trope is "Dive, dive, dive!" sounding the klaxon, submarine rigs for diving, people start racing off the bridge on the sail (fin - for the commonwealth navies), submarine starts to submerge, last person exits the sail, hatch is closed and secured while the sub continues to dive. At least one sub movie shows where someone messes up their part of the sequence, and someone is left topside to swim - or drown. Part of the movie trope is that the crew has been practicing this, in order to cut the time it takes to dive. It was the sequence in my favorite childhood novel "Up Periscope." I have no idea if any navy actually practiced this.
One of the things I learned from watching these was that Robinson is almost like the prototype for what they would go on to do with Tanner in the Craig era. I honestly wish they'd done more with his character. They could have just had him function in the same role as Tanner, thus streamlining the cast of recurring characters within MI6.
As soon as Matt ask for Graham's Bond moment of the movie it came to mind that Casino Royale's Bond moment has to be the "do I look like I give a damn?"
Robert Carlyle also is known for his role in Once Upon a Time as Mr. Gold/Rumplestiltskin! I had just finished watching the series when I realized it was the same guy
Thank you! That is how I personally know him, and I thought they were making a reference to it when they were talking about Captain Hook since in the show he IS the metaphorical crocodile.
Without watching them all again, I place this one as Brosnan's second best Bond film, after GoldenEye. I think Brosnan played Bond better in the second and third films, but the films were worse and Brosnan didn't play Bond all that bad to begin with anyway, so it doesn't raise the quality that much.
I have never seen this particular Bond film. So when at the start Graham mentions that one version of the script was thought to focus too much on "Elektra King" I was convinced he said "Electric King" and imagined some kind of Tesla-coil wielding supervillain called The Electric King!
I am personally responsible for getting the entire crew at work hooked on UK Gladiators, which is easily the best of the bunch. My memory is that Vulcan was only present during one of the later seasons and was not particularly memorable.
I bought a cigar in a metal tube (Cuban, Partagas) to celebrate finishing my thesis, and it cost me $60, though the cost varies depending on the brand. I case of those must be quite expensive.
I know I watched this film in the cinema when it came out. The only thing I remember about it was the saws taking out the car. I'd even forgotten this had Robert Carlyle until you mentioned it.
Yay, back after Desert Bus! I have such a weird connection to this movie because I played the N64 game obsessively as a kid but watched the film exactly once.
They made (and killed) 18 "Parahawks", some were largely working snowmobiles, some were just shells (the ones for flying). They were extremely difficult to control, so stuntmen were flying "all over the place" once they tried a little more than bumbling along in formation.
I suddenly realised the best description of the Pierce Brosnan Bond. This is the "Oops all Gadgets" Bond. Every Pierce Brosnan film is lots and lots of nifty 90's gadgets, which makes Daniel Craig a Gadget overcorrection!
Sophie Marceau and her character are probably the best thing in this film, however I have heard an argument that the actresses are cast the wrong way around. That Richards would be better suited as portraying a rich daughter who got kidnapped that then surprisingly turns out to be far less innocent and helpless than first presented and is actually the surprise villain mastermind behind everything, while Marceau is an easier sell as the nuclear physicist who gets caught up in the adventure. But while Denise Richards has played a duplicitous schemer in Wild Things, I’m still not sure she has the acting chops to pull off the heel turn for this role convincingly. Also it means we would have missed out on Marceau’s performance as Elektra, so it probably just should have been another actress for Christmas Jones with a more well-written role in the first place. Still, it’s an interesting “what if” argument to consider.
Christmas Jones is a filler character like Suki in YOLT. The only way her character would've worked was to make her counter Bond's atittudes in such ways: while Bond talks to M about Elektra, Jones sides with Elektra (but engage as equals) before Jones and Bond go disarm the bomb; Bond threatens Valentine, Jones rather negotiate; Bond flees and shoot the helicopters, Jones tries to protect Valentine; etc. Unfortunately, her character needed more contrast to Bond and the script gave Richards none of that. I don't blame the actress. In her shoes, I would've declined the part.
I wasn't going to say anything, but since Matt expressed interest, a submarine reactor is a ball with a bunch of cylinders sticking out of it. It is all structurally a single piece that is simply bolted to the decking. The cylinders sticking out of it are also not the fuel. They are control rods with a "reactor poison" that stops the chain reaction by absorbing neutrons. The fuel is in the sphere surrounded by water at all times. When the control rods are lifted out the chain reaction happens and creates heat. On a related note on nuclear reactors, a reactor "going critical" is actually the normally desired operation. "Critical" is that the reaction is happening at a constant rate. "Subcritical" Is a reaction that is slowing down. "Supercritical" is a reaction that is speeding up. All three states are normal parts of operating a reactor. What the movies refer to as "going critical" would more accurately be called an "uncontrolled nuclear reaction" but that doesn't sound as cool. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Reactor_Vessel_head.jpg Is a picture of the type of reactor that would be typical of use on a sub.
I actually spent a semester studying in England in 2000 and we had 2-3 field trips every week. we went to all kinds of historical sites and the millennium dome. It was actually kind of fun, I remember enjoying the aerial show but I only remember two of the exhibits. In one they had one Million Pounds in a very secure glass case and some very fancy diamonds and in another they had Bond's boat from this movie.
It's rather hilarious that Christopher Nolan basically redid the relationship between Elektra and Renard in "The Dark Knight Rises" with Talia and Bane.
@@ricardocantoral7672 It's pretty close; I remember people commenting on it at the time. (And, to be fair, he DID crib a stunt from another Bond film for "Dark Knight Rises" -- the plane "fishing" sequence, from "Licence to Kill".)
@@blofeld39 TDK Rises was more like Rocky 3 meets Die Hard With a Vengeance. Also, I am aware that Nolan's lifted that plane stunt from the PTS of Licence To Kill.
It's also a lift from the John Gardner Bond novel, For Special Services (1982) where the supposed vulnerable sexy woman is actually the main villain (who the hero has sex with), and not the man who the hero thought was the villain. And she's the leader of a crime organization set up by her father who the hero killed. So looks like TWINE took from there as well as Dark Knight Rises doing so.
I saw this movie in a theater full of nuclear physicists. Bond Movies aren't exactly known for their accuracy, but it was fun to pay attention to the ripples of laughter. Some at things anyone would know were wrong, and then there were the "classified laughs" as my dad put it.
As I remember the opening chase, yes the boat lands in a pool of water, but as it cuts away there's a sound effect that implies that the boat crashed into something offscreen because of the momentum.
As one of the few people who went to the Millennium exhibition as a child, all I remember is the body exhibit, where you walked around inside a heart. In my memory it has the vibe of an educational theme park, but with none of the rides (i.e. deathly boring to children and tedious to adults)
As the weird scuba diver commenter in previous episodes I gotta say, I super liked/appreciated that Bond told Jones to exhale the whole way to the surface. I took it as a complete 180 from Tomorrow Never Dies where they definitely would have gotten decompression sickness.
As a passing Bond consumer, this was my favorite movie for a long time, mostly because I was too young to recognize the unnecessary subplot or Richards' bad acting/writing. Thus, I only remembered the stellar "triumvirate" performances and the understandably-sinister plot and felt this was underrated, until now. It really feels like there is no Bond movie that can get away without something holding it back from a perfect score.
"Every anarchist I've ever met loves nothing more than the consolidation of corporate power in the hands of a single entity."
- Priceless Matt Wiggins quote for the ages.
I mean considering all any of the ever do is give money to Jack Dorsey it's not completely off.
That line got a good laugh outta me!
I love the irony of that, even if the Lima Syndrome somewhat explains his contradicting motives.
Such a great line!
'90s Sophie Marceau could have convinced me of anything.
They don't mention it, but the last scene with Q you can tell Bond really cares about having him around. His line:
"You're not retiring anytime soon... Are you?"
Brosnan's inflection on that line is so well done. You can tell there's a slight worry in his tone. It's a nice piece of subtext showing that he really does like Q.
Great moment to a great scene.
The only moment in this film worth noting.
It’s only cos he doesn’t want bumbling John Cleese to replace him🤣
Yeah, you really feel the affection they've developed for each other over the years in this scene.
Ahhh 1999, when we thought funding the millennium dome would be one of the most controversial things the Blair government would do. Such nostalgia.
Thank god we got the tories in soon after to sort everything out. Oh wait...
I do like how this movie is in parts a reverse Bond Movie.
-Bond gets seduced so he is distracted and doesn't do his job.
-Bond doesn't kill the incredibly dangerous henchman when he has the chance and instead wastes his time attempting to extract information whilst he loses control of the situation.
I'm sure there are other reversals.
It is a shame it doesn't land as a cohesive whole.
"Preposterously Wet T-Shirt" is the name of my Bond tribute band.
I'm more partial to "These Malfunctioning Pigs"
Are you on the myface? Or instatok :p
You didn't bring up that early in the film, when Elektra is giving the "So many people want me dead" presentation, Elektra asks Bond if he's lost anybody close to him, and he says "No" in a "You are pushing my buttons and the answer is yes but in order to stay emotionally distant I can't say that so I'm going to say no instead" manner - and after I watched the film a couple times, I got the impression that Elektra was asking a question she already knew the answer to - she just wanted to know how Bond was going to answer it - and that combined with Renard knowing about Bond's *very* recent injury makes for great foreshadowing.
Also, I absolutely love the "The Insurance Company is never going to believe this" line - particularly as someone from Oregon where, 50 years ago this year, ODOT tried to dispose of a dead whale that washed on shore with dynamite, causing someone's Oldsmobile to get crushed by a giant piece of flying blubber. (No one was inside at the time).
EDIT #2: One other thing - the song is explicitly a villain song! They drop the big villains' big wham line "There's no point in living if you can't feel alive" in the lyrics!
Christ my man get some full stops in your life.
“Oh Moneypenny, the story of our relationship: ‘Close, but no cigar.’”
About the flames coming out of the ground in the place where Davidov is having his meeting: "Azerbaijan" means "land of eternal fire" (it's also a reference to a regional administrator of the Persian empire, but that's not relevant to the point) because it has pockets of natural gas near the surface, and those pockets of gas regularly spill out and sometimes ignite. Fire has been coming out of the ground in Azerbaijan for literal millennia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanar_Dag
To be fair, the tree trimming helicopter things are something that people use, according to a quick google search...they have several smaller circular saws in a straight line instead of 5 huge blades in a chevron pattern, and they hang down from a pole or cable instead of hooked directly to the helicopter's chassis (which is honestly a great way to crash a perfectly good aircraft, IMO), but they do exist.
On the flip side, the suspended saw array just being attached via a very long cable dangling off the bottom of a helicopter makes the entire thing WAY MORE TERRIFYING, because the reason they're doing that in the first place is for the purpose of utility line clearance in remote locations with no roads... meaning they're piloting a helicopter with this enormous stick of saw blades dangling from the bottom directly next to LIVE POWER LINES. They can't possibly pay those pilots enough for that.
@@matthewyoho5422 Oh, you haven't seen the people who service high-voltage power lines from helicopters, have you? THOSE guys (both the pilots of the helicopters and the technicians who nearly crawl out onto the wires) have serious stones.
47:40 by the way, you were incorrect: giant saw blades hanging from a helicopter to trim trees around pipelines and power lines are a real thing. They don't have this triangle formation, they just hang straight down, but it's totally legit.
Yep, I live near a valley and have seen this in use around the power lines in the particularly steep areas. I have pictures
Apparently it was invented in 1985 by Aerial Solutions, Inc. and everyone (understandably) thought they were crazy! But it works, and it's supposed to be very useful in difficult-to-reach areas.
*_flashbacks to Hollow Knight's White Palace_*
"These saw blades are definitely not a real thing" *Races to comments to see if anyone has pointed out that they're totally a real thing*
@@PantherAssaultCannon me too, very much a real thing
The circular saws are real, but usually they're in a straight vertical line.
They use them in the alps a lot to cut the trees around powerlines and cable cars/skyways
See them in action: ua-cam.com/video/Mfz1YrpMbBg/v-deo.html
Yes, they're 100% real. They probably use them all over BC given the density of forests.
The buzzsaws and the underground explosion were both ideas appropriated from Goldeneye's first draft.
@@ricardocantoral7672 Yup. As is a lot of the action sequences for the Daniel Craig films post-"Casino Royale".
Glad someone chimed in with this info!
The one thing this movie has that a lot of Bond movies don’t execute well are villains motivations. The reason Electra wants revenge on her father & M is understandable and Renard wanting to give her everything she wants before he dies knowing that he wont live a full live is also relatable. Certainly 1000x more logical compared to the reasoning behind Elliot Carvers reasoning to his scheme in tomorrow never dies
Carver's motives made sense to me and generally speaking, Tomorrow Nevers Dies is vastly superior to The World is Not Enough.
@@ricardocantoral7672 no way in hell he wouldn’t have gotten caught if his long term plan to keep rating was to keep creating the news himself. Obviously everyone with half a brain would have figured out he was behind everything considering how quickly he would have knowledge on the events he reports, which made his plan in my opinion absolutely stupid. They said as much during the review that it would be very obvious the he was behind these incidents somehow considering how quickly he would have coverage and reports on them before intelligence agencies knew anything about them
@@vegas_party_animal7737 Forgive me, however I feel I must counter your argument, for I feel that there are real life examples which show this to be the case, most evidently with William Randolph Hearst, who was so blatant with his yellow journalistic tricks that he caused war between the United States and Spain by fanning the flames of the conflict. Newspapers today manage to sway public opinion by carrying hugely biased pieces which have little to no facts behind them that they should really be considered fiction, yet a mass amount of people still seem to believe them. In some ways, I do agree that it would have been greatly suspicious for a mogul like Carver to have had access to such stories (before drones etc) before military intelligence does, however I'd counter that they point that out in the film, which leads to him being investigated by Bond. In ways, I feel it works for Carver's character as he is an egocentric, arrogant person who believes himself invulnerable behind his massive media network. Such people cannot see the wood through the trees and, as you say, sooner or later they do get caught. The telephone hacking scandal is a good example of journalist arrogance being caught out.
In some ways, I feel Carver is reflective of today's social media giants, much like Weyland Yutani et al predicted companies like Amazon, which have yet to show their full potential in controlling governments.
@@vegas_party_animal7737 In real life, media barons are already making up news for ratings or for the sake of benefiting governments. Carver was not exaggerating when he said he only took things one step further. True, Carver should kept himself a considerable distance from that stealth boat but given this is Bond, I will accept a hands on villain. Besides, Elektra is not different given how this act of "terrorism" plan conveniently benefits her.
@@ricardocantoral7672 Elektra made sure to, at least, seem innocent at first.
So since this show started, we've seen the passing of Sean Connery, Diana Rigg, Geoffrey Palmer and several others I'm forgetting right now...
and now we're losing Arecibo? I would blame this podcast, but truly it is 2020's fault.
Podca...? No, this is LRR's violent manifesto, declaring to the world whom must pay for their crimes.
Wait, do you guys think this is just a James Bond Rewatch Podcast?!?!
Arthur Wooster, Alan Tomkins, Honor Blackman, Margaret Nolan and Michael Lonsdale
@@elfinfluff *whomst
Twenty five years ago I suffered the same kind of shoulder separation that Bond is supposed to have here; I can attest that there is no way he could have even faked a return to active duty, much less dangle from chains and cables and go leaping through doorways head first. It's an agonizing injury and your range of movement only improves by fractions of an inch per day over many weeks. I do enjoy this film though quite a bit!
Matt sniping the Boeing trivia was god damn amazing
Best thing about this movie is the title song by Garbage.
This movie is garbage
As a huge Garbage fan when this movie came out I have to say that unfortunately The World is Not Enough is probably the worst song they've ever released and Shirley's vocals are overpowered by the music.
It wasn't actually written by Garbage but simply handed to them - Honestly it doesn't fit Garbage either.... Madonna got to write Die Another Day herself because she had the clout but it may have been better for everyone if they'd asked her to do The World is Not Enough BEFORE she went off the deep end and given Garbage Die Another Day to write and perform as that title would have fit their oeuvre far better {Heck they had an album track in 2001 called Til the Day I Die for goodness sake!}.
It's still the best Bond theme of the Brosnan era but considering the other three themes from that era that isn't saying much.
Goldeneye was a belter alright but it has no soul.
Tomorrow Never Dies is lyrically weak and Sheryl Crow doesn't have the voice for it.
and
Die Another Day is just terrible.
@Tim Hands lol ok
Adore Garbage but didn't care for this one, love Sheryl Crow but feel the same way about her Bond song.
@Tim Hands hahahahaha funny
This is the first one I saw in theaters. I was a kid at the time, but Elektra King (no relation :P) continues to be my favorite Bond villain. Christmas Jones was also memorable, but mostly because that was the point in my life when I wanted to be a nuclear physicist when I grew up. Didn't realize until I was an adult how weird that casting decision was.
Denise Richards said in her autobiography that her casting was a studio decision the film makers disagreed and this boiled over into filming as she was made to feel unwanted. She said the director didn't form much of a comradery on set which didn't help and she got depressed when reading the bad reviews as she had just followed the script. I get where she's coming from as a more appropriate casting choice would have struggled given the writing.
As I recall, the pitch from Purvis and Wade to Barbara Broccoli was "Bond thinks he's met a new Tracy, but she turns out to be Blofeld." The deliberate callbacks to OHMSS and FRWL are what make this one of my favorites. It's pure fan service, and I love it.
Eh... it kind of loses something in translation, I think. :-S And it seems they're trying with the Tracy stuff AGAIN with Madeline Swann, which I wish they wouldn't have; you can only get it so right once.
@@blofeld39 OHMSS's first act is pretty lackluster. If they want to introduce James Bond's wife or great love, they need more than one film to do so. I think Naomi Harris's Monneypenny fits it neatly -- even though, it certainly isn't what they were going for.
@@nitehunter91 The first act is meant to be paced that way -- it sets the scenes, introduces the characters; lets you know this isn't going to be your typical Bond film. If you did it with the same rapid pace as another Bond film, it wouldn't work as well -- and the climax and ending wouldn't hit nearly half as hard. (Plus, I like spending as much time with Diana Rigg as Tracy as the film allows the viewer to -- and getting a better read/bead on Lazenby's "new" Bond. :-) )
@@blofeld39 Exactly. I am so glad the film broke away from series formula and instead focused on character.
@@blofeld39 The excessive jumpcuts rob the action scenes of their momentum while, scriptwise and directionwise, the mysterious aura they place over Tracy makes it difficult to empathize with her and Bond at the same time. So, I had to pick either one or the other when the themes and the final message demanded we picked both.
I'm not complaining about formula. I'm complaining about poor planning and stilted execution. The climax and the ending should've hit much harder than they did.
Diana Rigg was underutilized like Honor Blackman before her. Telly Savalla was miscast and George Lazenby certainly DID NOT win me over the first act. His pronunciation is bad and his face lacked expression.
I think the point of the casino scene was to subtly (for a given value of subtle) communicate that Electra wasn't on the up-and-up, she's doing the thing Bond usually does in casinos of making a big show of herself and taking big risks to put people off guard, but while in Bond's case the people being put off guard would be the villain or their henchmen in this case it's Bond and Valentin, who we know are good guys. Her losing the big bet also makes it sort of a mirror of Bond's usual move where he makes the big bet and pulls a win out of nowhere.
Ya then you have things like the main theme is about her not bond, or we are told early on shes missing a chunk of her ear
Like it or not, in this franchise the only people with scars and missing body parts before daniel craig were villains
I was a huge Garbage fan and love the opening theme, it's really the best thing about this movie.
It's honestly one of the best Bond themes full stop
They also do one of the best music videos by a band for a Bond song. This song made me a fan of Garbage, and they nail the Bond sound in this. For me it's right up there with Surrender which unfortunately isn't an official title song as it should have been.
...okay, so, I get the Tomb Raider reference with her outfit, but I honestly think that decision spoiled the character in a lot of people’s minds (not that the acting/writing/directing helped). Sure, hot young scientist lady in a Bond Film is always going to be an understandable thing... but first impressions matter a lot, and the majority of her initial scenes having her in that outfit, it really just sent a “...so, we’re not even bothering with the pretense?” signal to a lot of people...
I cannot believe that you guys don't like this opening title more. This is possibly my favorite Bond theme, certainly in the top three! My wife and I sing this all the time.
That was the last good Bond title theme.
@@ricardocantoral7672 I like "You Know My Name" a lot, too.
@@Chasmodius BLECH !
@@ricardocantoral7672 Somebody doesn't know good David Arnold when they hear it.
@@blofeld39 Yeah, it's called Surrender.
Reliving turn of the millennium British pop culture through foreign eyes is WILD.
I thought Canadians are oversea Britons?
The really clever thing about the rocket powered speedboat is that it travels from Wapping to Greenwich, via an alleyway in Chatham Docks, Kent - 26 miles away.
Bond would actually have gone through canary wharf
3,030,303.03 is a Desert Bus bid and you can't convince me it isn't.
me, i just found it rather palindromic.
Just started watching, Atomic Blonde had Charlize Theron wrap a rope around herself and a goon and jump out a window, pulling the goon. I guess they assumed people forgot that happened in this movie; I sure did.
I still remember the version of that stunt in Machete. Albeit, since it's Machete, the rope in that case is the guy's intestines.
The Z8s used for filming were actually more or less functional buggies, they had nothing in common technologically with the actual Z8, weren't even official preproduction cars.
The one that gets cut up can be seen at a small museum in England, it really gives the illusion away when you see all the torn fiberglass.
This was the first Bond film I ever watched - and I went to the theater to watch it. My parents brought me along, as I was a child at the time. After the opening sequence when the credits rolled, my dad decided he wanted to be funny, saying "That's it! Movie's over. Time to go home". Of course, I had no idea that Bond films had content _before_ the opening credits, so I believed him. I got out of the seat and left. He caught up with me pretty quickly, but not before my mood had soured with a feeling that I had been cheated. I don't remember having much of an opinion of the film itself after that
That is awesome
glad to have this back!
Up next we are finally at my first Bond movie. I can't wait! I loved that movie.
i was 9.
I saw a fun theory about the Q gadgets. The logic is Q knows James is going to go to a mountain and simply thinks "what's the dumbest, most dangerous, thing that can happen to 007 there? An avalanche. I better get him something so he doesn't die"
How fortuitous that this is uploaded JUST as I finished the last episode. Thanks as always to Graham Matt and Matt for the great work- looking forward to watching this over the next few days!
A detail I remember someone pointing out for me was this: the theme song for "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was "We Have All the Time in the World" and leans into Bond marrying (and then losing) his wife. The film also introduced "the world is not enough" as the Bond family motto. These two facts put together foreshadow Tracy's death in the film, as well as Bond's doomed romantic prospects that we see otherwise throughout the series. Notably, TWINE also makes at least one reference to Bond's previous marriage, which is otherwise fairly rare.
Actually the family motto thing was a happy coincidence he worked into the story late into writing
Since ian fleming found out late into writing that a real bond family Did have a motto- the World is Not Enough
Fleming decided of course he should include it!
The chair device is called a garrote or garrote chair. Used as late as the 1970s in Spain for criminal executions. Historically it was used also by the church inquisition on heretics and witches.
You guys are absolutely entitled to your opinions, but this is honestly my favorite bond theme.
Valentine Zhukovsky actually has a significant role in exposition first in the casino and then later in the caviar factory when Bond interrogates him. That leads to the last city in the movie and he saves Bond. I think his role in the movie is rather important and more interesting than cutting him out and using other characters instead.
Yeah and the moment when Valetin Zukovsky saves Bond and he and Valentin share that final respectful look, that’s a wholly underrated moment.
Robbie Coltrane definitely played one of Bond’s best allies
CW: capital punishment, colonialism, fascism.
The "antique torture device" (1:46:00) looks a lot like a garrote, but not the handheld wire kind. These were seats with restraints, where a screw was used to either tighten a cord around the victims throat or drive a peg into the back of their neck. These things were a common method of execution in Spain and (former) Spanish colonies. I don't think they were usually this ornate.
From what I understand, not being particularly familiar with Spanish colonial and post-colonial history, this type of device was the standard method of execution in Spain and Spanish colonies for centuries, until Spain abolished capital punishment in 1978. The garrote was last used in Spain in 1974 by the fascist Franco regime to execute the tragic nobody Georg Michael Welzel (aka Heinz Chez) and Catalan militant anarchist Salvador Puig Antich.
There's a lot of important, painful history here, and I'm not particularly qualified to educate anyone on this.
Relevant Wikipedia articles:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrote (contains a very unpleasant photograph of an execution in progress)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Spain
Valentin has some of the best lines and delivery in any Bond film. “Bull, give them an inch. And make sure they lose it in *this* Casino. Also “I want you to set me up with Janus.” “What did he do to deserve you?”
I genuinely think that the core of this movie is a lot stronger than the core of Tomorrow Never Dies, but the glue that holds the whole movie together is made of peanut butter.
The song is actually one of my favorites though.
An amazing podcast series, one of the few things i look forward too every week. My own list is very close to Grahams.
“No don’t do it! Don’t blow us up! I can protect you! Do you understand me!? I can protect you!” “Not from him!”
This movie's song is honestly one of my favorites of the series and it can easily find it's way into my head.
"One... last.... screw."
Considering I saw this movie once in 2000, I'm surprised how much I remember about it. I think I have more affection for this one than the predecessor, but both are definitely lesser than Goldeneye.
When you mentioned the 4 flying snowmobiles being something from the 60s, I noticed how the four black airborne assailants is very reminicest of the four spectre helicopters in You Only Live Twice combined with the Ski Chase in Her Majesty's Secret Service.
Re: Bond dodging flirting with Elektra, M basically ordered him not to do that "remember a shadow appears in front or in back, but never on top"
A shadow can appear underneath though ^^ I guess that's not quite Bond's style
@@EricChoiniere nor would it be part of M's quote
“The name’s Bond!” FIRES GUN AND THEY'RE LAUNCHED UPWARD UNTIL THEY STOP. “James Bond!”
Just like the underwater tie adjustment, it's yet another desperate attempt at making Brosnan's Bond cool.
First Bond film that I saw in theaters. I was 8 years old and obsessed with Goldeneye, Goldeneye 64, and Tomorrow Never Dies. Seen every Bond film in theaters since.
"Him doing his thing and her also doing his thing, at the same time".
You wanna maybe take that one again, Matt? :D
I have a frame from a previous FRWL that might answer your question :P ua-cam.com/video/NcdzWRKwNdw/v-deo.html
My memory is "Don't tell any jokes, I've heard them all" and Bond's reply is "I don't know any doctor jokes."
Also, with Koskov at the end of The Living Daylights, “diplomatic bag” implies he’s gonna be executed.
@@williammcguire130 The Soviet Union abolished the Death Penalty in 1947 and reinstated it in 1950. The death penalty was imposed in the 1980s, for a variety of crimes, including high treason, espionage, terrorism, murder, and economic crimes. Vladimir I. Rytov, a deputy Minister of Fisheries, was executed in 1982 for smuggling millions of dollars worth of caviar to the West. The director of Gastronom 1, one of Moscow's most prominent gourmet food stores, was executed in 1984 for corruption. The chairman of Technopromexport was executed in 1984 for "systematically taking big bribes".
@@stvdagger8074 Not to mention that whether or not the death penalty is on the books is a fairly moot point if the Cheka/NKVD/MVD/KGB decides that your blood would look really nice on the sloped floors of the Lubyanka.
I may be misremembering, but those aren't fuel rods - they are control rods which slow the reaction(*), so they are oriented to go down into the pile and get raised up out of it to let the reaction go faster to make more heat. They are oriented this direction so if there's a mechanical problem, they will fall into the pile and slow the reaction down to minimum so it doesn't melt down while they fix the mechanism. So I think it would be correct to have the pile on the floor in the orientation the sub is intended to be at.
(* they are there to absorb neutrons without re-emitting them, since the point of a nuclear reactor is that each decay throws a bunch of neutrons out which hit more uranium and make more decay, which throws more neutrons, etc, but if the neutrons hit the control rods instead of more uranium, the decay doesn't chain)
I absolutely ADORE Elektra King’s comment about Christmas Jones in the one scene they share. To my mind, “pretty little thing” is also a wonderful observation on the actresses’ relative merits: Sophie Marceau leaves Denise Richards in the dust in the space of three words.
I really like this film a lot, and whatever sins Denise Richards commits, they are more than outweighed by the main Bond girl, Sophie Marceau who doesn’t get enough credit here.
What’s more - I actually feel the criticism that Zukovsky’s contribution is needlessly confusing applies more to GoldenEye, where they spend all this time setting him up as a rival to Janus and hatching a plan that goes nowhere, cos it’s just an excuse for an exposition dump interrupted by Xenia who takes him to Janus anyway.
Here - the payoff, the nephew on the sub, the attack on the caviar factory, finally freeing Bond from the chair - I like that he’s involved all the way through. My only criticism is that I wish he still retained a bit more of his menace from his last appearance. This feels like a slightly different comic relief character.
It still blows my mind that the helicopter tree trimming thing is actually based on real life - there are real helicopter power line tree trimmers. They don't look as menacing as they do in this movie (which I think is intentional?) but, sure enough.
The one thing I remembered about this movie was loving the title drop. I thought the title was just an action movie word salad, then someone (Bond?) says it in response to "We could have had the world" and in that context it's an amazing line
I can confirm for a fact that a dislocated clavicle is indeed very painful and disabling before it heals.
As a former cigar smoker I can confirm fancy cigars do sometimes come in fancy tubes.
The Renard head hologram just reminds me of the briefing in 'Return of the Jedi' - it's like the bullet path is marking the route the Falcon needs to take to destroy the Death Star #2 lol!
I do think this film is *almost* great. As stated, the villains are fantastic, the twist in the story well done, and bringing Judi Dench's M into the centre would be echoed by Skyfall later on. It's a shame it makes the slips it does, but it was so close. Also the main theme might be my favourite Bond theme. The video for it is also killer.
After hearing your take of the film, it is both better and worse than I remember. Also, for Editor Matt, your choice of graphic after Graham states how Matt is now free from the song, had me in stiches for laughing so much. You are brilliant! (And so is Graham and Matt)
The Hollywood trope is "Dive, dive, dive!" sounding the klaxon, submarine rigs for diving, people start racing off the bridge on the sail (fin - for the commonwealth navies), submarine starts to submerge, last person exits the sail, hatch is closed and secured while the sub continues to dive. At least one sub movie shows where someone messes up their part of the sequence, and someone is left topside to swim - or drown. Part of the movie trope is that the crew has been practicing this, in order to cut the time it takes to dive. It was the sequence in my favorite childhood novel "Up Periscope." I have no idea if any navy actually practiced this.
In 2000, my parents and I went to London, we visited the Millenium Dome and we saw the boat from the opening chase scene!
I love this theme song way more than the guys do, but I agree with pretty much everything else.
One of the things I learned from watching these was that Robinson is almost like the prototype for what they would go on to do with Tanner in the Craig era. I honestly wish they'd done more with his character. They could have just had him function in the same role as Tanner, thus streamlining the cast of recurring characters within MI6.
I love the theme song for this one out of any Bond film. Garbage is one of my favourite bands, so I’m a little bias.
This is a happy surprise. In my head, this podcast was off for another week due to the holiday, even though I know it’s not a Canadian holiday.
You forgot to mention Michael Wilson’s cameo. As one of the guys in the background when they are in the private room of the casino.
This was my first Bond movie so it will always have a warm place in my heart.
Definitely one of my fave Bond theme songs, the chorus is super memorable to me.
As soon as Matt ask for Graham's Bond moment of the movie it came to mind that Casino Royale's Bond moment has to be the "do I look like I give a damn?"
Robert Carlyle also is known for his role in Once Upon a Time as Mr. Gold/Rumplestiltskin! I had just finished watching the series when I realized it was the same guy
Thank you! That is how I personally know him, and I thought they were making a reference to it when they were talking about Captain Hook since in the show he IS the metaphorical crocodile.
Without watching them all again, I place this one as Brosnan's second best Bond film, after GoldenEye. I think Brosnan played Bond better in the second and third films, but the films were worse and Brosnan didn't play Bond all that bad to begin with anyway, so it doesn't raise the quality that much.
Oh hey. That's Lincoln the Bad Boy Yardie from Snatch. Neat.
Goldie, the rapper, yes.
It is? I was thinking that the entire time.
@@Yora21 Yep -- his acting debut, I believe.
“I suppose we all...pay the piper sometime, right Q?” “Oh pipe down 007!”
No actor highlight on Davidov? Guess I'll have to wait for Mads Mikkelsen for a Danish spotlight segment
I have never seen this particular Bond film. So when at the start Graham mentions that one version of the script was thought to focus too much on "Elektra King" I was convinced he said "Electric King" and imagined some kind of Tesla-coil wielding supervillain called The Electric King!
I am personally responsible for getting the entire crew at work hooked on UK Gladiators, which is easily the best of the bunch. My memory is that Vulcan was only present during one of the later seasons and was not particularly memorable.
I bought a cigar in a metal tube (Cuban, Partagas) to celebrate finishing my thesis, and it cost me $60, though the cost varies depending on the brand. I case of those must be quite expensive.
@46:45 --- Major props for the Sonic Mania reference. Whoever is responsible for that needs kudos.
I know I watched this film in the cinema when it came out.
The only thing I remember about it was the saws taking out the car. I'd even forgotten this had Robert Carlyle until you mentioned it.
Superb story telling with the still frames as usual!
Yay, back after Desert Bus! I have such a weird connection to this movie because I played the N64 game obsessively as a kid but watched the film exactly once.
They made (and killed) 18 "Parahawks", some were largely working snowmobiles, some were just shells (the ones for flying).
They were extremely difficult to control, so stuntmen were flying "all over the place" once they tried a little more than bumbling along in formation.
Unfortunately, this all shows in the film.
Now that this is the first FRWL after DB I must say. Praise Belopa.
I suddenly realised the best description of the Pierce Brosnan Bond. This is the "Oops all Gadgets" Bond. Every Pierce Brosnan film is lots and lots of nifty 90's gadgets, which makes Daniel Craig a Gadget overcorrection!
Christmas Jones is the only recognized child of COOOOOOL CHRISTMAS.
Wait, sorry, wrong fandom.
Actually Dr. Jones comes from a large family. Her sisters are Easter, May, Eid & Hanukkah and her brothers Boxing, Labour Passover and Remembrance.
A garrote is a name for a few related things, one of them being that kind of execution device.
Sophie Marceau and her character are probably the best thing in this film, however I have heard an argument that the actresses are cast the wrong way around. That Richards would be better suited as portraying a rich daughter who got kidnapped that then surprisingly turns out to be far less innocent and helpless than first presented and is actually the surprise villain mastermind behind everything, while Marceau is an easier sell as the nuclear physicist who gets caught up in the adventure. But while Denise Richards has played a duplicitous schemer in Wild Things, I’m still not sure she has the acting chops to pull off the heel turn for this role convincingly. Also it means we would have missed out on Marceau’s performance as Elektra, so it probably just should have been another actress for Christmas Jones with a more well-written role in the first place. Still, it’s an interesting “what if” argument to consider.
Christmas Jones is a filler character like Suki in YOLT. The only way her character would've worked was to make her counter Bond's atittudes in such ways: while Bond talks to M about Elektra, Jones sides with Elektra (but engage as equals) before Jones and Bond go disarm the bomb; Bond threatens Valentine, Jones rather negotiate; Bond flees and shoot the helicopters, Jones tries to protect Valentine; etc.
Unfortunately, her character needed more contrast to Bond and the script gave Richards none of that. I don't blame the actress. In her shoes, I would've declined the part.
@@nitehunter91 There isn't a character in YOLT called Suki.
@@davidjames579 Sorry, "Kissy". I usually remember Aki from that film.
Me: Welp, they're pretty much caught up now. (Realizes this was 20 years ago.)
I wasn't going to say anything, but since Matt expressed interest, a submarine reactor is a ball with a bunch of cylinders sticking out of it. It is all structurally a single piece that is simply bolted to the decking. The cylinders sticking out of it are also not the fuel. They are control rods with a "reactor poison" that stops the chain reaction by absorbing neutrons. The fuel is in the sphere surrounded by water at all times. When the control rods are lifted out the chain reaction happens and creates heat.
On a related note on nuclear reactors, a reactor "going critical" is actually the normally desired operation. "Critical" is that the reaction is happening at a constant rate. "Subcritical" Is a reaction that is slowing down. "Supercritical" is a reaction that is speeding up. All three states are normal parts of operating a reactor. What the movies refer to as "going critical" would more accurately be called an "uncontrolled nuclear reaction" but that doesn't sound as cool.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Reactor_Vessel_head.jpg Is a picture of the type of reactor that would be typical of use on a sub.
I actually spent a semester studying in England in 2000 and we had 2-3 field trips every week. we went to all kinds of historical sites and the millennium dome. It was actually kind of fun, I remember enjoying the aerial show but I only remember two of the exhibits. In one they had one Million Pounds in a very secure glass case and some very fancy diamonds and in another they had Bond's boat from this movie.
It's rather hilarious that Christopher Nolan basically redid the relationship between Elektra and Renard in "The Dark Knight Rises" with Talia and Bane.
I doubt he would crib from such a flaccid Bond film. He would lift from the better films and stunts.
@@ricardocantoral7672 It's pretty close; I remember people commenting on it at the time. (And, to be fair, he DID crib a stunt from another Bond film for "Dark Knight Rises" -- the plane "fishing" sequence, from "Licence to Kill".)
@@blofeld39 TDK Rises was more like Rocky 3 meets Die Hard With a Vengeance. Also, I am aware that Nolan's lifted that plane stunt from the PTS of Licence To Kill.
It's also a lift from the John Gardner Bond novel, For Special Services (1982) where the supposed vulnerable sexy woman is actually the main villain (who the hero has sex with), and not the man who the hero thought was the villain. And she's the leader of a crime organization set up by her father who the hero killed. So looks like TWINE took from there as well as Dark Knight Rises doing so.
@@davidjames579 Dude, I am just going to say it. That was Blofeld's daughter. John Gardner's novels were awful.
Having grown up skiing, and I too will never be too harsh on any skiing scene Matt.
47:23 Helicopter tree saws exist and have been in use since the 1980s.
I saw this movie in a theater full of nuclear physicists. Bond Movies aren't exactly known for their accuracy, but it was fun to pay attention to the ripples of laughter. Some at things anyone would know were wrong, and then there were the "classified laughs" as my dad put it.
As I remember the opening chase, yes the boat lands in a pool of water, but as it cuts away there's a sound effect that implies that the boat crashed into something offscreen because of the momentum.
As one of the few people who went to the Millennium exhibition as a child, all I remember is the body exhibit, where you walked around inside a heart. In my memory it has the vibe of an educational theme park, but with none of the rides (i.e. deathly boring to children and tedious to adults)
The celebrity gossip magazine at 39:14 is clearly Hello! magazine. The layout and colour scheme is quite distinctive.
As the weird scuba diver commenter in previous episodes I gotta say, I super liked/appreciated that Bond told Jones to exhale the whole way to the surface. I took it as a complete 180 from Tomorrow Never Dies where they definitely would have gotten decompression sickness.
As a passing Bond consumer, this was my favorite movie for a long time, mostly because I was too young to recognize the unnecessary subplot or Richards' bad acting/writing. Thus, I only remembered the stellar "triumvirate" performances and the understandably-sinister plot and felt this was underrated, until now. It really feels like there is no Bond movie that can get away without something holding it back from a perfect score.