Amph James Bond: Now Disc. "Skyfall" Video Blog by Sam Mendes

Eh, I didn't mind it once I got used to it. Kind of like how I got used to Attack of the Clones.

 

Yeah, I don't have any problems with Quantum's title. It's Fleming, and it's a perfectly comprehensible phrase that just happens to use big words. I don't see a problem.

 

The Adapted One

The title: Licence To Kill

"Where?s it from? Timothy Dalton?s second Bond film ? and the first not to take its name from Fleming ? was originally titled Licence Revoked, an obvious reference to M?s firing of 007 after he refuses to give up the hunt for whoever fed his CIA chum Felix Leiter to a hungry shark. When confusion arose due not only to John Gardner?s similarly-named Bond novel Licence Renewed, but also the popular American use of the phrase ?licence revoked? in relation to confiscated driving licences, the film assumed itsmore lethal and more obviously Bondian title.

Is it relevant? Only in that everyone knows the double-0 means Bond is permitted to commit murder in the name of Her Majesty?s Secret Service, although it?s odd when you consider he spends most of this film unlicenced to kill, but does so anyway. Frequently."

 

I love QoS just because of that one parody theme we got out of it.

"The THINGIE of WHATSIS . . . I've written it down/I'll remember it now!"

I'd also like to just do a little cross promotion; every Bond fan should check out The Trailer Park thread, where JohnWesleyDowney is posting trailers for all of the Bond films in chronological order. Now, that's fun.

 

"Quantum of Solace" does not trip off ye tongue; OTOH, it is not boringly bland.

Next: The Jamaican One

The title: GoldenEye

"Where?s it from? When Pierce Brosnan took over as Bond, his first film was named after Ian Fleming?s estate in Jamaica, which Fleming may in turn have named after Operation Goldeneye, his own WWII plan for maintaining communication between Britain and Gibraltar in the event of Nazi occupation of the latter. The capitalisation of the second ?E? without splitting the word in two remains baffling but undeniably groovy.

Is it relevant? In the plot, the GoldenEye is the MacGuffin that rogue agent Sean Bean nicks in order to control electromagnetic pulse-firing space rockets. Presumably it gets its name from the amber-coloured and rather cheap-looking bauble in its centre, so why the film isn?t called AmberBauble is a bit of a puzzler."

 

The Beatle-Inspired One

The title: Tomorrow Never Dies

"Where?s it from? Scriptwriter Bruce Feirstein came up with Tomorrow Never Lies as both the title of the film and the slogan of the media mogul villain?s newspaper, ?Tomorrow?. He claims it came to him while listening to The Beatles? Tomorrow Never Knows, which has nothing at all to do with global press magnates as far as we know. Legend has it that when the title was faxed to MGM, an assistant made a tiny typo, and the film received its new, completely nonsensical title: Tomorrow Never Dies.

Is it relevant? Not any more, thanks to that typo. ?Lies? wouldn?t have made much more sense, but ?Dies? smacks of a studio desperate to make a film sound cooler and more Bond-y by having a life-or-death-related word in it (see also Live And Let Die, A View To A Kill, The Living Daylights)."

 

The only thing worse is listening to Sheryl Crow's off-key wailing over the opening titles.

I see it in your eyes
Tomorrow never dies

soon followed by the immortal and poignant lines

Darling you won
It's no fun
Martinis, girls, and guns


And yes, the song was nominated for a Grammy.

 

I'll bet Quantum of Solace was a huge headache for foreign distributors to change to their local language.

 

The Heraldic One

The title: The World Is Not Enough

"Where?s it from? It?s not a Fleming title, but James Bond?s creator inserted the phrase (believed to originate from Alexander The Great?s epitaph) into his 1963 novel On Her Majesty?s Secret Service as the family motto of a Sir Thomas Bond, which 007 discovers while assuming his cover as a heraldry boffin.

Is it relevant? Barely. In a tortuous (and torturous) bit of scripting, Bond finds the time to wheeze the title out while having his windpipe crushed by villainess Elektra King. Surely it would have made more sense for her to say it, what with her being a greedy megalomaniac and all? In fact, shouldn?t it be the family motto of every Bond villain?"

 

It wasn't changed in Finland, which I don't know why, since it definitely doesn't roll well from Finnish tongues (no Finnish word has Q). Also Casino Royale wasn't changed but since the name of the novel wasn't changed either in the 1950s that was okay. I don't know what they will do to Skyfall. Other films have had their names translated as literally as possible, which gave them kind of a playful feel.

 

Actually, in that squeezed windpipe torture scene, Bond utters the one-liner "One last screw." The words "The world is not enough" were said at a different time.

 

The Poetic One

The title: Die Another Day

"Where?s it from? A.E. Housman?s 1896 poem A Shropshire Lad featured the line ?But since the man that runs away / Lives to die another day?. By this point you have to wonder if the scriptwriters are just scouring the internet looking for easily-marketable uses of the word ?die?.

Is it relevant? Tenuously. Bond paraphrases Housman?s poem (he?s obviously a fan) in a quip to the villain, Gustav Graves, who apparently died in the film?s pre-title sequence only to miraculously survive and return with a completely new face. And voice. And body. Given Die Another Day?s insistence on shoehorning in references to previous Bond flicks, wouldn?t it have been more in keeping for Bond to tell Graves: ?You only live twice??

 

Now that would have been awesome.

 

Yeah, the problem was how much Cuba dragged. Jeeeeeeeez.

 

I'm thrilled about all the news. I admit to holding out hope that Fiennes will be playing a kind of re-imagined Blofeld, but I'll be just as happy with the casting if he's some entirely new or different character. Similarly, I want Harris's "Eve" character to be Moneypenny, but I won't shed any tears if she's not. She was superb in the Pirates sequels and I'm looking forward to her contributions here, whatever they may consist of.

And meanwhile... will Jeffrey Wright return as Felix? He's the best incarnation of that character ever filmed, though he doesn't need to be in every Bond outing. Still, if this proves to be Craig's last go-round, I'd like to see some closure or climax with the character.

The title I could take or leave, but it's the movie itself that interests me. Titles are just window dressing IMO.

 

Really? I thought his Felix was kind of dull. He's been in two Bond films and hasn't done much of anything. I would much prefer Jack Lord as the best incarnation. He's the actor that comes to mind when I think of the name "Felix Leiter".

 

How can any one actor stand out? It's like this magnificent, never ending parade of Felixes. I don't really understand why they had so much trouble getting an actor to stay in that part.

 

The Actors Who Have Played Felix Leiter

 

David Hedison's played him twice, but, hilariously, the times when Leiter was the same, Bond wasn't!

Anyway, am I the only one who just doesn't really care for Felix? I mean, I like the idea of an American analogue to Bond helping Bond out, but Leiter rarely does anything in his movies. And, I for one think Jeffrey Wright is too good of an actor to be stuck doing useless second banana roles.

 

... not to mention that the only reason they got Hedison back was because of the nature of the plot (Leiter almost killed by drug traffickers, Bond vows revenge) which led to the producers feeling that Leiter needed to be a familiar face.

Amusingly, Leiter had also been in Dalton's previous film (The Living Daylights) in a blink-and-you'll-miss-him part, which is probably why they didn't bother asking that actor back for Licence To Kill.

 

Apparently Leiter had a bigger role written in QoS than what got filmed. On-set re-writes reduced him to giving 007 the location of the desert hotel and warning him that the CIA was coming to get 'im.

Still, Wright's grizzled smolder -- replete with "I'm better than all of this" sneer and half-open shirt collar (not in sexiness but in slovenly apathy) -- cynically burned his way into my heart. No one chugs a beer like that dude. No one.

 

I've got no particular love for pre-Wright Leiter, but Wright has such a tremendous presence in the part that it's impossible not to like him. It's true that they need to give him some meaty material up to his level in Skyfall, though.

 

Which is interesting because the aging Hedison (think Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea) had just
undergone an all-too-obvious face lift that gave him the on-screen appearance of a marginally
embalmed corpse.