23 replies to this topic

[Tim007]

Australian-based newspaper [url="http://"http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,4740789%5E12852,00.html"]Sunday Mail[/url] has interviewed Bond 20 Director Lee Tamahori, additionally they've published a great article on the shooting of Die Another Day.

DRESSED in striking white fencing garb and with sabre in hand, Pierce Brosnan looks fit as a fiddle as he takes part in a friendly thrust-and-parry with his To Die Another Day co-star Toby Stephens.  

Brosnan is, after all, Bond -- James Bond.  

And with Brosnan at 50, the suave British action hero is facing his toughest test -- younger villains who are set to shake, not just stir, the decades-old film franchise.  

Spoiler

The fencing scene from the latest instalment is crucial to the development of the plot.

The setting is the fencing parlour of an elaborate London gentleman's club, complete with glass cases full of swords and suits of armour.

The exteriors are the Reform Club in Pall Mall and 33-year-old Stephens (aka Gustav for the purposes of this film), son of actors Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens, is the youngest Bond villain ever.  

Spoiler

The idea of the fencing scene is that when the action suddenly gets serious, Gustav's true nature begins to be revealed.

Brosnan refers to Stephens as "the best bad guy in the four Bond movies that I've done". (GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not Enough are the others.)  

And that suits To Die Another Day's New Zealand director, Lee Tamahori, who was keen to keep his villains young (there are also two young Asian-American baddies, Rick Yune, memorable from Snow Falling on Cedars, and newcomer Will Yun Lee) to appeal to the under-30s audience.  

"The under-30s are growing up on a high level of video-gaming and we have to deliver a higher level of high-end visual action, and you can't do that '80s Bond movie any more," says Tamahori, who concedes he is still best known for his hard-edged "wife-beating" drama, Once Were Warriors.  

"Since (director and fellow Kiwi) Martin Campbell came in in the '90s and re-invented the Bond formula with GoldenEye, we've had to keep moving forward.  

"I want to deliver an action picture that's up there with other action movies."  

Tamahori has made this 20th Bond movie faster and more furious than the previous 19, and his movie boasts not one but two impressive, death-defying, stunt-filled set pieces,

Spoiler

one involving a hovercraft (shades of Bond on the Thames in The World is Not Enough) and the second a car chase among Iceland's glaciers, which was shot partly on freezing locations and partly on the 007 sound stage at Pinewood Studios, outside London.

The set, comprising glaciers and an ice palace -- which Tamahori describes as "bigger than the Sydney Opera House" -- is the largest since the submarine bay in 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me.  

The scene will also see the return of Bond in a silver grey Aston Martin car, the new B12 Vanquish (Brosnan got one this month). Stephens drives a racing-green Jaguar XKR and the Bond girl for this outing, Halle Berry, a hot pink Thunderbird.  

British film icons Dame Judi Dench (as M) and John Cleese (as R, replacing Desmond Llewellyn's Q) also star.  

Spoiler

The story, which is set in North and South Korea, Hong Kong, Cuba (Spain was a substitute) and London, has mostly been kept under wraps and tells of Bond, assisted by Bond girls Jinx (Berry) and MI6 agent Miranda Frost (deftly played by blonde British newcomer Rosamund Pike) trying to unmask a hi-tech evil-doer and to prevent a global war.

It seems there's every likelihood that Berry might just steal the show, and that's OK with the ever-generous Brosnan, who will most likely be back for two more films while the Bond girls usually don't get another day.  

"If Halle does that, fair play to her," he says. "She is brilliant, she is at the top of her form.  

"Everyone was behind her 100 per cent. Here is someone who really has worked hard and if her performance makes the audience come in, makes the movie better, then fantastic.  

"The trick is ego-no ego, which is a very hard row to hoe."  

Berry was a casting coup for Tamahori, who wanted the actor after seeing her in Swordfish, long before the strength of her performance in Monster's Ball (she won an Oscar) became known.  

His emphasis was on quality acting rather than bimbos for his Bond girls.  

Tamahori wanted to pay homage to other Bond movies as much as he could,

Spoiler

and in one scene has Berry clad in bikini rising out of the water in the fashion of Ursula Andress -- or Undress, as she has often jokingly been called -- in 1962's Dr No.

However, there will be no nude Berry here. "We couldn't afford it," the director jokes.  

The film, which wrapped last week, contains an undisclosed scene where Madonna might just turn up in a cameo. She sings the film's title theme.

[Loomis]

"Die Another Day" is sounding better by the minute.

[Morton Slumber]

here's a link to a new article on DAD.

http://www.thesunday...5E12852,00.html

Graves seems to sound more and more interesting.

[Morton Slumber]

Just noticed the typo in the thread heading, could someone correct that for me and add a spoiler warning just in case.

Thanks in advance.

[Blue Eyes]

Fantastic interview. Very very interesting. Hopefully directors after Lee will deliver older villains though. I don't mind young henchmen, but Bond really needs to fight someone older than him or his own age. I think it has more meaning when he goes up against someone who's intelligence/worldliness is superior.

[Tim007]

Hrmpf Daniel, I was about to close Morton's thread, submitted my answer to his thread and suddenly both threads were mixed up and I found my original article in this thread :eek:

Morton, I've started a thread on this topic earlier this morning, additionally there's already an article on the main page.

I'll close this thread now. Please go here for the further discussion

[Double-0 Six]

Originally posted by Blue Eyes
Hopefully directors after Lee will deliver older villains though. Bond really needs to fight someone older than him or his own age. I think it has more meaning when he goes up against someone who's intelligence/worldliness is superior.

I agree that older villains seem to pose more of a threat to Bond for the reasons stated above. Although its a nice change to have a younger villain, I hope it isn't setting a trend for future Bond films.

[Morton Slumber]

Thanks for tidying things up Tim. The artcle was not up on the main page when I posted earlier. We must have posted at the same time.

[PaulZ108]

Interesting. I've not read Moonraker so correct me if I'm wrong, but the idea of Bond discovering Graves' true nature in a game sounds alot like how Drax was supposedly first suspected after being caught cheating.

[JJ Guy]

I'm starting to worry that this is just going to be a big budget action flick, and little else. we're loosing the true essence of bond. sorry if I'm coming off as a pessimist, but that's the way I feel.

[PaulZ108]

I've got sort of the same concern, but I'm hoping that he means it'll be a better type of action film than the previous explosion-fests of TND and TWINE; that the action will flow better and make more sense.

[Double-0 Six]

I liked TND, the mix between action and talk was about right. For me, TWINE felt a bit too much like "just another action movie" (although I still like the film). I hope they get the balance right again with Die Another Day.

[JimmyBond]

I've long dropped the fear that it will be "another TND" if it in fact becomes one (and I really doubt it will) I'll still like it, but the fact is, I think they really want to make a good movie, they talk about action and all, but its just PR stuff, they want the non fans to talk about this film.

[White Persian]

Quite right Jimmy Bond. They're anxious that young audiences who might perceive Bond as old fashioned will role up to see the action. we Bond fans will enjoy the characterisation and Bondian ambiance ( which DAD looks like having in spades).

[neversaynever]

Alarm bells started going off for me as soon as I read this!

If LT really thinks that a better Bond movie is one with more loud bangs and explosions, then I am quite concerned. I am really hopeful that this is just the line that the Sunday Mail chose to play up: and that that Die Another Day isn't just going to be some generic action flick.

[Blue Eyes]

In LT's defence, I'd say it's a line any director would give to a newspaper. Why? Because it's reportable. You always emphasise the really simple stuff. "There's lots of explosions and girls" How many times do they say that during production?

During the production of The World is not Enough it was said countless times, but the film still turned out for the better. Die Another Day practically gaurntees to be thrice as good as that film.

[Dalton]

Originally posted by Blue Eyes
In LT's defence, I'd say it's a line any director would give to a newspaper. Why? Because it's reportable. You always emphasise the really simple stuff. "There's lots of explosions and girls" How many times do they say that during production.

Totally agree with you Daniel. Tamahori truly has a passion for the Bond movies, and doesn't want to screw things up.
If DAD turns out the way it's shaping up to be, I think that we'll be see him back for another shot at it. Can't help but think that we do need to see some villians that are older, and more of the odd physical types!

Can't wait until November.

[Mourning Becomes Electra]

Exactly, what director of a Bond film is going to promote his film by saying, "we have these intriguing character scenes with some deft crisp trenchant dialogue"? Even if it's true it's not what's going to sell tickets to the mass audience. But from the bits and pieces revealed about DAD so far it's evident at least to me the film is going to be more than just explosions and more explosions. And if the film is everything I expect it to be I hope Tamahori comes back from another b/c it would gret to get some continuty in Bond directors again. From the clips it's already visually more interesting than many of the recent films.

MBE

[Dalton]

Originally posted by Mourning Becomes Electra
But from the bits and pieces revealed about DAD so far it's evident at least to me the film is going to be more than just explosions and more explosions.  And if the film is everything I expect it to be I hope Tamahori comes back from another b/c it would gret to get some continuty in Bond directors again.  From the clips it's already visually more interesting than many of the recent films.

MBE

This is really what the series does need again. Some continuity of directors.
Tamahori and Apted are apparently both up for doing another film. If the quality is produced why not use them again, instead of finding a jobbing director that's free and available. The films would benefit.

[Loomis]

"Die Another Day practically guarantees to be thrice as good (as The World Is Not Enough)." A bold statement, Blue Eyes, but one that I doubt you'd make lightly. I must admit that I didn't care for the part in the interview where Tamahori says "the under-30s are growing up on a high level of video gaming" (as though his model films are Tomb Raider and Resident Evil), but I think we can all relax. As MBE and Blue Eyes point out, it's just the sort of thing he'd be expected to feed the press, especially at this stage of the game with nearly four months to go until release.
MBE is also on the money when he says that DAD looks more visually interesting than recent outings (TWINE was appallingly shot, and if a Bond film doesn't look good then it is nothing) and that it would be good to have continuity of directors again.
One of the things nearly all of us seem to agree on is that DAD is shaping up to be something pretty special. And you know what? I really don't think we're going to be proved wrong.

[Blue Eyes]

Originally posted by Loomis
"Die Another Day practically guarantees to be thrice as good (as The World Is Not Enough)." A bold statement, Blue Eyes, but one that I doubt you'd make lightly.

It was one that was informed. I've talked to a few members of crew about behind the scenes changes (No Simon West [is that his name? Can't remember], Tamahori vs Apted and other such changes) and everything seems to be a lot more positived with Die Another Day than The World is not Enough. Fans and Eon alike realise the faults of The World is not Enough and I think have moved to correct that.

[Loomis]

You mean Simon West was in the picture at one point? Scary. Thank goodness the guy who directed "Con Air" and "Tomb Raider" wasn't let loose on "Die Another Day".

[Blue Eyes]

Nah I've got the wrong name!

I remember it now, Simon Crane Worked on the second unit. I have no idea where I pulled West from

[JimmyBond]

In cases like these, I'm inclined to believe what Blue Eyes says.And if what he says is that DAD will be three times as good as the TWINE, then I'm gonna believe him