What's with the LTK Hate?
#121
Posted 19 October 2012 - 02:47 PM
#122
Posted 19 October 2012 - 02:48 PM
Edited by IcedCamaro, 19 October 2012 - 02:49 PM.
#123
Posted 19 October 2012 - 04:49 PM
Dalton brought Bond to his roots which for me, was refreshing. I too agree with thecasinoroyal's post. The only problem with Dalton was that is Bond was ahead of his time. Wuold have been a treat to see what he would have done with Goldeneye (though Brosnan did a fine job). If we lived in a prefect world, OHMSS would have been made with Dalton as Bond. Would have been fun to see his Bond soften when Tracy came into his life.
#124
Posted 19 October 2012 - 05:35 PM
Dalton's seriousness is what made LTK believable for me. As grisly as it was Leiter's tangle with the sharks is pure Fleming. Bond's reaction to it complements the reaction Fleming gave him in LALD. What happened to Della just added fuel to Bond's fire. Really liked the way the movie dovetailed the literary Bond with the film Bond and Dalton was the perfect actor to make it work. While I enjoyed Moore's Bond, the silly jokes were a distraction that added little to the character.
Dalton brought Bond to his roots which for me, was refreshing. I too agree with thecasinoroyal's post. The only problem with Dalton was that is Bond was ahead of his time. Wuold have been a treat to see what he would have done with Goldeneye (though Brosnan did a fine job). If we lived in a prefect world, OHMSS would have been made with Dalton as Bond. Would have been fun to see his Bond soften when Tracy came into his life.
I agree with all of it. LTK even seems somewhat like the film that DAF should have been. Personally, I like to think that the Dalton films could be updated without much change and take place between QOS and SF. Also, I can't figure out why Dalton is hammered for his portrayal of Bond while Craig is lauded despite them being very similar.
#125
Posted 19 October 2012 - 07:24 PM
If we lived in a prefect world, OHMSS would have been made with Dalton as Bond. Would have been fun to see his Bond soften when Tracy came into his life.
It's funny that you would say that because I had this exact thought while watching OHMSS for the first time last weekend. While Lazenby wasn't as bad as I expected, I just could not help imagining how the different scenes would have been with Dalton in his stead. Dalton is perfect for those larger than life romantic lead roles which is why he was so often casted in period dramas as the dashing "swept you off your feet" type. I imagined his delivery in all of the Tracy scenes (and even most without), including her death and I strongly felt that he would have added that special something that I just wasn't getting from Lazenby. It would have elevated an already good Bond film to something more believable and extraordinary (and attached to LTK it would have provided for an amazing character arc).
#126
Posted 19 October 2012 - 08:34 PM
Dalton may have made it had he had a new team from writers to directors...I like him and think he deserved better.
#127
Posted 19 October 2012 - 09:37 PM
I love Dalton, but I think for what he's doing, Craig is better.
#128
Posted 19 October 2012 - 09:45 PM
#129
Posted 20 October 2012 - 12:23 AM
A little bit more enthusiasm for LTK too, but not too much as that Miami Vice comparison still exists for a lot of people.
#130
Posted 24 October 2012 - 08:14 AM
#131
Posted 24 October 2012 - 06:16 PM
But is LTK any more of a drug movie than LALD is a drug movie? Both villains' are using drugs for bigger goals, sure.And I think that's just it, the movie isn't bad as a standalone film, it's basically just an 80's drug movie. Usually I get the feeling I'm watching a two hour episode of Miami Vice. IMO it doesn't stand up to being a 007 movie.
I personally think of it more as a revenge film. It doesn't get preachy saying drugs are bad for you, don't do them, the way Lethal Weapon 3 did with the gang violence aspect. They are a means to an end. Sanchez' obsession with loyalty is much more interesting. If LTK becomes like another film it's like the classic Japanese film Yojimbo, where the hero gains his enemies confidence and destroys them from the inside by turning Sanchez' gang against one another.
People also forget the character of Sanchez was rooted in the headlines of the day, with drug kingpin Manuel Noriega, who had isolated himself in his own kingdom and they had a hard time getting out. They finally did extradidte him months after LTK's release.
I still admire the chances they took with LTK, putting Bond out on his own with no service help, especially after years of the same sorts of thing, which was sort of what happened again when the series was revived in the '90s.
#132
Posted 24 October 2012 - 06:28 PM
#133
Posted 25 October 2012 - 01:12 PM
It certainly is sillier and more overblown that it needed to be (for most of the reasons Pussfeller outlined earlier in this thread) and while I do like Kamen's score (his use of the actual Bond Theme is one of my absolute favourites), it's similarly over-enthusiastic when a Barry score would have been better.
The only place it really excels over TLD is its pacing (which is perfect, the whole way through the film) and it's sheer, goofy entertainment-value. I can't believe I'm saying this, but having watched all of the films in a row up until this point, I can safely say that LTK is the most entertaining and quotable film since TSWLM, for its own distinctly darker reasons.
I definitely think the film would be objectively brilliant and one of the coldest, darkest and Flemingest if another director had taken over the reigns and excised the ninjas, exploding heads, et al and injected a much-needed new flavour of cinematography into the film (as Cambell did with GoldenEye).
Of all the 'last Bonds' other than OHMSS, this is probably the best.
#134
Posted 27 October 2012 - 12:12 PM
#135
Posted 27 October 2012 - 03:40 PM
I'm a huge fan of Kamen's 80s action scores. And with LTK he brings the same kind of urgency to Bond, working the Bond theme in where it needs to be, but never hitting us over the head with it. Kamen's gunbarrel cue is also my favorite gunbarrel cue of all the films, with Kamen's entire score probably being my favorite non-Barry score until I hear all of Newman's
#136
Posted 27 October 2012 - 08:29 PM
It's not all nostalgia goggles, though. I saw it a few weeks ago in anticipation of Skyfall, and although some aspects are dated, Most of it, particularly hard , ice cold performance, still holds up very well. I wish he could have done a couple more movies.
Edited by archer1949, 27 October 2012 - 08:29 PM.
#137
Posted 27 October 2012 - 08:32 PM
The first half is wonky but the second, once he reaches Isthmus City, is way better - and that tanker chase remains gold. Sanchez, too, is a very good bad guy. Definitely Dalton's best film, even if it's not quite a Bond movie altogether.
#138
Posted 29 October 2012 - 12:33 AM
#139
Posted 29 October 2012 - 01:57 AM
#140
Posted 29 October 2012 - 02:17 AM
I'm a huge fan of Kamen's 80s action scores. And with LTK he brings the same kind of urgency to Bond, working the Bond theme in where it needs to be, but never hitting us over the head with it. Kamen's gunbarrel cue is also my favorite gunbarrel cue of all the films, with Kamen's entire score probably being my favorite non-Barry score until I hear all of Newman's.
I'm a huge fan of Kamen's LTK score as well. As you said, the gunbarrel music is superb and goes a long way towards making the LTK gunbarrel hands down the best version of that sequence in the entire franchise by a significant margin.
I also love the piano music he has playing when Bond jumps into the pool at the end of the film when he gets together with Pam and then dissolves the music into Patti Labelle's "If You Asked Me To".
#141
Posted 29 October 2012 - 02:40 AM
I'm a huge fan of Kamen's 80s action scores. And with LTK he brings the same kind of urgency to Bond, working the Bond theme in where it needs to be, but never hitting us over the head with it. Kamen's gunbarrel cue is also my favorite gunbarrel cue of all the films, with Kamen's entire score probably being my favorite non-Barry score until I hear all of Newman's.
I'm a huge fan of Kamen's LTK score as well. As you said, the gunbarrel music is superb and goes a long way towards making the LTK gunbarrel hands down the best version of that sequence in the entire franchise by a significant margin.
I also love the piano music he has playing when Bond jumps into the pool at the end of the film when he gets together with Pam and then dissolves the music into Patti Labelle's "If You Asked Me To".
The gunbarrel is great, but I'm lukewarm on the rest of the score. I do feel that the "too much like an '80s action movie" criticism that gets thrown at LTK is down to Kamen's score. Not that it's a bad score - it's just that Kamen was over so many Joel Silver productions that seemed to be the dominant resident at the multiplex.
I've always been a big of LTK. I'm not blind to it's faults but I do feel that those faults are more than bettered by all that's good about the film. I've said many times it's a film that builds to its climax (unlike its predecessor - see TLD thread that's hot right now!!). Davi is one of the few villains in the series that I feel is truly threatening (see TLD, OP, TND for films either side that are undone by particularly weak villains). Bond films are nominally about Bond v Bad guy, but too often the villain is nowhere near Bond's equal. Dalton-Davi is almost on a par with SC-Shaw, and to my mind a shade better than Sir Rog-Lee in MWTGG.
Ultimately what makes LTK so good is TD's performance - it is staggeringly good. That he only made two films will forever be to the series' detriment.
#142
Posted 29 October 2012 - 03:00 AM
The movie introduces a concept that had already existed in Bond films: Bond's quest for vengeance. They had teased it in Goldfinger (Jill's death), OHMSS (Blofeld), etc. They finally find a topic that's believable (Felix Leiter, his dear friend, being brutally maimed), and they allow him to take the character's natural tendancy and run with it. What results is not a movie about druglords, but about Ian Fleming's cold-blooded spy seeking revenge in a way only Bond can. Bond uses his skills to infiltrate someone's organization and destroy it from within. Seeing Bond systematically cause Sanchez's entire organization to self-destruct would be something I would expect in an Ian Fleming novel.
The fact that it's violent, cold, and brutal makes it even better. Dalton's Bond was meant to take the character back to the novels, back to what the character was intended to be, and they did it in LTK. Gone were the glib one-liners and in were the brooding, violent secret agent that is, forgive me, licensed to kill.
#143
Posted 29 October 2012 - 03:59 AM
I couldn't agree more, especially about Leiter. Knowing the history between the two men (film wise and especially book wise) it Bond's vengence has always been plausable (IMO). We see it on a smaller scale in the book LALD after Felix gets pretty much the same treatment that he did in LTK and Bond returns to the scene of the crime. LTK tells a compelling tale that, to paraphrase the above quote, could easily have come from Fleming himself.I think License to Kill was a great idea. It was a dark Bond movie before Daniel Craig made it cool. It seems pretty clear that Dalton was going to be Bond for a long time (they did have a working concept for Property of a Lady), and they had a clear direction for his portrayal. The Living Daylights still had several Bond elements, but Dalton was taking the character where it needed to go: back to Fleming's Bond. When they got to LTK, they probably had taken it too far, and because Dalton never had another opportunity to play Bond, they almost "retreated" to Pierce Brosnan (a Bond more like Connery/Lazenby/Moore). The public wasn't ready for Dalton, so they had to go back to a safe portrayal.
The movie introduces a concept that had already existed in Bond films: Bond's quest for vengeance. They had teased it in Goldfinger (Jill's death), OHMSS (Blofeld), etc. They finally find a topic that's believable (Felix Leiter, his dear friend, being brutally maimed), and they allow him to take the character's natural tendancy and run with it. What results is not a movie about druglords, but about Ian Fleming's cold-blooded spy seeking revenge in a way only Bond can. Bond uses his skills to infiltrate someone's organization and destroy it from within. Seeing Bond systematically cause Sanchez's entire organization to self-destruct would be something I would expect in an Ian Fleming novel.
The fact that it's violent, cold, and brutal makes it even better. Dalton's Bond was meant to take the character back to the novels, back to what the character was intended to be, and they did it in LTK. Gone were the glib one-liners and in were the brooding, violent secret agent that is, forgive me, licensed to kill.
#144
Posted 29 October 2012 - 04:33 AM
I think Fleming never would have written such a tacky bar fight (not even for a filmic or TV treatment) like the one that features in LTK, for instance.I couldn't agree more, especially about Leiter. Knowing the history between the two men (film wise and especially book wise) it Bond's vengence has always been plausable (IMO). We see it on a smaller scale in the book LALD after Felix gets pretty much the same treatment that he did in LTK and Bond returns to the scene of the crime. LTK tells a compelling tale that, to paraphrase the above quote, could easily have come from Fleming himself.
I think License to Kill was a great idea. It was a dark Bond movie before Daniel Craig made it cool. It seems pretty clear that Dalton was going to be Bond for a long time (they did have a working concept for Property of a Lady), and they had a clear direction for his portrayal. The Living Daylights still had several Bond elements, but Dalton was taking the character where it needed to go: back to Fleming's Bond. When they got to LTK, they probably had taken it too far, and because Dalton never had another opportunity to play Bond, they almost "retreated" to Pierce Brosnan (a Bond more like Connery/Lazenby/Moore). The public wasn't ready for Dalton, so they had to go back to a safe portrayal.
The movie introduces a concept that had already existed in Bond films: Bond's quest for vengeance. They had teased it in Goldfinger (Jill's death), OHMSS (Blofeld), etc. They finally find a topic that's believable (Felix Leiter, his dear friend, being brutally maimed), and they allow him to take the character's natural tendancy and run with it. What results is not a movie about druglords, but about Ian Fleming's cold-blooded spy seeking revenge in a way only Bond can. Bond uses his skills to infiltrate someone's organization and destroy it from within. Seeing Bond systematically cause Sanchez's entire organization to self-destruct would be something I would expect in an Ian Fleming novel.
The fact that it's violent, cold, and brutal makes it even better. Dalton's Bond was meant to take the character back to the novels, back to what the character was intended to be, and they did it in LTK. Gone were the glib one-liners and in were the brooding, violent secret agent that is, forgive me, licensed to kill.
#145
Posted 29 October 2012 - 10:50 AM
Watching the 'Everything Or Nothing' documentary, the passion for taking Bond to his roots of Fleming-esque nature, in what he calls a cold-hearted, brutal assassin, was so nice to see. Dalton knew the Fleming character and did it so well, not without sly humour of course, but following Roger Moore after 12 years, no-one could have made ALL the fans comfortable in just 2 films after coming in from the warm, comedic and witty protrayal from Moore, which was brilliant of course. Dalton didn't get the chance sadly to show just what he could have done in the big shoes he had to fill and re-shape.
And the fact he was robbed of his 3rd film, once again by the fat-cats in the studio was so sad to hear, and to see how ready he was with production underway on his latest film which never got made.
Daniel Craig, 20 years before his time.
And one of the best gunbarrel walkers in the series.
Any idea what the story was for a third Dalton movie? That's a new one to me, did they discuss it in the documentary....?
Maybe someone should start a thread about 'lost and/or almost made' Bonds...
#146
Posted 30 October 2012 - 03:52 AM
Always thought Dalton was as close as anyone got to the character Fleming created, LTK is my 2nd fave Bond flik of all time, just behind OHMSS, and ahead of Casino Royale, those three movies all seem to have a similar style of character for Bond that set them apart from the rest of the series.
I loved the hardness of Dalton's approach to the character in TLD, which then solidified in his 2nd and sadly last Bond flik (...although i do wish that McClory had made Warhead with him in 1993), and I see the same thing in Craig's take on the character, which has saved my interest in Bond following Brosnan's awful DAD
#147
Posted 30 October 2012 - 06:48 PM
Watching the 'Everything Or Nothing' documentary, the passion for taking Bond to his roots of Fleming-esque nature, in what he calls a cold-hearted, brutal assassin, was so nice to see. Dalton knew the Fleming character and did it so well, not without sly humour of course, but following Roger Moore after 12 years, no-one could have made ALL the fans comfortable in just 2 films after coming in from the warm, comedic and witty protrayal from Moore, which was brilliant of course. Dalton didn't get the chance sadly to show just what he could have done in the big shoes he had to fill and re-shape.
And the fact he was robbed of his 3rd film, once again by the fat-cats in the studio was so sad to hear, and to see how ready he was with production underway on his latest film which never got made.
Daniel Craig, 20 years before his time.
And one of the best gunbarrel walkers in the series.
Any idea what the story was for a third Dalton movie? That's a new one to me, did they discuss it in the documentary....?
Maybe someone should start a thread about 'lost and/or almost made' Bonds...
If you look back far enough on these forums, you should be able to find several threads on the subject.
#148
Posted 09 November 2012 - 01:08 PM
While it can be boiled down to "Bond vs the Drug Cartels", I think its a lot better than that summation makes it seem.
I like the set-up with Felix; they give plenty of time to develop the opening of the story and I think the fact they don't give Bond and Felix's friendship shortchange helps the rest of the film. I like Pam's character; she's one of my favorite Bond women. I like that she doesn't seem to just to disappear as a character after her and Bond sleep together (in fact that's the start of their story, not the end; sure it'd been done before but not often enough that it couldn't be appreciated).
Weirdly enough, I kind of feel that the decision to use lighting the way they did was actually a conscious attempt to make the film not look like Miami Vice which was dark, glossy and full of neon colors. Instead LTK favors natural light, natural shadows and I can't help but feel its because the producers knew they risked comparison with Miami Vice and decided to make their film look distinct from that TV show. Unfortunately I think this is the "cheap" look that most people see.
I think Sanchez is an interesting villain; he's one of the few villains in the series that Bond spends much time with and I think that makes their conflict more interesting. I love the crazy TV religion aspect - using the idea of donations to sell their drugs under the noses of everyone! And Wayne Newton cracks me up - "Bless your heart!"
The set pieces are fairly subdued until the firefight at the drug plant/truck chase which IMO makes the last act terribly exciting.
Edited by George Kaplan, 09 November 2012 - 01:09 PM.
#150
Posted 12 November 2012 - 05:47 AM
It seems to me that this movie is extremely underrated. It's very different from the past movies, sure. But it is certainly much more realistic. I think if they had made TLD more "realistic" like LTK, then it would have had a better reception.
I thought that TLD made more money than LTK. But I agree that the Dalton era Bond was great. If I could go back in time I would remove the Ishmus City or whatever. I would have a better ending than the tanker chase. Davi's villian would have more style. There would be more B. Del Toro. I don't get all the LTK hate either.