98 replies to this topic

[BONDFINESSE 007]

Originally posted by DLibrasnow


That should have been a lesson in futility.  

There is nothing redeeming about TWINE!

except for.....well yall know the rest of what i was going to say:D

[Brandon Steves]

I have to admit i really enjoy the programs on Spike tv such as real tv and american gladiators but i do not believe i will be watching the marathon because i own all the bonds already and i don't feel like watching the commercials

[DLibrasnow]

I think the Marathon is over Brandon!

[CommanderBond]

yeah 2 days late my friend but its good to hear your input. I think this thread is done.

[BondNumber7]

Originally posted by DLibrasnow
There is nothing redeeming about TWINE!

How anyone can believe that is beyond me.

Here is a list of what is redeeming about TWINE:

1. Great extended part for M, and Judy Dench gives a wonderful performance. Not only is she more involved, but M isn't there to just bark a few orders and give 007 a mission. The head of MI6 is truly human and even sympathetic.

2. Bond shooting Elektra captures what Bond is all about. It is one of the most powerful, touching, and cold hearted things I have seen in the series. "I never miss." Yeah, a cold blooded killer spy certainly never misses no matter who he is shooting, even if it's someone he loved. And the look on M when she first sees this person she cared about dead is a real plus; truly powerful for a Bond picture and is one example of why TWINE has more feeling to it then the emotionless pictures of the past. That alone strengthens the film.

3. Elektra is one of the series most interesting and well written characters. Unlike so many people of the series, we can really feel what's inside her head. Overal the characters, apart from Christmas Jones, are some of the most fully developed people in the series and the story works because of them.

4. The boat chase. Need I say more.

5. Another touching scene in Q's exit and good pythonic humor from Cleese for those Monty Python fans.

So yeah D, not sure what's going through your head.

[Turn]

While most of the things you mentioned make TWINE a little more tolerable, Bond Number 7, it's really not enough. Those things make up a small part of an overlong, mostly dull Bond film. It reminds me of my friend's summation of it when we were finished -- "There were no superlatives in that."

Aside from Elektra, I'd argue that the characters in TWINE are hardly developed. Renard, for example, is one of the least developed villains in the entire series. We know he's some sort of revolutionary with a bullet lodged in his head who could die at any time who supposedly can't be hurt but does little more than hold hot rocks and put his fist through a table. When Bond has him at his mercy, he's like a kitten.

There's nobody else in it we really get to know or care about. Zukovsky goes from being a threatening Russian gangster in GE to comic relief here. Robert King is in the film for like four minutes. Molly Warmflash is a Bond dalliance and little more. We really don't get to know Davidoff, Mr. Bull, Cigar Girl, the Russian colonel or anybody else. Even the plot is one of the least exciting of all. Little seems at stake. Or at least it doesn't play like it.

[Jaelle]

Originally posted by BondNumber7
How anyone can believe that is beyond me.

And I'm still trying to figure out how anyone can take TWINE seriously, and I know several people whose opinions I respect very much liked the film. I just don't understand it, but there you go.

1. Great extended part for M, and Judy Dench gives a wonderful performance. Not only is she more involved, but M isn't there to just bark a few orders and give 007 a mission. The head of MI6 is truly human and even sympathetic.[/B]

On this one point, we can agree, tho I think you overstate the case (but you're not alone). I think M's role in the film is quite interesting to watch, and Dench does a good job. It definitely makes for some of the more memorable scenes. I just don't think it has as much impact as you do. It makes for interesting viewing, adds something new to the Bond mythos with M getting captured. But Dench's performance is hardly all that memorable not because she's untalented but because what she has to do never rises above being simply interesting, that's it. None of the ideas written around her character (as with the areas I address below) are really fleshed out or cohere into anything that makes any real sense.

2. Bond shooting Elektra captures what Bond is all about. It is one of the most powerful, touching, and cold hearted things I have seen in the series. "I never miss." Yeah, a cold blooded killer spy certainly never misses no matter who he is shooting, even if it's someone he loved. And the look on M when she first sees this person she cared about dead is a real plus; truly powerful for a Bond picture and is one example of why TWINE has more feeling to it then the emotionless pictures of the past. That alone strengthens the film.[/B]

People keep raving about this but I just don't get it. Not for one moment do I ever believe that Bond loved this woman (or cared for her in any substantive way) nor do I for one moment believe that he felt anything in particular when he had to kill her. The whole "relationhship" between them never rises above a lot of histrionics and phony poignancy and emotion. The scene where he shoots her just comes off as wholly empty, hyped up into something that supposedly has emotional impact but that never rises above empty, vapid cliche.

Tale the scene where Bond watches her on the computer screen talking about her kidnapping--I'm supposed to believe he's somehow touched by her and what she went thru. It reeks of fakery, obvious pedantry, totally unsubtle, pretentious, sophomoric writing. Something out of a Star Trek fanzine. I just think "why am I supposed to believe that Bond is suddenly so emotionally touched by this woman's experience?"

3. Elektra is one of the series most interesting and well written characters. Unlike so many people of the series, we can really feel what's inside her head. [/B]

Really? That's news to me. I've seen the film five times now and I STILL can't figure out Elektra in the least. I can't feel for her, I don't understand her. She's the most pretentious bit of nonsense I've yet seen in a Bond film. Like most of the film, I'm told[/] a lot of confused, idiotic psychogibberish about her character but I never see anything except a lot of vapid acting from Marceau. I've read praise about Marceau's acting skills (including from Tim Dalton when he dated her in the early 90s) but I saw none of it in TWINE. I find her incredibly opaque and prosaic a performer, I laugh at her when she goes on about "my people" (that whole scene looks and sounds like something out of a Buck Rogers comic book from the 30s) and she never, ever convinces me for one minute. I don't believe for one moment that she's an heiress of a Central Asian tycoon, she never comes off as just some beautiful European actress playing a mess of a part. I still don't fully understand her whole character, her motivation, her supposedly diabolical plan, and so on. At least I [i]get[/] Christmas Jones.

Overal the characters, apart from Christmas Jones, are some of the most fully developed people in the series and the story works because of them. [/B]

I already explained what I think about Elektra. But Renard? Oh please. Another mess of a character. The only good thing I can say about him is that this is a rare Bond film in which I actually ROOT for the villain -- Renard, not Bond. Carlyle successfully makes Renard so pathetic and pitiful that I can't help but feel sorry for him. I'm supposed to believe that he's this incredibly dangerous anarchist terrorist, when he's just a big phony. Nick Nack was more scary than this guy. Turn responded to this point very well so I'll leave it at that.

The problem overall has to do with the weakness of the script, which seems to me to be a first draft that never got re-written. There are some interesting character development ideas in the script but they never get fleshed out into anything I can grasp or make sense of, anything that resonates as real or genuine. It all proceeds like a couple of high school students wanting to make a more meaningful Bond film with real character development. They have some interesting ideas but their hamstrung by a lot of conventional, half-baked notions that they just pour into the script without much thought, hoping it'll all make some sense. It's an incredibly amateurish script.

4. The boat chase. Need I say more.[/B]

On this we can definitely agree. I love the boat chase! I think it's far more exciting than most other such chases in the series.

Other things that just make me want to cringe are the awful, awful dialogue -- the terrible puns and jokes come one after another after another without mercy (especially in the first section of the film) that I just want to turn off the sound! There's another thing about TWINE that I really can't stand, and that's the ideological pedantry and self-righteousness.

In none of the previous Bond films did you ever see M or the defense minister or Bond himself launch into a self-righteous speech laced with ideological morally upright claptrap. In TWINE we get this cr-p about "we never negotiate with terrorists" (which western governments always do and sometimes successfully) and a lot of moralistic dialogue about Renard's activities. Yet we barely see any real evidence of his evil nature. He mostly stands around spouting forgettable dialogue.

Contrast that with, say, the early Connery films when the no-nonsense M, Bond and company just busied themselves with getting the job done, fighting a ruthless enemy, and didn't pause to hit the audience over the head with morally self-righteous BS. I [i]hate[/] that kind of writing and I [i]hate listening to someone spout it.

Now I've broken my promise to Ed King that I would go easy on TWINE while he's away.

[jwheels]

Just to let everybody know, Dr. No is going to be on the UPN tonight at either 8 or 9, I forget wich. I just wonder how they will do with the comercial.

Spike TV is doing another marathon starting on Christmas Eve.

[Genrewriter]

Originally posted by Jaelle
The problem overall has to do with the weakness of the script, which seems to me to be a first draft that never got re-written.  There are some interesting character development ideas in the script but they never get fleshed out into anything I can grasp or make sense of, anything that resonates as real or genuine.  It all proceeds like a couple of high school students wanting to make a more meaningful Bond film with real character development.  They have some interesting ideas but their hamstrung by a lot of conventional, half-baked notions that they just pour into the script without much thought, hoping it'll all make some sense.  It's an incredibly amateurish script.

I agree, this is a major flaw in the film. I would have put the script through another draft or two before giving the go-ahead to start filming.