"You Always Were a Cunning Linguist": Tomorrow Never Dies at 25 (1997-2022)

Well, here we go. Several shades worse for wear but fuck it. Alcohol does what it does so I hope you chaps bear with us.

Wait until you see that I have no Amazon account and that I'm using my brothers'!

Ah the 90s. Does anybody remember it? Where we had an Arnold score, very basic SFX and so on.

Hang a tick we're at SIS HQ(!?). A marked contrast to GE really. GE's M would be different here surely?

M's lines are on point though

Within seconds we have Roebuck getting all pissy and his Russkie friend. Now let's look, 97...I picture dear ol' Yeltsin. The days when Russia (seemingly) could be under the cosh.

For Bond this is surely a little beyond his usual spec. I try to imagine 007 part of this bazaar and fail miserably.#

"Alert Pentagon, NATO!" says M. C'mon M, by the time the missile hits, it'll be too late

Watchout...this isn't GE's Bond if I may be so bold.

"Filthy habit!?"

Now, I've said before but Broz could wear the heck out of a suit but in the PTS isn't he a bit overdressed?

Fuck it, Chester's missile is on its way!

Whatever we think of him, Brozzer's Bond slots into mode. He hopes into the fighter, he's on his way out.

Mush sees Bond doing his worst and thinks, let's do it!

If any film needed Kitchen's Tanner, this is it. The world weariness, the sigh etc

Hi Babs, Daniel, this is how you do it

Now one of Arnold's chief criticisms is the over use of the theme in TND. Fuck it. What I missed in the Craig Era until Skyfall was the theme. Arnold might've overused it but once or twice wouldn't have been too bad 2006-21

I hope one day Sir Roge saw this and when he next saw Pierce, he gave his kudos.

Oh...it's Sheryl...

It's thirty-five years after Dr No...

..but until whenever I've never listened to this. It's whiny, it's whatever.

But Hilly, this is perfect for the world in which we live in!

The song ends, we get a shot of a frigate. A lot of this was filmed in the Navy's simulator. However. when I saw the Westminster last week I pictured this.

Forget Butler, this bit and the end, involves a few names that are now part of British drama or comedy: Julian Rhind-Tutt (who gave me a dark look on the Tube), Hugh Bonneville, Julian Watkins etc

One criticism is that sure Carver can send the drill in easily but surely the Devonshire can see a ruddy seacat to port!?

All the same, when we hear torpedo in the water it's all go!

As a fifteen year-old seeing this, this was devastating. The Royal Navy were the ones who vanquished the Bismarck etc.

Let's be honest, Gotz Otto enjoys himself. It isn't until Downfall, or since, that I saw him in anything else.

No matter how many times I see it, this scene is hard hitting. The lighting, the choir, the slow motion....

Devonshire thus becomes the first ship in fifteen years to be sunk

Early on we get an idea of Carver. Pithy one liners aside, he's ruthless. He has a meeting to attend. As he does, the Devonshire's survivors reach the seacat and are massacred.

No time is wasted, within let's say a minute, Carver's goons are approaching Devonshire.

Any other time this scene would be hilarious and yet, Carver addressing his media goons doesn't seem so bad.

MGW was a trooper, I know he's not dead, but here with a few syllables he's epic.

Delicious. Consider him slimed.

"I want books, I want film...."

Surely by the time we get going, books are too slow!

Oh fuck it

Bond is...fuck it

I didn't get to see TND until at least early 99. I don't remember just when we saw it but I know by the divorce, I had seen TND a few times.

What does it matter? Well, when I first saw the film, my parents got fidgety seeing the Danish Lesson. GE had scarred them I think!

However, I love the M/MP interaction:

"Don't ask
-don't tell"

Any other world, Roebuck wouldn't feel the need to explain what GPS stands for.

It's tickle worthy regardless. The balls line is still funny but you have the fact that the man and woman concerned have starred in As Time Goes By for god knows how long plus you have the man who created Downton Abbey.

Then Bond waltzes in like no man's business.

Brozzer's Bond is a little cold, a little pissed. M says the PM would be pissed but I can't imagine Blair would care too much

M is on the snozzle. She's a little lighter than GE.

I like to think being a Navy chap, Bond looks at the newspapers and has a grim face based on his life. His alma mater have been taken for mugs.

Nonetheless the Q/M exchange is somehow brilliant. I can see Moore's Bond doing this.

In the novelisation Q accidentally opens a pen with a jaguar. Might've worked here.

"So that's what I've been doing wrong all these years", something I've said to the youth of today re: cellphones

You might like your Beemers but I wish Brozzer had an Aston or two

She is a fucking pain though. Surely Q would've modified the Beemer to not be so bloody bossy.

Bond is one upped by the ghostly appearance of Wai Linn but at least he can BS the whole banker crap

Bond, a little ignored, goes on a  walk and imagine the fact he finds one of his ex-gf's!

Now, I find it hard, as it were, to be dismissive of her. As a child/teen Teri Hatcher was Lois Lane. She was a bit of alright. Hell, she was the reason I watched Desperate Housewives when it began.

However, I'll say it now again, it's a bit much that as soon as she says the pillow line we see Gupta focusing on it. Surely we can get the whole scene AND THEN Gupta focusing on it?

Unfortunately, Bond does ram home the sea puns

Paris to her credit persists with her deception

Bond is not having it when Wai Lin asks question

I do, for my sins, like Bond's reaction when Carver's goons come to him.

Can 1997 be so long ago?

Now, I do like this scene but the chap watching Carver's feed as Bond is beaten is Terence Plummer. What does it matter? Well, for a while he was Jenny Agutter's beau in the Eagle Has Landed. After this I became aware of him in other things...he's in the Sweeney, Professionals etc...I look at IMDB, he's a stuntman etc...

I digress. Bond testing the ashtray is great. He's in no hurry but fuck it

"Time for a station...break..."

I always feel pity for the blonde. It's not her fault things have fucked up but she's fired. I like to think she winds up somehow at SIS.

Some would say that Bond is aping Dr No as he waits but surely it fits that Bond would wait for the goons regardless?
Whatever we think, Hatcher was a bit of alright
No?
What a body
I do love the other network ribbing Carver: “I’m sorry Elliott, we didn’t do it!”
It is a little chilling the Paris/Carver moment accompanied by Arnold’s music
I had a whole bit here but accidentally shut it so I can’t be arsed.
I did it twice
In 1997 we were about to give HK over.
Now look at us.
It’s YOLTesque the shots of the beach etc.
Watch out, HMS Bedford…Michael Byrne and Hugh Bonneville..
Naturally Wai Linn goes kicking and screaming
Gupta’s not entirely dense but Carver likes an audience.
The good ol navy is ready
Poor Gupta
C’mon Navy
“If you don’t mind old chap, we’re going after this stealth thingy. Do what you want!?”
As  it today the PRC would be so oblinging
“Whatever that thing is, sink it!”
Good ol’ Navy, keep firing we have to slow them down
Far as the Andrew is concerned this thing sunk the Devonshire. This thing almost started a war but all the same we have to get it.
It gets a bit much I suppose, Bond firing as he does but fuck it
Got to give Otto his due. He won’t let up
No matter what the Navy keeps firing.
I do like how you hear, albeit off screen, Byrne say: “KEEP FIRING!”
For all the Terminatoresaque firing I do like the way Bond fires and throws away his gun
Elliott you fucking idiot
Of all the pay offs….”You forgot the first rule of mass media, Elliott…Give the people what they want!”
Stamper is so single minded. Aryan fuckwit
For Carver
For Kaufman
Dedicated shit
For my faults I do like Arnold’s music here. Bond is no mood to hang about.
“Bedford reports Carver went down with his ship”
Bloody intuitive of the Bedford
“This is the HMS Bedford…” grammatically wrong
And that does it. 25 years etc

Good stuff.

I'm interested in your thoughts, Hilly, as to whether TND fits in with that whole "Cool Britannia" moment of that period? Y'know, Spice Girls and Blair and all that jazz. Was it considered a cultural export of equal standing to everything the UK was selling at the time? Seems like '97-'98 was the peak of that zeitgeist.

Thanks CJB. For whatever reason, that period was a bit murky in my memory Bond-wise. I was 12-13 when I first saw TND and wasn't really paying attention to Cool Britannia. It's possible that it tied into the Blarisim movement post election. I can see the point you're making involving Spice Girls, Blair etc.

Personally, it feels that Bond was a distant last behind all of that. I don't think Spottiswood et al were trying to tie into it even remotely (Bond is his own man, say). I can see Blair trying to make links but he was and is an opportunist.

I fear, he says, that it wasn't seen as a cultural export. Sure, a new Bond film always gets press here (in the tabloids mostly) but I don't remember it.

As I've said off-forum to others, my parents weren't mad on Goldeneye. They had rented it from the local VHS place (ah, the 90s!). I had until then watched Bond films with them and so GE really was the first 'new' film I saw. From the sex scene to the soundtrack nothing worked. My Dad is a huge Barry fan, from the Persuaders theme in '71 and that played a part.

So in short, TND I didn't see until at least 98 early 99.

Bond felt very lacking to the Blair movement. I could imagine Blair distanced himself a little.

Interesting. Now that I think about it, the closest thing to a Cool Britannia redux was in 2012 with the combo of the Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics. Skyfall - being the 50th anniversary of the British cinematic icon - definitely played into that zeitgeist. It featured the most overt patriotism in a Bond film since the Union Flag 'chute moment, with much of the action set in the UK, Bond being presented as an old fashioned defender of the realm, the Churchillian bulldog etc. Good luck seeing any of that again, now that the statue-topplers are ruling the roost culturally.

I suppose TND didn't necessarily "feel" any more British than any other Bond film, with most of the action taking place in Germany and Vietnam. The fact that the plot revolves around a Royal Navy vessel and an impending war between the UK and PRC feels like a bit of a side-show. Might've been a different story if they kept to the original concept and had the Hong Kong handover be central to the storyline.

Can imagine Blair (or any PM) not wanting to touch the film with a barge pole, given the aforementioned Anglo-Chinese conflagration angle. Nevertheless, I'd hazard a guess and say it was still 'unproblematic' for a Labourite to be a 007 fan in the 90's, when the party still attracted normal working folk rather than just Marxist perma-students. Consider Sir Vix's recent musings about the next James Bond needing to be a woman, not that the honourable member in question knows what the definition of a woman is.

Suppose it's interesting, though, to compare and contrast the revitalisation of a dormant film franchise with Brosnan and likewise 'New' Labour under Blair. Two fresh faces of old British institutions, making them relevant for the 90's etc.

Guess if they had been keen to tie TND to 'Cool Britannia', they'd have went for Pulp's submitted song over Crow's.

Seem to remember that politicans of all stripes at the time were delighted that the TWINE boat chase featured the Houses Of Parliament.

I remember some of that plus the fact some Members did complain about the sound of machine guns or whatever during filming. Probably the SNP.

CJB wrote:

Interesting. Now that I think about it, the closest thing to a Cool Britannia redux was in 2012 with the combo of the Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics. Skyfall - being the 50th anniversary of the British cinematic icon - definitely played into that zeitgeist. It featured the most overt patriotism in a Bond film since the Union Flag 'chute moment, with much of the action set in the UK, Bond being presented as an old fashioned defender of the realm, the Churchillian bulldog etc. Good luck seeing any of that again, now that the statue-topplers are ruling the roost culturally.

I suppose TND didn't necessarily "feel" any more British than any other Bond film, with most of the action taking place in Germany and Vietnam. The fact that the plot revolves around a Royal Navy vessel and an impending war between the UK and PRC feels like a bit of a side-show. Might've been a different story if they kept to the original concept and had the Hong Kong handover be central to the storyline.

Can imagine Blair (or any PM) not wanting to touch the film with a barge pole, given the aforementioned Anglo-Chinese conflagration angle. Nevertheless, I'd hazard a guess and say it was still 'unproblematic' for a Labourite to be a 007 fan in the 90's, when the party still attracted normal working folk rather than just Marxist perma-students. Consider Sir Vix's recent musings about the next James Bond needing to be a woman, not that the honourable member in question knows what the definition of a woman is.

Suppose it's interesting, though, to compare and contrast the revitalisation of a dormant film franchise with Brosnan and likewise 'New' Labour under Blair. Two fresh faces of old British institutions, making them relevant for the 90's etc.

Part of me thinks the one PM who would not be bothered by upsetting anyone would be Thatcher. The Labour front benches wouldn't know what anything is never mind Bond and beyond. Think the government had a hand in making sure the Dome featured in TWINE.

Not to nitpick, but isn't NEXT year TND's 25th anniversary?

Yes but I thought hell with it, get a jump on things now. Or else drown the Last Bond thread.

Typos notwithstanding.