DIE ANOTHER DAY - Appreciation thread

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Perhaps Tiff was being halfway facetious? With him you never know!

:)

I stand by those homages. The trick is to look for genuine similarities with previous films. A plane in flight only works, if the circumstances are similar, or the framing of the shot is similar. Does it evoke memories of a scene from a previous film? Not every bird in the air though is an homage to every other bird in the air, however in a film like DAD, which was making efforts to homage the entire film series, scenes that evoke memories of other scenes are most likely by design.

Halle Berry floating vertical and lifeless in the water is as close to Michelle Yeoh floating vertical and lifeless in the water, as Halle Berry emerging from the surf is close to Ursula Andress emerging from the surf.

If one's an homage, they are both homages.

And even the shot of Jinx's piece of "quickdraw" climbing equipment is shot in full-frame. Tamahori sticks it right in our faces and makes sure we see it. Just as Glen gave us several close-up shots of the same piece of equipment, during Rog's rock climbing. Tamahori seems to be saying, here it is again guys, what does this remind you of? This was part of Tamahori's technique for DAD, to evoke as many nods to previous films as he could. Some are more obvious than others.

And for the guys on horseback at Buckingham palace. First there is no reason for them to be in the shot, so they have been put there deliberately. Secondly, the way they are prancing their horses and idling on the spot is very similar to the way Zorin's horsebacked goons were idling and prancing their horses on the spot, prior to giving chase to Bond during the race with Zorin. I'd have to double-check but I think the riding helmets and the general look of the men is very similar as well. Plus both scenes have foliage as back-drop.

I don't think Eon would publish an official list. The easter eggs are there for us fans to hunt out.

Pros:

The opening stunt with Bond surfing into North Korea
Peaceful Fountains of Desire
Brosnan's best performance in the role
The fencing fight between Bond and Graves
The way North Korea filled in for the former U.S.S.R.
The sense of larger-than-life spectacular that had kind of been missing from the series since the 1970s
Bond smoking cigars

Cons:

Have pretty much been covered many times by many people

Prince Kamal Khan wrote:

Pros:

The opening stunt with Bond surfing into North Korea

I have mixed feelings on the surfing stunt. It was clearly performed by seasoned surfers, and while I can suspend disbelief whenever Bond gets behind a moving conveyance and immediately knows how to operate it (I guess he's got an aptitude) I'm not sure that there is anything in Bond's background to suggest he was ever a surfer. That's a serious skill, and generally practised by young people, who beach-bum, not your typical urbane middle-aged secret agent. And those waves were not small. That was some serious surfing.

If this was a new younger Bond, maybe I could go for it, but I don't think Bond is credible as world class surfer (Rog's exploits in the AVTAK pts aside)

So, Wai Lin was in the first draft of Die Another Day, eh? I just started watching the documentary SCRIPT TO SCREEN on the DAD blu-ray, and I was not aware that Wai Lin was written into the early drafts. Looks like her role was taken over by Chang(?), and it looks like her role would have been mostly confined to scenes of Bond being in Hong Kong.

Yeah, I was thinking about that the other day when I was watching it. I think it may have been nice to see Wai Lin again.

Couldn't have been as bad as Jinx.

Never had a problem with Wai Lin, in fact I thought the only thing wrong with her was that she was utterly underutilized as a character. She didn't do much beyond kicking stuff. At least she was a more convincing fighter than Halle Berry.

Python wrote:

Never had a problem with Wai Lin, in fact I thought the only thing wrong with her was that she was utterly underutilized as a character. She didn't do much beyond kicking stuff. At least she was a more convincing fighter than Halle Berry.

The story for TNL needed major work. We all know the history: Bruce Feirstein on the set in Thailand furiously banging out new pages...clashes with Spottiswoode....Why Carver gave a rat's ass about television rights to China is beyond me. He has no wife and no children, so he has no heir to his empire. It's not like he's going to live for those 100 years; if Carver was 55 at the time, you figure he's got 25 more years to live. The idea from the original script that he was going to give Hong Kong back to the Chinese 'as a rock' was a much better motivation for the story, even if the film was coming out 6 months after the handover. And you've got a central, key-figure in the film (General Tso) who gets no lines at all in the film and is seen barely in passing. If it weren't for Wai Lin mentioning him as she walks past him, you'd have mistaken him as the Chinese food delivery guy.

Wai Lin is the asian version of Holly Goodhead....undercover right from the start...runs into Bond as they are both on assignment....run into each other again when both are snooping around (just as Bond spies on Holly scoping out Drax's secret laboratory in Venice), then both team up together for the last half of the film. But whereas Bond at least got to get romantic with Holly in the private cabin on board one of Drax's shuttles, the writers were so lazy they had Bond opt to make out on a piece of dirty, burning driftwood out in the middle of the South China Sea? Yeah, let's forgo a hot shower, medical attention, and some food, and instead make out like a couple of school kids on board this burning driftwood. :roll:

I've just voted the first option. Since SPECTRE, I've begun appreciating this even more. Like I said in another thread, I find most of the problems with DAD to be mostly cosmetic. The sense of joie di vivre is palpable, and a crucial ingredient in a Bond film.

And sure it's a little more personal than usual, but it derived from the mission, and not because of childhood issues or the murder of a loved one. And it's still a balance between finding the mole in the organisation, and finding the mole who betrayed him.

Watching DAD for the first time at age 12 still remains one of the biggest letdowns I've ever had at the cinema. I had a similar feeling after SPECTRE, namely that the series was fucked if it stayed the course.

I don't think my estimation of the quality of the film has really ever improved. The only bonus is that there have been, in my view, two worse Bond films to have been released since then.