Trailer: The Dark Knight Rises
We are the 99%.
No Episode 4 by Chris Nolan.
Hines Ward survives Dancing With The Stars AND the movie.
May 2, 2024
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
The stadium scene with the fake teams totally took me out of the trailer. Suddenly I thought I was watching Any Given Sunday. And the field exploding and collapsing looked a little Syfy Channel in terms of the CG destruction. Of course I still hope to be there opening night and can’t wait to see it.
Looks like unfinished cgi there
after all right now Ward has no teammates on the field with him
It doesn’t flow as well as the Dark Knight trailer (which was a perfect trailer, so it’d be hard for any new one to follow it up). The new one doesn’t tell you as clearly what the central conflict is going to be. There’s a lot of stage-setting here.
But who cares. I’m in for a midnight showing, no doubt.
It would not have taken you out of the film if you were a fan of Batman: TAS or Batman Beyond. There are some great stories about the ROGUES on both of those shows, and it’s nice to see them on the screen. That scene is simply mind-blowing.
Nolan leaving the series sucks, but Bats needs his family. Hopefully the next team to bring Bats to the screen will introduce the rest of you fine people to… DAMIAN WAYNE!
Unfinished or not, I wasn’t expecting Snowmageddon-ish effects in the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. The Rogues are a fake NFL team? Or the Batman universe’s version of the NFL?
The Rogues are the Gotham NFL team and all of the behind the scene pics revealed the SNOWMAGEDDON months ago. Understandable that you didn’t see them, but it’s not all that unexpected to some of us.
By Snowmageddon I meant the Syfy Channel original movie.
LOOK AT HER.
I will be there opening day, no doubt! Hardy’s voice sounds suitably intimidating and creepy and Hathaway seems to playing this with some genuine edge – judging by just a few seconds of screentime.
But yeah, I have to say that the football stuff looks hinky – whether the concept of the Gotham Rogues played well in a graphic novel is besides the point; how does it play in a big-time Chris Nolan crime epic??? I’m sure the CGI will look even better in the final print, but why show it this early if it’s not ready? I mean, I know the money shot of the truck being flipped over was spoiled in the first Dark Knight trailer, so I guess this wouldn’t be the first time.
And I know every one on the web is going crazy about how “epic” this looks, but did it really have to be so epic?? Didn’t they kind of raise the stakes already pretty high with the Joker in the last movie? He basically terrorized the city and Gotham was a little more battle-scarred and wiser in the end. So then Bane comes around eight years later and does the same thing? Obviously hard to tell from the trailer, but I would hope they would focus this story more on the Batman, himself. Not Gotham once again under siege.
Fuck it though, this is quibbling about story-points that are only hinted at in this trailer – it’s Nolan, the dude made a masterpiece out of Inception when most directors would have failed miserably. Think about that movie and the concept of it – no matter the budget, just SO many ways that film could have been god-awful in the execution. Nolan took a Bondian action thriller about dream thieves and even gave it an emotional punch in the end – I’m not going to underestimate him.
And he’s got a killer cast, once again – the guy knows how to utilize strong actors in small roles like few others. Think about Rutger Hauer in ‘Begins or Berenger in Inception. Hell, remember Tiny Lister in the climax of Dark Knight??
One other quibble and this is coming from an obvious bias: Gotham is not going to look as cool filmed outside of Chicago, sorry. Pittsburgh is a charming city, but it’s no Chicago! I will always think of the Board of Trade as Wayne Tower, no. Does any one know if he at least included Chicago exteriors in this to keep some of of the consistency?
Pittsburgh is SO LOW RENT, and I say that as someone who lived there for roughly a decade. It is like filming it in a rusty, blue-collar shitkicker woodsy dirt-road town where everybody lives and dies by the football team (which makes the fact that they INCLUDED THE STEELERS) extra EXTRA low-rent… suddenly this isn’t Batman, it’s SUDDEN DEATH, where when it played in Pittsburgh all the local yokels were CHEERING ON THE FAKE HOCKEY TEAM instead of caring about Van Damme. Everyone there has a bad accent (eh, I guess they do in Chicago too), but it’s like filming in Providence RI or ERIE PA or MORGANTOWN WEST VIRGINIA… It’s just LOW RENT and BROWN and OVERCAST and WOODSY with THREE RIVERS full of MURKY BROWN WATER and BIG GREEN TREES that looking nothing like Gotham.
Maybe Batman can take some time off and referee the CHARTIERS VALLEY homecoming game.
If they’re going to shoot something in Pittsburgh, let Romero direct.
Paul, I know.
Geoff, they are called BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES AND BATMAN BEYOND! Sure they both have had comics but they are two of the best animated series of all-time. Please refer to them properly and what’s wrong with you and things being epic? Seriously? What’s up with that? WHAT’S UP WITH THAT? OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! WHAT’S UP WITH THAT? WHAT’S UP WITH THAT?
Damn, I left Ward on the bench. That would’ve gotten me 12 points.
Hey, what’s wrong with Erie?
Apparently the NFL players are all legit since Legendary CEO Thomas Tull is part owner of some team or other. And, personally, I’d cheer for the sports team rather than Van Damme. Hell, I cheered for Raul Julia instead of Van Damme.
No one is a bigger fan of Nolan’s Batman films than me but man, this trailer has left really underwhelmed. It is very hard to describe. I mean where are the goosebumps. Hines Ward and a fake football game in a Batman movie….what the fuck? That is a big big mistake. Nolan can get away with a lot of things but deciding to film Batman in daylight along with this football stuff…I don’t know if he has earned that.
I’ve watched it repeatedly trying to get the same feeling the the TDK trailer left me with and I just can’t. The TDK trailer was perfection, the best trailer I’ve ever seen. I mean it was like a short film, it told its own little story. About how Batman created the Joker and how they are two sides of the same coin.
But this has none of that. Totally agree that they should have gone back to Chicago. There are some things that are brilliant. The one brilliant scene is the Catwoman scene. That gives us an idea of the potential of this film. Catwoman can open a lot of doors and be just as good as the Joker. The shots of Bane are great, he truly looks vicious. That is great too but as a cohesive whole the trailer fails.
I also agree that the film may be too big. I remember an interview Nolan did when he was doing press for Inception. He indicated that he was having trouble turning it into the epic spectacle that people were expecting. Why did he have to go big, going small would have been just as risky and rewarding. I was expecting an Arkham Asylum type story. Just a dark dark dark movie delving more into Batman’s psyche. He set up so much with that ending to The Dark Knight.
Watch the trailer again, its very good. Not as good as The Dark Knight’s trailer was, but still very compelling. Also remember, with Nolan its a three part magic trick, like The Prestige. He has everyone talking about Bane and we haven’t even seen anything from Catwoman except a stunt double on the Batpod. This movie will be every bite as satisfying as The Dark Knight was when we first saw it.
“Just a dark dark dark movie delving more into Batman’s psyche”… That’s what the comic books are for. Not a massive tentpole spectacle.
I’m with Lex on this one:
LOOK AT HER!!!
ive watched it a half dozen times. it introduces so many small ideas but he only gives you glimpses.
the most interesting part for me was the mc escher style prison. It feels in such contrast to the rest of the images which seem more urban and catastrophic.
Also, after seeing the prologue, i’m very curious to see where this is going. I won’t spoil, but i will see the prologue feels very James Bond-ish. And that’s not a bad thing.
It’s funny that people keep bringing up Bond in relation to the prologue, because I think Bane sounds like Sean Connery with a Darth Vader mask.
I love the imagery of the trailer. As a previous poster noted, it alludes to so many ideas and threads for the film, but it’s not explicit. Bale with a cane seems daring and Batman Beyond-like. I’m excited by the possibilities this trailer suggests.
Are you the majority of you commentors actually spammers, or simply mentally retarded??? WOW…
You did NOT just bring up the shit-tastic, teenager-emo-hipster Batman Beyond. The worst animated, non-literature, non-film Batman. You idiot, you don’t even know whether that IS Bale/Wayne.
If there’s a scene where Catwoman farts at least once, I’ll be happy.
I have no opinion on Batman Beyond because I saw all of maybe 2 episodes, but random Bond-Batman connection: George Lazenby was one of the voices on Batman Beyond. Man has a pretty random career, doesn’t he?
Slight chance it’s R’as, but Bale looks like he has a cane when he’s talking to Cotilliard, too. And why such vitriol, man? No need for name-calling.
Bob, you don’t fuck with Terry McGinnis, son. If you do. We get Judd Winick to write a comic about your fucking life AND NO ONE WANTS JUDD WINICK WRITING A COMIC ABOUT THEIR LIFE! Trying to start some shit? Downright shameful and who gives a shit or fuck about your opinion about some beloved BRUCE TIMM!
This thread has taken a sharp left turn into Dorkville.
I was underwhelmed as well. The football scene is odd. Too little Batman. Too much Hathaway. Not really grasping the story. It feels more like another teaser.
There are glimpses that I found intriguing, and Nolan has earned the benefit of the doubt with me. But on a visceral level, the trailer for the undoubtedly-inferior Wrath of the Titans did more for me.
FEEL THE WRATH. WORTHINGTON POWER.
Obviously superior.
Uh…JS…gotten carried away, much?
Shameful, yourself, much?
Whoa, nerdgasming a lot of unmitigated HATE, there, JS.
And Terry McGinnis IS a weak-ass inheritor to Bruce Wayne. Sorry. (But not really)
Agreed with LexG. Lay off the Dorkville; if you must, take it back to Comic-Con tables.
Bane does sound like Connery. Good call.
I do not give a flying leap about all the relentless limp-dicked boring Hollywood trilogy bullshit. But this looks awesome. Give me Bale and Caine and the girl and cut guy in the spray paint respirator, and I am there!
Don, he’s not. He’s a beloved character. Sorry you didn’t get the memo and he’s the in canon successor of Bruce Wayne. Seriously, get with it, or get out, but seeing as you think I am hateful when that’s not even the case. Congrats on being another myopic HB poster. You get a get glue sticker for it. Also, better to go to dorkville then the shitty JOHN CARPENTER IS GOD LOOK AT HIM… ville.
You know what, JS – here’s my issue and I guess it makes sense that I saw this trailer before Sherlock Holmes (already accused of being too epic-y on another thread) and with that dastardly Battleship and THEN Avengers. Sorry, but does EVERY fucking big budget action movie have to be so EPIC – the fate of the world in their hands??? That shit just gets really old and repetious!
I mean when ID4 came out (not a great movie by any stretch, granted), it at least felt special to have the world under threat – there was a novelty to it. Now every other goddam big action movie has to have it, it’s ridiculous.
This is not to say that Nolan hasn’t earned this, he is one of the best guys out there who can pull it off. But he could have taken this smaller-scale and no one would have faulted him for it – in the last movie, Gotham was already under siege, the city was on the verge of “eating itself,” etc….to take that to just larger scale, I don’t know.
The trailer still works, don’t get me wrong – it’s not as if it’s a Emmerich epic that is just throwing mass carnage at us and I don’t see the movie going that route, anyway. But considering this is coming out within two months of Battleship/Avengers/whatever else, it IS going to seem less special just at a story level. And that’s not saying it had to be all dark and meditative, either.
I believe it is possible to make a Batman movie that is EDGY and FUN – this guy really raised the bar with Inception, he’s proven that.
But yeah, the more I think about it, taking it out of Chicago is going to bug me – I mean wow, the guy utilized Lower Wacker Drive in a way that I would not have even thought possible.
Gotham changed between Begins and TDK and now between TDK and Rises. It’s just something Nolan is doing because apparently he likes the idea of the city being a character that changes over time.
That aside, so you want superhero movies to be smaller? You want the Avengers and the last Nolan Batman movie to be small? Yeah, that’s on you, and comparing that piece of shit ID4 to any modern film is just… a BRIDGE… TOO FAR!
JS, not saying they need to get smaller – the actual concept of The Avengers probably doesn’t even allow for that, but….
If you just keep making the scales of these types of movies bigger and bigger and bigger, it’s just ridiculous and wears out its welcome.
And I am totally down with the idea of Gotham being its own character, but following the logic of these first two movies…..the city become so complacent AGAIN (after a major chemical attached that was thwarted in the first one and several bombings in the second movie) that this shit can just go down and catch folks off-guard??? I mean jeez, talk about lax security – you sure as hell couldn’t blow up a professional sporting venue in New York or just about any major American city in 2011. Nolan has his work cut out for him to make this seem feasible at the screenplay level.
And before any one jumps down on me about this is based on a comic book and does not have to be “realistic,” I get that too. But think about Gotham being a character in this continuing story: the city gets completely manipulated by the League of Shadows (mainly Scarecrow) then Joker and his hidden network a few years later then a few years later by Bane and his crowd??? That’s one stupid fucking character if you ask me – hell, maybe that will be Nolan’s thesis at the end of this: that Ducard/Rasa Gul was right and that Gotham was NOT worth saving. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…
It’s gonna be a long half-year of JS mania on here… The Iron Man/TDK fervor of summer 2008 will look positively subdued.
It’s a very well thought-out trailer. The lyrics of Fort McHenry are matched not just against the visuals but against a number of underlying messages. They could have opened with a hundred differences choices.
McHenry is about the siege of Baltimore and how a smaller group withstood an all-night British Naval onslaught. “O say can you see by the dawn’s early light”, is a reference to the title juxtaposed with Bane climbing out of the darkness and into the light.
“What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming”. Alfred’s lines over this part end on a cut of the Gotham skyline. It’s not just Alfred talking to Wayne about being dutybound, it’s how Wayne feels about Gotham.
“Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight” – plays over Gordon and police in formal wear talking about how they were now in “peace time” and going to give the shaft to the one guy who saw them through the previous darkness.
“O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming. And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air”. The visual gallantry of the ball, (and the nod to Batman Returns), plays off of Catwoman’s lines, juxtaposed with Bane’s attack.
McHenry then dissolves into “The Fire Rises” chant and the release of Arkham inmates who show their loyalty to Bane. This plays against the first image of the football fans who wear an inversion of Batman’s colors and put hand-over-heart for the National Anthem, for the next cut is the opposing QB waving to the fans as a visual cue from the previous scene of the Arkham release.
We then see Bane come out of the dark and into the daylight, which is followed by Wayne coming out of the dark and into the latticework of the prison. The stadium and prison are now juxtaposed so when the guy answers “Rise”, we cut to Bane who hits the detonator, go to black and instead of rising, the stadium sinks down to where Bane apparently rose up from in the fist scene. From there, it’s action cues.
Certain scenes look like they’re apart of the same sequence, but they’re not. When Wayne walks into the prisonyard and hears the chant, he has a beard, which is gone when he’s being lectured by Bane. That conversation obviously takes place after Bane’s beaten the shit out of him, so the prisonyard must explain where Wayne has been for the previous years, unless it’s a flashback to his travels in Batman Begins.
Bane sounds closest to Clytus from Flash Gordon but if he calls Wayne “Old Man”, then we’ll know he’s supposed to be Shaw in From Russia With Love. He still reminds more of Lord Humongous than anyone else, which has to be intentional.
I find the one scene with Cotillard removing the mask, (which must be at the same event Wayne talks to Kyle), interesting. Word leaked that the young girl was cast to play a young Thalia.
As for the 99%/OWS nod, that’s an interesting move. The LA and last NYC shoots were add-ons, so I’m wondering if they came up with it late or if they’re using it now just to stir shit up and then deny it later. I am amazed at how much of this has to do with what was laid out in Begins by Thomas Wayne.
why does the boy singing the star spangled banner have such a strong english accent, how bizarre — and for that matter what’s the dealio w/caine’s ott spoof of his own accent?
(“the legend ends” — holy shit yet ANOTHER silly tagline referring to either the beginning or the end (or both). thumbs up, tagline writers! such originality, how do you do it)
leah- Caine saw what Bale did with the growl in TDK and thought “Bloody hell. If he gets to do that then I’m gonna go full Dick Van Dyke with my accent in the next one.”
lol full dick van dyke — maybe RDJr shoulda told him, ‘never go full van dyke’
I agree with mostly what’s been said. I’m not as excited for this as TDK – and that trailer which I saw probably no less than 30 – 40 times was sublimes. But the epic scale has been laid out. This is going to be huge no matter what.
I remember earlier this year, Packer fans were outraged by security measures at Lambeau. They searched every single person by hand on their way into the game (65,000 or so) and hundreds if not thousands of people ended up being late and missing some of the 1st quarter. How did Bane get in? Ticket from a scalper? That outfit probably means he gets sent home at the front gate.
Heath Ledger made the TDK trailer the last go round. Some could argue he made TDK as great as it was, period. To expect something similar I think would be unrealistic.
Anyway, a good teaser. Can’t wait to see how it ends with Nolan and company.
MOOGIES FTW
How deep is your love?
How black is your black?
How bat is your bat?
How bat is your black?
—
Do you bat when you flap
on the black city map
Do you drop on a punk
With the funk of a monk?
Pretty good especially compared to the other trailers that have come out in the last few weeks.
There is just no grabber though. Nothing like the TDK shot of the truck flipping over to whet the appetite.
I’m not wading into comic nerd jerkoff session….just wanted to say THAT. WAS. AWESOME. I cannot wait for this. May do the midnight.
And people…it’s ONE teaser trailer.
Seems like everyone here is excited about it, even if they didn’t love the teaser. I realize it’s only a single teaser and just because it didn’t give me an immediate and sustained erection, I still can’t wait to see it.
I just think Nolan is making a different kind of film as every DK has had it’s own flavor. This just seems like an introduction into the new Dark Knight world. Yeah, there’s no powerhouse Heath Ledger performance but my guess is chaos is going to reign here. There’s 2, maybe 3 villains. The Arkham inmates escape….just seems like this thing is going to be bombastic and chaotic and that trailer showed that.
I’m a huge fan of TDK–my 10th anniversary present to my wife was sneaking onto the set in Chicago–we even made the final cut of the film (59:33)! Few want Rises to succeed as much as me.
Even so, this trailer really took me out. Epic feel? Sorry, when I think of great comic book franchises changing footing and going for epic, I think Spider-Man 3. I know, everyone now hates me for bringing that up, but it’s possible. Spidey 2 was brilliant–Spidey 3 had a great cast, larger scope, and tons of potential.
Nolan exceeds Raimi, but let’s not forget movie making is still the process of capturing lightning in a bottle. No one is immune; nothing is a lock. Changing the scope of a franchise involves risk. I’m glad Nolan is taking that risk (it worked in TDK), but this trailer makes me feel like I did after seeing the Spidey 3 trailer: excited but uncomfortable and less certain.
I still have nothing but faith in Nolan, but Eric, think about how many franchises lost their footing on their third go. With the possible exception of Apes or the Lord of the Rings (which I personally disagree with) is there any series that peaked with the third?
(And in case someone brings it up From Russia with Love > Goldfinger)
I don’t know about “PEAKED”, but there are plenty of solid ‘part III’s. Toy Story 3, one could argue, is the best of the series. I actually wrote about this after The Dark Knight came out, and there are actually a number of solid third entries (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Escape From the Planet of the Apes, Back to the Future 3, Nightmare On Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Return of the Jedi and/or Revenge of the Sith, etc). Whatever my misgivings about the project (The Dark Knight was a finale not a cliffhanger, The Joker > Bane, Nolan didn’t seem to want to do a third, etc) I don’t demand that The Dark Knight Rises be the best of the series or even an all-time classic, merely that it be a good Batman movie.
Interesting to ponder the question of thirds. Clearly, Scott, you’re right. There are very good, even some great thirds. But here’s a question for you–and it brings me back to the anxieties I expressed in my earlier post: Are there any great thirds after a great second?
TDK is a great second–moving well beyond the first. Same with Spidey 2. I’d say the same with Toy Story 2. But TS3 is the exception here; every other really good third I can think of is an improvement on a solid but not inventive second movie.
Nolan took a risk in the vision of TDK. He could have played it safe and done another episode like Batman Begins, but he did something more significant. I’d say the same with Spidey 2.
The filmmaker knows that the reason their second movie was great was because they took a risk and the gamble paid off–what’s exhilirating for them is appreciating the risk, understanding that it was likely to fail, and success anyway. The choice involved in the follow-up is whether to take another risk and odds are you fall this time because nothing is certain or you take the last movie’s format and turn it into a formula. Sure critics will pan you for your timidity, but audiences will forgive you (I’m looking at you, Hangover 2).
From Russia With Love is my favorite Connery Bond, and I’m a lot more down on Goldfinger than many are. But whatever my feelings, Goldfinger is the one that perfected the tone and tropes of the series and made Bond into the phenomenon we know it today. As much as the structural problems of Goldfinger bother me (notice how he spends the last third of the movie locked up and, other than defeating Oddjob, fails at everything he does to stop Goldfinger’s plan, while Leiter and his boys save the day?), I don’t think you can make a clear-cut assertion that Goldfinger wasn’t the series’ “peak.”
Anyway, a solid movie trilogy generally needs a great second (or the third never gets made), and a solid movie series generally needs a great third. Scott does a great job of citing great thirds, but for every great third there are many terrible thirds. This is even more true of seconds, though, and Nolan’s Batman made mincemeat out of that particular challenge.
Ledger’s Joker is obviously a tough act to follow, and I can’t see Bane living up to it (though Hathaway’s Selena Kyle is a good start). For now, I think it’s probably best just to trust in the fact that Nolan has never made a bad movie, and it’s been over a decade since he made one you can even argue wasn’t actually great.
None of this will matter once the third LOST SKELETON movie is released.
Top 5 Bonds:
From Russia with Love
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
The Spy Who Loved Me
Never Say Never Again
Casino Royale
Sorry, but the Dalton Bonds do NOT hold up. Queeniest Bond EVER.
Great Third following Great Second:
Army of Darkness.
DR. NO (1962)
– Sean Connery, Ursula Andress – Grade: B
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963)
– Sean Connery, Robert Shaw – Grade: A-
GOLDFINGER (1964)
– Sean Connery, Honor Blackman – Grade: A
THUNDERBALL (1965)
– Sean Connery, Claudine Auger – Grade: B-
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967)
– Sean Connery, Donald Pleasance – Grade: B
ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (1969)
– George Lazenby, Diana Rigg – Grade: B+
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971)
– Sean Connery, Jill St. John – Grade: F
LIVE AND LET DIE (1973)
– Roger Moore, Jane Seymour – Grade: C+
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (1974)
– Roger Moore, Christopher Lee – Grade: C
THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977)
– Roger Moore, Barbara Bach – Grade: B
MOONRAKER (1979)
– Roger Moore, Lois Chiles – Grade: D
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (1981)
– Roger Moore, Julian Glover – Grade: B-
OCTOPUSSY (1983)
– Roger Moore, Maud Adams – Grade: D-
A VIEW TO A KILL (1985)
– Roger Moore, Christopher Walken – Grade: C
THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS (1987)
– Timothy Dalton, Maryam d’Abo – Grace: C+
LICENCE TO KILL (1989)
– Timothy Dalton, Carey Lowell – Grade: B-
GOLDENEYE (1995)
– Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean – Grade: A-
TOMORROW NEVER DIES (1997)
– Pierce Brosnan, Michelle Yeoh – Grade: B-
THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (1999)
– Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marceau – Grade: C
DIE ANOTHER DAY (2002)
– Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry – Grade: B
CASINO ROYALE (2006)
– Daniel Craig, Eva Green – Grade: B+
QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008)
– Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko – Grade: C+
Always a sucker for Bond-talk and here are my Top 5:
Casino Royale
You Only Live Twice
The Spy Who Loved Me
Goldfinger
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
You know, I loved The Dark Knight but I don’t completely get the consensus that it was a dramatic step-up from the first movie – I actually think Batman Begins is the superior movie. That movie was just much tighter than TDK and I think Cillian Murphy’s work as Scarecrow is pretty underrated.
Not trying to be contrarian, but I just found ‘Begins to be an all-around more satisfying movie. I do think that the Two-Face third act weakens TDK a bit, but not for the reason that a lot of others cite: it overstuffs the movie.
From my standpoint, I just found the character to be very flawed as a concept – the make-up job is just too fantastically ghoulish to fit in with the logic of the rest of the movie and he’s not really a fleshed out character by any stretch, more like some one to hang the plot on in the end just to prove Joker’s point. My concern from this trailer is that it could be possible that Nolan is going in that direction again, making the same mistakes twice – just the idea of Bane strutting into that football stadium has me thinking this could another impossibly evil villain pulling the strings too much.
Only so much you can glean from a trailer though and yes, Nolan has never made anything close to a bad movie. And I am the only one who loved Insomnia??? That movie kicked ass – Robin Williams really knocked it out of the park and the visuals were amazing.
In total agreement about Diamonds Are Forever, Krillian.
Also not far off from others on your list.
I can’t recall if I’ve said this here before, but FWIW, here’s what I’d love to see: a remake of OHMSS with Daniel Craig in a kilt, Rachel Weisz in the Diana Rigg role, and Bryan Cranston as Blofeld.
THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS is easily one of the best Bonds films, and maybe y’all forgot that most of the Moore 007 films were stunt-double-oh no-seven. Watching Dalton run and fight and act like Fleming’s actual creation was a treat.
All Bonds from 1962 to 1989 are ALL EQUAL, A-PLUS, PERFECT MOVIES, all EQUALLY DELIGHTFUL every time on the Bond Marathons… There is no difference in real quality, they all are wholly of a piece and all equally nostalgic and beautiful and lush and exciting and silly and perfect for whiling away a holiday weekend.
The only dropoff WHATSOEVER is when it goes to Brosnan, when they become all mechanical and robotic and ’90s-generic, but even then, Brosnan was a GREAT BOND… So is Craig… Anyone who LOVES BOND loves them ALL EQUALLY, and knows that watching TBS or Spike or SyFy and zoning out wondering which one is next is heaven on earth, whether it’s Octopussy spread over 3.5 hours with endless commercials, or the old lean-and-mean early Connerys.
BOND.
i’ve seen the bond films from the pre 1980’s but don’t remember them ..
they could easily make 1 bond picture per year . limited budget with high quality writing – there is a basic fomula there.
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but they need to hype everything every 2-3 years and get
the world attention press.
the whole bond series is part of film history and there
doesn’t seem to be a dp/30 out of it .
who knows maybe DP hasn’t seen all the bond films is trying to catch up …
also bond films are easier to figure out than other spy films like the bourne series .
Sanj didn’t you like the Bond with Vijay Amritaj?
He’s gotta be a hero of yours, right?
Maybe DP can do a DP/30.
LexG – have no idea who that guy is . not a hero.
wasn’t there a bond bad guy with huge teeth cutting into cable wires ? that was cool. .
I’ve seen every Bond, but don’t really consider myself the series’ biggest fan. (Too many hack directors–hello, Guy Hamilton–and way too many jowly grandad Roger Moore entries for my taste.)
Besides the first three Connerys (“From Russia, With Love,” “Dr. No” and “Goldfinger”), my favorite is probably–blasphemy alert, cultists–Irvin Kershner’s “Never Say Never Again.”
Kershner was arguably the best director to ever tackle Bond-age, and Basinger gets my vote as the best Bond Girl ever. (Sorry, Ursula.)
What is with you guys and the non-canon, campy, awful, ’80S ABC-TV looking Never Say Never Again??? Which was a remake of the infinitely superior THUNDERBALL, aka the second best Bond ever after OHMSS.
DOMINO POWER. Not Basinger, the real one from the ’60s. Connery biting that stinger out of her bare foot is the greatest thing ever ever ever.
—Haven’t had enough of ‘authorized’, cutting edge
predictive programming fopr the capstone EUGENICS
agenda —YET????
Meanwhile, putting these retreads aside—-
Hollywood has no time, talent, or money on hand to
remember, much less honor, to say nothing or reap
the revelations of the cosmically relevant 60th Anniversary
of the Globalism/. RED China and EUGENICS ‘unfriendly’
—————-KOREAN WAR—————–.
IF you haven’t picked up on just how BAD things are
—STAY TUNED! —you soon WILL. . .