A Few Words About A few words about...™ Diamonds are Forever -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Osato]

Diamonds Are Forever (1971), marked Mr. Connery's return to the fold, returning to the role he had created for the feature film series.This film, the 7th in the series, is not one of my personal favorites. It has some stupendously poor acting, or possibly camp. I'm not certain.As a Blu-ray, it fares a bit better than Goldeneye, which is almost a quarter century newer, but loses points in the color / contrast category. Shadow detail appears lacking in many scenes, with some awkward color to boot.As the second film in the newest release that I've checked out, it once again isn't sending the message that might be, especially for a 50th Anniversary collection.Audio, which is offered in both monaural as well as 5.1 is fine. I have no idea if the mono is the original or derived from the newer mix.Image - 3Audio - 4RAH

Robert - I see your note about the color with Diamonds Are Forever. I've watched the film a number of times on blu ray and the color has not really bothered me. At times I have seen parts of the films where the color is a bit flat or lacking.

In your opinion, did Lowry get the color scheme right on any of the Bond films on blu ray? I think the films look fantastic in terms of detail, but I have been reading comments that the color is dramatically different from the theatrical releases of many of the older Connery and Moore films.

I saw Octopussy in the theater in 1983, but I am too young to recall any differences when comparing it to the blu ray.

I did see The Spy Who Loved Me in Omaha a few years ago and I did see a difference in color.

Some have stated that the original SE DVD's (Pre Lowry) are more consistent in terms of color.

Just curious what your thoughts are.

It is unfortunate that some of the filmmakers who worked on the films could not have been involved to be sure that the audio mixes and the overall color was consistent for all DVD and blu ray releases. I know Mi Casa handled the new audio mixes.

 

[FoxyMulder]

In my opinion many of the Bond films lack good high definition detail, some are contrast boosted to give the illusion of more detail, i am hoping they re-visit many of them for the 55th anniversary, it's too long to wait for the 60th.

 

[Peter Neski]

I agree, John Barry sparks on all cylinders with the DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER score. There's a dynamic rhythm under the moody keyboards and horns. The movie was exhilarating when I was a little boy and seeing Bond for the first time. But I don't think much of it now, and I don't enjoy it at all. I have zero patience for the infantilism, silliness, self-parody and camp on display. The producers should have stuck with organizational and financial matters and stayed out of the creative process. Creatively every decision they made was wrong -- except for casting Connery, of course. They had no idea what they were doing. They liked Guy Hamilton, who exerted a bad influence over them. Hamilton set the wrong tone for the series. He thought James Bond was a stupid joke. When paired with writer Tom Mankiewicz their impact on the series was fatal. Just think what director Peter Hunt and writer Richard Maibaum could have done with James Bond if they were allowed to continue their collaboration after OHMSS. DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER would have been a very different kind of film. I watched the new Blu-ray. It looks desaturated. I'll probably never play it again, but I listen to the score occasionally.

well I agree totally about this movie ,as for Guy didn't he direct Goldfinger ? the best film in the series

 

[JoshZ]

This is one of my least favorite Bond movies. However, to be fair, I re-read the Ian Fleming novel recently and it was also a very poor Bond book.

 

[ljgranberry]

I had the good fortune to see OHMSS on a big screen last week. What a great film, and how sad to think of the wasted opportunities to take the series in a totally new direction. It took 40 years to undo the damage Hamilton and Mankiewicz did to the franchise, before Sam Mendes and "Skyfall" restored it to greatness - let's hope they don't botch it again.

 

[ahollis]

This thread just caused me to bring out all the Blu Bonds. Lol.

 

[Oblivion138]

I had the good fortune to see OHMSS on a big screen last week. What a great film, and how sad to think of the wasted opportunities to take the series in a totally new direction. It took 40 years to undo the damage Hamilton and Mankiewicz did to the franchise, before Sam Mendes and "Skyfall" restored it to greatness - let's hope they don't botch it again.

Mendes and Deakins did a fantastic job with Skyfall. It's a pity the script was rubbish. With a good script, they could have made the best Bond film ever.

 

[alter filmnarr]

Sorry, but "Skyfall" IS one of the best Bond films ever...

 

[bluelaughaminute]

Sorry, but "Skyfall" IS one of the best Bond films ever...

Skyfall might be an entertaining action film but it's got as much in common with the Bond series as Die Hard.
Craig has been an almost fatal blow to the series with his wooden acting and lack of charisma.
While his films may make money at the moment I think history will put his films at the bottom of the pile in the Bond series.
Bond used to be something special but nowadays the series offers up nothing that you can't find in multiple other movies .
Instead of trying to copy other film series the Bond movies should return to what they did best which was to put their own spin on popular genres of the time .

Skyfall was enjoyable but as a Bond film it was dreadful although in either case it was a masterpiece in comparison to Quantum of Solace - easily the worst Bond film in history, although it was ideal for triggering fits with its strobing masquerading as slick editing

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Well, I can say I grew up a fan of the Connery version of Bond. I also liked Lazenby in his one entry which I also thought was one of the best Bond films in the entire series and Connery should have stuck around for that one because his return in Diamonds are Forever was a real stinker. Diamonds seemed to set the tone for the Roger Moore films and wow, what a horrid run that was. I mean I thought it would be tough to get worse than Diamonds but Live and Let Die plays like a horrible episode of Starsky & Hutch. It is utterly impossible to sit through. Moore, while being a very wonderful guy, was a horrible Bond and he got no help from the decision to make the series a camp-fest on the level of the Batman TV series. Moore seemed to be stuck doing his imitation of Adam West during his run as Bond. I did enjoy Spy Who Loved Me as it was at least a beautiful looking film but it still...in my opinion...paled in comparison to the Connery run and Lazenby's truly fantastic one off On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

During Moore's run as Bond I gave up on the series. I could not bring myself to watch the films when Dalton took over. In the last year I finally watch The Living Daylights and while Dalton was better than Moore as Bond it was a dreadful film that featured some of the worst writing of the entire Bond franchise. It was a godawful film that looked and felt like a bad episode of Days of Our Lives. I also in the last year watched a Brosnan Bond--Goldeneye--and found Brosnan sort of a better version of Moore as Bond...which really isn't saying a lot. Needless to say after those two samples I felt no urge to check out the rest of the Brosnan and Dalton films.

I finally returned to a movie theater to see Bond when Craig took over in Casino Royale. I went in not expecting much and left the theater thinking this was the best Bond film since On Her Majesty's Secret Service. I also thought Craig was the best Bond since Lazenby and was the only Bond that seemed to stack up...at least get close...to the Connery version. Quantum of Solace was a step back in the wrong direction...mainly I thought the script was another stilted effort...but then Skyfall arrived...and personally, my opinion was it was one of the best Bond films in the series and lived up to even the glory days of Connery.

 

[FrancisP]

I found the beginning interesting. Clearly Bond is hunting Blofeld for the killing of his wife in OHMSS. Clearly he is not being polite about it. When he finds the girl, it looks like he is going to kiss her but takes off her bikini top and starts strangling her with it. he also says " speak up honey. I can't hear you." Then in his meeting with M and the British official, the official says that Bond's been on holiday. Apparently M allowed Bond to go out on his own to kill Blofeld.

I liked Mr Wint and Mr Kidd. I thought they were very entertaining. The reminded me of smiling cobras.

Also the biggest Bond film in terms of tickets sold is Goldfinger and second is Thunderball.

 

[Steve Tannehill]

Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd were homocidal maniacs played somewhat flamboyantly, which was not in the least bit flattering to the gay cause. My first exposure to the movie was the ABC Sunday Night Movie, which was edited for television. The fact that the henchmen were a couple was eliminated from the TV print. When I saw this uncut on VHS. I literally screamed when they walked away from the helicopter explosion hand in hand. I had no idea to that point that they were gay.

 

[John Stockton]

Also the biggest Bond film in terms of tickets sold is Goldfinger and second is Thunderball.


If you are referring to US tickets then Thunderball is the biggest. Here is list in order of ticket sales


Thunderball Goldfinger SKYFALL You only live twice Moonraker Die Another Day Tomorrow Never Dies From Russia with love Diamonds are forever Casino Royale World Is Not Enough GoldenEye Quantum of Solace Octopussy Spy Who Loved Me Live and Let Die For Your Eyes Only Never Say Never Again On Her Majesty's Secret Service The Living Daylights Man with the Golden Gun Licence to Kill

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

On Bond being...well...a bastard...

I always felt Connery played him as a bit of a bastard and it was perfect. Bond is ruthless, a killer, and uses woman for pleasure and to get what he wants and has no qualms about slapping them around or threatening them...and that's how Connery played him. The Connery version of Bond was heartless and cold and not a fellow that seemed to think of women as anything more than objects. Honestly, he is a secret agent and can't afford to let emotions trip him up and this is how the Craig version works too. I think the Craig version is as close to the Connery version as the series has ever got. What was a bit shocking in On Her Majesty's Secret Service was Bond actually falls in love and the woman becomes a weakness the bad guys can get at him with. I remember watching that film for the first time thinking Lazenby's Bond must have been faking being in love because the Connery version would never have let that happen.

 

[Worth]

I found the beginning interesting. Clearly Bond is hunting Blofeld for the killing of his wife in OHMSS. Clearly he is not being polite about it. When he finds the girl, it looks like he is going to kiss her but takes off her bikini top and starts strangling her with it. he also says " speak up honey. I can't hear you." Then in his meeting with M and the British official, the official says that Bond's been on holiday. Apparently M allowed Bond to go out on his own to kill Blofeld.

I disagree. I think there was a clear attempt to completely ignore the events of OHMSS. There isn't a single reference to Tracy or Bond's marriage in the film. The beginning works as a sequel to You Only Live Twice. It even starts off in Japan right after the gun barrel opening.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Important to note that Skyfall is the all-time highest grossing Bond film WITHOUT a national reissue (which Goldfinger and Thunderball are repeat offenders).

 

[JoshZ]

I disagree. I think there was a clear attempt to completely ignore the events of OHMSS. There isn't a single reference to Tracy or Bond's marriage in the film. The beginning works as a sequel to You Only Live Twice. It even starts off in Japan right after the gun barrel opening.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service was supposed to be Connery's next film after Thunderball. It was pushed back due to weather issues with the locations, and production of You Only Live Twice was moved up to take its place instead. However, the scripts were not sufficiently reworked to deal with story continuity from one film to the next. Among other things, Bond and Blofeld fail to immediately recognize one another in OHMSS even though they just fought in the prior movie.

If they'd been made in the original intended order, OHMSS would be Bond's first encounter with Blofeld, and Diamonds Are Forever would be a direct follow-up to You Only Live Twice with a greater gap of time having passed since Tracy died.

As they stand now, the biggest problem (for me) with flipping the order and watching OHMSS before YOLT is that Bond's fake wedding to Kissy Suzuki in the latter would seem very flippant and insensitive of him considering that Bond's real wife was just murdered.

Overall, I've just come to accept that this is a franchise with very shaky story continuity.

 

[bluelaughaminute]

On Her Majesty's Secret Service was supposed to be Connery's next film after Thunderball.

Actually, OHMSS was supposed to be his next film after Goldfinger . IIRC there is a short sequence of the original end credits as they played in theatres with "Bond Will Return OHMSS" on one of the disc documentaries.

Before the Bond movies were released on Bluray the UK Sky tv service played a number of Bond films in HD and one of them was Goldfinger with the "Will Return OHMSS" line at the end intact .

 

[FrancisP]

I disagree. I think there was a clear attempt to completely ignore the events of OHMSS. There isn't a single reference to Tracy or Bond's marriage in the film. The beginning works as a sequel to You Only Live Twice. It even starts off in Japan right after the gun barrel opening.

I don't see anything in You Only Live Twice that would have caused Bond to hunt Blofeld so ruthlessly. Rather than charm the woman, he threatens her with strangulation rather than trying to charm her. It also seems that he was operating with at least the tacit approval of M. It doesn't seem that M would have officially allowed him to go after Blofeld.

 

[JoshZ]

Actually, OHMSS was supposed to be his next film after Goldfinger . IIRC there is a short sequence of the original end credits as they played in theatres with "Bond Will Return OHMSS" on one of the disc documentaries.

Before the Bond movies were released on Bluray the UK Sky tv service played a number of Bond films in HD and one of them was Goldfinger with the "Will Return OHMSS" line at the end intact .

Hmm, the documentary on the OHMSS disc says that the movie was supposed to follow Thunderball. Perhaps it was bumped back twice?