Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Die Another Day

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Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 11-25-2002, 07:54 PM:

Is it just me, or did the (delayed) openning title sequence sound like it was filled with digital sound dropouts? I convinced myself it was supposed to sound that way...

--jhawk

Posted by John Scott (Member # 520) on 11-26-2002, 01:55 AM:

Those "drop-outs" were from Madonna's "techno" title song. They were intended. 8-)

Posted by Aldo Baez (Member # 790) on 11-26-2002, 10:22 AM:

Did anyone actually see this movie? I prescreened it, and the first action scene, it was the loudest movie I had ever heard by FAR. We had several complaints about it even after I had turned it down lower than the trailer volume level. Geez I guess an action scene is not enough it has to make your ears bleed too.

Posted by Doug Willming (Member # 728) on 11-26-2002, 01:37 PM:

Well, even my 15 year old twins didn't like it, but then again, they've been raised on Bond films since they were barely walking. Obviously, this is an attempt to create a new Bond movie that appeals to the "Charlie's Angels" and "Triple X" brief-attention-span generation that, if the movie is loud enough and the editing is MTV-like enough, won't notice the non-existence of such things as plot and character. The effects were ludicrous - an Digital Aston-Martin with a cloaking device, Digital Bond parasurfing, Digital Bad Guy sucked into a jet turbine, Bad Guy's Digital Lightning Grip, silly virtual reality simulation that wasn't Digital, on and on. I've always liked the Bond movies for the great stuntwork - in Octopussy, Bond and the Bad Guy were hanging outside an airplane fighting with each other. Yes, you knew it wasn't Roger Moore, and you could tell the stuntman had a parachute under his clothes, but it was a REAL PERSON, HANGING OUTSIDE OF A REAL PLANE. In Die Another Day, everything is Digital - the plane, the smoke, the people, and man, does it ever look stupid! Why use Halle Barry for Bond's partner when Jar Jar Binks would have been more appropriate in this setting (Jar Jar Jinks??)?

Even the opening titles, usually a highlight of Bond films, were awful. Terrible song (and, yes, I thought the sound was dropping out too, at first), and images of torture mixed with Digital Flaming Girls did not whet my appetite for the rest of the film.

Although this film had a big opening weekend, I'll be surprised if it doesn't also have the biggest 2nd weekend drop of any Bond film.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-26-2002, 06:26 PM:

I ran it today at a theatre south of Salt Lake City. The error rate was 0's and 1's with a cat 700 reader. I thought it had a pretty darn good soundiing track too.
Mark @ CLACO

Posted by Ken McFall (Member # 845) on 12-01-2002, 01:50 PM:

Nothing wrong with the sound at my own theatre or my local Showcase...

However, the product placement was totally OTT! and the cloaked car ruined the whole film for me. Bond films have always been possibly impossible and were fun for that. This was just way too far from the usual Bond formula. As for Madonas title song... again just not Bond.

As a film on its own, easy watching and nothing too taxing.... As a Bond film its sucks!!

Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 12-02-2002, 09:32 PM:

I did not care for this film either.

I do believe that this is the first Bond Film where the opening title actually tried to tell a story. But the opening title...especially Madonna's song...just plain SUCKED!

In all regards, the Bond films of yesteryear were by far much better!

And what about all the TV. commericals hawking all the latest "products" shown in this film...who gives a rats ass about what electric shaver is used? And with all the hype about Fords new T-Bird, the car really did not have a role in the film and was just seen for a few minutes.

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 12-05-2002, 03:28 PM:

I actually really liked the opening titles. I was worried since hearing the song on the radio it didn’t seem right. But I think they worked it in really well. I like how the credits signified the passage of time.

And the film was much better than I was expecting. I hated the trailers and I'm not a Halle Berry fan.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 12-08-2002, 07:15 PM:

12/08/2002, Regal Cinema World 8, Eugene OR, 12:30PM, #6, digital sound (probably DTS). Attendance about 35. OK presentation, no major complaints.

Die Another Day is a moderately successful attempt to move the Bond franchise forward in terms of action, energy, and stunts. It's not without flaws though. As somebody else pointed out, Bond films have always been known for their great stunts, mostly using real props and real people. Unfortunately DAD follows recent moviemaking trends, with heavy use of CGI. And a lot of it is flat out laughably fake. Some of the blue-screen stuff is bad too. Then there are the action sequences that are all close-ups and quick-cuts, very MTV-like. That stuff is all disappointing.

Luckily some of the bad CGI was offset by real stuff blowing up real good. Overall DAD was good enough to keep me interested, and satisfying as an action flic.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 12-08-2002, 11:13 PM:

Like David, I too enjoyed "DIE ANOTHER DAY" when I saw the movie at Consolidated's Kapolei 16 in DTS, this afternoon. I thought the opening was great and found nothing bad about it. The sound mix was also very well done with excellent use of split surrounds and the volume was just right. Madonna's song during the opening credit was also fine. By the way, the credits say that the film was released in DTS-ES as well as Dolby EX in addition to SDDS-6. Dolby's site had listed this film as regular SRD. Does anyone know if the film was released with an SRD-EX track?

-Claude

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 12-09-2002, 03:07 AM:

quote:
Does anyone know if the film was released with an SRD-EX track?

Check the entry in the Feature Info & Trailer Attachments section.

Posted by Per Hauberg (Member # 529) on 12-11-2002, 01:31 PM:

To do it as short as possible:
Bond died, when Ian Flemings novel were used up. [bs]

Posted by Steven Pickles (Member # 785) on 12-15-2002, 03:21 AM:

This has to be one of the worst movies I've seen all year. Right after I screened the print, I actually thought it had something to it. Now, about two weeks later, I realized that it was flawed in many aspects. It was awful, simply awful. There were two scenes that stick in my mind as an example. Bond is riding a wave and you can obviously tell it is a totally fake sequence. It isn't that what is going on that is unbelievable but the green/blue screen and computer generated fit onto a real wave was pathetic. The other involves a plane disintegrating over the course of several minutes and there are a couple of shots with a character hanging out of the window that looked so bad it was difficult to watch.

The audio mix and "blow-them-away" action sequences had a somewhat redeeming quality, but did not make up for the lackluster plot and pitiful character development of this film.

Watch this if you have a masochistic personality with the attention span of a peanut.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 12-15-2002, 07:29 PM:

We were disappointed in this one, too. The special effects in earlier editions seemed to be made more within the bounds of technology at the time. Either that, or I was far less critical back then. It just seemed that even though we knew they were obviously high tech, the stunts & gadgets were "just" over the top enough to make them really impressive and just about believable. This latest effort tried too hard to create miracles in a studio (or a computer). Spoken lightly, those Arctic parachute scenes were a bit "under funded", and I'd be far more likely to believe in a Klingon cloaking device than that car. To expect us to believe "Q's" explanation that it was done with mirrors or cameras was a bit insulting.

The review carried by our local paper started out with a pan on the digital "bullet" that "Bond" shot at the audience, and went down from there.

No comment on Madonna's "musical" contribution... but we do have a rather new Graemlin here that describes it well enough!

Oh... for those of you who haven't seen the trailer yet, the Charlie's Angels babes will be doing the same "helicopter started from a dead cold while plummeting toward Earth" trick... except that in this attempt, it will be after driving off of the top of a hydroelectric dam... a far lower altitude than was Bond and Berry.... and most likely with far less clothing!

Posted by Rachel Gilardi (Member # 1016) on 12-15-2002, 10:36 PM:

Horrible. It was a pathetic attempt to bring Bond up to date all the while losing some of the many fans that it already had. Very disappointing!

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 12-16-2002, 03:25 AM:

Right. And even more disappointing since the last Bond was much more "classic". Bond is timeless, he doesn`t need to be brought up to date. Madonna`s title song was horrible. A Bond title song needs to be very stylish and style is exactly what Madonna never had. It is also amazing to see how little screen presence she has. When she appeared as the fencing teacher, several people said, "that`s Madonna, isn`t she?" What worse compliment can one pay an actress...

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 12-17-2002, 05:44 PM:

It is beyond words just how bad this film is. Madonna's song is not even worth mentioning it is so insignificant. Ever since The Living daylights, they've had a different song for the end credits and yet here we need the techno mix of this shit excuse for music.

On television the other night License To Kill was on. With Timothy Dalton I never had any trouble believing he was Bond...with Brosnan I never once believe him to be Bond, he's always Pierce Brosnan.
He's done four now, yet even with Roger Moore, he only took three to get the character right. Smoking a cigar and looking serious does not make you Bond. You have to make the character your own.

By far the saddest comment I've heard on this one was that it made you long for the Golden days of GoldenEye and THAT was beaten by my Golden Rasberry only by The World Is Not Enough. (The person who said that also shares my opinion about Goldeneye by the way).

To make this easier to run every day, I've taken to replacing Pierce Brosnan with Vin Diesel as James Bond. It's still, crap but at least I don't think it's a Bond film anymore.

0/10 [thumbsdown]