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The worst 5-10 minutes in a James Bond film?

posted 10 years ago by Frogfisher
19 replies | jump to latest

The film is alright, even iconic in certain ways. But it has some pretty bad moments, one of them worse than most others in the history of Bond.

During the middle of the film when James Bond escapes Kamal's palace and is being hunted through the jungle.
So not only is it poorly made as for instance Bond at one point kicks a guy for no reason and apparently getting all the way up to him through a crowd of people and no one stops him.
But the cheesiness and illogical elements of it is almost unbearable, culminating in the famous Tarzan-scream.

I would consider this to be one of the worst scenes/sequences in James Bond history!!

Anyone else agrees?

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.

[–] nothingwillstopit 10 years ago

Haha. I agree, though this is my second favourite 'worst moment in Bond'. The first being Blofeld in drag in 'Diamonds are Forever'.

Shocking. Positively shocking.

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] PussyCrusher_Principal 10 years ago

While I'm never going to agree about DAF being as bad as many say, I actually liked Octopuss, more or less, having watched last night for first time.

Including the scene you mentioned, I thought that it was a bittoo long, though, as it seemed as though what should have been the climax of the film seemed to drag on forever. I'll have to watch again to get a better feel for it, and maybe I'll change my mind, but it seemed like there was too much going on at the end, for too long. I gotta believe they coul have excised some of the footage of him fighting villain after villain, before even getting to the tent and having to convince all preset to let him defuse the bomb....could've been tightened up.

Overall though, I thought Octopussy looked good, photog-/cinematography wise, and I liked it.

[–] FilmKoala 9 years ago

The Tarzan scream is awful but the scene itself is great.

[–] LeonardPine 9 years ago

I'd agree. The scene is lame and the jokes are awful. I watched Octopussy on Blu-ray with my wife and actually felt embarrassed during this scene.

Its a shame because without all the lame jokes Octopussy is a good Bond film.

Weirdly enough there were two films that year that did a Tarzan yell joke. Octopussy and Return Of The Jedi. Both jokes were awful.

Was it a millionaire who said "Imagine no possessions"?

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] incpassion 9 years ago

Very nice post indeed. Kudos to you.

[–] tmf_scipio 8 years ago

Well, Fraser did write the Flashman series, so he's not immune to punny jokes.

Hitler! C'mon, I'll buy you a glass of lemonade.

[–] incpassion 9 years ago

I agree to a degree. Also, I don't ever want Bond to be clown again (but with Moore it was more or less OK). But generally I like this film quite much.

[–] BrettLovesKerri 9 years ago

Awesome movie. But yes....the Tarzan scream was very weak. Chewbacca did it in "Return of the Jedi".

[–] eltourer 9 years ago

Yeah, the Tarzan is REALLY bad. I don't even like watching that scene with Bond newbies. It's embarrassingly bad and literally sucks the viewer(s) right out of the film.

Like the whistle sound during the car flip in Man with the Golden Gun, or the Beach Boys' California Girls music in the opening of A View to a Kill, which just completely kills the awesomeness of a snowboarding James Bond Decades before the X-Games!

Even as a KID that didn't even know any swear words I sat there in the theater and thought "WHAT THE *beep* during that car flip whistle. THe same thought returned a decade later during that Tarzan yell! LOL...

I'm not one to revise other people's work, but I think if these moments HAD to be kept in the films, all the filmmakers had to do was crank the Bond Theme GUITAR jam!

Wouldn't have been a perfect improvement, but definitely wouldn't have been embarrassing and silly.

[–] TheHungryHippo (821) 5 years ago

Eh sorry that was nowhere near as bad as pretty much anything out of Diamonds Are Forever (by far the worst Bond film).

[–] LordBAElish (2015) 5 years ago

This was a decent movie, but was done in by a couple bad sequences.

The whole escape from Kamal's palace was cheesy and awful. Starting with Bond making undead noises when first escapes, telling the Tiger to sit, telling the snake to hiss off, climaxing with the awful Tarzan scream.

The second is seeing James Bond dressed up as a clown when he is on the US Airforce base looking for the bomb.

[–] millsey72 (9770) 2 years ago

That Tarzan roar was one of the greatest Bond moments ever. It worked perfectly to evade his captors in that jungle, after running thru a tarantulas web, snakes crawling over him and coming face to face with a tiger