My wife and I grabbed this one on a lark last night, I didn’t remember ever seeing it. In the process of watching it, and reading IMDb (which we always do with movies) I learned some very interesting things about the Bond movies.
Sean Connery was the first James Bond, and then he retired from that and other actors took his place. Some folks felt that no-one else could ever be Bond though. In 1963 they made Thunderball, which is about Spectre stealing some nuclear weapons and threatening the world with them.
Never Say Never Again came out in 1983 and is the SAME MOVIE. And Sean Connery is Bond again. I’ve never heard of a remake where they renamed the movie but used the same story and lead actor.
Octopussy also came out in 1983, but with Roger Moore as Bond. There were two different companies lisenced to make Bond films at the same time, and they did.
NSNA turned out to be awful. Sean Connery is the only thing that made "Bond"-ish. The music was by a different person, Desmond Llewlyn was not Q, and the cinematography was terrible.
I want to qualify the cinematography thing though. The green screens were shaky and funny looking, just like… 1963. Chase scenes were sped up to make them look like they were going faster, just like… 1963. What am I getting at? NSNA was almost stereotypical of really early Bond, when Sean Connery ruled the roost.
So while I could consider it a poor movie by 1983 standards, it was fun for me in a nostalgic sort of way. My wife hated it though. 🙂
