GoldenEye at 30

Does it still work safter being shaken, not stirred, for all that time?

The year was 1995. I turned 19 that year, and even though I was still grasping what it was like to be diabetic, for the most part, I was enjoying the freedoms that most 19 year-olds do. I had a job at a video store, so I got a lot of free rentals, and the means to spend money where I wanted. The store was open from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., so no matter what shift I was working, I basically had the opportunity to go out after the store closed, and also stay out and not have to wake up too early if you had to open the store the next day. In retrospect, that was pretty great. One thing I chose to do with this schedule in November of 1995 was see a midnight showing of the new James Bond film, the first one in six years, and the first one starring Pierce Brosnan, GoldenEye.

***If you listen to my podcast, which you don’t, we covered this movie way back in 2021 during our “Bounding Through Brosnan” era. If you’re interested, give it a listen here ***

I said I “chose” to see a midnight show, but the truth was that my friends and I tried to see a 9:30 show, only to arrive at the theater and find it was sold out, which was a thing back then. So, being young and foolish, we decided to buy tickets to the midnight show, not really thinking about what we would do to pass the next two-plus hours. Napping would have probably been a good choice, but… young and foolish. I do think I fell asleep for a few minutes of the movie, but overall, it was a fun time. I mean, I'm talking about it 30 years later. I’ve seen a lot of movies in that time, and most of them have faded into memory. This one is still rattling around in there.

There is a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that went on with this movie, like replacing Timothy Dalton and bringing in Pierce, who was originally scheduled to play Bond back in 1986 but was committed to the series Remington Steele. Dalton was actually ready to do his third installment and finish out his contract, but the producers thought that after the lay off, that he should actually do 3 or 4 more, and he thought that was a bit much. There were also rights B.S. going on, as there usually is with Bond movies, and this also marked the final time Albert Broccoli worked on a Bond film, as he passed away seven months after its release. If you want to know all that stuff, I know it sounds like another shameless plug, but you really should listen to the podcast, because my friend and fellow podcaster, John Hunt, knows the entire history of this and most Bond films. Incidentally, I believe it was at his urging that we opted for the midnight showing, because he really wanted to see this movie opening weekend. Also, it’s free.

What I really want to talk about is what went on in front of the cameras. At the time, there was talk if the world even needed Bond movies anymore. The Cold War had ended. The Gulf War had ended. Things were relatively peaceful. Plus, even in 1995, people thought some of the character’s more misogynistic tendencies did not play well anymore. So, the filmmakers only recourse was to go with that, and give Bond a female boss in Judi Dench’s M, who called him out on his sexist nonsense. The good news? He still does some sexing, there is still a character who crushes men to death with her thighs, and he still kills a good amount of people and makes a quip after he does it. So, for longtime fans of the franchise, it is still the Bond you grew up with, and for people who maybe have never seen a Bond movie, it is something different.

The first Bond movie I saw on the big screen was 1985’s View to a Kill, starring everyone’s favorite uncle, Roger Moore, as Bond. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Roger was getting a little long-in-the-tooth to play a womanizing, terrorist-beating, super-spy, and that would be his last turn in the role. I liked the two Timothy Dalton movies well enough, but at the time I found him to be a little stiff as James Bond. I’ve since come around on them, as we recently covered those on the podcast, too, (You really should listen. Please.) and I now see that he was just trying to be different from Moore. And who could blame him?

But this new guy? He was Connery and Moore rolled into one. He could make jokes or be tough depending on the situation. You believed that he could enjoy his martini and bed beautiful women and blast away at bad guys with a machine gun and jump from a motorcycle into a falling plane with no problem at all. Well, that last on is a little far-fetched, but somehow, they sold me on it. I mean, we’ve seen a lot worse than that in every Fast and Furious movie. Plus, there’s a tank chase through the streets of St Petersburg, with a real tank.

This movie also spawned an incredibly popular video game, with several versions, the most recent one replacing the Brosnan Bond with the Craig one.It was a rare first-person shooter for a console, and gamers from my generation, and probably even younger, consider it to be one of the greatest games of all-time. Personally, even though I had an N64, I was always more of a Mario Kart guy. The good thing about games is, you can always go back and try again.

Lest I get carried away here, there is obviously some silliness in this movie as well. Some of the lines are preposterous and inappropriate. The usual Q scene where Bond acquires all the gadgets that he happens to need on this mission is straight out of Monty Python (although I do like the exploding pen.) Alan Cumming’s character is an annoying Nick Burns wannabe. And how the Hell did Sean Bean not die after being shot and blown up in the pre-credit sequence, since he is pretty much only known for dying in all his movies?

But I’m fine with all that. I didn’t really learn a lot in film school, but I remember one professor (who I had for Film Writing and Design in 1995, same year as GoldenEye) ragging on Lethal Weapon, saying that it was not action, but comedy, and that always stuck with me. I hated that professor, but I thought that particular analysis was wise. Action and comedy have long been married in that way, but that’s not really a bad thing. We watch these things to be entertained, and GoldenEye, flaws and all, entertained me on that very early morning back in 1995, and it entertains me today. And if you agree, go ahead and listen to our podcast about it! (Had to be done.)

Thanks for reading, as always, and for being a loyal subscriber. Happy New Year to you all, and if you happened to get sent this by someone, feel free to subscribe below. And of course, keep on keepin’ on.