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What are some of the best (and worst) James Bond pre-title sequences?

daTRUballin

Member
Some of the most memorable parts of the Bond movies have been the pre-title sequences that traditionally come right before the title song of the movie. Some are entertaining and action-packed and do a good job of pumping you up for the rest of the movie. Others are a little lame or downright bad.

I find most of them to be pretty good. A lot of the ones from the Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan films especially. The Spy Who Loved Me with the famous ski stunt, Moonraker with the badass skydiving parachute fight, the duel between Scaramanga and the other bad guy in TMWTGG, etc.

Goldeneye's sequence will be a popular one here I'm sure. It also helps that the levels in the N64 video game based on the sequence (Facility FTW!) are some of the more iconic parts of that game and are ingrained into a lot of peoples' memories. Tomorrow Never Dies with the gunfight in the terrorist base and Bond escaping with the plane armed with nukes was pretty cool. For a movie that's considered a bottom tier Bond movie, Die Another Day's intro set in North Korea with Bond being captured was actually pretty alright and pretty novel for a Bond movie at that time and makes you think the rest of the movie will be a pretty great one (lol).

Daniel Craig had some great ones too. Casino Royale with Bond getting his first two kills and ending with what is perhaps the best 007 gunbarrel shot of all the movies. Quantum of Solace's car chase was pretty cool too. And as dull as the rest of the movie is, I really liked Spectre's opening with the Day of the Dead parade and the helicopter fight. Felt very classic Bond, but in a good way.

I think by far the worst one is probably the one from For Your Eyes Only. What were they thinking?! You have Bond visiting Tracy's grave which is a decent start to the film, but then you have this weird scene with Totally Not Blofeld trying to kill Bond by using a remote control system to crash Bond's helicopter. This incarnation of Blofeld is by far the worst of them all. He's like some bad Saturday morning cartoon villain in this! Even more than usual. This whole scene makes you think the movie is going to be yet another goofy Moore era cheesefest, but the rest of the movie is actually a very grounded and much more sober outing than what you usually get with Moore. The intro is just at complete odds with the rest of the film's tone and doesn't provide any sort of satisfying closure with the rivalry between Bond and Blofeld IMO.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the pre-title sequences of these movies!
 

pramod

Banned
FYEO is actually one of my favorites. But I love everything about that movie.

my top 5 would be:

Octopussy
The Living Daylights
Moonraker
TSWLM
Goldeneye
 
Worst: the one where Bond picks up Blofeld's wheelchair with a helicopter ski and drops him in a chimney

Edit: turns out that's For Your Eyes Only mentioned by OP
 
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FunkMiller

Member
This is still regarded as one of the single greatest stunts ever performed.

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