Thunderball

 

And he strikes, like THUNDERBAAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!

The fourth movie and one that really fascinated me as a kid. It had the Vulcan with the atomic bombs, an underwater battle scene and a yacht that de-attaches a part of itself. Think they also introduced the 007 watch for the first time. Although if only with a geiger-counter. Didn't get the plot, like most of the movies as a kid. SPECTRA steals two atomic bombs from NATO by killing a NATO officer and using a double. That just happens being prepared in the same clinic as Bond is staying in after the pre-credit scene. Not able to stop the theft he gets the lead to investigate the Bahamas. Turns out the officers sister is together with Largo, Nr 2 of SPECTRA. How convenient. I assume that's how they got all information on the officer to be able to impersonate him perfectly as well as make him disappear.

Highlight is the battle at the end underwater as Largo and his men is attacked by US marines as they try to put the bomb in Miami to blow it up. The music, the action and then it follows up with the ship chase scene. Action from start to finish. We have gadgets like the watch, the breathing apparatus and diving equipment. The jetpac from the start of the film is also something completely different that kept peoples imagination. I think I like this movie the best of the old Connery movies so far. It's also the same plot for the non EON movie Never Say Never Again back in 1983. Also with Connery. And the title song with Tom Jones, fantastic. Oh and yes, they just translated the title this time.

Goldfinger

The Man with the Midas touch

The third Bond movie and the one seen as the defining Bond-movie. It has the Aston Martin, an ending fight between a squadrons of soldiers on either side and a pre-credit scene. 007 is ordered to look into Auric Goldfinger who the government believes are smuggling out gold which is a danger to the major currencies (dollar and sterling) as it's tied to the gold standard according to the Bretton Wood-system established after the 2nd World War. As you might guess, this sort of thing is my jam. Of course, the Bretton Wood-system would fall just 7 years later when Nixon admitted that the US couldn't guarantee the dollars worth in gold. Of course, the movie doesn't explain the gold standard, you just have to know about this. 

Goldfinger is really petty, he don't like loosing so he cheats in card games and golf. And if someone makes a slight against him, he kills them. Most spectacular Jill Masterson who he orders painted in gold so that she suffocates... I think this have been debunked, but I'm not quite sure. It also has Oddjob, the first side-villain to the main bad guy, although Grant is pretty much a proto-type.. or is he the real bad guy of the film? Big, strong and silent, taking a lot of punishment.

The grand plan is that Goldfinger is gonna break in at Fort Knox, plant a dirty atomic bomb and blow it up to contaminate all gold in the storage. It hinted that it's the Chinese that gives Goldfinger the bomb to destabilise the west and heighten the value of Goldfingers own gold. A simple plan. He gets equipment from mobsters all over the US and then kills them off since there won't be any 10 million dollars to give them, Pretty much the weakest part of the plan since if more than one would have declined the 10 million I think Oddjob wouldn't have been able to get them. Also bad for Solo (the mobster leaving) that he didn't have a gun on him with quicker reflexes. The day is saved when 007 seduces the pilot Pussy Galore... and the handling of women in this movie is really problematic. First scene in Miami, Bond hits a girl on the back, enhanced with sound effects. And then how 007 seduces miss Galore, with just force really. Yeah, a bit problematic... but it was the 60's so whatever.

Beside the misogyny, no SPECTRA in sight, music gets really good. One thing I will give the Craig movies, at least they have the same Felix Leiter so that I recognise him. Blofeld is bad as well, but at least I don't see him during 2-3 movies compared to Leiter who from this one out is in every movie, and he looks different every time, and it's not they cast look-alikes, this one looks like an old man, the next one looks a bit like the one from Dr No. If you have Bond, M, Q and MoneyPenny the same actors, why not get a Felix Leiter? Was it because they didn't have one in From Russia... ? 

From Russia With Love

 

... wait a minute, they never where in Russia?

The second Bond-movie titled Agent 007 Sees Red in Sweden. SPECTRA is after revenge on the death of Dr No and their master strategist Kronsteen makes a plan in order to get their hands on a Lektor (some kind of cryptograph) and make the the British do the work and in the end kill 007.  They use newly defected soviet SMERCH member Rosa Klebb to fool Russian Tatiana to help Bond get the hand on the Lektor and their top operative Grant, Bonds equal. We are introduced to Q... although he appeared in the first movie giving 007 his Walter PPK, but it isn't the actor we all know as Q so it hardly counts, that hand him the first of all Bond-gadgets, the attache case containing a rifle, gold, knife, bullets and a tear gas cartridge.

Arriving at Istanbul... and it looks like a reenactment of the scene in Dr No when 007 gets to Jamaica, but instead of the CIA tailing Bond it's Grant and some Bulgarian spies. 007 meets with the head operative Karim Bey and Grant starts pushing the Soviets against the British by killing the Bulgarians and saving Bond at the gypsy camp... where I think Bond went to gather information with Karim Bey since he appears to be the target of the Soviet attacks. They blow up the Soviet embassy to get the Lektor and Tatiana, escape on the Orient Express, but the plan goes awry as Bey is killed by Grant and the back-up spy is intercepted by Grant before he can make contact with 007, posing as him. Grant drugs Tatiana during dinner and tries to kill Bond, but greedy as the villain's tends to be, 007 fools him with the gold in the cases so that Grant opens the armed case and gets distracted by the gas so Bond can kill him.

007 and Tatiana leaves the train, gets Grants ride, defeats an helicopter and gets on a boat, destroys some other boats, gets too Venice and there is confronted by Klebb with the famous spiked shoes. Tatiana kills her, the British get the Lektor and all ends well. 

First showing of Blofeld, the head of SPECTRA, apparently played by the actor who played Professor Dent in the first movie. Watched very seldom as a kid as well, but it's clearly better than Dr No. Interestingly the actor who played the soviet commander in the Moore-movies appeared in this movie as a SPECTRE agent and one of the Gypsie girls actor that fought each other came back for Thunderball as the assistant Paula. It's pretty much here I also notice that we have progressed a bit when it comes to... let's say gender equality. It's gets worse in the next film. And the portrayal of different ethnicities. How do you categorise a Mexican playing a turk? Or an Italian playing a Russian? 

Plot makes sense and the smarmy Kronsteen is a delight in getting the foot... but I have to agree that Klebb chose Grant and that was the only failure of the plan since Grants greed allowed 007 get the upper hand at the most crucial point in the plan. Cause really, shouldn't he have taken the cases back to SPECTRA anyway since they clearly belonged to the agents and had some special mechanisms I think SPECTRA would like to look at.

Dr. No

You can just imagine the music

Almost Christmas as of writing and during the Black Friday-week I had to get my own presents like last year, but where it took till after Christmas to get delivered I got a James Bond blu ray box since I didn't have those movies and I seen clips on facebook that got me in the espionage mood. Well, I got one film, Die Another Day... but that ones not that good. So started watching from beginning to end and of course you start with Dr No... or as it was known in Sweden Agent 007 with License to Kill (this will be problem for the Swedish translation team until the 90's).

An undercover agent Strangeway disappears in Jamaica together with his secretary so 007 is sent in to find them. Both have been killed by Dr No who operates from an island nearby in order to capture one of the Americans rockets firing from Cape Canaveral in the space race between east and west. Dr No works for the criminal crime syndicate SPECTRA. Bond meets the CIA operative Felix Leiter and local fisherman Quarrel that helped Strangeway in searching the island, finding samples of radioactive material on Dr No:s island that got Strangeway killed when he handed over them to the local Professor Dent who works for Dr No. After Dent tries to kill 007 with a poisonous spider he meets his doom as Bond guns him down after yet another failed  assassination attempt. On Dr. No's island 007 meets Honey Rider... a random girl that looks for sea shells and helps 007 and Quarrel through the swamp... until they are cornered by the "Dragon" that kills Quarrel and takes the other to Dr No's facility where they finally meet the much talked about Dr No. All that's left is that 007 blows up the nuclear reactor that powers the facility, push Dr No into the vat of cooling water and escapes with Honey Rider and then is picked up by Felix Leiter that arrives with a ship of coastal guards.

Not much to say about this first proper James Bond-movie. Music is great, but it does most of the heavy lifting to excite the action scenes. I mean, you can't take the spider scene seriously as it crawls on the glass window. The plot works fine. My parents complained some year ago that they felt the older Bond-movies didn't work for them due to the slow tempo and all that... I can see some people feel that, but at least I can follow the plot and action. What is problematic is that it probably expects people to know what happens around in history of the time they made the movies. One throw-away gag is that Dr No has a stolen Goya painting of Napoleon that was stolen for real around filming and they just added that for that scene, but they don't comment on what it is and it's never referenced in the movie. I didn't get that until I watched the documentary on the making of that movie that came with the blu ray. Blu ray is good, but menu is a bit weird at times, but it contains a couple of documentaries, description on major players in the movie and pictures of memorabilia around release and such. What I miss most is that I miss the posters of the movies on the package. It's just 3 cases in a box and they all are white.

Didn't watch this one that much as a kid, was kinda boring since there wasn't any gadgets or such and we only had it recorded on a VHS. We had the book, but I never read it.

Shantae and the Seven Sirens (Switch)

 

Where entry is by seaweed gate
And plan the plan of dreams

The latest game in the Shantae-series. 5th game in the series. Feeling they had it for a while Shantae and friends go on a vacation where Shantae is invited to join in the half-genie festival... where the other half-genies gets kidnapped, so Shantae has to travel across the island and its sunken city to rescue them from the seven sirens. That ends that vacation. 

Standard Shantae fair, find dungeons, get upgrades, save half-genie and defeat boss, get items to get another upgrade repeat ad nauseam and in-between get heart squids to pummel to new heart containers and new for the game is collecting monster cards that will give you bonuses if you equip them. Reminds me a bit of the card system from Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. In every dungeon you fight Risky Boots as a mini-boss before rescuing the half-genie that give you the dungeon upgrade and Squid Baron shows up in places. Small references here and there.

It has its moments. Turns out that the sunken city is actually a sunken ship (I suspect alien since when you open it up it contains enemies with crab and fish design which together with the sirens seems akin to some Lovecraftian monsters from the stars) and Risky is behind the kidnapping with a faustian bargain with the Sirens to get the ship and the Sirens to be released from their imprisonment by a genie back in time. Of course Shantae saves the day since Risky built in some failsafes if the Sirens would backstab her together with one of the Sirens helping Shantae. 

Played it twice, the second time on New Game+ with the magic mode. First time took 9-10 hours and the second time just beyond 7 hours (and 100 % at that). New Game+ was more fun with the fact I could use dances and weapons much more, but the game overall felt rather small. Just 6 dungeons total and maybe that's the problem, missing a 7th dungeon and battle with a Siren, since the game title promised me that. Agree with SomecallmeJohnny that waiting for a price drop might be justified (which I did this time).

Pikmin 3 Deluxe (Switch)

Love the colours!

Another remaster or port from the Wii U to the Switch. Been 6 years since last time. Did similar numbers this time. Played for 15 hours on the main game got all fruit and played it all on hard mode... whatever that entailed. Still fun, but only lasts a weekend when you know what you're doing. Same story as before. Three explorers from a planet ravaged by starvation is sent out to find food and crash lands on the world of Pikmins. How they were able to travel across space without being able to have a working agriculture program beats me, but of they go. 

While trying to regroup they find evidence of Olimar and Louie and sets of to rescue Olimar that have been kidnapped by some monster. Which I did in around day 36 this time. They also added some side missions with Olimar and Louie. First set right before the main game begins and how Olimar found the cosmic drive key and got attacked by the monster. The second set follows the story after he was rescued and how they gotta get the parts for their spaceship back on order from the company president.

That pretty much it. I gathered some people thought it wasn't enough to justify it's full price and I can see that. Still enjoyed it, but would have liked some sort of pack with all three games. I think they added something to the controls like auto-targeting since I can't recall that... but it's been 6 years so who knows.

A DnD Tale: Curse of Stradh - The Amber Temple 3

 

Best enemy of the game according to the dungeon master

Still in the Amber Temple. Not much left so they continue on from the treasure room and pass a crevice to find yet another room with three sarcophagus and six crates. Opening up them they find 6 dead bodies and as they prepares to leave they awaken and attack them The vampire spawns gives them some challange for the first time since Death house and the attacking broom stick. And they are scary since they are able to grapple a couple of them (mostly due to us not knowing the rules) that allows them to use a bite attack that both drains their HP, necrotic damage that lowers their max HP and also regain the vampire spawns HP. The monk is unconscious after getting bit and being surrounded by three of them. Eventually the battle turns around as they dispatch the spawns one by one. Took us 2 hours real time.

After resting up and getting more level 3 spell slots for dispel magic they decide that there is only 3 magic doors locked on the ground floor so better clean them out. And the first two is nothing special. One just an empty tomb that been plundered years ago and the other three more sarcophagus. The third room is where the fun is. The monk goes in and is attacked by an invisible Death Slaad that have advantage and get a critical dealing 35 points of damage and with the next attack putting the monk unconscious again. The third attack lands on the sorceress that opened the door. The others hammer away at it, but having 170 HP total it at least lives to the next round where he blasts them with a fireball, hitting another 35 points of damage throwing the sorceress to the ground and the Paladin standing wih 5 HP and the barbarian being bloodied. Only the tiefling thief have  been able to dodge and use all her tricks to lessen the impact. Scrambling to kill it before they are TPK they hit it, but the slaad survives yet another round, leaving me with a hard choice. Either use another fireball, taking the paladin away and maybe the barbarian out, but if the barbarian stand, he's dead. Or use a Plane Shift spell and get him out of the game for good... high risk and high reward so of course use Plane Shift. It fails, so the next turn for the barbarian ends the Slaad's life. 

Getting close to death twice in the same game. I think that upped the risk for them, they have had a nice ride so far with me bumbling the boss encounters, but now they hit back hard. They healed up with all the hit dice they had and continued. Went up to the library through the stairs behind the crevice, found a way back to the ground floor and started combing the temple for anything they missed, especially the control mechanism for the shield guardian. They discovered a secret door leading down to another sarcophagus room, but being filled with ghasts. The sorceress used a fire ball, dealing 50 points of damage to all 7 of them, killing them instantly. They hit the level up mark and game slowed down to get adjusted to level 7. Finally, a level 4th spell for the sorceress, might just use it for Banishment, looks like a cool spell.

Continuing searching for the control medallion they finally get that the mage apprentice might have it, so while the monk distracts him by talking the rouge pickpockets him and get away with the medallion. Unfortunatly for them the apprentice mage's familiar Quisit appears and attacks the rouge. The mage instantly throws a cone of cold on the rest of the party, but the sorceress get to use the Banishment spell, sending him away. Sadly the wild surge instills fear in her and makes her lose concentration so he comes back right away. Still... he gets trounced pretty fast and they get the medallion. Time to pack up all treasure and get back to civilisation... and then the question arises, what were we doing here anyway? Oops!