David Lynch (1946 - 2025)

50 Years Ago: Dark Star (1975)

Conceived as Planetfall, Dark Star (1974) is the first film of director John Carpenter and writer Dan O’Bannon.  The film began as a student project at U.S.C. in 1970, with principal photography occurring early in 1971. The film underwent re-shoots in 1972 to extend the fifty-minute production to eighty-minutes, and to make it viable for a theatrical release.  The film was then purchased by Jack H. Harris (The Blob [1958]), who demanded additional reshoots.  The film finally premiered in 1975, and met with negative reviews, and relatively little audience appreciation.

Regardless of its origin as a student film, Dark Star is today considered a cult-classic. Its low-budget nature does not take away significantly from the film’s success in part because it is clear the filmmakers had both a creative strategy, and an example to follow. In short, Dark Star is the anti-2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).  As a work of (caustic) 1970s art, it knowingly draws all the opposite conclusions about space travel, mankind, and man’s place or role in the universe. In so cleverly over-turning the 2001 apple cart, Dark Star not only lives up to its title, it remains one of the funniest science fiction films made in the 1970s.

“Don’t give me any of that intelligent life crap. Just give me something I can blow up.”

Eighteen parsecs from Earth in Sector EB-90, the spaceship Dark Star continues its apparently un-ending mission: to destroy unstable planets in order to pave the way for human colonization.  

Unfortunately, the ship has grappled with some severe damage recently, and the newly promoted captain, Doolittle (Narelle) is ill-prepared when one of the ship’s thermonuclear bombs prepares to detonate while still attached to the underbelly of the ship.  Dark Star’s computer suggests teaching the bomb the study of Phenomenology.  

While Doolittle grapples with this existential crisis, Sergeant Pinback (Dan O’Bannon) battles a mischievous alien pet that has escaped from captivity and Lt. Talby (Dre Pahich) dreams of seeing the mysterious Phoenix Asteroids with his own eyes…

“Are you willing to entertain a few concepts?”

Dark Star is an outer space comedy that succeeds brilliantly on the basis of a very good, well-told joke. Visually, thematically, and in terms of philosophy, the film cleverly operates as the antithesis of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

Being the “Anti-2001” may sound like a relatively simple or juvenile thing, but actually the opposite is true considering how consistently Carpenter and O’Bannon’s film develops its world-view.  By creating a world so clearly and deliberately the inverse of Kubrick’s vision, Dark Star’s creators have fashioned an intelligent and challenging response to that beloved science fiction film, one that meaningfully re-evaluates mankind’s nature and his place in the universe.

In brief, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a majestic, stately picture that establishes the mysteries of the universe in the form of the monolith, but which also suggests that man’s progress over time possesses a shape and a purpose; moving from ape-like primitive to evolved star child.  

By contrast, Dark Star suggests the absolute absurdity and pointlessness of the human existence, and therefore of the universe itself.  Right down the line, element-to-element Dark Star mirrors and parodies 2001’s sense of “cosmic purpose” with its own sense of man’s irrelevance in the scheme of things, as well as his general pettiness.

In Kubrick’s 2001, the space age is beautiful, stately, wondrous and because of man’s intended destiny, even ordered.  The spaceship and space station interiors are depicted as roomy and minimalistic, and the incredible visuals of space vessels in flight -- docking and landing -- are sometimes accompanied by instances of classical music such as the Blue Danube Waltz, a composition that suggests the formal, dance-like nature of objects in space, and in motion.  

2001’s “theme song” as it might even be considered is “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” a formal composition by Richard Strauss (1864 – 1949) which again, primarily denotes order.  As Kenneth Von Gunden and Stuart H. Stock wrote in in Twenty All-Time Great Science Fiction Films (Crown; 1982, page 190), the composition: 

“…opens with an ascending phrase of three notes…which represent Nietzcshe’s view of the evolutionary rise of man…These three notes serve note that the number three is essential to the film: from the perfect alignment of the three spheres of Earth, Moon, and sun at the beginning to the appearance of things in threes.”

Dark Star’s first anti-2001 conceit is to adopt country music -- the vernacular of personal stories and human emotions -- as its theme song.  The country music genre is not generally symbolic in nature, but literal in its storytelling of failed love affairs or a relationship now lost.  So where Kubrick utilizes his music to suggest the transcendent and ordered nature of space travel, Dark Star’s theme, “Benson, Arizona” by Bill Taylor evokes nothing of grandeur or cosmic importance. 

The lyrics of “Benson, Arizona” explicitly involve the long separation between an astronaut and his Earthbound love, a love that connects that astronaut not to the future (and evolution), but the traditional past.  

This connection is like a tether, dragging him back to earthbound concerns and therefore precluding the chance for growth or transcendence.  Dan O’Bannon noted this context when he said in an interview that the astronauts’ days aboard Dark Star were sad and ridiculous.

The specific comparison between 2001 and Dark Star involves the nature of life on a ship traveling in space.  In A Space Odyssey, the crewmen fly the roomy Discovery towards a rendezvous with destiny near Jupiter.  In Dark Star, the unkempt astronauts fly their ship, the Dark Star on an endless quest across the galaxy to destroy unstable planets.   One journey is, in keeping with the name of the ship, about “discovery.”  The other is about death and destruction…about “blowing things up.”

In the course of these journeys, both men are contacted by home, and again, Dark Star makes a point of inverting the themes featured in Kubrick’s film.  In 2001, a news anchor for BBC-12’s “The World Tonight” interviews astronauts Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) about life on ship.  There is a time lag of approximately seven minutes because Discovery is 80 million miles away.  But meaningful conversation about life in space is still possible…just delayed.

Dark Star opens with a message from McMurdo Base on Earth as a military officer contacts the crew and notes that there is a ten year time lag in conversation because Dark Star is 18 parsecs distant from Earth, a gap that makes any meaningful conversation impossible.  In 2001, the “entire world” joins the BBC interviewer in wishing Dave and Frank a “safe and successful journey” to the stars.  Dark Star’s communique to Earth, by contrasts gets play in “prime time” and “good reviews in the trade,” but the actual content of the message from home is negative.  Earth will not be sending replacement radiation shields to the damaged ship, because of budget cuts and the vast distance separating the ship and the home world.

Both 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dark Star also comment on “intelligent” devices and their relationship with mankind.  In the former film, the mellifluous-voiced HAL 9000 becomes murderous on the journey to Jupiter, and must be de-activated.  Under Dave’s auspices, man re-asserts his rightful control over the machine (thus symbolically conquering technology; the latest in the line of tools since the ape-man through that bone into the sky in the film’s prologue…) and then heads off to evolve via the stargate/monolith “trip.”  

Once more, Dark Star inverts that very premise. 

Here, the crewmen of the Dark Star must interact with a talking bomb, one who is convinced that it must detonate (following an accident aboard ship which activates it) and thus kill everyone.  The ship’s acting captain, the appropriately-named Doolittle (Narrelle), -- who all-things considered would rather be surfing – must teach the bomb Phenomenology in order to prevent it from self-actuating and detonating.  After the bomb learns Phenomenology -- the study of consciousness, essentially -- it becomes an ego-maniac, convinced that it is the only sentient being in the universe.  The bomb decides that it is God and before detonating declares “Let There Be Light.”  

In other words, in Dark Star, man does not conquer his technology.  Instead, he is eclipsed and destroyed by it. Technology supersedes man, and man does not evolve…he is destroyed.  Dark Star even re-parses the transcendental stargate sequence of 2001 to its own ends. It is notable too that the bomb adopts the self-image of man: as destroyer.  The ship’s mission was to blow up planets, and now the bomb will blow up man, a variation of that mission.

In Kubrick’s film, Bowman endures a “cosmic trip,” and the aging process, and then is re-born as the evolved “star child.  There’s a cosmic trip” in Dark Star too, but it is not transcendental in nature.  A crewman named Talby (Pahich) joins the glowing, colorful “Phoenix Asteroids” and becomes indistinguishable from them.  The message is hence that man is not unique and special -- he is not a delicate snow-flake -- but rather part and parcel of a vast, meaningless universe, and in some ways just another grain of sand inhabiting it.  

Doolittle, meanwhile also meets his distinctly not transcendental end. He surfs into the atmosphere of a planet…and burns up. His point of greatest self-actuation is reliving his favorite form of leisure…a hobby.

Up and down, Dark Star functions so colorfully and so amusingly because it undercuts and reverses the premises of the grand Kubrick film again and again.  In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Discovery is a perfectly-ordered technological paradise featuring very few signs of human character or individuality.  The Dark Star’s living quarters, by contrast, look like a messy dorm room.  The Discovery is so spacious that Frank Poole can jog alone through a vast circular track.  The Dark Star, by contrast, is so small that its crew literally possesses no elbow room on the bridge.

The men of Dark Star are also not the brave, resourceful astronauts we have come to expect from efforts like 2001 or Star Trek.  Talby sits alone on the observation deck, isolated from the crew.  Pinback can’t be bothered to feed his alien pet.  Doolittle would rather dream about surfing in Malibu than handle the ship’s problems. Even the injured captain, Powell -- who is kept stored barely alive in some kind of cryogenic freeze unit -- is more interested in his hobby (baseball in general, and the Dodgers specifically) than in helping the ship survive a crisis.  The evolution of man does not seem like much of a possibility with these characters as the spearhead for the future age, does it?

Even visually, Dark Star plays knowingly as a mirror reflection of 2001: A Space Odyssey.  In Stanley Kubrick’s film, the Discovery first passes on the screen from left to right, a visual short-hand for a journey outward.  In John Carpenter’s Dark Star, the ship passes from right to left, thus implying a journey back rather than forward.  Since the film concerns man’s inability to transcend petty concerns and specific incidents (reflected in the use of country music as well as the crew’s petty demeanor), the idea transmitted is that mankind is forever journeying, but not really heading anywhere of import.

There’s an old truism about movie-making that goes: the best way to criticize a film is to make another film yourself.  In some crucial and cerebral fashion, Dark Star epitomizes that notion, and note-for-note, it overturns the premises and ideas of the grand 2001: A Space Odyssey.   If the 1970s is truly the wake-up from the hippie dream, as my friend and mentor, Johnny Byrne used to insist, then Dark Star is pointedly the wake-up from the 2001 dream; an acknowledgment of the absurd and pointless nature of man’s existence…even in the Space Age.

50 Years Ago: Satan's Triangle (1975)

“Within the last thirty years just off the east coast of the United States, more than a thousand men, women and children have vanished from the face of the Earth. No one knows how or why. This is one explanation.”

-Title Card, Satan’s Triangle (1975).

A coast guard rescue copter out of Miami flies to the dead center of the Devil’s Triangle in response to a distress call from a yacht, the Requite. Aboard the copter are pilots Lt. J. Haig (Doug McClure) and Pagnolini (Michael Conrad).

They soon find the yacht adrift in the Triangle, with the corpse of a Catholic priest, Father Martin (Alejandro Rey) swinging from the main mast. When the helicopter begins to develop engine problems, Haig decides to board the ship, and Pagnolini returns to port for repairs..

Upon exploring the dark vessel, Haig discovers more oddities. In one room, a corpse seems to be levitating in mid-air, his face frozen in terror.

The only survivor on the yacht is lovely Eva (Kim Novak), a prostitute who tells Haig her strange story. She reports that the yacht encountered Father Martin, adrift and alone.  Once the priest came aboard, however, the crew abandoned ship, leaving only the captain (Ed Lauter) and the passengers.  

Then, one at a time, the passengers -- including the man that Eva was with -- began to die horribly, and some in apparently supernatural fashion.

Haig is a non-believer, however, and refuses to believe that the Devil is at work in these waters, even though Eva warns that “there is no way off this damn boat.”

Haig is able to convince her that there is no supernatural intervention by providing logical explanations for all the deaths, even the one involving a levitation (the man is speared on a sword fish…). 

Eva acquiesces, and the couple make love.

Soon, Pagnolini returns to rescue the survivors. But aboard the helicopter, J. Haig experiences his first face-to-face encounter with the Devil…

Satan’s Triangle (1975) is another one of those weird and wonderful made-for-TV movies of the 1970’s that is scarier than it has any right to be. 

Satan’s Triangle is scary beyond the meager resources that went into its making. It is scary despite the network restrictions on violence limiting filmmakers working in those years.  It remains scary, even though audiences realize the TV-movie is also, oddly, hokey.

When I study the made-for-TV film today, I assess that it works so well, in part, because of the film techniques it utilizes. 

Satan’s Triangle is in no way, shape or form a found-footage film, but nonetheless there is an almost documentary feeling to the film’s early scenes. The camera is perched in control rooms, in cockpits, and it captures all the action without much by way of dialogue or overly theatrical acting. In these early sections, artificiality is reduced.

Satan's Triangle, at first, feels more like a movie documenting the Coast Guard and a rescue mission than it does a movie about the devil. When Haig takes a rescue basket (via winch) to the deck of the stranded yacht, the camera captures it all in one long take, and water even splashes on the lens several times.  The characters don’t comment much, or talk unnecessarily, and so we are left to assess the images alone for their verisimilitude.

These moments hold up to scrutiny.

On the soundtrack, meanwhile is a weird, ubiquitous howling sound. Is it just the wind? Or is it…Satan?

The pseudo-documentary feel by director Sutton Roley changes once Haig is inside the ship; in the belly of the beast, as it were. The movie suddenly takes on a more overt (and theatrical) “haunted house” feel with dim-lighting, strange noises and odd occurrences. The appearance of the levitating body, for example, is quite shocking.  

There’s one amazing shot here in which the (levitating) face of the deceased man -- face frozen in a rictus of terror -- is perched in the foreground, and Haig and Eva are in the background. It’s a super-imposition of terror, and evil, over normality.

The movie also attempts to craft a legitimate theme, arguing rationality vs. irrationality. The script ultimately comes to explain every “supernatural” event as a factor of the natural world. The blow-back from firing a flare gun is what knocked Father Martin from the mast, and killed him.  The “levitating” man is just speared on a fish, suspended by the sword. Even the crew disappearances are explained (via speculative flashbacks.)

In short, Satan’s Triangle goes to great pains to establish that the world is not an irrational, supernatural one.  It may even convince you.

Until the bottom falls out.  

Until the movie collapses -- or perhaps ascends -- into a final scene of bizarre, utter madness. Haig finds that he has returned to the helicopter not with Eva but with the Devil.  Eva's body has been discovered on the ship with the rescuers. Instead, the pilot has brought the devil to the helicopter, in the form of Father Martin.

The Devil then attacks, and events descend deeper into chaos.  This denouement features a real dream-like, or more appropriately, nightmare-like quality.  Again, this third act functions as a very strong contrast to the almost-documentary feel of the movie’s start, and is thus doubly effective.

There are no real special effects to speak of in the finale, except an exceptionally nice stunt fall, as Haig is driven by Satan from the copter to the ocean far below. Instead of effects, the movie relies on Conrad’s ability to convey terror, and Rey’s expressive capacity to depict bug-eyed evil.

It all works perfectly.

I have peers, particularly a brother-in-law, who saw this film on ABC on January 14, 1975, and swear, to this day, that Satan’s Triangle is the most terrifying movie they’ve ever seen. Having not seen it as an impressionable child, I don’t know that I would make exactly the same claim.

Instead, I’ll just say that Satan’s Triangle, a low-budget, 74 minute made-for-TV movie, is eerily effective, and surprisingly well-made.  The film techniques save the day or at least this is "one explanation," for the movie's cult-status.

John talks AF (Abnormal Fixation) on Roy's Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner!

 

Soon AF! Two Weeks to Launch!

 

AF (Abnormal Fixation) on Roy's Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner This Weekend!

I am thrilled to announce I'll be appearing on Roy's Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner this Sunday, at 7:00 pm (1/12/25) to discuss our award-winning web series, AF (Abnormal Fixation).  

Please join us if you can!

Abnormal Fixation Wins Two Awards at Portland New Alternative Voices Film Festival

Our little indie show, Abnormal Fixation -- which premieres in just over two weeks -- picked up two awards at the prestigious Portland New Alternative Voices Film Festival.

Tony Mercer won for Best Sound Design, and Kathryn Muir won for Best Producer!  Congratulations to both, as these awards are well-deserved.  The show wouldn't be what it is without their amazing dedication and contributions.

Sci-Fi Pulse Reviews Abnormal Fixation's first episode, "The Contest"

Sci-Fi Pulse just reviewed an advance copy of our first Abnormal Fixation episode, "The Contest!"

Here's a quote:

Muir has written a warm-hearted and engaging opener. The characters are established with wit and clarity. Additionally, Muir has deftly balanced the real stakes with the comedic tone. The episode is worth it for the world-building alone. Muir gives the audience an animated sequence. Moreover, we’re treated to the delightfully earnest backstory for the family heirloom serving as Elvis’ collateral...I'm hooked."

Read the entire review here!

"The Contest" drops on YouTube on January 23!

In 2025: Twenty Years of Reflections

As difficult as it is for me to believe, this blog turns twenty-years-old in 2025, in April 2025, to be specific.

That's a long time for a blog to live!

But I've never been able to close it down, and I've posted more than 11,000 times in 20 years. And, the blog has been visited by readers more than 11 million times in that span. 

And, to my delight, advertising on the blog is still making money. Whoo-hoo! 

Granted, this blog's heyday was likely between 2011 - 2019, a span when I was posting thousands (!) of times a year, but it is still going strong today, even if at a less vigorous pace.

When I started blogging twenty years ago, in 2005, I had just attended the Toronto Film Festival, and was hawking my two new books The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi (2004) and Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest (2004), and Revenge of the Sith (2005) was just premiering in theaters.  

The year 2006 brought the arrival of my web series The House Between, and 2025 will bring my new (award-winning) show, Abnormal Fixation, so twenty-years brings a weird kind of synchronicity.

But to help celebrate 2025 and twenty years of blogging, I'll be highlighting here my most-read posts (reviews and otherwise), and counting down (or is it up?) to the blog's most-read post of all time.

A Merry AF (Abnormal Fixation) Christmas Eve Trailer

 

60 Years Ago: Goldfinger (1964) and the Perfect Bond Movie Model

Unlike many film critics, I do not count Goldfinger (1964) as the absolute “best” James Bond film of all-time. You can check out my rankings of the 007 movies here, but I actually list Goldfinger in the second position, right behind From Russia with Love (1963).

However, there is one fact about the excellent, sixty-year Goldfinger that is indisputable. Even if one doesn’t count it as the greatest James Bond film ever made, it is undeniably the “model” 007 film.

What do I mean by that term? 

Well, a model might be defined as “a thing, system, or object utilized as an example for purposes of following, or imitating.”

That definition describes the Guy Hamilton film perfectly. It is Goldfinger -- not From Russia with Love, or even the first Bond film, Dr. No (1962) -- that serves as the model that most Bond films follow (with a few exceptions, of course). 

Why do other 007 movies follow the formula that Goldfinger pioneered more than sixty years ago? 

Well, as its title suggests, Goldfinger remains the gold standard. It perfects the Bond formula -- across the board -- and today I’ll write about some of the pieces or ingredients of that formula and how other 007 films have attempted to recreate the same magic.

Before I move into a discussion of the elements of the formula perfected by Goldfinger, I should begin with a note about Bond himself. 

Goldfinger represents, perhaps, a high point for actor Sean Connery. He appears more confident and relaxed in Goldfinger than he does in the first two films in the series. Also, he is not yet bored with the role, as he appears during some of his later performances.  Here, Connery is at his most suave and charming, as well as, perhaps, his most athletic or physically fit.  In this sense, certainly the third Bond film is the charm.

Finally, Goldfinger represents the franchise’s transition to a more fantastic template. From Russia with Love, except for a few outliers, exists in a “real” Cold War world. Goldfinger inhabits a different, more fantastic world, with lasers, ejector seats and the like.

Now, let’s begin to survey elements of this Bond movie model. Specifically, we’ll gaze at the way that Goldfinger spear-headed or perfected these ingredients, and other films in the franchise imitated them.

“I Have A Slight Inferiority Complex” - The Pre-Title Sequence

Before Goldfinger’s production, the pre-title sequence in the Bond films feature some important (if tangentially-related) aspect of the film’s overall plot or narrative.  

In Dr. No, for example, the pre-title sequence diagrams the assassination of a British station chief in Jamaica. This is the precipitating event to pull Bond into the action after the credits. 

Likewise, the pre-title sequence for From Russia with Love features a man masquerading as Bond, hunted by an agent for SPECTRE, Red Grant (Robert Shaw) in a training simulation. It sets up a conflict between the two men that we see played out in the movie proper.

By contrast, Goldfinger’s pre-title sequence does not connect meaningfully to the actual plot of the film (the hunt to discover how Auric Goldfinger is smuggling his gold overseas). Instead, it serves as a re-introduction of the iconic 007 character, but while is on a separate and individual mission.  

In particular, Bond -- with a bird decoy on his hat -- surfaces in the water, and sets out to destroy an enemy headquarters. He plants explosives, but then removes his commando gear to reveal a white dinner jacket and a bow tie. Waiting for the boom, literally, Bond goes for a smoke break, as the enemy HQ explodes.  

Then Bond meets with a lovely woman, and finally, 007 must defeat one last bad guy. He does so, and before the fade-out to the credits, delivers a pun. After electrocuting an enemy in a tub, Bond says “Shocking…positively shocking.”

This sequence -- instead of setting up important details of the plot -- features all elements of the Bond mystique: the danger, the women, the action, and even the gallows humor. So we actually get from Goldfinger’s pre-title sequence, a mini and self-contained 007 adventure.

Can you think of a better way to re-acquaint us with Ian Fleming’s agent and his universe.

Following Goldfinger, the pre-title sequence is often utilized in a similar fashion. Throughout the franchise, it is divorced from the central plot-line in examples such as For Your Eyes Only (1981), and Octopussy (1983). 

But except in the rare-one off example (such as Live and Let Die [1973]), every follow-up pre-title sequence in the film series features Bond, and functions, essentially, as a mini-adventure with just the right combination of extravagance and spectacular stunts. The purpose, to reintroduce the character into the pop culture. The secondary purpose, to one-up the climax of the previous movie, and raise the bar to an “all-time high,” at least until the next film.

Also note, the joke about the bird decoy on Bond’s head that accompanies the character’s introduction. Bond goes from being hidden in the water (beneath the decoy), to making a show of his good-looks and wardrobe, in the dinner jacket and bow tie. 

A similar joke, involving a crocodile, gets play in Octopussy.

“This is not a personal vendetta” - The Sacrificial Lamb and the Avenging Angel

I believe that the great author John Brosnan (1947-2005) gave this Bond character-type a name. 

Basically, the blood of an ally is spilled in the film, thus re-focusing Bond’s determination to destroy a particularly brutal enemy.  

There are two factors to consider here, both the nature of the death (which reflects the villain’s sadism), and the nature of the victim him or herself, which creates audience sympathy.

The greatest sacrificial lamb in Bond history (until Vesper, perhaps) is likely Jill Masterson in Goldfinger, a lovely young woman who unwittingly becomes involved with Bond and Goldfinger’s pissing match, and pays the fatal price.  She dies nude…painted gold.  

This act establishes Goldinger’s sadism (and ties into his love of gold), but also reveals Bond’s vulnerability.  He takes Jill’s death very personally, and wants revenge.

Later Bond films also utilize the sacrificial lamb as a kind of turning point. Aki’s death serves this purpose in You Only Live Twice. Vijay’s death serves the same purpose in Octopussy (1983).  As recently as 2008, the sacrificial lamb appeared in a Bond film. In Quantum of Solace -- in a scene directly inspired by Goldfinger -- an agent, Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton) is murdered, asphyxiated in oil after choosing to help Bond. Her nudity, her positioning on the bed, and her function in the story are all call-backs to the model Bond film: Goldfinger.

Intriguingly, Goldfnger features two sacrificial lambs. The second is Jill’s sister, Tilly Masterson (Tania Mallett), who actually serves two purposes. 

She is both a second sacrificial lamb, and an avenging angel. In the Bond canon, Tilly is not the last female character to dedicate her life to vengeance over the death of a loved one or loved ones. Consider Melina Havelock, and her function as an “avenging angel” in For Your Eyes Only (1981).  

Both characters are associated with weapons (whether a rifle or a cross-bow), and thus represent a kind of toughness that Bond finds appealing.

“The Customary Byplay” - Reintroducing the Supporting Cast, but giving them an opinion of 007.

After the pre-titles sequence and a (deadly) excursion in Miami, Bond returns to London in Goldfinger, and meets with several familiar supporting players: M, Q, and Moneypenny. 

All three characters appear in From Russia with Love, but once more, Goldfinger is the first film, perhaps, that models the right tone for all three character.  Here, M and Q show extreme annoyance (possibly jealousy) with 007.  They clearly find him insufferable (M) and glib (Q). M has to reign in Bond, reminding him that he is supposed to be cool and calculating, not headed.  And Q must remind Bond not to be so hard on his gadgets, which clearly, Q loves.

This personal touch to the characters enhances the film’s humor quotient.  Bond isn’t simply receiving a mission briefing, he’s interacting with supporting cast members who have distinguishable relationships with him. They are irritated with him (M, Q), or attracted to him (Moneypenny).  Again, it’s not that the earlier films didn’t feature M or Q, or even Moneypenny, it’s that Goldfinger “cements” the relationships Bond has with each, and accordingly some level of this “customary byplay” is repeated in every movie thereafter (at least through the beginning of Dalton Era).

“Choose your next witticism carefully, Mr. Bond, it may be your last” - General Villain and Soldier Villain

Although From Russia with Love features a general villain, Rosa Klebb, and a soldier villain, Red Grant, the model is perfected in Goldfinger, with Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe) and Odd Job (Harold Sakata). 

To put it simply, Goldfinger is the brains, Odd Job the brawn. 

In many cases, the soldier villain in a Bond film possesses some sort of physical difference that makes him unique, or distinctive. Odd Job is mute, and throws a steel-rimmed hat. In The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Jaws (Richard Kiel) has a mouth filled with steel-teeth, and similarly doesn’t speak, except once, if memory serves. He serves two general villains: Stromberg in The Spy Who Loved Me, and Drax in Moonraker (1979).

The same dynamic plays out with Mr. Big and Tee-Hee in Live and Let Die, Scaramanga and Nick Nack in Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Kamal Khan and Gobinda in Octopussy, and on-and-on.

It’s an intriguing idea to split the characteristics of one “complete” villain between two characters. Goldfinger is a brilliant and egomaniacal criminal, but he has no physical prowess or strength. Those qualities go to Odd Job. Bond, on the other hand, has both the wit/intelligence, and the physical capabilities of both villain types. He is a complete person in the way that the villains never are, which may explain why he is always successful.

In this dramatic set-up, Bond can trade witticisms with one type of villain (the general), and trade punches with the other (the soldier).  We see this in Goldfinger during the laser table sequence. Bond asks if Goldfinger expects him to talk.  Goldfinger replies, delightfully, “No Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.”

But later, of course, Bond fights Odd Job over an atomic bomb, in Fort Knox.

“I Never Joke about My Work, 007” – The Car

In Goldfinger, Q Branch gifts James Bond with a new car, an Aston Martin DB-5, which comes equipped with machine guns, rotating license plates, smoke screen, oil slick, and, most memorably, an ejector seat. This is the first Bond film that gives 007 a ride like this, one that is the center of its own action sequence, and which deploys a number of (destructive) gadgets. The most elaborate gadget, previous to Goldfinger, is the exploding brief-case in From Russia with Love.

So, we’re on a whole different, fantasy-esque level here.

Again, this model scene -- Bond driving a car with a “few optional extras” installed -- has been played out, over and over again, in later Bonds, with 007 getting a new car (often another model Aston Martin, but not always), from his weapon master.  We have come to expect, since Goldfinger, that Bond will drive the slickest, meanest, most heavily-armed car on the road. The gimmicks (or gadgets) have changed, of course.

Roger Moore drives a car that becomes a submarine (The Spy Who Loved Me). Timothy Dalton drives one with a rocket engine and skis (The Living Daylights [1987]), and Pierce Brosnan drives a car that can turn invisible in Die Another Day (2002), to name just a few of the variations.

This is one ingredient that Goldfinger truly spearheaded, as the first film to feature a “Bond” car.

“Man has climbed Mount Everest…He’s fired rockets at the Moon, split the atom, achieved miracles in every field of human endeavor except crime.” – The Criminal Scheme and the Double-Cross

In Goldfinger, Auric plans, from his headquarters, the ultimate criminal scheme. Teamed with a criminal syndicate (whose funds he solicits), he plots to irradiate all the gold in Fort Knox, de-stabilizing the West and increasing the value of his own gold.  The plot is laid out, in the film, in every detail, with a scale model.

After demonstrating the plan with the model, Goldfinger kills his audience, double-crossing them. One wonder why he went to all the trouble of explaining, when he could have just take their money, and killed them.

However, the scene serves two purposes. It demonstrates the ultimate plan to the audience (cue Basil Exposition) and also reveals again, the villain’s untrustworthy nature.  He even kills his allies.

A View to a Kill (1985) is the Bond film that most closely parallels the model example above. Zorin (Christopher Walken) demonstrates his Operation, not Grand Slam, but Main Strike, using a scale model of Silicon Valley.  He then kills a prospective ally, who wants out.  Later, in a mine-shaft, Zorin takes an Uzi to his people, killing all the witnesses.  So what we get are, as in Goldfinger, the plot details, and the double cross.

To some extent, this idea also recurs in Octopussy (1983), with Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan) double-crossing Octopussy (Maude Adams) and The Living Daylights, involving a drugs for guns scenario.

There are other elements too, that Goldfinger perfects: the sting-in-the-tail, for instance, though this one goes back to From Russia with Love and Rosa Klebb.  

Finally, we have the presence of a female lead -- Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore -- who first distrusts Bond, but then comes to legitimately care for him, and become an ally.  Finally, Goldfinger features a scene in which Bond out-cheats a cheater.  Specifically, he beats Goldfinger on the golf course.  This scene, of Bond out-cheating or out-maneuvering an untrustworthy villain occurs in later entries including Octopussy (using Backgammon) and Moonraker (pheasant hunting).

To describe all this another way, Goldfinger took the established pattern of the early 007 pictures, and perfected it, making the action bigger, the villains larger-than-life, and the even the gallows humor more acute. 

In moving Bond’s world from an approximation of reality to a more fantastic one, the filmmakers established a formula that has been modeled ever since.

In my book, many of the best Bond films are actually the ones that break, stretch, or pre-date the Goldfinger model, titles such as From Russia with Love, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), Licence to Kill (1989) or Casino Royale (2006). 

But Goldfinger remains the paragon, the prototype for the Bond film universe. If we're talking about formula, nobody does it better.