XXX Rips Off You Only Live Twice and Thunderball

'Rich' sends in this funny story about a screening of the trailer for the new-spy-Bond-ripoff XXX;

A funny incident occurred today as I viewing the trailer for XXX in a theatre. XXX stars Vin Diesel as a secret agent into extreme sports. Needless to say there are comparisons to Bond with the most obvious one below.

The last bit of dialogue in the trailer is a line taken almost word-for-word from THUNDERBALL. As Diesel takes off his shirt before bedding a girl, he lisps, “The things I do for my country!” Immediately after that line, some
guy in the theatre yells, “RIP-OFF!” to which most everyone laughs.

I was glad I wasn’t the only one to notice this ripped-off line from THUNDERBALL. In that film, Connery says, “The things I do for England” before bedding a Bond babe.

After finding out XXX was ripping off Bond and claiming to be better than, I personally swore not to see the film on the big screen. Not the most interesting piece of trivia but there you go!

Thanks to Rich for sending that story in!

Update:

I have to thank everyone who wrote in with this correction to the article. Bond's like "The things I do for England" came from the film You Only Live Twice, and not Thunderball.

However, the line was to appear in Thunderball and can be seen in the films trailer. The line can also be seen in Octopussy's trailer when Bond is in bed with Magda.

Thanks to these people for writing in to let me know; 'Donovan', 'Dip' and Ryan!