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The Broccolis really are very good at keeping a low profile.
Apparently she's a writer and now budding film maker. May be there's some mileage in the old Broccoli clan yet.
http://www.joylandmagazine.com/authors/angelica-zollo
This is why I think there is more to this long break than just finding a distributor. We might have to wait 4 or 5 years, but when Bond returns, it will be with a renewed burst of energy.
Renewed energy is fine, but I still would prefer talent and a coherent vision of Bond as well.
Every Bond starts out as a coherent vision.
Any way, you make a fair point, and underlines the need for EON to have better long term planning in place and a clearer idea of where each actor might 'go' with the role. Doesn't need to be set in stone. It's a shame in many ways that Connery's tenure just limped to a close. All of them really.
It's been too personal over the past 20 years (starting with the infamous beach scene in GE), and I prefer Bond as an enigma.
Hopefully they just concentrate on good stories, even if they are standalone. That's what I'd like in the future. More focus on plot and less on Bond.
Also, I think they need to exercise more control over the proceedings. It's been very director and actor led recently from what I can tell. Cubby seemed to be more hands on.
It's interesting you mention the beach scene because that's the ideal for me. Something like TLD and GE in the sense that Bond is a real character who develops over time and has his own inner demons to sort out, but his personal struggles don't relate to his misssion. I'm fine with the introspective moments like the beach scene. Love them in fact, one of the elements from the books that I really hope makes it on screen one day is Bond's struggle with killing in GF.
I think the issue is when the writers feel the need to link Bond's personal struggles to the plot in every film. Once in a while this is fine (LTK is my favourite Bond film) but Purvis and Wade seem to think that studying Bond as a character has to mean that the mission is deeply personal to him. When in reality you can have Bond as a three dimensional character and peel back the layers a bit without having him falling in love every other film, losing his new mother figure in his burning childhood home and facing down his long lost brother. You can study the character while still having him on a regular mission. Dalton, and to a lesser extent Brosnan, proved that years ago, but really the best evidence for this comes from the novels.
You're right that this all started with Dalton, and I wasn't that impressed with how it was done there either (I see a bit of 80's cheese to the way it was handled then, just as there is a certain metrosexuality for me to how they delved into it in the 90's). I thought they actually handled this better with Laz and with Moore (TSWLM/FYEO).
I think Craig as an actor has been far better with this sort of character nakedness in comparison to his two immediate predecessors (his inherent, almost stoic alpha ruggedness definitely helps), but as you say, now it's threatening to overwhelm the films and the narrative.
I'm quite certain Babs has had quite a bit of input into this, and Craig also. P&W have been a bit ham fisted about the execution no doubt, but the directive has definitely been coming from somewhere at the top.
It may be time to give it a rest for a few films and just take it back to old fashioned entertainment, like Cruise has done for the last two MI entries. That would be my preference anyway.
He could also be into bestiality. The brave, new world...
Lots of old hats and nothing up their sleeves giving the appearance it could become the latest fashion. A sad state of affairs.
"Nothing up my sleeve...Presto!"
Nine tickets, please. It'll be two hours of him relaying information we already know to an off-screen Bond (to cut down on the budget). Should be a thrilling good time!
In all of these--except for LTK--Bond wasn't really "going rogue." He was suspected of "going rogue" but was really loyal to Her Majesty's government. To wit:
DAD: he tells M "I know the rules and number one is no deals"
QoS: he tells M "I never left"
SP: he has "gone rogue" from the new M but is following orders from the old M
Fleming loved putting gays in his fiction anyway. Pussy galore. Wint and Kidd...
DAD: he tells M "I know the rules and number one is no deals"//
Then escapes MI6 while under armed guard. Sort of like Dr. Kimble escaping to prove his innocence. In DAD, Bond was a wanted man but is taken back into the fold by M.
//QoS: he tells M "I never left"//
Not long after beating the crap of several MI6 agents assigned to bring him in.
//SP: he has "gone rogue" from the new M but is following orders from the old M //
Whose authority ended when she died. And while disobeying the order of his current boss, who is alive.
Also, for sake of argument, the dead M's orders were valid. Did they cover stealing a multi-million dollar prototype and trashing it in Rome?
I get it that "going rogue" sounds harsh. Also, we're discussing a fantasy.
On the other hand, Bond injures a number of friendly personnel in both Die Another Day and Quantum of Solace. All the injured guys might consider Bond to have gone rogue.
Yeah looks like people have been having alot of fun since I was on here a week ago
Explain ?
movieweb.com/bondverse-james-bond-movie-universe-plans-rumored/
Yeah I do understand where you're coming from. I think if they did go back to that sort of old fashioned approach they'd really have to go all out and make it a good one. My worry is that we'd end up with a film that was a poor retread of earlier entries, or they'd end up just coasting by and half arsing it like they did back in the early 70s (DAF, TMWTGG). To be fair though I think this is less likely to happen under Babs and MGW than under Cubby. Even when they do go down the formulaic route it at least feels like there's a lot of money and effort behind it (TND).
The ideal for me would be a human Bond with a character arc that isn't related to the plot of the films themselves. He can develop over time and his personal struggles could affect the mission every now and again but the two should never be completely tied together imo, and he should face a wide variety of threats that have nothing to do with one another. They almost nailed that approach with Spectre but then they had to do the brother angle and retcon SF (I can get on board with the CR/QoS retcon but not SF).
May be they could start the expansion of the universe by making another James Bond movie before the decade is out?!
Where we may differ is on how much of this we want to see in a film. My favourite Bond is Sean Connery, and he was the most bullet proof and unfazed of the Bonds. My second favourite is Roger Moore, who showed only limited vulnerability (and as I said, I liked it when he did it because he was almost embarrassed by it and tried not to show it, which is what I expect from Bond). In the MI series, my favourite two are MI-GP & RN, where Cruise dropped the emotion and went full on action. In the Brosnan era, my favourite is GE, and my favourite Brosnan performance is in DAD (where he is least vulnerable).
So my preference is for this to be done subtly going forward in B25 and future films. That's why I'm not in favour of a future film focusing on a domesticated Bond having left the service. In terms of Babs, she's a businesswoman, and she's obviously trying to cater to the female audience as well as some of the metro sensitivities of today's generation. So I fear subtlety won't be on the agenda.