It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
What do you mean by this exactly?
I do think getting more news on the video game will help tide a lot of us over. I’m almost as excited for that as I am the next film. I’ve got fond memories of those old ones too, and games have come on light years since (Red Dead 2 was on par with the likes of Unforgiven for me). And the team making it have already nailed the Bond vibe with the new Hitman games. I think we could be in for something really special.
Can’t fault a good video game (I think you’re roughly around my age from my interactions with you so you’ll know the significance of it, and while I’m not a game player myself nowadays I do have memories of EoN being popular before CR, and a bit later I had my share of playing Nightfire and even Agent Under Fire multiplayer with friends, so it does help things).
The British writers would be seen as scabs, @MajorDSmythe ... The writers (and actors) were striking against the studios (Amazon/MGM being part of that group). Any writer/actor who crosses a picket line is a scab and would be unhireable.
And anyone hiring these people to cross picket lines (EoN), would be blackballed (not that EoN would do this; they're professionals who respect process)
Bond needs a fresher approach.
Not seeing much on this thread about where Bond 26 goes. For me, hiring Christopher Nolan is not an answer. I am interested in speculations about what a new Bond film might look like and how Bond might be different.
Fun ideas I've thrown around but don't feel like going into the same detail again:
1. One option could be a future-forward, highly tech-oriented Splinter-Cell vibe, which could either lean lighter and humorous or darker and maybe political even. Look to the future-forward tech demonstration in the latest Avatar (2) movie: sonic weapons, human-mech suits (let's see Bond fight a henchman in an exoskeleton!), modern laser tech, hydrofoil boats, crab-like amphibious vehicles, it's all very cool! Call up James Cameron, pay him whatever he wants, and even if he doesn't make the next Bond movie, at least hire him for some ideas perhaps.
2. Not a full direction per se but something I'd like to see. I've recently pitched doing the Dr. No novel's giant squid creature fight as a surprise twist - deliver a good, standard Bond adventure with Bond and maybe a woman getting away in the end, only for Bond to fall into the sea trap equipped with only a knife in his teeth to defeat his ultimate foe-a true force of nature! I think it could be pulled off with the right SFX/VFX house.
3. I like I think SIS_HQ and others' suggestion to adapt more of the TSWLM novel in some way, either as a PTS or broader project (start with a woman character's perspective, all hope is lost, Bond arrives as yet another potential threat only to actually be the one to save the day. That leads me to:
4. As for who could be realistic villains an audience can all rally against, take the inspo from TSWLM and other Fleming novels and go with gangsters. One movie, he's dealing with the Yakuza in Japan and other regional countries, perhaps. Another movie, the U.S. (Bond in DC? 007 in NY?). Another movie, South America again, etc. Gangsters open up the world to a guy like Bond.
5. I've also pitched seeing Bond more as leader, pooling on his MI6, military, and government resources when the time really calls for it-the Bond equivalent of an Avengers-level event etc. Let's see Bond the Commander literally call in the navy as his trump card (and not to blow himself up!). For those who ask how to do patriotism the right way in today's world, this could be one ticket: have the navy show up and save the day with Bond taking charge.
6. Many have offered that introducing a "new to the film audience" platonic woman relationship could be good, like May, or reintroduce the novel's Mary Goodnight, or something again slightly different for the character and give Bond a normal actual girlfriend he wants to return home to, who knows seemingly nothing about his job like in OHisMSS, etc.
I've seen other good ideas in this thread but that's some for now.
I hope that almost none of the above ever become remotely a part of a Bond thriller.
Almost all of it already is part of a Bond thriller or the character's established background... lol, it's mostly on the page somewhere, much of it from Fleming, so I'm sorry you don't like it. I'm now suspicious if any of the franchise's more iconic movies/scenes had been briefly laid out to you and given the option, you'd reject them.
Anything but Craig's Bond.
One of my favourite scenes in Casino, is when Bond breaks into M's flat and he's logged into her computer using her password. It's such a small scene, but it shows Bond is intelligent and capable, without treading on Q's toes.
Agreed. Bond should have a degree of tech knowledge, albeit not to the extent Q does. It’d be a bit strange seeing a Bond in his 30s playing the grizzled ‘man of action’ who doesn’t understand technology (I don’t think even Craig’s Bond drifted quite into that area, he was just a bit more ‘analogue’ as you say).
It’ll be interesting seeing how modern tech is used in Bond going forward. One of the few things I liked about Higson’s OHiMSS was the fact that some time was spent talking about the fact that Bond doesn’t have an online presence, and that MI6 agents regularly have fake identities online when they go undercover.
What's wrong with this, I'm very much on board with these ideas.
That's the thing with us fans, we're always afraid of bringing Bond to greater heights.
I can see that no argument was intended. No problem. There were bits and pieces in the above list that I liked. Just one of those days I woke up on the wrong side of the bed as they say. What would I like to see.................I'll have to give that some thought or ask GPT about it.
You caught me in a bad mood because of the non committal attitude EON is projecting at the moment and seeing them just spend time on two areas of entertainment I have no use for, reality shows and games (except for those is a VR format). I did include "almost" though, for what it is worth.
1. I don't think Cameron would be the right choice. I'm not a fan of his current stuff like AVATAR. If he went back to his ALIENS roots I think it could work. I'm old school about large gadgets. If they are real like the Disco, the underwater sleds or personal glide suits I'm fine but if they can only rendered in CGI then I have a problem. I'm afraid that things like exoskeletons would get us too close DAD.
2. As in FRWL, the reason the fight works so well with Grant on the train is that we are introduced to him early in the film as Bond's potential killer and we follow him all the way through until the train fight. Introducing a random, surprise villain or octopus to end the film would lack impact. Just so you know I would LOVE to see a remake of Dr. No WITH the squid fight but in it's proper place.
3. The idea of Bond at the hotel and besting an insurmountable gang of interlopers to save a damsel in distress could work but then again I'm of the opinion that smaller PTS sequences that do not over shadow the climax of the movie and are their own separate mini stories are best. ie; Goldfinger, Thundrball, bank sequence of TWINE, without the boat chase.
4. I think Bond needs fantastic villains, who can use the Yakuza and other gangland figures as their minions is the key. The more ordinary villains like Green have done nothing more me.
5."Patriotism" always sticks sideways in my throat. Bond maybe at the service of His Majesty but I always feel that once on assignment he, more times than not, ends up with protecting the world as opposed to his country. I love the Bond films that end with big YOLT, OHMSS and TSWM type battles and am all for Bond having an army at his disposal but he does not have to be in command of them. Leave that to Tiger or the Sub captains.
6. I just don't think Bond should have a personal ties at home.......... It makes him too human and not the archetype archangel, al la Dr. No, on mission to rid the world of evil. I'd like to see Sylvia Trench come back myself. Also enough of the platonic relationship stuff. Bond could be dead tomorrow and should be as hedonistic as possible. Would even still like to see him smoke his three ringed cigarettes occasionally.
Well, there you you go. Sorry about being so generally negative in first response.
The TSWLM book was almost similar to the PTS of Goldfinger, Bond beating a bunch of gangsters to save a girl was almost a mini film in itself, more like trailer, think of CR.
And it doesn't overshadow the climax of the film neither, I actually think that the majority of the PTS from the Moore Bond films did overshadow the climax of the films for me, TSWLM, OP, and AVTAK, even the skydiving in MR is on par with the space climax.
I don't agree. LTK is a superb film, and felt very Fleming.
I would be very interesting to see such direction on the big screen. It reminds me of the Dynamite comics but also of Alfonse Ruggiero/Michael Wilson's Bond 17/GoldenEye script that involved smart building and cars, and, infamously, an android. Without going as far as introducing an android, I wouldn't be against seeing a highly tech-oriented movie.
It could be the perfect antithesis to GoldenEye: whereas the starting point in 1995 was that Bond was a relic of the Cold War that needed to prove that the Double O Section was still relevant in the 90s; the starting point of Bond 26 could be that the Double O Section is created to strengthen the UK’s deterrence in the context of the emergence of hybrid warfare and the return to high-intensity conflicts in Europe. In this new timeline, the Double O Section is created to answer Tomorrow's threats.
No sure however about James Cameron. I think other directors could bring such vision to the big screen, including Alex Garland and Gareth Edwards.
From a business perspective, it also would make sense to try to beat any potential actual Splinter Cell or Metal Gear Solid movies that might be planned. Let Bond redefine the spy genre for the modern, as you said "hybrid warfare" age, before anyone else gets to, more inspired by the character's video game adventures which have been fairly so-called sci-fi, especially GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (cybernetic eyeball came back in NTTD!) and Everything Or Nothing.
Didn't translate very well to Fleming's Diamonds are forever novel, But I 100% Agree with @jetsetwilly LTK was great with gangsters and pure fleming.
And as I said at the outset of my OP (and I appreciate @delfloria following up with some constructive notes on my ideas) those were rough suggestions, starting points, for where Bond could go, either as part of a story or a broader narrative. I think gangsters have that unique quality of being able to provoke both moments of disgust and sympathy from an audience, they often can be forgiven or are depicted as misled, but they can also be pure evil.
I do agree that the gangster concept would need elevating to some degree, with a provocative leader with grander ambitions, but it could also just be part of a greater corporate espionage conspiracy, etc., or with a revelation that there's broader political/government corruption entangled.
Bond used to do more "corporate" espionage, there's a lot of it in YOLT, but like, was it ever even established that Safin operated some sort of a company in NTTD? How did he arrange supplies, etc. with no contracts, etc. (don't overthink it, I know). Inception also is really a good recent story of basic greedy corporate espionage (though its protagonist is a freelance privateer and Bond is not).