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Comments
Yeah I think I'd probably go for Whittaker too. The others you mention are certainly weak, but he's the one who kind of feels like he creates the least impact.
It's funny, TLD is possibly my favourite Bond movie, and yet I think most of the leads could have been better!
Austin Bulter as Willard Whyte II confirmed 🤣
But what modern vehicle will we replace the moon buggy with? ;-)
The series has had quite a few weak or bad villains, but Gray is the worst offender. If camp was what he and the director were going for, his performance is an insult to camp. Better suited for the 67 version of CR. Even Connery doesn't pull off the Tracy revenge motive in the badly conceived PTS. As has often been said, DAF was the first RM film.
Gray is fine but he is not Blofeld. Give him another name and the villian is OK.
Would they have hired him?
I like Safin, but Blofeld causing Bond's death would have had a greater impact, IMO.
I approve.
Without a doubt.
To be fair I think Safin needed to defeat Blofeld in that movie. I can't imagine a satisfying third act of NTTD where Blofeld kills Satin and takes his place.
It's a great novel (the last interactions with Blofeld and a lot of the ideas in there are fantastic) but I can see why it's a book which has been loosely adapted. Incidentally I think it's better (and more frequently) used as source material for SF rather than NTTD.
What they have failed to capture, in both SF and NTTD, is Bond being a broken man and being sent on an impossible assignment to Japan. Without OHMSS preceding it, you lose that whole arc, which is integral to the book.
It's not unlike CR '06. YOLT would require a lot of added plot/action in its first half (which, to be fair, is what YOLT the film did).
I agree about OHMSS. YOLT doesn't work without it.
That said (and this may well be because I haven't read the book in a while) I think an important part of the book is that it isn't necessarily an 'impossible' assignment. Actually it's a rather cut and dry diplomatic assignment in many ways, not routine necessarily, but not as challenging as some of Bond's previous missions. The point is that M is essentially lying to Bond about this and his 'promotion' in order to snap him out of his depression. In that sense I think they adapted that broad idea well in SF with M lying to Bond about his evaluation results.
Right. Until Bond infiltrates the castle, there’s little to no thrills going on, which is esoteric for a spy thriller. That’s fine, it’s what makes the book unique and I like that it’s mostly Bond soaking in Japanese culture as his way of grieving. But for a faithful film adaptation they would have definitely needed to add a lot more to it to meet audience expectations of what a Bond film is. I think some of the set pieces in the YOLT we got could have been integrated in some capacity. Maybe a lot of the film could have worked as an adaptation, only with the added thread of Bond being a widower and the confrontation with Blofeld having a lot more bite to it.
Personally, I'd like a break from the romance-heaviness of the Craig era. At least for one film. Give me MR. Then we can maybe have OHMSS/YOLT/TMWTGG again.
The Bond/Vesper story was so successful and pervasive that I do think they will return to a romance angle before long. We won't see the casual likes of the Moore era again.
I'd find it awkward if they did a MR type of fantasy first, only to proceed to more drama and seriousness with an adaptation of OHMSS - YOLT - TMWTGG. That 'MR' really can't be too 'MR' for that to work.
That said, I'm all for a more "let's go nuts" vibe in the next Bond, but they'd have to work hard to make it good. We've seen a few rather adventurous spy/action films in recent times, and few of them found an audience. It could be an interesting challenge, of course: a Bond film that puts the 'fun' back in the spy genre (other than M:I).
I'd love a return to Derek Flink and Matt Helm... but only within a Derek Flint / Matt Helm series. Bond is another kind of juice IMO, with more spice and less sugar.
One can hope.
Moore than one🤓 Richard Maibaum would have liked to work on any of the DC movies. He still probably would have criticized others as well.
Cubby liked loyalty, and Maibaum showed it, to him at least. The NSNA crew probably didn't want Maibaum around because of his trademark criticizing. He would have been criticized as bad as Purvis and Wade are now, had the internet existed then. Same with Tom Mankiewicz and the other multiple writers. And at least they are more respectful of others. After reading some interviews with him, it's actually getting harder and harder for me to respect him. As with DC, no one person should have the power that those two had. Egos should always be in check.
I do genuinely think if Maibaum was around in 2012 he would have criticised SF for the film abandoning the agent list Maguffin halfway through the film as well as the third act (which I think are needed to make the film work and make it as successful as it was). Probably would have had more to say as well about the Craig and Brosnan era scripts too!
Not to say he would have been correct about any of this criticisms (if he would have in fact made them, it's obviously impossible to say). Nor that he was always correct about the criticisms he had about other Bond scripts (at least in my opinion). I think he was simply a very good/experienced scriptwriter who'd worked on the same franchise in his time for a long while through great and not so great times, and had very particular ideas about it. And a sharp tongue too clearly!
I definitely would disagree with Maibaum on SF if expressed that opinion, because the movie clearly isn’t about the agent list. That was just a glorified MacGuffin meant to instigate things that lead up to the real intentions of Silva.
But he’s also the guy that put a lot of stock on the Solex device, which was an unnecessary component of TMWTGG.
I'm thinking more of MR the novel. A low-key, gritty story that doesn't hinge on the love interest. I mean, the ending is interesting but it's a standalone.