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
It's worth remembering that there's still some more unseen and unpublished James Bond material that can be mined. Take Anthony Horowitz as an example who read the original manuscript for a short story called "Trigger Finger" that had never been published before, and there's more. Ian Fleming had also written five story outlines for a television series that was never made. Plus there's plenty of unused material from his existing novels that can also be used. For me, the deconstruction of Bond has now run its course and needs to get back to telling a straightforward Bond on a mission story without the personal grudge weighing it down. Strip away the Scooby Gang, which is a clear nod to the IMF Mission Force, and allow Bond to be his own man again without the emotional props and Craig's baggage that'll only impede the next actor's take on Bond. Also, get back to making the Bond movies more of a spectacular event with real stunts rather than clever CGI. If they can find an actor, such as Henry Cavill, who is willing and able to perform most of his stunts then all the better for it. Yes, I realise Cruise wouldn't allow Cavill to do the actual HALO jump in Fallout, but he was allowed to do most of the other stunts in the movie. It's worth noting that Craig wasn't saddled with Brosnan's Bond trappings (apart from Judi Dench) and neither should the next actor going forward.
Yes to all of that. Get Fassbender, and name it THE HILDEBRAND RARITY.
This. Although I do wonder if the films have gone so far down the emotional-stakes-and-personal-revenge route that it might be impossible to pull back now.
There’s still lots to adapt from the original novels.
Using the novel The Spy Who Loved Me as a PTS is a nice idea but legally not possible? - my understanding is that Fleming only sold the title to Eon, not the actual story, so the rights remain with the Fleming estate. Unless they’ve quietly sold those rights to Eon sometime over the years too, of course.
Can't be said enough!
I'd add to that, and I'm speaking as a big fan of the Craig movies, it's enough now with the paradoxical "blockbuster franchise that continually questions its own relevance" meta-theme. :))
I'm not totally bothered about that: I think these things are often enhanced by extra stakes. It's hard to instruct them to 'go back to Fleming' and 'make it non-personal' because a great deal of Fleming got quite personal. Even the angle of him going after Oberhauser's killer in Spectre is from Fleming. He even bumps into Blofeld -his wife's killer- by accident in YOLT.
I like the idea of taking it somewhere pulpier in style, that could be an interesting path.
The mission plot of every film since CR (water resources in QOS, hacking in SF, mafia organization in SP,
And they suck at it. Always have.
We need a brain to think up a non-personal interesting, real stakes, mission. We need real writers.
Been saying this since 2002.
And SF wasn't about 'hacking': it was a revenge plot- the objective was M and to embarrass MI6. SP was about intruding into everyone's lives through surveillance, not just a mafia organisation. Let's not be reductive to make points.
But maybe I'm being reductive, and P&W are good at their job, after all, they have proven their worth countless times. Now I know I'm being sarcastic.
Better writing for Bond films would save them all from disturbed productions. Point in case, CR still is the better film. Why? Because the source material was good.
Get good writers, because they have the rest of the crew nailed.
Starting a war to increase media revenue ? (Not so much newspapers anymore) That goes back years and years. Perhaps not starting the war, but certainly encouraging it and fanning the flames and laying blame on the perceived enemy, etc. Goes back at least to the days of Hearst Newspapers vs. Pulitzer and the Spanish-American War.
Everything old is new again. There is nothing new under the sun. The old truisms and sayings -- some THOUSANDS of years old -- became truisms and sayings for good reason.
Want a plot ? Even an outlandish, crazy, ridiculous spectacle of a plot ? Look to history.
Quite agree, though, that new writers should help. Some new folks got in on NTTD, apparently to good effect, even if only to polish and add.
I agree. But we must endeavour to choose wisely, imitate the greats, as they say, not the same old poor cliché.
If it's not broken, don't fix it... but... it's broken, like an old record is sometimes broken, playing the same old tune, to oblivion.
Good thing they didn't then. Skyfall is clearly designed to be a story about M. Right from the start when it was Peter Morgan's Once Upon A Spy it was about M's KGB ex-lover and his son blackmailing M, then when it was Nothing Is Forever Silva was a bomber, again trying to take revenge on M. Saying that they started with the tech plot is just something you've imagined rather than based in fact.
The 'Bond being killed and coming back to MI6' plot comes from YOLT & TMWTGG... what they (together with Mendes) did is try to shape the story, where they want the characters to go, and then fill the plot in with the hacking stuff, which seems the right way to do it to me. The hacking is not the point of the story.
I'm not keen on people casually saying that people are terrible at their job when they get their facts wrong about what those people do, and even that other people are just as responsible for the job they're being blamed for.
No, the story is what's important. Do people remember OHMSS as the one where Bond falls in love and gets married, losing his wife to the evil villain's revenge attack, or do they remember it as the one where Blofeld releases some foot & mouth?
You can't have one without the other, but I think most people would say the story of that one is more important than the plot elements which allowed it to happen.
Trying to stick in a personal angle as a sort of supplementary thing which isn't part of the story and secondary to the plot leads to stuff like the Paris Carver storyline in TND: a bit half-hearted and unconvincing, and ultimately redundant.
Good writing is not being sarcastic in the written word as it depends on a tone of voice to work ;)
If it were that easy every film would be brilliant.
I'm not being sarcastic, mind you, I'm just saying what you so desperately want to hear. Fear not, I'll continue my policy of not engaging you in conversation. It's very tiresome. You are very tiresome.
I'm sure you'll compulsively reply. Bear in mind I won't be here to read you.
Yeah I still think it's a brilliant plot and says a lot about our current situation; it seems fanciful but, as you say, is based in historical fact. I'd quite like to see a Bond film go there again, maybe in a slightly more realistic way.
I think it's perfectly fine to want the villain's plot to be original and engaging: I'm sure we all want every part of these films to be brilliant.
Film 1 a remake of Ohmss called All the time in the world
Film 2 A reworking of Live and let die and You only live twice called Shatterhand
Film 3 a reworking of the man with the golden gun called Risico
its going to be amazing
that would also be nice
By the looks of it some of the untapped Fleming material makes an appearance in NTTD. I will find out for myself tomorrow night.
I know it was referenced in OP, but I still think "The Property of a Lady" can be a good title. (I've expressed previously that "The Hildebrand Rarity" sounds like a mystery wherein the detective explains the solution to others sitting about a parlor, and that's why it fits Fleming's quiet, limited-scope short story, but not a big adventure.) Hitchcock explained MacGuffins well, and Tarantino used one well -- the suitcase with glowing SOMETHING of value inside it, though we never find out just what -- in Pulp Fiction. There have been others used well many times. So, for TPOAL, the Property need not be identified. Not that a Bond film should be anything but a spectacular thriller, so it might be more of a subplot item for a Bond film ? (As it was in OP)
The TMWTGG film does feel like a missed opportunity in many ways, with Bond coming up against the world's greatest assassin, and yet not really having a duel against him or even having a plot involving an assassination as its focus. I could be open to a remake of that.
Changing Mr Big's booty from pirate treasure to some other form of ancient treasure, for example, could be the start of another adventure (or even just keep the pirate treasure given it's not mentioned in the film). A station chief gets assassinated or goes missing and Bond is sent to investigate (ala Dr No) would be another. Bond gets sent on a diplomatic mission and then happens upon a supervillian... the whole Diamonds Are Forever Spang business... definitely the MWTGG hitman plot etc. All of these could work. It's not like there isn't repetition in Bond films anyway.
Yeah that's a good point; you could probably change the locations (Dr No set somewhere Arctic for instance) and you'd have a basis for a new film.
Better this, I feel, than trying to imitate a Fleming plot. It's not like you couldn't use these as starting points for a bigger movie style plot with big action sequences.
Dr No but in the arctic is a very good pitch, actually.
The films have never really explored Bond's naval history and how he gained the rank of Commander. Since a reboot of some sort is necessary, the next film could explore this as a new Bond origin story. Show him as a young man in the Royal Navy pre-00 section, there could still be a villain and a plot and it all culminating in his recruitment into the Secret Service and a springboard to new adventures in what would be, indisputably, a new timeline for a new Bond actor.
(The fact that DC is never seen in naval uniform also helps)
To establish this setting, we have a title sequence akin to OHMSS that includes clips from previous films. The ejection from the Aston Martin, cradling a dead Tracy in his arms, the Union Jack parachute, speeding through the snow on a Cello case - and finally the bungee jump from the dam.
The twist is - these moments are recreated with the NEW actor. Either by refilming the moments, or digitally inserting him into the actual footage from the film.
If we go to the "Bond is framed" storyline, there can be a courtroom scene where his defence lawyer reminds the courtroom of other moments from the previous 20 movies.
It'll need a new cast. Q needs to go back to being a doddery old fart. We need a respected actress as M (Helen Mirren?).
I honestly think this is the best way forward.
That could be pretty cool, I'd be up for that in prospect. I think there might also be some mileage in having M actually set up the double-0 section perhaps: make Bond the first of a new breed.