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Wouldn't be surprised if he simply lifted the name from the books. He did after all use names of real life friends, enemies, etc. to name several of his characters.
Great foundation for a Bond plot?
In Dan's case we learn of his coldness and duty in silencing the family man of Dryden, and his tutelage of Carter in Madagascar shows us that it isn't his first rodeo. As Mollaka runs off, Bond's sloppy traversal style contrasts with the fluid terrorist, symbolizing the man as a wrecking ball (running through a construction site, no less). His storming of the embassy to save Mollaka's would-be victims from his bomb shows his boldness and how many international laws he'll soil to do what's right. The scene not long after, with Bond challenging M in her own flat while sneaking data for his mission, tells us all we need to know about him, on mission and off. Driven and unrelenting, to a fault.
The first twenty minutes of the respective films build up Bond like no others, only matched by Sean's debut in DN. Every beginning moment cements the man each actor plays, and it's done completely originally to detail the unique Bond. That's why I'd hate to see Bond #7 introduced in a fashion even more boring than him resting up at his flat, a la LALD. I think it'd be a big and unoriginal mistake to have the debut of a new Bond happen during the same string of scenes (M briefing, Moneypenny flirt, Q's workshop) that were already done to death by the late 60s. How many more times do we really need to see the same recycled fluff to the plot, when so many more compelling options are available?
Well said! I'd add that the better M/Q/Moneypenny scenes are the offbeat ones: M/MP/Bond in OHMSS (the softer side of M!), the wedding scene in OHMSS, even MP at Ascot. They show us different sides of the supporting characters, not the same old, same old.
DN's entrance of Boothroyd had a function beyond throwing Bond's utility belt at us, it was used as an opportunity for Bond and M to challenge each other over what weapon was better, building their professional relationship and giving us a backstory on Bond's previous 6 months in hospital. Because Bond was called to action by M from a lavish casino, we get a hint of how he spends his leisure time off the job.
In FRWL the M briefing is cleverly juxtaposed with the same sort of briefing between Tatiana and Klebb, where the relationships of the respective pairs are contrasted starkly, and the woman and man see each other for the first time in photograph form.
By the time GF came around the hat gag was already flipped on its head, and Moneypenny threw the hat this time around. Additionally, the M briefing was used less to funnel exposition about Goldfinger, but to show Bond and M butting heads over what to do about the man as Bond's personal thirst for revenge was put into question.
In TB the high stakes of the plot again flips all the rest of the usual elements on its head. Bond has no briefing and is sent right to a war room of sorts, and there's little time for him to have any flirting with Moneypenny, underscoring that this time there's no room for funny business. For the first time in the series, Bond gets gadgets in the field, as Q comes to him.
YOLT staged the M briefing on a ship out of the office, and once again Q was in the field and yet Tanaka is the one that gives most of the best gadgets to Bond.
And of course OHMSS just flips everything on its head, showing the office life of Bond crumbling instead of dealing out to us the same structured moments. And of course, the hat toss to Moneypenny at the wedding it a beautiful sendoff to a moment that had begun in the very first adventure.
As the series went on, a lot of this cleverness had been expunged, and all the briefings and gadget moments all went the same place, over and over and over again, no matter who the Bond was. The Craig era has been so refreshing to me for doing away with that fluff for the first two, and in the most recent two flipping it and not making everything feel the same. The casting of a young Q makes Bond the curmudgeon now, adding a whole new young/old layer to their dynamic as characters that has never been seen, and this Bond and Moneypenny truly have a strong energy between them that feels like true attraction. Dan's chemistry with the major players and his uniquely dry humor revitalize tired material. I'm not thrilled we're back to the same old, but at least the paint is a bit fresher than past coatings.
Wakes up in the 50s/60s. The M, Q, Moneypenny, of this world are all still the same people but are different because of the time period. And this alternate reality has its own version of the bad guy from the PTS. Bond has to finish his mission (stopping him) to wake up, and to do that has to adjust to the new era, come to terms with the lack of technology, the new rules (Cold War), etc.
It'd be very out there but for a series that's lasted 50 years and has pretty much proven that it isn't going anywhere ever, Bond could afford to play it a bit less safe with the plots imo.
Oh my God! Where do you guys get such idea from? The franchise is already struggling enough when it comes to acceptance with young people. The last thing they need are experiments like that.
I don't think you've quite grasped it. it's about setting up the character before you demonstrate the character. Sometimes it's better to withhold things for a little while and build anticipation rather than opening straight on an action scene.
I don't think young people are the ones that need troubling accepting where Bond has gone. It's usually crotchety veterans who long for old days that can't come back.
I'd say it's grasped. Setting up the character is covered in the examples above, and you immediately grab the audience by giving them something intriguing to watch. It's no secret why the vast majority of the Bond actors' portrayals were built on the tail of a sequence that put them in situations that tested them and showed us what we're made of. I'd rather get the sense of a new Bond out in the field on a mission during their first major scene than watch them bicker with M, flirt with Moneypenny or steal Q's lunch. It's why I'm such a critic of formula, where you force the film to be choked by the very chain that it's tied to against its will.
I wouldn't say it's sci fi at all. To make things clear, he doesn't wake up in some other dimension. This is all in his head. But yeah might be a concept better suited to say, an episode of a Bond TV series, instead of devoting a whole film to it (especially given how long they take to make these days). Still think it'd be fun though. A fish out of water scenario that Bond quickly finds himself adjusting to and enjoying (being able to smoke indoors, insitutionalised sexism, for him it'd be like waking up in heaven) that can highlight how much things have changed from Connery's day to now but showing that Bond is still Bond no matter what era he's in.
It says in my post where I got the idea from (Life On Mars). I wasn't aware that Bond was struggling to get "acceptance" with younger people but if it is then I'd argue that my point about playing it safe stands even more.
It's not just the plots either. It extends to the casting (Bond goes all over the world and yet always seems to find himself in stories full of white faces), the little details (like how he can't smoke any more because smoking is bad, when he literally kills people for a living), the way in which the series shamelessly follows trends (MR with Star Wars, DAD with Fast and The Furious/XXX, Craig with Bourne/Batman, etc), pretty much everything.
Bond plays it way too safe for a series that's gone on as long as it has imo. And when there is the opportunity for something a bit more fresh and exciting they almost always turn it down. Cubby turned down Spielberg in his prime, just after Jaws had come out, in favour of keeping things in house and sticking with the same old safe pairs of hands. Then his daughter did the same with Tarantino and Matthew Vaughn.
At the end of the day the mass market family friendly Bond films have to continue. I wouldn't have it any other way, that's what made most of us fans after all. But Bond is pretty much always going to be an enormously successful brand so why not have some fun and do something a bit more different and exciting every once in a while.
Onto other things, there's been times where Bond took zero risks, that's impossible to deny, but at times the alternative would've been disappointing or ill advised. I am so happy, for so many reasons, that Tarantino didn't get his hands on Bond, for example. Just because something is new or wacky and original to a concept doesn't mean it's going to be a success. Bond has to meet very specific goals and at times I think EON were smart to turn down changes that could've ultimately gone awry. We saw this with the likes of Tamahori, who just took the brand and made a mess of it. That's the kind of wacky new ideas I really don't want to see, especially when the director in question was a fan of the codename theory. Fleming help us.
But there are only so many types of threat and only so many types of motivation. Just focussing on this part of the movie, it really is very hard to come up with something that feels fresh but still "Bondian". If you look back at all of the series, its usually the bad guy who creates the plot and Bond (via orders from M) reacts. Its unusual for Bond to be proativice and set the plot. So IMHO, he have to start with the bad guy first.
Privateers in space was done in YOLT but it is now a reality so it could be returned to IMHO, struggling for anything else.
As I mentioned somewhere before I know, via quite a few sports clubs, many young people in the range from about 16 to 35, and while they all are fond of spy movies (with the girls preferring Bourne and the boys leaning towards MI) they are almost completely indifferent towards the recent Bond movies. They now see it as an affair for the elderly and miss the fun of yesteryear, which they seem to have enjoyed a lot judging from the way they talk about old Bond movies. TSWLM for example is constantly mentioned by them and they all seem to love it.
"It's in colour!"
You forget that, for them, this is ancient history. MI just "presses their buttons" whilst Bond doesn't. Is Bond just too "establishment" ?
I wouldn't be looking for wise youths at sports clubs, but if that's how one perceives their beliefs, more power to the lads. I am just of the belief that Bond can be funny without being a parody, or crossing a line too far. In short, rekindling what was lost around 1969. I'm sure nostalgia endears them to earlier films that were shown to them on the TV, and the world is a garbage place that needs escaping from, but I don't subscribe to the belief that these new films are depressing or dark. If people think that, they have a very limited cinematic catalogue to pull impressions from. I consistently laugh and smile my ass off through every Craig film, and I wouldn't do so in a dark or depressing film, unless the movie/s pulled off my favorite form of wit, black comedy. Maybe then I'd chuckle once or twice.
I will always appreciate the attempt to do something new than one that just does something you can find in literally over 20 other films, and done better in at least half of them. The series needs to continue to get to a place where it doesn't try to be Connery, and do what the 60s films did because they were 60s films. Since that time none of the one liners have worked from Moore to Brosnan (or the minor hint of them in SF) and the MI6 scenes were tired come the 70s, and near comatose now.
Let's take inspiration from the right stuff from the 60s-the spacious and dynamic sets, the mood, the story structure, the use of Bond as a detective, one major location staging the action-and drop the stuff that was too of its time. Those elements I listed will always be interesting, but the ones that've been done to death won't, because they are limited and there's no way to reinvent that wheel. Once you've seen one M briefing, flirt scene or Q talk you've seen most of them all, and the one liners are so cringey I just don't even want to go there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse
I think he's joking. (I hope).
I want Bond films to take a break from tech-based villainy. I'm well past it at this point, honestly. The reversion to more stripped back plots where Bond faces men with his fists and guns are far more interesting, because they remind of the old Cold War days where boring hacking and technological strikes didn't exist.
I'm not against a villain using an EMP strike to black out a city like London to stop Bond catching up with them, as that'd be an interesting visual, but to use technology as their modus operandi or as the whole theme of their villainous acts have been done already. Mendes played with this theme with Silva and Blofeld, so let's just retire it for a long while.
No, I was not kidding. The threat from weaponizing EMTs is greater now than ever. GE is over 20 years old. With a fresh approach and effective antagonist It's a viable threat in an age of almost total dependence o electronics.
I'd say there's great variety in those examples, but the point is missed. We've just come off two films that saw the use of hacking to destabilize a city, and another where tech was used to control information. Having three Bond films in a row revolve around the same concept of technology vs. man isn't something I'd want to see.
Bang on.