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No he wouldn't! He would have done, what he did after YOLT. Write a run of the mill Bond and leave his ass the door open to make money with future writers.
As I see it it was a mistake in itself to bring up the time and aging factor in the movies. Before that no one ever questioned too much how it is possible that there is a guy, who's already been active in the early 60s still running around, charming the most beautiful girls in the world and saving the world on a regular basis. To bring the dead factor in it would in my mind seriously spell a not too far dead knelt for the franchise itself, since it would have been completely stripped of its "magic".
So, not only no, but HELL, NO!!!
I think that's the point, @Gustav_Graves. Like the phallic imagery in the old Bond movie posters, and all the other sexual content. Very much fits the tone and content of the adventures.
Who said anything about a normal life. So we must see Bond die. Why, so we can see his whole life? We didn't see his birth, we haven't seen him to a long list of mundane things. Just because we haven't seen those things, doesn't mean that we absolutely must.
Maybe i'm alone in this, but I feel seeing Bonds death on screen, kind of takes away from his iconic character. We all know he's going to die eventually, I would just rather not see it.
Again, we haven't seen his birth, so why must we see his end. And I want Bond to stay as far away from Nolan as possible. It was bad enough that they gutted Bond in the reboot, just because that was a trend. SP provided the perfect end. Bond appears to head off into the sunset with Madeline, what happens after that is up to each individual viewer.
@noSolaceleft, in the book "The Man With The Golden Typewriter" Ian Fleming, in his personal notes and letters to friends, was preparing for the end of Bond.
I believe it was to his publisher that he planned on going out "with a bang than a whisper".
I'm still against it though.
Fleming intended to kill Bond off in FRWL hence the ending. He was convinced, thankfully, not to.
@peter, I'm sure it will be. I know those feelings of doubt well, and have Fleming to blame for part of that. ;) Every time I read some of his work I think, "Well, he's already done that, what's the point."
I've been quietly trying to catch up to your lit-Bondathon, and I picked up CR on Sunday and I'm almost done. I couldn't believe the knots in my stomach when it came to Bond and Vesper's first dinner-- the way Bond is almost embarrassed by his behaviour, but also, the basic admission that he finds food sensual and exquisite, because, at heart, the man is a hungry hedonist.
Fleming will discuss in other novels how Bond doesn't really make a lot of money, but, in CR, to him, blowing a huge wad of cash for a good meal is worth it.
Fleming makes me hungry, reading things like this. Champagne with the caviar, and lots of toast-- there can never be too much toast... He draws his characters so well, it's nauseating how great the man was.
@peter, absolutely. The sad truth is that you'd never find Fleming's work taught at the university level, because he doesn't fit the very predictable and routine curriculum, but if I were teaching I'd make his books a centerpiece of a literature course because I think they are that worthy. Beyond being an interesting time capsule of his day that challenge our modern notions of so many things, the books are simply powerful and intellectually stimulating. Bond isn't this blank-faced pulp hero, he's a fully flesh out, contradictory, fascinating man tugged along a series of increasingly existential experiences that drive him to consider so many human curiosities, like morality, life and death, fate, good and evil, etc. One can learn so much about how oneself looks at life and the experience of existence through reading these things, as you learn it all alongside Bond and have your own ideas challenged. Is Bond right to kill for his job? Is their a difference between a hero and villain playing the same game?
Chapters like "My Dear Boy" or "The Nature of Evil" in Casino Royale or the ending of Moonraker are next level pieces of writing that take the books and their content beyond simple pulp adventures to say beautiful and challenging things about life through Bond, and it's just riveting. Fleming had a way of creating such a sense of place, of mood and feeling, such that I feel Bond's torture and his hopelessness of not knowing what side he's on, if there are sides. In addition to that I'm left alone with him as Gala walks away from him. I could fill a whole journal up with lines from Fleming that made me pause mid-reading and look up with an expression of awe on my face at the picture or feeling he'd crafted for me. He brought a literary sensibility and fine craft to a genre you'd expect to find filling up airport bookstores, and in doing so he created the same ripples Conan Doyle did with Sherlock Holmes, making it such that any attempts to create a spy or detective to match those two figures is impossible. Like Fleming, Doyle is another brilliant writer that isn't considered alongside the likes of Hardy, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and all the rest, but I can speak to the impact their writing can have and has had on my life. I've never felt more for characters or been so taken aback by passages like I have been experiencing the work of these two writers.
It's been a pleasure to get back to the Bond books and read them in order all the way through, because you learn so much about the man in each adventure and in the end it all piles on to make him seem like a living, breathing person. Like us all he's got his hard-edges and contradictions, but in the end its his loyalty to the end and the compassion he has behind the cold mask that makes him legendary and endlessly riveting, much like the big heart behind the cool exterior of Holmes that Watson peels away. I love literary characters like Bond and Holmes that feel in spite of themselves, or in spite of their abilities to remain impartial to emotion. It speaks to their humanity that they never manage it successfully, and that's ultimately what sets them apart from the threats and villains they face.
Please, pick up "The Man With The Golden Typerwriter"..
@peter, I think it was Bond that said a variation on that in Casino, right? Something about the hardest men being the quickest to sentiment. A profound thought, and I don't know how to take it. Perhaps it's a psychological thing, where those that feign toughness do so because they have have so much heart that they don't want to show?
He and M are discussing Bond and how Tracy's death has affected him and his health. And Molony talks about these tough men all having soft, sensitive interiors... It's obviously something Fleming liked to explore in his character...!
Maybe it's time for Bond 25 to take a leaf out of the CR book and begin the film on something more low key and I'm suggesting something even more ordinary than even how we were introduced to Craig's Bond back in 2006.
I'm thinking GB traditional and open it up on Bond from the back walking down a corridor of a building to be revealed to be a secure facility and this is where Blofeld is being held captive.
This will be the first time they've met since the events of SPECTRE, some time has passed and ESB on seeing Bond will no doubt try to toy with him. Look I know what some might be thinking this is going to come across as a SOTL homage but stick with me here.
I'm no screenwriter so I'm only giving the basis here for this idea for the PTS for B25. Whether we have Ernst behind glass Lecter like or it's dealt with differently.
We could impart that things have moved on and from the conversation in this scene we could deal with the fact that Bond and Swann is over, Blofeld could toy with Bond about it but Bond shrugs it off, he's here to get something from ESB.
SPECTRE is far from a done deal and since Blofeld has been captured they have gone about creating havoc and are more than force to be reckoned with. Bond is assigned to investigate SP and although he knows it could well be futile that he might be able to appeal to Ernst ego and get him to unknowingly impart something to him.
Their leads on SPECTRE aren't great and they need an in and this isn't actually a case of their first tactic but from the scene we'll learn Bond is there because they need an in.
In this first scene rather than getting something explosive we get something intriguing and with the right writers a real humdinger of a scene where Craig and Waltz can deliver on that promise of what many of us expected from the previous film and was definitely short changed.
Ernst could try and push the buttons of the brother element and Bond will just not be bothered making it clear to him that now he's nothing more than an enemy and there past connection is of no relevance to him, it's all about his job and getting personal is just not on the cards anymore.
The scene could end on a bombshell that ESB reveals, not sure what that would be and lead us into the credits.
We then open on Bond going into a traditional old school beginning, MP flirting then into M's office for them to talk about what went down, maybe ESB dropped something into the interaction that would tally with their intel.
This isn't a spiky scene, Mallory should have learnt from what happened in SPECTRE that Bond is a great value to him and that he saved his career and reputation depsite going behind his back, this is now as Bernard Lee was with Connery and Moore. The respect is mutual and we'll get the relationship with his Boss that last scene in SF suggested rather than that awkward scene that followed the main credits of SP.
M will possibly say to Bond you know it's a trap and Bond will say yes of course it is but it's all we have and you know I love a challenge. We could lead into a Q scene and then Bond goes off on his mission, we could then build up to a great action set piece, to that point we've had story and detection going on.
You could return to Swann if you wanted later in the film and obviously ESB will escape but not turn up till the end of the story, Bond will be dealing with a No. 2 possibly Bunt. You could have Hinx back if you want but it would establish that all that was dealt with in SPECTRE was done, Bond is there to do a job. You've dispensed with all the personal nonsense and we can end Craig's era on a proper mission Bond taking SPECTRE and ESB down, nothing too flippant but end on a real big battle scene.
Giving Craig a film that plays to DC's strengths, I'm sure you could tie in YOLT if you wanted, we can take it into darker territory as the film progresses, give Bond a few women to romance as it progresses and throw Felix back into the mix, keep team MI6 to a minimum and not in the field.
I'm not a screenwriter so I'll leave it to the professionals but a low key but memorable PTS might be just what we need to make a break from the previous 2 films and then we can get on with giving Craig a great send off.
No skimping on action on B25 but a nice tense build up to it rather than bang straight in would be great. That's why I think the PTS doesn't have to be the massive set piece that SF & SP kicked off with. Just Bond and Blofeld face to face with great dialogue with DC & CW acting up a storm.
I want it to be as faithful to YOLT as possible. The PTS can be Bond and Madeline enjoying their new life intercut with news reports about Blofeld escaping, and then Madeline dies. Cue titles. Afterwards we cut to months later. Moneypenny visits Bond in his flat and he's an alcoholic wreck. She calls M to let him know how he's doing. After he hangs up M is revealed to be having dinner with James
Molony who asks if the call was about the former agent he was telling him about earlier. M says he knows it's none of his business any more but he can't help but feel worried about him. Molony suggests giving him an assignment but M says he's in no fit state for field work, and Molony asks what about the trouble with the Japan business. M visits Bond at Blades where he's gambling away the rest of his MI6 severance and offers him a new job in the diplomatic section as 777. They need access to the Magic 44 tech off the Japanese (make it a spy satellite or something?) because the Americans aren't playing ball, and he wants someone he can trust on it. So he sends Bond to Japan. Bond meets his contact at the airport but is watched by someone in the shadows: Hinx (but looking slightly different, some sort of disguise/sugrery). He calls in to tell Blofeld that Bond is in Japan and, paranoid, Blofeld sets up an assassination attempt using his Yakuza contacts, which leads to a fight on a bullet train. Bond and his contact interrogate the last survivor and follow different leads, while at the same time Bond is still trying to convince them to share the Magic 44 tech (so we can still get a lot of the travelogue stuff but there actually being a mystery to solve keeps the audience engaged and adds a bit more action). In the end they trace it back to Dr Shatterhand who Bond's contact has had issues with for some time because of his suicide garden. He shows Bond a photo of him and his assistant and Bond recognises them as Blofeld and Hinx. Bond offers to kill them in exchange for the Magic 44 tech and trains as a ninja, slowly getting back to his old self, and stops off in the island fishing village for a few days, meeting Kissy (but not named Kissy, no reusing one off characters) while he formulates a plan. On the evening before Bond is to kill Blofeld they have sex and the old 007 is finally back. She swims out with him past the sharks, showing him the best route, and wishes him luck. Bond climbs the wall and makes his way through the garden, dodging the heavily armed mercenaries, and finally spots Blofeld, who's clad in full Samurai armour, and is meeting a man who Bond recognises as a North Korean general. Bond is captured by Hinx. When Blofeld interrogates him Bond realises his just how much he's lost it, and realises that what's left of Spectre want nothing to do with him. Only Hinx is still loyal (hint at a relationship between the two in the same way there was with Blofeld and Bunt). That's why he's holed up in the garden surrounded by armed guards. But Blofeld is leaving soon; he's made a deal with the North Koreans to come and work as a spymaster for them, a helicopter will come to collect him the next day. The North Koreans are quite keen on him handing Bond over but as a Samurai, Blofeld has more honour than that and will give him a chance to fight for his freedom. Bond duels with Blofeld and kills him. He escapes Hinx and the mercenaries and arranges for the castle to be blown up using the trick with the volcano (didn't he plug it with the chair? I can't remember it's been a while since I read it), the he starts to fight his way out, gunning down corridors full of guards in an intense gunfight and taking a few hits in the proccess. He uses the hot air balloon to escape bit Hinx jumps after him and grabs hold of him, Bond manages to kick him off back down towards the castle just as it explodes but the eruption knocks him out and he falls into the sea. We see his funeral where Kincade, M, Q, Moneypenny, Tanner, Felix and Camille are there, so the audience think he's dead, but then it cuts back to Bond in the sea and he's rescued by Kissy. She nurses him back to health but he has amnesia. One of the kids on the island is watching the news on a crappy looking TV set and something comes on about North Korea. Bond thinks it seems familiar (fresh in his mind because of the stuff with Blofeld) and leaves for Pyongyang as it's revealed Kissy is hiding a pregnancy. And that's the end. We don't get the brainwashing stuff. Just end it with a Bond who doesn't know who he is, walking straight into enemy territory just after pissing them off, with all his friends thinking he's dead and not knowing he's just fathered a child who'll grow up without him. James Bond will return in a soft reboot with a new actor.
Needs a lot of polish but broadly I would be reasonably happy with that.
Some comments:
- I'm worried about the lack of action. I would be fine with it personally but they have to sell it to a general audience who expect big set pieces. I'd make the bullet train sequence the stand out set piece but given we've just had a fight on a train in SP I'd have something more along the lines of Mission Impossible with most of it taking place on the outside of the train (probably have Bond's initial contact as Dikko (Geoffrey Rush, chewing the scenery, is the obvious choice) assassinated on the train and Bond chasing the killer). The finale has a decent amount of action so we really only need one other big set piece which I guess should be near the beginning so probably a Bourne Supremacy style PTS that kills off Maddie.
- Bringing Hinx back is inane. The guy would've comfortably had his neck snapped by the barrels. The obvious henchman should be Bunt. No one has yet improved on Tilda Swinton as casting and I'm picturing an older Fiona or Xenia but without the sex appeal and trying to shag Bond. She'd be the one who kills Maddie in the PTS and then the first act intercuts between her breaking Blofeld out of prison and Bond being depressed. She'd also be there at the end in the interrogation scene which would give things more heft than Hinx standing in the corner.
- Even though it doesn't really have the same ring as Vladivostok I guess Pyongyang is the only logical option. NK being in bed with Blofeld is reasonable though and Magic 44 can be some sort of Macgufffin that everyone wants that gives military supremacy in the region and Blofeld is flogging it to the Koreans.
- I wouldn't have Bond shag Kissy until after he gets amnesia. It would detract from his revenge on Blofeld if he had just slung one up another bird 5 mins earlier.
- I'd only very subtly hint at Kissy's pregnancy. We run the risk of the audience then expecting to see the kid in the next film and to have Bond gallivanting round with Short Round would be a disaster.
The only question after all this would be where to go next? Would we never find out what happened and leave the Craig era as it's own self contained timeline and do a soft reboot? Seems a shame that we wouldn't get the assassination attempt on M.
If this film was a success and the audience were desperate to see know what happened next might Dan be tempted back one more time for a TMWTGG adaptation? Or would the new actors first scene be coming back from NK?
That rounds it up to three major action scenes (opening, bullet train, finale) which is enough since the film doesn't have to be that long anyway (there aren't really any subplots to YOLT, they could easily get it somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours). And I'd like it to be the ending. If we get a TMWTGG esque sequel we'd just get another ending along the lines of CR-SF and I'd like Craig's last to have a more unique ending. They can always save the brainwashing stuff for further down the line. You're right though that the audience might not like an ambiguous ending followed by some sort of reboot, which makes me think that actually killing off Bond at the castle might be a better idea. Either way I want the Craig era to have a definitive closed off ending. I like the idea of his films covering the whole career of this unique, parallel universe sort of take on Bond.
A blatant ripoff of what? If you're on about Bourne that was very, very similar to Tracy's death in OHMSS anyway. The rest of it is just Fleming's YOLT.
It seems like an excuse to go down the Logan route, why not just a balls out Bond entry to end on instead? Though I'd be happy with something along those lines if done right a real big film instead of an introspective one like you suggest would be fine as well.
I guess we'll see come towards the end of 2019, lots more speculation to go until then.
The problem with this that as Bond fans we can say Fleming did it first but no doubt some outside the fanbase will be drawing parallels with Bourne you can bet it.
Rather than echoing Fleming so much how about a celebration of the cinematic Bond to end on Craig's era?
Actually I was talking both of OHMSS and Bourne
I'd like to see one nasty sonofabitch with Ernst, this time around.
We know he was arrested, so what has prison life been like for Ernst?
And how are the writers/producers going to play with time? SP, after all, seems to be only a few months after the events of SF. Which dates the last film in the year 2012-13...
By the time B25 opens up, six years would have gone by.
Has Blofeld been in solitary this entire time? What has it done to this megalomaniac once he's released? I hope he literally chews off the faces of his subordinates... Just one nasty beast, that will now reek absolute havoc, not only on those who put him away, but, of course, destroy James Bond within that big plan.
And perhaps that big plan is a lure, to snare his rival (a la FRWL); perhaps this is what brings Bond out of retirement (if he is, indeed in retirement?)? And both he and M know this is obviously a set-up-- but they're dealing with Blofeld, and there really is no choice in the matter: trap or not, Bond has to walk into the lion's den.
And yes, no Madeleine is necessary, nor even needs to be mentioned (after all, in the film world, it was six years ago, not four!).