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did you know about Fleming before Craig?

SzonanaSzonana Mexico
edited March 2016 in Bond Movies Posts: 1,130
Personally I didn't and i think many of us who started and loved the franchise with Pierce we would have never known about him( Fleming ) if it wasn't for Craig's success by making Bond more human and Flawed.

For me Bond was this super sexy agent who every man wanted to be and girls wanted to be with and a guy who always managed to escaped due to his gadgets,wit and cleverness.

Latter Craig came up and i was shocked that they changed Bond. With him i started to read a lot of Comments that he was The Bond of the books and how the author intended him to be.
So maybe if they would have gone in 2006 with someone like Jude Law who was in the list of the next Bond in 2004 it would have taken me much longer to know About Ian Fleming and his more realistic spy series than how Cuby Broccoli and Terrence Young changed the character

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Comments

  • SzonanaSzonana Mexico
    Posts: 1,130
    Birdleson wrote: »
    I knew about Fleming before Moore.


    That's interesting. So you are one very first Bond fans. Woow its so cool you got to see Bond in theaters since it started.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,281
    I discovered Ian Fleming in about 1994 at the ripe old age of 10, so "no" would be the answer! :)
  • Scaramanga12Scaramanga12
    Posts: 562
    I grew up with the Brosnan films but I didn't know anything about the origins until probably about 2002.
  • Mendes4LyfeMendes4Lyfe The long road ahead
    Posts: 8,401
    Craig films aren't particularly Fleming, except for being more realistic than Moore and Brosnan. But not being like other films that aren't like Fleming doesn't make Craig films more like Fleming. If being Fleming just meant being 'realistic', then Bourne is very Fleming.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,186
    Edited the title - error corrected.
  • BeatlesSansEarmuffsBeatlesSansEarmuffs
    Posts: 3,566
    Szonana wrote: »
    Birdleson wrote: »
    I knew about Fleming before Moore.


    That's interesting. So you are one very first Bond fans. Woow its so cool you got to see Bond in theaters since it started.

    @Szonana: there's an entire topic thread dedicated to the "original" fans: SirHenry's Originals welcomes the younger fans too. Check it (us) out. Yes, for the record, I read all the Fleming novels while Connery was still the one & (we thought at the time) only Bond.
  • BondJasonBond006BondJasonBond006 on fb and ajb
    edited March 2016 Posts: 9,020
    Yes, I knew before Craig, I knew before Brosnan, but not before Dalton.
    I believe I read the first Fleming novel in 1994.
    Today I own them all, several times :P
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy My Secret Lair
    Posts: 13,384
    I discovered Fleming in the early 70s when the films began to be televised. Started
    reading them as a 12 yr old or so.
  • thelivingroyalethelivingroyale
    Posts: 12,837
    I'm a child of the 80s and my first Bond was Dalton. I knew that Bond was based on a book series by Ian Fleming. That was pretty much the extent of my knowledge of it as I didn't read the books myself. Around the early 00s I started using the internet (always been a bit of a technophobe, we did have a computer at mine in the late 90s but I never touched it) and in part thanks to this site actually (well it was MI6.co.uk back then) I was able to read more about the books. I still never got them myself though, not sure why, I guess apart from the odd author I liked I'd never been that big a reader, I wasn't for a couple of years, I think school put me off. Anyway when CR came out and Craig and the film were being praised for taking things back to the Bond of the books I finally bit the bullet and got CR and read it. Then it took me a good few years (not because I didn't enjoy them, but because of just other stuff taking up my time, getting distracted/forgetting, etc, and at least partly due to my own laziness) but eventually I got through all the Fleming novels, Colonel Sun and recently Trigger Mortis. I also have a copy of SOLO which I got as a present but I still haven't been arsed about reading that because of the scathing reviews it got from members on here.

    But yeah long story short I knew about the Fleming novels before Craig, but it was Craig who finally got me reading them.
  • Some_Kind_Of_HeroSome_Kind_Of_Hero
    Posts: 6,844
    I suspect many "diehard" James Bond fans—the sort who join and read message boards such as this one!—discovered Fleming shortly after discovering the films. My first James Bond film, the one that got me hooked, was GoldenEye. My dad then educated me with a rental of Goldfinger, his favorite at the time, and from there we went on to rent Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and Moonraker. He also shared with me around this time an old hardback copy of You Only Live Twice that had belonged to a relative. I can't at all recommend beginning with You Only Live Twice in the Fleming canon, before you've had any real education in the history of 007, but that was my first experience with Ian Fleming. And despite a difficult and painfully action-free first half, which I've come to greatly appreciate as an adult but was sorely underwhelmed by as a kid with no real frame of reference apart from a handful of the films, I was completely enthralled by everything that took place on Kissy's island and at the Castle of Death.
  • jetsetwillyjetsetwilly
    Posts: 3,327
    I was born before LALD, and read Fleming books when I was around 13/14, so yes, I knew Fleming long before Craig. Dalton actually came closer to the books than Craig anyway.
  • suavejmfsuavejmf Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England
    Posts: 5,131
    I started watching Bond films at 5 (87) and reading Fleming at 9 (91). Dalton is more Fleming's Bond than anyone else.
  • tanaka123tanaka123
    edited March 2016 Posts: 4,325
    I started getting into the Bond films in the summer of 1997 when I was 10 years old after reading a spread in a Nintendo magazine about the GoldenEye game for the N64. It was there that I learned that the films were based on Fleming's novels. Saw You Only Live Twice at that time after reading the article and then seeing a trailer on ITV for YOLT. I watched more Bonds as they came on TV and as I bought some on VHS, but I think it was around 1998/99 when I started reading the novels. It was my first year in secondary school and the school library had a copy of Casino Royale which I really enjoyed reading.
  • SirHilaryBraySirHilaryBray Scotland
    Posts: 2,138
    I knew Fleming from the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang long before I knew bond.
  • ThunderballThunderball playing Chemin de Fer in a casino, downing Vespers
    Posts: 814
    Yes. I've known about Fleming since I got into Bond in high school, about 10 years before Craig was cast. I read my first Fleming Bond novel in 2005 (Thunderball), roughly around the time Craig was announced to be the next Bond.
  • IncompetentHenchmanIncompetentHenchman
    Posts: 1,817
    It does say in the opening credits "Ian Fleming's James Bond 007" but I suppose I am the only one who reads those things...
  • Mathis1Mathis1
    Posts: 7,437
    I read most of the novels at the latter end of Moores reign as Bond. But it was Dalton who really made me read them all, and go into more depth about them and the author. For me Timothy Dalton nails Fleming 007, and though l love what Craig did with the part, Dalton will always be number one for me!
    Connery has tremendous screen presence, great in the part but i found him a little too cold and unemotional to be Flemings Bond, Lazenby tried to ape Connery too much, but his was a brave effort, Moore played the role exactly how it should have been played at that time, but stayed in the part too long, Dalton nailed it, Brosnan was a disaster, miscast even, and Craig brought back gravitas to the role.
    Sorry, strayed a little from the theme. The novels are always worth reading, and i hope future screenwriters continue to mine them for characters and situations.
  • fjdinardofjdinardo
    Posts: 1,970
    Yes lol. I didnt know about him when I started watching Bond. I thought Cubby created the character.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Started watching Bond films and reading Fleming in the early 80s, when I was in my teens.
  • ThunderballThunderball playing Chemin de Fer in a casino, downing Vespers
    Posts: 814
    IncompetentHenchman wrote: »
    It does say in the opening credits "Ian Fleming's James Bond 007" but I suppose I am the only one who reads those things...

    I read Fleming's name in the title, too, back then, in the 90s when I was a teen. And I then learned that this Fleming guy wrote the original novels that the films were based on. But as I said, I didn't read one for whatever reason until 2005.
  • SzonanaSzonana Mexico
    Posts: 1,130
    Ok now all of you are making me feel bad.
    How is it possible i never heard of that name before Craig became Bond?

    But again i started Bond with till Die another day, so I could say i knew about Bond one year latter.
  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    Posts: 13,978
    I read my first Bond book (Moonraker) not that long after I discovered the films, so that's around 1996-1997.
  • 00Agent00Agent Any man who drinks Dom Perignon '52 can't be all bad.
    Posts: 5,185
    I became a Bond fan throught the N64 game and started watching all the movies in the following 3 years. I learnd somewhere in between that Ian Fleming created that character, but strangely enouhg i read my first Fleming novel in 2006 and it was Casino Royal. I guess it had more to do with availability, i did not had internet before that and i was living in a very small town where we had like one small bookshop. When Casino Royale came out, they also released the original novel in bookstores everywhere, thats when i got it.
    Of course by now i've read all Flemings at least once, and my plan is to read all the other Bond novels in the next 3-4 years.
  • BAIN123BAIN123
    Posts: 11,189
    The first time I ever actually read Ian Fleming was in the form of a cassette audio book. I remember listening to a reading of DAF sometime in the late 90s and finding it quite dull.

    I didn't read Fleming properly until shortly after I'd seen CR for the first time. After that I read most of the books fairly quickly. I confess though that I still haven't read TSWLM or a few of the short stories.

    @Birdleson. For me, Goldeneye N64 was the definitive game that I associate with Bond. The games could be quite fun but obviously are no where near as essential as the books.
  • 00Agent00Agent Any man who drinks Dom Perignon '52 can't be all bad.
    edited March 2016 Posts: 5,185
    @BAIN123 you could say that the games are nowhere near as essential as the books, but by books you only mean Fleming or the 30+ other books that were released? :)
    I feel like a lot of people are sabotaging their own enjoyment of certain things by giving them all kinds of labels 'this is true/essential, and this is not'
    The games were definitly essential for me to becoming a Bond fan since i was very much into gaming at that time, and no other medium makes you feel like you are Bond as much as the games. Also they got very sophisticated at one point and featured their own storylines. Thats why I consider Brosnans run to be 6 movies instead of four (Nighfire and Everything or Nothing included)
  • BAIN123BAIN123
    edited March 2016 Posts: 11,189
    00Agent wrote: »
    @BAIN123 you could say that the games are nowhere near as essential as the books, but by books you only mean Fleming or the 30+ other books that were released? :)
    I feel like a lot of people are sabotaging their own enjoyment of certain things by giving them all kinds of labels 'this is true/essential, and this is not'
    The games were definitly essential for me to becoming a Bond fan since i was very much into gaming at that time, and no other medium makes you feel like you are Bond as much as the games. Also they got very sophisticated at one point and featured their own storylines. Thats why I consider Brosnans run to be 6 movies instead of four (Nighfire and Everything or Nothing included)

    Forgive me if I sounded a little pompous.

    I too enjoyed Agent Under Fire, Nightfire etc back when I was a teenager. All I meant was that they don't provide the framework for the Bond world in the way the original FLEMING books did.

    Obviously every generation has their own experience growing up with Bond, however the books were what started everything and without them there would obviously be no films. Everything that's come since (spin offs, continuation stories, games) is a cool bonus.
  • 00Agent00Agent Any man who drinks Dom Perignon '52 can't be all bad.
    Posts: 5,185
    BAIN123 wrote: »
    Forgive me if I sounded a little pompous.

    I too enjoyed Agent Under Fire, Nightfire etc back when I was a teenager. All I meant was that they don't provide the framework for the Bond world in the way the original FLEMING books did.

    No you didn't sound like that at all :) sorry if i implied that.
    And you are right that the Games don't provide the Fleming framework, but Bond is so many things by now and has evolved into all kinds of directions. It is what it is, i can enjoy it all, while some people here think i am not a 'true' Bondfan because i started with the Brosnan movies and consider his run to be one of the best. Brosnan was the first true multimedia Bond and it helped a great deal to cement his status for me. Since i haven't been around when Connery and Moore were still in the role, Brosnan still has the best overall media presence.
  • royale65royale65 Caustic misanthrope reporting for duty.
    Posts: 4,423
    Piffle. I too am a video game generation baby. But, the only real way to get inside someone's head, to be that you are Bond, is the novels. In comparison to the novels, the games just leave me cold.
  • suavejmfsuavejmf Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England
    Posts: 5,131
    royale65 wrote: »
    Piffle. I too am a video game generation baby. But, the only real way to get inside someone's head, to be that you are Bond, is the novels. In comparison to the novels, the games just leave me cold.

    Totally agree.
  • fjdinardofjdinardo
    Posts: 1,970
    I got into Bond through the videos games TWINE, Goldeneye, & AUF
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