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Gosh, some wonderfully made-up quotes in there. Especially the stuff from nameless executives which just happens to align completely with stuff the Mail readers like to get hot under the collar about.
Bear in mind these tabloids didn't have so much of a whisper that this deal was going down, now suddenly they know all about who's in which spin-off and what all of the ex-executives and Broccoli's friends think about everything?
Haha! I've always loved this Arnold composition. I've always thought it's a slight variation of "Night At The Opera" from QoS and "Capsule In Space" from YOLT.
Now that you mention it, yeah, it’s absolutely that. Good ear, my friend.
My favourite Michael G. Wilson cameo has to be LTK.
I prefer his corrupt police official in CR. That outfit makes him look like a pimp. 😁 But yes, he did contribute a lot to Bond. I don't always agree with the stories he coauthored or the story choices he made, but I we owe a lot to him. A smart man. I hope he enjoys his retirement, he deserves it.
The CR scene is funny, the GE scene always felt like hey look it's Michael G. Wilson which makes me chuckle.
I agree. My favourite script contribution by Wilson has to be LTK, which is the best Bond script since OHMSS.
LTK is one one my favourites in the series easily top five or six, it was jarring when I first watched it at the cinema though loved it for a few decades now.
It is a good script. I think one of my favourite things about it is the waterskiing sequence: a brilliant idea for a Bond stunt, but one which has real repercussions for the whole film onwards from that point- it's not just thrown in there for a quick thrill.
Yes totally. I also think its one of the few Bond films where the action sequences in general don't feel like they've been shoehorned and tick-boxed in, something which would become very apparent during the Brosnan era.
Or Roger's of course. Something like FYEO is a good example, where the ski chase is excellent but not important to the plot at all, and indeed some of the action doesn't make much sense at all, like trying to kill Melina in Cortina with the bike guys. Why are they trying to kill her? Why is Kristatos constantly trying to kill Bond with motorbikes at the same time as helping him?
It's arguably the script that MGW had the most control over. Thanks to the writer's strike. And when the movie opened Maibaum as usual gave his usual criticisms.
Plus of course Wilson produced that film with Cubby, and Barbara was associate producer. That's how long they've been making these films, longer than quite a few folks posting on here have been alive, and longer than Cubby ever did (depending on how early as you take them starting and how hands-on Cubby was with GE). I can imagine, frankly, the idea of moving into their fourth age of Bond and starting from scratch again was not a massively appetising thought.
Actually, we have no idea what Fleming or Broccoli would have said about this (as far as I know anyway). It's impossible to say because they died ages ago and we don't know how they as men would react to situations today or how their views would have evolved along with how the Bond franchise evolved. Both certainly weren't beyond considering left field actors for Bond though (Fleming had James Stewart in mind at one point, and Broccoli also considered actors like James Brolin, John Galvin). I personally think if they saw a creative and/or financial incentive to consider a specific actor they did it. Don't know about Moore or Connery, although arguably you can apply the same logic. I know Kotto had his own opinions (I believe he said he would rather have a black character who's original/maybe like Bond if needed, but that Bond should ultimately be white). I disagree personally. I think if a great candidate comes along who's not white they should consider them. I have my own ideas of what Bond's fundamental qualities are (unlike Fleming and Broccoli I think he should be British). But ultimately it's such a hypothetical.
Anyway, it's not a topic worth arguing about at the current time I think. I think all's been said about it.
Maybe it's too much responsibility. You have the combined pressure of delivering a rebooted Bond franchise and dealing with Amazon. Quite intimidating to anyone that's entering the film business or hasn't had much experience in the industry. Gregg Wilson has been an associate producer on recent Bond films but maybe he didn't want the responsibility or Eon didn't think he was the right person to continue the franchise.
I agree the topic isn't worth continuing with, despite all these rants about what Fleming would want etc.
I always put it like this: if a British mixed race actor came along for a modern Bond film who had a skin tone just a bit darker than, say, Connery's (so obviously darker skinned than any caucasian man, but wouldn't pass for black or any other race either), was 6 foot, had black hair, cruel good looks, and the right physicality/screen presence, and most importantly nailed the character and made it through the audition process, they'd be considered and even hired. Probably without too much fuss. They wouldn't be discounted on account of not having cold grey blue eyes (Connery nor Lazenby had blue eyes), anymore than superficial things like their hair colour, or being an inch or two under 6 foot. They wouldn't be discounted for having a non-white Mum or Dad because Fleming's Bond was white.
Perhaps it's a very specific example, but what I'm getting at is if we're talking about how the actor comes across when playing the part, whether they can embody the fundamental qualities of the character, that's the priority. They have to be good looking and charismatic, but Moore was both these qualities in a different way to Connery. I think the cinematic version of this character is so malleable and I don't personally find the 'this is the Fleming archetype' argument convincing personally. Again, it just depends on who they find.
Yes indeed, I tend to think of how many movies are adaptations of books we've never read, and it turns out that the guy in the film has different hair colour to the guy in the book, and how no one would ever care. Die Hard is based on a book, and the hero in the book is 25 years older than Bruce Willis was, and probably described quite differently, but he got the essence and the film is a classic because they took the source material and changed it to suit its new medium. Adapting a film to the screen means to take the important elements and to actually literally adapt them i.e modify them so they're suitable for their new purpose, to try and ideally create the equivalent experience for the moviegoer with a new creation, not to actually reproduce it verbatim, because then you're potentially valuing insignificant details over making a coherent experience. Bond of the movies isn't the guy from the books: he wears old suits with the same short sleeve shirt all the time, the guy in the films wears a parade of perfect bespoke suits he never wears twice- these aren't the same guy. And as we've discussed before, Fleming had quite ordinary-looking actors in mind to play the part who those who tell us who can or can't play him would reject immediately, probably because they're more used to the cinematic ideal of the character than the actual literary one they claim to value above all.
I get a bit frustrated how looks of the guy seem to be the most important thing: look at a photo and judge whether he should be 007 or not. Because I don't think that's it at all: yes, he needs to be attractive because that's a descriptor of the character, ideally 30s/40s, athletic enough and generally an impressive specimen of manliness, but that should be the sort of stuff which gets him through the door to then be considered, not the be all and end all.
If you think Ian Fleming would want Idris Elba as James Bond I have a bridge to sell you. I just think this race crap is so trite. Theres much more interesting things to discuss about James Bond, but we're stuck at this rudimentary square one of arguing about James Bond's ethnicity as if this hasn't been already well established the last 70 years.