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Well, if my information is correct, newspapers would come out twice a day, and there were plenty of magazines that had far, far more reach then they do today. So I guess if an actor isn't promoting, that makes a huge difference. Also as Bond may already have been big, but Bond was still strongly connected to Connery. I think something similar happened to the Bourne films, and that was in the internet age... (i'm not too clear on that, gave up after nr. 3).
OHMSS was still successful at the box office and i have to believe that Cubby would have known that a new actor playing Bond and such a back to basics approach with the film was never going to make Thunderball or Goldfinger numbers at the box office.He was counting on Lazenby sticking around and building his rep with each film.
It's absolutely not objective, but I would have preferred this movie to be one of the two, without sacrificing the potential of the other. On the one hand because I consider that the time spent in Egypt is ultimately much too short and the visit to such a country would have benefited from being longer. On the other hand, because the transition from the Arabian setting to the Italian one has never seemed very organic to me. As if it was a second film starting. It's all the more a shame that it would have been easy to imagine a villain fascinated by Ancient Egypt.
A film set mostly in Egypt with a villain dwelling there, a la Dr No for Jamaica, would have been great. I miss sedentary villains quite a lot actually, and more sedentary Bond films.
What I love about a sedentary villain and a more sedentary plot is that you get a feel for the place.
Ridiculous.Bond movies are globe trotting adventures.They spend as much time in one location as the plot allows.I love the whole structure of TSWLM.From the ice capped peaks of Austria,to the sands of Egypt,to the beauty of Sardinia,and the second half of the film as a great sea bound adventure.Its got everything one could want from a Bond film which is why its far and away the best Bond adventure ever made in my opinion.
I agree with you both; sometimes the stories that are intimate and focused on fewer locations are good, sometimes the globetrotting adventures with many different environments are good.
To be more precise, the filmmakers would have to undertake extensive research to determine the interesting places in that country. That is what a skilled journalist like Fleming did when he traveled. By contrast, modern Bond films tend to pick a set of landmarks from different countries and have Bond travel between them; viewers rarely get to "know" a single country or location, because the filmmakers don't know them either.
I suppose this is indeed a truly controverdisl opinion, but if there is one thing I find very underwhelming in the Fleming novels, it's his choice of locations. I don't find a selection of pretty generic beach resorts in France and Jamaica particularly inspiring. I sure hope he had done more research... I know even remotely criticising Fleming for anything will go down badly on these boards, but here we go...
I find some of the locations in the films far more interesting. Matera for instance is an excellent choice, and I look forward to see how they will use it.
Well, Fleming picked France for its classic casinos and Jamaica for its pirate coves and Crab Key, both of which proved superb locations. He also knew both countries extremely well, and this comes out in his writing. I certainly wouldn't have set Casino Royale or Doctor No anywhere else. So while your opinion is controversial, it is not, to me at least, convincing.
As I said, my comment had no objective basis and, after all it is the controversial opinions thread. Nevertheless, I tend to disagree with you: as much as the Bond films offer escapism, they are not necessarily globetrotting adventures. With the exception of a few scenes, FRWL takes place almost exclusively in Turkey, ditto for Thunderball in Bahamas, YOLT in Japan, OHMSS in Switzerland, TMWTGG in the Far East, Goldeneye in Russia. This of course does not prevent some of the movies from having a multiplication of locations.
My problem with TSWLM's localizations is that on the one hand I find the time spent in Egypt too short, missing out on the cinematic potential of a Bond film entirely located in this region of the world, and on the other hand the visual contrast between Egypt and Sardinia is too pronounced for my taste to the point that I have this strange feeling of seeing two films stuck to each other without any link between them. This may be due to the terrestrial scenes in Sardinia, more than anything else. This sentiment would probably have been different if the magnificent underwater scenes were located near the Egyptian coast, whether in the Mediterranean or in the Red Sea.
To be honest, when I was much younger, I loved TSWLM's second half taking place in Sardinia and at sea, having little interest for the Egyptian setting. Guess that's where I got that feeling of having two separate films.
@AstonLotus I wholeheartedly agree.
Prior to TSWLM, they weren't really globetrotting adventures. Not sure what you're talking about there. And in some of the post-Saltzman era, they don't "spend as much time in one location as the plot allows", they create "plots" around the large number of locations they want to visit.
It's because now France and Jamaica don't seem exotic, or are not anymore. That's not a flaw of Fleming's novels, it's an aspect of our time.
Whether the locations are "superb" or not is a matter of taste obviously. I don't really buy the notion that Fleming, opposed to EON's team, did great research. He simply wrote about the places he had been on holiday, which partly explains why Bond repeatedly ventured to Jamaica and the Carribeans as well as southern France. That is not bad in itself, but I object to the idea that Fleming did a better job than EON does.
I am aware of that. The matter of discussion is not only the locations themselves however, but essentially how they are utilized. And France have more "exotic" stuff to offer than Casinoes and beaches.
And adding to that I don't trust anyone who berates Japanese food culture... ;)
I've watched so many YouTube videos that are basically just 20 minute ASMR videos of Japanese chefs cooking wagyu beef and other food; sublime. ;)
The difference between the films and books is mainly that Bond, after finding his adversary, stays put to take him out. In that sense the books are perhaps more 'real'. At the same time it's a fair argument that anyone trying to be a threat to World order i most likely to travel around these days.
He often did. EON nowadays tends to think of a set of locations from different countries and then strings them together for a film, often leaving the viewer feeling he's paid a superficial visit to each. Fleming did not simply write about places he went on holiday. In the case of Jamaica, Switzerland, and France he wrote about places he had years of experience exploring and visiting. In the case of America he undertook research trips across the country and took meticulous notes--the same goes for Japan. He reported for the Sunday Times from Istanbul and took the Orient Express himself before writing about it. He said he had to truly know a place before putting it in his books. I don't get that impression from most of the films, especially when they play hopscotch.
The only time I've been disappointed in a location in a Bond novel is TMWTGG, when Bond yet again ends up in Jamaica. Fleming was so ill he wasn't able to make a research trip somewhere else.
I think it's just that the nature of the work done was vastly different. Yes, Fleming wrote about the places he went on holiday, but when he went to a place, he really dove into it and it's culture. He didn't just go between the beach and his hotel. Have you read Thrilling Cities?
Obviously EON has tons of resources with which to research locations it uses in the films, but Fleming's experience with places, and food, etc., is much more intimate IMO. That's why in the book Fleming can go on and on with his descriptions of settings and food and keep people (me, anyway) engrossed. It's a level of intimacy with the world he's in that EON doesn't have. But, of course, EON has their own way of making you feel like you're in a place which is good too.
So maybe I agree with you that Fleming's work wasn't necessarily "better", but certainly worlds apart, and extremely effective.
Exactly. Eon has a tougher job in that international travel is much more common (well, except for the past year), and to find a unique location is all the more difficult. I will say I am excited by the locations in NTTD (Jamaica for nostalgic purposes) more than I have been for the past three films.
The bottom line: Eon is forced to get more creative than Fleming had to be. Maybe somewhere still largely untraveled and exotic, like Bhutan.
No, it's a lot harder to impress with locations than it once was, but can still impress. I'll point out that the MI series has done a mostly better job in its 25 years than Eon has in that time as far as better showcasing of locations. I think of the motorcycle chase all over Rome in Fallout vs. the pedestrian chase between Bond and Hinx in SP as a glaring example.
MI visited Australia 31 years ago and the Bond series hasn't been there in its nearly 60-year existence. I'm not saying go to a place just because you hadn't been there, but how many times can Eon return to Italy before that goes stale? Craig's Bond is there more than he is England these days.
Yes, this. Fleming started writing in the early 1950s, in austerity Britain. A lot of his readership possibly hadn’t been further afield than a day trip on the ferry to Calais.
Today the world is different. Just within my own circle of friends I know people who have been to Brazil, Antarctica and Indonesia. The difference with Fleming’s time is astonishing.
So Eon do need to think a bit differently. The sense of exclusivity doesn’t reside in the location anymore, but what Bond does there.
This is why casinos work, I think, especially for the character of Bond. Just because someone can now visit Monaco at a drop of a hat doesn’t mean they can play in the high end casino there.
Eon could always adapt Raymond Benson's High Time to Kill (1999), either in whole or in part. It features Bond climbing the third highest mountain in the world, Kanchenjunga and many consider it to be Benson's best Bond novel.