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I agree, but they seem to think they can produce quality stories and scripts in-house. Foolish.
I don't know if there really is. The Gardner books are now pretty dated (Licence Renewed turns 40 this year) and most of the recent continuations are deliberate period pieces. Why pay extra for a screenwriter to update and adapt a pastiche to film when he/she can just write an original, modern pastiche for the screen instead? There isn't a single continuation novel that wouldn't require extensive rewriting before it could appear onscreen, and since they're all non-Fleming, none have a truer connection to the character than what a screenwriter could concoct.
And since the Bond books and films form their own sort of mini-genre, they generate lots of shared concepts and conventions that appear throughout different writers' works. Instead of going to the trouble of adapting what a continuation novelist has done, you can take the basic concept behind it--which is a generated by the expectations of the genre and not copyrighted--and use it your own way.
Also, a modern Bond film is far from being structured like a novel--it's a series of stunts and visual concepts ("bumps" as Hitchcock called them) strung together by a plot. The continuation novels wouldn't be a great supply of ideas for those action sequences.
There's lots to be mined from the Gardner books - lord knows the numerous Nazi plots would still work today - but I can't see them directly adapting his novels, which are rather clunky.
Benson's novels were written to be movies - it'll remain a damn shame that High Time to Kill was never made into a Craig film. Since most of his villains are nationalists who exploit old tensions between various nations, his novels could be easily updated for 2020's geopolitics.
I like Carte Blanche a lot, and am looking to give Solo another shot - both of these novels heavily involve the continuing European influence in modern Africa. I liked Solo for it's imperialist plot that the author intended to be problematic - imagine a Bond film where he is ordered to assassinate an African "rebel" only to find that the Brits intend to replace the rebel with a dictator. Bond could go rogue and help expose the scandal. (It's not like we didn't pull this stuff....all the time...in Africa, South America, and elsewhere!)
Great post. And yet...CR in 2006 showed how a Bond plot can be driven by character, as spooled out in novelistic fashion. It wasn't really about parkour or poker, it was about betrayal. And as a result, the film was layered and richer. Same with OHMSS and its focus on duty.
I think it's a fair question whether any of the continuation novels even approach Fleming. Many seem unworthy of adaptation. When Bond gets married and betrayed in the Gardner novels, it doesn't pack the punch of a CR or OHMSS...not even close. It feels like a simulacrum of Bond.
Even CS, widely regarded as the best of the continuations, feels at times distant and condescending.
This is why I think the future Bond films should again think about re-adapting the books and short stories in a novel way, updating them like CR. Fleming's novels have a pulse that can only come from the creator of Bond.
When Bond mentions a Concierge he doesn’t seem to be joking. Gourmet meals galore it seems in that prison!
There are a lot, indeed. You can find a complete list here :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond#Novels_and_related_works
Oh, and BTW, the first four Gardner novels have been mined in AVTAK and TLD. Just so you know.
Well Australia was used as one of the locations in Raymond Benson's Zero Minus Ten (1997). It featured Bond in an Outback scene using his wits and ingenuity to survive. I also recall reading a letter to Ian Fleming in The Man with the Golden Typewriter (2015) where the person suggested Fleming write a Bond novel set in Australia. I agree that it has plenty of untapped potential as a Bond film location.
The Tarzan yell bit: I actually like it. Sure it's over the top and silly, but so is the Magnificent Seven theme in MR.
Another controversial opinion on this topic-
I don't believe James Bond himself is intended to be performing the Tarzan yell, it's just an audio joke inserted.
It's as unacceptable to me as is the whistle in TMWTGG.
The moment in OP is over as quickly as it begins. As much as I hate it, I equally hate how much people allow those 4-5 seconds to color their entire opinion about the film (not accusing you of this -- this is more common with like, mainstream critics working for Guardian or something).
I’m not that offended by either of these moments. It’s the Dolly and Jaws meeting scene in MR that really pushes Bond into parody for me.
Oh no, absolutely not. I love OP. I would never let that Tarzan yell spoil the fun I'm having with the movie. OP ranks rather high on my list.
What I hate, though, is this. In all seriousness, some of Roger's Bonds are silly obstacle courses one can only navigate with the endurance of a true Bond fan, yet we all love those movies. But a film like SP is spat on and vilified for its weaker plot, the "brother" angle and, according to some, poor acting, weak action--whatever. My point is that it feels to me, correctly or not, that some "classic" Bonds get away with pretty much everything while the latest entry in the series takes a beating like the new kid in the playground. Hence some of the weirdest rankings ever, including NSNA beating SP and whatnot. Of course, this isn't an exact science, and I'm well aware of that. We all have our opinions. Yet I still cannot shake off the strange feeling that SP is being molested because it smells after the final puffs out of a can of deodorant, while certain films that stink like rotten fish are celebrated because "it has Connery at his best" or "the stunt work was awesome!"
And I get it, I do. I love all the Bonds, including the most nonsensical ones like DAF, AVTAK, TMWTGG and DAD. I shall proudly defend them whenever they are attacked by outsiders. But oh boy, SP is sometimes treated as the worst thing since Hiroshima, as barely a movie, as some rough cut you wouldn't release even with a shotgun to your head.
I'm sure it'll get better. Let's just give it some time. QOS took some serious beating too and has since been thoroughly re-evaluated. Still, we're all giving OP a pass despite the clowns, appalling Indian street jokes, horse's asses, tigers, circus acts, monkey suits, wait-who's-got-the-real-egg-now?, crazy Russian generals and more. So do I; the film bloody rocks! Yet poor SP, not too different from the acclaimed SF, is somehow the worst Bond film ever made. It's a strange hysteria which I just don't understand. It makes no sense to me. I don't expect people to call it the best Bond ever made--I mean, come on--but I can't help feeling that different yardsticks are being used...
For me, as someone who *does* currently rank SP a bit below NSNA (not by much, mind you), it has to do with so many factors that I couldn't possibly fit into a forum post. The short of it is is that the feeling I get when watching SP simply doesn't come anywhere close to the feeling I get when I watch OP.
A lot of it is assessing a movie within the context of the time it was made. A *huge* part of it is who is playing Bond. What's a good example here. MR's "flaws" would have been more egregious with Dalton in the role. This isn't the same as saying "we're giving it a pass because we hold Roger to a lower standard." Just the opposite. It's because Moore is so good at inhabiting Bond (indeed, he and Connery are the only two actors in the series who I truly see AS James Bond, they truly *become* the man rather than portray the man) that he makes these aspects permissable.
Because, if we get down to it, "objectivity" is horribly difficult to get to in film. There is nothing inherently, objectively wrong with, say, the "brother" angle in SP. There is nothing objectively "bad" about a double-take pigeon. Everything must be looked at within context. And there is always SO much context in every Bond film. History, society, culture, the industry, the actor playing the role, the script, the last thirty minutes, the following thirty minutes.
tl;dr -- The horse's ass isn't a flaw because it exists in a world where the horse's ass is something James Bond would actually be using. Moore makes it believable and real. And, furthrmore, even if these moments do bother you (like Tarzan yell bothers me) they are fleeting. They don't last long. Now, if someone thinks Roger Moore is a TERRIBLE James Bond, they're likely to think the entire film sucks and that everything is egregious, right? It's all contextual. Lastly, OP is just exciting and is full of exciting filmmaking whereas SP feels very tired to me, as though Mendes and company just couldn't wait to be done with it. I would be happy to talk more about this. It's a very interesting subject.
I really appreciate your thoughts and, again, we do agree on a lot of it.
I guess my entire post was to say that of course we are using different yardsticks, but I don't think said yardsticks are being applied unfairly (if that makes ANy sense at all, lol). In other words, I don't think I judge Craig's films any harsher than I judge Moore's. If that were the case, I wouldn't have 2 of Craig's 4 films higher than all but 1 or maybe 2 of Moore's entries. I simply judge them with different criteria.
First off, props to DarthDimi for a worthy point of discussion.
ThighsofXenia, you stated exactly what I think about this. I think it comes out of expectations or what we're set up for. When looking at something like SP, we came into it with big expectations following the success of SF - that film's director coming back, the return of Bond's greatest enemy and the teaser with hints of the OHMSS theme setting us up for what we hoped was something to rival that film in terms of scope, entertainment and it was a disappointment overall.
I don't hate SP. In some ways I enjoy it more than SF in some ways, but the ways it disappoints is tougher to take than what was basically to be expected in a typical Moore film. I get more annoyed at films like TWINE or AVTAK where the tone is all over the place.
But it's also funny that it was mentioned about QoS being reevaluated. I liked it from my first viewing and have always rated it higher than most, but can understand where others would be disappointed in it following the standard CR set.
SP is boring and no fun whatsoever, and compounds this by including the Blofeld foster brother stuff which is not only stupid but threatens the entire premise of James Bond 007 - that he is a professional employed by the British government dispassionately. That is why it attracts so much hate.
Whatever the defects of every film prior to SP, they mostly manage to be fun (in whatever way they attempt - by being either thrilling, spectacular, funny, silly etc. They all manage at least one or two of these qualities even if they have other weak aspects). SP fails on each one of these counts.
Other Bond movies have weak elements or bad moments. But they are not weak or bad films overall. SP is.
I do concede that the fact that it is STILL the most recent Bond movie means it gets more flak, and that in the future the hate against it will soften.
How does the foster brother thing threaten the idea that Bond is a professional dispassionately employed by the British government?
That's a good question. My feeling is that Bond getting emotionally involved in a mission is one thing, but him being intimately related to the enemy of humanity takes the impersonal professionalism out of the equation. Many commentators have equated Bond with St George defeating the dragon, going out there to defend us from external enemies. I can't imagine the myth of St George would have the same relevance if the dragon and George were somehow related, or knew each other, or grew up together. (No idea how that would work by the way! lol).
I hope that makes sense. The appeal of Bond is that he is a professional, not related to the bad guys.
Put it this way, if Mi6 knew he grew up with Blofeld, then they wouldn't or shouldn't employ Bond to take him down. (obviously in the film this isn't the case).
You could argue that they shouldn't send him out to get Blofeld after Tracy has been killed. But the films sort of fudge that, don't they? It's not even clear if Bond is avenging Tracy in DAF.
Well, the answer to the question is "It doesn't at all"!
You have to remember that this is a series where in the books, M's bridge acquaintance wants to destroy London with a missile, Japanese gods summon Bond to kill his mortal enemy in a massive coincidence, and Bond is set on the trail of Goldfinger first by chance encounter with a character from an old book, and then again by his boss.
It's a series where his ex-girlfriend married a guy who's gonna start World War 3. And M's best friend's daughter is going to kill millions of people in Istanbul. Where MI6 agents like Trevelyan and Silva apparently become supervillains with some regularity.
Crazy coincidence and massive personal melodrama have been with the series for quite some time. I actually prefer Spectre's approach of having the goofy mythical and meta quality of just making Blofeld a figure from Bond's past. It's a lot more fun for me than MI6 agents going bad all the time.
I think Spectre is hated mostly because the internet has made fans whinier and more entitled. Mark O'Connell recently did a big survey of fans, and found QOS, DAD, and SP to be the worst Bond films, which is kind of silly. EON have not suddenly become very bad at making these things. The folks who hate those movies are probably not going to like the next one all that much, or if they do, they won't like the one after that.
If you think people don't like QoS and SP because the internet has made them whinier then we won't agree at all.
I don't mind chance encounters. I do mind Bond growing up with and being a foster brother to Blofeld. That's the step too far for me. And I know lots of Bond fans agree.