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You see you'd be taking away what made the novel original and distinct from a typical Bond story, so I do not see the point of making it spinoff if you just make a Bond film with less Bond. Surely you might as well ditch that spinoff if you're not even bother making it a spinoff. Because they've already made a loosely adapted film of TSWLM nearly 45 years ago.
As for your Star Trek analogy, it's a false equivalence: Star Trek is the pitch perfect example of an open universe, in a sci-fi setting on top of that, with complete new species, cultures, etc. You can literally create a brand new race as you go along. And even then, as soon as Star Trek lost popularity and they struggled to bring new ideas in new series... they decided to go back to the old ones.
True, it would be more of a one-off, which I would not be against. Not every non-Bond installment needs to become a sub-franchise. I give props to LucasFilm for ROGUE ONE essentially being a one-off story (even though I personally didn’t care for) instead of trying to make something they could make more sequels out of.
I think it’s absolutely DUMB that WB is aiming to make a sequel to JOKER after all the PR about how it’s a one-off. But of course it made a billion dollars, so they can’t help themselves.
"Another 80 million dollar write-off!"
He's talking about the Truman-Lodge spin-off's box office performance. ;)
It's almost impossible nowadays to do a genre movie without a possible sequel. I'm surprised nobody tried to do a sequel to A Clockwork Orange yet (well, Burgess did, in a way, with The Clockwork Testament, but it was pure meta and not a sequel per se). Anyway, I'd be interested enough to watch a faithful adaptation of TSWLM, but I suspect I'd be the only one watching it in the theatre. And I seriously doubt it's viable, even as a one off: a low key crime story where Bond has a mere cameo? Lengthy time spent on the background of the main character, before the inciting incident? A lot of the (non) action spent in Windsor and Maidenhead? And that's if they don't muck it up, by adding more action or instead of a Quebecker, casting an American or a French actress as Vivienne Michel.
I think my proposition of a Mrs Bell spinoff is better. Just think of all the exciting pilot lessons she must have had! ;)
I imagine we've already seen her most exciting pilot lesson in Live and Let Die making such a spin-off series redundant. However, I think you are jesting? :)
I'm thinking watercolor painting. Music lessons for piano, guitar, maybe ukulele. Yoga. Scrap-booking. Quilting. Home brewing.
Probably would dabble in experiments like on-line dating, hoping for the best. It would be fun to see her take a driver's exam trying to get her license (or get it back).
So not sure 5 episodes would do it.
Really?? :O Why would you think that? ;) ;))
I just saw that glint in your eye! ;)
Back to controversy: Is Octopussy one of the “serious” Bond films? Or one of the fantastical, over the top ones?
That's an interesting question as on the outside, it's a fantastical romp but it does have the Dexter Smythe connection to the book and there is some dialogue about Bond giving Dexter Smythe an "honourable alternative" for his death, so on the inside it's rather serious I suppose. Never thought about that before.
If I was to do a spin-off I think I'd do The Man With The Golden Gun. A sort of Hannibal/Bates Motel/Americans style TV show about an antihero, following the rise of Scaramanga as he becomes the world's greatest assassin. Base it on the film version to some extent (give him the same golden gun for example) but like those other TV shows or Joker or whatever, don't be constrained by fitting the exact continuity. So the new lead wouldn't have to be a Christopher Lee lookalike. In fact Mads Mikkelson would be perfect, if he hadn't already done Bond! :)
He's basically the anti-Bond anyway, so this way you get a Bond spin-off where the main character is kind of a Bond substitute and lives in the world of 007 (expensive travel, fast cars, beautiful women, gadgets, assassination), but is still his own character and actually quite an iconic figure on his own, separate from Bond. So you feel like you're watching something that is in Bond's world, but I don't think you'd feel the absence of 007 himself, which I think you might do with a Leiter spinoff or whatever. He's even got a pretty decent John Barry theme tune which you could adapt, Bond theme-style.
And you could open it with a gunbarrel sequence- a golden gunbarrel sequence where the guy who turns around in the middle of the screen gets shot dead :D
For me, it's the perfect blend of both, and what makes it my personal favorite Moore era movie and one of my favorite Bond films. There's a thread asking if it's the most fun Bond movie and it's up there.
There's criticism, deserved, about the silliness of the Tarzan yell and "Sit", most of the tuk-tuk chase and the crocodile sub. But the more serious aspects and the action help elevate it past that, which is where a film like AVTAK really suffers.
But I think most have moved past the Moore in clown outfit bit as the disarming of the bomb is one of the most tense such sequences in the series. It's greatly helped by Bond not being isolated or with a few colleagues as he disarms something, but a whole audience of innocent people hanging all their fears on his skills. People congratulating him and no cheap quip is a nice change of pace.
Yeah I agree there and it's a good question from Junglist. It straddles those two tones of its immediate predecessors FYEO and MR really well- not too serious that it becomes dull and but not too funny that it becomes silly and eliminates the tension and sense of danger.
Plot-wise I think it's great (good enough for Forsyth to nick for The Fourth Protocol!) but I think it suffers slightly in Kamal Khan having no apparent motivation other than being generically evil.
Yes that bit where Bond passes him in the car on the way to the circus always sticks in my mind: he wants Bond to be too late and for the bomb to go off. He actually wants to start World War 3 in order to... steal some money? Seems to be using a sledgehammer to crack a Faberge egg somewhat.
I wonder if it wouldn't have been a better ending if Orlov had been the main villain and Bond had convinced Khan to turn on him because he didn't realise he was starting WW3. But then I guess that what's happens with Octopussy herself to some extent- you can't have them all duping each other.
It is absolutely a bit of both, and that is what (in my opinion) makes it one of the stronger films in the series. Moore is also really the only Bond to make bridge that gap so seamlessly that it all feels like one cohesive whole rather than the two separate films it in some ways is.
It's hard to say. I think Moore had the least consistent tenure in many ways: he started with low key adventures
borderline b movies, then switches to epic sci-fiextravaganza then back to Cold War dramas and ends with an almost techno thriller (with too much comedy). Every other Bond actor may have been in Bond films of varying quality, but they remain more consistent overall. And this is not criticism of Moore or his tenure, I'm fact I think he's the most adaptable of all the Bond actors, but it makes it difficult to pinpoint what is a quintessential Moore Bond.
I certainly agree with that. In many ways, in my own personal view, it's the perfect Bond film- I'm not entirely sure they come any better.