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Quantum of Solace rewritten
I came across this fan rewrite of Quantum of Solace and I thought that I'd share it here with likeminded folk! I think it's pretty awesome, it all makes sense and would definitely have made the film more interesting and possibly more exciting too.
See what you think?
http://vivavigilante.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/for-bond-nerds-only-a-re-imagining-of-quantum-of-solace/
See what you think?
http://vivavigilante.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/for-bond-nerds-only-a-re-imagining-of-quantum-of-solace/
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Comments
The Re-writer wants more or less to change all those nice little subtleties in QOS into blatant slaps in the face. And at the same time tries to change a Bond story into a Bourne story.
No, thanks.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8543496/1/The-Quantum-Trilogy-Book-2-Quantum-of-Solace
Yes, but if Bond had apprehended Yusef himself, they would have ended the story with Bond on the phone with M, similar to CR, and I don't think anyone wanted that.
There definitely had to be government work for the British to go in and get Kabira. Thus, M would have easily been able to enter the country with the correspondence of the Russian (or whatever country it was) government.
Yeah because the Russians are entirely reasonable to requests from foreign intelligence agencies with whom they have a tetchy relationship (at best - Litvinenko/Lugovoy anyone?) to conduct operations on their soil arent they?
The main thrust of the article is sound (even though I dont agree with all his points) - the story shouldve driven by Bond hunting down Yusef.
Although the final scene in Russia is probably the best in the film, its still a bit of a damp squib and as Bondsum says above it really seems like they tagged it on the end because they had completely forgotten they needed to resolve this point.
We should have had Bond getting the info of Greene, tracking him down in Russia, some sort of gritty Bond/Grant or Bond/Trevelayn ruck and then when Bond finally has him in his sights he puts a bullet through his knee instead and takes him in for questioning - although again thats a bit similar to the final scene of CR.
Well, I seem to remember the head of the KGB in the Cold War wandering around an MI6 safe house inside Abu Simbel. Also he pops up Greece not to mention Royal Ascot and M's office.
M seems to spend most of his time of jollies ie Venice, Hong Kong, Berlin, and Key West.
Why is this any different then General Gogol popping up at an after hours Royal Ascot to get his man?
With regards to MI6 being allowed to opperate in Russia I believe @TheWizardOfIce has sufficiently answered that one for me. But as I write I see that @actonsteve has mentioned General Gogol popping up everywhere in defence of M's globetrotting exploits. I have to admit that I never liked the character of General Gogol and was never convinced by his ability to turn up just when the plot required his presence to round off whatever cul-de-sac the writers found themselves in. I do hope this doesn't become the new modern trait as I think I much prefer the cheesy ticking bomb or Bond beds a babe ending to this.
Well firstly all the places you mention Gogol visiting are effectively neutral territory. I dont know what you are going on about with Ascot as Gogol is not in that scene.
He features at the end of OP, AVTAK and TLD in London and NY in an official capacity - but this is very different to him creeping around outisde a block of flats at midnight whilst one of his agents goes to apprehend someone.
Secondly M's 'jollies' are all in friendly countries and not behind the iron curtain - which to the FSB still exists when we are talking about intelligence gathering. This also applies to the Russian government as a whole otherwise why not hand over Lugovoy and who gave the order and the polonium to kill Litvinenko anyway? Hardly the behaviour of an ally.
Thridly all that was in the Rog Bondiverse. We have rebooted and things are a little bit more realistic now - hence the FSB would have about 50 men tailing M the moment she set foot on Russian soil. Unless youre suggesting she opted for some sort of HALO infiltration beneath radar in the dead of night.
And she wouldnt even try going in th first place because if something went tits up the Russians would go mental and our government would look like fools. If just Bond gets caught MI6 can cut him loose saying he went out for revenge because of Vesper.
Has anyone here even been to Kazan? You dont end up there by accidentally taking a wrong turn out of the Moscow Marriot. Literally the middle of nowhere and a pretty irresponsible place for the almost octogenarian head of MI6 to find herself wandering around in the dead of night.
- PTS: The interrogation scene w/ Mr. White is extended to include Mitchel taking Mr. White in one car, and Bond follows in another after the interrogation. All of a sudden the car transporting Mr. White swerves off course at speed. (Mitchel is trying to escape with White), Bond pursues and we get a different car chase involving the local police, Bond, and Mitchel & White. PTS ends with the police getting in Bonds way, White getting away via boat, and Bond having to let them go to evade police.
Titles: I wont get involved with these.
- With Mr. White revealing Quantum, MI6 follows the only lead they have, Kabira, who has recently checked in to a hotel in Bregenz, Austria, so Bond goes off to hunt him down. He traces him to the Opera, where he catches on that they're having a meeting, and Mr. Greene is revealed. The Opera scene plays out nearly as it did in the film, with Bond revealing himself, Quantum scrambling (but not Mr. White), Kabira reveals himself to Bond, and Bond pursues. A quick chase through the Opera, Kabira leads Bond to Mr. Greene on the staircase (as in the film) and Greene's men & Kabira chase after Bond (as in the film). Kabira chases Bond up to the roof (instead of the Special Branch agent) and Bond kills him by throwing him off the roof as in the film after revealing his connection to Vesper via the necklace. Greene, White, and Quantum escape.
- Bond notifies MI6 of Mr. Greene's involvement, and they send him to follow Greene to South America (as in the film). We still see the CIA's involvement with Greene, and the water plan is still in full effect, but is a minor story-line. Bond arrives in South America to meet Strawberry Fields, the British agent on duty in that region. She tries to check them in to a crappy motel to save their cover (as in the film) and Bond swiftly changes that to the swanky, nice hotel (as in the film). Bond travels to the docks to find out more about Greene's operation, while Fields arranges tickets to Greene's party. Bond discovers General Medrano is involved. Bond returns to the hotel, and Fields strikes the 'do you want to go to a party' question, and Bond replies 'we'll need something to wear.. this wont do' as he leans in and kisses Fields, and slowly pulls down the zipper on her dress. They hook up.
- Bond and Fields go to the party, where Medrano makes an appearance. Fields moves in to 'get closer' B-) with Medrano, while Bond approaches Greene. As he makes his way through the crowd, a woman sweeps into his arms and begins dancing him away from the stairs. Bond quickly shoots out a 'Hello...' and Camille introduces herself. We get a similar exchange with the 'Is she your wife?' 'She likes to think so' as Bond refers to Fields. After Camille explains her government ties, and her connection to Greene, she introduces Bond to Greene. Greene immediately drops the ball and says 'Ah, this must be James Bond. British, correct? Camille, you know, he has excellent taste in opera.' Bond replies 'I love a good revenge story' (referencing the play at the opera and hinting at Vesper's betrayal), and Greene isn't amused. He says the line 'Please, my friends call me Dominic' and Bond replies, as in the film, 'I'm sure they do.' Greene retorts 'Well enjoy yourself while your here Mr. Bond, but be responsible. I'd hate for something to ruin such a lovely night.' Still Greene, 'Camille, why don't you keep Bond company and see him back to his hotel, from what I know, you both seem to have a lot in common. What's the expression.. damaged goods?' Bond and Camille go to leave the party, and Bond notices Medrano and Fields are no longer there. The plan must have worked.
- Bond arrives at the hotel with Camille, and he tells her just to drop him off. He's supsicious that Greene with try and get to them and he doesn't want her involved. He makes his way to his room, where he discovers Fields body as he did in the film (but MI6 isn't there). The solid *clank* of metal hitting tile is heard behind him, and he turns to quickly shut his eyes and cover his ears as a flash-bang grenade explodes in the bathroom. Another one rolls through the window, and Bond jumps in the bathtub to suppress the shock of the explosion. The door bursts open, and half a dozen men in military uniforms storm the hotel room. Not seeing him in the tub, he pops up and shoots the two that entered the bathroom. He quickly grabs one of the flash grenades off one of the men and throws it into the room with the remaining attackers. The explosion goes off, and Bond coolly walks into the room as the men scramble to find their bearings. He smoothly walks past them and out the door of the hotel room. He looks down the atrium and spots more men rushing into the hotel, and he hops the rail and evades the men as he did in the film with the MI6 agents. He manages to slip past them and walks out the front door, where Camille pulls up. She had recognized the men after she dropped Bond off, and waited for him.
I'll get back to this later if anyone is interested.. off to work!
No probably dont bother as, unless youre confusing Kabira with Slate, youve just taken the whole emotional arc of the story and and revenge for Vesper and casually tossed it off the roof in the first act.
So all we are left with then is Greene and his underwhelming water scam and Mr White who I am worried that people round here are starting to build up as some sort of Blofeld figure.
Hes a nobody people - the bloke charged with such onerous tasks as setting up a two bit warlord in Uganda with Le Chiffre, going and disposing of Le Chiffre when he got too troublesome and then retrieveing the case. Hes just an odd job man. People even at mid level in Quantum wouldnt be sent to shoot people or fish in canals for briefcases.
Just a quick comment. I feel you may have missed the point on the apprehension of Yusef. He didn't have to capture him, but in the classic Bond sense it's what Bond would have done. For one, he was unarmed and giving himself up so there was no reason to shoot him. Second, the recurring theme M had been pushing with him since he killed Mollaka was that killing comes as a last resort, capturing a bad guy for information is preferable and more productive for MI6, especially in a situation like this where they know virtually nothing. If you kill every link to QUANTUM willing to talk, how do you get information then? Third, while Bond was angry with Yusef for luring Vesper into the situation, Vesper alone made the decision to kill herself. He even says in the beginning of QOS regarding Yusef "No, I'm not going to go about chasing him. He's not important". It's hard to believe it, but at the end of the day Bond just wanted answers from him about Vesper and turned him over to MI6 for whatever else they could learn about QUANTUM from him. It was the professional thing to do. Now if he had killed Vesper himself, no doubt Yusef is a dead man.
He's in the "no one ever leaves to KGB" scene in early morning Ascot in between Paris and San Francisco.
I'd say Britain in the eighties wasn't neutral territory for him.
Fair point. Thats a bit dodgy. But then Russians dont mind circumnavigating the law. No way M is going to risk her hefty pension by doing the same.
As for QoS and changes...
whats the point?
It is what it is.
I would make massive changes to MR and to be frank most of the Brosnan era particularly his last two films.
If we are talking about making changes then lets not confine it to QoS.
At all, if M has the top gear of infiltration at her service, why would it be difficult for her to get into Russia without the Russians noticing?
The Quantum we´ve been presented with so far was distinctive in that it appeared to be not a hierachy but a network organisation, a multi-headed hydra. The Bregenz Opera as meeting place is one beautiful hint at this. So far, there hasn´t been any sign or hint that among the prominent members there are any odd job men or leaders, let alone one singular leader. Quantum is like a group of shareholders, a secret society lead by ideals not by a man.
Exactly. I'm not trying to stifle creativity from anyone and find that level of fandom commendable, but it's not going to change the fact that QOS is QOS as is. Same for MR and DAD, in my opinion they need far more help in the way of a rewrite than QOS. At least QOS has legit excuses that you can point at for it's shortcomings. There is no excuse for MR and DAD being as bad as they are.
But maybe the shots of crapola make DAD and MR what they are..
DAD wouldn't be DAD if we couldn't point at it and laugh at it. The aura of shittiness is almost an identity with DAD. Same with MR although I do love it.
I would stop every action scene ending with a poxy joke though...
As for killing comes as a last resort. Let's not forget that Bond had already interrogated Greene and then abandoned him in the middle of the desert to await his own fate so we'd already experienced the "information is preferable and more productive" arc before Bond took off to Russia. I think the difference between the modern Bonds and the classics is that things are left open and not resolved. We're left to make up our own minds and tie up the loose ends for ourselves. Like I said previously, I think QoS is a pretty good Bond film and doesn't deserve the hate that it seems to garner on these and other forums. Though it does seem that people were expecting much more from this Bond outing than it delivered. But we can't change the past can we?
I still think he should've killed Yusef ;)
Just stuck on my MR DVD. It's bloody annoying. Visually it's stunning (probably one of the very best in the series) but the cheap slapstick ruins it.
There.
How I would've done QOS is a bit like this.
First of, a proper gunbarrel at the start.
Bond is angry over Vespers death, but he's also learned from his mistakes in CR and he's the Bond we all know and love. So he's no longer a rookie.
The whole water plot is gone. The story focuses on Bond trying to find out about and take down Quantum while also trying to hunt down Yusef.
Greene was so god damn terrible. He's not the villian anymore. Mr White can maybe be the main villian, or somebody else.
No shaky cam/bad editing. Take ut some of the action, especially the plane chase.
Change the theme song.
Camille isn't in it. Fields is the main girl. Some other random girl can get shagged and then be killed, but in an original way, not in a stupid GF reference (that was worse than any of the references in DAD).
Whole trust issue, mum/son relationship is gone. M trusts Bond now and for the most part sits behind her desk and lets him get on with it.
Introduce Q and moneypenny.
Interesting. And I agree but liked that he let Yusef live. It demonstrated to me a higher level of understanding and personal growth, he had less reason to allow him to live compared to Greene. But then he knew QUANTUM would do the job for him, he was dead already to them but Yusef was working the Canadian project and was less expendable at that point. Regarding the script, I think everyone right on up to Craig and Forster regret what happened. It should have been postponed or delayed until things were right. I understand all the things involved that made postponement a losing proposition financially as well as the other details. We'll never know how it would have turned out but the effect of the writer's strike is more than evident. The ending worked for me, but many things like enough plot holes that you could drive a semi through left me unsatisfied in 2008 and that hasn't changed. Up until the CR/QOS arc, they mostly wrapped up loose ends. I don't think we'll have that problem with SF.
Back to QUANTUM- when I think about them and their 1960's predecessor, I go back to FRWL as a comparison. We learned a little from DN, we found out in FRWL that there is a head bad guy, but he's a shadowy figure without a name. Bond was chasing his henchman just like he has done with White and Greene at this point. And we still didn't know the extent of the power of the organization then anymore than we know about QUANTUM at this point, the main difference now is of course, who is in charge? They skip SPECTRE in GF but return to the concept in TB and mostly finish them off in the next 6 years. Now they are skipping QUANTUM again in SF and saying that QUANTUM will be revisited. I'm seeing a parallel there and I'm sure most of us have felt the same. So we're back to the script and wondering if we could have gotten more without the circumstances. And to that, I'm not sure. We would have liked more of course, but I think they want us in the dark and asking questions if they intend to follow through with QUANTUM, which at this point I think they still do. So eventually the curtain should open more and more just the same way it did in the 60's.
@ OHMSS- Disagree with the revenge subplot, you can't leave CR unresolved which is what they do without it. I've got my own thoughts on Greene and water, which I attribute to the writer's strike as far as it's eventual lack of effectiveness. Just to make things short as I have to go now, I think the idea was good in concept if it was a trial run in Bolivia. If it works there, they can do this anywhere and worldwide it is a huge moneymaker. Water is very important and I think most of us complaining about it being a part of the plot should consider that when seeing the Bolivians leaving their homes and land behind to go someplace where they could.
'Out of their hands'?
On what level of conciousness are you operating exactly?
Have you ever heard of a bloke called Vladimir Putin? Yeah MI6 are hunting a bloke who's in Russia so there's nothing we can do. Feel free to send in your best agent to take him down. While you're at it why not let the head of MI6 have free reign in our country as well.
I know the Bond films exist in a heightened state of reality but this is, frankly, a preposterous world view.
- Camille takes Bond to one of her agency's safe houses she knows Greene/Medrano are unaware of. It's a nice, one story, pink house that fits the neighborhood. She invites Bond into the living room which she has set up as a portfolio of Greene and Medrano's actions, including maps, receipts, names, pictures, and locations. Bond notices images of some of the men he spotted at the opera, as well as an image of White and of Kabira. He pulls the image of Kabira off it's tack as Camille offers him a drink. 'You know him..?' Camille asks. Bond accepts what he soon discovers to be tequila and begins to explain his situation with Vesper. Camille comments that she had seen Kabira arrive with Mr. White at one of Greene's committee meetings, but it had been some time ago and she didn't have any other information on him. Bond explains to her how it wouldn't matter, seeing as he's already met his end. She allows Bond to continue as she carelessly drops Kabira's image into the trash bin. Bond finishes, and notices something about Camille. He asks her why she's so involved in all of this.
- Camille explains her backstory, about her family dying in the fire started my Medrano, how she joined the service, but only after Medrano had been kicked from power. She explains how she's been out of contact with the agency for the past few months having not real assignment, but she's been tracking Medrano with the resources she has available. That lead her to Greene, who she saw as a way to get to Medrano. She acted as a 'leak' to Greene giving him only information she had confirmed okay with her agency to sell the act. She explains the full effect of Greene's plan to control the water supply in South America. She also explains that she recognized Bond from a discussion Greene had with his men and organization members about the Opera fiasco.
-'He expects me to sleep with you. Then kill you. I'm not sure which would benefit me more, as it seems you like to cause trouble.' Bond replies, 'I simply expose weaknesses, and yours was easier for me than you put on' as he caresses the scar on Camille's back. She smiles, and tilts her head just enough to avoid Bond's kiss. The tone turns serious, and she gazes into Bond's eyes. 'I have to kill him. I have to have revenge; retribution. I have to make my work worth something, and I have to make that bastard feel the pain he's inflicted on others for so long. I need to see him suffer and feel him struggle. And I need you to help me.' Bond pauses, and with a emotional tone in his voice agrees. Camille then asks Bond what is was like to kill Kabira. 'Quick. Too damn quick. I got nothing from it. But he wasn't the one guilty. He was just the bait, to make sure she'd do what they wanted. I need to find her recruiter. The one that picked her from the stack; the one who sealed her fate. The man who lured her to her death, and got away from me in Sienna. That man.' As Bond points to Mr. White. Camille turns to Bond with a hint of excitement. She explains how Greene and Medrano are meeting to seal the deal on their government overthrow at a hotel in the desert. She says Greene has requested a mediator to come to the signing, and that Mr. White is usually the one to turn up. Bond alerts MI6 of Greene and Medrano's plan to overthrow the government, and is given a capture or kill order on both. He doesn't include the details of Mr. White's involvement.
To be continued...
By "out of their hands", I simply meant that Russia would have little to gain because Bond already had Yusuf, and sending in their own man would make little sense.