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Therefore this comparison feels quite sound to me since theses are the only two times where the performer also had all three.
How sad. But what's really dead is talent. The homogenization of every single thing in the world and the total access to everything is killing talent. "Everyone can do it" is the trend. In literature, in painting, music, all forms of art. Even in politics, as we don't have a single world leader worth its placing. The world today belongs to the mediocre and the bland. All IMO, of course.
I dunno if everyone can do it. I can’t drop beats!
Who can predict the future? Did anyone in 1962 believe that Bond series would be still making blockbuster films in 2020?
Well, everyone can paint by numbers, and everyone who went to school can write, and every person has an opinion, as dumb as it may be. But, as you say, not everyone has the talent, whether it is for writing a brilliant novel or dropping beats or saying something that changes people's perspectives. So I'm in full agreement with you, not everyone can do it. To bad most people don't get behind this reasoning, as it just doesn't suit them.
I would add `young' people, rather than people, but yes I think you could be right - sadly.
Thank you bondsum. At least someone gets the point I was trying to make.
I’m not saying that the aforementioned material can’t be put it into a movie or that you can’t shape a movie around it. But it’s not a foregone conclusion that you can, or that the result would be any good. These are elements. Writing is hard. Making movies is hard. It takes more than saying “why can’t they just...” or “ they can simply...” or “all you have to do is...” Again, this unused material, no matter how interesting, is not an actual plot—they’re elements.
How do you get a Madagascar chase or a Miami airport bomber linked to a card game battle at a casino? How do you get Bond shooting a sniper in Berlin to being on horseback in Afghanistan, dressed in Arab gear?
That's where the script writers earn their money, by linking this stuff together, instead of crudely retconning Fleming by making Blofeld his brother.
Correct. Screenwriters write scripts, and those elements exist in their respective films. What are you getting at?
The further we get from the source the more the fan base has grown into a mass of people who don’t even know what they’re fans of. Bond has long been plagued by self parody, popular film aping, genericism, forced contemporization, and now auteurism so that a lot of the fan base literally dismisses the source, calling people Fleming fanatics, etc.
I would trade any or all of the last three movies for a remake of LALD as a follow up to CR with that film team. Don’t bother posting they already made it and used the best bits, you don’t know what you’re talking about. That book could be remade and organically modernized into a far better film than the original. The same goes for all the books mentioned (and then some for remakes).
Could they make a bad movie out of remaking LALD? Sure.. but Fleming is a better place to start than a P&W treatment. CR proved that as has all of the follow ups.
@Shardlake mentions we're not the demographic that the song is aimed at. He's right, of course, but it begs the question why is the new target audience aimed solely at teenagers of a certain musical persuasion when you have a quinquagenarian in the key role? Do the producers expect Billie Eilish fans to flock to the theatres in their droves like the Duran Duran fans didn't when AVTAK dominated the global charts? I must confess I have no idea how popular Eilish is. I mean is she Taylor Swift or Rihanna popular, or is she more niche than that?
I really don't know, I wouldn't say she fits into the household name bracket they do as her music is more niche, they seem to be going for an artist popular but with credibility.
The younger hipper crowd as opposed to just playing entirely to the masses and handing it to Dua Lipa or Sheeran.
If they'd been going for the masses and across the ages then Sheeran would have been a no brainer (as terrifying as that sounds).
It doesn't feel like they picked her as they were looking to repeat the effect of Adele and Smith, Ed would have been a much better choice for that.
Billies Eilish isn't going to reach the wide demographic that that he would or Adele and Smith did, she is much more of an interesting choice than I was expecting.
“Could” is the word of the day. But I never called anyone a “Fleming fanatic.” I have more respect and admiration for Commander Fleming than you’ll ever know. I am a Fleming fanatic. But crafting a good story is not as easy as saying “just make a good movie with these elements.” I’ve loved the Craig era as it exists, warts and all. I also think that you could remake Fleming’s novels into truer adaptions of the source material. Don’t get self righteous.
You're most welcome @DoctorNo and @jetsetwilly.
You were asking how could this be done. Incorporating Fleming scenes into something else to give it motivation, plot, theme, etc. so I gave you some examples of how it has been done previously (TLD and CR).
And there is no reason to believe it could not be done again, unless you really think it is beyond P&W's talent to give us a film that managed to weave fully adapted incidents, scenes, etc. into one of their scripts - there I may agree with you... ;)
Sanity at last. Give this man a beer.... =D>
Give this man a beer too. =D>
I wasn’t asking “how this could be done.” I was simply stating that it’s not necessarily the case that it can be done with guaranteed success. You have examples of books in which some elements were not used at all or properly exploited. They’re interesting bits but not guaranteed gold until a screenwriter cracks the story.
The original assertion was that there are wholly unadapted Fleming novels, which aside from (TSWLM) is not the case. When pressed, these wholly unadapted books became a collection of unused elements from each book. There are two discussions happening: one is about remaking the books into closer adaptions of the novels. The other, taking unused elements from the books that have been adapted and turning those into new films.
I was just saying that elements of adapted books does not a new film make. You still need a story. Yes, a screenwriter is paid to make it work but that doesn’t mean it will work simply because the elements come from Fleming. Ian Fleming had his own unused material that didn’t make the books.
And like others have already said, forming the basis of a story from unused Fleming material is probably a better way to start than a total blank page by P&W, dreaming up `Fleming re-imagined' - at best with the Skyfall house (which wasn't too bad), and at worst with Blofeld being Bond's lost brother (utterly disgusting).
Of course, nothing is guaranteed success. But I would put more faith in basing a new script around unused Fleming material (TLD short story as a successful blueprint example), than P&W dreaming up another character like Zao, or another Elektra, or another invisible car...
I think it will get plenty of column inches in credible music press, it will get the same kind of exposure that Radiohead would have done but for a younger crowd.
I think it has more chance of being interesting, I don't think it will be bland and vanilla but then again to our ears it could be horrific.
I agree with that but, of course, a screenwriter will still need to craft a large chunk of the film from scratch. The novel “Trigger Mortis” uses an unpublished Fleming story/scenario to great success but Anthony Horowitz still had to invent new things to creat a story. It just so happened that he got it to work. I also think that P & W should be replaced. But we can recognize that they have far less unused Fleming material with which to work than, say, Richard Maibum.
It’s been a lively conversation. I write that with sincerity. No hard feelings, I hope.
No hard feelings at all mate. It's nice to debate with someone who knows what they are talking about when it comes to Fleming.
I'd love to see the Horowitz novels adapted too. They are far better than most of the P&W scripts.