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Which makes his opinion all the more baffling.
Perhaps, but I'll leaving the reasoning with perdogg.
The Fleming elements that lack in current run of Bond movies, began not at the beginning of the Craig-bond era, but rather in last movie of Brosnan-Bond era, DAD.
First all, Moore's performance as Bond is very close to the Fleming bond simply because of Manicheism that Moore-bond exhibited, something that we really have not seen since near the ending of TWINE. Not only has this Fleming corner-stone element been absent in the current run of films, but also Craig-Bond has been unable to verbally express this element, like he has fruit stone in his mouth. Something that the Producers, perhaps do not believe in or they feel Craig-Bond is unable to express or simply they themselves believe that this notion is not worthy of the modern world. For three movies we have to fail understand why Craig-Bond is even in the 00 section. Where is his motivation? Moore-Bond expressed his motivation.
Second, the Moore-bond through Brosnan-Bond era was Bond centric. Bond was always in control of his situation. He the made decisions right or wrong he sought forgiveness not permission. In OP Bond purchases the The Property of a Lady without asking for permission, why? Because he has demonstrated he can think. If one examines the PTS in SF and compares it with the opening Bratislava sequence with Dalton-Bond in TLD, one would be able to rightfully notice the vast difference. Not only is Bond alone in mind, but rejects the MI6 field handler. The PTS in SF has three supposedly 00 agents (Not sure about Eve) in the field exhibiting incompetence; one agent lay dying, one agent unable to gather the confidence to execute a simple shot - something that she has been trained to do as an agent, and one agent supposedly dead. I guess they did not look for his body after the incident. Simply, why is Bond even here? I still don't understand why three agents were needed. I fail to see any Flemesque elements in this. In fact, SF is reminiscent of Mission Impossible. Craig-Bond is little more than Ethan Hunt. In Thunderball, the DGSE agent in the PTS, who is a part of France's MoD, does not interfere with Connery-Bond. Why? Because Connery is Bond.
Third, the Moore-Bond through Brosnan-Bond era had the social aspects of the Flemingesque qualities that Mme Broccoli no long feels are appropriate for the Craig-Bond. Why isn't Craig-Bond allowed to explore his heterosexuality? Is Male sexuality no longer permitted? Yes we see him in contrived situations since it is part of the Bond canon. In 1969, Lazenby-Bond slept with 3 women in one film, in three movies Craig-Bond has slept with 4 women. One of the women he slept with was to get information. Two incidents of Craig-Bond sex appear to be without any context. There is simply no chemistry between Severine and Bond in SF. Where was the restraint in the Bond sexuality in the Fleming novel? There was none. Why is EON afraid of Bond sexuality? I will not mention the lack of gambling, drinking , and smoking - again some things that Fleming-bond would have loved.
Problems with LTK: The failing Fleming quality to LTK was Dalton-Bond lack duty to the 00 program. The methods of death were more than sadistic, they gave the movie a silly quality that exposed the contrived nature of the story. Then at the end of the movie he let back into the program. To be honest how Flemingesque is this?
Problems with CR: Craig-Bond joining the 00 program then getting emotionally involved in very first mission was problematic for me. In the novel CR Bond has been in 00 section for at least 12 years if we assume he killed the Japanese cypher clerk no later than 1941 and we know from Goldfinger that CR takes place in 1953. This would be unacceptable to Fleming. This does not pass any plausibility test in Fleming-Bond world.
There is only one 00 agent that we know of in SF, it's 007. And by the way, being shot dead is not incompetence, it's being in the trajectory of the bullet.
That is somewhat irrelevant as to whether they are all 00 agents, why not just send 007? The point is, it is no longer Bond centric - Hardly Flemingesque.
Well, you brought up this interpretation that there were more than one 00 involved.
And Bond does not always act alone, not in the movies, and not in the novels. This is why secret service agencies are called agencies, because there are more than one person working for them. That's why Bond meets station agents, contacts, opposite numbers at the CIA or other secret services. Heck, he is sometimes even backed up by whole military troops when required! By your standards, is there any Bond movie that is Bond centric, expect maybe DN?
On topic, Fleming is alive & well with all cinematic incarnations of Bond IMO, what's debatable is the degree of each. I found QOS particularly Flemingesque.
Yes.
Is Fleming still relevant in Bond Movies?. Mabey not. Started with Bond 24 and also in Bond 25 i like to see ''Daniel Craig as Ian Fleming James Bond in'' not be used in the maintitles and as replacement we see before the gunbarel, Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli presents... Daniel Craig will be credit: Daniel Craig as James Bond 007. Jefrrey Wright: Jefrrey Wright as Felix Leiter.
You seem to be looking at a very different aspect than most of us to find references to Fleming. So because Moore/Brosnan played Bond 2 dimensionally for most part, this makes it more like Fleming?
Let me get this straight. So Tarzan yells, invisible cars, inappropriate Beach Boys tunes, double-taking pigeons, underwater tie straightening, Magnificent Seven theme tunes, Bond in space, telling snakes to `hiss off', Wimbledon audiences, etc.....all of this is closer to Fleming than what we saw in CR?
Fleming's Bond was scared of flying. Fleming's Bond made mistakes, Fleming's Bond felt fear, Fleming's Bond got depressed, Fleming's Bond could be motivated by revenge and anger, Fleming's Bond was romantic, Fleming's Bond fell in love.
All of these emotions have been captured brilliantly by Craig, whereas Moore/Brosnan couldn't really portray these elements. Instead they were 2 dimensional action figures for most part, with a bit of silly humour thrown into the mix occasionally.
Fleming's Bond was never `always in control of the situation'. This is were I suspect you've never even read a Fleming novel, because if you had you wouldn't be spouting such drivel.
Fleming Bond doesn't work alone in most of the books - CR (Mathis, Felix), LALD (Felix, Quarrel), MR (Gala Brand), DAF (Felix), FRWL (Kermin Bay, Mathis), Dr. No (Quarrel), GF (Felix), FYEO (Havelock's daughter), Risico (Columbo), TB (Felix), OHMSS (Campbell), YOLT (Tiger), TMWTGG (Felix).
Fleming Bond usually only sleeps with one women per book, so by your reckoning Craig's Bond is beating Fleming's Bond. And you missed out the woman on the beach in SF who Bond slept with, so that makes it 5. And Fleming's Bond didn't always get the girl either (MR). As for gambling, we have seen Craig's Bond gamble far more in CR than any other actor to play Bond. We've also seen Craig's Bond drunk on a plane from drinking too much. He drinks in all 3 of his movies, so I fail to see your point (again), other than Bond smoking.
LTK for me was the closest we've seen to Fleming since 1969. Sadistic nature of deaths? Sounds to me like you haven't even read a Fleming book. Stick to your Moore/Brosnan flicks and let the rest of us enjoy Fleming's Bond.
There is so much to take in here that I'm only able to focus on these two points for now. Regarding LTK I'm afraid that I agree with you (I disagree with many of your other opinions) in the fact that Bond's lack of duty is in fact most suspect. Fleming's Bond is sometimes bitter and depressed but his sense of duty has always been most prevalent. To throw it all away to avenge Felix is not something we ever saw in the novels. I'm not sure what you mean about the sadistic deaths however. Fleming was quite brutal in his portrayal of death sometimes. I also have always hated the ending of LTK. Bond just gets his job back with no consequences whatsoever. This movie wanted to push the envelope but took the safe way out. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
As far as CR goes, it's this type of thing that makes people question whether you have actually indeed read the novels. Bond certainly does get emotionally involved with Vesper. This is an important lesson for him as he finds out he truly can't trust anyone in his line of work and establishes him as a tragic figure. He will never be able to have a healthy, loving relationship as long as he has this job. You seemed to have missed the point entirely here so please do explain what your thought process is behind this reasoning.
Bond is careless with the sniper in TLD, and actually hopes M fires him for it.
With regards the ending of LTK, to be honest I never really even thought about that until now. I thought the story was very like a Fleming novel (it is very reminiscent to TMWTGG), other than Bond having his licence revoked and Bond not following orders. That never really bothered me in this movie, mainly because Dalton's brilliant performance makes up for it throughout, and I really like the script and direction for most part. This is the closest Dalton got to nailing Fleming's Bond, IMO.
You beat me to it Jetsetwilly.
By all means pose the interesting question of 'Is Fleming relevant?' but you need to back it up with a coherent argument.
As pointed out above Perdogg's 'Flemigesque' traits of Bond working alone and shagging lots of women hardly ever happens. In fact:
CR - works with Mathis & Felix/shags one bird.
LALD - works with Felix & Quarrel/shags one bird.
MR - works with Vallance and Gala is an agent/doesn't even get a shag!
DAF - works with Felix/shags one bird.
FRWL - works with Kerim and Mathis/shags one bird.
DN - works with Quarrel/shags one bird.
GF - works (briefly) with Felix/shags two birds.
TB - works with Felix/shags one bird.
TSWLM - works alone/shags one bird.
OHMSS - works with Draco/shags two birds.
YOLT - works with Tiger/shags one bird.
TMWTGG - works with Felix and Goodnight/shags one bird.
I'm not counting the short stories but the pattern of no serial shagging (none confirmed but Mary Ann Russell, Lisl and maybe Judy and Liz?) and working with others (Columbo, Sender, Snowman, Barbey) seems to continue.
If I get right it seems to me he is saying that Moore is more like Fleming than Dan because a) he doesn't work with many people and b) he shags 3 birds every film (both of which are shown up above to be nothing like Fleming).
Bond staring at himself in the mirror bloodied and battered after killing a man with his bare hands or crunching down some pills with a sneer - that is Fleming.
Checking his watch while dressed as a gorilla really isn't.
The one point which, in his flailing way, Perdogg stumbles across which I do agree is his jibe about Bond being Ethan Hunt. He wrongly attributes this to a large team of people working with Bond when the real problem is the ever present ear pieces so everyone can chat to each other throughout in SF and the umbilical cord connecting him to M that means she pops up every 5 minutes in QOS.
This is an aspect I'm really not that crazy about but it's a sign of the times and is only really because they want to get their money's worth out of Dench. And had the technology existed at the time who's to say it wouldn't have featured in the novels? We are now 50 years away from the novels so its inevitable that there is a disconnect with Fleming but what is anchoring the character in this era is a Flemingesque portrayal by Dan.
First Never Send Flowers, now Perdogg.... what next? Visit Doncaster on holiday? Go to Greggs if you want really haute cuisine? Vote BNP?
Mr Dragonpol they have a saying in Chicago: 'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action.'
Please refrain from making any more recommendations please old chap I'd hate to have to cut you in half with a circular saw.
Agreed about this but even that, to a lesser extent, was worked into the earlier films - M (and Moneypenny) are listening into Bond's chat with Tanya on the Ferry in FRWL; M comes out to Cairo (with Gogol) in TSWLM; M and the Minister of Defence pop along to Venice in MR; M goes to the trouble of setting up an airborne office in TLD just to oversee a simple training exercise on Gibraltar and he flies out to Florida in LTK just to tell Bond to fly to Istanbul, even though it must be a 16-hour round trip; and Q seems to spend the half of his career travelling around the world to wherever 007 is (Nassau, Japan, Las Vegas, Sardinia, Rio de Janeiro, Greece, India, San Francisco, Isthmus City, Hamburg) just in case he needs a hand!
To be honest the ending was a bit of a cop-out. There's NO WAY there wouldn't be consequences for Bond's actions. Its weird, I like LTK but as a Bond movie - and even as a tribute to Fleming's Bond - it falls short and I'm pretty certain Dalton (you know, the man who starred in it) would agree (he's claimed Kill was "too dour").
Fleming's Bond is sometimes bitter and depressed but his sense of duty has always been most prevalent. To throw it all away to avenge Felix is not something we ever saw in the novels.
I agree with the first part of this
I got the impression Fleming's Bond was a vengeful git but usually it was between him and the enemy. He'd do his best not to let it affect his job. He avenges Felix in LALD but doesn't involve M or Mi6.
Agreed with this 100%. Bond goes way over the line in LTK as he repeatedly commits murder and ruins a long-planned and, presumably, very expensive undercover operation by Hong Kong narcotics into Sanchez. His actions also lead directly to the death of the MI6 agent tasked with bringing him home (I forget his name.)
I think I mentioned this on another thread but there was apparently a line cut from GE (I don't know if it was ever filmed or not) which indicated that Bond's "evaluation" by Caroline in Monaco was to assess whether Bond was fit to return to active duty after going rogue in LTK, thus indicating that he's spent some time on the sidelines as punishment for his behaviour. I can understand why they cut it - probably the right move - but it's a nice idea.
I'll second that.
And I, Ice, would hate to have to bloody that self-same circular saw blade for nothing. T'would indeed be a waste, and think of all the mess you'd have to clean up! I wouldn't wish that upon you.
I think they only way to extricate yourself from this situation would be to recant your love of NSF!
Set the circular saw in motion then, death before treason and heresy against the Gardner Estate!
Theres something noble about a man willing to die for his beliefs, however misguided they may be.
Never Send Flowers is a perfectly good Bondian experiment. I will convince the world of this fact when my monograph is published in July 2013!
I had never heard of that before. That is actually quite fascinating and I certainly wished they had left that in there. I can understand why they cut it as well. At the time LTK (and perhaps even Dalton to an extent) was seen as a failure so they probably wanted to distance themselves from it and start fresh with Brosnan. Looking back at it now though it would have been a great piece of continuity. Oh well.
B-)