Fleming titles: what's all the fuss about?

Thunderfinger

BAIN123 wrote:

RC7 wrote:

Thunderfinger wrote:

And AVTAK and LTK just four years apart. Yes, SF is definitely the best original title so far.

AVTAK is a great title imo. LTK is simply lazy, they should've ignored the bloody yanks and gone with Revoked. SF definitely gets the best original title accolade for me, too.

Maybe its just me but isn't the phrase "Licence Revoked" somewhat American? I've never heard the phrase here and I'm British.

That is amusing as they blamed the change on Americans misunderstanding the original title, LR.

BAIN123

Apparently people do use the phrase in here in Britain (I just googled it). I've usually heard the phrase "licence withdrawn", which doesn't have the same ring to it.

Ludovico

hildebrand_rarity wrote:

DoubleOhhSeven wrote:

Ludovico wrote:

Not really. Milton Krest is a very different character in the short story and there is no... Hildebrand rarity in.LTK. there's a lot still to adapt, including of course the title.

Right. As far as I know they only aspects from The Hildebrand Rarity that made it into LTK are the name Milton Krest, the Wavekrest, and a man beating his lover with a stingray tail. I'm not sure there's much that could be adapted into a film. The whole story Bond is on vacation.

not much that could transition well to film, i meant.

and I kinda got the same vibe from the movie Krest and the story Krest, especially in the scene with him and Lupe on the boat

They are two very different characters. Short story Krest is way nastier. And far more assertive. And see my above post about what and how.

Walecs

RC7 wrote:

LTK is simply lazy, they should've ignored the bloody yanks and gone with Revoked.

Agree. Both Licence Revoked and the italian title - Private Revenge - are much better.

Ludovico

Walecs wrote:

RC7 wrote:

LTK is simply lazy, they should've ignored the bloody yanks and gone with Revoked.

Agree. Both Licence Revoked and the italian title - Private Revenge - are much better.

Boy that's a great title. Maybe a bit generic, but not nearly as much as LTK. Funny, the Italians translated DAD by Death Can Wait, also a much better title.

Revelator

A while back I went through all of Fleming's chapter titles to see if any could be usable film titles. Below is a list of the most attention-grabbing ones. Obviously not every title will be to everyone's liking, but it's an interesting pool to select from:

A Whisper of Love, A Whisper of Hate

Cards With a Stranger

The Eye That Never Sleeps

Bitter Champagne

We Don't Like Mistakes

The Job Comes Second

Death is So Permanent

The Slaughterer

The Wizard of Ice

The Beautiful Lure

Black on Pink

The Killing Bottle

The Finger on the Trigger

The Long Scream

Reflections in a Double Bourbon

The Pressure Room

Crime de la Crime

The Richest Man in History

Take It Easy Mr. Bond

How to Eat a Girl

When the Kissing Stopped

The Shadower

The Gambit of Shame

Death For Breakfast

Downhill Only

Fork Left For Hell!

Blood-lift

Hell's Delight

The Death Collector

Slay It With Flowers

The Question Room

Blood and Thunder

The Easy Grand

Another candidate might be Fleming's original title for OHMSS--The Belles of Hell.
Before anyone says otherwise, I am not suggesting that the filmmakers simply impose a Fleming title on the material without regard for aptness--we saw how badly that worked out for QoS (which was never a suitable film title in my mind). But once they've finished the film, they might care to look over a list like the one above and see if anything seems fitting.
With regard to original titles, I will say that the filmmakers finally hit upon a good one with Skyfall, but it took a few bad ones (Die Another Day/Tomorrow Never Dies) to get there.

Kananga

Birdleson wrote:

I want to see all Fleming titles used, it is an important part of the legacy, but I'm not in that much of a hurry. Once these final four our gone, I know that I'll feel a sadness. That connection may not mean much to most of you, but it does to me. I doubt that we only have four Bonds left in our future, or 14. Spread them out. I also think everyone of them, used and unused, sound great.
TOMORROW NEVER LIES would have been my choice, as well.
On a side note, TOMORROW NEVER DIES, DIE ANOTHER DAY and SKYFALL are the only EON titles to date that do not have their roots in Fleming or his writings.

You will find that EON might of took DAD from Fleming ;)

http://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=6071&catid=1&t=mi6&s=ltk

Ludovico

Christmas Jones could have been a decent character (maybe not a great one, but a decent one), she was just horribly miscast. TWINE has many other flaws that bugs it down: an overlong PTS (some say it's the best of the series, or the best part of the movie, I always disagreed on that), an inability to decide clearly who is the main antagonist (Apted said it was Elektra, but this underwhelms the way Renard has been built up at the beginning as this formidable uber-terrorist), etc. Christmas Jones is symptomatic of a questionable approach.

Samuel001

Click the link @Birdleson. That's all we know on the subject.

Samuel001

Here is what it says:

3rd April 2008.

When the title of the 20th James Bond big screen adventure was announced, it was reported that it was another of the recent monikers that was not derrived from any Ian Fleming adventures.

At the first press conference for the 2002 film, Pierce Brosnan joked to reporters that they were open to suggestions as they had exhausted original source material. The title was eventually revealed as "Die Another Day".

Producer Michael G. Wilson explained the title was derived from a phrase from a poem by AE Housman, "But since the man that runs away, lives to die another day". Bond utters the phrase when he exposes Gustav Graves is Colonel Moon in disguise.

In letters due for auction later this month, 007 author Ian Fleming wrote to his secretary in 1960 about his upcoming novel "Thunderball" -- and used the exact phrase:

‘I still regret the end of ‘Thunderball’, as my naïve and literal mind would like to know exactly what happened…what about Blofeld (or does he live to die another day?).’

Although this phrase did not appear in his novels, having the title penned by Fleming before the cinematic series was launched may cause some Bond scholars to chalk up "Die Another Day" in his camp after all.

Dragonpol

Samuel001 wrote:

Here is what it says:

3rd April 2008.

When the title of the 20th James Bond big screen adventure was announced, it was reported that it was another of the recent monikers that was not derrived from any Ian Fleming adventures.

At the first press conference for the 2002 film, Pierce Brosnan joked to reporters that they were open to suggestions as they had exhausted original source material. The title was eventually revealed as "Die Another Day".

Producer Michael G. Wilson explained the title was derived from a phrase from a poem by AE Housman, "But since the man that runs away, lives to die another day". Bond utters the phrase when he exposes Gustav Graves is Colonel Moon in disguise.

In letters due for auction later this month, 007 author Ian Fleming wrote to his secretary in 1960 about his upcoming novel "Thunderball" -- and used the exact phrase:

‘I still regret the end of ‘Thunderball’, as my naïve and literal mind would like to know exactly what happened…what about Blofeld (or does he live to die another day?).’

Although this phrase did not appear in his novels, having the title penned by Fleming before the cinematic series was launched may cause some Bond scholars to chalk up "Die Another Day" in his camp after all.

Wowsers. That's very interesting to know; thanks for posting that, @Samuel001!

Samuel001

You're welcome but please thank @Kananga. He posted the link.

Ludovico

But was this intentional?

Walecs

Ludovico wrote:

But was this intentional?

My exact question. If this was done on purpose, hell, that's an incredible discovery!

pachazo

Ludovico wrote:

Christmas Jones could have been a decent character (maybe not a great one, but a decent one), she was just horribly miscast.

Agreed. Furthermore, I don't think that Denise Richards would have been as annoying if she wasn't supposed to be a nuclear physicist. She certainly wouldn't have been my first choice to be a Bond girl but if they really wanted her to be in the film they could have created a more believable profession for her.

Dragonpol

Samuel001 wrote:

You're welcome but please thank @Kananga. He posted the link.

Sorry, my thanks to @Kananga too, then.

Ludovico

pachazo wrote:

Ludovico wrote:

Christmas Jones could have been a decent character (maybe not a great one, but a decent one), she was just horribly miscast.

Agreed. Furthermore, I don't think that Denise Richards would have been as annoying if she wasn't supposed to be a nuclear physicist. She certainly wouldn't have been my first choice to be a Bond girl but if they really wanted her to be in the film they could have created a more believable profession for her.

I won't say which profession I am thinking about.

Dragonpol

Ludovico wrote:

pachazo wrote:

Ludovico wrote:

Christmas Jones could have been a decent character (maybe not a great one, but a decent one), she was just horribly miscast.

Agreed. Furthermore, I don't think that Denise Richards would have been as annoying if she wasn't supposed to be a nuclear physicist. She certainly wouldn't have been my first choice to be a Bond girl but if they really wanted her to be in the film they could have created a more believable profession for her.

I won't say which profession I am thinking about.

The oldest profession of 'em all, eh? That'd be about right.

Ludovico

Dragonpol wrote:

Ludovico wrote:

pachazo wrote:

Ludovico wrote:

Christmas Jones could have been a decent character (maybe not a great one, but a decent one), she was just horribly miscast.

Agreed. Furthermore, I don't think that Denise Richards would have been as annoying if she wasn't supposed to be a nuclear physicist. She certainly wouldn't have been my first choice to be a Bond girl but if they really wanted her to be in the film they could have created a more believable profession for her.

I won't say which profession I am thinking about.

The oldest profession of 'em all, eh? That'd be about right.

I was actually thinking about a, shall we say, exotic dancer.

Dragonpol

Ludovico wrote:

Dragonpol wrote:

Ludovico wrote:

pachazo wrote:

Ludovico wrote:

Christmas Jones could have been a decent character (maybe not a great one, but a decent one), she was just horribly miscast.

Agreed. Furthermore, I don't think that Denise Richards would have been as annoying if she wasn't supposed to be a nuclear physicist. She certainly wouldn't have been my first choice to be a Bond girl but if they really wanted her to be in the film they could have created a more believable profession for her.

I won't say which profession I am thinking about.

The oldest profession of 'em all, eh? That'd be about right.

I was actually thinking about a, shall we say, exotic dancer.

Oh, in that case please forgive my rather fevered imagination, @Ludovico!