Bond film cross-reference table

TokolosheTokoloshe Under your bed
edited February 2014 in Bond Movies Posts: 2,667
An idea that has been brewing in the back of my mind for some time, mainly because I can't work out the best way to manifest it.

Would it be possible to create a table of all 23 films, listing connections or similarities between them? All film names listed on both axes of the table, showing ways in which the Bond films have things in common with each other, ranging from actors to plot elements to locations or just tiny moments which are unique to those two films in the canon. For example:

- TB and YOLT: Pretence of Bond's "death" in PTS

- LALD and LTK: David Hedison as Leiter

- YOLT and TMWTGG: Sumo wrestlers

- TMWTGG and SF: Macau

- DN and SF: visual joke of recently stolen painting

- CR and SF: Rain

- GF and AVTAK: same plot (!)

- DAD would be a fairly easy column to fill...

Anyone know of a way to put all the information into one clear table?
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Comments

  • YOLT, TSWLM, and MR: All had pretty much the same plot.

    YOLT, TSWLM, TND: Bond in his Naval uniform.
  • TokolosheTokoloshe Under your bed
    Posts: 2,667
    Those are valid points but they wouldn't work with the cross-table idea. The point is to find commonalities between exactly two films and no others.
  • Tokoloshe wrote:
    Those are valid points but they wouldn't work with the cross-table idea. The point is to find commonalities between exactly two films and no others.

    Gotcha

    -TSWLM and MR: Jaws

    -DN and LADL: No Q

    -DN and LALD: Quarrel/Quarrel Jr.
  • TokolosheTokoloshe Under your bed
    Posts: 2,667
    Yep, points 1 and 3 are valid but CR and QOS don't have Q in them either. That would have worked as a point before 2006 :)
  • edited February 2014 Posts: 1,778
    Tokoloshe wrote:
    Yep, points 1 and 3 are valid but CR and QOS don't have Q in them either. That would have worked as a point before 2006 :)

    Okay. "No Q in the original continuity". And FRWL has a pretense of Bond's death in PTS aswell. So I'm not sure if your first point counts.
  • TokolosheTokoloshe Under your bed
    Posts: 2,667
    Yep you got me there, so scratch that one. I think the full table might take some time to compile, but nothing beyond the capability of the MI6 community!
  • Posts: 6,396
    Sheriff J.W. Pepper - LALD & TMWTGG
  • Posts: 6,022
    TB and AVTAK : Bond is in France.

    OP and TND : Bond is in Germany.
  • Posts: 4,622
    Can't we consider Peter Burton as Major Boothroyd to be Q in DN?

    "- TB and YOLT: Pretence of Bond's "death" in PTS"
    we get this in the FRWL pts as well.
    Harry Saltzman apparently liked to play with the notion of Bond being dead. Bond in a coffin in DAF is another manifestation of this tendency.

  • edited February 2014 Posts: 1,009
    MR and FYEO: Passkeys on locked doors play popular movie music cues (Close Encounters of The Third Kind and TSWLM).
  • TokolosheTokoloshe Under your bed
    edited February 2014 Posts: 2,667
    The best way to approach this might be to break it down by film, so here's a start:

    DR. NO connects with...

    FRWL - direct reference to Dr. No character. The only reference in a Bond film to a different villain from a previous film (?). (Edited: Nope, scratch that, M talks about Le Chiffre in QOS.)

    FRWL - Sylvia Trench

    TB - Leiter follows Bond in early scenes before introducing himself

    TB - Use of a Geiger counter

    YOLT - Western actors portray Oriental characters (Miss Taro, Bond as Japanese fisherman)

    LALD - Quarrel and Quarrel Jr.

    TMWTGG - Use of / reference to using cushions in a bed as a fake body

    TWINE - Henchman/woman commits suicide rather than be captured

    DAD - Bond girl emerges from the sea in a bikini

    SF - Visual in-joke of a stolen painting

    Any more for Dr. No?
  • edited February 2014 Posts: 1,009
    "Plans are nothing. Planning is everything."
    (Ike Eisenhower)

    Good way to approach the issue, @Tokoloshe. Let's center on Dr. No. Are behind-the-cameras tropes and facts welcome, too?
  • TokolosheTokoloshe Under your bed
    Posts: 2,667
    My gut feeling is that once you start getting into things like that, the subject becomes enormous. Perhaps the topic should be limited to things that are visible on-screenrather than facts about the film, if that makes sense?
  • Tokoloshe wrote:
    My gut feeling is that once you start getting into things like that, the subject becomes enormous. Perhaps the topic should be limited to things that are visible on-screenrather than facts about the film, if that makes sense?

    OK
  • TubesTubes The Hebrew Hammer
    Posts: 158
    Both schemes in DN and YOLT involve directly sabotaging NASA.
  • Dr. No connects with:

    OHMSS - We hear "Underneath The Mango Tree" again as Old George retrieves Honey's knife from his drawer ("Thanks, Mr. Obvious", they answered).

    OHMSS - Saltzman and Broccoli's credits inserted in the gunbarrel sequence.

    LALD: Bond goes to Jamaica

  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,348
    I think it would be a neat idea to do this, yes. For an example of how one would go about doing it please see Raymond Benson's The James Bond Bedside Companion (1984, 1988) where the future Bond continuation author who makes a table of the similarities between YOLT and TSWLM - you could add TND to that now, too.
  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    Posts: 14,689
    DN & LALD- the main villains share the title of 'Doctor' (in the EON films, at least).
  • Posts: 4,622
    Tokoloshe wrote:
    The best way to approach this might be to break it down by film, so here's a start:

    DR. NO connects with...

    FRWL - direct reference to Dr. No character. The only reference in a Bond film to a different villain from a previous film (?). (Edited: Nope, scratch that, M talks about Le Chiffre in QOS.)

    FRWL - Sylvia Trench

    ....
    etc.
    This is a very interesting approach which keeps things clear, focused and neatly organized by film - and if we methodically work through the films from DN forward, the lists get shorter as each new film will only be looking ahead, as its connection with past films will have already been established.

  • Posts: 6,396
    Dr. No connects with:

    OHMSS - We hear "Underneath The Mango Tree" again as Old George retrieves Honey's knife from his drawer ("Thanks, Mr. Obvious", they answered).

    OHMSS - Saltzman and Broccoli's credits inserted in the gunbarrel sequence.

    LALD: Bond goes to Jamaica

    That's an excellent link.
  • Napoleon (Bonaparte) referenced in dialog:
    DR. NO
    A VIEW TO A KILL
    THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
  • edited February 2014 Posts: 1,778
    OHMSS and CR- Bond uses a mirror to tend to the facial wounds he just got in a fistfight.
  • edited February 2014 Posts: 1,009
    Going further into Dr. No's connections:

    LALD: Two main foes' powerful mechanical prostetic parts/weapons end up bringing them to their ultimate demise.





  • TWINE and SF:
    -MI6 is attacked early on in the film
    -an extended chase through London
    -villain is specifically trying to kill M
    -M had betrayed the villain in the past
    -MI6 relocates to emergency HQ
    -Scotland
    -villain's main lair is located on an island (Maiden's Tower)
    -Istanbul

    I'm pretty sure there are more
  • TokolosheTokoloshe Under your bed
    Posts: 2,667
    Istanbul is also in FRWL and Alec Trevelyan also follows the 'betrayed by MI6' theme.

    Anyway I think Dr No may be complete for now, so let's move on to connections between FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and later films. I'll start with:

    OHMSS - a game of chess in progress.

    Off you go...
  • Posts: 19,339
    TSWLM : Bond has challenging fights on trains.
  • edited February 2014 Posts: 1,009
    GF: Robert Brownjohn in charge of the credits sequence

    DAF: Blofeld's Cat has a meal on camera

    OP: A traitor opposing modernization attempts on the USSR causes quite a lot of trouble

    AWTAK: Bond uses the expression "From Russia With Love" (written as a dedicatory to Moneypenny in 1963, he jokes with the Gendarmerie in 1985. Deleted scene)

    DAD: Catfight!!! (Just kidding in this one)
  • Posts: 6,022
    YOLT : Scene shown at a training facility (for SPECTRE in FRWL, ninjas in YOLT)
  • Posts: 15,234
    Tokoloshe wrote:
    The best way to approach this might be to break it down by film, so here's a start:

    DR. NO connects with...

    FRWL - direct reference to Dr. No character. The only reference in a Bond film to a different villain from a previous film (?). (Edited: Nope, scratch that, M talks about Le Chiffre in QOS.)

    FRWL - Sylvia Trench

    TB - Leiter follows Bond in early scenes before introducing himself

    TB - Use of a Geiger counter

    YOLT - Western actors portray Oriental characters (Miss Taro, Bond as Japanese fisherman)

    LALD - Quarrel and Quarrel Jr.

    TMWTGG - Use of / reference to using cushions in a bed as a fake body

    TWINE - Henchman/woman commits suicide rather than be captured

    DAD - Bond girl emerges from the sea in a bikini

    SF - Visual in-joke of a stolen painting

    Any more for Dr. No?

    QOS: -SPECTRE and Quantum have the same ethic, as stated by the main villains in each respective movie. Dr. No says that East and West are all points of the compas, while Greene mentions that Quantum deals with the left, the right, etc. Similar place in the globe, ending that involves lots of explosions.
  • edited February 2014 Posts: 1,009
    TB: Blofeld's head is not seen at all, and he's portrayed by Eric Dawson.

    OP: A billboard is used as a secret entrance/exit

    [Non-canon] NSNA: Bond's Bentley is seen on camera.
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