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The Craig era - back to the source?

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  • ProfJoeButcherProfJoeButcher Bless your heart
    edited May 2020 Posts: 1,711
    mtm wrote: »
    shamanimal wrote: »
    There are lots of similarities in plot lines, and every time this topic comes up I see people reaching for links. "He uses a telescope to see the ship in such and such a book, and in the film he uses a telescope when he's on the boat" etc. A lot of this could be put down to coincidence.
    I'm more interested in proper homages to the source material, like his parents graves, his Scottish roots, or the proper recipe for his martini. These are definite things that could only be gleaned by going to the books. I'd much rather the series throw in these occasional scraps, than get it stupidly wrong like in TSWLM, when they had Bond studying at the wrong college.

    I'm not sure you'd come away from a Fleming book thinking the important things are little facts like where his parents are buried rather than the tone and style of the whole piece that you get from something like the crater base or scorpion drinking game or spearfishing in Jamaica. Fleming's books are more about the feeling and world he builds than they are just dry facts. Dalton's Aston Martin V8 is exactly what Fleming's Bond would have driven in the 80s, despite the fact the badge doesn't say 'Bentley' as Fleming wrote.

    +1 all day long.
    It's about the tone of the thing, not little references. I don't need for NTTD to allude to Bond's service in WW2, for example.

    EDIT I'm remembering more superficial callbacks in the Brosnan era. There's "death for breakfast" and sleeping with a gun under his pillow....

    I reckon we'll be seeing fewer and fewer of these references as the sliver of viewers who recognizes them becomes smaller...
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited May 2020 Posts: 16,502
    ProfJoeButcher wrote: »
    mtm wrote: »
    shamanimal wrote: »
    There are lots of similarities in plot lines, and every time this topic comes up I see people reaching for links. "He uses a telescope to see the ship in such and such a book, and in the film he uses a telescope when he's on the boat" etc. A lot of this could be put down to coincidence.
    I'm more interested in proper homages to the source material, like his parents graves, his Scottish roots, or the proper recipe for his martini. These are definite things that could only be gleaned by going to the books. I'd much rather the series throw in these occasional scraps, than get it stupidly wrong like in TSWLM, when they had Bond studying at the wrong college.

    I'm not sure you'd come away from a Fleming book thinking the important things are little facts like where his parents are buried rather than the tone and style of the whole piece that you get from something like the crater base or scorpion drinking game or spearfishing in Jamaica. Fleming's books are more about the feeling and world he builds than they are just dry facts. Dalton's Aston Martin V8 is exactly what Fleming's Bond would have driven in the 80s, despite the fact the badge doesn't say 'Bentley' as Fleming wrote.



    EDIT I'm remembering more superficial callbacks in the Brosnan era. There's "death for breakfast" and sleeping with a gun under his pillow....

    Yes that's true. And there are attempts: I'd say the whole idea behind Renard and his bullety brain is an attempt to do something vaguely Fleming- more so than pretty much anything after the first ten minutes of Living Daylights. And Electra has a disfigurement etc.
    Plus as previously pointed out, DAD has all the Moonraker stuff, but it also has stuff like Bond drinking mojitos and smoking cigars by the sea and indeed the whole cigar factory thing which, if you squint a bit, you could read as some sort of nod towards the sort of thing Fleming would write about.

    They weren't oblivious to the idea of Fleming in the 90s, and arguably got it more than they did in most 80s films, but the Craig films do evoke that flavour a little better in places.
    ProfJoeButcher wrote: »
    mtm wrote: »
    shamanimal wrote: »
    There are lots of similarities in plot lines, and every time this topic comes up I see people reaching for links. "He uses a telescope to see the ship in such and such a book, and in the film he uses a telescope when he's on the boat" etc. A lot of this could be put down to coincidence.
    I'm more interested in proper homages to the source material, like his parents graves, his Scottish roots, or the proper recipe for his martini. These are definite things that could only be gleaned by going to the books. I'd much rather the series throw in these occasional scraps, than get it stupidly wrong like in TSWLM, when they had Bond studying at the wrong college.

    I'm not sure you'd come away from a Fleming book thinking the important things are little facts like where his parents are buried rather than the tone and style of the whole piece that you get from something like the crater base or scorpion drinking game or spearfishing in Jamaica. Fleming's books are more about the feeling and world he builds than they are just dry facts. Dalton's Aston Martin V8 is exactly what Fleming's Bond would have driven in the 80s, despite the fact the badge doesn't say 'Bentley' as Fleming wrote.


    I reckon we'll be seeing fewer and fewer of these references as the sliver of viewers who recognizes them becomes smaller...


    Well I don't know, Casino Royale did vey well for them so I reckon there will still be a hope to get some of that Fleming madness in there, not just to pay homage to the source but just because it plain works really well. 'Gun under the pillow'-style lip service references, yeah, you're probably right about them.
  • shamanimalshamanimal
    Posts: 623
    I started re-reading Moonraker today, and it reminded me of another Flemingism in the Craig era. When Bond says to Vesper, "you're not my type", she says
    "Smart?" He says
    "Single".
    Which ties in the the bit at the start of Moonraker when it says he spends his free time when not on assignments, playing cards or making love 'with cold passion' to one of three married women.
    It's the same chapter where Bond considers the 00 sections short life span. Cool stuff!
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,502
    shamanimal wrote: »
    I started re-reading Moonraker today, and it reminded me of another Flemingism in the Craig era. When Bond says to Vesper, "you're not my type", she says
    "Smart?" He says
    "Single".
    Which ties in the the bit at the start of Moonraker when it says he spends his free time when not on assignments, playing cards or making love 'with cold passion' to one of three married women.
    It's the same chapter where Bond considers the 00 sections short life span. Cool stuff!

    Yeah I always wondered if that was a bit of a weird clanger line unless you knew your Fleming, do you know what I mean? It sort of plays as a joke but the punchline doesn't really work unless you know what he likes already: if you don't it just sort of gives you food for thought. It doesn't play on what general audiences already know about Bond, like, for example, the 'Jealous husbands! Outraged chefs! Humiliated tailors! The list is endless!' gag from Golden Gun (despite even going by the same subject!).
  • shamanimalshamanimal
    Posts: 623
    mtm wrote: »
    Yeah I always wondered if that was a bit of a weird clanger line unless you knew your Fleming, do you know what I mean? It sort of plays as a joke but the punchline doesn't really work unless you know what he likes already: if you don't it just sort of gives you food for thought. It doesn't play on what general audiences already know about Bond, like, for example, the 'Jealous husbands! Outraged chefs! Humiliated tailors! The list is endless!' gag from Golden Gun (despite even going by the same subject!).

    It's testament to the cleverness of the CR script. In the same scene he jokes that Vesper's alias is Stephanie Broadchest, which on the surface is a joke at the 'Pussy Galore' type Bond girls names. But I took it as a joke about EON's efforts at naming Bond girls.
    In other words, Fleming would have never have gone with 'Holly Goodhead'. Too American, and too sniggery
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 13,850
    Continued elsewhere, those type injections.

    QOS. From Goldfinger, in as many words. "Regret was unprofessional - worse, it was death-watch beetle in the soul."
  • Agent_47Agent_47 Canada
    Posts: 330
    If I remember correctly, TWINE has two minor callbacks to the Fleming novels.

    1. Zukovsky's cane doubling as a gun (from Casino Royale)
    2. Renard's men on the plane all having shaved heads (Moonraker)

    The strange thing is they aren't consistent with the second one, most of his men have shaved heads but there are a few with a full head of hair. Who knows, I might be looking too much into the second one. But I have spoken with a few others who thought it was a callback as well. Especially considering Purvis & Wade's constant urge to mix some Moonraker into their scripts.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,575
    I didn’t realize people in the moonraker novel had shaved heads
  • Agent_47Agent_47 Canada
    Posts: 330
    NickTwentyTwo wrote: »
    I didn’t realize people in the moonraker novel had shaved heads

    I'm pretty sure that Drax makes all of his scientists shave their heads.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    edited June 2020 Posts: 8,192
    And they all grow facial hair. It was just a way to make the nazi criminals look as unrecognizable as possible from their old IDs. In TWINE, it's just an odd detail that makes it seem like Renard's movement is as much a cult as it is an organization.
  • Agent_47Agent_47 Canada
    Posts: 330
    MakeshiftPython wrote: »
    And they all grow facial hair. It was just a way to make the nazi criminals look as unrecognizable as possible from their old IDs. In TWINE, it's just an odd detail that makes it seem like Renard's movement is as much a cult as it is an organization.

    You're probably right but I can't help but wonder, especially considering that Renard's men are trying to disguise themselves while stuck in a disarmament bunker. A sort of mirror image of Drax's men disguising themselves while working on a missile... stuck in a bunker.


    Still, I am probably looking too much into it.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,192
    I'm sure it was intentional, I'm just saying in TWINE there's never really a reason given for why Renard's men shave their heads like there was in MR.
  • Agent_47Agent_47 Canada
    Posts: 330
    MakeshiftPython wrote: »
    I'm sure it was intentional, I'm just saying in TWINE there's never really a reason given for why Renard's men shave their heads like there was in MR.

    I agree, if it is intentional it isn't really given any attention or explanation.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    shamanimal wrote: »
    ...I just thought of one unique Fleming Bond reference in Goldeneye. Travellian mentions Bond's parents dying in a skiing accident. His parents death was never mentioned in the movies before that, I believe.

    Climbing accident. Sorry to be a nitpick.
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