It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
I agree. I did enjoy Kincade from Skyfall, though. He would be great for another Bond origin story. In literature at least.
But why did they make him Kincaide?
Why Bond's house had a name?
Why they did this to the character?
Because it worked for the story they were telling.
And to be fair, it does work. Whether or not it’s what Fleming had in mind it makes sense that this Bond grew up on such a property and experienced the type of trauma that he did after his parent’s death. It’s using the background that Fleming established for Bond and creating something new. And in fairness a character like Kincade is more fitting than involving May or Charmain (remember, May is just a housekeeper later in Bond’s life, and Bond has no living relatives in his adult life, so Charmain would always be out of the picture. Someone like Kincade, a groundsman of his former house who is unrelated to him makes more sense.)
I think given recent events, there's a good chance Russia will be involved in the plot of Bond 26 somehow. Perhaps they could use FRWL and TLD as inspiration.
Or not at all. It might be too 'delicate' at the moment.
Agreed.
I think the last sentence is really it. By NTTD, where they decided to go with both the MI6 regulars AND Felix, plus a new/rival/other 00 agent PLUS a local ally in Paloma, not to mention two villains, the film is just overstuffed.
That's why, while I think it would be very fun to have big actors for M and Moneypenny, I think they should pare back those roles significantly. Same for Tanner and Q. I guess the thing is that they no longer want to do half an hour in London, ticking the various boxes before the plot gets going again, but they also want Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes and everyone else to be in the film for more than 4 minutes, so suddenly M is on the headset handling mission control. There have to be other ways to do it.
It's one of those many things where the execution in Skyfall was unique and great and then they took all the wrong lessons from it and it doesn't work nearly as well in SP and NTTD.
One of the classic tightropes of serialized storytelling. By the end of NTTD you'd think there are about 7 people working at MI6. I kind of realized that in the current run of Dynamite Bond comics. Not to spoil too many things, but at one point, Bond talks to other 00s and at another he gets some intel from some random analyst. He doesn't team up with the 00s, it's just an exposition engine and that analyst isn't a major character or anything. It just makes sense for someone other than M, Moneypenny or Tanner to provide that tiny piece of information, so there's another person there for one page and it just makes the entire universe feel much more alive and populated. On the flipside, there's no Tanner, Boothroyd/Q or Felix in this story.
Additionally, this ties into the thing many of us have been saying for a long time: Just do a one-off mission in one or two foreign locations.
That’s not the Jack Ryan literary character though, is it? Gone is the everyman analyst, instead there’s a Bond-style super-assured special forces superspy. They even changed his name! But if you enjoyed that change to a literary character then you’ve answered your own question.
I am speaking only of the series story as presented. It was tense and engaging, something I felt lacking in NTTD. I know how you delight in nitpicking and exposing apparent contradictions, but my remarks are about the story only, not how the series Ryan compares with the novels.
If you enjoyed it that much, and the differences to the literary character didn't upset you, then there is your answer as to whether changing the details of Bond is really all that important or not. It's not an 'apparent contradiction', it's an answer to your own question.
And you didn't single out Bond as being the only character which cannot be changed: you said "If source material is no longer important, then why not change every great character in literature for a film version?". Either you can enjoy something with a less-than-100%-faithful character adaptation or you can't. And it turns out that you can, so why worry about it? I'm sorry if you regard my paying attention to what you say as 'nitpicking', but if you ask a question then you should expect an answer.
In the case of NTTD, the story mainly occurs 5 years after Bond's retirement from being a double-O. So there's a separation from his successful tenure as an agent with MI6 and other successes.
Events conspire to resolve Bond of the deadliest sin per Fleming: Accidie. To me that's cooked into his final victory smile. And it relates to his original CR experience with Le Chiffre during the torture: Bond's at a point where he knows he won against the enemy, it wasn't about his personal survival above all things after all.
I don't expect another story where Bond dies, ever. Now the stage is set for many possibilities, and I'm thinking they'll continue to stay true to the character.
And as long as they're unique and not just lazily or recklessly done.
My sentiments exactly.
I'm a Bond fan and I am not a big fan of the MI series but..........................the last couple of MI films have been much better conceived and executed films than the last few Craig films. In addition to that, I think "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", which released against SPECTRE, was the better film as well. Looking forward to a new direction.
Man from Uncle better than Spectre? Really?
I don't mean this as a full on pitched-battle movie, but intelligence officers take part in these modern hybrid wars. It could be a banger to start off a new actors tenure. Plus, you can always do the typical Bond shuffle, were you situate the story in a nation-state conflict, but Bond's mission is slightly off to the side where he has to deal with some rogue General or business man or whatever who wants to use the conflict for their own good.
Yep, better chemistry between the actors/characters, more engaging plot, more creative music, action scenes more engrossing, handled the humor in scenes better, more stylish wardrobes, more attractive and interesting villain and a climax that used the heroes brains to outwit the villain. SPECTRE lost it's street creds when they introduced Bond and Blofeld as foster brothers and that Blofeld's goal was to simply torment his brother out of jealousy. Thank you Austin Powers.
I don't think that the writers went into the theory of "Let's copy Austin Powers" when developing the idea of Bond and Blofeld being foster brothers.
We will just have to agree to disagree there.