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, the cinematic Bond (or at least the different versions of him) was never meant to be a strict adaptation of Fleming's Bond. Certainly not when Connery took the role, and indeed not with later actors, although again I'd say much more from the original novels has been integrated particularly in the last 40 years in essence. I mean, the character in the CR novel is very different to how he's depicted later on anyway, so it's tricky gauging just what a 'faithful' adaptation of Fleming's character actually is. Is he the no nonsense, and actually rather humourless professional that he is that first novel, the man with a hardened heart who falls in love and gets it broken again? Or is he the essentially ordinary man who has an extraordinary job we see in MR and FRWL, prone to boredom when not on a mission? Or is he the character at the beginning of the GF novel who seems to genuinely have qualms and cynicism about a major part of his profession? Or the character from DAF and DN who constantly falls in love with the women he meets on his adventures? Or the one from perhaps GF or FRWL who can seduce a woman and 'turn' her by simply sleeping with her? Or is he the man from TB who lives life on the edge, even to the point of ignoring his own health, casually quipping about his own mortality? That's not to mention what he goes through over the course of OHMSS-TMWTGG.
The encouraging thing is there's still so much in there to base a whole interpretation of the character off of, and it'd still be legitimate. I have no doubt the next era will be different, but I think (and hope) there'll still be that connection to the original novels.
There's so much of Fleming's YOLT in Craig's last three films, particularly SF. It's genuinely not a criticism I can understand. Even some of the apparently 'faithful' adaptations of Fleming's novels I'd say aren't quite true to the essence of them (not to point the finger at DN again, but aside from the story similarities, I wouldn't say Connery's Bond is faithful to the one from the novels at all, and actually he gets much closer in FRWL and GF).
I'm looking forward to something new as well, agreed.
I agree. I appreciate the arguments being made in its favour, especially where Connery's performance is concerned. But if we're taking the line that it "fit the brief" then perhaps the brief should have been flung out the window.
All of these questions deserve to be asked, @CrabKey.
The challenge is bringing a new Bond who doesn't alienate the fans and a traditional Bond who doesn't bore the newbies. Frankly, I'd be slightly less concerned with the latter, simply because I cling to a romantic belief that whoever is inclined to like Bond will eventually find him, rather than the other way around. But I could be mistaken. Perhaps every next Bond has to be broadly advertised with extra appeal to the youths of the day (but, again, without alienating the fans.) And then... perhaps not.
I was such a "youth" when Brosnan jumped on board. Although 42 at the time, Brosnan spoke to 13-year-old me. It nevertheless didn't feel like the GE marketing apparatus skewed that young. Tina Turner wasn't my generation's idol, the cast of the film didn't exactly feature tween stars of the moment (and thank goodness for that), and the story was 'political' enough to require perhaps a bit more background than most of us had. Yet GE was a big hit among my peers, many of whom weren't into Bond already, unlike myself. This gives me hope that 13-year-olds also recognise a good movie when they see it, even if it wasn't ostensibly made for them.
Do you think EoN will change the character so much that he will be unrecognizable? If so, then what is the point of having a “brand”, an IP?
Batman has been around for quite a while. Although played by numerous actors (including Michael G Wilson’s dad), who all brought something unique to the role, but the audience always knew we were watching The Batman.
No different for James Bond and historically has always been treated in this manner . In fact, this is Hollywood in a nutshell:
There is a famous line producers like to give: gimme the same… but different.
That’s it, fellas. No need for pearl clutching, 😂. Bond will remain Bond, the same, but different.
I think that in the end, the motto should be that "we recognise Bond when we see him." We can deconstruct the character as much as we like, a good Bond film leaves us no doubt about whom we're dealing with. I like how you phrased it, @peter: "the same, but different."
Thanks @DarthDimi … as fans, it’s a good idea to not overthink this. Why would anyone nurture their brand, only to change it for the sake of change, and twist it into something so unrecognizable that it will damage the product?
I know some doubt EoN, but they’re not fools over there— not by any stretch of the imagination!
Not pearl clutching at all. Just looking for some conversation. Anyone, go out on a limb.
It’s almost an exercise in frustration. There’s no knowing how he will be different. And I don’t think the producers are consciously thinking how he WILL be different. That package comes in the man playing the role, @CrabKey .
That’s all.
And, as a P.S., @CrabKey … it’s easier to speculate what a Nolan would bring as a director because we have a body of work to analyze and discuss.
But we are talking about a fictitious character who is without an actor playing the role. Without knowing who will be cast, it’s almost impossible to guess how “different” the new Bond era will be. We have no source material to mine.
If the producers are not consciously thinking how Bond will be different, then what is Barbara Broccoli talking about?
Entertainment Weekly
https://ew.com › movies › james-bond-producer-says-t...
Jun 29, 2022 — James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli says it will be 'at least two years' before 'the reinvention' of the character in the next film.
Hopefully others are willing to speculate.
I didn’t read the link you provided @CrabKey , but I’m assuming she and her partners are looking at threats and how Bond is relevant in today’s world. As in: what stories are we going to tell and how does a new Bond look in these situations?
It seems you think I’m trying to brawl with you @CrabKey . Or at least that seems to be your tone.
I’m not.
So how about cooling it, yes?
WHEN EVERY MOVE BRINGS YOU CLOSER TO THE EDGE
WHEN YOU LIVE EACH DAY LIKE IT'S YOUR LAST
THERE'S A SURPRISE AROUND EVERY CURVE
YOLT's a great novel, but not one that's easy to revisit (hence the Craig criticism). I do agree though that the Craig era is the closest to the novels overall. His performance in QOS is the most Fleming-esque performance in a film that has close to no Fleming material.
As to the character in Flemings novels: there are small shifts in his demeanour and his thoughts, but Bond from CR to Thunderball feels like the same man. He is a cold man in CR but we also see him unwind while at dinners with Vesper and explaining baccarat, and he releases the philosophical side that we see in GF. I think Bond to his core keeps the same elements:
1. Unwavering dedication/professionalism that keeps him loyal to his nation (and take revenge for it) and makes him good at his job (some would call this cold, unforgiving etc.). This can of course be transferred to different aspects and characters. (Felix, Havelocks, even the SHAPE dispatch rider)
2. A respect for human life that sometimes hinders him (falling too hard for a damsel in distress, aversion to killing in cold blood). This is mostly summed up as Bond's doubts, his humanity, and his empathy to a winged dove.
3. A picky "high" lifestyle that contrasts with death always over his shoulder. Wants things to be done right.
4. In relation to 3, an adventurer that enjoys his work and has the easy-going charm that comes with it. This attracts women to him, and makes us enjoy his company, but annoys the villains
I think these 1 and 3 decrease over time and 2 and 4 rise over time but all by miniscule amounts. Then the SPECTRE trilogy, specifically OHMSS and YOLT kind of throw these out of whack (and TMWTGG disappointingly levels it all). This is all good: we see a machine become a man, but the progression is key, and that's what I think potentially is missing here. We haven't really seen a Bond shift in character like their literary counterpart.
Another problem is each Bond accentuates one number per film. I believe only Connery of FRWL, Dalton of TLD and LTK, and Craig of CR and QOS fully encapsulate all 4 elements of the film in a cohesive manner: films like DAD and Octopussy might go close and of course OHMSS is loyal to the novel it is adapated to. The rest takes one and runs off with it: Bond being a "charming superman", Bond being "depressed and moody" and of course some films are considered cheap and uneventful
YOLT's a great novel, but not one that's easy to revisit (hence the Craig criticism). I do agree though that the Craig era is the closest to the novels overall. His performance in QOS is the most Fleming-esque performance in a film that has close to no Fleming material.
As to the character in Flemings novels: there are small shifts in his demeanour and his thoughts, but Bond from CR to Thunderball feels like the same man. He is a cold man in CR but we also see him unwind while at dinners with Vesper and explaining baccarat, and he releases the philosophical side that we see in GF. I think Bond to his core keeps the same elements:
1. Unwavering dedication/professionalism that keeps him loyal to his nation (and take revenge for it) and makes him good at his job (some would call this cold, unforgiving etc.). This can of course be transferred to different aspects and characters. (Felix, Havelocks, even the SHAPE dispatch rider)
2. A respect for human life that sometimes hinders him (falling too hard for a damsel in distress, aversion to killing in cold blood). This is mostly summed up as Bond's doubts, his humanity, and his empathy to a winged dove.
3. A picky "high" lifestyle that contrasts with death always over his shoulder. Wants things to be done right.
4. In relation to 3, an adventurer that enjoys his work and has the easy-going charm that comes with it. This attracts women to him, and makes us enjoy his company, but annoys the villains
I think these 1 and 3 decrease over time and 2 and 4 rise over time but all by miniscule amounts. Then the SPECTRE trilogy, specifically OHMSS and YOLT kind of throw these out of whack (and TMWTGG disappointingly levels it all). This is all good: we see a machine become a man, but the progression is key, and that's what I think potentially is missing here. We haven't really seen a Bond shift in character like their literary counterpart.
Another problem is each Bond accentuates one number per film. I believe only Connery of FRWL, Dalton of TLD and LTK, and Craig of CR and QOS fully encapsulate all 4 elements of the film in a cohesive manner: films like DAD and Octopussy might go close and of course OHMSS is loyal to the novel it is adapated to. The rest takes one and runs off with it: Bond being a "charming superman", Bond being "depressed and moody" and of course some films are considered cheap and uneventful
Yes but if they make 5-7 movies, they can't all be the same.
I was talking about NTTD, not the Craig era as a whole. The Craig era started very strong and Flemingesque, and I was on board with it. It was only in NTTD that I thought they took major liberties with the character, which I didn't like.
But lots of people did, and good for them.
Daddy Bond is too much, I guess. It's too ordinary.
Maybe it needs an exotic twist, like YOLT.
DAF was a hit.
Yeah, I mean "current fans".Those who want a sequel to OHMSS 50 years too late.
Anyway, I suppose the thing about NTTD is that it’s a premise we really haven’t seen with Bond before. It essentially takes the premise of Fleming’s character - a man who never thought he’d live long enough to see retirement - and puts him in that position. It’s kind of a reinterpretation of Bond at the end of YOLT when he gets amnesia, lives with Kissy, and essentially gets a second chance at life before fate brings him back to duty. We even get a spin on the idea of Bond having a child.
It’s not that it’s untrue to the essence of Fleming. Far from it. It’s just a different way of interpreting the character. The Bond films have never been strict to Fleming’s lore anyway (ie. in the classic EoN films the way Bond first encounters Felix Leiter, SPECTRE, Blofeld etc is very different to the novels) so I see it as valid.
Fair enough. I do think his demeanour in CR is quite distinct (I think it’s where the idea that the literary Bond is humourless comes from, which I don’t think is true in later novels at all) but as you said he has those qualities.
Fleming was a very solid pulpy writer, but as he continued writing, he improved, became more layered and therefore as the books progressed so did Fleming as a writer and Bond did as a character. In the first two or three novels, he was closer to being a paper thin character, but by the last few novels, Bond was far more realized, more dimensional and layered. A flesh and blood man who came to life on the pages.
Whatever seed was planted in CR was fully bloomed by the end.
And it’s this man from the latter stories that I see in Craig-Bond, in SF and NTTD (whereas Craig’s portrayal in CR and QoS is closer to the Bond in the novels of CR and LALD, although Craig was able to provide more humanity to the role, especially as he falls in love with Vesper).
Absolutely. I definitely think by MR Bond was better realised, and as Fleming’s novels went on he continued to strengthen/develop certain ideas with the character. In CR he’s depicted as an ice cold professional, again rather humourless (the idea of a woman assisting him on the mission in even a limited capacity sends him into an indignant anger as he believes she’ll prove a liability… all I can say is I think it’s for the best the Craig film reinterpreted this as Bond being arrogant/cheekily disrespecting Vesper’s authority). He displays some level of humanity though - admitting he doesn’t like killing, falling for Vesper. Obviously by the end he becomes cynical about the spy game/chooses to leave it, but after Vesper’s death he defaults back to being that hard hearted bastard.
I think if Fleming had continued down that line the character wouldn’t have proven as popular in later books. From MR onwards we get little insights into Bond’s (often mundane) personal life. He slowly gains a bit more of a gallows humour, becomes introspective about the nature of killing in his job, and is more prone to falling in love (he even becomes more personally involved in some instances - ie. paying for Honey’s nose surgery in DN).. Certainly by DAF he’s slightly more reckless and risk taking than the Bond we see in CR (I can’t imagine that earlier version of the character blatantly ruining the Spang’s gambling operation as he does in Vegas during that novel, or him being so flippant about his own health in TB). By YOLT Bond outright has to overcome character obstacles in the form of his PTSD, and there’s of course that underlying tragedy of him having a second chance at happiness/life, but ultimately fate and the call of duty doesn’t allow him this.
All things considered the Craig era packs so much of those ideas into its five films, agreed. The only major difference is that in NTTD that final tragedy and ultimately Bond's heroism is cemented in his death. In Fleming he’s ultimately fated to being in the spy game (and arguably that’s likely due to the author passing before his character ultimately did). Hell, even that latter idea is pretty much the ending of SF. All things considered it’s an interesting spin on the literary character.
Tend to agree that's where Fleming probably would have taken it eventually. There's so musing on death and people in his profession not living to be old, using his time instead of trying to prolong it etc. that it never felt like Bond was heading towards a happy ending and long retirement to me.
Maybe if he'd lived longer the success of the films might have changed that though.
I suppose it’s impossible to say. I think even with TMWTGG’s ending being quite chirpy though there’s ultimately a bleakness to Bond’s fate (it actually has a rather dark and very Fleming final paragraph about love from Goodnight/any other woman being metaphorically ‘a room with a view’ and that room will always pall for Bond). In a way I guess Bond kind of accepts he’ll be in his profession until he either dies or retires. At the very least there’s something bittersweet about it, and I suppose the optimism comes with Bond living to fight another day. But I really don’t know where Fleming would have taken it otherwise.
But ultimately, I want to challenge the assertion that Bond is a "fully realised" character by the end and is "paper thin" at the start. Rather, we see a progression of character where Bond's loyalty drops and his doubts rise, as is natural with age. With Dalton, Connery and Craig, (often the most Fleming Bonds) we did not get the progression properly.
Also: Craig does not inject more humanity in QOS than Bond had in LALD. LALD has Bond crying a full barrage of tears, mourning Felix's pain, and him having to decide to kill Solitaire to save her pain. Maybe Craig has more humanity in CR (he could hardly do a hardened sexist) but he doesn't have the puppy-dog like attraction that the novel Bond has. Bond then asks to marry Vesper, saying he wants her. Vesper replies that she wants dinner, and Bond goes and gets it.
There's character Bond found in the earlier novels, and I don't think it's fair to reduce this to overly praise the later novels
I should have been clearer in my statement: I didn't say Craig injected more humanity in QoS compared with LALD, but instead, I said he was more like the character from the first two novels, but injected more humanity especially as he fell in love with Vesper (and perhaps I should have made it more clear, specific to CR the film).
I also said whatever was planted in the earlier books bloomed by the end, because I do find Fleming improved more as a writer, and with that, he added layers onto the man he created in CR.
Perhaps my use of paper thin was too much, but there's no doubt in my mind that I'm reading a more fleshed out character by the latter books.
And when I saw SF and NTTD I'm seeing a lot of the latter Fleming-Bond in Craig's performance (as I also see a lot of the earlier Fleming-Bond in Craig's CR and QoS).
There’s definitely a development. I wouldn’t say Bond in CR is paper thin, but he does kind of go full circle in terms of his coldness, and the character isn’t quite as vividly written as he is later on for me. I actually think his relationship with Vesper is better handled in the film. As you said, Bond kind of gets a puppy dog attraction to her likely due to the shock of his torture/Le Chiffre’s talk about the ‘red Indians’ causing him to become disillusioned with the spy game/want an out. The book veers on melodrama during the latter portion (by the way that’s not a criticism, just a heightened stylistic choice Fleming runs with) which culminates in the tragedy of Vesper's suicide. It’s a great novel, but I’d honestly say the relationship between Bond and Case in DAF is one I find much more believably written. It just happens to be in a much more pulpy novel.
I kind of see what you mean about TMWTGG. Ideally if Fleming had done more drafts Bond’s uncertainty/hesitation about killing Scaramanga would have been ironed out more in connection with his ordeal/the idea he might not be an effective agent anymore. But I do like the ideas there, slightly underdeveloped in that particular novel as they are, and the last chapter is quite well written.