Replay! Is it time to remake a Bond film?

24

Comments

  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    edited August 2011 Posts: 15,718
    I think period pieces are more likely than remakes. I'd love to see the MR novel filmed faithfully and set at the time of the novel. I can even picture films set in the 1960's with original plots (not remakes of the Connery films or adaptation of Fleming material).
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,187
    I think period pieces are more likely than remakes. I'd love to see the MR novel filmed faithfully and set at the time of the novel. I can even picture films set in the 1960's with original plots (not remakes of the Connery films or adaptation of Fleming material).
    I feel this will soon be the only way to go, @DC. We can't keep modernizing Bond, can we? By 2050, he might be driving a flying car for all we know.
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    edited August 2011 Posts: 15,718
    I agree @Dimi. I think within the next 25/20 years, the world will be much too technologically advanced for the films to still be in-touch to Ian Fleming's original material and character. I don't want to see Bond fighting robots, or something too sci-fi. So yes, unless they start thinking of ways to do period pieces, the franchise will definatly be over in the next couple of decades. I do not see how a Bond film could set in 2040 or 2050. Matt Damon said Bond is 'outdated'... He isn't wrong, he just said it too early... Within a few decades, Bond WILL become outdated, or it will steer very far from the original intent of Fleming, which will bring the question - should we still be making Bond films ?

    This would be a great idea for a thread - how long can Bond keep being modernized ? When Bond will fight robots, will it still be Bond ? Or time to call it a day and end the franchise ?
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,187
    Seeing a Bond without cell phones would put a smile on my face. Computers the size of washing machines and trains that run on coals... I would welcome it like a nice meal after two weeks of fasting.
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    edited August 2011 Posts: 15,718
    Well, Dimi, I think you found a very good topic of discussion. How much technologically advanced can the world become until James Bond will be rendered totally outdated ? Should he be fighting robots ? Should the M briefing be done with holograms ? We're all saying DAD was too sci-fi... Well sooner or later the world will become very sci-fi... So when that time comes, will it be time to call it a day ?
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,187
    The question is: how much can we take?

    Let's go back to DAD. The invisible car nearly caused people to go into cardiac arrest. The optical trick, as explained by the quartermaster, isn't so fictitious, however. Similar concepts have been tested and experimented with, successfully I dare say, and the scientific community is convinced that somewhere in the next couple of decades optical camouflage will become perfectly feasible for wide applications.

    Yet we will keep rolling our eyes. Is it because we can't stand the impossible (even when it isn't impossible (anymore)) or is it because it's moving so far away from Fleming's world that it feels as if the ground underneath our feet is collapsing? Would we enjoy Bond playing the Wii to keep fit or going on Facebook to check on some of his friends? It's 21st century technology. Most people have trouble keeping up with technological advance. So how does Bond fit the picture?

    Plus, the average punk is covered in all sorts of weird gizmos. Eventually if Bond tries to stay ahead of them, it might become almost pathetic.
  • Posts: 2,107


    going on Facebook to check on some of his friends?
    James Bond has 0 friends.
  • Posts: 289
    The two i would remake would be DAF and MR....but name them differently.

    DAF- I would have the Spang Brothers modernized members of Quantum
    MR- truer to the book but set in Taiwan, India, Australia or Burma.

    DAF- would be called Cold Hard Desire.
    MR- would be called Silverhawk.
  • Posts: 1,856
    =head spinning :0& =

    YOU WANT TO REMAKE A BOND FILM!!!!!! Are you just TRYING to prove that all imagination in Hollywood is dead!!!!

    Also what period pice is better the. one that was made in the period!
  • edited August 2011 Posts: 1,092
    MR, YOLT, DAF, TMWTGG et al, need to be adapted for the FIRST time on film. They haven't been yet, neither have a few of the short stories. Use up the rest of Fleming's writings, then think about remaking them.
  • Posts: 289
    I dont want remakes...at all.

    but modern influenced films that are truer to DAF and MR books with name and location changes to fit today. Never would call them DAF or MR!!!!!!!!1
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    Would we enjoy Bond playing the Wii to keep fit or going on Facebook to check on some of his friends? It's 21st century technology.
    I am moved to quote Captain Scott on reaching the South Pole at the vision of the future you paint,

    'Great God . This is an awful place.'

    Its bad enough the near constant reliance Daniel Craig has on his mobile which means M and MI6 can practically monitor his every move without him starting to Twitter mission updates every 10 minutes. I would far rather see the films done as period pieces with Bond completely on his own and relying on his wits than continue down this depressing road.

  • Would we enjoy Bond playing the Wii to keep fit or going on Facebook to check on some of his friends? It's 21st century technology.
    I am moved to quote Captain Scott on reaching the South Pole at the vision of the future you paint,

    'Great God . This is an awful place.'

    Its bad enough the near constant reliance Daniel Craig has on his mobile which means M and MI6 can practically monitor his every move without him starting to Twitter mission updates every 10 minutes. I would far rather see the films done as period pieces with Bond completely on his own and relying on his wits than continue down this depressing road.

    I have no problem with mobiles in the Bond films. In fact, they're such a part of modern life that it would seem really strange for Bond to *not* use them.

    I don't think that we have to be worried about Bond using Facebook or Wii as those are recreational "tools"...although does the Wii have VR glasses like in TWINE..? ;)
  • Posts: 2,000
    How Bond interacts with technology is a choice of the script writers. Bond with a mobile is fine. He can always lose it, the battery goes dead, whatever. But an invisible car? Pandering to an audience that values FX over story. Writers would do well to read this website. Far more expertise and common sense found here than in some of the ill-conceived scenes in a few of the Bond films.
  • edited January 2013 Posts: 3,494
    I got cut off by a mod who locked a remake of this thread, so it's just as well it's now here even if a little redundant.

    I say no to remakes, NSNA is the perfect example of why remakes should never happen. Even if some could admittedly be improved, each was a product of it's time and should be preserved as it is for posterity. I have so many memories attached to each one since I first saw TB in 1968, and wouldn't want to change a thing.

    I also say no to Blofeld. Like Wiz said in the locked thread, I think that's skating too close to remake territory and would open up a can of worms best left closed. I want to see fresh ideas if we're going to have a new super villain in charge of QUANTUM. Barbara and Michael are trying to create a new legacy rather than ride Cubby's coattails, while still acknowledging the past. Their motto "when in doubt, go back to Fleming" is something Cubby believed in, and I have confidence they did just that when they went with Craig and a new direction opposite of Brosnan's. With this era they gave me faith that they knew what they were doing, and I think they learned valuable lessons about going too far from Fleming (DAD) and when to pull back, regroup, and get it right instead of charging ahead and rushing something incomplete from QOS.

    The only time for me they got Blofeld right was with Savalas. Pleasance is still OK by me but Myers really skewed the character. Gray is fine if you like a pseudo-effeminate type of villain, but he can't touch Bardem for that and to me he's always more going to be Dikko Henderson and the Blofeld I wish never was.


  • I also say no to Blofeld. Like Wiz said in the locked thread, I think that's skating too close to remake territory and would open up a can of worms best left closed.

    But then are we already touching the edge of "remaking" by reintroducing Q and Moneypenny..? I think that a character coming back isn't close enough.

    Personally I feel that there is such an established formula for the Bond films that they have, essentially, already done remakes i.e. TSWLM is a remake of YOLT. But an out-and-out remake? I don't think we'll see that for a while yet (although I believe it will happen eventually if the series goes on long enough).

  • I agree. A Bond film should never be remade.
  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    Posts: 14,595
    No remakes, please. Respect and enjoy the films for what they are. However, a YOLT/TSWLM scenario is fine with me, as YOLT only provided the framework for Spy, and its plot was different enough to stand on its own. While I quite enjoy NSNA, it was unnecessary, and essentially the same plot. Besides, TB wasn't a weak film- certainly not weak enough to warrant it a remake. Sometimes the old ways are the best.
  • Posts: 1,860
    Shatterhand would work as a title and the elements of the YOLT novel would be fine to base a new Bond adventure on.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    QBranch wrote:
    No remakes, please. Respect and enjoy the films for what they are. However, a YOLT/TSWLM scenario is fine with me, as YOLT only provided the framework for Spy, and its plot was different enough to stand on its own. While I quite enjoy NSNA, it was unnecessary, and essentially the same plot. Besides, TB wasn't a weak film- certainly not weak enough to warrant it a remake. Sometimes the old ways are the best.

    Although is TSWLM any less of a remake than NSNA really? The basic villains schemes are copies of the earlier films. OK NSNA has more scenes which are direct updates of ones in TB (Shrublands, execution of Petachi, SPECTREs ultimatum) but after Bond gets to the Bahamas apart from character names and him trying to pull Domino there's not that much that's identical to TB.

    I remember a list Raymond Benson came up with in his Bedside Companion the only version I can find online I've had to lift from C*******rBond.com. (Perhaps I should consider frequenting there more often as it seemed quite an interesting debate actually!). Obviously a few of the points are a bit tenuous and could apply to a lot of Bond films but it doesn't detract from the fact that to all intents and purposes TSWLM could be classed as a remake of YOLT:

    -They both have Plots about starting ww3 between east and west by capturing craft with a larger craft that features an opening in the front.
    -M, Q and Moneypenny turn up on location midway through the film instead of being in London.
    -The film starts with a craft being captured from astern.
    -The villain's main establishment is a plush drawing room with tanks of dangerous fish and old master paintings as well as a booby trapped bridge/lift. Here we first meet the tall, silent henchman. Two businessmen appear who are shocked when a female co-worker is eaten by the fish.
    -Bond first sees his contact, a female agent with whom he will eventually work/sleep, in a large audience.
    -The villain has a front organisation (Osato Chemicals, Stromberg Shipping Lines).
    -Both villains use a large tanker.
    -Bond and Aki/Anya are invloved in a chase between a White sports car and a helicopter in which a car ends up in the ocean.
    -Bond pretends to be a legitimate businessman (Mr Fisher/A fish expert) to snoop around the villain's organisation.
    -the villain's hidden base is a large, silvery docking port that launches helicoptors and contains fuel tanks, catwalks, a monorail and an 'impregnable' operations room with steel shutters.
    -a huge climactic fight takes place at the secret base between the villain's men and Bond's allies. At first they attack the crew before moving on to the control room and destroying the capturing craft with the huge opening jaws. With the lair starting to explode around them, Bond and co. escape by the skin of their teeth.
    -Bond has a climactic fist fight with the silent henchman who is left to be eaten by the villain's pet fish: Bond makes a quip as he dispatches the henchman.

    Of course you could probably do a list like this for any two Bond films and certainly when you've told the same story 23 times there's going to be repetition. I expect you could do a list like this for the Bourne or Indy series too. That's the point with franchises like these - people know what their getting before they buy so there's a bit of a semantic grey area between what might be considered a remake and what is just mixing the same ingredients up so they have the same taste but just a bit different.
  • Posts: 12,526
    There is NEVER a reason to remake an OFFICIAL Bond movie period! [-(
  • 007InVT007InVT Classified
    Posts: 893
    The_Reaper wrote:
    MR, YOLT, DAF, TMWTGG et al, need to be adapted for the FIRST time on film. They haven't been yet, neither have a few of the short stories. Use up the rest of Fleming's writings, then think about remaking them.

    Yes, yes, yes.

    All these were not done justice at all and are nothing like the books.

    EON always say they are going 'back to Fleming' but it never really transpires.

    I would also do a faithful FYEO and incorporate the short stories.

    I really see Fassbender in Moonraker and YOLT.
  • Moonraker was partially adapted by GoldenEye (worthy to be a partial adaptation of Fleming as anything), and Die Another Day (which I suspect is less likely).
  • talos7talos7 New Orleans
    Posts: 8,220
    I don't want any to be remade; but with that said if I were to choose one to remake it would be The Man With the Golden Gun. It has a great potential that was not fully realized.
  • Posts: 2,341
    I agree with the first part of Talos7...I don't want to see any remakes but if I were going to pick one I would choose DAF
    Make it a more serious film instead of the crap of dogshytt we got.
  • Posts: 1,596
    No remakes. At all.
  • hullcityfanhullcityfan Banned
    Posts: 496
    I couldn't imagine a remake no remakes ever again unless I become a director (which I won't) and remake a bad film.
  • Posts: 1,548
    YES YES YES. Cant believe I've missed this thread! Remke OHMSS or Golden Gun with a proper actor as Bond ie Dan Craig and we may have something to top even Casino and Skyfall.
  • hullcityfanhullcityfan Banned
    Posts: 496
    LeChiffre wrote:
    YES YES YES. Cant believe I've missed this thread! Remke OHMSS or Golden Gun with a proper actor as Bond ie Dan Craig and we may have something to top even Casino and Skyfall.

    OHMSS and TMWTGG are great films!
  • Posts: 825
    Well this up to Eon production only. The originals from Sean Connery & Roger Moore today is great. Can beat the original that all I can say. But was this been said before???.
Sign In or Register to comment.