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
You could've also added Koskov as another rogue Russian general just 2 films before GE. The concept was well worn, but they had to explore the whole fall of the iron curtain theme and went back to the well yet again. You can also look at Onatopp as a blatant copy of NSNA's Fatima Blush. Though it was fresh at the time, you can look at Trevelyan the first of the traitor in the department villains that the MI series would run with and wear out over the next several years.
I also am not a big fan of GE and find it vastly overrated. But I can't accept TWINE as having anything over it as it's my least favorite film of the series. I noted in another thread recently about how the cinematography was cold and grey for the most part and generally unappealing. TWINE is a mess, wanting to be a deeper spy film and drama and isn't involving in either way and Bond just seems like a sap for not seeing through the whole charade and we don't even get decent action to distract us from all that.
It's why I actually prefer TND as my favorite Brosnan film as it is up front about being a tried-and-true stop WWIII storyline focusing on the action and we get some decent spying thrown in with a minimum of the this time its personal theme that would overwhelm the series. DAD does this to that degree as well, although I have a tougher time defending it, but I had a much better time than with TWINE.
"there's no point in living if you can't feel alive" ?
Bond went and confronted Elektra about this. I didn't feel like Bond was being played like a fool at all. At best he struggled to apprehend Elektra because of his feelings towards her, not necessarily because he's in the dark.
And Renard knew all about Bond’s “shhhouuuulder”…. 😣
In TWINE’s defense, I think EON wanted a bit more drama. Michael Apted was known for directing actors in great performances, so that’s why I think he got the job. I see TWINE as honoring the past, while showing us a bit of the future of Bond. That’s why it’s tone is a bit all over the place. I still like it simply because it was my first Bond movie, and the N64 game was even better than the movie. That’s my controversial opinions on TWINE.
Now for GE. I can write a story about Alec Trevelyan, simply because of his connection to Bond. I can’t do that with Silva, because he’s too M focused. Trevelyan is one of the few Bond villains that could lead a spinoff book, or get built up as a bad guy in a series of movies. It’s kind of hard to do that with other Bond villains (apart from Blofeld, and maybe Goldfinger and Scaramanga).
Apted is an interesting director. I'm not overly familiar with his other films, but having looked up a few interviews with him about his non-Bond work, he seems to me like a more commercial version of Ken Loach in a weird way. The only major difference I can see is he channelled his concerns of class/how it affects people through genre films and his early soap opera/documentary work.
That's not to say such a director couldn't make a great Bond film. Especially considering that the main villain is a rich, psychopathic oil heiress. I think the only thing that really separates Apted's work on Bond from the likes of Sam Mendes, or in the literary context Kingsely Amis (both of whom had similar concerns they channeled into their work) is that Apted by his own admission wasn't much of a Bond fan. I suspect it wasn't something he was interested in or understood that deeply. By comparison Mendes and Amis really understood Bond and were certainly fans.
It's a shame because he really was a very accomplished director. Just the wrong choice.
I like the idea of Bond spin-offs in the literary world, not the cinema world. Blofeld, Goldfinger and their second hand muscle deserve a full book to themselves.
Michael G Wilson needs to fully retire.
Blofeld needs to be reintroduced as much as Bond himself. It’ll be hard to keep an actor quiet from the internet now nowadays.
Ralph Fiennes should stay on as M. He can now play Sir Miles.
M’s death at the end of SF feels like a tribute to Judi Dench herself, over M.
Martin Campbell shouldn’t come back. He got lucky, because he directed the series when it was at a low point.
Adam West should have played Bond in Diamonds Are Forever. The movie is basically a giant Batman ‘66 episode, inside a Bond movie.
I can partially agree with that: it has a great premise. A diamond smuggling pipeline disappearing bit by bit and Bond has to track the dying pipeline and also save the girl that is his contact. Then also with Bond tracking the diamonds to the lab and investigating there.
I think the plot issues come later though, with the Plenty drama et cetera. Basically anything after the hour mark.
DAF and MR are in my top 10
The book? Interestingly yes, the film? I may disagree with you.
I wish the film adapted the book very closely, and no maybe another controversial opinion, but DAF Blofeld (Charles Grey) is a lot more worse than the Spangs, at least the Spangs were a bit menacing, Grey's Blofeld was played for joke.
DAF book is not even in my bottom tier of Bond books.
The difference is, Fleming made a deep research regarding Diamond smuggling (even had a book dedicated to it in 'The Diamond Smugglers'), so the book was a bit realistic in that regard, now, the film, came from the producers whom I doubt cared about Fleming's researches and deep knowledge of such issues due to them tweaking the plot and changing it, messing it more, the worse was, they may little did know about Diamond Smuggling, to which I strongly suspect, based on how the film turned out (plot wise), I think my suspicions are true, they may had little knowledge about Diamond Smuggling to which Fleming had great knowledge into.
The satellite stuff is a great idea and it's a good use of the Macguffin.
LALD has a paper thin plot if you compare it to this one.
The book has an advantage in being vastly stronger in characterization. Film Tiffany is a silly bimbo next to the literary version, book Felix is far more vivid, and even Shady Tree is more interesting on the page. And while the Spangs aren't Fleming's strongest villains, on film they would have probably worked better than Gray's effete Blofeld.
What an expanded James Bond universe might look like
007 during wartime? Miss Moneypenny’s early years? The origin of Blofeld’s evil? Here are the Fleming spin-offs and prequels that could be.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/james-bond-universe-spin-offs-prequels-mgm/
Jake Kerridge
10 September 2024 • 6:15pm
In the late 1950s Ian Fleming wrote a treatment for a proposed James Bond television series, featuring the exciting notion of Bond going undercover as a racing driver and haring around the Nürburgring while his enemies tried to finish him off.
Alas, the series was never made (although Anthony Horowitz recycled the plot in his 2015 Bond novel Trigger Mortis). And in fact 60 years after Fleming’s death, no Bond-based television drama has ever been made. But could that be about to change?
These days every blockbuster franchise has its spin-off, from Amazon Prime’s unloved Lord of the Rings prequel The Rings of Power to HBO’s slightly less unloved Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon. And since Amazon gained half the rights to the Bond franchise after purchasing MGM in a $8.5 billion deal in 2021, after a year of tortuously protracted negotiations, it seems highly likely that the Bond universe will one day expand into long-form television.
Last year’s Amazon Prime reality show 007: Road to a Million (a second season is currently being filmed) could be seen as a canary in the coal mine, or at least a toe in the water. This has Brian Cox, in the role of the sinister “Controller”, setting espionage-themed challenges to members of the public, and laughing supervillainously when they muck them up. The title overpromises, however: there is about as much 007 in 007: Road to a Million as there is Godot in Waiting For Godot.
The hurdle for Amazon in making a proper Bond spin-off is that the other half of the franchise rights remains with Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson, the siblings who have overseen Eon Productions, which makes the Bond movies, since 1995. “We do not want to expand [the franchise] any other way,” Broccoli told Yahoo Entertainment when 007: Road to a Million was first streamed. “This idea is something that was brought to us and we really loved it, and we loved the fact that it’s real people. So I think this was sort of a one-off, but we’re not looking to expand the Bond universe into television.”
No doubt Broccoli and Wilson are anxious not to dilute the appeal of the films by saturating audiences with too much Bond; but it’s hard to believe that this is music to Amazon’s ears. One suspects Amazon are busily negotiating behind the scenes to persuade Broccoli and Wilson to reconsider. Which of the combatants in this debate, I wonder, will end up - metaphorically of course - shoved off the footbridge into the piranha pool?
Scouring Ian Fleming’s Bond novels, I think there are certainly several elements that could be expanded into television prequels, sequels, spin-offs and reboots. To start with, there could be proper period adaptations of the novels, especially those which the films mangled out of all recognition. I would love to see a decent adaptation of Fleming’s Moonraker, which is set entirely in Britain and features a Nazi plot to destroy London with a nuclear warhead: nothing to do with the disappearing space shuttle of the film, which was ludicrously intended to cash in on the popularity of Star Wars.
Or what about Fleming’s uncharacteristically tender and experimental The Spy Who Loved Me, with a “Bond girl”, Viv Michel, who manages to be three-dimensional? Anything in the vein of ITV’s excellent recent version of Len Deighton’s The Ipcress File, capturing the book’s spirit even if deviating from its plot, would be very welcome.
Of course, such a series would be at a disadvantage in inviting comparison with the brilliant early Bond films of the 1960s, the first few being made while Fleming was still writing. The most obvious alternative is to produce a prequel series answering the intriguing question of what Bond actually did during the Second World War.
We know from the obituary M writes when Bond is presumed dead in You Only Live Twice that he served (as Fleming had) in Naval Intelligence, as a “lieutenant in the Special Branch of the RNVR”. There are hints elsewhere of a wider experience, however, notably when he comes under machine-gun fire in Dr No: “Then came the swift rattling roar Bond had last heard coming from the German lines in the Ardennes.” How on earth did a Commander from Naval Intelligence end up in the Battle of the Bulge?
The only one of the many post-Fleming Bond authors to nod towards Bond’s war record is William Boyd, who in Solo (2013) gives 007 flashbacks to his arrival in Normandy just after D-Day as part of the intelligence-gathering Commando group 30 Assault Unit - a nice in-joke, as Fleming was a key figure in setting the unit up. Bond vs the Nazis could make for great TV although a fresh-faced actor would be needed, as we are told Bond was only 17 in 1941, having lied about his age to get started on his war service.
Another possibility would be to go earlier than the war and follow the adventures of the schoolboy Bond, which have already been the subject of a series of YA novels by Charlie Higson and Steve Cole (although if aimed at a younger audience the series would have to handle delicately the scene in which Bond fools around with a maid when he is “12 or thereabouts” and gets expelled from Eton.)
Otherwise we could go post-war and deal with how exactly Bond gets 00 status and his early missions (covered in Horowitz’s 2018 novel Forever and a Day) or even perhaps have Bond pass the dreaded 00 retirement age of 45 and become a private agent. Bond in old age might be going too far, however, having already been the subject of a skit by Alan Coren (“Bond tensed in the darkness and reached for his teeth…”).
One barrier to Fleming conquering television drama in the way that John le Carré or Agatha Christie have is that he didn’t have lots of different central characters: all of his novels feature James Bond (apart from Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, which swallows up enough of the TV schedule every bank holiday as it is). But there is at least a decent supporting cast to people spin-offs in which Bond doesn’t have to be a physical presence.
Perhaps we could have a prequel about the early career of M, who could just about have been there as a young man at the beginning of MI6 when it was founded in 1909 - or if you prefer a series based on the Judi Dench version of M, perhaps drawing on the pioneering career of the first female MI5 director-general, Stella Rimington. Or a series explaining the mysterious background of Miss Moneypenny, who could plausibly have worked as a secretary for any 1960s figure from Don Draper to Leonard Swindley before pitching up to work for M. (Perhaps the “Moneypenny Diaries” books by Kate Westbrook, which give her a back story in colonial Africa, could be adapted.)
Then there is everybody’s favourite boffin Q (known as Major Boothroyd in Fleming’s books), who, it was recently announced, is to be the hero of a new series of crime novels by Vaseem Khan, current chair of the Crime Writers’ Association (the first book, Quantum of Menace, will be published next year). A Q television series could provide a good role for one of our senior actor knights if they went for an old buffer Desmond Llewelyn type, or something with more of a contemporary Doctor Who vibe if they go for a Ben Whishaw figure: anything will do as long as they don’t resurrect the tenaciously unretirable John Cleese’s comedy Q from the Pierce Brosnan era.
If Amazon wants to do something based in the US, how about the adventures of Felix Leiter, PI? Fans of the books will know that Bond’s CIA pal is savaged by a shark in Live and Let Die (Fleming wanted to kill him off but relented after objections from his US publisher) and, after being left with a prosthetic leg and a hook for a hand, is forced to retire and join the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Perhaps the great Jeffrey Wright, underused as Leiter in the recent Bond movies, has what it takes to make this rather unconvincing private eye plausible.
I’d also like to see an adaptation of Kim Sherwood’s recent novels Double or Nothing and A Spy Like Me, which focus on a number of different agents in the 00 section. The premise of the series is that Bond has been captured in action and his colleagues are trying to find him while also dealing with their other missions - a cunning way of having Bond as a dominant but not overwhelming off-screen presence.
And those are the heroes: what about the villains? Every baddie, from Hannibal Lecter to The Joker to Cruella de Vil, gets a humanising origin story these days. Why not a prequel depicting the child bullying, career setbacks or humiliations in love that turned Scaramanga and Blofeld, Dr No and Mr Big and Rosa Klebb sour?
Sequels would not be possible, as being a Bond villain always ends the same way: but it’s a different matter with the more fortunate Bond girls. Nearly every book begins with Bond single after having gone into the sunset with some feisty cutie at the end of the previous one: what happens to them all? Perhaps we could have a show in which they all get together and use the skills they’ve learned from observing Bond in action to form a crime-fighting agency: the battle of wits between Pussy Galore and Domino Vitali to be the boss would be quite something.
Finally, there is a great series to be made about the half-Japanese child with whom Kissy Suzuki is pregnant in Fleming’s You Only Live Twice, whom Bond, the father, knows nothing about when he leaves Japan at the end of the book. Bond has always been big in Japan: how much more so if a Japanese son or daughter turned up on his doorstep? With all this possible material, resistance from Broccoli and Wilson is surely futile: before long the films may be only a small cog in the Bond franchise.
The obvious question is why? The answer isn't because audiences are clamoring for anything Bond. The answer is $.
I've not been impressed with any of the continuation novels after Colonel Sun. I wouldn't expect the stories of a character who works in the same building as Bond to be especially interesting.
Star Wars, a series I liked up until Attack of the Teddy Bears, is now so diluted and derivative, I just don't care. I hoped that would not happen to Bond, but James Bond Jr, or Young Bond, or whatever it was called was the first hint of what was to come. What once felt exclusive has not felt that way for some time.
True, I don't have to read or watch any of that stuff. Most likely I won't. I'll be happy to have a great James Bond film and a great continuation novel.
This leads to my own "controversial opinion": I don't usually care about the action in a Bond film. I like the intrigue. My four favorite Bond films: SF, TB, GF, and CR all contain sequences that I enjoy a lot more than heavy action:
SF: Bond meeting Q in the museum...The casino scene when Bond meets Severine...the arrival on the island
TB: Most of the Shrublands sequences...Bond meeting Largo...Bond and Volpe's intimate scene
GF: The golf game...the drive though Switzerland...Bond on the airplane with Pussy Galore and getting spied on...the scenes on GF's Kentucky estate.
CR: All of the scenes at the Ocean Club...Bond meets Vesper on the train...all of the poker scenes.
For the most part, the final "action" in these films doesn't interest me much. Of these, I think CR's final action sequence in the sinking building is the most compelling.
I know. I'm weird.
Nor did I feel much tension at the end as he's shooting his way up the stairwell to his doom.
I thought Connery was the best at conveying fear.
A stunt for the sake of appearing spectacular doesn't impress me.
Connery almost never showed fear as his Bond was the least vulnerable of the lot.
Connery has his moments too though, for sure.
Craig's look of fear and vulnerability, while cleaning the blood off him in CR, was nothing short of brilliant. And he looked genuinely scared at the outset of the torture scene.
In FRWL you can tell he is close to breaking when Grant has him on the floor on his knees. He is thinking while he's talking and seems to hit the attaché case as a hail Mary to get out of his predicament.
TB he shows some fear when he gets cornered in the Kiss Kiss club. He looks around a bit desperate when he sees the thugs show up. Only when he's on the dance floor does he regain himself.
His last two EON films don't allow him to show fear in any way. The scripts for these films show Bond as a superman who is unable to feel or have any sense of vulnerability.
Roger got to show fear a few times Spy at the bomb diffusing. Though was it fear or just stress? Nonethless we hadn't seen Bond sweat in a while. FYEO before the kneel haul he projects a confidence but one wonders if this harkens back to the Connery era where he says one thing while feeling another?
OP was Bond scared at the end or was he under stress due to the bomb? Again I am not sure that it is paid for fear?
Tim showed a more human Bond but I don't think we ever saw fear from him?
Pierce didn't show fear.
Daniel didn't show fear, though we did see some of that Connery era with a man projecting confidence while maybe having some doubts or fears underneath?
I actually think it's a moment of overacting on Lazenby's part. Bond wouldn't be terrified of something like that. Momentarily startled maybe, but he's an agent. His instincts would kick in. A much better acting portrayal of something like that is Dalton in TLD being startled by a bird (and I think a monkey in the PTS?) He stiffens and backs up against the wall, but calms himself when he clocks there's no threat. That's much more Bondian to me, not being frozen by a flash.
I think it's a mixture between what the scenes demanded and the acting styles/what the films wanted to some extent. Moore was a much more expressionistic actor, while Connery was a bit more restrained. Both are great though.
I disagree, it's about showing Bond as a human, and there's a threat, he's desperate, Irma and her men were trying to track Bond, at any time soon, he could've been killed, there's no choice and hopes left, Bond had been in the midst of death many times if not for his gadgets saving his life, here, there are no gadgets, he had nowhere to go, Blofeld was too powerful, he and Irma had their men everywhere in Switzerland, there's nothing Bond could do (it's even more obvious when he had tried to contact MI6 via that telephone booth and he was nearly shot inside, as Irma's men tried to shoot the telephone booth).
Maybe he's thinking of a plan, but time is running out, anytime, he could've been caught, his anxiety kicked in, the man is a human too, and that made him multi dimensional than ever, that also mirrored Bond in the books too (mind you, he's even more naive in the books).
Bond in TLD was in the middle of a training, those are two different scenarios, I could compare it to Bond's VR Gun Demo in DAD, as his mind was set, he's confident, he's not in actual danger, Bond was just startled, but again, it's not an actual danger than the one in OHMSS where 'one miss and he die' kind of thing, and it's an actual thing, not a training.
Nah, for me whatever Lazenby's doing just isn't Bond. Something would kick in - that fight or flight instinct, even if just temporarily. Lazenby's a deer in the headlights literally.