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Removing YOLT from the Bond timeline
Aziz_Fekkesh
Royale-les-Eaux
For me, YOLT always represented the point of no return where the series really went OTT to satisfy mainstream tastes and this impacted what the producers thought the audiences wanted, especially after OHMSS was not as successful as YOLT. It seemed that after YOLT, Cubby and Harry just relented by saying "well the sky's the limit so we can go as absurd as possible if it'll make money".
GF was the first to show the "cinematic Bond", but it's still a classic and enjoyable film despite the changes I would to it (darker tone, Young instead of Hamilton, don't present Bond as a bumbling fool half the time, etc.) But YOLT still remains the weakest '60's film and is unbelievable in every respect. I like entertaining alternate reality scenarios, but doing a faithful OHMSS followed by a faithful YOLT has alway been my favourite. Sure, we would lose Pleasance and the volcano, but whose to say you can't do that later, so that it becomes the exception and not the norm?
GF was the first to show the "cinematic Bond", but it's still a classic and enjoyable film despite the changes I would to it (darker tone, Young instead of Hamilton, don't present Bond as a bumbling fool half the time, etc.) But YOLT still remains the weakest '60's film and is unbelievable in every respect. I like entertaining alternate reality scenarios, but doing a faithful OHMSS followed by a faithful YOLT has alway been my favourite. Sure, we would lose Pleasance and the volcano, but whose to say you can't do that later, so that it becomes the exception and not the norm?
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Comments
Also, I agree that YOLT is the first one to really lift things to the absurd, but one might ask if that wasn't unavoidable. Demanding 23 films to remain more or less consistent with one another, while several cinematic conventions are constantly altered and new generations of fans drop by, seems like asking the impossible.
While YOLT troubles me in certain scenes as well, I've nevertheless come to accept and even somehow appreciate the changes it introduced. More such changes have, ultimately, followed in the many years since, sometimes to the benefit of the franchise, and sometimes -arguably- to its detriment. ;-)
And some stinkers are lessons to later Bond films or signify a major shift in tone as well as being time capsules of their eras.
I wouldn't remove any from the canon, they all have their moments
Whilst I love YOLT for what it is this is quite an interesting way to approach things which kind of works if you ignore the 10 year jump from Tracy's death to Bond at the grave. Maybe he was really depressed.
The real tragedy is we haven't had a proper version covering the events of Tracy's death, Bonds depression, revenge against Blofeld, Bonds amnesia, brainwashing and assination attempt on M.
There's a lot of juicy material there which Craig could work wonders with (Bond in the Lubyanka being interrogated by the KGB would be epic) but short of an OHMSS reboot which I don't think can be seriously considered, I just don't see we can get any of that in the next 2/3 films. Particularly as Craig really needs just a straightforward mission above anything else next - no emotional stuff, no M hogging the story (which is why Colonel Sun is not a possibility at this stage).
Quite. I think that the OHMSS-YOLT-TMWTGG arc should be left for Craig's successor (ideally, later in the successor's run, as opposed to starting with an OHMSS equivalent).
If they removed it, so to speak, would it really be such a bad thing ? A few months ago, I couldn't have cared less for it's omission, but now I see things in a new light, in that it's actually a decent film and overall watch, even if the last half hour does drag a bit, as the volcano scenes just get a bit banal towards the end and you feel you're going nowhere fast
I think after a recent viewing, this should stay. Take away Connery's final effort that is Diamonds are Forever, if we really want to throw something in the trash