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Bond 1.0 Tracy
Bond 2.0 Vesper/Madeleine
Bond 3.0 Gala? Mary Goodnight?
Goodnight has an interesting arc in the novels, going from secretary to love interest, but gradually. And of course Gala hasn't been done yet. I'd put both of them in Bond 26.
:-bd
Yup, agreed there. Maybe it was a bit more backwards-looking than I might hope a new one would be, but it's got everything I'd want otherwise.
Yes, Mary Goodnight deserves a second chance, cinematically. If written and portrayed right, please, make her the next Bill Tanner. Ironically, both characters make their cinematic debut in TMWTGG. She was given a second chance and done right in Carte Blanche, EON take note!
I agree as well with this. There are also are a few suggestions I have for EON: going back to my villains to bring back, PLEASE don’t make it a big secret or other aliases for a character that comes back. Even the general audience sees it coming a mile away! Also, take a break from the art house directors for a film or two. These are meant to be fun movies (for the most part). Let people have some fun, without going overboard with the artsy-ness directors and family soap operas!
You have put together a spot-on list, and other than the first point (I am in my forties), I can subscribe to all the points on it. I'd be sorry to see Ralph Fiennes and Naomie Harris go, but I know what you mean re: a complete fresh start. I could live with an Aston as Bond's personal car, though.
It sure would be great to see, at least for the next 2-3-4 films... maybe longer if the results are good. IMO, story arcs and Bond are not a good mix, and this would reinforce the films' standalone nature and take it up a couple of notches.
Yes, please! The one part where I could see it happening differently is Good faith between Bond and his employers and politicians... specifically, the latter. Would keep things interesting, and more plausible, sort of, to have occasional doubts in that department.
And I agree with the point you make in your earlier post re: computer/hacking-related plots having little visual appeal and being difficult to translate into exciting action. It is a challenge to find more "physical" plots considering today's IT-centric life and a further challenge to find opportunities for first-person espionage in the days of pervasive online tracking and CCTV, but good scriptwriters should be able to work around it.
This, totally.
And finally, I have a lot of respect for Nolan, but I agree with those of you who said that Nolan's take would be (a) too close to what we just had in the CR-NTTD arc and (b) too detached and "cold" in tone. If Tenet was his Bond film pitch... thanks but no thanks.
In the 1950s, employees were deferential to their employers. Not so much now.
I loved the prickly relationship between Bond and M in NTTD. It was utterly believable, given the threat M inadvertently unleashed.
Then again, I wished they'd gone the whole way and adapted the entire last part of YOLT, instead of just a Fleming nod to a garden with some poisonous plants. This was definitely one of those moments when the book version was far better than what they adapted on screen instead.
For me that film was CR, and not SF.
Also, test the waters to do what exactly? You don't spend upwards of $280 million on a movie to simply test the waters.
I don't really understand why they are waiting so long with planning the next film though. They have had almost two years since the production on the last film ended. If it was me I would have used that time to sonder ideas for the next era; which actor to choose, style and tone, possible stories to tell etc. I sincerely hope they have some ideas on this already and are not starting from square one in 2022...
Did it though? It's a garden.
I'm glad the folks who wanted it got it, but it was always just going to be a garden which we had to be told has some poisonous plants in it. If they'd have gone in that way they would have avoided some plants.
I'm not sure they quite work like that: MCU movies are all made by different people so can be made concurrently (it's an actual studio, not a production company); the Star Wars movies were being made quickly but everyone complained about them; F&F movies come out roughly every 4 years; MI movies come out 3-4 years apart... Big movies take time to make, especially when you don't have any more books to adapt.
Well, part of the problem is that the developments of NTTD and especially the end are very significant for how the story will continue and as you said, they kept it all pretty close to the vest, so they surely didn't take meetings with people and gave them like a full plot outline of where NTTD is going to end up.
Sure they could have just told anybody who wanted to pitch them something that the next one has to be a full reboot or something. But surely even if the next film is a full reboot it has to have some kind of relationship to NTTD - even if the relationship is full on rejection and ignorance - and it seems like a bit of a waste to have meetings with people who don't have the whole picture on what they are getting themselves into.
And I pretty sure (or at least hope) we are going to see someone new writing the next one.
I hope they do something similar with B26.
This type of slow build up would have evoked memories of Dr. No and his island, and created far more tension than what we got instead.
It’s also just not very cool, is it? I’m not as bothered about the American box office as some seem to be (I wouldn’t mind a scaled down budget), but if it is a cause for concern, then I really don’t think going back to a yes sir, very good sir, stiff upper lip sort of Bond would help. Bond is employed by the establishment. Trust in them is particularly low amongst young people (the demographic they’re reportedly struggling with in the US).
That’s what confuses me a bit about the Craig backlash from some quarters. Some seem to want NTTD to fail, but if it does, do you really think deviating from Fleming will be the reason why? If anything, I’d imagine the lack of success amongst young Americans is more likely to be because of Bond seeming too old fashioned, even with Craig’s edgier take.
Going back to a Bond that has complete faith in the establishment wouldn’t work today imo, and I think the Craig era has generally struck a good balance in that area. I don’t want a LTK/QoS sort of Bond in every film, but I’ve got no problem with him winding M up and defying the odd order. Bond should always move with the times, and I don’t think it undermines or goes against his character. It’s just a sign of how things are now.
or Nellie's grandaughter? Q could have enormous fun with high tech weapons on this. I think we need an injection of fun? that nose is crying out for machine guns :-)
(stealth?)
or
All of this sounds like it could belong to any number of modern gangster flicks and Netflix dramas.
Exactly. This kind of dynamic would be fun to watch, and seeing M's reaction to it would make M him/herself a more interesting character. Then again, I could be forgetting the details, but IIRC even in older Bonds where he does not go rogue, he often has issues with following M's orders.
Absolutely. Gimmicky gadgets did not suit the tone of recent films, and DAD's invisi-Aston was a misfire that may have made scriptwriters wary, but a cool gadget, like the ones you mention and the Cavalon in the clip, can elevate an average Bond film and make a good or great one unforgettable (GF comes to mind, but my favourite is TLD's "winterised" Aston... but they needn't all be cars).
I am somewhat less convinced on the sub, it is cool to watch but too reminiscent of Octopussy's crocodile. I guess it is OK so long as its practical purpose is not too contrived; in Octopussy, a set of scuba gear could have done the job, but I think LTK's manta ray was fine.
ETA: it has been bugging me for two days now... can anyone remind me which film it was that had M's "tilted" office inside a half-sunk ship?
A very interesting read, @bondsum! Thank you. Quite an insight on what they’ve been thinking and conjuring over the years.
That was TMWTGG.
Indeed. CGI's best use is as a correction tool, otherwise no matter how good, it takes the viewer out of the moment.
Star Wars didn't have a quality problem, it had a story problem that was being miss-managed by its producer who didn't care too much for Lucas's source material. I don't think you can conflate the two and blame it on the shorter release dates.
The F&F didn't come out every four years!! Let's take it from when they began ramping up production with Fast & Furious 4 (2009), Fast Five (2011), Fast & Furious 6 (2013), Furious 7 (2015), Furious 8 (2017), Furious 9 was the only exception due to it being delayed and coming out in 2021, but the majority only had a 2-year gap.
The MI are a little slower to get their act together due to Tom Cruise's already overcrowded schedule, but since Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol in 2011/12 they've closed the distance between each of their own movie releases. Shooting two Mission: Impossibles back-to-back is where they've stolen a march over Bond.
As I pointed out previously, the long gaps has very little to do with quality or not having any more books to adapt. Danny Boyle’s appointment as director of the new 007 movie was announced around May 2018. As we already know production was due to begin at the start of December 2018, with the film released in the UK on 25 October 2019. By late August 2018, Boyle was gone. The dispute was over the script he and John Hodge were were both working on which was jettisoned as soon as Fukunaga replaced him, then they had to start from scratch all over again. From what we know Boyle and Hodges only had a couple of months to work on various script treatments to get the final screenplay right before it was decided it wasn't what they wanted. What I'm trying to say is, they always sail pretty close to the wind before their movie heads into full production anyway. A long hiatus isn't used for anything more than downtime or working on other pet projects.