Thing is, 95% of the people Bond would have worked with/under would have been ex-Nazis (and not of the nicest kind). “Organisation Gehlen”, which later became the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) had loads of them among them for one simple reason: there weren’t many skilled and trained people for those jobs, except those who’d worked for the Nazis before and were themselves Nazis. Same goes for police, military, jurisdiction etc, btw. This was a big problem for ages (and still is, at times, because a certain “spirit” was kept well alive), as it lead to a tendency that leftists could get into trouble very easy while there was a blind eye on almost everything that came from the far right.
That said, I don’t think that anything from YOLTs plot would have worked with a West Germany setting.
Although I have expressed it very broadly, and doubtless very badly, it still fascinates me quite how daring a book You Only Live Twice is, to have Bond working for the Japanese. It may be a peculiarly British thing but even now it is still hard for several to see beyond WW2 when it comes to particular foreign relations, and those who might have suffered in combat with Japan could and did and would demonstrate a continuing antipathy (at its mildest). Perhaps because Fleming’s wartime activity was primarily in relation to Germany and Italy it may not have been as immediately profound; don’t know. I just wonder if it was perceived as a risk in offending still raw emotion and sensibility. Only relatively recently did British survivors turn their back on the Japanese Emperor on a state visit here.
As has been pointed out, Fleming’s overt attitude towards Germans and Italians is not sunshine and lemon squash but I did just find it curious that this was being written within 20 years of the war ending and could have been a risky proposition as a result. Totally speculative, I accept, but curiously fascinating that he did it at all: Bond works for Japan. Bond works for West Germany wasn’t going to happen.
There’s probably a lot to unpick here which is way beyond my level of insight.
My theory is that Fleming wanted to juxtapose the fact that Bond was working against a former wartime ally (Soviet Union) almost all the time with the element that he now also worked with a former wartime enemy (Japan). And he chose Japan over Germany, because his audience certainly knew more about Germany than about Japan, which gave him the opportunity to be much more …erm… “inventive” (i.e. make up crap).
Also, the “stranger in a strange land” motif with all those exotic elements was certainly more appealing than having Bond just work in his (gasp!) native country around the corner, which he knew quite well and even spoke the language.
April 1: Looking at the state of filmmaking in 1962, “Dr. No” was a good choice. It could be adapted with ease to the tropes of the cinematic moment, without out sacrificing too much of Fleming. It could also be done within the amount of money available.
April 2: I do not think Fleming would have considered it possible to write YOLT with Germany as the novel’s setting. More than his other novels, YOLT is his mourning opus for Empire–Bond is working for a former enemy, who is the new regional power where once the British lion roared. Fleming could not have pulled off the novel’s ruminations and melancholia in a German setting. All of which is a long-winded way of saying that a German-set YOLT would never have been published, since it would never have been written.
Couldn’t agree more. Bond is special because it at once rare and familiar. The books can be reread multiple times ( not just by fans ) The movies are watched and designed to be watched repeatedly they are the world’s TV pantomime attracting large viewing figures for some 60 years old. Honestly who could read any of the continuation novels more than once and enjoy them?
Love the watches though
April 2nd
What he said … Also The Spy who Came In From The Cold is a riff on YOLT in East and West Germany anyway, so it probably would have been published.
None of those projects impact the series, IMHO, so I don’t think they do any harm. I can ignore the reality show as easily as I have the Young Bond and Moneypenny books, just like I can pick and choose which Star Trek continuation novels or spin-off shows to bother with. As far as that goes, I don’t even consider the Craig films “canon” but I don’t begrudge their existence. Bond’s a big enough property to choose what you want and leave the rest.
It’s funny that you should say this. I recently had a long discussion with my brother (who is also a diehard Bond fan) and we landed on that identical position. We have observed a complete arc of films with Craig that detail the birth, short career, and eventual death of a James Bond who would seem to exist completely outside of established canon despite several tropes remaining intact. This actually greatly helps in my acceptance of where EON choose to go next. My question is, will we see another whole cloth non-canon iteration, or will we instead resume the previous one?
This - yes, it goes a long way towards clouding over the politics/social comment of YOLT. That lot across the Channel that are kind of like us, is a very different proposition to the other side of the world cultural tour that is the novel.
I’ve never been a “universe” type chap. Frankly the large bulk of continuation novels are of little interest to me. Given a choice I’d rather re-read OHMSS than take a chance on an umpteenth Gardner.
So it’s unfair for me to comment on the “worthiness” of Young Bond, Moneypenny Diaries, what-have-you. But I will say this, and feel free to hammer me, if you so wish. Isn’t Higson’s latest set in the present day? Once again, we’re all playing it fast-and-loose with original creation. Bond’s success as a character is his, malleability, perhaps, his persona as cypher. So the minute a world is created around, and independent of him, does it not start to set parameters around a character whose longevity is in part down to a lack of parameters.
For the Craig run, we have had many ruminations on the how big a role the “MI6 gang” should play (enough that they’ve earned that moniker!!!). So if you’re a fan with a foot in both camps - “too much MI6 gang, Bond’s a solo operator,” and “Oooh, just loved the Moneypenny Diaries” - can you square that circle for me? Or does that fan not exist?
Me? I’m fine with the “gang” so long as what they do inhabits the immediate world of the lead. But off on their own patch of the universe, no, don’t care at all. And Young Bond, to bring me back to the start, does sort of begin to lock Bond into a time and space, no?
Obviously, with actor changes and such that can’t be avoided, yet attempts have clearly been made to link them to canon, whether truly successful or not. Roger at Tracy’s grave and the non-stop fan service of easter eggs in DAD would at least seem to be an attempt at putting forth that this has always been the same chap.
Attempts, sure, but what they keep and ignore changed depending on their mood from YOLT onward, as writers and directors pick and choose what they take at random, I think trying to make cannon fit in terms of Bond at all is folly. Blofeld and Felix in particular are all over the place in their age, injuries, personality and the relationship they have with Bond. Blofeld, impressively, recovers from injuries, gets them back again, and changes nationality several times - Leiter just aged backwards and flipped between American Bond and bumbling pencil pusher.
Outside of Craig’s run (when connections were the trend) Eon clearly have never given a toss outside of Easter eggs.
But onto the original question; I’m with @David_M on this. It’s nice that they’re there for people who want them, but they generally make so little impact outside of, well, us, it’s unlikely to saturate the market in the way Disney’s use of the MCU and Star Wars are constantly in threat of.
Full disclosure: I have never engaged with any of the offshoots. So with that caveat: maybe they bring new readers/viewers to the work. If they were not having some net positive effect, they would probably be halted as a drain on financial resources. But they seem ignorable enough if one does not wish to engage.
I try to remember that as a kid of the 70s, I discovered John Steed via “The New Avengers” and had to work my way backward to Emma Peel; that I first met Simon Templar in the form of Ian Ogilvy; that I was introduced to Superman comics via cartoons, that I probably played with toys left over from 60s Batmania before I ever saw Batman on the page or in film and in all likelihood I heard Wings before Beatles. So I won’t begrudge fans who come in through the side door, the back door or the chimney. Once they’re in, they’ll discover the good stuff soon enough.
But we had more than that in the Craig movies, too. On the other hand, one could see RogerBond’s visit at Tracy’s grave as an attempt to push him closer towards “canon” and Flemmming (which his portrayal of the character certainly wasn’t).
Same goes for DAD’s gadget easter eggs in Q’s lab: shoehorning in some items from past movies to create a connection to the past that wasn’t there before.
In brief: any Bond’s tenure may be considered canon or non-canon at will. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But canon is what the creators consider it to be.
The Star Wars example is a good one. Clearly for that brand to survive, it had no choice but to expand into the world beyond that set up by the original film. As that last one proved, there’s little left in the tank for anything Skywalker-related; instead Rogue One and Andor have proved that to live on and prosper (ta-dum), expansion is the only path.
On the other hand Bond as a character is already of such history and heft that’s it’s hard for me to see where the main act is helped (or needs to be helped) by “extraneous” activities. For example, if you didn’t like the DC films (just picking them as the most recent), or Horowitz etc, it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to be fobbed off by some spin-off. You’re either already in a place where you’ll wait for the next tenure to begin, or you just move on. Tied over by anything else I’m not sure would work.
Ultimately universes exist to keep you onboard - not that there’s some central theme they prop up. Marvel is the extreme example of what now feels like a whole load of cameos where we’ve forgotten precisely why we’re there in the first place. CR '67 perhaps???
I think with Bond, “canon” is whatever one makes it. I embrace certain entries and hold others at arm’s length. TSWLM is a remake of YOLT for instance, but forced to choose only one, I’d ditch the '67 film. The next guy in line probably takes the opposite stance. I know fans who don’t even bother owning any of the non-Connery films. They may see the others when they air, but they don’t “count.”
But you’re right that the films tried to “borrow” a sense of legitimacy by touching on certain connections to Fleming and, by implication, the “true” Bond. And the biggest one is Tracy. “Yes, I know we have an underwater city and a giant assassin with steel teeth, but we made a passing reference to Bond’s dead wife, so it’s all legit.” The Craig films abandon this crutch by creating a reality in which Bond never even meets Tracy, let alone loves and loses her. Vesper haunts him instead, as indeed she does in the books, but she’s not a presence at all in the pre-Craig films. When it comes time for the “happy ending denied” storyline, Madeleine steps in as a watered-down substitute Tracy.
There’s other little things, too: all the other Bonds had a father figure “M” (even Brosnan, pre-GE) but Craig “grows up” with a surrogate Mom in that role. Moneypenny goes from a competent but desk-bound secretary to an actual field agent, Q evolves from lecturing uncle to hip young techie, etc. More than any other iteration, the Craig Bond can stand on his own and indeed any attempt to connect him to the earlier versions just plain doesn’t work. Which is why that damned DB5 sticks in my craw.
