I am so glad to know that you recovered.
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For me, there is the first canon of writings by Ian Fleming. Then there are written works subsequent to the canon.
As for the films: Fleming’s fiction covered thirteen years–a fairly brief period of time, even with the significant changes that went on in society, which his work reflected and commented upon.
The films cover more than 60 years–almost five times as long a span of time. They have maintained a basic consistency, despite having to reflect and comment on cultural changes on scale unknown to Fleming. For me, this is a second canon, which often nods to/references the first canon, but maintains its viability and legitimacy by being of the moment when each individual film was made (as were the novels).
For example:
Q.E.D.
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I quite enjoyed it at the time, though that was entirely down to Steed. As a budding anglophile, I couldn’t help but love such exaggeratedly over-the-top “Englishness” in a character, and he was the lone bit of colorful eccentricity in what was otherwise a comparatively straightforward 70s “cop show.” Once I was able to experience the undiluted quirkiness of the original series, The New Avengers lost a lot of its appeal (not being 13 anymore didn’t help either) but I still get a bit of a charge out of that driving, disco-esque theme music. I remember hearing it in Anchorman and exclaiming, “I know where that’s from!” to the annoyance of the rest of the family, who just wanted to enjoy the comedy fight scene.
As I recall, TNA alternated with Return of the Saint late at night on Fridays. I got the impression the attitude at CBS was, “What the heck, we’ll never beat Johnny Carson anyway; just put on some imported content and we’ll run out the clock until sign-off time.” (I liked Ogilvy’s Saint, too, but mostly because he did a passable Roger Moore impersonation. Plus if I wanted to play “British hero,” adopting Ian’s turtlenecks would earn me slightly fewer playground beatings than a bowler and umbrella would have)
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Mrs. Peel was my favorite.
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The Emma years were unquestionably the high point of The Avengers. At least two Emma episodes are scene-for-scene remakes of Cathy Gale episodes, and they provide a chance for a real apples-to-apples comparison. The Gale-era episode “Don’t Look Behind You” becomes the Peel-era “The Joker” and Cathy’s “The Charmers” reappears as “The Correct Way to Kill” with Emma, and in both cases, Diana Rigg injects so much life, charm and joy into the proceedings it’s no contest.
None of which is to take away from Honor Blackman, who was gorgeous and great fun to watch, but with Diana there’s magic. She’s also my favorite “Bond Girl” but if I’m honest with myself I’ll never be sure how much of that has to do with her history as Emma as opposed to anything she does as Tracy. In the same way, my affection for Roger’s 007 is skewed by the fact that I like Roger as The Saint better than I like anyone as Bond, even Roger.
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I agree again.
And those who look for questionable material can‘t be educated by removing material which offered it before. It will only strenghten their stance of „wokeness (sanity) ruining everything“.
I would welcome a preface pointing out the questionable material, like a disclaimer. While that won‘t educate the usual racists it helps to put the content into perspective for those who don’t already know or discuss this on message boards.
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I disagree and point to Stromberg‘s argument: canon is always what the producers intended.
All the EON films, not NSNA.
Just picking one‘s favourites is deliberately wearing a blindfold.
The good news: no one is ordered to like everything. I do enjoy NSNA.
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They’re not part of the previous canon but that doesn’t make me think of them any lesser. Craig’s first movie is as legitimate as can be, being based on Fleming’s first book, albeit updated for modern times. There are changes but they’re still in the spirit of the character, and helped make things interesting. Showing Bond getting his 00 licence automatically made this a seperate bubble of continuity, and later his death confirmed it beyond reasonable doubt. I don’t think Bond 7 will be a continuation of the Connery-Brosnan incarnation. I think that ship has sailed, and they’ll move on with a brand new story.
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With the below (April 4-6) still in play, the next set are set out beneath them:
April 4: Removing some if not all of the racially suspect commentary and comments from the Bond novels will only serve to emphasise the currently questionable material that then remains, and must therefore backfire.
April 5: Killing Bond at the end of No Time to Die sensibly draws a line under that era, and all its callbacks to earlier eras, leaving Eon totally free to clean-slate things. Although they won’t.
April 6: Given his propensity for (ahem) “borrowing” material from other sources, “Going back to Fleming” means copying the styles of others and other genres; accordingly, in spirit the most Fleming-like period of the films (post the notionally direct adaptations) was the 1970s.
April 7 SPECTRE has diversified and the R in its name stands no longer for Revenge but for Restaurants.
You have arrived at Le Chat Malefique, its flagship noshpit, for mighty fine dining and chips. You have a choice of where to sit, which table to join (set for five, currently occupied by four); however, note that wherever you choose, the other five tables and their diners will drop into a furnace and be incinerated. The T still stands for Terrorism, not Take-out.
Which table at which to sit? The others will be on your conscience.
Table 1: Casino Royale (novel); Die Another Day (film); MooreBond; Live and Let Die (song)
Table 2: OHMSS (film); Another Way to Die; CraigBond; The 007 store
Table 3: Casino Royale (2006 film); Never Dream of Dying; Goldfinger (film); Mary Goodnight (film version)
Table 4: Skyfall (film); The Man with the Golden Gun (novel); Jinx; GoldenEye64
Table 5: GoldenEye (film); Stacey Sutton; Never Say Never Again; Terence Young
Table 6: The Spy who Loved Me (film); NivenBond; Undereath the Mango Tree. Martin Campbell
April 8 The Bond films need a female director (assume it’s on merit and they are the best person for the job); my suggestion would be _________
April 9 Resurrection seems to be the order of the day. We’re now further from Never Say Never Again than it itself was from the end of World War 2. It’s obviously time for another Thunderball remake, even if it’s Eon doing it.
April 10 Given what we were subjected to in Spectre and No Time to Die, I have greater faith in ChatGPT or its like to write the next Bond film than I do the continued use of the series’ regular writers.
April 11 Whether or not it is a favourite performance, the one Roger Moore put in for Octopussy demonstrates his range as an actor most effectively. His other performances are narrower, or the material does not give him sufficient opportunity so to shine.
April 12 Rebooting with a younger Bond still in service and being recruited (contemporaneously, not in period) is the obvious way to go now. Reborn, not just rebooted.
April 13 In 2023, further editing the Bond novels for the 70th anniversay is apparently justified; however in 2022 for the 60th anniversary of the film series, they didn’t seem to take anything out. They really should have removed ________________ (“nothing” is not an option).
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So…basically what the esteemed Jim is saying is that without all the casual racism there isn’t much left? Hmmmm.
Thanks to a re-read after NTTD, I have become a huge fan of YOLT. It does mosey around for a hundred-plus pages (who says Dahl didn’t make a faithful adaptation?), but it has some moments of post imperial commentary and self-awareness where one can almost make the case that the author, all with tongue heading reflexively towards cheek, is attempting to make amends for some prior positions by displaying that his lead is a bit of dimwit, new-found sense of humor his penance.
The suspect racial commentary is the point, and with EON already in the process of sending up the whole thing, there is an element of self-loathing that for me I can interpret Fleming admitting that “yep, it’s all changing and I’m the one who is heading for the display case.”
LALD? Yeah, you’re on your own there…
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I think you can make that case and despite its reputation for being death-dripped in decay, it’s the funniest Bond novel by some margin.
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I am reminded of the Julio Cortazar’s sublime short story “We All Love Glenda So Much.” In it, a group of super fans of the retired actress Glenda seek to create perfect versions of all her films by removing all blemishes/mistakes from existing prints, thereby creating "a flawless future, of Glenda without blunders or betrayals.” Whether the prints are in private collections or publicly available, they will correct all of them since “perfecting Glenda was perfecting us and perfecting the world.”
Having accomplished their goal, and created the perfect Glenda, they are horrified to read that she is coming out of retirement to make a new film. Faced with this inconvenient fact, they resolve to do the only thing possible–prevent Glenda from making a new film, so as not to besmirch what they have accomplished.
Suddenly Cortazar’s satire is our reality.
Brilliant observation. Now I see how the decay and the humor play off each other to create a new richness/capaciousness in Fleming, which makes the novel so appealing to me.
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But Eon itself has been so inconsistent about what “counts” and what doesn’t. Did Roger Bond face Goldfinger? Doubtful, but Brosnan Bond in DAD plays with relics of adventures Sean and Roger had, and Daniel drives Sean’s car. Lazenby, Moore and Dalton married Tracy, but did Brosnan? Maybe. Did Connery? Well, we assume so since he hunts down Blofeld and (apparently) kills him at the start of DAF, but it’s not 100% clear its out of revenge for Tracy and indeed if he IS a recent widower, Moneypenny is uncharacteristically insensitive and boorish with her “bring me an engagement ring” remark. Anyway we know for sure Craig never even met Tracy; he’s obsessed with Vesper for his entire Double-Oh career, while none of the other Bonds may have even met her. And if the same Bond experienced YOLT, TSWLM and MR, why doesn’t he suffer from extreme deja vu?
If Eon can’t be bothered to consider how or if everything fits, then I reserve the right to build my own “head canon.” Pre-Craig, the only way any of it made sense was if every adventure happened in its own universe, since a lot of times it was just the same adventure with different names and faces. Even my life isn’t as repetitive as Classic Bond’s.
Indeed, if you take out the most offensive parts of the novels, then the slightly less offensive stuff moves to the top of the list. Then in the next round of edits, that has to go as well. Then some day you’re left with a harmless, inoffensive series of novels adapted into offensive films. So you move on to editing them: Quarrel is no longer told to “fetch my shoes,” Roger doesn’t say “that’ll keep you in curry” or zoom a camera in on a colleague’s breasts in OP, and Live and Let Die is about 15 minutes long.
Bottom line, if you’re easily offended, James Bond is not for you. I’ve known people who’ve avoided him for that reason all my life, since well before society became obsessed with avoiding “triggering” and tip-toeing around the ultra-sensitive. If you can’t handle Bond, there’s always Mr Rogers.
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April 1: Dr. No serves as a great template for the series and is a good introduction to Bond. Casino Royale should’ve started it, but as it was not possible, DN more than suffices.
April 2: The books were British and frequently featured Germans as villains. The book may not have been published in Germany, but YOLT would’ve been fine had it been set in West Germany.
April 3: I honestly would like MORE Bond. We haven’t had a proper game since 2012, only 4 novels since then, and 2 films. Give me more!!!
April 4: No censoring of the books…well maybe that one chapter in Live and Let Die, but nothing else!
Promote an already established/experienced 007. Similar to Sir Sean in Dr. No. A new origin story is not needed or wanted. Continue to pay homage to the past M, an Aston Martin, a PPK, and perhaps Q and Moneypenny.
It is. I made a post earlier this year listing most of Bond’s humour in the book, and there’s quite a lot.
I agree. Japan gives the story the cultural elements of suicide and honour which also comment on Bond’s psychological situation. To Tanaka and Dikko for the most part they see a flippant friend, but underneath he’s hiding hurt and revenge. That’s why the increase in humour works for me.
Unaltered Fleming is the purest canon possible. Anything after that is a variation in tribute to the original works, not in the same circumstances or chronology. Characters like Blofeld exist in a specific function and didn’t venture outside to places like Las Vegas or hollowed out volcanoes. He was strangled to death in his Castle of Death.
Absolutely agree. Bond is a cold hearted bastard and it’s the humour, and lifestyle, that makes him a lot more appealing and likeable. Sanitise him too much and you’re left with someone a lot less interesting and identifiable as James Bond.
They really could start fresh. But how fresh could it be? And I agree, they won´t. Amazon wants returns.
April 4th
Removing what is turgidly racist only serves to deny teachable moments to future generations. In my opinion
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April 5th
It simultaneously is a great start point or a glorious end point if no more are made.
Clean slate, new Bond, perfect opportunity
Cyclical finish like a circle in a spiral etc. Perfect end point like the song says
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I’m not sure what to think. On the one hand, I never would have thought Eon would have the guts to start from scratch with Casino Royale, essentially asking “what if this were the first movie to ever adapt Bond to the big screen” instead of “how can we yet again tweak the formula we’ve leaned on for decades?”
And yet, it didn’t take long to pull out the crutch of the DB5 and have Oberhauser unveil himself as “Ernst…Stavro…BLOFELD!” like that should mean something in the Craig-verse.
Ultimately it’s probably just too tempting not to dip into a reservoir of iconic imagery and concepts that have made the series such a pop culture powerhouse. I hope they go for something novel and clever, but I have no doubt they’ll sooner or later work in “homages” to what was, let’s face it, the period when Bond most mattered.
That said, there’s certainly no reason to do any callbacks to Craig’s tenure. He has a beginning and an end. You can always imply “I fit the Goldfinger mission in when you weren’t looking” but it’s hard to get away with, “Yeah I died that one time, but I got better.”
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