The world Fleming created, and EON reinforced, didn’t really spark the “interest” as to what is beyond it, or what would extend from it - the journalist in him did enough to paint a picture that the reader could easily fill in the blanks and to your point - timelessly, fill in those blanks. When I read YOLT, I “see” a Japan, and whether it’s accurate or not isn’t really relevant. What it is, is real for me within that experience.
And by extension, to bring it back to the original question posited by the thread - Bond has no business involving himself in the IRA or the Troubles - it’s not that type of fiction. It’s why Forsyth, Clancy, Ludlum, are very different reads and their films, very different watches. They live in a world that already exists, whereas Fleming’s is uniquely its own.
I suspect the challenge for Amazon isn’t going to be in coming up with spin-offs - it’s that they will too easily be seen as a version of something else, rather than as a part of Bond. Which unlike, Star Wars, is a world already fleshed out and where what is “important” or “relevant” already decided.
Reading this made me realize that I have enjoyed Bond films over the years–even when I was not enamored of their formal/aesthetic aspects–because of their engagement with the world in which I was living. Whatever the merits/demerits of SF and SP, both films nail the threat of encroaching surveillance (whoever it may be who is doing the watching).
I love the Craig era, particularly NTTD, but the best way forward is to pretend it never existed. This approach seems to be serving the new US admin well so crack on
I have always seen the movies prior to Craig as not one long continuation but rather different interpretations featuring the same character. So the continuities of each actor are loosely connected (e.g., Bond being married) if at all.
On another note, I would not be opposed to Ireland but clearly the best unused Fleming is when Bond comes to my hometown of Ottawa Canada. We need to get that into a film!
