You‘re making us choose so cruelly, Jim. It’s wonderful, thank you. (Masochism is the only way to live these days.)
While the GF/TB template is so tempting to go back to (and probably generating tons of money) the going back to IF must be the more important one in the long run.
Not because of the sadism, sexism, racism or meandering thin plots. But because of the essence of Bond which gets diluted on its way to the screen anyway. Starting from the movie formula would be like the copy from the copy. And we all know how those third and fourth generation Michael Keatons turned out in „Multiplicity“.
As for today’s choice: Better to [the spirit] of GOLDFINGER/THUNDERBALL (not the actual films, please).
Fleming came a long way with his Bond. In Casino Royale Bond doesn’t actually do anything beyond playing cards; things just happen to him, cruel and nasty things. And then he’s saved by the timely appearance of a deus-ex, but we see him as the hero anyway because he suffered so much for it.
Bond would, over the course of fourteen books, become a lot more proactive, his exploits ranging from the fantastical to the mundane - but his core quality would always remain his granite gift of endurance and ability to take blows and get up again. Fleming later would write him significantly more jaded, closer to a Deighton or le Carré character (The Living Daylights), and even gives him one His Last Bow moment with The Property of a Lady.
But as Kingsley Amis remarked, the jaded and world weary heroes of his colleagues and their prosaic exploits aren’t the natural habitat of Bond and Fleming’s strong sleeve is spinning the yarn with the least regard for realism, solely caring what would be the most exciting turn of events.
The early films instinctively followed that priority - THUNDERBALL even started out as a film project on a napkin - developed their recipe along the lines of what would visually please and thrill their audience. In some cases they even improved on the books while keeping a laissez-faire attitude about critique and detractors. Their Bond was a circus trampoline act, staged so skilfully that we rarely see the trampoline and almost forget it’s based in reality - but not quite entirely.
That’s the careful balance when Bond seems to work best and the series ought to seek again.
Connery gave three distinctively different Bonds as did Moore, Craig in a more modern way layered his performance so that change exists in one character i.e he grows over the course of his tenure. I do think there are key performances that couldn’t be done by any other actor as well.
Connery in Thunderball and Diamonds are Forever
Moore in Moonraker
Craig in Casino Royale and Spectre
The rest , I could see any of the Bonds in Goldeneye and it wouldn’t be a worse experience.
Craig or Dalton would be just as effective as Connery in FRWL
Moore could have done a great job in OHMSS as could Dalton
None of the others have the right balance of charm and grace to play Moonraker and no one else could carry DAF!
I think Moore could’ve absolutely done a serious Bond, but I’m glad we didn’t get that. I like that we get to see that side of him occasionally, knowing it’s under the surface of his smooth facade. He’s capable of it.
I rather like AVTAK but his Bond is doing stunts like it’s still 1973 and the leading female is younger than ever. That part didn’t change. I don’t put that down as a negative though considering that type of realism or character development wasn’t really a thing back then in the way it is now.
Is it better to go back to Fleming? I’d like to think so, but as that seam is close to being mined out, the reality is that it will be “better” to go back to GF/TB.
Ultimately, celluloid Bond is a relative of literary Bond rather than a twin and so as far as the film series is concerned, it will always fall back on GF/TB. Should it? Yes - as that’s what the great unwashed “know” and love. A gazillion more people are going to watch Bond 26 (or whatever we’re on) rather than read Anthony Horowitz 4 (or whatever we’re on).
Will bits of Fleming (either literally or in spirit) still make it in there? Probably, although it’s really only us that will be able identify it (and give a hoot), but we’re going back to GF/TB, as we’ve been doing that since, well, since GF/TB.
Where are you
Why do you hide
Where is that moonlight trail that leads to your side
Just like the moonraker goes
In search of his dream of gold
I search for love
For someone to have and hold
I’ve seen your smile
In a thousand dreams
Felt your touch
And it always seems
You love me
You love me
Where are you
When will we meet
Take my unfinished life and make it complete
Just like the moonraker knows
His dream will come true someday
I know that you
Are only a kiss away
I’ve seen your smile
In a thousand dreams
Felt your touch
And it always seems
You love me
You love me
What does “back to Fleming” even mean at this point? They’ve already mined all the useable tidbits they can, and over the last few decades they’ve tried hard to distance themselves from Fleming’s approach to/opinions on women, minorities, smoking, etc. Even when the books came out they were already looking backwards to the worldview and pulp novel plots of an earlier age, so how far back are we setting the dials on the time machine, anyway?
I vote for a return to the large-scale, bombastic adventures from the height of Bondmania, but I don’t think it’s a “universally acknowledged truth” that it’s the way to go. For one thing, “Back to Fleming” is so fun for purists to say that they’ll never stop saying it, even though I suspect they have no idea what it means. For example, there’s lots of claims the Craig era went “back to Fleming” but aside from using his novel to map the general plot of CR, I can’t imagine what they mean. If we can’t agree on what “Fleming” even is, then it’s hard to say whether we should get “back” to it.
Not even sure what’s the big difference between back to GF/TB and going back to Fleming.
The last time I checked, but books were standing on my shelf, in line with other Fleming novels. And both films are not that far away from their respective novels (when you compare it with the closeness of certain other Bond movies to their respective novels), so going back to Fleming does not exclude going back to GF/TB.
Or is there anyone who wants to imply that, say, Thunderball was not written by Fleming?
Shocking Bond opinion: DAF would have been the perfect fifth Brosnan.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the Bond films that one may consider good have always been sufficiently so to justify many times the ongoing output of the series, even if series history dictates there’s a very good chance of a weak one coming along at any given juncture.
It probably should be acknowledged - universally if at times grudgingly - that so many entries over so many decades have to produce the odd stinker. Not all Mercedes cars have been outstanding vehicles, not every suit leaving Savile Row is a work of art. And so the output of the Bond sausage factory is likewise not always to the highest standards.
Do now FRWL, OHMSS and MR justify the depths of TMWTGG, TWINE or whatever we deem subpar entries? As long as there’s a chance for a CASINO ROYALE every once in a while definitely! Is it reasonable to expect it every time? Or at least an interesting if flawed SKYFALL? My approach has been for some time now to hope for the best regardless. I know they don’t set out to make bad Bond films. And I know every film is a compromise between various different factions contributing to the finished product, all of them ultimately subject to market forces. As long as they don’t simply give in to the relentless streamlining and corner cutting that’s now the pinnacle of our economic ambitions - selling the cheapest possible product for the highest possible price; sod quality; sod art - I’m happy to see the series continue.
One always has grand ambitions and visions (while high on one‘s perceived capabilities), and then something slips away (control over anything one gets paid or mistreated for - sometimes both at the same time), and then it’s just a race to the finish line, and reaching that with one‘s (ridiculously high set) standards is often impossible. And gee, the general audience does not care anyway, just give them colorful images moving fast, explosions, the idea of sex, and that’s enough for them not to click away for awhile. Audiences are like toddlers with ADD these days, right? The old geezers who obsess over their 4k (blu rays, not pensions) will notice, maybe, but all in all, just create and send out a product which meets the demand.
And comparing the Bond films with other series, they still do fare much, much better.
There is no other franchise delivering that consistently entertaining entries.
If I’m reading the question correctly, then truth.
Bond is an example of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. It’s only the hard core fan base that even remembers individual entries and tries to analyze them in isolation. The general public tends to run the entries together in their minds and doesn’t sort them into “the good ones” and “the bad ones.” They may like “the one with the ski jump and the alligators” or “the one with the jetpack and the volcano” because it all runs together for them in a mental highlight reel. For them “Bond” is a concept, a franchise, and not “this film” or “that film.” Even the “weaker” entries are usually judged so on their perceived failure to deliver the elements of what “Bond” is in the public mind. And even if one or another falls short, it can’t totally undo all that history and good will. How many times have we heard criticisms like, “That wasn’t a real Bond film,” whereas other movies are blasted for being “too slow” or “ridiculous”? A Bond film can be – and sometimes is – slow AND ridiculous and still be loved as long as it’s satisfyingly “Bond” in nature.
For those of us who are fans, the stronger ones are “proof” that it’s all worth it, while the weaker ones we emerge from with the attitude, “well, there’s always next time.” We exalt the good ones and excuse the rest, or cherry-pick from them the good bits as proof they only “missed it by that much.” This theory was proven to me with CR, which left me saying “See? I knew they could do another good one,” after thinking “well, there’s always next time” for 19 years.
Even the best entries are flawed, and even the worst ones have something to like/love. What’s more, this board has shown me that every film is somebody’s favorite. So yeah, while I don’t think there’s universal acknowledgement as to which films are “the good ones,” there is definitely agreement that the positive experiences we have with Bond go a loooong way to forgiving the days he lets us down. I’m not a sports guy, but I imagine it’s like the loyalty one feels to the home team no matter how long it’s been since they had a winning season. It’s always the #1 team in your heart no matter how well it does on the field.
I think what still makes Bond the “king” of the franchises, is the series’ ability to recover from the “bad” ones (and over 20+ films I honestly think there’s only a couple of real dogs, whatever we might find in them we like).
The closest - and I say closest, as I personally have a lot of time for TWINE - the series has come to laying 2 iffy entries back-to-back is TWINE-DAD. Most other franchises rarely survive their “bad” one (Die Hard, Clooney-Batman, Lethal Weapn), and yet Bond always finds a way to bounce back from the ‘critical consensus’ dogs (again, I’m addressing how the great unwashed see them, not us).
Whatever one thinks of EON, they were always able to pivot without losing the essence of what had got them that far. Of course they were in the Bond business and the Bond business alone, so perhaps they had no choice but to persevere. Other franchise are all big studios who would just move on to the next piece of IP, or even Marvel who just move on to the next character; It will be interesting to see if Amazon have the nous, and the stomach, for when they have an entry that is…underwhelming.
I suspect the hardcore fans are… well… I have to admit it: old.
We will continue to watch these, even just to bitch about the new ones not reaching the heights of the earlier ones.
But audiences growing up now (i.e. the TARGET audience), knowing only parts of some Bonds (fnarrr), will probably switch to other shiny objects when the current one does not suit them.
Thanks SAF, though I prefer to think of ourselves as of indeterminate middle-age…!
The series was able to lay down its foundation and roots at a time when it was pretty much the only “series” and that definitely helped it cement its place in our collective psyches. It is a very different world now, which for me makes '95, '06 and even '12 (an argument could be made that a Bond film, or any franchise film, had no “right” to be that big 20 or so entries in) really impressive achievements on EON’s part. Even back in '73 they got it right, establishing a new lead and proving that the series had almost endless longevity.
Are the challenges going to be different now? Yeah, an age of shorter-attention spans and instant gratification will be a real test, plus, to circle back to your first point, do younger audiences think of Bond as their parents’ franchise, rather than their own?
At the moment I’m not sure young people think of Bond a lot at all. NO TIME TO DIE was in 2021 - and the one before, SPECTRE, was in 2015. And it’s debatable how many new fans either of these two brought to the series during the decade since. Possibly the last major recruiting effort tapping into the younger demographic was SKYFALL - and ever since 2012 terrestrial reruns of Connery and Moore probably bring in more kids than the last few Craig films. Even if we didn’t think that’s a problem, kids increasingly don’t watch terrestrial tv (with their parents) any more.
This is a problem.
What we currently see as trends in the social media feeds where younger demographics hang out is ‘things’ (physical objects, memes, characters) having a ‘moment’ (any timespan from a few hours to a few months at most). Baggy/skinny/bootcut/highrise/straightleg/loosefit/selvedge/narrowcut - whether it’s jeans styles or ‘must have’ stuff like Stanley cups, French chore coats, ‘labubus’, any bizarre trash has the potential to kick off a run on it. But only until the flock needs the next thing.
What Amazon will have to do is create a moment for their Bond, an environment that takes in a huge portion of the kids and their parents alike. And if they’re very very lucky the kids come to the theatre on their own and take to Bond again.
