Examples?
Two examplesâŚ
- Miami Vice
- License to Kill
I think so too. Perhaps the last time Bond had been vaguely original, or a trend-setter, was You Only Live Twice, as it really took the spy-fi stuff to extremes which the Matt Helm and Derek Flint films then tried to emulate (though Thunderbirds was a couple of years earlier - an overlooked influence on the series).
Most of the rest could be diplomatically described as âkeeping up with the timesâ (the blaxpolitation stuff in Live and Let Die, the karate and Smokey and the Bandit-style car chases in The Man with the Golden Gun, Moonraker was Star Wars etc).
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I think the comparisons to Miami Vice were driven not so much by a point-for-point comparison of plot elements, but the more general feeling that the film felt downscaled and low-rent for a Bond entry; more like a TV show than a movie. The sentiment was " if we can see this every week on TV, why pay to see it in the cinema?" In fact, for all the talk now about poor marketing and the fierce competition of that summer, I still think bad word of mouth has to be considered as a factor in LTKâs lackluster BO.
I had a hard time embracing LTK when it arrived, partly because it broke with formula in so many ways, but more because it abandoned what Bond did better than anyone, to do what Bond couldnât do as well as any number of âsweaty t-shirtâ action heroes. To me it was less Miami Vice than Steven Seagal or Chuck Norris, right down to the three-word title and Cannon Films production standards.
Itâs funny how other entries get stick for riding the coat tails of trends like blaxploitation or space opera, but LTK is held up as bold and innovative or âtrue to Fleming,â when of course itâs just jumping on the 80s bandwagon of super-skilled lawmen going off on bloody vendettas against a bad guy the law canât reach (double points if he deals drugs and triple if heâs âethnicâ) and avenging a victimized partner. Except in this case the partner is a character whoâs barely been present for years and is played by an actor we havenât seen in the role for a decade and a half.
I wouldnât compare it so much to Miami Vice, which was better looking with cooler clothes, superior music and great cars.
Not that I donât enjoy certain aspects of the film. 
but the point is I think itâs valid to say LTK is derivative of a lot of 80s material. Miami Vice just gets mentioned the most because itâs still considered insulting to compare a movie to a âmereâ TV show.
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I think it was also the timing; Miami Vice was the rage on US television at the time. Plus Miami Vice was a trendsetter for fashion and that influence is also tin the film. Then thereâs the villain being a drug lord, which was the primary constant criminal element in the TV show. When I saw it opening weekend, one of the guys I was with said as we walked out of the theater, âThat was James Bond versus Scarface. Or maybe James Bond on Miami Vice.â
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Thatâs very interesting. I think youâre right in that films can be scornfully compared with a TV series.
As for LTK seeming more TV, I think the first Lethal Weapon is quite low-key, too, and could easily have been a television pilot, not least because it involves a kidnapping of someone close to the characters, which must have happened in T.J. Hooker, Hunter and every other show of the time. And that certainly worked out.
Actually, MIAMI VICE was a pop culture surprise in 1984 when it debuted. In 1989, May 21st to be exact, its last episode aired to conclude its fifth season, with ratings declining since the third season.
So, when LTK debuted, the MIAMI VICE popularity already had ended. Sure, its influence (pop music as score, music video editing) was palpable. But again, which examples within LTK do you see specifically?
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I actually offer that Lethal Weapon is the greater influence on LTK - villains who are involved in drugs as the subplot, but ultimately a hero involved because of a sense of personal peril.
The drug trade was one of the de facto âbad guysâ for thrillers of the period - Just Say No, anyone?
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Lethal Weapon had a completely other vibe and style that was more of a buddy movie, with some humor (which became more per film).
No, LTK was influenced by MV big, realy big.
Robert Davi could have walked out of the MV set and right into LTK with no change at all. Even his clothes are MV like.
MV was maybe over in America, but the rest of the world still aired the show. I watched it on Dutch television and on the BBC in 1989 and maybe even in 1990.
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No, LTK was influenced by MV big, realy big.
Robert Davi could have walked out of the MV set and right into LTK with no change at all. Even his clothes are MV like.
Maybe, but Dalton would never have made it onto MV with those crummy off-the-rack K-Mart fashions he sported.
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I would think itâs the Florida setting that really draws the comparison. Had they set it in China, as they originally planned to do, with the villain still be a drug lord as was the plan, I donât think the comparisons to Miami Vice would be quite as rampant.
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Agreed, that would have made a huge difference.
But Robert Davi wouldâve looked odd in a Tang Suit. 
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Peter Sellers looked âcredibleâ as a Chinese detective in Murder by Death, so maybe there was hope for Davi? 
Iâm still not convinced. Drugs+Florida caused a Pawlowian reflex in reviewers eager to knock down Bond as old hat during that time. To stick a âa tv show now is hipper than Bondâ-label on LTK was too tasty to ignore.
However, there is no scene in LTK which looks or sounds or feels as if it could have been taken from MV, nor influenced by it. If I am mistaken, please describe examples.
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Iâm pondering this question now for a few days already: Daltonâs line about thanking M if he got kicked from the 00-section - could we imagine this from any other Bond?
Connery and Moore: certainly not.
Lazenby: he resigned in the heat of the moment - but for entirely different reasons. He doesnât want to be taken off the Bedlam/Blofeld case*. When Moneypenny changes his letter into a few weeks of leave Bond and M thank her for it.
Brosnan: hard to imagine him voicing that kind of despair with his job. There are moments in his films where a certain cost is hinted at. But Brosnanâs Bond was never not willing to pay with his emotional credit card.
Craig: ironically, heâs the Bond we see nearly constantly either off the job or going private. And from what we observe in SKYFALL we can guess how heâd pass his time if the doors of 00-section close on him for good. But is he really feeling that kind of end-of-the-road resignation Dalton hints at when called to kill an amateur? Iâm in doubt there. Craigâs Bond is easily identifiable as the most gloomy brooding character - but actual doubts about his calling donât seem to manifest.
He quits when he falls in love with Vesper. Simply because he knows getting serious about a relationship and getting serious about slaying dragons doesnât mix well**.
Other than that, heâs mainly going off the leash not because he came to hate the general task of killing - but because his handlers lacked the good judgement whom to send him after and how to do it. Looking at the current state of affairs in real life one cannot help but share his lament as an almost universal Weltschmerz.
Thanking anybody for taking him out of the equation seems like the furthest thing Craigâs Bond would ever do. Itâs possible that NO TIME TO DIE will show a different nuance of his character, yes. But for now I have trouble imagining Craig utter such a line and mean it. It would seem to be a gem from Flemingâs trove that only Daltonâs Bond has used because he understood it.
But there is another question looming: how much âFlemingâ, how typical for the literary Bond was it actually?
The short story The Living Daylights was written sometime in the latter half of 1961 (Fleming mentions Checkpoint Charlie) and is set in 1960. That would put it between Thunderball and The Spy Who Loved Me in Flemingâs Ĺuvre - testing times for the author and, it would seem, for Bond, too.
âWhere do I come in, sir?â James Bond had guessed the answer, guessed why M was showing his dislike of the whole business. This was going to be dirty work and Bond, because he belonged to the Double-0 Section, had been chosen for it. Perversely, Bond wanted to force M to put it in black and white. This was going to be bad news, dirty news, and he didnât want to hear it from one of the Section officers, or even from the Chief of Staff. This was to be murder. All right. Let M bloody well say so.
This is exemplary for the spirit of the entire story. We get a very different Bond from For Your Eyes Only, where he was eager to help out M with a private vendetta. Sure, then he also was ruminating a bit about the general philosophy of him killing strangers for his boss. But when summoned he was glad M should have thought of him when arriving in a tight spot and willing enough to do the deed.
Because of this harsh contrast*** for many years I used to consider The Living Daylights the last Bond story - something that was written by Fleming, but apparently owing more to The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, even down to the shabby setting and the characters mirroring their business. Itâs removed one step further than weâve come to expect even from Casino Royale and the reflections episode in Goldfinger. As such, itâs atypical of Bond as Fleming used to write him - even if he did in this case.
Not just is Daltonâs line, while from Fleming, not exactly representative of the Bond canon in general; Iâd also argue the use of the other Fleming elements in his two films counteracts - or at least partially distorts - the written word****. This is perhaps most apparent when LICENCE TO KILL spins a whole film around one episode from Live and Let Die where revenge becomes the ultimate motif. There are of course several mentions of revenge/avenge in the books of Fleming. Yet itâs hardly ever the supreme driving force of Bondâs actions. Even You Only Live Twice offers higher stakes than
vindictiveness.
*Thatâs also the main difference between book and film. The literary Bond hadnât met Blofeld yet and ponders resignation - halfheartedly, in one of Bondâs frequent boozy moods - because he thinks searching for Blofeld is fruitless; at best police detective work others should do.
**Here Craigâs Bond is considerably more levelheaded and grownup than Flemingâs, who tricked himself into thinking he could have a wife and go about his life of adventuring as if nothing had changed. Deluded berk.
***Actually, Bond should probably be glad his task isnât to execute the double courier to save the expense of âflying him back for trialâ.
****Daltonâs Bond refuses to kill the girl because he judges her an amateur - Flemingâs version has every reason to believe âTriggerâ is every bit as expert as he is at his job - and refuses to kill her anyway, merely because of a glimpse of her face and her figure. Look up âburnt out caseâ in Oxfordâs Dictionary of Espionage and this is what you will find as definition.
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I donât have that book. Could you explain for clarity, please. Did Bond in the story just fancy her and that was why he didnât shoot?
He did shoot - only he changed his aim and hit her weapon instead. He may have hit her arm too but we cannot say exactly since neither Bond nor his spotter spent much time with observing his results under the barrage from the Eastern side.
As for his reasonsâŚ
James Bond knew he could lie, knew he could fake a dozen reasons why. Instead he took a deep pull at the strong whisky he had poured for himself, put the glass down and looked Captain Sender straight in the eye.
ââTriggerâ was a womanâ
âŚ
âShe was a blonde. She was the girl who carried the âcello in that orchestra. Probably had her gun in the âcello case. The orchestra was to cover up the shooting.â
âOh!â said Captain Sender slowly. âI see. The girl you were keen on?â
âThatâs right.â
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Interesting, but I prefer the reason the film gave, that she was an amateur.
That is my point. The film gave a nice and clean reason, an âacceptableâ one within the limitations of this particular entertainment series. And the film uses elements out of the Fleming canon we had not seen used before. But, due to its shift of motivation, itâs actually not closer to Fleming than, say, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE.
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