Faithful novel adaptations = TV?

My wife and I have had this conversation a few times. With all the speculation over the future of Bond after Craig departs, and with the retracted tabloid speculation that Bond 25 would be a remake of “Dr. No”, there’s been much talk around here about faithfully adapting the novels. Given that the books are less action-heavy than your average tentpole blockbuster, I wonder if TV, specifically TV movies / limited series, might be the way to go in terms of faithfully adapting the novels. They could be produced at a lower cost than the films and could retain their Cold War setting as period pieces.

Thoughts?

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I think they’d be really expensive, and as the radio adaptations have shown, the films cast a long shadow. They’re actually pretty close to the books in lots of places, and when the films diverge it’s often because they’re improving the plot! And when you don’t have Barry’s music, or Connery as Bond etc. you miss them.

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This is something of which I’ve long been a proponent. Putting something like this on a platform like HBO, Showtime, or Netflix would be a great way to go about adapting Fleming’s material in a more faithful and edgier manner than the films could ever hope to be.

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Imagine a more faithful Goldfinger, for example, though. A slightly worse plot without the clever nuclear bomb scheme, and a buzzsaw instead of a laser, and the rest of it actually following the film pretty closely but without the style or coolness of the film or any of the most memorable scenes, and then (as it’s a Fleming) the baddie turns up for the first time three minutes before the end and quickly dies offscreen in a really disappointing way. Why would you want a worse version of Goldfinger?

The films are adaptations of the books already. If you make anything more faithful then you’ll have something which doesn’t work in the medium you’ve picked for it.

For starters, I wouldn’t do Goldfinger. It’s not a particularly good story in any medium. What I would do with such a series, and I’ve said this on the other forums, is to pick and choose the novels to adapt. Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker Diamonds are Forever, The Spy Who Loved Me, You Only Live Twice, and The Man with the Golden Gun come to mind as possibilities.

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The good stuff from all of those already having been filmed lavishly and memorably.

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My take is that Bond isn’t Agatha Christie and the stories wouldn’t particularly stand up to the same rigor as a detective murder mystery might. There’s not enough stories to separate them enough from the films, many of which covered the plot or elements of it fairly closely. Keeping in mind Fleming’s novels were for intents and purposes pulp Blockbusters in their own right, contained action adventure stories - there isn’t a whole lot being cut on the whole (apart from specific elements) and they’re possibly not really artsy enough to have much deeper to uncover in a modern day Netflix series. I think for now they are better off going ahead with new stories as films. That said, when the films are done one day and ten/twenty years have passed, some remakes might be interesting, especially period to the novels

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We’ll have to agree to disagree here, as I would venture to say that there are more than a few who would think that there’s still a lot of material to mine in those novels.

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What are you thinking of in particular? An exciting game of bridge? A deadly garden? A fight on a toy train? Most of this stuff hasn’t been used by the films because bridge and gardens are not exactly cinematic or dynamic; although they work well on the page.
Have you heard the radio adaptations with Toby Stephens? They’re fine, but what’s often remarkable is just how closely the films actually did adapt these books, and often you’re just left wanting to watch them instead because they did it better. If you want the books, they’re available in book form.

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I think TV adaptations would be a nice idea, especially of the novels that never received real adaptations (most notably Moonraker, Diamonds are Forever, The Spy Who Loved Me, You Only Live Twice, and The Man with the Golden Gun) but there are two strikes against the idea. (1) TV adaptations will never appear as long as Bond films are being made. From a commercial standpoint it wouldn’t make sense. (2) Faithful period adaptations of the books would be expensive, especially since so much has changed in 60+ years.

Some of the prior objections against your idea do not strike me as convincing. Such as:
“They’re actually pretty close to the books in lots of places, and when the films diverge it’s often because they’re improving the plot!”

Only five of the first 6 Bond films are close to the books (though the films of FYEO, LTK, and CR adapt large portions of Fleming), and of those only two–GF and OHMSS–are in my eyes superior to their sources.

“Bridge and gardens are not exactly cinematic or dynamic; although they work well on the page.”

Golf and poker and baccarat aren’t terribly cinematic either, and yet… Also, the garden in question is the Garden of Death, which is very cinematic indeed, especially when victims walk though it.

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Can’t imagine how they would do Live and Let Die without getting into terrible trouble.

In the short term (hopefully) we have the Dynamite Live and Let Die adaption. We’ll be able to analyse just how faithful they are to the Fleming original.