I think there is a weird assumption at work that translating a book into a film MUST be the exact replica of it. Which, naturally, it cannot be since everyone has different ideas about what images a book creates inside your mind.
The necessary consequence is that a film has to decide on one interpretation of a book. This interpretation can work for a lot of people, only a few or for none at all. But… the book stays the book. Everybody unhappy with an audiovisual interpretation of it is welcome to stay away from the film and can rest happy to still own the book.
With Bond we already had six different interpretations of the main character. To insist that the movie Bond has to be exactly like Fleming wrote it is already proven wrong.
Exactly right. It is a perfectly reasonable position to say “I think James Bond should stay as he’s written.” It’s like how PWB said that Bond has to be true to his character. But I think it’s also reasonable to say you don’t mind if Bond’s race, sexual orientation, etc. changes. Discourse is good and healthy. I agree with you that the problem arises when people get angry and accusatory.
He wasn’t Scottish till after Fleming met Sean Connery on the set of Dr No…
Not that a writer would ever change character details to match an actor they liked; Sherlock Holmes, Fluke Kelso, Jack Reacher and Cormoran Strike are exactly how they are in their respective source books…
I’ve been discussing Bond with members of this forum for years, and they really are a good bunch of people, and smart. We don’t always agree on everything (which is to be expected), but the debate is very often civil and engaging. Some quality members dropped away, sadly (Harmsway, Loomis, zencat, doublenoughtspy, etc) but I’m glad the rest of the gang is still here.
Why, with just the actions within the narratives, does Bond have to be male and white?
I ask purely because your two stated examples have story reasons. You could make Shaft a woman, and Wonder Woman black, and you wouldn’t be changing anything in the plot or story. So what aspects, of Bond’s narrative as a killer for her majesty’s government, insist on white, heterosexual, male?
nothing insists on it - obv there is the question of what is the story impetus for making those changes - what makes Black/Female/Gay Bond different or better? would it be acceptable for an Elseworlds style take or would that also be unacceptable? Why?
Honestly the one that could potentially ask new questions about the character of Bond (and its audience) would be not to make him gay per say but to have Bond having some sort of same sex interaction on a mission (for information or to infiltrate an organisation, without treating it as a joke) - or indeed just any gay character to not be treated as a joke (possibly Ben Whishaw Q could turn out to be this, possibly not)
I have no idea about Pratt and Wonder Woman. But Hugh Grant might bring much the same to Shaft Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, Patrick Stewart and Orson Welles brought to Othello.
So, you never know.
I suppose LIVE AND LET DIE would have had a significantly different meaning in the greater scheme.
True - but my thinking went in another direction: it would have a significantly different meaning in the context of the film and the times if the black syndicate of Mr BIG had been taken on by a black 007 - indeed more like the Shaft film where Shaft was predominantly fighting black gangsters.