I think that being on hiatus is the best thing for the Bond franchise right now. I’m not saying that I never want to see a new Bond film again, just that I’m not in any huge hurry for the next one.
‘Fatigue’ is a word we hear a lot these days. For me it’s reboot fatigue, constantly seeing the story reset back to the start. Seeing the same handful of characters enact the same story beats, heroes constantly trapped in their early years and the same rivalries being played out again and again.
Bond died in the last film, I’m glad they haven’t just hit the reset button and gone back to business as usual. This is something that needs to sit. It’s another thing that bothers me about the current reboot cycle; nothing has long term consequences anymore. Now you can reboot a faster than some are putting out sequels.
So that’s my shocking confession, I’m more than happy to wait for the next Bond. If Bond 26 comes out a decade after NTTD then so be it.
With no new movie on the way, I finally get some time to look into other aspects of Bond fandom and history. While other fandoms have nothing but the next movie to wait for (or the last one to discuss and dissect), a Bond fan can venture into many fields and discover new aspects, all that stuff that one neglected while looking for new information about the next movie.
Other franchises have just begun to face problems which Bond has been through already, many of them even before some of those others started to exist. Bond was first and will still be there when others have withered and died long ago. It’s Bond’s unique mantra which no one elsa has, and we read it at the end of each new entry: James Bond WILL return.
Killing Bond off in NTTD has indeed changed the series for good. If two or three years later a new film had arrived it would have signaled: No matter what happens, we´ll always be back to business as usual.
Then again: isn’t that what Bond has been all about?
Of course, these days, nothing is as it was. And we’ve already learned during the Craig era that a Bond film does not come along every two years anymore. It apparently needs to stay away for a long time to lure audiences back.
But is absence really the only thing that can make the audience grow fonder these days?
I would argue that we need a solid rhythm again, with the actual drawing power being that a Bond film is a reliable source of entertainment, rather timeless than focused on the ever changing zeitgeist.
I cannot agree with BB´s recent quote that a Bond film is always about what scares people now AND what is going on in Bond´s personal life. For my taste, the big caper has never really been about what the world is afraid of. And I never was interested in Bond´s personal life.
Quite frankly, it might be BB´s ambition to serve both thematic purposes - but the formula does not really allow to delve deeply into those ideas anyway.
The main problem of the series at this point, IMO, is: there is nowhere left to go. The Craig era has mined every possible personal motivation. Now, it has to go back to impersonal stories. Sheer entertainment. The 60´s, 70´s and 80´s Bond.
This is exactly what needs to happen. And why they don’t need all that time to put out a new one. BB seems to be trying to answer questions noone is asking anymore. I don’t care if the next Bond relates that closely with what’s going on today, actually I would prefer if it didn’t. I don’t need Bond to be particularly “relevant”. And I think we all OD’d on Bond’s personal life in NTTD, so I’m good there too.
It’s not an ego, Lazenby was told by his agent to quit, it’s not an ego, it’s an ignorance, he’s promised by his agent to give him a popularity that’s like of Clint Eastwood because his agent believes that Bond, by the 70’s was already dead.
Are the Bond films about what scare people? I don’t remember being overly worried about the price of water in Bolivia, who won a poker game or that an intelligence agency might have lost a list of names. And everything I learn about Bond’s “personal life” just proves to me how uninteresting he becomes the more “human” you make him.
But in a way I guess she’s right: I am kind of worried about action/adventure franchises putting on a pretense of “relevance” or “psychological complexity” in a blatant bid for awards, especially if when all is said and done they still rely on impossible technology, ridiculous plot contrivances and cartoon physics. If the “fear” is “are they going to ruin a property I care about,” then yeah, fear is always a factor…
Casino Royale was about terrorism and the people who profit from it, let’s not forget it was the first post 9/11 Bond film. Skyfall was about anarchist hackers and breach of data. As for Quantum of Solace, there’s a reason that one didn’t resonate as well. However I feel it it touch on environmental themes so I think there was an attempt there.
Exactly. The purpose of “topical” plot drivers in modern Bond films is the same as the endless chagrined references to its legacy of sexism and misogyny: it’s all meant to address Bond’s relevancy or lack of same in the modern world, which Babs apparently considers a major issue even if no one else does. But having made that brief nod to whatever was in the headlines when the script was written, we move straight out of the “real” world into one that’s utterly untethered to rules of logic, physics or sometimes common sense.
I don’t think most audiences would rate “Spectre” as the better film for dealing with real-world issues of government surveillance as opposed to a certain 60-year old film that deals with a farcical raid on Fort Knox. Nobody answers, “How was the new Bond film” with “Great, it dealt with important topical issues.” Nobody’s going to feel better about terrorism because James Bond won a fictional poker game, any more than Californians worried about “the Big One” are going to feel better having seen Superman save the state from sliding into the ocean.
I totally agree with BB that the key to keeping Bond going after all this time is to find slightly newer and fresher ways of doing the same thing that’s been done for 25 films and counting, and in that sense it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye on the headlines for ideas. But the fact is the entries that are generally the best known and well-loved worldwide remain those that dealt with issues that no longer keep us up at night, approached in ways that were purely farcical (ex: Cold War fears of a nuclear conflagration were legit, but in Bond’s world they’re nearly sparked by the theft of space capsules from orbit).
The tentative “topicality” of some 007 plots is like whatever MacGuffin Bond has to chase after: just a backdrop to and set up for the action and romance. As much time as the writers might put into setting the stage, most viewers are just thinking, “Yeah, yeah, fine. Show me the rest of that stunt scene from the trailer.” YMMV, but I think the M:I films have been shellacking Bond for years, and frankly I’d be hard pressed to tell you what ANY of those were about, sometimes even a half hour after I saw them. Did they deal with real-world issues? I doubt it…maybe…I can’t recall. Did it have anything to do with my enjoying them? Apparently not.
A James Bond author is like a James Bond actor: a lot of people want to see who does it. It’s also a thankless job. I feel that IFP wasted a bit of time in the six year gap between The Man With The Red Tattoo and Devil May Care. They should have had a Bond as an adult novel at least once in those years. As I’ve said before, Everything or Nothing should have been a novelization. With either Raymond Benson or Bruce Feirstein as its author. Another spin-off novel that should have happened is the cancelled Jinx film. Michael Madsen and Halle Berry could have both written a foreword for the book. It’s a shame that EON and IFP have had such a grudge against each other. I would tie the EON and Jinx books by saying Bond and Jinx are on their respective missions. I don’t know who could have written it. But I do believe that the two books are for sure a missed opportunity, next to Per Fine Ounce and another Kingsley Amis story with Bond on a train.
Continuing with the novelizations, Bloodstone could have easily gotten a novelization. Written by the game’s writer, Bruce Feirstein, he could have fleshed out some things that weren’t covered very well in the game. He also could have connected it to the Casino Royale/Quantum Of Solace storyline. Now, I wish that he would write those three plus the last 3 DC films into one long book, Moonraker style. Lastly, keeping with DC’s films. Another last novelization that should have been written is Skyfall. The main reason that I would pick SF is that it seemed not to have many screenwriting problems that the other DC films had. Surprisingly, two of the authors that I would pick to write it are either John Logan or Jeffery Deaver. Deaver modernized Bond, who’s better to prove he’s still relevant?
Overall, IFP could take advantage of having more Bond adventures come out between some of the longer gaps. It’s still a shame that they and EON aren’t getting along. We could have had some unique adventures come out of their partnerships together.
Wait, if we have novelizations of the ones that deviated from the books, i.e. Moonraker and The Spy Who Loved Me, why there are no novelization for You Only Live Twice? I know Christopher Wood wrote them, but It would’ve been great had Dahl himself wrote a novelization version of the 1967 film, considering how he disliked the book (calling it the “Worst Fleming novel”), and considering how it strayed far away from the book like changing the plot, adding some characters and all.
But I’m wondering why he’d never done it? Perhaps because he didn’t liked to have a Bond book in his collection of books that were mostly about children?
I wish Roald Dahl wrote a novelization of YOLT. I think at that time, Ann Fleming had some control of IFP, and Harry Saltzman was upset that they just rejected Per Fine Ounce. He had particularly wanted it written. I still think it’s a shame that it never got a chance to shine. At least, we got some ideas of what it would have been.
I also wish sometimes that Tom Mankiewicz would have written novelizations of his screenplays. They are loosely based on their original novels. It would be interesting to see what his viewpoints were, without Richard Maibaum and Guy Hamilton (particularly his cynical humor) as co-writers, or viewpoints. His scripts (minus the dumb American police sheriffs), are at least witty. We could have seen a darker Bond with him writing without campy restrictions. I think Raymond Benson was great at writing novelizations, particularly TND.
I just wish IFP and EON could see eye to eye on things over the years, more closely.
Not for me. I do want to see a serious Bond that is introspective, who reflects on his life as sometimes killer. Those were essential aspects to the Fleming character IMHO. While we got that with Dalton and Craig, I think there are other ways to approach the character in that manner without repeating what Dalton and Craig portrayals of Bond. Bond can still have some fun, go on a mission that is not personal and love his exciting life (as he did in the novels even though he sometimes questions some of the things he has to do).
I also would not mind seeing a little more of Bond’s personal life but in a manner the films have not really touched on. For example, I would love to see a few interactions with Bond’s housekeeper, May (though a modernized version) and showing Bond’s friendship with Tanner (vaguely touched on in Skyfall).
What I would like will not appeal to everyone and maybe it will not appeal to the larger audience. But I am not convinced the audience wants to see what you want either.
The crucial thing about such details in modern scrips is, how much - if at all - they support the plot itself. Even in the books they were used sparingly and entirely en passant. Amis noted he could hardly believe in Bond’s ‘few good friends’ and suspected him to be a lone drinker.
Nonetheless, in ‘Colonel Sun’ Amis smuggled a nice vignette of Bond and Tanner at the golf course (and later having drinks before driving on. Don’t Do This At Home, Kids!) that isn’t strictly necessary for the plot but sets the stage nicely after ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’. But such atmospheric undertones are nowadays often frowned upon and stand little chance to make it into the final cut. If they are in the script to begin with.
