What Should Bond 22 Be?
DAWUSS
My homepagePosts: 517MI6 Agent
While it may be just a wee bit early for talk about Bond 22, I'm just curious as to what you're thoughts are on it now, after seeing DC in CR. While many people have good confidence in him now that they've seen him perform (according to the critics given at AJB), I'm also curious as to how he will perform under a new scenario, one that may not be as... shall I say, "dark and serious" as CR? Will MGM now begin to head back into sci-fi land for 007 once again, like in MR and DAD? Will we hear enough one-liners to the extent where the average user becomes sick of it?
... and not to forget the most important question: When will Bond 22 be released?
(If you're wondering why I'm looking forward so quickly, blame my football coach mentality)
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EDIT: Title changed to make it more specific and because there are too many topics titled "Bond 22." HB
... and not to forget the most important question: When will Bond 22 be released?
(If you're wondering why I'm looking forward so quickly, blame my football coach mentality)
***
EDIT: Title changed to make it more specific and because there are too many topics titled "Bond 22." HB
Comments
Can you imagine Daniel Craig weeping over the body of his dead wife? That would be worth seeing!-{
I look for the next one to be much more 'Precious Classic Formula'---traditional gunbarrel at the beginning; Q; Moneypenny, etc.---though they can certainly continue with the overall tone, as far as I'm concerned
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
On Bond 22,according to a little web surfing it is going to be out Nov 08,Graig and Dench are already signed.
Craig will use the script, and the script will use Craig's performance to make the film (the dark gritty stuff, with a little of humour), i mean, even Bond 23 could make the Craig Trilogy work. i don't think - can't say believe- Craig in a Moonraker kinda film... know that's something probably nobody would believe.
The real deal will come with the 007 actor: who the Bloody will be, and what will be his (HIS) trademark (Dalton and Craig rudenes, Moore humour, Brosnan "vulnerability") Will Bond 24 be another Reboot?
I just hope the script is excellent; I have no doubt that Craig can deliver on his part.
I also don't think we need to stick with this "beginner Bond" theme established in CR, let him go back to being the experienced killing machine he's been in all the 20 other films.
And if Bond 22's coming out in '08 it's nice to see they've decided to step up in putting out 007 films again. (And on a side note, the CR DVD should come out July '07 :007) )
Sadly, they won´t have Ian Fleming anymore to fell back on, so I expect a much weaker story.
One thing is for sure: Craig will be there, so the weight of the franchise will rest on his shoulders. And that´s a good thing too.
I would love to see YOLT, the story of that novel, made into a film with "Shatterhand" as title.
I hope the don't redo OHMSS,That was IMO the worst Bond ever.Lazenby couldn't act and the story line was bad.
They did to keep with fresh ideas.CR was a great outside the box thinking.
If you understand what I mean, it wouldn't have made sense to have it at the beginning of Casino Royale because Bond wasn't q Double-0 agent yet. But then he gets his second kill and boom, gun barrel sequence.
With past Bond films on constant rotation on Spike and being re-issued on DVD, it's kind of hard to remake them without seeming derivative.
To me, the remake idea is a lot more tempting right now. That's because having seen CR, it ticks me off that so many of the Fleming titles and stories were scavenged for this or that device or character, or wasted on jokey films that had nothing to do with the novels. You could leave Dr. No, FRWL, Goldfinger, Thunderball, OHMSS alone. Just remake all the others. Actually, they could remake all those as well if they wanted to update them. So what? I don't mind remakes per se, only bad ones. I knew the Fleming CR story backwards and forwards, but I still loved the film. I'd just like to see all 13 original novels filmed with CR's tougher, more realistic sensibility. I'd especially love to see You Only Live Twice, complete with Garden of Death (I can imagine some nice, fantastical sequences there to please the old film-Bond school) and ending with Bond presumed dead, followed by The Man with The Golden Gun complete with brainwashed Bond trying to kill M. I'm sorry, but the movie plots for all but the Connery classics are a jumble in my head, so little did they really matter to the movie. They were just a framework on which to hang a lot of film-Bond silliness. Fun silliness, to be sure, but hey, it ain't "Citizen Kane." I say raid 'em and remake 'em. That way, the people who like that kind of stuff will have theirs, and those who prefer a harder-edged Bond will have theirs. A perfect world.
I'll tell you one thing: if Eon did CR just to go back to the formula with the same old Bond-is-infallible superhero, I'll be extremely disappointed. I'm not interested in how James Bond became Roger Moore (no offense meant to Roger, I loved his Saint, not his Bond). I want Bond to be more experienced, but remain human, to keep on sometimes making mistakes. He often screws up in the novels and curses himself for it. It makes it more -- not less -- exciting. Rosa Klebb nails him with her shoe-knife in the novel version of FRWL, and nearly kills him. M punishes him by taking away the Baretta and giving him a second-rate assignment: investigating a colleague who ran away with his secretary. That turned into Dr. No.
Please -- leave the superhuman stuff to guys in capes and masks where it belongs.
You speak for yourself.
I'm not interested in any remakes now. It's time to move forward not backward. If the day comes when Eon stops producing the Bond films......perhaps that may be the appropriate time to think about remakes.
Yeah, we've seen more than enough invisible cars for a lifetime, and we can use a break from seeing Bond save the world from destruction of some type.
I know what you're saying, MNL. So long as they do move the character forward and keep the more serious tone, I'll be happy. I just worry they'll return to the formula. Again, I don't mean any disrespect to Roger (or any of the other Bonds). My problems with earlier Bond films are more a reflection of the scripts than the actors' performances. Moore was great and very Bond-like in the Saint, but didn't have to share the screen with indestructible, eight-foot guys with steel teeth who meet 4-foot-tall blond girls with pigtails and fall in love as the music swells ...
I guess a lot will depend on the final box office for Casino Royale. Personally, I think it will make a healthy enough profit which should in turn give Sony/Eon the confidence to move forward and continue with the new more serious tone rather than go back to the old formula.
You had to mention Jaws & Dolly.
I cringe every time at the thought of them. Undoubtedly, the lowest point of Roger's era, and a serious contender for the lowest point of the entire series. However, I do strongly defend Jaws when it comes to TSWLM. He's very good in that film.
Flemings LALD would be a perfect story for Craigs Bond
it was one of Flemings nastiest books, with lots of dark imagery and bodies piled up everywhere, and all the forshadowing to what happens to Leiter, then Bond having to swim with the sharks himself at the end
unfortunately that sharkthang was already done in Licence to Kill, and the keelhauling was already done in another film...
I know theyre shameless about repeating plotelements but that sharktank scene in the Dalton film was so notorious I dont think they could repeat it
Moonraker could be done right, somehow, theyd need to update the Nazi-amongst-us-building-a-V2-rocket-right-outside-London schtick, but they already did that in Die Another Day, however craptastically, so thats out too
then theres Diamonds Are Forever, but really theres not much in that novel demanding to be filmed, maybe the train plunging into the mineshaft at the end, maybe the "80%" beating Bond recieves
to find something else really good as yet unfilmed, theyd have to skip all the way ahead to You Only Live Twice, and I seriously hope they do that as pt 3 of Craigs trilogy
but what to do for pt 2? maybe they need to finally bring in Vivienne Michelle and Bonds Toronto mission, thatd fill up maybe 20 minutes
I wouldn't mind if DC three films formed part of an overall trilogy but were standalone films in their own right too ( like how the story was split ovet LOTRings).
SO CR worked, he could sort and out Mr white and Co. in 22 and then get the biggest Grandmasters in 23 be it SMERSH or SPECTRE Stylee.
:v
I don't even think it should be called LALD...call it something new, add plenty of new elements...but have Bond tied into a chair, and have somebody bend his pinky finger back...back...back...SNAP!!
And the subsequent shootout and death in the parking garage...have Bond's finger in a splint for the rest of the picture, as it was in the novel...
We don't need to re-do 'He disagreed with something that ate him' or the dragging over the coral reef---we don't even need to have another tropical location. The treasure can have already been recovered---sealed up in a high-tech vault somewhere...
"Follow the money." That's the advice for anyone seeking to unravel a conspiracy; this seems ripe for the next chapter in an arc begun by CR...
It wouldn't be impossible to do; not by a long shot. Just a bit more 'outside the box' mentality---and since Eon are already there, why not?
I need an agent
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
I don't need strict adherence to Fleming. If there are some interesting set pieces from the novels, yeah let's use them, but retelling old titles seems wrong. Good screenwriters ought to be able to concoct their own good ideas.
My ideal next movie would start with a traditional gun barrel sequence and pick up exactly where this one left off -- on the steps of Mr. White's villa. Bond would encounter trouble trying to spirit White away, which would form the basis of a rousing PTS. The main film would deal with Bond tackling White's broader organization, using information White has given up under intense questioning.
I haven't worked out the details yet...
I'm not talking about 'strict adherence to Fleming'---but now, when they seem to be having some success with it, seems (to me) a good time to mine the literary material for unused elements; just brainstorming, that's all.
No remakes; amen. But there's a lot of good stuff in the books to be had---good, solid, character-grounded building blocks---which will of course need imaginative original writing to flesh out.
Strict avoidance of Fleming is what I'm worried about
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Avoidance of Fleming *could* work *IF* it's done correctly, but again, that if is a big if...
Bond minus Fleming equals 10 minus 10.
However, I just wanted to make the case further for LALD as Bond 22.
SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T READ LALD THE NOVEL.
The novel involves set pieces that have already been filmed. Leiter's near death by shark has been in LTK, and the keel hauling we have seen in FYEO. And of course, the characters of Solitare and Mr. Big, Tee Hee, etc. we have seen in the film LALD. So, I am totally in agreement with those people who feel that to include these scenes and characters in Bond 22 would probably not be a good idea.
But, hear me out!
There are other plot elements in LALD the novel that have not been filmed.
- there is a train that is bombed. Now, I could very well imagine the scriptwriters working with this. For example, a train explosion would tie in very well (almost too well perhaps) with the idea of Bond versus terrorism. Perhaps expanding the train explosion into a terrorist attack might be a way of making this part of LALD relevant.
- there is a scene where Bond is tortured: this time, his little finger is broken by Tee Hee. Now, we did see a lighter version of this (sans broken finger) in the Roger Moore film. But, to have a broken finger scene in the next movie would probably be the "carpet beater" scene. This is not to say that every Bond film subsequent needs to have a torture scene. But, this kind of scene would give Daniel Craig something to do as an actor. Also, the broken finger might be good because it's a slight connection with the dialogue between Vesper and bond in CR (If all that's left of you is your smile and your little finger, you'd still be more of a man than anybody I know--That's because you know what I can do with my little finger). Now, this is a very tenuous connection, but there might be something there.
- the LALD book gives a lot of time to the Bond-Leiter relationship. This is something i would love to see. As I said previously, jeffrey wright is an amazing actor and the chemistry between him and Craig is excellent.
- I have read that CRaig wants to continue exploring the Bond character. the LALD novel would allow him to do this. He would have to react to the news about Leiter. The last sentence in the chapter with the keel hauling has Bond crying for the first time since he was a child. This is an amazing moment for Bond the character, and I would love to see an actor like Craig handle a moment like this.
Now, instead of adhering strictly to the book, of course there should be changes made. Perhaps it might be worthwile to make changes like the following:
- Change the main villain. Don't have him be Mr. Big. Maybe have him be this French Algerian boyfriend of Vesper's. Maybe have him be some kind of head of some gang or something, analogous to Mr. Big's organization in LALD. Instead of black Harlem, perhaps Algeria as the backdrop.
- Don't include the keel-hauling scene or the Leiter/shark scene. In CR the book, there were scenes (like the two men in straw hats bomb scene and the cane/knife from behind attack in the casino scene) that were changed for the film. I suggest that these sorts of changes be made to LALD. Perhaps have Leiter injured in some kind of attack. This would again make the terrorism more of a palpable and real threat in the film.
- the Title: I personally would love to have the new film, if based on LALD, be called Live and Let Die. I understand, though, the reluctance people might have to this. So, perhaps a title that has not been used, such as Risico or The Portrait of a Lady or Quantum of Solace, and incorporate elements of those short stories into the plot. But, to have LALD as the title would be wonderful.
Finally, I would consider such a film to be not a "remake" of the original LALD, since the novel is different and distinguishable from the film.
Don't get me wrong: I love Bond films. It's just that seeing CR made me feel that it's the Bond of the books that is a more interesting character to me than the Bond of the films.
What do you guys think?