Time for a new M
chrisno1
LondonPosts: 3,634MI6 Agent
I like Judi Dench. Similar to Bernard Lee in the '60s she has a steeliness in M's personality that works well.
The '70s and '80s films (with the exception of DAF) always seemed to treat M and the traditional interview as something of an excuse for light hearted banter.
Dench's initial appearance in GE was a revelation and she was equally good in TND. I didn't like her expanded role in TWINE, chiefly because it removes some of her ruthlessness. In GE she tells Bond she has no worries about sending a man to his death; but in this film her guilt over King's death and her earlier mismanagement of Elektra's kidnap leads to her own capture. It seems too unlikely.
In DAD, they put her into the background more, until the silly finale when all the heads of various secret and military services are sitting in the firing line of a potential nuclear conflict - hilarious!
Overall I thought she'd dose well.
I was hoping then, that a new 007 might mean a new M. Not so, and although the nature of M and Bond's relationship is prickly in CR, she allows Bond to get away with a lot of misdemeanours - most unforgivably Bond even breaks into her home and she fails to do anything about it. Fleming would never have allowed 007 to treat his boss with such arrogance; his Bond knew his place in the order of things.
Bond continues his obstinancy in QOS and M seems to have developed an affection for her valuable agent. She flies to Siena and to Le Paz in an effort to control him - putting herself at risk again a la TWINE. These developments dont help the plot, rather they just reinforce the view that Bond is some sort of out of control rouge agent who keeps breaking free of his short leash.
If thats what the producers/writers want, perhaps they need to re-read the novels a bit. 007 isn't a rouge agent. He certainly goes out on a limb several times, but he rarely goes beyond the remit of his orders. M also, while accepting some of Bond's misdemeanours, never has to spend his time chasing after his favourite double-0.
While I enjoyed Dench's portrayal early on, I'm finding her a tad repetitive now. She isn't adding much gravitas any more, there seems to be more than a touch of annoyance about her. The writers are introducing her backstory into the films, which is unneccessary. While I can just about tolerate Dench herself, I really don't like what is happening to her character. Let's have M as M, sitting in his/her office, pushing the buttons and giving the orders. The espionage is down to Bond and lets allow him to get on with it.
I hope in time this will mean a change in actor. Dench has served her time well, but a rebooted Bond should have provided us with a rebooted M. My vote (based on Fleming's writing and Lee's original) would be Sir Michael Gambon. Might be just the thing for he needs to dust off his Dumbledor beard!
The '70s and '80s films (with the exception of DAF) always seemed to treat M and the traditional interview as something of an excuse for light hearted banter.
Dench's initial appearance in GE was a revelation and she was equally good in TND. I didn't like her expanded role in TWINE, chiefly because it removes some of her ruthlessness. In GE she tells Bond she has no worries about sending a man to his death; but in this film her guilt over King's death and her earlier mismanagement of Elektra's kidnap leads to her own capture. It seems too unlikely.
In DAD, they put her into the background more, until the silly finale when all the heads of various secret and military services are sitting in the firing line of a potential nuclear conflict - hilarious!
Overall I thought she'd dose well.
I was hoping then, that a new 007 might mean a new M. Not so, and although the nature of M and Bond's relationship is prickly in CR, she allows Bond to get away with a lot of misdemeanours - most unforgivably Bond even breaks into her home and she fails to do anything about it. Fleming would never have allowed 007 to treat his boss with such arrogance; his Bond knew his place in the order of things.
Bond continues his obstinancy in QOS and M seems to have developed an affection for her valuable agent. She flies to Siena and to Le Paz in an effort to control him - putting herself at risk again a la TWINE. These developments dont help the plot, rather they just reinforce the view that Bond is some sort of out of control rouge agent who keeps breaking free of his short leash.
If thats what the producers/writers want, perhaps they need to re-read the novels a bit. 007 isn't a rouge agent. He certainly goes out on a limb several times, but he rarely goes beyond the remit of his orders. M also, while accepting some of Bond's misdemeanours, never has to spend his time chasing after his favourite double-0.
While I enjoyed Dench's portrayal early on, I'm finding her a tad repetitive now. She isn't adding much gravitas any more, there seems to be more than a touch of annoyance about her. The writers are introducing her backstory into the films, which is unneccessary. While I can just about tolerate Dench herself, I really don't like what is happening to her character. Let's have M as M, sitting in his/her office, pushing the buttons and giving the orders. The espionage is down to Bond and lets allow him to get on with it.
I hope in time this will mean a change in actor. Dench has served her time well, but a rebooted Bond should have provided us with a rebooted M. My vote (based on Fleming's writing and Lee's original) would be Sir Michael Gambon. Might be just the thing for he needs to dust off his Dumbledor beard!
Comments
Personally, I didn't mind his break-in into her flat in CR, though I seem to be in the minority opinion on this. It's true that Fleming's Bond probably wouldn't have done it...but Fleming's Bond would NEVER have had a woman for a boss, IMRO. Along those same lines, I wonder whether Bond would have done such a thing if his boss were a man ?:) Perhaps a bit of old school misogyny there...But for me, it merely illustrates the sheer skill and boldness (or arrogance, if you must) of our Double-Oh early in his career---and it really defines a beginning point for the character arc that Craig's Bond makes over the course of his two films: one gets the sense that the Bond at the end of QoS probably wouldn't do such a thing under the same circumstances.
But I'm all for M staying at Vauxhall Cross for the next couple of films. In fact, the next time she insists upon traveling abroad, to whatever far-flung location Bond's duties take him, she ought to be killed...but then again, it might be more effective to have her buy it whilst sitting at her own desk. Perhaps they ought to take inspiration from the TMWTGG novel, and have some Double-Oh, who's been missing and presumed dead (just not Bond, in this instance), return back to the fold, brainwashed by Quantum...and actually succeed in his nefarious mission... {:) Now there's a PTS! :v
Regardless, I reckon her days as the head of MI6 are probably numbered. Or at least I hope so, because having her do it when she's eighty, and still on her globetrotting, bitching out 007 tour will begin to genuinely grate. I like Judi's M, and I'm a fan of her in whatever she does...but enough is enough.
And there are any number of fine possibilities for actors to replace her; Gambon would be near the top of my own list, as well...
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
My favourite Judi Dench M moments are not her 'emotionally involved' scenes in TWINE, nor even her bristlng exchanges with Brosnan's Bond in her GE debut, but her sparring with Admiral Roebuck in TND... simply because the casting of Geoffrey Palmer as Roebuck offers a 'stunt' rematch for these two fine actors who for over a decade had played together as husband and wife in the Brit TV sitcom, 'As Time Goes By'!
I would also like to see how this affects the current Bond too - the love of his life died (first pieces of his armor get put back on) - now the one person he probably trusts most, dies (the second, thicker pieces of armor get put on) = an almost impenetrable, closed off 00.
.....oh the challenge :v
The dynamic between them is super...both are great actors and certainly play well against each other. I just hope they keep getting good scripts.
I agree 100% with you. If not violently though maybe a little poison in her afternoon tea. Perhaps Bond should of let her drink her icy drink in TWINE -{ After he left the room of course.
What bugs me is that really, typically of Mickey and Babs, it's stunt casting. It needn't have been, but it is. Get in a well-spoken actress as Bond's boss! But there is little relationship other than her pulling him down a peg or two. They hardly ever really clash over a mission or anything business-like. It's samey.
The prob also is that it gets a bit Queen Elizabeth I and Francis Drake. When you have a matriach, the antics of the hero suddenly become mere egotistical buffoonery, a side issue. The dynamic in all those old films with Dame Flora Robson or Bette Davis was much the same.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I wouldn't mind if Dench stayed on (and alive) for all of Craigs films. But if she will leave she should do it the way you suggested. I don't think it should be the PTS. Why not have Bond rescue the other double -0 from captivity in the PTS?
Then the rescued agent kills M after the title sequence. Perhaps the agent to replace him after the assasination should be a woman?
That's an interesting observation. The Elizabeth I / Francis Drake relationship possibly suited Brosnan better than Craig, since Brosnan's Bond was more of a 'pretty boy', a dashing knight of the realm crusading in the service of a matriarch. Even his code name in the PTS of TND is 'White Knight'.
With Craig, his bond with M (for 'Mother'?) reflects, perhaps, a softer side to his hard-edged Bond; if his boss was a crabby old (male) Admiral rather than a matriarch like Dame Judi, he would, perhaps, seem even more masculine than he already does - a tough ex-SAS type in a male-dominated occupational culture.
There you are, Number24. We've solved it B-)
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
It might be fun to see a 'The Sopranos'-style irony with M dying randomly of heart failure part way through a movie!
Maybe Judi Dench could get killed off in Bond 24.
"I admire your luck, Mister?..." "Bond, James Bond."
Erm the reason M was written out of FYEO, was because Mr Lee was too ill to play the character. He sadly died a couple of weeks later. Mr Broccoli refused to recast as a mark of respect to the actor.
- I think its ok for Dame Judi to appear as the character - I actually prefer her Craig era version of M to the Brosnan one! (I am a Sci Fi fan, I am used to alternate / parallel realities.) However, I do agree the structuring of her appearances in QofS was stretching things a bit. I don't have an issue with her having a wedge of screen time, but in context. - Perhaps getting pressurised by the PM for results? Alternatively seeing more of what goes on in within MI6, and structuring Bond's activities with other 00's? But I agree, not globe trotting on his tail. - Although the reverse of this - M goes abroad (against advice) and Bond has to save her? Did work as a one off in TWINE.
To me the issue is the overall structure of the story, not just the use of M, or Felix L. - We need to see this Bond in the context of his fellow 00s in the field, and what it is that makes him different from the rest of them. - Something that has never been touched upon properly before. Even in TLD and GE, it was used as a small set up element to the main story to introduce Mr's Dalton and Brosnan respectively.
And it is time to bring back 'Penny and Q! - Their absence in CR worked, because Bond needed to find himself first. (Both the character, and Mr Craig in the role!) Thats done, as happened with the other actors accepting the tux for the first time.
We need the traditional elements brought back, but in a new way. - To me Dame Judi's M Mark II is part of that, - but she is only one part. (As long as she wants to continue to be part of it of course!)
Yes I know Bernard Lee died in pre-production that's why I wrote the late Bernard Lee in previous post. Anyway I know Judi Dench isn't dead yet but that doesn't mean they can't write her out of the next Bond picture, I think Dench is quickly becoming a one-note character when it comes to her part the recent Bond films. I wouldn't mind if she sat this one (Bond 23) out.
"I admire your luck, Mister?..." "Bond, James Bond."
Ahahahaha..... at last someone sees it my way!
Well, with a bit of give and take.....
Yeh I'm not really talking abour Dame Judi, it's more to do with how M is being interpreted by the writers, her role is becoming too big, to the point it almost overshadows characters who should be more prominent (e.g. Leiter, Mathis, Fields,
Zuchovsky) and worst of all, 007 isn't showing any respect for her authority (or precious little) hmmmmmm is it because she is a woman????