What Bond film would you remake?
Roger Mo'
Posts: 33MI6 Agent
There have been some awful Bond films in the past (mainly in the Moore era - a pity because he was my favourite).
I would love for the The Man with the Golden Gun to be remade. I think that it was too camp, too Americanized and spoiled by the need to include Clifton James (JW Pepper). As with a couple of Moore films, the need to tap into popular culture at the time spoiled it (e.g. the kung-fu fighting scene for instance).
When Ian Fleming wrote the book, he intended for Paco (Pistols) Scaramanga to be the 'dark side' to Bond. In some ways. Christopher Lee managed to do it but his role was not explored fully.
I think that there is massive potential for this film to be remade starring Craig - I would like this Scaramanga to be a former Rwandan child soldier who has lived with killing all his life, and therefore is a cold and ruthless assassin. His challenge is to take out Bond on the orders of an oil rich sheik or billionaire Russian oligarch who Bond has p****ed off in the PTS. But then, their paths cross and we get a scene reminisent of Pacino and DeNiro in Heat. Oh well, can only dream...
I would love for the The Man with the Golden Gun to be remade. I think that it was too camp, too Americanized and spoiled by the need to include Clifton James (JW Pepper). As with a couple of Moore films, the need to tap into popular culture at the time spoiled it (e.g. the kung-fu fighting scene for instance).
When Ian Fleming wrote the book, he intended for Paco (Pistols) Scaramanga to be the 'dark side' to Bond. In some ways. Christopher Lee managed to do it but his role was not explored fully.
I think that there is massive potential for this film to be remade starring Craig - I would like this Scaramanga to be a former Rwandan child soldier who has lived with killing all his life, and therefore is a cold and ruthless assassin. His challenge is to take out Bond on the orders of an oil rich sheik or billionaire Russian oligarch who Bond has p****ed off in the PTS. But then, their paths cross and we get a scene reminisent of Pacino and DeNiro in Heat. Oh well, can only dream...
Comments
I would like to see Moonraker remade. It was not only the worst Bond movie, but also one of the worst movies ever made. It could be done in the style of CR. The first half of the film being a devised set up to lead into the second half which is an updated version of the book. I think the plot about blowing London up with a nuclear missile is as Bondian today as it was in 1954.
I think that it was too dark, too Bolivianized and spoiled by the need to include Daniel Craig ("James Bond"). The need to tap into popular culture at the time spoiled it (e.g. the Bourne-style editing for instance).
Also I believe, barring You Only Live Twice, ALL of the Bond films from the 1960's should get a pass too because those films followed the books well enough, I think. Sure, they took some liberties to make them into movies but they were still ADAPTATIONS unlike Moonraker, Man with the Golden Gun, Live and Let Die, Diamonds, and You Only Live Twice.
By the way I wouldn't want MR, TMWTGG, YOLT, DAF & LALD to be straight adaptations of the original books but they should be closer to the source material than what Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman had put out while they were still alive!!
Moonraker is also my top pick for remakes. I have a hard time about a redo on TMWTGG - mainly because LTK was really that story in disguise. No matter how they twisted it, I would feel as though I was watching a remake of LTK, even if they removed the scenes lifted from the other novels (Leiter and the shark, etc.).
Believe it or not, I wish they could redo DN. I know it's the first and it's iconic, but I always hated that they strayed so far from the novel by putting in the nuclear reactor - mad scientist theme, making No just another SPECTRE henchman; making Quarell a subservant, stereotypical black "Amos & Andy" type; having Leiter in it for no good reason; replacing the centipede with a harmless tarantula; not having Honeychile have the deformed nose; not giving No the pincers, bald head, etc to make him truly grotesque - and on and on.
Well, there used to be a movie review show called "At The Movies," and one night they did a review of 2006's Casino Royale and they said that the movie made the poker game about the cards and the luck of the cards, when it should have been about the players. Unfortunately I can't show you a clip of that review because it's not on YouTube and the At The Movies website was taken down apparently.
I like them, even with their faults (however large or small they may be).
I think it would be rude to remake them, rude to the actors in the earlier film and the production team. Bit like 'you weren't good enough, so we're getting it right this time'. It'd make them feel horrible.
There'd be no Barry score, no retro feel, no Roger, Sean, Lazenby or Dalton, no bad accents, no real stunts (such as the barrel rolling car). The film just wouldn't be the same anymore!
IMHO, it would be wrong to redo one of the movies! Especially since most of the movies mentioned I love already!
Having had to adapt and film a similar scene some filmmakers and I did for a western short, I can tell you that transferring what you just said to the screen is really hard! No matter how you adapt it and frame it and storyboard it, it never matches the power of the written page. I will say that there have been some good stabs at it , such as The Cincinatti Kid, but for the most part it's a real struggle. I think the problem the producers ran into was that knowing the average audience could not sit through a lengthy scene of card playing, which is what the novel is about (and in fact has Bond practicing at the tables before the main event), they had to reduce it to the amount of time we now see it. Being that short also entails reducing all other players and spectators to - as you said - "cartoon characters" (I assume you were implying "caractures"), in order to give the main characters the most screen time.
In relation to the gaming room in the film - the type of room Bond played in the novel was the type Fleming played in during his time - they were the old world palace type hotel casinos that had expansive rooms with the twenty foot ceilings and lots of mirrors and expensive wallpaper. The casino in Monte Carlo is the classic example of this. The private parlors in them were rather large and could accomodate many spectators, as opposed to the modern ones of today. Unfortunately, to keep to the modern feel of the film, they chose to use a modern gaming parlor, which as you said, lacks the atmosphere of the old classic rooms.
Given these drawbacks, I personally thought the best parts of the game were when Bond and Le Chiffre were betting their final hands in both scenes where first Bond lost, then Le Chiffre.
I give credit to both actors for putting forth the underlying emotions they were feeling as they played these scenes.
Now, self indulgence out of the way, the other one I'll remake is Casino Royale. This one will be released in 2005 and feature Pierce Brosnan. That way, it'll be the Bond film he never had and be a better one for him to go out on instead of Die Another Day.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
You could remake MR with DC standing reciting the phonebook for 2 hours and it would be a better movie than MR.
TMWTGG would be an interesting one to remake. The idea of Bond up against the world's top assassin was totally wasted in the movie as the final fight between Bond and Scaramanga was about as exciting as watching a car rust.
The novel is one of Fleming weakest but the the first few opening chapters where a brainwashed Bond comes back to London to kill M are brilliant and would look great in film.
From some of the photos coming from the skyfall set, I think we might be getting something close to this idea.
Bond against a top assassin.
If he were French...
"Is there a Moster Binned here?"
Roger Moore 1927-2017
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Wholeheartedly agree re Vesper. I disagree re Poker game. I thought it worked well. I would of liked some of that funk and fug that we get with Fleming, you know stale smoke and sweat etc but overall I liked it. Particularly when Bond thinks he's finished and picks up the knife, a true Bondian moment for me, and nicely played by both DC and Jeffrey Wright.
You Only Live Twice
Diamonds Are Forever
Live and Let Die
The Man With the Golden Gun
The Spy Who Loved Me
Moonraker
and, of course,
Casino Royale
Those films which stray the furthest from the source or throw out the source completely.
Just start over again from scratch with entirely different scripts.
Octopussy and A View To a Kill I would not have made in the first place.
Plus I would have begged and pleaded with Terence Young to direct Goldfinger instead of settling for second-rate Guy Hamilton who was a plodding mediocrity. It would still be Goldfinger, but a different and better Goldfinger. With hindsight, I think it would have been better for the Bond films creatively if Guy Hamilton had never been hired to begin with. Nor Lewis Gilbert, for that matter.
Richard
Well writ and very astute. I couldn't agree with you more.
Other films have staged suspenseful card games. Casino Royale has the most poorly staged and least convincing card game ever put on film. There is zero expertise here. It's really quite pathetic. One gets the impression that the card game in the novel is a burden to the writer and director. The novel is famous for its card game, so they are obligated, but they'd rather not bother with it. They are more interested in action and in excoriations.
There is a way to plant information about the cards, about how Bond approaches gambling that will prep the audience at the right beats, and a way to structure the game so that it is suspenseful. I know it can be done, because it's been done. More to the point, Fleming does it in the novel. It doesn't matter which card game you choose; the principle of planting information in stages and then structuring the game applies to all of them.
The film version does have a card game, but the writer and director use it to tell a different story from what Ian Fleming wrote. The movie version is about proving to Bond that his ego and immaturity is in the way. They should have asked themselves, how would Alfred Hitchcock have handled this scene? Instead they blew it off completely. There is no suspense, no atmosphere and no style in the film version. I also agree that they completely miss the character of Vesper. She is so thoroughly rewritten from the inside out no actress could find her. Eva Green is playing somebody else with the same name. On another level, her personality and disposition are at odds with the introverted, conflicted character.
The opening title sequence was memorable however. It captures the spirit of the book and the attitude of the originating Bond films more than anything else in the movie. After the opening title, it's all downhill. Casino Royale needs a remake.
Richard