Why doesn’t bond get chased by lots of enemies anymore?

osris

Why doesn’t bond get chased by lots of enemies in cars, boats or on skis anymore?

I used to enjoy all that in OHMSS, DAF, LALD, TSWLM etc.

minigeff

GE had Bond running from a small army in the PTS, the St Petersburg rozzers during the tank chase and at least 4 troops of 006's during end.

TND had him racing from Carver's goons in the multistory, jumping off Carvers building with Wai Lin and fighting Carver's goons on the stealth boat at the end.

TWINE had him skiing from the 4 parahawks, and going up against Renard's men on the sub during the finale, plus the Q Boat chase at the start.

DAD had bond being chased by Zao during the car chase, fighting Graves' men in the ice palace and being chased by half the North Korean army in the PTS

CR featured Bond being chased by the embassy troops

QoS started out with a car chase, there were originally 3 Alfa's chasing Bond's DBS, there was the dogfight and the boat chase too, also Bond going up against Greene's men during the infiltration of Perla De Las Dunas ("you and I had a mutual friend").

Skyfall has Silva's men trying to take out Bond (2 waves of them in fact), a helicopter gunship and the great bike chase in the PTS.


I guess as time has gone on, the Bond films have moved away from the bad guy employing a small army who were usually russian or chinese, and now go for something more realistic, smaller squads of goons, one man mercenaries, guns for hire and solitary hit men.

The days of volcano lairs, henchmen with huge sideburns and every baddy being called 'chang' are, thankfully, over.

osris

I overlooked the Brosnan-era chases. I genuinely forgot that he was chased during his time as Bond, so unmemorable were the stunts involved. I did like the DAD PTS chase, though.

The same with the Craig-era chases, they don’t seem as “spectacular” as the Lazenby/Moore-eras.

minigeff

I think a 19 minute PTS featuring MI6 blowing up, a boat chase with a barrel roll sequence and an exploding air balloon is quite memorable.

osris

Yes, but that was Bond chasing the villain.

Colonel Shatner

minigeff wrote:

I guess as time has gone on, the Bond films have moved away from the bad guy employing a small army who were usually russian or chinese, and now go for something more realistic, smaller squads of goons, one man mercenaries, guns for hire and solitary hit men.

Dr. No's Crab Key lair seemed to be like a small town with hundreds of workers, scientists, and guards, with the perimeter of the island complex defended by a modified armoured car, patrol boats, and a radar system (even in Fleming's book Dr. No's lair is broadly similar and just as impressive).

In FRWL Bond had to get past Soviet Russian consulate staff and a flotilla of SPECTRE patrol boats, but the rest of the movie Bond is mainly squaring off against small handfuls of Soviet and SPECTRE agents.

The days of volcano lairs, henchmen with huge sideburns and every baddy being called 'chang' are, thankfully, over.

The super lair filled with jumpsuited mooks cliche comes and goes from time to time. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I wouldn't mind an updated Piz Gloria or something like Gustav Graves' aircraft lair again (if you dial back the silliness a lot).

And in Skyfall Silva still had a stupid amount of resources to throw around if he could assemble around two dozen heavily armed, trained men and purchased a sophisticated helicopter gunship that was armed with a gatlin cannon (not exactly Blofeld's volcano but still a very far fetched thing for a wanted terriorist on the run himself and having half the UK looking for him after blowing things up in London twice).

osris

minigeff wrote:

I guess as time has gone on, the Bond films have moved away from the bad guy employing a small army who were usually russian or chinese, and now go for something more realistic, smaller squads of goons, one man mercenaries, guns for hire and solitary hit men.

Even in real-life, modern villains like Mexican drug barons etc. will have private armies of goons guarding their armoured lairs, and have lots of motor vehicles on hand for necessary “work”. That’s why the US and other countries have teams like SWAT etc. to combat them. So I don’t see why the modern Bond films can’t reflect this.

Colonel Shatner

And then there's the Private Military Companies gaining infamy (like Blackwater) and one idea for a wealthy Bond villain and his potentially high-tech lair could be a eccentric US munitions producer with his sprawling weapons factory in the middle of nowhere.

osris

Yes, that would make a good plot.

minigeff

And they could have like a big head thing on the desk that tilts back and reveals a button underneath which when pressed opens a bookcase to reveal a pair of poles that Bond and Q could slide down into the secret squirrel underground lair!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Colonel Shatner

^Well Skyfall was intended to be much like the relatively recent The Dark Knight. )

And how about a villain lair loosely based on the Scientology compound? It's a large and sophisticated looking place, with an sinister air around it, but also within the boundries of comparative realism set by the Craig-verse in the last three movies .

osris

Yes, that would be an ideal lair.

minigeff

No, it'd be ****.

Colonel Shatner

And Scientology is big in the American entertainment industry for some reason.

You could have Bond infiltrate an heavily guarded enemy compound MGS style.

Also if high-tech lairs (last used widely in the Brosnan era) make a proper comeback either in the last couple of Craig movies or with the next guy, they could use ovals, oblongs, circles, and curves for the evil lair's corridors and chambers (as opposed to hard triangular edges and slanted ceilings, a common feature in Ken Adam's designs, and also a defining feature on Carver's stealth boat).

minigeff

As for using the Scientology place as a lair - utter crap. Why? Cos using it and insinuating that the cult of Scientology is corrupt and home to a villain in a major film franchise is a good idea?

As for lairs, etc etc. Were any if you paying attention in QoS and SF? M spells it out black and white; there are no countries, uniforms or flags anymore, the world of espionage is now fought in the shadows. This is more realistic than hollowed out volcanos.

Colonel Shatner

minigeff wrote:

As for using the Scientology place as a lair - utter crap. Why? Cos using it and insinuating that the cult of Scientology is corrupt and home to a villain in a major film franchise is a good idea?

You've heard or read about the creepy stuff associated with Scientology?

I can understand celebrities in the entertainment industry getting alienated and what not, but I'm thinking more of a loose parody (so not to attract the ire of Scientology lawyers and apologists).

As for lairs, etc etc. Were any if you paying attention in QoS and SF? M spells it out black and white; there are no countries, uniforms or flags anymore, the world of espionage is now fought in the shadows. This is more realistic than hollowed out volcanos.

Flags and nations have been rendered a bit more meaningless by Globalisation, the Internet, the sudden end of the Cold War, and the progression of terrorism in the past thirty years.

However James Bond has for decades, by and large, been fighting against criminals often not formally attached to any nation. And even if the villains are formal members of a nation's armed forces they're extremists or/and corrupt. Even the hollowed out volcano lair was something that was not entirely done by enemy nation states (even if they were implied as sponsors) and was built by SPECTRE through a legitimate Japanese company.

And nations today still have too many nukes ready to launch and fervent nationalism is slowly surfacing again after Globalisation has stalled.

minigeff

Colonel Shatner wrote:

minigeff wrote:

As for using the Scientology place as a lair - utter crap. Why? Cos using it and insinuating that the cult of Scientology is corrupt and home to a villain in a major film franchise is a good idea?

You've heard or read about the creepy stuff associated with Scientology?

I can understand celebrities in the entertainment industry getting alienated and what not, but I'm thinking more of a loose parody (so not to attract the ire of Scientology lawyers and apologists).

As for lairs, etc etc. Were any if you paying attention in QoS and SF? M spells it out black and white; there are no countries, uniforms or flags anymore, the world of espionage is now fought in the shadows. This is more realistic than hollowed out volcanos.

Flags and nations have been rendered a bit more meaningless by Globalisation, the Internet, the sudden end of the Cold War, and the progression of terrorism in the past thirty years.

However James Bond has for decades, by and large, been fighting against criminals often not formally attached to any nation. And even if the villains are formal members of a nation's armed forces they're extremists or/and corrupt. Even the hollowed out volcano lair was something that was not entirely done by enemy nation states (even if they were implied as sponsors) and was built by SPECTRE through a legitimate Japanese company.

And nations today still have too many nukes ready to launch and fervent nationalism is slowly surfacing again after Globalisation has stalled.

I couldn't give a crap about Scientology and whether the piss drinking rumours are true, but I don't think EoN are going to risk any legal retribution by using Tom Cruise's holiday village as a bad guys lair.

As for the nations / shadows baddy organisations I agree with you, it's not them pesky commy Russians or Chinese anymore, which is why the whole idea of a baddy lair is a bit redundant these days. For self preservation, wouldn't it not be prudent to have your organisation split up and fragmented so any attack couldn't stop it from operating, much like Al Quida etc etc.

I find it a little laughable that people still stick to their guns with the belief that a bad guy sat in a chair with a Persian cat is still relevant and current for our 'brave new world' super spy.

Colonel Shatner

minigeff wrote:

I couldn't give a crap about Scientology and whether the piss drinking rumours are true, but I don't think EoN are going to risk any legal retribution by using Tom Cruise's holiday village as a bad guys lair.

You talk about megalomaniacs and their little worlds (like Dr. No's Crab Key) being far fetched and a bit staid, but then you're wary of a well connected religious group who are wealthy and have influencial members, despite the dark rumours, operating out of a large secluded compound watched over by a sniper nest.

As for the nations / shadows baddy organisations I agree with you, it's not them pesky commy Russians or Chinese anymore,

And as far as the movie series was concerned since Dr. No it never really was and even when Bond is facing off directly against Russians, a quasi-corporate crime group is the real antagonist (SPECTRE and Janus).

which is why the whole idea of a baddy lair is a bit redundant these days. For self preservation, wouldn't it not be prudent to have your organisation split up and fragmented so any attack couldn't stop it from operating, much like Al Quida etc etc.

Al Qaeda is perhaps less their official name and more like a catch all term by Western media and governments to describe Islamic terrorist movements, but Craig Bond has mainly not been fighting against ideological terrorist but mercenaries of various forms and he has also come against Bolvian armed forces backed by Quantum.

I find it a little laughable that people still stick to their guns with the belief that a bad guy sat in a chair with a Persian cat is still relevant and current for our 'brave new world' super spy.

Yeah, classic Blofeld would be laughed at these days thanks to Mike Myers, although billionaires with supposed involvement with organised crime can come across as a bit daft (Abramovich and his supposed collection of children's books)

minigeff

Christ you've really missed the point here.

If you notice my initial comment on Scientology;

minigeff wrote:

I couldn't give a crap about Scientology

I.e. snipers nests, 'the prisoner' style decor, piss drinking and placenta fry-ups. I couldn't really care for any of it tbh. The point I was making was that I think it highly unlikely that EoN would use Tom Cruise's holiday village as an obvious basis for an evil baddy organisation's lair. Can you imagine the legal repercussions? I suppose you're now going to claim I'm one of those who chooses to stick his head in the sand while the cult of Scientology joins up with the Illuminati and creates a New World Order to zap subliminal messages down my japseye while they watch me through the tv screen? I suppose the next suggestion is that Babs bases Quantum in the Varican City and St Peters Bascilica is actually a mega death ray antenna?

As for Al Quida not being really called that etc etc blah blah, well you knew who I was talking about, so I guess the name I chose worked. The smartarse approach didn't really wash.

Craig Bond wasn't up against Bolivian armed forced backed by Quantum, Quantum had bribed medrano and the police chief for their assistance. Greene even says it on film, if medrano's president had been cooperative then he wouldn't be speaking to medrano.

Quantum are the new SPECTRE, they work... what is it green says? "with the left, the right, with liberators and dictators.." so in that respect, spot on EoN, a worthy baddy organisation. However, housing this medusa-esque group in one location so Bond can easily take them all out with a simple air strike seems unrealistic and way too convenient. EoN have only just introduced us to Quantum, it'd be a bit short sighted to wipe them out so soon.

So in reply to the threads title;

Bond isn't chased by huge armies anymore as the world's real bad guys aren't wearing uniforms any more. It's more a guerrilla style warfare, with guns for hire and independent mercenaries being used. And as Skyfall has shown us, it's as much about cyber warfare as it is trigger pulling. For instance, notice any drones going missing recently?

Colonel Shatner

OK, ok, let's steer clear of the Scientologists and their creepy looking toy town compound up in the hills. :v

minigeff wrote:

As for Al Quida not being really called that etc etc blah blah, well you knew who I was talking about, so I guess the name I chose worked. The smartarse approach didn't really wash.

Osama Bin Ladin came from a family who owned a very wealthy estate and links to the largest construction company in the world, the Saudi Binladin Group, have been cited (even if Bin Laden was more on his own with his own gang and contacts in the middle of the Afghan/Pakistani wilderness by the mid 1990s).

Craig Bond wasn't up against Bolivian armed forced backed by Quantum, Quantum had bribed medrano and the police chief for their assistance. Greene even says it on film, if medrano's president had been cooperative then he wouldn't be speaking to medrano.

Quantum was only working with a section of the Bolivian armed forces to further their ends but they were throwing enough weight around to send two combat aircraft after Bond (as well as lowly beat cops).

Bond isn't chased by huge armies anymore as the world's real bad guys aren't wearing uniforms any more. It's more a guerrilla style warfare, with guns for hire and independent mercenaries being used.

No minions in jumpsuits, but surely the more wealthy villains would still have access to trained henchmen, security guards and mercenaries? I wouldn't expect Quantum having a volcano base but something like the MI6 facilities seen in QoS and Skyfall (but in a remote location within a corporate front, like a mine, oil/gas drilling site, or weapons factory).

And Craig Bond could be chased by hundreds of peeved criminals if he annoyed a major Brazilian crimelord (and a YOLT style footchase across the rooves of a Buenos Aires shanty town would be really interesting).

And as Skyfall has shown us, it's as much about cyber warfare as it is trigger pulling. For instance, notice any drones going missing recently?

Well we had cyberwarfare touched upon for very long time now (with nerdy henchmen like Boris and Gupta, way back in the first half of the Brosnan era).

osris

This thread slipped my attention for a while, hence my absence.

Minigeff is, as usual, being contrary for sake of it, I think. The Colonel’s various suggestions for possible Bond villain lairs, private armies and other plot aspects make perfect sense to me, even taking into account the more rationalised and contemporary approach to such things the reboot seems to be taking.

I’ve always thought Quantum as a concept lacking in the same “threat factor” that SPECTRE has, mainly for the lacklustre way it was portrayed in QOS. It seemed fairly tame to me, and Greene quite an effete villain, implausible as being the head of any organisation, let alone one supposedly such a threat to world governments as Quantum is meant to be.

I’ve always thought that Bin Laden would make an ideal SPECTRE operative, with his public persona a mere front to a more sophisticated Western one. He would also really be an atheist, and only faking fundamentalist beliefs because it was required of him for SPECTRE’s purposes.

Also, the “cave” he was meant to have been hiding in when the US Army was looking for him would have been a luxurious Bond-like lair in the classic mould, with a private army of atheistic goons and henchmen, partly financed by himself and SPECTRE.

Colonel Shatner

osris wrote:

This thread slipped my attention for a while, hence my absence.

Minigeff is, as usual, being contrary for sake of it, I think. The Colonel’s various suggestions for possible Bond villain lairs, private armies and other plot aspects make perfect sense to me, even taking into account the more rationalised and contemporary approach to such things the reboot seems to be taking.

Thanks. -{

I’ve always thought Quantum as a concept lacking in the same “threat factor” that SPECTRE has, mainly for the lacklustre way it was portrayed in QOS. It seemed fairly tame to me, and Greene quite an effete villain, implausible as being the head of any organisation, let alone one supposedly such a threat to world governments as Quantum is meant to be.

I disagree; the Quantum's high council meeting held in plain sight in a concert hall was a decent moment, Mr. White had a brief moment to shine (I hate seeing him abrubtly vanish from the franchise), and Greene had moments of quiet menace (we don't care who we back speech and implying the Bolvian general, Quantum's puppet, was expendable in their schemes).

I’ve always thought that Bin Laden would make an ideal SPECTRE operative, with his public persona a mere front to a more sophisticated Western one. He would also really be an atheist, and only faking fundamentalist beliefs because it was required of him for SPECTRE’s purposes.

Also, the “cave” he was meant to have been hiding in when the US Army was looking for him would have been a luxurious Bond-like lair in the classic mould, with a private army of atheistic goons and henchmen, partly financed by himself and SPECTRE.

I'd flesh it out some more: Alexander Siddig is this Bond verson of Osama Bin Laden (with his chief bodyguard/aide played by Sayid Jarrah) an athiest who is Christian Arab in heritage, and during his terrorist career through the 1990s to the mid 2000s he was really a double agent planted by the CIA to rat out many Islamic terrorist recruits to the West, then became a embitten operative for Quantum after his original Afghanistan hideout was stormed and destroyed by US cammandos sent to silence him (half of his body got horribly scarred, so he resembles Alec Trevelyan and Twoface, but is vain enough to cover his worse half in tons of makeup and changed his identity).

He remerges as a eccentric CEO of a construction company based in Dubai, with his secret lair (occupied by a major Quantum cell) being a half completed Dubai resort left to be reclaimed by shifting sands and ocean waves...

minigeff

osris wrote:

This thread slipped my attention for a while, hence my absence.

Minigeff is, as usual, being contrary for sake of it, I think. The Colonel’s various suggestions for possible Bond villain lairs, private armies and other plot aspects make perfect sense to me, even taking into account the more rationalised and contemporary approach to such things the reboot seems to be taking.

I don't suffer fools gladly, what can I say?

Colonel Shatner

Ugh.

minigeff

No I think you just get a little frustrated when people don't agree with you.

Previously I stated I couldn't give a crap about the Scientology rumours, but you pushed that point.

Then I said instead of an organisation located in one place, would it not be more realistic for the bad guy to be a bad organisation that's split up and fragmented so its hard to close it down, like al quida. Then you proceeded to tell me that's not their real name, then you moved on to telling me bin laden had fingers in bricky's pies. What the hell was that all about? I'm trying to get a point across, which you missed by a country mile and then decided to concentrate on all the irrelevant parts in some vain attempt to appear intelligent. F@ck me, anyone can use wiki bloody pedia.

What and you your ill-wired up chum seem to do is miss the point, trash anyone else's views and stick with this stupid backward notion that SPECTRE is still around (sorry, it's not) and that there should still be an evil baddy housed in a single place, no doubt a white cat would be thrown in for bonus points, we'll have Kevin spacey play the bad guy called Dr X and he'll capture Bond, explain in laborious detail his plan for world domination, Bond escapes and Dr X gets killed by some part of his own machinery (rock crusher, boiling radioactive pool, electrified fence, satalites antenna) while Bond watches on and spits out some witty one liner.

Two words; Austin Powers.

I'm afraid your backward thinking 'good old days' approach is crap and the exact opposite in which the bond films have been going since the DC reboot.

Now off you go, I think your mate's worm needs burping.

MG -{

osris

minigeff wrote:

What and you your ill-wired up chum seem to do is miss the point, trash anyone else's views and stick with this stupid backward notion that SPECTRE is still around (sorry, it's not) and that there should still be an evil baddy housed in a single place, no doubt a white cat would be thrown in for bonus points, we'll have Kevin spacey play the bad guy called Dr X and he'll capture Bond, explain in laborious detail his plan for world domination, Bond escapes and Dr X gets killed by some part of his own machinery (rock crusher, boiling radioactive pool, electrified fence, satalites antenna) while Bond watches on and spits out some witty one liner.

Neither the colonel nor myself have suggested this at all. Although, if such came about, it wouldn’t really bother me, being a classic Bond film fan.

You seem to have a “hard-on” for the reboot no matter how many of its “failings” have been pointed out to you on various threads here. Did you not like any of the Bond films pre-Craig?

minigeff

osris wrote:

minigeff wrote:

What and you your ill-wired up chum seem to do is miss the point, trash anyone else's views and stick with this stupid backward notion that SPECTRE is still around (sorry, it's not) and that there should still be an evil baddy housed in a single place, no doubt a white cat would be thrown in for bonus points, we'll have Kevin spacey play the bad guy called Dr X and he'll capture Bond, explain in laborious detail his plan for world domination, Bond escapes and Dr X gets killed by some part of his own machinery (rock crusher, boiling radioactive pool, electrified fence, satalites antenna) while Bond watches on and spits out some witty one liner.

Neither the colonel nor myself have suggested this at all. Although, if such came about, it wouldn’t really bother me, being a classic Bond film fan.

You seem to have a “hard-on” for the reboot no matter how many of its “failings” have been pointed out to you on various threads here. Did you not like any of the Bond films pre-Craig?

I think Goldfinger was great, Goldeneye remains my favourite, TLD was brilliant, LALD is a good laugh too.

If I only enjoyed the DC films then I really wonder what I've been a fan of for the last 17 years. 8-)

The thing that amuses me the most is that for all your knowledge, you constantly fail to miss the point with regards the new direction the DC films have taken the franchise. EoN (quite rightly) decided to take the series in a new direction. Bond needed a new start and that's the way it went.

It's not my opinion a reboot might have happened, it's not an assumption that this idea could have been successful, or that DC can act. The success and takings at the box office speak for themselves.

With this new direction the films have taken, it would now be laughable to involve the ideas from the classic era. With the huge success of the Austin Powers films, evil baddies and volcanos have become comedy parodies which people can no longer take seriously. They went too far with DAD, you honestly think EoN will make that mistake again?

The days of SPECTRE are no longer viable, realistic or possible.

I know you don't like this, but that's the way it is.

MG -{

AlphaOmegaSin

They could have a similar Organization to SPECTRE, why not bring in SMERSH from the Books?

minigeff

AlphaOmegaSin wrote:

They could have a similar Organization to SPECTRE, why not bring in SMERSH from the Books?

Because there's Quantum. MGW has said that the days of SPECTRE are over, but Quantum might return in the future. I think an appearance or mention here and there is a wise move, a regular appearance would become mundane and the Quantum flame could soon burn out.

I'm not opposed to a bad organisation, but it needs to be done realistically and with some credibility. The worlds bad people in real life are not a one man band going for world domination, but very spread out fragmented groups, making the fight against them near impossible to overcome. Shouldn't the fictional Quantum be the same to give the films a hint of realism?

Silhouette Man

I agree 100% with minigeff on this one, I have to say. These lairs/villains/villain's organisations are very much old-hat and even anachronistic in the Craig era of realism. The world around us has changed vastly from 2001 or so onwards and James Bond (to stay at all relevant) must change with it or die. Look at Al-Queada and then look at the shadowy Quantum. SPECTRE/Blofeld etc. are from the past and so let them stay there. I've nearly finished what I hope will be a very interesting article on just this subject matter of the filmic James Bond getting chased by truckloads of baddies one after the other. It will appear on my The Bondologist Blog soon - http://www.thebondologistblog.blogspot.co.uk/

The article in question is called 'Drax's Gambit and the Future Direction of the James Bond Films'. Seek it out when it gets its online publication. It dealsd with all of this BNond being chased by loads of bad guys motif that runs through (too) many of the classic-era James Bond films.

It is pertinent to this discussion so I hope that the contributors to this thread on the old classic James Bond film era of c. 1962-2002 will read it and think about what it says and its conclusions!

I have to say that I'm a realist, not an idealist and that as such I don't like all the fluffy underwater cars, lairs in volanoes and invisible cars. -{

osris

It's not my opinion a reboot might have happened, it's not an assumption that this idea could have been successful, or that DC can act. The success and takings at the box office speak for themselves.

With this new direction the films have taken, it would now be laughable to involve the ideas from the classic era. With the huge success of the Austin Powers films, evil baddies and volcanos have become comedy parodies which people can no longer take seriously. They went too far with DAD, you honestly think EoN will make that mistake again?

True, it might be good box office but for me, personally, good ticket sales have never been an indicator of good films. Most people will go and see anything if marketed well.

Also, the Bond films have been spoofed and parodied all through the serious (both in film and on TV) and that didn’t cause Broccoli and Saltzman to reboot them after, say, Thunderball.

Bond films are meant to be fantasy and escapist. To try to make them “realistic” is to just pander to constantly changing public tastes and fashions in films.