Could AVTAK have been a Gardnder Novel?
AlphaOmegaSin
EnglandPosts: 10,926MI6 Agent
To me it feels very much like a Gardner type of Novel, with the Villain being the Head of a Company and such. I know that the Horse Racing Scene was taken from one Gardner's Novels (License Renewed I think? )
1.On Her Majesties Secret Service 2.The Living Daylights 3.license To Kill 4.The Spy Who Loved Me 5.Goldfinger
Comments
Yes, it could. The fire in the lift scene also came from the Gardner novel For Special Services where a fight scene occurs in a lift with the steel cord being cut or some such event. The Nazi background to Max Zorin and Dr Carl Mortner is alaso very Gardner. Role of Honour features a fight scene on a Goodyear airship a la the AVTAK finale. It was published in 1984 before AVTAK astarted filming. Gardner acknowledged this when I asked him about it, saying he supposed it was a pretty obvious idea to have an airship in a Bond film at some point, but he never watchwed a Bond film post Moonraker in 1979 so as not to be confused with continuing Ian Fleming's very different conception of James Bond in the original novels.
I think that you could also argue that The Living Daylights is Gardneresque too. It was very convoluted as most of Gardner's Bond novels were plotwise. TWINE could be seen in this light too, perhaps. TLD also had the fight in the back of the plane a la Caber's very similar fight with Bond in the back of the plane in Gardner's Licence Renewed.
So, yes, AVTAK could be seen as the honorary John Gardner Bond film, although it was also a remake of the Goldfinger film/novel too of course.
For more on this see zencat's excellent The Book Bond blog article on the John Gardner books and the elements used in the film series.