Would Dr. No have had the giant squid if it were a later film?

Miken Ayers

Seeing as how this movie was a gamble in every sense for the producers and it had a small budget, and the later movies contain some absurdities not found in the source material I find myself wondering this more and more.

Mr_Osato

In the Roger Moore era definitely!

Firemass

Mr_Osato wrote:

In the Roger Moore era definitely!

Because the Roger Moore era is more faithful to the outlandish writing of Fleming?

Perhaps the python battle in Moonraker was a nod to the qiant squid in the Dr. No novel.

superado

Although the later movies made generous dips in absurdity, I don’t think we would have seen the giant squid in a Dr. No hypothetically filmed with a larger budget. It's like comparing a demented Blofeld dressed in Samurai armour, living in a feudal Japanese castle surrounded by a bizarre garden of death. vs. a Blofeld with his Neru tunic that hints at political ambition, hiding in a hollowed out volcano designed to tip the geopolitical balance of power. One seems strange for the sake of being strange while the other is strange with a purpose.

The movies for the large part were attempts to shock and awe the audience; case in point was the cleverly enhanced Aston Martin in the novel, which was fanciful imagination on Fleming’s part to be “a minute into the future,” which the film producers took to an exponential level by making the Aston a tricked-out, rolling arsenal. The books, on the other hand, contained fantastical elements with a pre-war flavor since Fleming was heavily influenced by the fantastical elements of his childhood adventure pulps like Bulldog Drummond and Fu Man Chu, the latter which resembled Dr. No a lot. Ironically, in terms of coolness, those pulps were cutting edge for their time (the 1920s) though Fleming made it successfully entertaining by adding the sex and violence to the equation.

With the very first efforts to develop a Bond film script involving Fleming, his friend Ivar Bryce, producer Kevin McClory and screenwriter, Jack Whittingham, they realized that the novels were “un-filmable” the way they were and the product of their efforts, Thunderball, (both the novel and initial, un-filmed screenplay) was “grown-up” complete with believable plot, characterizations, authentic technical details, etc. Arguably, this “enhancement” even influenced the course and quality of Fleming’s following books, except for the regressions into the Dr. Shatterhand episode and Pistols Scaramanga. Not enough credit is given to the first TB screenplay since EON recognized that the novels required very heavy translation for the screen, which included filtering out some of Fleming’s preposterous elements into something smart for viewers.

Blackleiter

superado wrote:

Although the later movies made generous dips in absurdity, I don’t think we would have seen the giant squid in a Dr. No hypothetically filmed with a larger budget. It's like comparing a demented Blofeld dressed in Samurai armour, living in a feudal Japanese castle surrounded by a bizarre garden of death. vs. a Blofeld with his Neru tunic that hints at political ambition, hiding in a hollowed out volcano designed to tip the geopolitical balance of power. One seems strange for the sake of being strange while the other is strange with a purpose.

I really admire the way you express your views, my friend. I think this is an excellent and very apt distillation of the difference between certain elements of the Bond of Fleming's novels and Bond as translated to the screen. -{

Thunderpussy

Absolutely, I'm glad they stayed away from The Old Movie "Rubber Monster "
It would look so dated today. )

CmdrAtticus

Just read the whole passage and as fantastical as it is, Fleming puts so much detail in the scene and the pain and suffering Bond's going through to survive it is so riveting to me that I had to reassess how this would translate on the screen.

I never liked the finished version of the Sean in the tunnel sequence. It was just too tame for me compared to how Fleming wrote it.
Would the squid scene have worked in later films? Not in the pre-Craig films, no. Anything less than a realistic depiction (including Bond ending up nude and marked and bloody and covered in the black squid ink) would have come across like the Roger vs the snake scene. Also the ability to make the squid would not have worked - which is why Spielberg showed so little of Bruce the shark - it didn't work most of the time and for the same reason showing any full size monster in films up till today's modern methods was usually a let down. Post Jurassic Park, it could be done without any problems and if shot with the right amount of editing, I think it could be made pretty suspenseful - especially if little is shown of the squid and a lot is shown Bond's injuries and the actor is convincing in showing the pain. One just has to point to the torture scene in CR - even I was impressed how dramatically it was handled. When actors fight any large creature (such as the giant crab in Mysterious Island) and during/following it's defeat end up suffering no physical effects, it just makes the entire scene that much more fake and pointless. If the right director is involved like Spieberg, it can be made terrifying. When I watch Jaws or Jurassic Park, there are scenes that still give me the jeebies.

superado

Blackleiter wrote:

superado wrote:

Although the later movies made generous dips in absurdity, I don’t think we would have seen the giant squid in a Dr. No hypothetically filmed with a larger budget. It's like comparing a demented Blofeld dressed in Samurai armour, living in a feudal Japanese castle surrounded by a bizarre garden of death. vs. a Blofeld with his Neru tunic that hints at political ambition, hiding in a hollowed out volcano designed to tip the geopolitical balance of power. One seems strange for the sake of being strange while the other is strange with a purpose.

I really admire the way you express your views, my friend. I think this is an excellent and very apt distillation of the difference between certain elements of the Bond of Fleming's novels and Bond as translated to the screen. -{

Thanks, BL!