Richard Maibaum deserves all credit for being part of the core team that got the Bond series up, going, and successful; and I think he was at his best when he was called upon to make faithful adaptations of Fleming material. When he was required to come up with a plot on his own (as in The Man with the Golden Gun), though. . .uh-oh.
I'm with you on 90% of that. All credit to Maibaum, for simultaneously editing Fleming's material into filmable shape (he actually improves on OHMSS by having Blofeld kidnap Tracy, thus combining Bond's personal and professional missions) while strengthening the weaker points (irradiating rather than stealing the gold in Fort Knox) and extrapolating when necessary (Miss Taro gets only a line or two in the DN novel) and doing it for movie after movie. To quote William Goldman, screenplays are structure- and it's there that Maibaum's strength lay.
Lack of ambition's only one possible explanation out of many. Others, in addition to those mentioned above, could include friendship and loyalty or more simply his age. But, to quote from one of his scripts, we are speculating idly. He was happy to do what he did and his reasons were his own.
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I'm with you on 90% of that. All credit to Maibaum, for simultaneously editing Fleming's material into filmable shape (he actually improves on OHMSS by having Blofeld kidnap Tracy, thus combining Bond's personal and professional missions) while strengthening the weaker points (irradiating rather than stealing the gold in Fort Knox) and extrapolating when necessary (Miss Taro gets only a line or two in the DN novel) and doing it for movie after movie. To quote William Goldman, screenplays are structure- and it's there that Maibaum's strength lay.
That would be category A, an utter lack of ambition.