That's a great list you came up with. I noticed that generally the closer to 5, the better the movie, with the classics (DN,FRWL,GF,OHMSS) and CR topping most "best Bond movies" lists (not ajb007 members, but general public and movie critics). The closer to Fleming, the better.
True, but some of the biggest hits have also been original stories: TSWLM, Moonraker, Goldeneye, Skyfall…
My current 10 favorite:
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
That's a great list you came up with. I noticed that generally the closer to 5, the better the movie, with the classics (DN,FRWL,GF,OHMSS) and CR topping most "best Bond movies" lists (not ajb007 members, but general public and movie critics). The closer to Fleming, the better.
True, but some of the biggest hits have also been original stories: TSWLM, Moonraker, Goldeneye, Skyfall…
5 - Near perfect accuracy
4 - Very accurate with some creative tampering
3 - Artistic freedom was taken liberally but the majority of the film is accurate.
2 - Mostly inaccurate, but it still keeps some of the core ideas.
1 - Aside from a few motifs, way way off from the source material.
0 - Story is completely original
Dr No - 4
From Russia With Love - 4
Goldfinger - 4
Thunderball - 4
You Only Live Twice -1
On Her Majesties Secret Service - 4
Diamonds Are Forever - 1
Live And Let Die - 2
The Man With The Golden Gun - 1
The Spy Who Loved Me - 0
Moonraker - 1
For Your Eyes Only - 3
Octopussy - 1
A View To A Kill - 1
The living Daylights - 2
License To Kill - 2
Goldeneye - 0
Tomorrow Never Dies - 0
The World Is Not Enough - 0
Die another Day - 1
Casino Royale - 4
Quantum Of Solace - 0
Skyfall - 2
Given that EON had to change the material enough to make it marketable to a large international audience and also update it, it is impossible to give any of the films a 5.
I gave SF a 2 because even though it is completely original, it borrows the core element from MWTGG. Bond is resurrected after disappearing and has to prove his abilities to M by having given a tough mission. Also, his old life when he was after Blofeld, losing Tracy then Kissy and being brainwashed is gone and at the end of the novel (and SF) he has returned reinvigorated and ready to move onto new missions.
In terms of faithfulness, Casino Royale gets off to a surprisingly bad start with a wildly inaccurate account of Bond's first two kills.
Bond's assassination attempt of Sanchez in LTK actually closely resembles his first ever kill. We still have yet to see his second kill that involved close quarters combat with a knife…sounds pretty brutal. Yuk.
From the novel:
Bond: It's not difficult to get a Double O number if you're prepared to kill people. That's all the meaning it has. It's nothing to be particularly proud of. I've got the corpses of a Japanese cipher expert in New York and a Norwegian double agent in Stockholm to thank for being a Double O. Probably quite decent people.
The first was in New York--A Japanese cipher expert cracking our codes on the 36th floor of the RCA building in the Rockefeller centre, where the Japs had their consulate. […] I got a colleague from our organization in New York and a couple of Remington 30-30s with telescopic sights and silencers. […] His job was only to blast a hole through the windows so that I could shoot the Jap through it. […] I shot immediately after him, through the hole he had made. I got the Jap in the mouth as he turned to gape at the broken window. It was a pretty sound job. Nice and clean too. Three hundred yards away. No Personal contact.
The next time in Stockholm wasn't so pretty. I had to kill a Norwegian who was doubling against us for the Germans. For various reasons it had to be an absolutely silent job. I chose the bedroom of his flat and a knife. And, well, he just didn't die very quickly.
My current 10 favorite:
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
"In terms of faithfulness, Casino Royale gets off to a surprisingly bad start with a wildly inaccurate account of Bond's first two kills. "
I believe they didn't go literary with these because they assumed creating totally new visual scenarios (and doing them in B&W to really underscore this was a new Bond) while keeping the spirit of the intent of the Bond's first two killings would be acceptable to a modern audience. For most who don't know the novels it didn't matter and for those of us who do they at least covered it and put it in to demonstrate they wanted to be more faithful to Fleming's creation, and to the non Fleming audience that this Bond was not a fashion model who didn't get hurt but a flesh and blood spy who had to eliminate people to earn his status.
"Bond's assassination attempt of Sanchez in LTK actually closely resembles his first ever kill. We still have yet to see his second kill that involved close quarters combat with a knife…sounds pretty brutal. Yuk. "
Though the knife fight scene in QOS is not verbatim I suspect his second kill of the double agent may have been the inspiration for it. Also, the bathroom fight in CR seemed to me to be down and dirty and also taken from this killing. Yes, the Sanchez attempt appears to be taken from his first killing. I suspect that's why they changed how he gets his second killing in CR done - they didn't want to repeat the same scene from LTK.
I'd upgrade those two films to a 2 or 3. They use the same locations as the novels (Japan, Las Vegas) and most of the characters (YOLT: Blofeld, Kissy, Tanaka, Henderson DAF: Tiffany, Wint & Kidd, Shady Tree- very much changed in that case), several scenes are reasonably as per novel (YOLT: Kissy & the Amas, Bond's awful Japanese disguise, the Ninjas DAF: the dentist & scorpion, Bond's meeting with Tiffany, Bond & Tiffany being followed on the plane by Wint & Kidd, his being paid off at the casino, finale on the liner).
As I already mentioned, the PTS of Bond's first kills was waaay off the mark.
Next consider how many completely new elements were added to the story:
The free running chase
Madagascar sub-plot
Le Chiffre weeping tears of blood
The Bahamas with Solange and winning the Aston Martin
The Miami airport bomb plot
Bond and Vesper in the emotional shower scene.
The fight scenes between the poker game.
The battle in Venice
Scenes that were absent from the film:
Mathis and Bond discovering their room is being wire-tapped
The red/blue bomb throwers outside the restaurant
Scenes that were heavily modified for the film:
Bond and Vesper did not meet on a train (Bond met her along with Mathis at a restaurant)
Vesper was never tied up in the road (Le Chiffre put down some spike stripes and waited for the ambush)
Vesper did not have a French-Algerian boyfriend (Polish dude in the RAF who may or may not be a villain ? )
They did not play Texas Hold 'em (Baccarat of course!)
Bond was never poisoned (A henchmen did put a silenced pistol to his back while at the table)
Vesper didn't drown herself in a lift (Took sleeping pills and left Bond a suicide note explaining all)
Some of those are pretty minor, but they do add up.
My current 10 favorite:
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
I wholeheartedly agree Firemass. Casino Royale has been made out to be the second coming of Ian The Saviour Fleming but it is not as close to the source material as most people claim. (Still a great movie especially after Dud Another Day).
I think the 4 is justified. The story of the novel is up there on the screen. All of it. It was enhanced and developed but essentially, the story the film tells is the same story that Fleming tells: Le Chiffre's business plot make him lose millions so he has to win it back in Casino Royale. Bond is ordered to prevent Le Chiffre from winning, as that would imply financing terrorism. The only thing that deviates from the novel is that in act I, Bond actively makes Le Chiffre's business plot fail. The new scenes mentioned filling up that narrative structure are mostly on act I, and from the moment Bond goes to Montenegro is the novel.
I think the 4 is justified. The story of the novel is up there on the screen. All of it. It was enhanced and developed but essentially, the story the film tells is the same story that Fleming tells: Le Chiffre's business plot make him lose millions so he has to win it back in Casino Royale. Bond is ordered to prevent Le Chiffre from winning, as that would imply financing terrorism. The only thing that deviates from the novel is that in act I, Bond actively makes Le Chiffre's business plot fail. The new scenes mentioned filling up that narrative structure are mostly on act I, and from the moment Bond goes to Montenegro is the novel.
The story of the novel is up there on the screen. All of it. It was enhanced and developed but essentially, the story the film tells is the same story that Fleming tells
Maybe so, but CR just doesn't have the same level of faithfulness from start to finish as DR, FRWL, GF, TB and OHMSS. It reminds me more of how For Your Eyes Only and Risico are buried inside FYEO with a lot of other action sequences added.
My current 10 favorite:
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
I think the 4 is justified. The story of the novel is up there on the screen. All of it. It was enhanced and developed but essentially, the story the film tells is the same story that Fleming tells: Le Chiffre's business plot make him lose millions so he has to win it back in Casino Royale. Bond is ordered to prevent Le Chiffre from winning, as that would imply financing terrorism. The only thing that deviates from the novel is that in act I, Bond actively makes Le Chiffre's business plot fail. The new scenes mentioned filling up that narrative structure are mostly on act I, and from the moment Bond goes to Montenegro is the novel.
I agree 100%. I think there's enough of the story and the spirit of the novel in the movie that Casino Royale certainly deserves a 4.
The story of the novel is up there on the screen. All of it. It was enhanced and developed but essentially, the story the film tells is the same story that Fleming tells
Maybe so, but CR just doesn't have the same level of faithfulness from start to finish as DR, FRWL, GF, TB and OHMSS. It reminds me more of how For Your Eyes Only and Risico are buried inside FYEO with a lot of other action sequences added.
You have a point about FYEO. However if you think about it, the main premise of the film is not on any of those novels. Bond's mission is recovering the ATTACK, and from the novels you get the characters and the fact that you don't really know who the villain is. The main premise of CR is the same as in the novel, so are the characters, key dialogue, and most situations. I would say FYEO is a 3, and CR is a 4.
As for the faithfulness of the early ones, DR FRWL,GF,TB and OHMSS, it has more to do with the fact that they were made very soon after the novel was written. The world hadn't changed so much. From CR novel 1952 until 2006 the world had really changed a lot, and yet story-wise the novel is all there.
I don't think the CR novel is very "dated" compared to some of Fleming's other works. If anything, it was probably just too darn short to make a feature film. The movie doesn't even become recognizable as Casino Royale until after the first hour or so… but I agree with you about the spirit of the story "being all there".
To change the subject a little bit: It's interesting that many Bond fans have correctly noted the keel-haul scene in FYEO was taken from the LALD novel, yet it never actually happened in the novel. It was only explained that it would happen, but Bond's limpet mine exploded and destroyed the yacht.
My current 10 favorite:
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
...with Bond and Solitaire in the water, tied to a rope being dragged behind the boat. Yes, it does happen in the novel!
True, true. But Bond never came into contact with the reef. Unlike in the film where he was repeatedly dragged back and forth over the coral. Most of it was just talk where Mr. Big described what would happen to them…in nauseating detail.
"I intend said Mr. Big, in a matter-of-fact discursive tone of voice, to bind you together to a line streamed from this paravane and to tow you through the sea until you are eaten by sharks. […] When your bodies have been dragged over the reef, then I'm afraid you will bleed, your bodies will be very raw. "
Bond shuddered to think of the mauling their bodies would suffer being dragged at any speed over the razor-sharp coral rocks. The skin on their backs and legs would be flayed off.
"Their legs can stay free, said Mr. Big. They'll make appetizing bait"
Thirty yards to go, twenty, ten.
"Jesus Christ, thought Bond. We're for it." He braced his muscles to take the crashing, searing pain, edged Solitaire further above him to protect her from the worst of it. A split second later lightning flashed across the sky and there was the thunder of an explosion. They stopped dead in the water and Bond felt the weight of the slack rope pulling them under.
My current 10 favorite:
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
And it would have been interesting, though probably not filmable at the time, to have seen Mr Big's subsequent death as per novel in LALD rather than Kananga's balloon escapade.
And it would have been interesting, though probably not filmable at the time, to have seen Mr Big's subsequent death as per novel in LALD rather than Kananga's balloon escapade.
So gnarly! I must admit I enjoyed reading the details of his gruesome death.
My current 10 favorite:
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
The story of the novel is up there on the screen. All of it. It was enhanced and developed but essentially, the story the film tells is the same story that Fleming tells
Maybe so, but CR just doesn't have the same level of faithfulness from start to finish as DR, FRWL, GF, TB and OHMSS. It reminds me more of how For Your Eyes Only and Risico are buried inside FYEO with a lot of other action sequences added.
You have a point about FYEO. However if you think about it, the main premise of the film is not on any of those novels. Bond's mission is recovering the ATTACK, and from the novels you get the characters and the fact that you don't really know who the villain is. The main premise of CR is the same as in the novel, so are the characters, key dialogue, and most situations. I would say FYEO is a 3, and CR is a 4.
As for the faithfulness of the early ones, DR FRWL,GF,TB and OHMSS, it has more to do with the fact that they were made very soon after the novel was written. The world hadn't changed so much. From CR novel 1952 until 2006 the world had really changed a lot, and yet story-wise the novel is all there.
Also, Fleming was still alive in the beginning. EON was at least trying to do him some justice by staying close to his writing.
Comments
True, but some of the biggest hits have also been original stories: TSWLM, Moonraker, Goldeneye, Skyfall…
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
True, but that's another story.
4 - Very accurate with some creative tampering
3 - Artistic freedom was taken liberally but the majority of the film is accurate.
2 - Mostly inaccurate, but it still keeps some of the core ideas.
1 - Aside from a few motifs, way way off from the source material.
0 - Story is completely original
Dr No - 4
From Russia With Love - 4
Goldfinger - 4
Thunderball - 4
You Only Live Twice -1
On Her Majesties Secret Service - 4
Diamonds Are Forever - 1
Live And Let Die - 2
The Man With The Golden Gun - 1
The Spy Who Loved Me - 0
Moonraker - 1
For Your Eyes Only - 3
Octopussy - 1
A View To A Kill - 1
The living Daylights - 2
License To Kill - 2
Goldeneye - 0
Tomorrow Never Dies - 0
The World Is Not Enough - 0
Die another Day - 1
Casino Royale - 4
Quantum Of Solace - 0
Skyfall - 2
Given that EON had to change the material enough to make it marketable to a large international audience and also update it, it is impossible to give any of the films a 5.
I gave SF a 2 because even though it is completely original, it borrows the core element from MWTGG. Bond is resurrected after disappearing and has to prove his abilities to M by having given a tough mission. Also, his old life when he was after Blofeld, losing Tracy then Kissy and being brainwashed is gone and at the end of the novel (and SF) he has returned reinvigorated and ready to move onto new missions.
Bond's assassination attempt of Sanchez in LTK actually closely resembles his first ever kill. We still have yet to see his second kill that involved close quarters combat with a knife…sounds pretty brutal. Yuk.
From the novel:
Bond: It's not difficult to get a Double O number if you're prepared to kill people. That's all the meaning it has. It's nothing to be particularly proud of. I've got the corpses of a Japanese cipher expert in New York and a Norwegian double agent in Stockholm to thank for being a Double O. Probably quite decent people.
The first was in New York--A Japanese cipher expert cracking our codes on the 36th floor of the RCA building in the Rockefeller centre, where the Japs had their consulate. […] I got a colleague from our organization in New York and a couple of Remington 30-30s with telescopic sights and silencers. […] His job was only to blast a hole through the windows so that I could shoot the Jap through it. […] I shot immediately after him, through the hole he had made. I got the Jap in the mouth as he turned to gape at the broken window. It was a pretty sound job. Nice and clean too. Three hundred yards away. No Personal contact.
The next time in Stockholm wasn't so pretty. I had to kill a Norwegian who was doubling against us for the Germans. For various reasons it had to be an absolutely silent job. I chose the bedroom of his flat and a knife. And, well, he just didn't die very quickly.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
I believe they didn't go literary with these because they assumed creating totally new visual scenarios (and doing them in B&W to really underscore this was a new Bond) while keeping the spirit of the intent of the Bond's first two killings would be acceptable to a modern audience. For most who don't know the novels it didn't matter and for those of us who do they at least covered it and put it in to demonstrate they wanted to be more faithful to Fleming's creation, and to the non Fleming audience that this Bond was not a fashion model who didn't get hurt but a flesh and blood spy who had to eliminate people to earn his status.
"Bond's assassination attempt of Sanchez in LTK actually closely resembles his first ever kill. We still have yet to see his second kill that involved close quarters combat with a knife…sounds pretty brutal. Yuk. "
Though the knife fight scene in QOS is not verbatim I suspect his second kill of the double agent may have been the inspiration for it. Also, the bathroom fight in CR seemed to me to be down and dirty and also taken from this killing. Yes, the Sanchez attempt appears to be taken from his first killing. I suspect that's why they changed how he gets his second killing in CR done - they didn't want to repeat the same scene from LTK.
I'd upgrade those two films to a 2 or 3. They use the same locations as the novels (Japan, Las Vegas) and most of the characters (YOLT: Blofeld, Kissy, Tanaka, Henderson DAF: Tiffany, Wint & Kidd, Shady Tree- very much changed in that case), several scenes are reasonably as per novel (YOLT: Kissy & the Amas, Bond's awful Japanese disguise, the Ninjas DAF: the dentist & scorpion, Bond's meeting with Tiffany, Bond & Tiffany being followed on the plane by Wint & Kidd, his being paid off at the casino, finale on the liner).
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
As I already mentioned, the PTS of Bond's first kills was waaay off the mark.
Next consider how many completely new elements were added to the story:
The free running chase
Madagascar sub-plot
Le Chiffre weeping tears of blood
The Bahamas with Solange and winning the Aston Martin
The Miami airport bomb plot
Bond and Vesper in the emotional shower scene.
The fight scenes between the poker game.
The battle in Venice
Scenes that were absent from the film:
Mathis and Bond discovering their room is being wire-tapped
The red/blue bomb throwers outside the restaurant
Scenes that were heavily modified for the film:
Bond and Vesper did not meet on a train (Bond met her along with Mathis at a restaurant)
Vesper was never tied up in the road (Le Chiffre put down some spike stripes and waited for the ambush)
Vesper did not have a French-Algerian boyfriend (Polish dude in the RAF who may or may not be a villain ? )
They did not play Texas Hold 'em (Baccarat of course!)
Bond was never poisoned (A henchmen did put a silenced pistol to his back while at the table)
Vesper didn't drown herself in a lift (Took sleeping pills and left Bond a suicide note explaining all)
Some of those are pretty minor, but they do add up.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
AJB007 Favorite Film Rankings
Pros and Cons Compendium (50 Years)
+1.
Maybe so, but CR just doesn't have the same level of faithfulness from start to finish as DR, FRWL, GF, TB and OHMSS. It reminds me more of how For Your Eyes Only and Risico are buried inside FYEO with a lot of other action sequences added.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
I agree 100%. I think there's enough of the story and the spirit of the novel in the movie that Casino Royale certainly deserves a 4.
You have a point about FYEO. However if you think about it, the main premise of the film is not on any of those novels. Bond's mission is recovering the ATTACK, and from the novels you get the characters and the fact that you don't really know who the villain is. The main premise of CR is the same as in the novel, so are the characters, key dialogue, and most situations. I would say FYEO is a 3, and CR is a 4.
As for the faithfulness of the early ones, DR FRWL,GF,TB and OHMSS, it has more to do with the fact that they were made very soon after the novel was written. The world hadn't changed so much. From CR novel 1952 until 2006 the world had really changed a lot, and yet story-wise the novel is all there.
To change the subject a little bit: It's interesting that many Bond fans have correctly noted the keel-haul scene in FYEO was taken from the LALD novel, yet it never actually happened in the novel. It was only explained that it would happen, but Bond's limpet mine exploded and destroyed the yacht.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
True, true. But Bond never came into contact with the reef. Unlike in the film where he was repeatedly dragged back and forth over the coral. Most of it was just talk where Mr. Big described what would happen to them…in nauseating detail.
"I intend said Mr. Big, in a matter-of-fact discursive tone of voice, to bind you together to a line streamed from this paravane and to tow you through the sea until you are eaten by sharks. […] When your bodies have been dragged over the reef, then I'm afraid you will bleed, your bodies will be very raw. "
Bond shuddered to think of the mauling their bodies would suffer being dragged at any speed over the razor-sharp coral rocks. The skin on their backs and legs would be flayed off.
"Their legs can stay free, said Mr. Big. They'll make appetizing bait"
Thirty yards to go, twenty, ten.
"Jesus Christ, thought Bond. We're for it." He braced his muscles to take the crashing, searing pain, edged Solitaire further above him to protect her from the worst of it. A split second later lightning flashed across the sky and there was the thunder of an explosion. They stopped dead in the water and Bond felt the weight of the slack rope pulling them under.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
So gnarly! I must admit I enjoyed reading the details of his gruesome death.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
Also, Fleming was still alive in the beginning. EON was at least trying to do him some justice by staying close to his writing.