The beautiful woman is his local contact who either passes him essential information or leads him to his target. She should be waiting for him in the getaway vehicle (take your pick, though a motorized iceberg is probably not a good idea here) once he has accomplished his mission and evaded/killed the bad guys.
What's the deal over not making horrid dictatorial regimes from RL into Bond villains? There was a perverse business logic on not demonising the Chinese too much in the Brosnan era (money and globalisation talked), but the Soviets were habitually the nominal secondary villans, and were pretty much primary villains in Octopussy (even if it focused on General Orlov being too exteme for the rest of the Russian leadership).
'Alright guard, begin the unnecessarily slow moving dipping mechanism...'
It's okay in my book to make dictatorial regimes secondary villains or at least the backdrop of a plot. I don't agree the USSR was the primary villain in OP, but the case can be made in FYEO. Making real regimes the primary villains will make the movie look like propaganda or at least politics. It can also easily date the movie. Let's say Bond26 has Iran as the primary villain, but the same year the religious regimes falls after a popular uprising? It's a good thing, but not for the movie.
You shouldn't go after main RL regimes and their leaders specifically, since you had embarrassing incidents like Sony getting hacked by North Korea, etc, but it didn't stop North Korea from being broadly the main enemy in Die Another Day, even if again it focused on an fictional extremist Nork officer with his own agenda (similar with Orlov, Koskov, and Ourumov).
Generals Orlov and Koskov were carrying out plans not officially signed off on by the Kremlin, but in their own twisted minds they thought they'd benefit Soviet interests and were still a product of the Kremlin's lack of accountability.
'Alright guard, begin the unnecessarily slow moving dipping mechanism...'
Yeah, having RL dictators set as specific Bond villains would perhaps date it or backfire (Sony getting hacked by North Korea, etc). But North Korea was still broadly an antagonist, even if you had the fictional Gen. Moon/Graves and his own agenda.
Octopussy and The Living Daylights still had Bond pitted against Soviet and Commie forces, with Generals Orlov and Koskov still thinking they're advancing Soviet interests for the best, even if they're undercutting more legitimate CCCP officials lile Gogol and Pushkin, and colluding with criminal third parties.
Even the Janus crime syndicate got as powerful as it did like SPECTRE, because it was a product of the Kremlin's lack of accountability and extreme corruption since the 1980s.
'Alright guard, begin the unnecessarily slow moving dipping mechanism...'
As you point out there is a history of the main villan being a rogue Soviet official who may or may not believe he's working for the best of the USSR. Koskov uses Soviet funds illegally to make himself richer and spread drug addiction in the West. I'm unsure if he manages to convince himself this is for the good of the Soviet Union. Rogue representatives of Iran, Russia etc. can be used in the future In my opinion.
Indeed, but at the same time crooked industrialist Brad Whittaker was going to infuse the Soviet Army with his own stockpile of Western smart weapons to counter the Western smart weapons wielded by Afghani insurgents, so inspite of being a sleazeball, Koskov was trying to advance Soviet interests (even if he's getting rich at most people's expense and it's a scheme that could've blown up in Moscow's face, like with nutball Orlov's whacky plan).
Gen. Orumov likely wanted Janus' extreme wealth and reach to help him get installed as a Putin style dictator after London got EMPed, and the Janus network itself grew out of the spreading deep rot and corruption in the Soviet military spearheaded by many officials and commanders like Koskov....
'Alright guard, begin the unnecessarily slow moving dipping mechanism...'
Despite heavy sanctions against Russia, diamonds aren't on the EU's sanctions list yet and many go to the diamonds exchange in Antwerp. Russia is a major exporter of diamonds and the business helps finance the war in Ukraine. The diamond company Alrosa has close ties to the Kremlin, so close it has even financed the modernization of an attack submarine for the Russian navy. The submarine is even named "Alrosa"! Sounds a lot like something from a James Bond movie to me.
I've said elsewhere I think a Wagner style private army group could be the villain, a new SPECRE, for the next Bond.
Like past Bonds, the private army has links to Russia but you're not making Putin the villain, the private army could have links to the diamond trade etc where maybe there is a power hungry industrialist or circle of industrialists backing the private army. A new octopus whose tentacles invades business, politics and paramilitaries.
From what I can see, EON has studiously avoided sub-Saharan Africa, bar DAFs brief trip there where it was almost entirely white people on screen.
I think they have wanted to avoid 'white saviour' accusations and in these feverish social media times it is just easier to do what Bond films have always done, make the white European guy the villain.
Remember, John Logan had Blofeld as an African warlord for Spectre and that was rejected.
I think Bond will still be Royal Navy commander Bond and I think to separate the new Bond from past Bonds a quick reference to King Charles III would be an easy one liner to make that distinction. We don't need to see Bond become 007 like in Casino Royale but maybe an exchange along he lines of:
M - Ah, Bond, welcome back, out of hospital I see.
Bond - Yes Sir, healed and ready for action.
M - Well, you've seen plenty of that in your first two missions for the 00 section, and now I have a third for you.
would signal to people that this is a 007 at the start of his career.
The producers have used the word espionage when referring to their next iteration of Bond, and I agree with some of the posts here that we'll see a more FRWL, FYEO, TLD bent to the Bond films where Bond is driven by loyalty to King and country and it won't be the 'Bond led by his heart' that we saw with the DC era.
I just watched Calvin Dyson's new review of GE and was reminded that the original plan was to make Travelyan Bond's mentor instead of another 00-agent. I think that idea is good enough to be used and it's a good idea for an actor's first Bond movie. In my opinion it's a way to have an origin story without actually having one.
Perhaps a fellow officer in the SBS, or maybe someone who was his contact in the MI6 when Bond served undercover as a spy somewhere? Someone Bond sees as a mentor.
I just watched Calvin Dyson's new review of GE and was reminded that the original plan was to make Travelyan Bond's mentor instead of another 00-agent. I think that idea is good enough to be used and it's a good idea for an actor's first Bond movie. In my opinion it's a way to have an origin story without actually having one.
...
The villain won't be a 00-agent
Perhaps a fellow officer in the SBS, or maybe someone who was his contact in the MI6 when Bond served undercover as a spy somewhere? Someone Bond sees as a mentor.
This is actually a plot in Pearson's Bond Biography. Bond's mentor is Maddox (don't think he has a first name), who runs the British Secret Service in France in the 1930s, recruiting talent and trying to get info from the Nazis. He recruits Bond when he is 16 years old, at that time Bond is the kept lover of Marthe de Brandt a wealthy glamorous bordello owner, where secrets are already being traded. Maddox convinces Bond Brandt is a Nazi spy and that he should kill her out of loyalty to Britain, which Bond does. He then employs Bond for the rest of the prewar era, introducing him to both M and Mathis. Maddox uses Bond for the Monte Carlo mission in 1939, that Unseen Mission mentioned both in Casino Royale and Moonraker. After the war, Maddox goes private sector, providing security to the big banks to protect their investments abroad. Bond (who has been fired from the Service) joins him. Bond falls in love with Maddox's wife, and when Maddox finds out, he sets Bond up to be blamed for a bombing in North Africa that will kill many civilians.
They probably wont adapt anything from the Bond Biography because they don't want to have to pay Pearson, but if they did there's lots of great Parisian and North African locations that'd make for a good visuals in a film, and lots of messy morally grey aspects of espionage that make for good plot.
Mr MartiniThat nice house in the sky.Posts: 2,709MI6 Agent
What this series needs is a female villain. No idea what the plot should be. Just need a strong female villainess.
Some people would complain even if you hang them with a new rope
I've been thinking the same thing. Wagner takes payment in gold and diamond mines, and that's perfect for a Bond villain. But to avoid Bond becoming a war movie I imagine "Evilcorp" to be involved in many types of security work such as VIP bodyguards, security cameras, watchmen at government and private sector buildings etc.
The writers would have to tread a fine line between using the real life Wagner group and making it seem like just another variant of SPECTRE, like Quantum was.
The fictional PMC could be acting on behalf of corporations to control diamond and other mines in unstable nations and the PMC could be involved in destabilising govts etc. Bond's mission could be defending Britain's allies and interest and there can be a humanitarian angle with all the conflict refugees etc
I'd rather see the PMC ultimately working for their own goals rather just working for someone else goals. They may be getting paid by someone else to do do things, but they chose what jobs to take and how they get paid to meet their own goals. The Wagner Group sometimes get paid in natural resources such as gold mines and they are pretty close to controlling a couple of African countries. They are told to work in these places by the Kremlin, but now the owner of the Wagner Group is seen as a possible next leader of Russia if there is a coup against Putin.
First I want to say that this post is intended to point to elements in current events that would fit nicely in a Bond movie, not to start a discussion about current events.
Recently Western inteligence services have found a boat that was in the area before the explosions on the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic Sea and traces of plastic explosives were found on it. It is believed divers from the boat placed explosives on the pipeline 70 meters below sea-level. The boat was rented by an Ukrainan oligarch without known ties to the Kiev government (or is it a Russian false flag operation?). A non-specified "peculiar calling card" was left by the saboteurs. To me the whole thing reads like something printed on the back of a James Bond novel.
Taiwanese gangsters hired over 100 girls dressed up in qipao as the gang, 'Bamboo Union', held its spring reception banquet at Marriott Hotel Taipei this week.
This is the yacht that may have been used for the Nord Stream sabotage. i don't know if this theory is the correct one, but it certainly shapes up to be the most Bondian one!
Comments
I think this concept art for the unmade Boyle/Hodges Bond25 is a good example of how sub-Saharan African can be used as a Bond location.
The beautiful woman is his local contact who either passes him essential information or leads him to his target. She should be waiting for him in the getaway vehicle (take your pick, though a motorized iceberg is probably not a good idea here) once he has accomplished his mission and evaded/killed the bad guys.
Could be. Or she visits the base, perhaps to supply or buy something. Maybe a rocket or two? In that case she's a henchwoman or even main villan.
I just realised that the above is straight from the OP PTS....
It does. The iceberg was a silly idea anyway. Who other than MooreBond would think of such a vessel?
Habakkuk: Churchill's aircraft carrier made of ice - Sandboxx
What's the deal over not making horrid dictatorial regimes from RL into Bond villains? There was a perverse business logic on not demonising the Chinese too much in the Brosnan era (money and globalisation talked), but the Soviets were habitually the nominal secondary villans, and were pretty much primary villains in Octopussy (even if it focused on General Orlov being too exteme for the rest of the Russian leadership).
It's okay in my book to make dictatorial regimes secondary villains or at least the backdrop of a plot. I don't agree the USSR was the primary villain in OP, but the case can be made in FYEO. Making real regimes the primary villains will make the movie look like propaganda or at least politics. It can also easily date the movie. Let's say Bond26 has Iran as the primary villain, but the same year the religious regimes falls after a popular uprising? It's a good thing, but not for the movie.
You shouldn't go after main RL regimes and their leaders specifically, since you had embarrassing incidents like Sony getting hacked by North Korea, etc, but it didn't stop North Korea from being broadly the main enemy in Die Another Day, even if again it focused on an fictional extremist Nork officer with his own agenda (similar with Orlov, Koskov, and Ourumov).
Generals Orlov and Koskov were carrying out plans not officially signed off on by the Kremlin, but in their own twisted minds they thought they'd benefit Soviet interests and were still a product of the Kremlin's lack of accountability.
Yeah, having RL dictators set as specific Bond villains would perhaps date it or backfire (Sony getting hacked by North Korea, etc). But North Korea was still broadly an antagonist, even if you had the fictional Gen. Moon/Graves and his own agenda.
Octopussy and The Living Daylights still had Bond pitted against Soviet and Commie forces, with Generals Orlov and Koskov still thinking they're advancing Soviet interests for the best, even if they're undercutting more legitimate CCCP officials lile Gogol and Pushkin, and colluding with criminal third parties.
Even the Janus crime syndicate got as powerful as it did like SPECTRE, because it was a product of the Kremlin's lack of accountability and extreme corruption since the 1980s.
As you point out there is a history of the main villan being a rogue Soviet official who may or may not believe he's working for the best of the USSR. Koskov uses Soviet funds illegally to make himself richer and spread drug addiction in the West. I'm unsure if he manages to convince himself this is for the good of the Soviet Union. Rogue representatives of Iran, Russia etc. can be used in the future In my opinion.
Indeed, but at the same time crooked industrialist Brad Whittaker was going to infuse the Soviet Army with his own stockpile of Western smart weapons to counter the Western smart weapons wielded by Afghani insurgents, so inspite of being a sleazeball, Koskov was trying to advance Soviet interests (even if he's getting rich at most people's expense and it's a scheme that could've blown up in Moscow's face, like with nutball Orlov's whacky plan).
Gen. Orumov likely wanted Janus' extreme wealth and reach to help him get installed as a Putin style dictator after London got EMPed, and the Janus network itself grew out of the spreading deep rot and corruption in the Soviet military spearheaded by many officials and commanders like Koskov....
Despite heavy sanctions against Russia, diamonds aren't on the EU's sanctions list yet and many go to the diamonds exchange in Antwerp. Russia is a major exporter of diamonds and the business helps finance the war in Ukraine. The diamond company Alrosa has close ties to the Kremlin, so close it has even financed the modernization of an attack submarine for the Russian navy. The submarine is even named "Alrosa"! Sounds a lot like something from a James Bond movie to me.
I've said elsewhere I think a Wagner style private army group could be the villain, a new SPECRE, for the next Bond.
Like past Bonds, the private army has links to Russia but you're not making Putin the villain, the private army could have links to the diamond trade etc where maybe there is a power hungry industrialist or circle of industrialists backing the private army. A new octopus whose tentacles invades business, politics and paramilitaries.
From what I can see, EON has studiously avoided sub-Saharan Africa, bar DAFs brief trip there where it was almost entirely white people on screen.
I think they have wanted to avoid 'white saviour' accusations and in these feverish social media times it is just easier to do what Bond films have always done, make the white European guy the villain.
Remember, John Logan had Blofeld as an African warlord for Spectre and that was rejected.
I think Bond will still be Royal Navy commander Bond and I think to separate the new Bond from past Bonds a quick reference to King Charles III would be an easy one liner to make that distinction. We don't need to see Bond become 007 like in Casino Royale but maybe an exchange along he lines of:
M - Ah, Bond, welcome back, out of hospital I see.
Bond - Yes Sir, healed and ready for action.
M - Well, you've seen plenty of that in your first two missions for the 00 section, and now I have a third for you.
would signal to people that this is a 007 at the start of his career.
The producers have used the word espionage when referring to their next iteration of Bond, and I agree with some of the posts here that we'll see a more FRWL, FYEO, TLD bent to the Bond films where Bond is driven by loyalty to King and country and it won't be the 'Bond led by his heart' that we saw with the DC era.
I just watched Calvin Dyson's new review of GE and was reminded that the original plan was to make Travelyan Bond's mentor instead of another 00-agent. I think that idea is good enough to be used and it's a good idea for an actor's first Bond movie. In my opinion it's a way to have an origin story without actually having one.
Is a bit too soon after Skyfall to have another rogue 00 agent villain?
The villain won't be a 00-agent
Perhaps a fellow officer in the SBS, or maybe someone who was his contact in the MI6 when Bond served undercover as a spy somewhere? Someone Bond sees as a mentor.
TwoFour said:
I just watched Calvin Dyson's new review of GE and was reminded that the original plan was to make Travelyan Bond's mentor instead of another 00-agent. I think that idea is good enough to be used and it's a good idea for an actor's first Bond movie. In my opinion it's a way to have an origin story without actually having one.
...
The villain won't be a 00-agent
Perhaps a fellow officer in the SBS, or maybe someone who was his contact in the MI6 when Bond served undercover as a spy somewhere? Someone Bond sees as a mentor.
__________________________________________________
This is actually a plot in Pearson's Bond Biography. Bond's mentor is Maddox (don't think he has a first name), who runs the British Secret Service in France in the 1930s, recruiting talent and trying to get info from the Nazis. He recruits Bond when he is 16 years old, at that time Bond is the kept lover of Marthe de Brandt a wealthy glamorous bordello owner, where secrets are already being traded. Maddox convinces Bond Brandt is a Nazi spy and that he should kill her out of loyalty to Britain, which Bond does. He then employs Bond for the rest of the prewar era, introducing him to both M and Mathis. Maddox uses Bond for the Monte Carlo mission in 1939, that Unseen Mission mentioned both in Casino Royale and Moonraker. After the war, Maddox goes private sector, providing security to the big banks to protect their investments abroad. Bond (who has been fired from the Service) joins him. Bond falls in love with Maddox's wife, and when Maddox finds out, he sets Bond up to be blamed for a bombing in North Africa that will kill many civilians.
They probably wont adapt anything from the Bond Biography because they don't want to have to pay Pearson, but if they did there's lots of great Parisian and North African locations that'd make for a good visuals in a film, and lots of messy morally grey aspects of espionage that make for good plot.
What this series needs is a female villain. No idea what the plot should be. Just need a strong female villainess.
One of the generals in the Spanish Civil war was Janos Gall (spelling varies). I think that sounds like a good villain name.
I've speculated on here before that something like the Wagner group could be a new Spectre or Quantum for the 7th 007 and yesterday there was this.
US to designate Russia’s Wagner mercenary group as a ‘transnational criminal organization’
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/20/politics/us-russia-wagner-group/index.html
I've been thinking the same thing. Wagner takes payment in gold and diamond mines, and that's perfect for a Bond villain. But to avoid Bond becoming a war movie I imagine "Evilcorp" to be involved in many types of security work such as VIP bodyguards, security cameras, watchmen at government and private sector buildings etc.
The writers would have to tread a fine line between using the real life Wagner group and making it seem like just another variant of SPECTRE, like Quantum was.
The fictional PMC could be acting on behalf of corporations to control diamond and other mines in unstable nations and the PMC could be involved in destabilising govts etc. Bond's mission could be defending Britain's allies and interest and there can be a humanitarian angle with all the conflict refugees etc
I'd rather see the PMC ultimately working for their own goals rather just working for someone else goals. They may be getting paid by someone else to do do things, but they chose what jobs to take and how they get paid to meet their own goals. The Wagner Group sometimes get paid in natural resources such as gold mines and they are pretty close to controlling a couple of African countries. They are told to work in these places by the Kremlin, but now the owner of the Wagner Group is seen as a possible next leader of Russia if there is a coup against Putin.
First I want to say that this post is intended to point to elements in current events that would fit nicely in a Bond movie, not to start a discussion about current events.
Recently Western inteligence services have found a boat that was in the area before the explosions on the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic Sea and traces of plastic explosives were found on it. It is believed divers from the boat placed explosives on the pipeline 70 meters below sea-level. The boat was rented by an Ukrainan oligarch without known ties to the Kiev government (or is it a Russian false flag operation?). A non-specified "peculiar calling card" was left by the saboteurs. To me the whole thing reads like something printed on the back of a James Bond novel.
More from real life that seems like it's taken from a James Bond movie:
Wen-Ti Sung
@wentisung
Taiwanese gangsters hired over 100 girls dressed up in qipao as the gang, 'Bamboo Union', held its spring reception banquet at Marriott Hotel Taipei this week.
The funeral of a Taiwanese Triad boss:
This is the yacht that may have been used for the Nord Stream sabotage. i don't know if this theory is the correct one, but it certainly shapes up to be the most Bondian one!
The same type of yacht under sail:
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5w71zFUJ6Q
FWIW a report claiming Henry Cavill could be the villain in Bond26
https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/henry-cavill-james-bond-villain.html