SPOILERS- What would Harry and Albert think about NTTD ?
John from Cork
Posts: 129MI6 Agent
I think they'd be disgusted, in fact cubby would never have approved of Craig's casting or rebooting Bond in 06, imho.
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The movies Broccoli and Saltzman made were from another era, for a different audience with a difference set of sensibilities. They were so different from what passes for a Bond movie today that I really doubt they could have even understood some of the creative decisions Wilson, Barbara Broccoli & Craig made. They were also very strict about not giving actors any creative control over the character, certainly never to the extent that Craig got during his time.
So while all one can do is take an educated guess, I'd say no, I don't think they would have gone for it at all. I think you can look to movies like From Russia With Love, License to Kill or For Your Eyes Only to see what they would have thought a "serious" Bond movie was. Even in those there was still a significant element of humor, no real character deconstruction and certainly no thought given to killing off the main character.
Harry Saltzman famously hated the Goldfinger title song, so maybe their opinions aren’t the be-all and end-all 😄
I think Cubby would have considered three revenge stories featuring a connection between the main villain and one of the protagonists (Silva/M, Blofeld/Bond, Safin/Madeleine) is too much. I also think he would have been against this TV series format.
I see NTTD as the consequence of the direction taken by BB and MGW after QoS.
IMHO, Bloodstone is the best CraigBond content of the 2010 decade. A video game! By the way, the plot wasn't written by Ernst Stavro Purvis and Julius Wade but Bruce Feirstein. Coincidence ? I don't think so.
I think Cubby and Harry would have loved the money that the Craig films earned.
That was my main thought too, I can't imagine either of them complaining about Skyfall being the biggest British hit film ever at the time. Well, maybe Harry would have wanted an elephant in it.
I DO think that they'd never have killed Bond off, though.
I honestly think it's impossible to say; maybe, maybe not. Cubby made LTK, who's to say where he may have gone.
Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson have now been involved with the Bond films way longer than Cubby and Saltzman were, and at this point are equalling Cubby for the length of time he produced them, so I think they've more than proven themselves by keeping the films to be consistent hits.
Would they have navigated Austin Powers, Bourne, MI and thrived...or even survived?
Maybe, then again they probably would have finished Bond off at the box office...
Horses for courses, they were magnificent in their era.
Of course whilst some suggest they might have enjoyed the modern money it is irrefutable Fleming would have been absolutely over the Moon with the Craig era financial rewards and he'd have probably made Bond go blond in the 36th novel! 🤣
we're gonna need a SPOILER tag for this thread! there's at least one ajb007 member who still hasnt seen the new film yet (somebody really needs to ship a copy of the dvd to the Phillipines... )
Harry and Cubby were different people of course. I think between YOLT and tMwtGG, they were each taking the lead on alternating films, and we may be able to spot their specific interests from that evidence. anybody remember who did which? Saltzman did the more realistic downbeat Harry Palmer films may be one clue.
certainly Cubby presided over the 80s films, where the tone began to change. For Your Eyes Only begins with Bond going to his lovers' grave and being attacked by "Blofeld," so he shouldnt be bothered by that content, just maybe the unoriginality
have amended in case he does in..though I see spoiler still required.
Maybe it’s because I’m a writer by profession but I dislike how these discussions rarely involve Ian Fleming, the man who created the character. His opinion would matter a hell of a lot more to me than producers, directors, actors, etc. And I have no idea.
Spoilers tag added
Caractacus- Harry did OHMSS, Cubby DAF, Harry LALD, Cubby TMWTGG. They didn't alternate 100%, each did contribute.
As has been mentioned, Broccoli and Saltzman would have appreciated the great ongoing commercial success of the franchise; they'd also have appreciated its abiding importance to cinema in an age of alternative viewing platforms/ contexts, and the kind of establishment recognition that it still commands (as in the Queen's agreement to appear in a skit with Daniel Craig for Danny Boyle's piece in 2012 on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the London Olympics). Broccoli might have been kinder to Brosnan after DAD and kept him on. He would probably have baulked at the idea of a flat reboot in CR06 and the extent to which NTTD breaks the mould, but at the same time he would probably have wanted to support his daughter's instincts (as he'd tended to support Dana's).
wasnt there a proposal for a reboot/Young Bond film round the time Dalton took over? obviously that got rejected, and Dalton continued playing the same character as Moore except twitchier. did Cubby overrule what someone else suggested?
Well, Royale-les-Eaux mentioned Fleming a couple of posts before yours, and they were quite right; he'd have loved the money! 😊 He was trying to get films/TV shows of Bond made for years.
He also came pretty close to killing Bond off at the end of FRWL but brought him back, Conan Doyle-style. I don't think there's much reason to think he'd have disapproved of NTTD.
But to me, Broccoli and Saltzman are probably of equal importance to Fleming when it comes to Bond. He's a global icon because of all of their work and wouldn't be known by half as many people without Cubby & Harry. And that's why I think it's fitting that No Time To Die took its title from a Cubby Broccoli movie production rather than an Ian Fleming story title.
Yes indeed, I believe it was Wilson who was pushing for that and wrote a treatment with Maibaum. I don't think the story of that one ever seemed that great, but as we saw, the idea of Bond becoming 007 did eventually make for a great film.
I was composing my post when @Royale-les-Eaux beat me to the punch! 😂 Lesson learned. Refresh thread before posting.
Good to see Fleming brought into this in any case!
And you’re absolutely right that the cinematic Bond is a creation of Cubby and Harry (as well as Sean Connery, Terence Young, Monty Norman and John Barry, etc.) I just find it comical to imagine a couple of showmen like Broccoli and Saltzman as keepers of some sacred flame. Cubby was responsible for Call Me Bwana!
What is often forgot or misunderstood is that the worst part about NTTD is not the mere fact that he dies, but more importantly how, and why. Sure, the rockets were already launched and all, we get it, but then we also know that Bond, the character we have known and loved for decades, would have found a way out of this mess. It's the essence of who he is, being of course a fictional character, that he always finds a way, he gets things done against impossible odds, defeats the villain and finishes his mission. In the Craig films, which strangely used to be my favorite era by far up until recently, this myth, so to speak, is deliberately and completely deconstructed. Bond fails to accomplish most of his missions (if he even has one and is not going rogue again and again against a semi-villanous M / Mi6 anyway) in most of these previous movies and in the end, the best James Bond could still do for mankind is to kill himself on a lonely island. But at least his "wife" with whom he never had any believable connection whatsoever apart from "being an assasin" and yada yada still gets to drive his car around Italy - so it ain't that bad I guess?
I didn't know Ian Fleming personally but no way he would have approved of this nonsense! 😠
"- That is something to be afraid of."
you just have to accept CraigBond is a different character than the Superman seen in the first twenty films. They were explicit about this when releasing Casino Royale, and his behaviour in the new film is consistent with the character seen in Craig's first four films.
Neither version of cinematic Bond is the same as Fleming's version of the character. Fleming's character was brooding and self destructive, not a Superman and not particularly funny, and if Connery's first four films had been more faithful in their characterization they might never have been so phenomenonally successful we're still talking about them today.
I am willing to accept that, but I still think everything post Skyfall is just a terrible mess. I am fine with making things more "realistic" and exploring Bond more as a character, troubled/vulnerable and all that if it has to be, but you still have to make good movies, like Craigs first three, which I will enjoy forever pretending that the retconning never happened. 😃
"- That is something to be afraid of."
Yes, very well put. Fleming's Bond regularly won by sheer luck rather than judgement, his luck was always going to run out.