bond vs smersh
Sir Gawain Moore 008
Posts: 11MI6 Agent
I am just starting the book From Russia with Love and was just struck that the Sean Connery films wasn't about Bond vs SMERSH, as far as I can recall, it was SPECTRE that were the recurring bad guys and the odd mad billionaire (Goldfinger, the Cold War was ignored except for the film FRWL, and even then, SPECTRE was playing MI6 against SMERSH.
Which was the first truly Cold War Bond film?
There was a news report in the last couple of weeks that there were more active Russian spies operating now in England than there was in the Cold War, mainly industrial and technological espionage.
In the third Daniel Craig Bond film, do you think Bond should be opposing the FGB (or whatever the current Russian Secret Service is called)?
Which was the first truly Cold War Bond film?
There was a news report in the last couple of weeks that there were more active Russian spies operating now in England than there was in the Cold War, mainly industrial and technological espionage.
In the third Daniel Craig Bond film, do you think Bond should be opposing the FGB (or whatever the current Russian Secret Service is called)?
Comments
I think one of the reasons they picked a non-denominational villain for the FRWL film was to be politically correct and not make the Russians the bad guys. I doubt they would do that now. They seemed reluctant to make the terrorists in CR middle eastern. Granted not all terrorists are middle-eastern, but that would seem like the logical way to go if their goal was to mirror current events).
But I think you'll notice that the movie's plot is actually improved by the addition of SPECTRE. The motivation for SMERSH in the novel always seemed a little flimsy for me (an awful lot of trouble just to embarass MI6). SPECTRE would be able to ransom the lektor machine, so there was a substantive financial motive for the caper in the movie.
If you read most of Fleming's oringinal books you will find that unlike their film counterparts the villians usally have concetions to the Soviet Union or another Communist power.
It was the producers idea to rather mirror the real world that to have the villians work for SPECTRE in the early films or carry thier plans on thier own in Goldfinger's case.
24 hasn't been shy to mention the Russian (though renegage cadres) and Chinese as enemy operatives, yes, I noticed they've gone the LTK/"Isthmus" route by occasionally fictionalizing small nations.
What I like about Tom Clancy is in the world of his character, Jack Ryan, the US and its allies have gone off against some real but unlikely enemies such as Japan, India and China in full-scale, all out conflict, which is interesting to explore in fiction vs. real life.
Perhaps. But quite frankly I enjoyed that Casino Royale didnt deal with Russian teror communists in any way. On thing I disliked about TWINE and DAD is that it felt like the writers were drastically trying to look for some type of communist enemy to fight and only found...former communists and the Koreans - who never quite seemed as scary as the russians.
That's true maybe that just shows that they realise the Chinese and Russians realise it is just a tv show and won't start burning effigies of Jack Bauer and trying to kill the producers or something.