Would a Revenge Film have hurt the Series?

AlphaOmegaSin · April 2013

Do you think if DAF had been a Revenge Film with Lazenby in it, would the whole Concept of Bond getting Payback on Blofeld have hurt the Franchise? We did get a Revenge Film years later of course with LTK, but it did not really do so well. If we got one in 1971 instead, would it have done better then ?

superado · April 2013

Conceptually, I found the momentary departure from Bond's screen character intriguing and exciting since book Bond experienced that at some point and I was excited when it was announced that LTK was going to do that. However, at the time and more so in 1971, I think general audiences had set expectations about Bond. But today, I think audiences are so post, post-modern, jaded and overly exposed with all sorts of electronic and virtual media, that for Bond to survive they've needed to resort to gimmicks and will need to up the ante in making him interesting, like making him bi-sexual perhaps, or revealing his parents' death to be a murder suicide, etc. So, to give a long winded tirade for a short answer, no, I don't think that a no-holds-barred revenge film will not harm the series at this point, and it might actually be enthusiastically welcomed.

Mr Beech · April 2013

Isn't Quantum of Solace a bit of a revenge film? I think it comes up in that film that he is pursuing some of those responsible for Vesper, even if he claims it isn't personal.

davidelliott101 · April 2013

Mr Beech wrote:

Isn't Quantum of Solace a bit of a revenge film? I think it comes up in that film that he is pursuing some of those responsible for Vesper, even if he claims it isn't personal.

And License To Kill?

Shady Tree · April 2013

A 'revenge' Bond film needs a skilled actor as Bond. We got this in LTK and in QOS (which, to an extent, is itself a 'revenge' film - and flawed for reasons other than Craig's acting abilities, which are fine). Lazenby, on the other hand, wasn't a skilled enough actor to have been capable of the performance which would have been necessary to drive a 'revenge' sequel to OHMSS. Despite arguments sometimes made to the contrary, his lack of training and experience as an actor mattered. He'd have been fine in a movie like YOLT, where Bond has to do little more than punch his way from one location to the next and (literally) press a few buttons; but in OHMSS, which had much more of a personal story for Bond, Peter Hunt's idea that it's possible to use editing to get a good performance out of any 007 actor proved only partially true. Lazenby didn't want to return anyway, a fact explained by reports that at the time he was too immature to take on the challenge of becoming a 'movie star'. The decision to put some 'movie star' glitter back into the series, in the person of Sean Connery - and to make DAF a celebration of that rather than a film about 'another fella's' unfinished business - was the right decision to please contemporary audiences.

Would a Revenge Film have hurt the Series?

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