"News Stories/ Coverage" in the Bond films?
CB0012
Posts: 110MI6 Agent
Looking back on the films CNN coverage of the MI6 explosion in Skyfall, it makes me wonder if or how other events in the film would be covered.
Clearly the Blofeld duel right smack in the middle of London at the end of Spectre would have been noticed. Would the press have exposed Spectre as a threat to the world? Or what about Silvas attack on M's hearing right in broad daylight?
Clearly a volcanic explosion off the coast of Japan in the 1960s could be spun or covered up in the papers but with the more realistic approach these days it makes me wonder if details.like this are considered despite the fantasy element.
Clearly the Blofeld duel right smack in the middle of London at the end of Spectre would have been noticed. Would the press have exposed Spectre as a threat to the world? Or what about Silvas attack on M's hearing right in broad daylight?
Clearly a volcanic explosion off the coast of Japan in the 1960s could be spun or covered up in the papers but with the more realistic approach these days it makes me wonder if details.like this are considered despite the fantasy element.
Comments
Having the new building for 'C' in SP does present a problem esp for Londoners as we know damn well it isn't there and last time I looked the MI6 building hadn't been demolished either. It is very hard to do a cover up these days with instant media and smart phones, as has been touched on by the pts shenanigans in the SP pts, and his car going into the Tiber. But on reflection it's noteworthy how many of Bond's adventures are 'off-road' and would not make it into the press. I mean, speedboats in Louisiana? Who cares?
Dr Who did seem to have that problem though, where aliens became noticeable to the public, and once you go that way, everything changes really, you're in a new parallel reality.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
in John Pearson's 007 Authorised Biography he explains that all of Fleming's stories were "real" except Moonraker, which Fleming wrote as some sort of propaganda exercise to fool the Russians, presumably because in the "real" world the public would have noticed an atomic bomb going off over the English Channel
also within Fleming, the FRWL plot is predicated on the assumption Bond being found dead in the arms of a sexy Russian lady would be covered in the papers, be perceived as a scandal, and therefor undermine the British public's faith in their government (I never bought this logic but that is SMERSH's scheme in the book)
in the films there's a lot more villains who are prominent public figures, and a lot of large scale property damage and collateral deaths that would attract public notice ... not too mention all those zany chases through crowded tourist hotspots
like Dr Kananga! he was Prime Minister or Foreign Minister or something of his fictional country, the press must have covered his death one way or another:
"prominent Caribbean politician explodes like popped balloon over shark tank! more details at 11!"
however in the real world, the public would not notice or would forget within 24 hours. Dr Who covered this correctly when Eccleston said something along the lines of "you stupid monkeys would walk right on by fiddling with your phones and not even notice" (I think Rose had questioned the wisdom of leaving the TARDIS along a busy sidewalk)
I mean the National Enquirer now has officially endorsed status from the highest office, and journalism based on sound research practices is widely accepted as Fake News. The ubiquity of cameras (surveillance and cellphone), and of 24hr cable and online newsources, seems to actually have divorced the public even further from any sense of reality. People do not observe, they Click. The public would never even notice all these recurring explosions at MI6 headquarters overlooking the Thames if there was some hot new celebrity gossip in the same 24 hour news cycle.