Spoilers-NTTD's a remake of the last Bond film you'd expect

BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 37,855Chief of Staff


This started as some light banter with emtiem, but the more I think about it….


James Bond has retired, still in his 50s, after an unhappy love affair, to an idyllic home. He is approached to come back to work- he’s initially reluctant but then agrees. The villains make an attempt to kill him early in the story while he’s in his car, but he survives. (I nearly added "of course" but I guess we can't say that any more. 🙁)

The main actress also had the female lead in an earlier Bond movie, and there is some dubiety as to her character's loyalty. His old number, 007, is given to a younger agent or agents. He finds out more about M than he has known before. Miss Moneypenny is of course invaluable to him and his work.

Important to the plot is that he has a daughter he's never seen by the lady in the unhappy love affair mentioned above. They meet, and begin to make up for lost time in their relationship.

The traditional main villain is killed well before the end of the story, a younger villain who had arranged this taking his place and who has a plan to kill major parts of the population of the world by some sort of vague scientific method. This villain kidnaps Bond’s daughter, obliging him to trail the villain to his base (full of tunnels and strange rooms) where they face each other for the first time in the movie followed by a lot of fighting, Bond with a machine gun at some point.

Bond dies when the villain's lair explodes at the end of the story, other major characters you might not expect to die during the film also, though the world is saved.

A well-known beautiful love song (not the title song) which became a standard is prominent in the score, both vocally and instrumentally. The film has a long and troubled production, with at least one major director starting but not finishing the job. More writers than usual (some have worked on Bond films before, some haven’t) including a young recently acclaimed comedy writer are involved with the script, which takes only a little of Fleming as inspiration.

Sound like any recent film we’ve all seen? Of course it does, but it also refers to a Bond film over 50 years ago. And yes, it is a James Bond film like it or not. It is, of course, "Casino Royale"... the 1967 version.

Here’s Bond with a machine gun in the villains base-

Here he is with his daughter-

I could go on with those, but I'm sure you get the idea. I’m sure I’ve missed some other points, feel free to mention them. Now some of these points are generic, eg the car chase, but an awful lot of them are really specific- eg Bond’s daughter, someone else becoming 007, Bond dying at the end. The similarities are remarkably close.

So, Daniel Craig has been in not one but two remakes of "Casino Royale".

Comments

  • emtiememtiem SurreyPosts: 5,948MI6 Agent
    edited March 2022

    Love it! 😁 And isn't Bond given his 007 number again for the climax?


    It's a while since I've seen it, but I think the main villain of both is also motivated by serious childhood issues too.

  • Shady TreeShady Tree London, UKPosts: 2,998MI6 Agent

    And wouldn't it have been great to have seen a snippet of Daniel Craig merrily strumming his golden harp in the end credits. 😇

    Critics and material I don't need. I haven't changed my act in 53 years.
  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 37,855Chief of Staff

    😂😂😂

  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 4,108MI6 Agent

    dont forget the daughters name shares the same first three letters in either version


    funny EON already bought the rights to Casino Royale and made their own version in 2006

    then they bought the rights to Thunderball, but instead of remaking Thunderball they remade Goldmember

    and now they've made a direct sequel to their non-remake of Thunderball, and its yet another remake of the first film they remade!

  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 4,108MI6 Agent

    mtm says:

    It's a while since I've seen it, but I think the main villain of both is also motivated by serious childhood issues too.

    Woody Allen's evil plan and motivation is easier to understand than whatever Safin's was: he wishes to kill off all males taller than 5'6" so he can get a date

  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,598MI6 Agent

    How come I never saw this thread before ?

    It's very disconcerting when you see plots grabbed from these Euro-Spy efforts. You wonder where all the originality has gone. Is its imply an enormous coincidence, or has the basic outline plot of CR '67 imbedded itself in the minds of Purvis and Wade and they've simply regurgitated it - almost by coincidence, as it were - because they reckon it'll make a decent narrative? I was quiet surprised to watch Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die and discover it shared the same basic template as Moonraker, including locations, scenes and [almost] dialogue. Are we reaching the point where moviemakers can't make 'new' films anymore without referencing the 'old' ?

  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 37,855Chief of Staff

    Don't know why you've never seen the thread before, @chrisno1 !

    There's a lot of this about. Here's one example- in the 1966 Matt Helm film "Murderers' Row" there's a character called Ironhead.

    He's used in the plot pretty much the same way as Jaws in TSWLM-

    Wanna guess how Matt beats him in their climactic fight....?

    Yup, 11 years before Jaws in TSWLM.

  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 4,108MI6 Agent

    this is why there's so much unfilmed Fleming content, they keep finding better ideas in Matt Helm films, Casino Royale the "funny" version, and cheap eurospy knockoffs.

    Operation Kid Brother/OK Connery ends with Neil Connery alone on a fabulous yacht with Daniella Bianchi's captain character and her all girl crew. Until switching sides, the all-girl crew had been a criminal organisation known as the "Wild Pussy Crew". Who can spot which latterday Bond film that anticipates? hint: even though they used an genuine Fleming title, the actual Fleming plot got relegated to a single line of dialog explaining one character's backstory.

  • Westward_DriftWestward_Drift Posts: 3,113MI6 Agent
    edited April 2022

    I see you've half written another Imaginary Conversation.

  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 37,855Chief of Staff

    😁 Be my guest! 😈

  • emtiememtiem SurreyPosts: 5,948MI6 Agent
    edited May 2022

    I guess to be fair, that idea features in Goldfinger fairly strongly before it's in OKB, just without the boat! 😊 And even features the name Pussy..

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