Will there ever be another Flemingesque Bond movie?
perdogg
Posts: 432MI6 Agent
Will there ever be another Bond movie based on the Fleming tradition? I know the last Bond novel was written 46 years ago, but there are elements in the Fleming Bond that are timeless.
I am not try to be contrarian or controversal, but there really has not been a movie since 1987 that Fleming could recognize. Despite the enthusiasm for Skyfall, I really do not see it as a Bond film, let alone as Flemingesque. Pulling stuff out Fleming novels do not necessarily make it a Bond movie.
For example, despite its ultimate demise, The World is Not Enough was pretty close to be the last Flemingesque Bond movie. I am not sure that was by design, but there were some very good elements in the film that made it more of a Bond film along the Fleming tradition. The film was less Realpolitik, and more Bond. Another example is Moonraker. A lot of people dislike Cubby's contribution to the Star Wars Genre. However, the movie was still a Bond movie, it was Bondcentric. It wasn't about Hugo Drax's bad childhood.
I really hate this notion that Bond is a "spy", I do not like this premise that he works for MI6 when there is no literary evidence of it. In fact, just about every novel references the Ministry of Defence, not Foreign Affairs. Bond should actually in the very least work for an unknown organization within the MoD. It seemed up until 1987 M reported to the Minister of Defence and M was actually an Admiral. I remember the pre-title sequence in The Living Daylights M proclaims, "Gentlemen, this may only be an exercise so far as the Ministry of Defence is concerned". Kingsley Amis agreed that Bond was no spy in his famous work.
Another thing that is killing the Bond movies is political correctness. Apparently Bond is no longer able to celebrate his heterosexuality. Bond was a man who, between assignments, was interested in women and enjoyed fornication. Why are Bond women allowed to enjoy sex, but not Bond? In Skyfall he seemed to become sexually neutral, with his heterosexuality kept in check. I don't mind that Raul was a homosexual. However, how his sexual proclivity relevant? Shock value?? In Casino Royale Craig-Bond slept with Solange to, please excuse the expression, pump her for information. There is no evidence that either enjoyed the event. Bond is no longer able to smoke, drink hard spirits, gamble, or fornicate with pride. Where is Bond in a Bond movie and why should I spend $14 or £9 to see a "Bond movie"?
Why all of sudden this cinematic trend that ever movie now is based on a comic or graphic novel? Can we get the original Bond back?
I am not try to be contrarian or controversal, but there really has not been a movie since 1987 that Fleming could recognize. Despite the enthusiasm for Skyfall, I really do not see it as a Bond film, let alone as Flemingesque. Pulling stuff out Fleming novels do not necessarily make it a Bond movie.
For example, despite its ultimate demise, The World is Not Enough was pretty close to be the last Flemingesque Bond movie. I am not sure that was by design, but there were some very good elements in the film that made it more of a Bond film along the Fleming tradition. The film was less Realpolitik, and more Bond. Another example is Moonraker. A lot of people dislike Cubby's contribution to the Star Wars Genre. However, the movie was still a Bond movie, it was Bondcentric. It wasn't about Hugo Drax's bad childhood.
I really hate this notion that Bond is a "spy", I do not like this premise that he works for MI6 when there is no literary evidence of it. In fact, just about every novel references the Ministry of Defence, not Foreign Affairs. Bond should actually in the very least work for an unknown organization within the MoD. It seemed up until 1987 M reported to the Minister of Defence and M was actually an Admiral. I remember the pre-title sequence in The Living Daylights M proclaims, "Gentlemen, this may only be an exercise so far as the Ministry of Defence is concerned". Kingsley Amis agreed that Bond was no spy in his famous work.
Another thing that is killing the Bond movies is political correctness. Apparently Bond is no longer able to celebrate his heterosexuality. Bond was a man who, between assignments, was interested in women and enjoyed fornication. Why are Bond women allowed to enjoy sex, but not Bond? In Skyfall he seemed to become sexually neutral, with his heterosexuality kept in check. I don't mind that Raul was a homosexual. However, how his sexual proclivity relevant? Shock value?? In Casino Royale Craig-Bond slept with Solange to, please excuse the expression, pump her for information. There is no evidence that either enjoyed the event. Bond is no longer able to smoke, drink hard spirits, gamble, or fornicate with pride. Where is Bond in a Bond movie and why should I spend $14 or £9 to see a "Bond movie"?
Why all of sudden this cinematic trend that ever movie now is based on a comic or graphic novel? Can we get the original Bond back?
"And if I told you that I'm from the Ministry of Defence?" James Bond - The Property of a Lady
Comments
I like TWINE too, it seems the most Fleming, the most in the old tradition. GE? Well it's crazy to have it happen 'nine years' after the pts, so what's happened to Bond during his prime, his 30s? Just sulking over Alec's death? That was when the franchise started buying into Bond as an icon, a franchise, rather than a character. And it's the same in SF I'm sorry to say, with his Aston showing up the way it does.
I know what you mean about Craig being sexually neutral, he almost seems like he's a gay guy who sleeps with a woman for form's sake, or to get info off her, much like Edward Fox as the Jackal cops off with a bloke in a sauna, just to get a bed for the night. It does seem a bit perfunctory, but it's as if were he seen to enjoy it too much, it might be a bit ooh-er, 1970s pervy, and goes against Craig's dour or restrained persona.
My thinking is that the team just don't see any surface mileage in a straight Bond thriller, and today's scriptwriters are all about a character's journey - whereas as Moore used to lament, the thing about Bond is that he's the same character at the end of the movie as he is at the beginning. Or used to be.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
James Bond needs to be rescued. There will never be another Flemingesque Bond film unless the franchise is wrestled away from that whacko family that owns it and controls it. If only some rich person could buy them out.
Richard
Fleming wrote the novels to match the times of the 50s and early 60s. He created a character that is timeless yet modern.
Today, Bond movies are written to match the times pretty much.
To me, Fleming wanted stories that were semi-grounded and plausible and very realistic to the times that were upon us at their time of writing. Should he have been alive today, I'm not so certain that Skyfall isn't somewhat close to a plot that Fleming would write.
I'm no particular fan of the Broccoli's and /or EON , and feel that in particular it seems to be a Babs and Daniel love in with the actor apparently making casting decisions and choosing the Director. However. Flawed as it is their control of Bond has warded off some of the more worrying decisions that could have been made if the studio had had complete control. for a start we would have had Mel Gibson as Bond, probably Jim Bond of the CIA and who knows what else.
As said above, LTK was the last fully Flemingesque Bond.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
-Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
Unfortunately so - the plebean masses of Bond fandom. They are but an albatross around the neck of the Ian Fleming purist!
What makes a Bond film so to ME is an absurdity threaded throughout the seriousness.
A perfect example is when Bond unfolds the note left on Felix in LTK. Is it funny? No. Is it entirely serious? No. It's in that zone that was something unique to Fleming. It is what makes Bond Bond and not Ryan or Bourne.
Starting with DAD, the 'Flemingesque' has declined noticeably to me.
Or perhaps it's just evolving naturally, and I'm just a sexist misogynist dinosaur.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
With you Brav. There is a tendency to equate Flemingesque with dour and uncaring. Flemingesque also means glamourous ( remember they were written at the beginning of the jet age, where just the fact of international travel was beyond the reach of most) I don't think we can bandy about Flemingesque as if it was an unproblematic term with a settled and widely shared meaning.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
1) John Barry's music- not the bombastic moments (well, not all of them, anyway) but the more moody introspective pieces
2) Timothy Dalton's Bond. Enough said.
3) Terence Young's sense of place- his atmospheric evocation of Istanbul in particular
4) The casting in the earlier movies- Gert Frobe, Lotte Lenya, Bernard Lee among others
5) Maibaum & Wilson's use of isolated moments unused till that point (the auction scene from The Property of A Lady, the parts of LALD that didn't make it into that film but cropped up later, their extrapolation from the TLD short story, etc)
6) The casting of Christopher Lee; it had to happen sooner or later, he was born to play a Bond villain
7) The brazen cheek of using occasional celebrities (Madonna, Richard Branson)
8) Not being afraid to re-use a good idea (Kerim/Colombo; Vesper/Tracy; Jaws/Jaws... ok, that last one wasn't serious)
9) Not being afraid of implausibilities (do I really need to give examples here?)
10) Sean Connery. To paraphrase "Not quite the idea I had of Bond... but he would be if I wrote the books over again"