An Open Letter to the Producers of James Bond

[cryofpaine]

James Bond the book character may be more like Craig - I don't know, I've never read them - but in the films, for the last 40 or so years he's been this suave, sophisticated, witty, charming, super-spy. To make him this scruffy broken down has been that they have to scrape off the floor and put back together goes against what most of the Bond audience has come to expect. Neither of those films felt like a Bond film. I hated Casino Royal. QoS was ok, you could start to see some of that classic Bond, but it wasn't even close to there yet.

 

[ahpuch]

I don't like this article MB.

While you raise some valid points, your one-sided criticism seems to open the door for a return to the silly excess of movies such as Moonraker, Spy who Loved Me or Die Another Day. While gadgets and witty retorts are fun, the worst bonds were where they discarded narrative coherence in an effort to have set pieces of action and gadgets. The villians couldn't be killed because they were needed in the next set piece all resulting in A-Team level action where people don't die (and where Bond seems to prefer to not kill).

As a reboot, Casino Royale was a good effort to reground the series (much like Nolan's Batman Begins). The only problem was that they didn't know what to do with Quantum resulting in a movie that failed to satisfy the Moore fans and left the fans who appreciated the narrative arc of CR disillusioned.

James Bond the book character may be more like Craig - I don't know, I've never read them - but in the films, for the last 40 or so years he's been this suave, sophisticated, witty, charming, super-spy. ....

Actually, that's just your selective memory. If you look at ALL of the previous bonds (Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, and Brosnan) you cannot pretend he is that consistent. Dalton wasn't charming, Lazenby wasn't witty, and Connery never started out as sophisticated. Only Moore and Brosnan really fit all those descriptions. Moore failed to be a viscous killer which is kind of required for the 00 designation. And Brosnan lost out to bad writing.

 

[Mr Smith]

I've always liked James Bond movies, and I can't really say I hate any of the actors who have played him (though I haven't seen George Lazenby's portrayal), I do really like the Daniel Craig movies (and to a similar extent, the Pierce Brosnan ones). He comes across as having a greater sense of professionalism that earlier incarnations, while still being true to the character.

As for the gadgets, I don't really miss them. For the most part they were just too silly or too convienient, i.e. very specific in their application but just so happened to be perfect for some mess which Bond subsequently found himself in. Even so, Daniel Craig's James Bond still has gadgets, even if it's just his kitted-out mobile phone...

 

[atomicmrpelly]

Please can you get a job at MGM and save my beloved James Bond series from the brink of destruction? You seem to get it better than anyone working there atm!

 

[Sylocat]

I'm a massive Bond fan (read all books, seen all movies) and I love Craig's era. Casino Royale actually is my favourite movie of all time.
People don't realise that there were no absurd gadgets, witty quips and invisible cars in Fleming's books. Fleming's books weren't stupid fantasies like Die Another Day. Craig's potrayal of Bond is the closest to Fleming's Bond of all six actors. He's charismatic, cocky and brutal but also not immune to pain, emotionally vulnerable and most importantly, a human f*cking being.

I'd rather watch Daniel Craig's Bond getting bruised, beaten to a pulp, morally injured and STILL stylishly climbing over countless bodies to triumph at the end than Pierce Brosnan's Bond disposing of cheesy goons while adjusting his tie and smiling like a douche.

MGM, please get your shit together. You're killing me, I wan't to see Craig's Bond again.

From my cursory glance at the thread it seems to me the problem is a good chunk of the audience (even if it's condensed to Escapist readers) are quite happier with Moore's and, in this case, Bob's idea of Bond rather than Flemming's

Opinions are opinions are opinions. That said, Bond is not Moore's or Lazenby's or Dalton's or Brosnan's. James Bond is Flemming's. We can all even give our own interpretations of Flemming's Bond but even that is very clearly laid out in all the books and Craig's in CR is truly the closest it has ever got to the books.

There's nothing wrong with wanting movies about a British MI6 agent based on gadget's, cheese and chicks a la Moore's but that is NOT Flemming's Bond.

Why not ask for a movie about Roderick Worthhampton, suave-international-bang-the-hilarious-villain's chick-while-infiltrating-MountDeathRay secret agent instead of wanting to turn book Bond into something that he was never meant to be?

You know, whenever something is adapted and I hear fans arguing about whether it sticks close enough to the source material, I always find myself wondering, "Would the actual creator of the source material give a shit?"

And in this case, the answer is a resounding "No."

Ian Fleming loved the movie version of Bond (granted, he only lived to see the first two Connery movies and visited the production set of the third), and even RetConned some of his own backstory to more closely resemble the film version (a half-Scottish lineage for Bond).

The problem is that the 'true' James Bond is pretty much a true Scotsman fallacy (a true Connery fallacy?) since each person has a different view on who the 'true' James Bond is, mostly depending on what was the first Bond movie they watched/liked, it's hard to nail which is the Bondest one. Asking to fall back on the books just doesn't work. Anyone who's read the books knows Fleming's Bond is so different from the movies' Bond that they're hardly the same entity at all.

You just gave me the best idea for a Bond reboot ever: A movie where the alcoholic woman-abusing dick of the novels goes on one of the gritty adventures of the novels... and one of the enemies is a fun-loving, silver-tongued con man, clearly modeled after the suave, subtle playboy superhero of the original movies. Then, after the main villain is defeated, the con artist (the sole henchman left) finally takes out Bond with a shot to the head... then figures that "Queen and Country" is as good an excuse to stay in expensive exotic hotels and go on sexcapades as any... so he steals Bond's identity and becomes the new James Bond 007 himself.

The perfect way to reconcile the versions (if done right, you could even make it a parody of the "gritty reboot" phenomenon), and have the franchise be fun again.

 

[UnknownGunslinger]

Seriously Nolan should direct and write the screenplay for the next James Bond movie - Why?
He's movies are all about trained expert professionals trying to do the best bloody job possible!
With the exception of Inception being about expert professionals doing their job + Leonardo's sab love hangups
But seriously how great would Nolan be as the mind behind a James Bond movie in a perfect universe. I mean it probably wont happen, but one can speculate.
At best we would avoid seeing another Quantum Solace piece of !#@*.