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Oh no, not more personal stories…
I don’t see this as overtly personal, as long as the villain isn’t his stepbrother. 😉
Are there any actors like that today? Seems like in every blockbuster we have lead actors talking about how their character grows.
A mystery man intrinsically tied to sex and death. A democracy’s dirty secret.
As with the Royal Family, you more you learn about him, the more the mystique falls away, and you are left with a fallible human being, a middle grade civil servant . Next we will be querying his expenses and discussing whether he broke lockdown by attending parties.
Spot on @MakeshiftPython .
He makes mistakes in FRWL a lot too. Connery Bond is far from infallible.
Yeah, if it’s going to be slightly dramatic in any way then I want personal stakes and a dramatic arc. Films like CR and OHMSS are fan favourites for a reason: they’re more gripping when you’re emotionally involved.
But then another suggestion from fans is they want to see more of his inner life: show us his flat, show us him in the office; give us May, give Sir James Molony, give us accidie etc. It’s odd how we hear so many cries for just a straightforward mission and for Bond to be a robot in it, following orders, and yet at the same time they want to see more of what makes him tick. It’s curious.
I don't think Bond has ever been a mystery man though: we've always known quite a bit about him.
"But Bond films didn't need character development in 1962!"
Sure, but it's not 1962 anymore.
And it's fair to say (I think it was mentioned above) that actors quite like this sort of thing, too. I don't think they need to have him fall in love every movie or have his world shaken to its core, but if they want a very accomplished leading actor in the part then the material needs to be there. Especially these days where trashier action films in the Dwayne Johnson-mould are a regular thing.
There will always be an element of "it's James Bond, a dream role!" of course, but it's a lot of people's dream. You have to find the best.
I would even go so far as to say the most succesful films in the genre are those that have character development but also work on a more basic level and you don't need to do a psychological deep dive to appreciate it. Casino Royale is pretty obivous with it's themes of James becoming Bond, but it is also just a stylish thrill-ride. The scene in the train works as great almost rom-com dialogue to establish the leading female character, but there is also loads of stuff about Bond and Vesper's childhood and upbringing that is there to be analyzed if you want to.
And specifically for Bond, the character is intrinsically a serialized one. I would go so far as to say he shouldn't undergo shattering character development in every single film, because even for someone with a high octane lifestyle like Bond, how often do these fundamentally re-shaping events really happen? Certainly not every 3 years. I would say simply through aging, none of the Bond actors played the character the same in his first as he did in his last (except Lazenby, the wizard). So there will always be development, but Bond can be a story where that development can burn slowly and the actor can find their way into the different points in time he incorporates him.
So kind of Michael G wilson's version of the living daylights
A big problem with the ending for NTTD for me is I'm not sure how much I care for Bond's world and it's characters, without Bond in it.
That applies to MGW's version of TLD, I don't have much interest in what happened to Bond before he became 007, seeing his first two kills in Casino was perfect.
I'm not sure how much I'd care to know about M's backstory, an occasional hint at them is more than enough, I wouldn't like the idea of Bond being M's replacement because naturally M would be a mentor to Bond rather than a boss as he should be
It's a very original idea though
I don't know about life-changing events every time, but I think there should be something which personally drives him beyond just his duty, because that's just more interesting.
Much of this stuff started in the Brosnan era but it always took a back seat to the actual plots. With Craig it totally replaced the whole concept of story, so that the movies all became about Bond and his loved ones, like a soap opera, and the concept of Bond as a BRITISH SPY was lost. Once in SF was okay, but they doubled and then tripled-down on this style of storytelling, the obsession with world-building and continuity and the complete disinterest in portraying Bond as he's supposed to be- not as a tortured superhero but as an operator who goes out and gets the job done.
Yeah, I guess that's a fair point. I suppose it's quite funny in a way that Safin was actually a figure from Blofeld's past come for revenge, Blofeld himself being a figure from Bond's past who came for revenge in the previous movie; and who himself, it turned out, was somehow responsible for helping Silva, a figure from M's past, come for revenge on her in the film before that.
I don't mind it being contrived about having happened to Bond or someone close to him though, that's just how these things work and it's how Fleming wrote 'em too. In Fleming's 'Octopussy' Bond goes after the man who killed his childhood skiing instructor and mentor Oberhauser.
I'm not aware of this other treatment for TLD, where is it at? I only thought the first fifteen minutes could be M becoming M and then Bond arrives for a new mission plus mentoring.
Cool, thanks. True, no one wants to see Bond getting a pay rise, hah.
I found that it's in the 'making of TLD' book. Also there's another book about lost stories of JB or unmade scripts. Smart yeah
Sounds like a terrible idea. And like JJ Abrams first Star Trek movie.
The borgir is not enough.
If it's about Bond's origin, or experiences, as a 00 I am all for it. Kind of how the GE PTS gives us the Bond backstory that plays out in the film.
But Eon needs to leave the family drama behind for now. The past three films were a lot!
Let the new Bond do his own thing.
Alternatively, I am up for a Bond film where he is on the mission immediately, and M, Q, Moneypenny and the London briefing dont feature in the film. He is already on assignment when it starts.
I just think not only would it create an interesting angle for the new James Bond, and something substantial for the new actor, it allows the writers to still try and create a classic James Bond adventure with all our favourite tropes, but wrapped around a story that while not an origin, gives us a deeper understanding of who this particular Bond is and where he's come from. I don't think you even need to have flashbacks or even something akin to the opening of Goldeneye. If it's done well enough, along with all those classic Bond elements, the whole thing will just feel natural, and be an exciting action film and story.