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That ship's already sailed though. They've done it. As long as he's athletic, tallish, full head of hair, handsome and regarded as sexy it's hardly a different set of physical characteristics.
It's like you live in a universe where Roger Moore wasn't Bond...? If you reject him and all of the other Bonds (maybe save for Dalton) then fine. But if you live in the real world I'm confused as to how you've missed that this hasn't happened.
It's not racist no. Obviously culture is important to everyone, but in a Bond film which never strays into politics on that level, it's not important. It's just the colour of something.
With regards to Bond (which is the context of the conversation we're having) it's as important as hair colour. Perhaps slightly more important to the audience, to whom it can only be a positive thing.
I don't think you understood the question. WHERE did I say it's 'always' important? You keep putting words in my mouth and then ignore me when I ask where you're getting it from.
So again, I'll ask for the THIRD time, in what way has it changed Moneypenny so hugely? Why isn't she Moneypenny any more?
Mate, don't try to play the card that says you understand what makes race important when you've just said the sole reason that Bond should stay white is for purely aesthetic reasons. If you think it's about his culture and his rights and all the other stuff you invoke here, then fine: but coming after you said it doesn't ring true that you believe any of that stuff. You have said yourself that you just want him to look like Fleming described him. It's just about looks.
in the 50s he was a white character, had to be white. In the 2020s however, there's nothing about his core characteristics which says he has to be.
This debate again.....some agree, some disagree. That's kind of the end of it until we get some substantial news. I've learned my lesson trying to suggesting POC for the Bond role. You aren't going to change minds. If anything people just get more entrenched in their own beliefs.
I'm all for a black James Bond. Though the argument by @GeneralGogol makes a good point. Tenet makes a damn good argument that new original films build around actors of colour may be the way forward. Black Panther spoke to that as well....in that film you had a character who was a combination of Bond and Batman but hailed from Africa.
I think the answer is 'there is no correct answer.' Everyone has their own rationale why is should or shouldn't happen. Whether it be that the notion offends Fleming's creation or that Bond is a fictional character and therefore can be changed. All arguments are valid.
On a different note, I found these photos of Henry Cavill online. These were taken when he was very young and hadn't quite matured into the man he is today. He was a lot of twink energy. I think those suggesting slightly young cutesy actors have a point: These actors mature! Especially by the time they are eventually hired as Bond.
If he was English, I'd say Timothée Chalamet should be Bond. he has the same boyish vibe of Cavill here and looks like in 10 years will mature into a wonderfully mature Bond. I'm convinced he's this generation's Daniel Day-Lewis. I'm telling you Chalamet is going to Batman by the time he's 34. He could be a great Bond.....maybe in a few years? He has Timothy Dalton or Christian Bale energy. He can do an English accent as evidenced in The King.
+1
I can't agree with that. You're disregarding the left hand and giving with the right, and in the end, they're both the same hands of the same body with the same purpose. Your logic does not gel, I'm afraid.
I don't think Roger Moore, or any of the other 5 were that far from Fleming's depiction of Bond. Again, hair colour does not bare the same weight as race. [/quote]
I can't believe you just said that! You've just proven my entire point about your reasoning. And I won't bother to explain why. It's blatant.
You don't need to say it to convey it, as you very well know. Latter saying you never did say it, is a moot point.
When I pick up my Fleming copies from the shelf, in 2020, James Bond is still white in there. So, I really don't get your reasoning. He didn't HAVE to be white in the 50s. He was just written as such. He is written. The character is as in stone as a book can be. I, for one, take books as a sacred thing.
On another note, I can't be expected to answer to your mammoth posts like this. It is maddening. But I am enjoying it. Hope you are too. Even with all the acrimonious tendency to react to each other's opposing views ;) I do hope you appreciate my effort on replying as you usually do. Point for point. I take my hat off to you, Sir, it's very tiresome. I, for one, couldn't do it in a regular basis around here. Would soon loose my marbles.
I can see it too.
PS: Sorry for the double post, but seeing the previous was a long one, I thought I'd set this one apart from it.
Just get Beckinsale to come along as well ;)
I just want to say that I'd reiterate all of my rhetoric efforts to defend any other literary character being depicted as close as they were in the books. THAT'S my goal here. To respect the intellectual property the best as we can. That is paramount, IMO. All other arguments must fall to the feet of this one and simply be brushed off. It's IAN FLEMING'S James Bond, ffs. And I'd yell that to the producers from once in a while. But I think they know.
For anyone wondering the film is The Only Living Boy in New York. It's slightly pretentious but the acting's good.
What are you talking about? It's important to the things he does and how other characters perceive him that he's the things I talked about. Maybe less so the hair, but that's often seen as a bit of a sign of virility and youth.
Explain how my logic doesn't hold up.
Roger did not by any measure have black hair or a cruel mouth, no. Nor the scar etc.
Black men are just too different, are they? I don't hold with that.
Riiiiight. So I'm wrong for... reasons. And you can't possibly explain what they are. But I should know that I'm definitely wrong.
Very convincing! :D
So I definitely said something, even though I didn't actually say it.
Are you new to this?
:D
Erm... really? Did you not understand that they were written in the 50s? I'm talking about new Bond, in new movies set in the present day. The movies have been contemporarily set for the last 58 years, this isn't a new thing.
Yes he did. He's a figure of some authority in the British Military. Now, it's not impossible for a black man to have done that in the 50s, and he may well have been a more effective spy in some circumstances, but it very much would have changed his whole story if he'd been black as the culture was different then. Nowadays, it wouldn't change very much- and especially not in the world the cinematic characters live in.
You're not thinking about why Fleming made him like was, and what was important about his choices and what isn't important about them now. Just parroting stuff like 'BUT FLEMING WROTE THAT HE WORE A WW2 NAVAL UNIFORM SO PIERCE SHOULD WEAR ONE!!!' doesn't really hold up when you don't notice that the film isn't set in WW2. Do you understand?
Do you get that smoking a million cigarettes a day and driving a car from the 1930s are things that have had to change? And that other things can change with them? It's not all equally valid, some of the text is more important than other bits in terms of producing the desired effect in the audience.
And that's why you don't understand what an adaptation is. They can't treat them as sacred: adaptations, by their very nature -the actual meaning of the word(!)- have to adapt the material to its new home.
The film producers never have treated them as sacred. And that's how we've got things like Goldfinger and OHMSS being better than the books, Craig and Roger being cast etc.
https://yarn.co/yarn-clip/b221c9ba-c332-40f8-a237-f8b7a91eecc9
As mentioned previously, they’re not remaking LALD. The character has been white but there’s no reason the character has to remain white for all time. The Shaft comparison I saw come up earlier is so exhausted at this point; the characters race, in that case, was baked into the very essence of the character. Not so with Bond; where Shaft has race as a key component in the character, I’d say Bond has being British as a key component. Could Bond (the character) be non-British? No. Could Bond be a colour other than white? Sure, nowadays.
People are saying “but Fleming wrote him white!”, and he wrote him a myriad other ways that have not been carried forward into the films.
And I don’t think Fleming wrote him white with any intent on him being some stalwart of white culture, whatever that is; it was just the default of the time, and as @mtm pointed it out, it wouldn’t have worked in the 50s for him to be any out her colour and hold such a high position.
I disagree. There is a race component for Bond too (Fleming describes him quite clearly in his books) and I have seen all the films, in fact........
“Can’t miss him. It’s like following a cue ball”.
Getting back on topic......I still like Tom Hiddleston for a screen test.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/656258/Tom-Hiddleston-Night-Manager-James-Bond-007-vodka-martini-casino/amp.
I’m sure if Fleming we’re alive today he wouldn’t give a shit what colour Bond was. Because it doesn’t matter.
This is on topic discussion and you don’t get to decide when it ends when you’ve felt like you’ve had the last word.
Are you trying to prove that Roger Moore was white?
Yeah, we had noticed...
Nope, that Bond is and it’s all there to see!! 👍
The hint is in the use of the word/ name ‘BOND’ in the quote and clip.
The M in the comics? These are publications sanctioned by the Fleming Estate, which you seem to think are the grand arbiters of Bond’s whiteness, because he happened to be white in the novels.
It’s a Bond film, so I personally don’t really care. Fleming never said Moneypenny was white, it is only assumed from memory. She was also a very minor character. I don’t read comics, so I can’t recall or comment on the M reference either.
Your right though, I remember watching Dr No and thinking that Bond and Quarrel could be twins....🤣😂🤣😂
Bond happens to be white in all the films. Fact.
I and others just want that to remain. You and others don’t, no problem.
It’s not that I don’t, it’s just that I don’t care as much as others evidently do about making sure things stay white.
I’m more than happy if the next Bond is white. As I am if he’s black.
I think where we have to agree to disagree is that his whiteness is a defining part of his identity, and I just don’t think it is.
We certainly agree on that!
It’s a tongue in cheek example, showing that Bond is a white character and Quarrel is a black character. Both in the film and as written by Fleming.
Your argument is just to repeatedly say “bond is white, bond is white”. We get that. We’re just saying, just because it’s been that way doesn’t necessarily mean it has to stay that way forever. You’re confusing “this is a characteristic of a character” and “this is a characteristic of a character, and it is absolutely integral to that characters identity”.
Do you think anyone is arguing that all of the actors to play Bond up until now have been white? That's not what the conversation is.
It is odd that no-one is able to say why they think it's important beyond nonsense logic like 'he was writ that way!' and 'Roger woz white!'.
Some things are important to keep, some things aren't.
Fleming suggested that homosexuals can't whistle in TMWTGG. Do you think that should be the Bond films' stance on LGBTQ people?
You don't care?! So why are you even talking about this?
We can, of course, centre the debate on how far is too far on adapting books to screen. I'd have the same response I've been having for a long time. But we could very well extend the examples to things outside of race and gender. That could prove to be useful and more safe, discussion wise.
There is a big difference on adapting and loosely adapting, "based on" is very different than "author's name"-"apostrophe"-"title".
These are the discussions I'd like to have. I've never hidden my feelings about it. I'd be very happy if Fleming's works were to be adapted one by one, as close to the source material as one could. Very happy indeed. I've always said, I'm here for the books, more so than for the films. If Netflix or whatever had a chance to do it, I'd be a big supporter of it. Than you all could have your "loosely based" on Ian Fleming's works scenario.
Mind you, this is all fun and games. No need to be so serious about it. This is not the U.N. And most rhetoric here isn't up to it anyway. I'm the worst offender, as I get ignited easily, as most know by now, by subjects which are close to the heart, literature being one of them.
Cheers to all. Gotta go, back to the salt mines, once more unto the breach, and all that. See ya soon for another round.
Some ugly thoughts being exposed here, yes I agree. And it is indeed about being faithful, but the question is about which parts are important to keep and which aren't. If you wanted total fidelity to the books then it seems a bit late to be complaining that they don't paint a scar on every Bond actor's face.
No adaptation is totally faithful: you just have to think about what the word 'adaptation' actually means.
I'm not sure when this thread became about casting the exact living spit of Fleming's Hoagy Carmichael in some fabled Netflix drama (which everyone would complain about not being as good as the films) anyway. As far as I understood it was about a replacement for Daniel Craig in the popular movie series.