Are Bond fans resistant to change?

2

Comments

  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    edited April 2022 Posts: 1,351
    mtm wrote: »
    To answer the thread title: I think generally speaking all fans are somewhat resistant to change by definition, because you only become a fan of something because of what it was and all of the past material you have in front of you, not what it will be in the future.
    Some will like the idea of reinvention more than others, but I think it's fair to say that all of us like the old Bond films or novels, so we want to see new stuff framed with regard to the old pretty much inevitably.

    Very good point. I think there are two things to add:
    1. It is a possibility - and Bond might be edging in that direction - that something is famed for being ever-changing and that is what people love about it. But even then you can still look at it in a kind of logarithmic way, where people want the rate of change to never change... Complicated.
    2. I don't think fans want exactly the same thing over and over again. Often times what we love about something is how it surprised us when we first come across it, because it is different to everything we've ever seen before.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited April 2022 Posts: 14,861
    Yes I think that's fair: for example people do say that what they used to like about Mission Impossible was that it was a quite different director each time and each film had a unique flavour, and for the last three or four films it has tended to stay with one house style which they find a little less interesting.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 5,921
    CrabKey wrote: »
    That we're still talking about a film character sixty years on is worth giving some thought to. I saw Dr. No the summer it was first released, and, sixty years later, I still keep up with Bond news. Like Craig's Bond, I've mellowed over time. My disappointment in 1969 with GL has long vanished. My two favorite Bond films are OHMSS and CR. The similarities are the love stories. Tracy and Vesper are such well-developed characters, especially Vesper. For me, no film of any genre presents a more engaging character than that of Eve Green's Vesper. My favorite Bond actor remains SC in the first four films. His final two anticipate the silliness of the RM era. LALD was my favorite. I simply could not take RM seriously. He always seemed to be acting at acting. TD was a welcome return to the harder edged films of SC. PB-- again new guy's first film is the best--never did it for me. He never owned the character. I have seen CR more than any other Bond film. The remainder weren't bad films, but the Blofeld/Quantum angle was Dr. Evil stuff in a serious Bond series. I am not resistant to change when change brings something new. But I don't want my Bond to be half-monk, half-hitman. As Q says in NSNA. Good to have you back, Mr. Bond. Time for some gratuitous sex and violence.

    Paul Verhoeven wasn't wrong when he decried the lack of sex in NTTD.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    Paul Verhoeven talked about NTTD? That sounds fun! :)
  • SIS_HQSIS_HQ At the Vauxhall Headquarters
    edited April 2022 Posts: 3,382
    mtm wrote: »
    Paul Verhoeven talked about NTTD? That sounds fun! :)

    I think NTTD caught the attention of some directors.
    And not just Paul Verhoeven, but also Francis Ford Coppola.

    Here's Coppola's statement:
    “Even the talented people — you could take Dune, made by Denis Villeneuve, an extremely talented, gifted artist, and you could take No Time to Die, directed by … Cary Fukunaga — extremely gifted, talented, beautiful artists, and you could take both those movies, and you and I could go and pull the same sequence out of both of them and put them together. The same sequence where the cars all crash into each other.”
  • Posts: 3,272
    The Bond films I like are more in the realm of breaking from the cinematic tradition (LTK, CR and OHMSS), if we judge the likes of TSWLM, YOLT, TND or GE as the traditional cinematic norm.

    It depends on what kind of Bond film you think is the norm to begin with, as this can vary wildly from something like FRWL on one side, to DAD or MR on the other side. They are two very different types of movies.

    But yes, I think Bond fans are resistant to change. There are certain expectations that come with Bond films that are an expected given - gunbarrel, PTS, title sequence, briefing with M, scene with Q to be given the latest gadget, John Barry sound, Ken Adam type sets, etc.

    If you start to remove too much of this, tamper too much with the formula, tamper too much with the character of Bond himself, deviate too much from Fleming, then the film no longer becomes familiar or identifiable as a Bond film, and which then begs the question, why not use that departure for another spy vehicle instead.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    MI6HQ wrote: »
    mtm wrote: »
    Paul Verhoeven talked about NTTD? That sounds fun! :)

    I think NTTD caught the attention of some directors.
    And not just Paul Verhoeven, but also Francis Ford Coppola.

    Here's Coppola's statement:
    “Even the talented people — you could take Dune, made by Denis Villeneuve, an extremely talented, gifted artist, and you could take No Time to Die, directed by … Cary Fukunaga — extremely gifted, talented, beautiful artists, and you could take both those movies, and you and I could go and pull the same sequence out of both of them and put them together. The same sequence where the cars all crash into each other.”

    Ah okay. Not quite sure what he means there! :)
    If you start to remove too much of this, tamper too much with the formula, tamper too much with the character of Bond himself, deviate too much from Fleming, then the film no longer becomes familiar or identifiable as a Bond film, and which then begs the question, why not use that departure for another spy vehicle instead.

    Because with some of the choices the interest comes from seeing how James Bond reacts in that new situation.
  • SIS_HQSIS_HQ At the Vauxhall Headquarters
    edited April 2022 Posts: 3,382
    mtm wrote: »
    MI6HQ wrote: »
    mtm wrote: »
    Paul Verhoeven talked about NTTD? That sounds fun! :)

    I think NTTD caught the attention of some directors.
    And not just Paul Verhoeven, but also Francis Ford Coppola.

    Here's Coppola's statement:
    “Even the talented people — you could take Dune, made by Denis Villeneuve, an extremely talented, gifted artist, and you could take No Time to Die, directed by … Cary Fukunaga — extremely gifted, talented, beautiful artists, and you could take both those movies, and you and I could go and pull the same sequence out of both of them and put them together. The same sequence where the cars all crash into each other.”

    Ah okay. Not quite sure what he means there! :)
    If you start to remove too much of this, tamper too much with the formula, tamper too much with the character of Bond himself, deviate too much from Fleming, then the film no longer becomes familiar or identifiable as a Bond film, and which then begs the question, why not use that departure for another spy vehicle instead.

    Because with some of the choices the interest comes from seeing how James Bond reacts in that new situation.

    He's trying to make an argument that No Time To Die and Dune are similar or interchangeable films, he also say that Dune, No Time To Die and Marvel are all the same.
  • slide_99slide_99 USA
    Posts: 648
    I don't think fans of any franchise are resistant to change, otherwise there wouldn't be franchises to begin with. I think what fans are resistant to is bad movies.
    Alien fans embraced Aliens through all the changes it made to the Alien mythos but they rejected Alien 3 because of its inherent botched nature due to studio interference.
    Star Wars fans were with Empire when it did radical and tragic things to the characters but they rejected TLJ because of its parodical tone, overpowered female lead, irrelevant side characters, and obvious scorn showed towards Luke.
    Bond fans have gone through six different actors. The series has definitely leaked fans over the decades for various reasons (Moore being too comedic, Dalton being too PC, Brosnan being too OTT, Craig being too dark, etc) but overall I'd say it's poor entries (AVTAK, DAD, etc) that fans reject and not change.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    The Bond films I like are more in the realm of breaking from the cinematic tradition (LTK, CR and OHMSS), if we judge the likes of TSWLM, YOLT, TND or GE as the traditional cinematic norm.

    It depends on what kind of Bond film you think is the norm to begin with, as this can vary wildly from something like FRWL on one side, to DAD or MR on the other side. They are two very different types of movies.

    But yes, I think Bond fans are resistant to change. There are certain expectations that come with Bond films that are an expected given - gunbarrel, PTS, title sequence, briefing with M, scene with Q to be given the latest gadget, John Barry sound, Ken Adam type sets, etc.

    If you start to remove too much of this, tamper too much with the formula, tamper too much with the character of Bond himself, deviate too much from Fleming, then the film no longer becomes familiar or identifiable as a Bond film, and which then begs the question, why not use that departure for another spy vehicle instead.

    Half the fun of being a Bond film is discussing with other Bond fans what is and isn't negotiable, I would say.

    Personally, I am always interested in creatives straining against and working with restrictions. That is why I like genre fiction in general and Bond as a sub-set (basically a sub-sub genre in it's own right). Genre fiction only works, when authors and filmmakers are aware of the boundaries and conventions they are working in, otherwise a horror film is no longer a horror film or an action film is no longer an action film and just as @jetsetwilly says, without the Bond tropes and characteristics, a film with James Bond in would not really be a Bond film. But to me the best genre fiction works are always those that manage to play with those boundaries without breaking them and in that process show me the boundaries and their mastery in playing around them.
    That's ultimately the reason why Skyfall is my favourite Bond film. That film only works if there are already 22 other Bond films and at least 2 films with this Bond and even more with this M. It knows what the fans want and it both denies us and gives it to us.

    The problem - as mentioned above - is that we can never agree on where the boundaries are ^^
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    Excellent post, Goon :-bd
  • edited April 2022 Posts: 3,272
    mtm wrote: »
    Because with some of the choices the interest comes from seeing how James Bond reacts in that new situation.

    Yes I get that. In CR it is the first time we have seen Bond get his balls whacked, and also recovering in hospital, and yet every fan of the books knows Bond recovering in hospital after a serious physical ordeal was the norm for Fleming Bond. You can put Bond in situations we haven't seen before and I think that makes it interesting, as long as it stays within the boundaries of the world Fleming created.

    Giving Bond a daughter so we see Bond playing Daddy in the kitchen, making him retire a sad lonely man for 5 years, or killing him off completely are situations we haven't seen Bond in before, yet I wasn't exactly jumping for joy at these moments in NTTD (although I appreciate others here loved these moments). To me this strayed too far from Fleming (despite the set-up death Fleming gave Bond temporarily in FRWL).



  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited April 2022 Posts: 14,861
    mtm wrote: »
    Because with some of the choices the interest comes from seeing how James Bond reacts in that new situation.

    Yes I get that. In CR it is the first time we have seen Bond get his balls whacked, and also recovering in hospital, and yet every fan of the books knows Bond recovering in hospital after a serious physical ordeal was the norm for Fleming Bond. You can put Bond in situations we haven't seen before and I think that makes it interesting, as long as it stays within the boundaries of the world Fleming created.

    I don't think that really makes any sense to be honest. Bond moved beyond Fleming a long time ago, it would be a bit odd to stay entirely within only what he wrote. And even before you get to that point, don't forget Fleming had him fight a giant squid, have his wife get murdered, get brainwashed, live as a Japanese fisherman with amnesia etc. - that breadth of tonal variation covers quite a lot of ground and gives writers plenty of room with him to play, I'd say. Much moreso than with, say, Sherlock Holmes who Conan Doyle kept fairly restricted in the same types of adventures and plots.

    If you can cope with Bond becoming a brainwashed Russian agent in the books it doesn't feel a particularly big reach to imagine him retired on his own for 5 years (and actually basically living Fleming's life).
    I think, yes, they can keep vaguely inside of the sort of thing we know Bond does and the world in which he mixes, but to keep only inside the incident which Fleming established is way too much.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 7,999
    Fleming should be a guideline, NOT an absolute rule. Just because Fleming never put Bond in a situation where he finds out he has a daughter doesn’t mean it should be off the table.

    But then again I was never as reverential about the Fleming books as other fans. I think they should always serve as a inspiration. But if we constrain ourselves with whether Fleming would do this or not, then we wouldn’t get wonderful oddities like MOONRAKER.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    Fleming was getting increasingly wild and crazy with his plots too, and they weren't exactly small scale things. Who's to say that if he hadn't lived to 125 he wouldn't have eventually sent Bond to space too?
  • edited April 2022 Posts: 3,272
    mtm wrote: »
    mtm wrote: »
    Because with some of the choices the interest comes from seeing how James Bond reacts in that new situation.

    Yes I get that. In CR it is the first time we have seen Bond get his balls whacked, and also recovering in hospital, and yet every fan of the books knows Bond recovering in hospital after a serious physical ordeal was the norm for Fleming Bond. You can put Bond in situations we haven't seen before and I think that makes it interesting, as long as it stays within the boundaries of the world Fleming created.

    I don't think that really makes any sense to be honest. Bond moved beyond Fleming a long time ago, it would be a bit odd to stay entirely within only what he wrote. And even before you get to that point, don't forget Fleming had him fight a giant squid, have his wife get murdered, get brainwashed, live as a Japanese fisherman with amnesia etc. - that breadth of tonal variation covers quite a lot of ground and gives writers plenty of room with him to play, I'd say. Much moreso than with, say, Sherlock Holmes who Conan Doyle kept fairly restricted in the same types of adventures and plots.

    If you can cope with Bond becoming a brainwashed Russian agent in the books it doesn't feel a particularly big reach to imagine him retired on his own for 5 years (and actually basically living Fleming's life).
    I think, yes, they can keep vaguely inside of the sort of thing we know Bond does and the world in which he mixes, but to keep only inside the incident which Fleming established is way too much.

    Most of the Bond films stray from Fleming but still manage to keep the fans onside (including me) because they don't stray too far. And maybe the retired life I could overlook, if the rest of the decisions made in NTTD were sound. But Bond playing daddy in the kitchen is not something I would expect to see in a Bond movie, and my heart didn't leap for joy when I saw it, neither did Bond getting blown to smithereens either.

    What is there about those incidents in NTTD that you don't understand why a Bond fan wouldn't be happy with?

  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 7,999
    So if Bond “played daddy” on a page from a Fleming book it would then be totally okay?
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited April 2022 Posts: 14,861
    So if Bond “played daddy” on a page from a Fleming book it would then be totally okay?

    Yeah it's puzzling. And obviously Fleming's Bond did father a child in the books; he just never met him, so it's only slight degrees of difference; it's not even going-to-the-moon different.
    My reaction to seeing CR was that those scenes of Bond and Vesper in Venice at their hotel, arm in arm and giggling like lovers, was something I'd never seen Bond do -and I don't think he ever really did that sort of thing in the books- but it was refreshing and interesting and felt appropriate to that character I was watching in that film. They didn't feel restrained by what Connery did in YOLT or anything like that, they were making a movie in the current day about the character in their script. And he was still James Bond, he was just James Bond reacting like a human.
  • edited April 2022 Posts: 3,272
    So if Bond “played daddy” on a page from a Fleming book it would then be totally okay?

    If Bond had been played daddy in the books, the film franchise would have been vastly different many years ago if they eventually adapted this imaginary novel (which no doubt would have happened at some point).

    And anything adapted from Fleming I would be happy with, so the answer is a hypothetical yes (because it never happened). ;)
  • Posts: 3,272
    mtm wrote: »
    So if Bond “played daddy” on a page from a Fleming book it would then be totally okay?

    Yeah it's puzzling. And obviously Fleming's Bond did father a child in the books; he just never met him, so it's only slight degrees of difference; it's not even going-to-the-moon different.
    My reaction to seeing CR was that those scenes of Bond and Vesper in Venice at their hotel, arm in arm and giggling like lovers, was something I'd never seen Bond do -and I don't think he ever really did that sort of thing in the books- but it was refreshing and interesting and felt appropriate to that character I was watching in that film. They didn't feel restrained by what Connery did in YOLT or anything like that, they were making a movie in the current day about the character in their script. And he was still James Bond, he was just James Bond reacting like a human.

    Bond falling for a woman, arm-in-arm walking with her did happen frequently in the novels, so not sure where you are going with this.

    That is a far easier thing to accept and absorb on screen than seeing Bond playing daddy or being killed, and you know it.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited April 2022 Posts: 14,861
    mtm wrote: »
    So if Bond “played daddy” on a page from a Fleming book it would then be totally okay?

    Yeah it's puzzling. And obviously Fleming's Bond did father a child in the books; he just never met him, so it's only slight degrees of difference; it's not even going-to-the-moon different.
    My reaction to seeing CR was that those scenes of Bond and Vesper in Venice at their hotel, arm in arm and giggling like lovers, was something I'd never seen Bond do -and I don't think he ever really did that sort of thing in the books- but it was refreshing and interesting and felt appropriate to that character I was watching in that film. They didn't feel restrained by what Connery did in YOLT or anything like that, they were making a movie in the current day about the character in their script. And he was still James Bond, he was just James Bond reacting like a human.

    Bond falling for a woman, arm-in-arm walking with her did happen frequently in the novels, so not sure where you are going with this.

    That is a far easier thing to accept and absorb on screen than seeing Bond playing daddy or being killed, and you know it.

    Not quite sure why you're being so aggressive, but no it's not just walking I mean, it's their demeanour of carefree, almost young, love. I never got that sort of impression of his relationships from the novels. If you did that's fine, we all get different things from books.

    Can I imagine the guy in the books giving a little girl a slice of apple? Well yes, it's not really a huge or terribly wild thing for a person to do. We know he's capable of love in the books. Can I imagine him being killed? Of course, he frequently survived by luck alone in the books, he nearly gets himself killed at the end of the very first novel, and as you mentioned he basically dies at the end of FRWL, his Reichenbach moment. I actually don't understand why a Fleming fan would struggle with the idea.
    Dressing up as a clown or driving a hover gondola would be the things I would imagine a Fleming purist would be upset by more.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    edited April 2022 Posts: 7,999
    This is the ironic thing. Fleming was known for being iconoclastic about his work, but when someone else does it then it’s frowned upon. What if Fleming died in 1962 and someone else wrote OHMSS? Would we accuse the filmmakers for going too astray because they wrote Bond being married?

    I’ve seen this exchange several times so far regarding the ending of NTTD:

    “Bond movies should leave you smiling at the end.”
    “OHMSS didn’t.”
    “Yeah, but that’s Fleming.”

    And my reply is always “so what?” Let the filmmakers take as many risks as Fleming himself did. These are Bond films, not bible scriptures.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    He killed Dr No with a ton of bird crap: even Cubby & Harry thought that was a bit much!
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 7,999
    mtm wrote: »
    He killed Dr No with a ton of bird crap: even Cubby & Harry thought that was a bit much!

    I sorta get it, because it’s the first film and they don’t want to put off audiences too much on the first impression of a Bond film. It’s too bad though, because his demise was funny in the book. I’d hope they use it on a new villain, but after 60 years that’s probably out of the cards.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited April 2022 Posts: 14,861
    mtm wrote: »
    He killed Dr No with a ton of bird crap: even Cubby & Harry thought that was a bit much!

    I sorta get it, because it’s the first film and they don’t want to put off audiences too much on the first impression of a Bond film.

    Yep, indeed. Likewise I wonder if they wouldn't have used Casino Royale as the first film even if they could have- it's not really how the adventures typically go for Bond. And they obviously then did FRWL and gave it a happy ending instead of him dying.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 7,999
    mtm wrote: »
    mtm wrote: »
    He killed Dr No with a ton of bird crap: even Cubby & Harry thought that was a bit much!

    I sorta get it, because it’s the first film and they don’t want to put off audiences too much on the first impression of a Bond film.

    Yep, indeed. Likewise I wonder if they wouldn't have used Casino Royale as the first film even if they could have- it's not really how the adventures typically go for Bond. And they obviously then did FRWL and gave it a happy ending instead of him dying.

    That’s another thing. Because they started with DN, they used that formula as the template. Because Major Boothroyd was a character in it, he became a mainstay.

    Had they started with CR, would the next films have tried to carry over elements of that film the way they did after DN? There was no Boothroyd, so there wouldn’t have been a Q giving gadgets in a third film. The trajectory of the film series would have been drastically different.
  • edited April 2022 Posts: 12,837
    Fleming should be a guideline, NOT an absolute rule. Just because Fleming never put Bond in a situation where he finds out he has a daughter doesn’t mean it should be off the table.

    But then again I was never as reverential about the Fleming books as other fans. I think they should always serve as a inspiration. But if we constrain ourselves with whether Fleming would do this or not, then we wouldn’t get wonderful oddities like MOONRAKER.

    I agree with basically everything you, @mtm and @ImpertinentGoon have said on this page, great posts.

    To be fair to @jetsetwilly though he is at least consistent in wanting to stick religiously to the books. Not a position I agree with personally, but it’s one that makes sense. What I don’t understand is the position of fans who love films like Moonraker, but then will play the “it’s not what Fleming would’ve wanted” card when you mention something like NTTD’s ending or casting a non white actor in the role. I do get it, we all take different things from the books and see some aspects as more important than others. It’s fine not to like those changes because it doesn’t match your personal idea of Bond. But if you’re okay with the filmmakers taking some liberties, then I don’t think you can really pull that card in response to them taking others.
  • MaxCasinoMaxCasino United States
    Posts: 4,047
    We are and we are not. It just depends on the person, the material and the media that the characters are in. I’ll give a couple of examples: A lot of people can only get behind Ian Fleming when it comes to the books. We as fans rip way too hard on certain authors and certain things about their stories, which isn’t always fair. John Gardener wrote too much camp for too long. Raymond Benson was criticized for writing fan fiction. These two kept the literary books alive, and don’t get much credit for it. Jeffrey Deaver tried to bring the literary James Bond into the 21st century and a lot of fans ripped apart his effort. Which I don’t find fully fair. He made a few changes, but the time frame required him to do so. Despite what Anthony Horowitz said, James Bond can work in anytime. It’s just how you write him. One change I know A LOT of fans want is Purvis and Wade too stop writing the films. Whether they are interested in bringing Fleming to the screen, some of the material just can’t be translated to modern cinema well. Or they are poor writers to try and do it. So overall, we fans play our favorites with the people that we feel like.
  • Posts: 3,272

    To be fair to @jetsetwilly though he is at least consistent in wanting to stick religiously to the books. Not a position I agree with personally, but it’s one that makes sense.

    Thanks pal.
  • Posts: 3,272
    mtm wrote: »
    Not quite sure why you're being so aggressive,
    Apologies, I wasn't trying to come across that way.
    mtm wrote: »
    Dressing up as a clown or driving a hover gondola would be the things I would imagine a Fleming purist would be upset by more.
    I'm still having therapy over those things...

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