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Gunbarrel. Snowy mountain with two climbers. A storm is coming. Something happens so they both die. Their son, who is waiting in a cabin nearby is later informed. He goes outside and looks up at the mountain. Closeup of his eyes transitioning to the the eyes of an adult wearing a skimask who looks up at a similar smaller mountain. There's a training exercise. He and several other members have to reach the top. A race. It's part of their training. The man is hesitant. He sees the others heading off. Eventually he gets his act together and after some obstacles he finishes first on top. He removes his skimask and James Bond is revealed.
It’s a massive point in the history of the young Bonds character. It’s obviously been mentioned in the films before, but never explored more than a line or two.
It would be a good starting point for a younger Bond, and of course give the Amazon Bond some character building traits, without having to re-introduce Vesper.
I could see the climbing death and transition from young Bond to current Bond as a pts idea.
I think it could be a good way for Amazon to begin their era.
Yeah I think it’s possible. Maybe they’d worry it gets too close to Spectre territory, and to be fair Sp does do a fairly unique spin on the parent angle in that it’s about a foster father who was killed; the problem is it just didn’t pay off.
In a way it is surprising his parents have rarely elicited more than a mention before.
Idk what drama or stakes the story can give him, but I'd love to see him vulnerable. I image a PTS where he's on the run, out of breath, cut and bruised. His gadgets failed, it's just him and his wit. Then he takes a bullet - he's down. It's going to take all he's got to make it through the PTS by the skin of his teeth.
Another things as well... GenZ face a lot of bullying in their lives. I think a strong Bond character would make a great role model
It's very Batman...or Bambi.
Batman, Bambi, Bond.
ETA: It's also kind of Last Crusade.
It’s very Iron Fist.
A film with any focus on his parents would be odd and far too personal for a Bond film. I could maybe accept an adaptation of the part in the Authorised Biography where Bond must climb the mountain which claimed his parents.
After that, young Danny’s mother throws herself into a pack of hungry wolves to save his life, completing his orphaning, and he’s rescued by warriors from a magic city that only appears once every ten years (basically kung fu Brigadoon ) where he trains in kung fu and fights a magic dragon.
It’s going to be difficult for Bond to top that.
I have to admit...it doesn't sound half-bad to me. The PTS features a climbing sequence and the reveal is that at the top there are two simple crosses representing his parents. I'm wondering if this is what the game will do.
The problem with that kind of heavy emotional hit is that it becomes less effective with each successive dose. like a drug, and eventually the law of diminishing returns kicks in.
After you've killed Bond there is really nowhere to go but down, with that line of thinking.
As far as parents and relatives go, like most plot devices, it's all been done somehwere by now, it's just a matter of how to dress it up in order to make it seem fresh
e.g.
Parental loss - Batman / Avengers; Civil War
Father, Son issues - Star Wars 2 / Indy 3 / Austin Powers / Guardians of The Galaxy
Brother issues - Austin Powers / Wolverine / James Bond
Sister issues - Thor 3
But personally I think it's time to take a break and explore another aspect of the character for a change
What works about, say, GE, is that we see the before and after of Bond and Trevelyan onscreen, so it feels more organic and dramatic, unlike SP. This is also why I like NTTD more than SP; we've already seen (some of) the backstory onscreen.
I agree that there could be other ways to heighten up the emotional stakes, maybe have Bond put in Moral questioning only to realize the consequences it might bring that may lead to Bond blaming himself or something like that.
I respectfully disagree. The Eon Bond formula had gotten very stale by DAD, and CR uprooted all that, ironically by going back to the original Bond. I think CR and QoS are much stronger for not having Q and Moneypenny in them--i.e. they didn't succumb to the Eon formula. I blame Mendes.
And deaths, whether M, Mathis, or Felix, are stakes, and welcome in Bond for me. Anyone can die at any time. I know some fans like the security that Bond, M, Moneypenny, whoever will never die...but to me, that security is really boring.
If anything I would say the prime weaknesses of the Craig era are that they went back to Vesper far too often and kept relying on killing off CR cast members over the next four films. Like, "We know you loved her/him in CR...and now we're going to kill them off!"
Plus, the Craig endings (prior to NTTD) had a sameness to them:
CR: Reintroducing Bond
QoS: Re-reintroducing Bond
SF: Introducing M
SP: Introducing OG YOLT Blofeld
I don't think Eon ever regained the confidence they had in CR, and as a result kept repeating themselves.
Great post, I agree with you about stakes, but they over did it, as is the modern fashion. We've escalated from a 'no regular character dies' philosophy to one where 'some regular character must die'
In the past we were always reminded that there are lives at stake, but it was ony the current Bond movie allies or secondary love interests that were likely to die.
It is debatable whether or not it is necessary to kill off regular characters in order to remind the audience of the stakes
Personally I was emotionaly invested enough in Quarrel or Kerim Bey to be upset when they were killed, and was thus adequately reminded of the stakes.
e.g. DN - Mary Trueblood, ally, Quarrel, ally
FRWL - Capt Norman Nash, ally, Kerim Bey, ally
GF - Jill Masterson, secondary love interest, Tilly Masterson, ally
etc
DAD - Moneypenny, perenial ally, but it turns out to be only a simulated death, Miranda Frost, ally, enemy, secondary love interest
CR - Solange, secondary love interest, Vesper, primary love interest
QoS - Strawberry Fields, ally and love interest, Rene Mathis, 2 time ally
SF - Severine, enemy and love interest, M, 7 time ally
SP - No allys or love interests killed!!!
NTTD - Felix Leiter, perenial ally, James Bond, titular character
NB - I just remembered that, in the book series, Quarrel first appears in the 2nd novel, LALD, which moves to the Caribbean for the 3rd act, and is killed during his second appearance, in DN, which is the 6th novel.
Exactly. My heart sank when i learned they were bringing back Q and Moneypenny for Skyfall. If CR & QoS proved anything, it was that the films didn't need them or those blasted gadgets anymore...
At any rate, I don’t think the takeaway from Craig’s era is that things like Moneypenny, Q, or gadgets are unnecessary. It’s that the Bond formula and those elements can be adapted and made fresh.
Which is why it had no stakes.
Killing those characters in the Craig era was a great decision to raise the stakes.
And even if one doesn't like the choice, how does it make it lazy writing?
well, QoS proved that a course correction was necessary. I don't blame Mendes for trying to make Craig's Bond more Bond-like.
Why..? I love QoS. Far more that SF.
Well, SF was more successful, and is arguably the film that brought Craig’s era on track again. For better or for worse QOS was a bit disappointing for many.
That said I don’t think SF was quite as much a course correction film as implied. It’s not a CR or DAF. I get the sense they always intended on introducing things like Q and Moneypenny back into the franchise, and SF’s not a million miles away from the tone of CR and QOS (even though there are differences).
It is only a Bond movie, but I think you really need a director who knows what they're doing to hit the right tone like that and strike a balance. And I guess that's why it's good news that someone as good as Villeneuve has the gig.
They could have killed off Lucia Sciarria or Estrella or Tanner at any time, so your feelings about a lack of stakes are an after the fact assessment, that you can't have felt while actually watching the movie for the first time.
With Craig-Bond's track record, you couldn't even be sure that Madeleine Swann wouldn't be killed off in the finale.
Personally the problem in SP is more that the villain has no grand scheme, the reveal that it's Bond's old nemesis is fine, but after that it was just a continuation of the amorphous activities that were the core problem with Quantum i.e. the lack of a focal point, a well defined threat of an immanent disaster, something that the audience could relate to and that Bond could save them from.
For me those are the stakes that were missing, not the lack of a death of someone close to Bond, which is something you can't have known was not going to happen until the movie was over, but were probably expecting, given Vesper, Mathis and M had been despatched in his previous three outings.
Instead of complaining about SP's lack of stakes, you should be congratulating Mendes for confounding your expectations and keeping you guessing.
Yes, they’re escapist blockbusters - rather pulpy you could argue - but they need that sense of weight and substance to them. They should ideally be well made and thought out.
The sacrificial lamb in Bond isn’t new by any means. All of Connery’s films from GF onwards had secondary Bond girls written specifically to die at some point! Throw in allies to that category as well and it’s a pretty standard Bond movie trope. Craig’s films emphasised the fact that women especially could die because of Bond which gave the death of Fields, Solonge, and Severine a weight to them, and I think that’s a legitimate decision. I do agree by SP the supporting women/leads tend to live, and that feels equally conscious (obviously you don’t want to repeat yourself, and to some extent it’s a subversion of expectations).
For me, it gives the idea that Bond’s profession is full of death. Whether it’s through players consciously getting involved (ie. M, Mathis, and Leiter) or those who cross paths with Bond due to circumstance (Solonge or Severine). I think it gives the stories a weight personally. I think certainly when you kill off M (a character in Bond who doesn’t usually die) or even Felix that sense is felt. For what it’s worth that’s a sense I got in many of Fleming’s novels with Bond’s reflections on death.
It's really cool that you know how I felt watching the movie better than I did.
Except, you don't. At no point while watching Spectre I felt any stakes. Neither the villain or his organization ever felt dangerous at all to me, even less so after all the "author of all your pain", "daddy loved you more", "look at these beautiful pictures of people from your past - except Mathis for some reason - which I hang on the wall because that's the most evil stuff I will do" stuff.
At no point I expected any specific characters to be killed, but I kept expecting something to happen. Yet the film kept toying with interesting ideas (Spectre being some kind of Big Brother, Bond falling in love, Bond and Blofeld's shared past, Quantum becoming Spectre) but it never commited to them and ultimately fell flat. It's quite telling that SP defenders can only defend it by attacking the people who disliked the movie, that proves it is a movie with few redeeming qualities.
Bond was formed by the end of CR. That was the point of the film! That was why they finally played the theme! He easily could have gone from CR to a standard mission--so no QoS--and then later onto SF, etc.
I did like how QoS brought back Mathis and killed him. That is reminiscent, like someone said above, of the novel Quarrel being introduced in LALD and killed in DN. Giannini is such a charming actor but that was also the point...to sacrifice him. To make it hurt for Bond.
I know she's retired but Amazon should bring back the casting director from CR. She struck gold in casting that film--across the board--enough to keep the entire Craig era going.