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I rather have Tamahori come back with a return of the invisible car, Jinx and Christmas Jones than seeing this idea put in motion. How many times do we need a personal anger/motivation for Bond? Enough is enough. The 2 longest serving Bond, Sean Connery and Roger Moore, are actually the only iterations of the character to never have personal motives to accomplish their missions, and are the only 2 actors to never go rogue at any point. Why can't we get back to this? I thought Sean Connery was like a demi-god on this community, and he never had trust issues with M, or went rogue, or let anything or anyone get under his skin. I applaud CR for playing with the formula and fleshing out the character of Bond, but that should have been self-contained to that film. CR felt like a very special film in 2006, but it's uniqueness is diminishing with each passing film, as Bond going rogue, Bond have personal motives, trust issues with M are becoming more cliched than anything that occured in 1962-2002.
I was just spitballing ideas for how the other 00s could be used. I'm not suggesting another revenge driven film. What I suggested was just a small moment more along the lines of "and that's for 009" rather than another revenge or Bond going rogue film.
@TheWizardOfIce But equally, when Bond goes back to storm Piz Gloria, he has half the Union Corse behind him. My suggestion of how to use the other 00s would just be that, after Bond has escaped the clutches of the villain and uncovered their plot, the other 00s are called in for the final battle to show how high the stakes are. I'm thinking something like Bond and the other two 00s have to sneak in and plant explosives, then soldiers storm in, big battle breaks out, Bond ends up confronting villain alone (or maybe post battle in a seperate scene ala GF or TSWLM). As for the Bond girls, I see what you mean but again I think it's all down to execution. Pam for instance doesn't make Bond redundant but she also is actually strong, resourceful and a skilled agent in her own right. They work well as a team (eg- her flying him to the tanker). Wai Lin and Jinx is the lazy option. Just "they're just as good as Bond!" and then they find themselves written into a corner so they lazily, despite spending the whole film trying to show how tough and on par with Bond they are, turn them into damsels in distresses. But then even with Jinx there's that aspect of what I'm talking about, working in tandem with Bond (she fights Frost, he fights Graves) rather than making them redundant.
I don't think the idea is equivalent to pissing on Fleming's grave either. He never really went as far as a Pam Bouvier type himself but his girls weren't always just damsels. Kissy helps Bond swim to the castle, just like Pam helped Bond reach Sanchez's tankers by flying him there. Domino escapes of her own accord and saves Bond by killing Largo, Pussy Galore (while not doing much in the story) is probably the original Bond's equal type in how she's portrayed, etc.
Bond gets his mission (that has nothing to do with MI6)from M
Flirts with MP
Gets a few gadgets from Q
Goes to some spectacular locations
Shags some gorgeous birds
Kills some dodgy foreigners
Does some amazing stunts
Makes the odd quip
And does it all on his own without any help
Is that really too much to ask for?
I'm not arguing against a return to a more straight forward style of Bond film but Bond has always had help, right back to Quarrel and Leiter (or if you want to go as far back as the books, Mathis). I just don't see why the Bond girl (or other 00 agents, as long as it's just in a battle scenario or something similar like I described and not them tagging along for the whole film) can't provide that help. Obviously there still have to be situations where Bond is alone and has to use his wits, resourcefulness and maybe a gadget or two to survive but there's no reason why we can't have the best of both worlds (bit biased because of how much I love the film but again I think LTK is the best example, in terms of Bond having strong allies but not being made redundant and still having to use his wits, pull off amazing stunts, etc, to prevail).
But idea of Bond being completely on his own (trapped in some hostile war zone maybe? With the whole film being an Escape From New York type scenario) could be a really interesting idea, imo. I never thought I'd use Die Hard 5 as an example of anything positive but does anyone who's seen it remember the bit where Mcclane's son tries to call in an extraction but they disavow him and he's trapped in Moscow left to finish the mission alone (with the police on his tail, etc)? I'm thinking something like that except obviously Bond doesn't have his hero cop dad helping out.
A Bond film again !
Now this I agree with. SP, as much as I loved it, was maybe the lowpoint in terms of music. I don't count it as too much of a black mark on the film because it's very very unintrusive. But it's down there with the worst and at least Serra and Conti tried. The SP score is so lazy, it's as if Newman felt bitter towards EON after their fallings out (because he didn't want to incorporate the theme song into SF) but Mendes wanted him back, so he agreed to return and stick it to Barbara and MGW by not even phoning it in, literally not doing any work at all and just posting them a copy of the SF score. It wouldn't be good enough for any film, but for a franchise that's full of John Barry's masterpieces, it's just an insult. The only pieces I like are the gunbarrel music and the Rome meeting/car chase music.
Christ really? Why would nobody call him out on this? He's getting paid all that money and he can only be arsed to come up with a few new tracks. There's reusing a couple of cues and there's being bone idle. I remember when he was first announced as composer for Skyfall and a vocal group of fans were going on about how crap Arnold was and how much better Newman was going to be. Funny how things change as I'd argue the majority of Bond fans don't like him now and even those that do would probably struggle to defend his blatant laziness and rehashing for SP.
It's a shame because for me the score is the one noticeable thing in that film that's subpar. I didn't really notice in the cinema, because it's (while insanely lazy) very unintrusive, it doesn't dectract from the film in the way that Serra's piece for the Ferrari/Aston race did. So forgettable that you don't notice the laziness. But once I rewatched it I began to notice more and more how much of it was just recycled from SF. It's a credit to the film that it remains in my top five despite Newman doing his best to try and sink it (I had it on par with the Dalton films but once I noticed how lazy the score was I decided it'd have to be below them, so now it's no 3 for me).
Definitely. Although, I can predict the critic consensus for whenever they fully return to formula:
"Bond 25 is a disappointingly conventional entry in the franchise."
When it comes to Bond, Newman was a hack.
Not so much cannon fodder but dying is kind of one of their purposes already. The use of the other 00s so far can be easily broken down into three categories
Bond's rival who's going to or gets the mission/car/whatever if Bond doesn't step up his game, waiting in the wings to replace him: 008 in GF, 009 in SP. And I'm sure there was another but I can't remember.
Dies to move the plot forward: 002 in TMWTGG, 009 in OP, I guess you could even count Trevelayn
Villain: 006
And then there's the TB meeting and that's all the mentions/appearances, right?
I'm happy to go with dear old Ian's judgement and say we don't need them.
Exactly. We don't need anything like that. Double-O agents are the cream of the crop and so shouldn't be killed off at the drop of a hat. Sadly, this is often what has happened to them when they have appeared in the Bond films.
Yes, though perhaps times have changed with even soldiers potentially facing legal action if they kill on the battlefield. It's a further example of the "safety first" climate we live in as well as the misapplication of human rights legislation.
Anyway what does 009 need the Aston for in New York? And how were they getting there?
One of the reasons TB is a big favorite of mine is because Ken Adam gave us that gorgeous meeting room set where Bond and all the 00s get their marching orders from M, and in that moment it really clicks for you that Bond is just one of many in a complex system.
I for one would love to see Bond 25 involve a SPECTRE threat that Bond and the other 00s have to work together to face on an international easter egg hunt, where they team up to weed out that threat. Better yet if 009 is paired with Bond and they clash over what 007 did to his property in SP. There's so much opportunity for great intrigue and repartee between Bond and his fellow 00s that I don't want to see it passed up.
The death of a 00 should be extremely rare and has a huge impact. In OP it worked. In AVTAK it started being repetitive and in spite of TLDs qualities they seemed to be dying like flies.
I think 00 agents should be briefly seen and mentioned. That's it.