10 replies to this topic

[Leon]

I apologise to anyone else who has written a story under this name, please take it only as a compliment, as I think it's the best Fleming-based title they could use for a Bond film. I've been casually thinking of alot of the ideas which became this story for a number of years, since becoming fascinated with the idea of what my ideal modern Bond film would be. This is by no means ideal to me, but most of it comes close enough for a first attempt.

I enjoy writing and one day decided to teach myself how to write a screenplay instead, out of interest, and used Bond as a model. I'll leave this introduction brief and unrevealing and just let you, hopefully, enjoy my fan fiction story.

Please let me know what you think, pointers, anything you liked or didn't like...

http://debrief.comma...showtopic=57757

Peace.

[coco1997]

I will try to read this over the next few days. I've downloaded and skimmed the script already and like what I see, and I'm always intrigued by other Bond fan's script ideas and look forward to completing yours.

[Leon]

Thanks coco, hope you like it

Best

[coco1997]

Leon - Your screenplay for "Shatterhand" was a very entertaining read.

* I liked that you drew influences from Fleming's "Moonraker" and "You Only Live Twice" and probably a few others I can't presently recall. I can't really picture Dench's M playing bridge, though, but I guess it works to toughen the old bird up a bit.

* Introducing us to Boothroyd, Ponsonby and Moneypenny was a nice touch and you did it fluidly without making it seem shoe-horned in.

* The scene in which

Spoiler

Bond flushes the two cyanide pills down the toilet, without thought, immediately after being issued his new wristwatch

was very Fleming and I could perfectly picture Craig's Bond doing it.

* Nice nod to SPECTRE with Quantum's mysterious round-table meeting.

* All of the action scenes are well-documented and easy to follow. I can say from personal experience that it's often difficult to keep track of everything going on when I try writing an action sequence but you seem to have it down pat.

* Having Bond's

Spoiler

brainwashing and attempted assassination of M occur so late in the story

is an interesting change from what most fan fiction writers do when they choose to adapt that particular unmined bit of Fleming treasure.

* Very satisfying, classic Bond ending. Craig needs one of those sooner or later, right?

I only really have two criticisms/suggestions:

* Be a bit more descriptive. Tell us the makes of the cars the characters drive throughout the script. Maybe even add a cast list and a title song singer just to stimulate the reader's mind's eye a bit more.

* The script's mottled with some grammatical and punctuation errors. Words like "MI6" and "Double-0" should always be capitalized. But don't get me wrong, none of these little quibbles detracted from the overall experience of reading the script.

All in all, great work.

[Leon]

Thanks for the feedback, coco, and all of the kind words. Yes, you are correct. I completely forgot to revise some of the specific makes and models for some of the vehicles etc. Please excuse the lack of polish in general.

I grinned when I read how you couldn't really see Dench's M playing bridge - I thought this myself whilst writing it. However I slowly began to picture it and actually think it would only serve to boost Dench's M without seeming implausible. I still think her portrayal is a bit weak, and only at the fault of her roles and written scripts in those films. She does have a deck of cards in her flat which Bond is playing with (Casino Royale) and would look in place sat at a bridge table with a glass of her favourite Bourbon I think so anyway.

Yes, I used a good number of touches from various Fleming books, from scenes, to the odd line of dialogue or general ideas reworked. My philosophy behind writing this screenplay was to use good and unused stuff from Ian Fleming's own words, why let it go to waste? But also to do it so subtly and naturally that only real Fleming fans would notice, and the casuals would enjoy for it's style, imagination and substance. Some people say using too much Fleming in a modern Bond film weakens it as it's so old hat. I tried to show how I think it should be done with this, though clearly could be done better.

I'm glad you noticed it all anyhow, and enjoyed it.

Best

[Automan]

I'll be giving this the once over this weekend; looking forward to it.

[Leon]

Thanks Auto, hope you enjoy it.

[terminus]

A rather good project, Leon. Would be interesting to hear from you how you came up with the plot - decided which bits of Fleming to use and so on.

[Leon]

Thanks terminus. The general plot itself stemmed from simply thinking up ways to use the garden of death idea from YOLT, only with another reason behind it, of course. It's hard to explain the process of coming up with ideas for stories, at least for me, though I always had a melting pot of ideas from Fleming's novels, simply because I read them all from an early age and often thought of what I'd like to see the films do with all the unused Fleming materiel.

This is by no means my ultimate idea for a modern Bond story, that would certainly take many more attempts. There are certainly alot of unused nuggets of gold from the novels. It's not a matter of trying to string random devices from the books together though, the way I write is to draft a very rough framework for the story and then write as organically as possible. So I know where to start from, how I want it to open, look, feel and the first impressions and atmosphere offered. I also know roughly what's going to be happening during the story, who the villains are, what they are doing, why etc and finally I decide what will make the story different/interesting and how it will climax. I then just try to get the opening as strong and good as I can and start writing what I'd like to see happen. I like to create what I'd enjoy - constantly trying to keep things interesting - whilst doing my best to re-create that very difficult to define Fleming style to the story/characters/locations/narrative.

What I'm passionate about is not just trying to put Ian Fleming stamps all over the story, or half-heartedly copying something from a book for the sake of it, but making it work, keeping it organic and subtlety above all else. The best references should be clear to only hardcore fans; accurate/faithful yet subtle so as not to cause eyes to roll. The more casual viewer should think it's merely a really good scene or whatever else.

If only P&W could do this, I'd be a much happier Bond fan.

[terminus]

Thanks terminus. The general plot itself stemmed from simply thinking up ways to use the garden of death idea from YOLT, only with another reason behind it, of course. It's hard to explain the process of coming up with ideas for stories, at least for me, though I always had a melting pot of ideas from Fleming's novels, simply because I read them all from an early age and often thought of what I'd like to see the films do with all the unused Fleming materiel.

This is similar to what I did when developing my own fanfiction screenplay (and it is interesting that we've both used Canada as a location, though you've used Montreal and I've used Vancouver). I came up with the basic idea about the plot, considered the two major unused locations (of both the movies and the novels) of Canada and Australia.

I then made a list of names of male characters and names of female characters and their backstory and how they could be implemented in the plot.

That said, I think that the one issue I had with this script is that there were too many new elements introduced into the script. In short order we had Q, Ponsonbury, Moneypenny and Molony. If I were to do a redraft, I'd probably cull Ponsonbury and maybe Moneypenny - and see if their place in the script could be taken up by Tanner.

[seawolfnyy]

I realize I got to this story very late as its been 2 years since anyone's posted in here. Anyway, you definitely have the makings of a thrilling Bond adventure in there. The PTS is great and the garden of death are described very well. I just think it's too short. 77 pages of screenplay equate to 77 minutes of run time. I wouldn't change much, but I do think there needs to be another locale in there. Perhaps buildup the relationship between Bond and Shatterhand prior to Bond being taken to the Castle of Death. I was impressed how well the screenwriting was. Unlike most of the fan fic postings, you actually seem to have a strong knowledge of how screenplays are supposed to be written. The only thing wrong is that there is too much passive voice. Everything needs to be active. Otherwise well done. It also slightly resembles a story I'm working on that also deal's with Shatterhand, the castle of death and has a skiing scene set in Canada (Vancouver not Quebec City). Sheer coincidence, not trying to steal anything .