772 replies to this topic

[SamuelKevlar]

Looking good so far.

What are the specifics of Colonel Sun's and therefore Scaramanga's plan? He's not having intelligence chiefs killed for the hell of it, I presume. And how do we tie that into the human trafficking plot? Maybe someone who's got the Colonel Sun novel on hand can help with this.

[coco1997]

Well, according to Wikipedia, "Sun is sent to sabotage a Middle East détente conference (of which the Soviets are hosts) and blame Great Britain." That obviously has nothing to do with human trafficking, so the whole modus operandi would be changed for this story.

[dinovelvet]

What does Colonel Sun have to do with it?

[coco1997]

What does Colonel Sun have to do with it?

I suggested he be the minor villain of the story and be the one in charge of the human trafficking subplot.

[SamuelKevlar]

Détente talks in the Middle East sounds interesting, especially considering what's going on in the region at the moment. Perhaps instead of assuming Sun's goal is to kill these specific spy chiefs, it's a mere bonus because whether the 'Manchurian Candidates' succeed or not, he's created an atmosphere of panic, an idea that there's rogue agents going around. When he then disrupts the peace conference (through brainwashed security agents of the various states in attendance) it'll be blamed on the intelligence community, or a perceived shadowy organisation within it.

What his goal is I haven't quite figured out, but there's Chinese financing in a lot of Western places at the moment due to the economic crisis. They control most of Greece's main port, for instance. Maybe a political and therefore economic meltdown in the Middle East opens the way for the Chinese 'saviours' to swoop in and buy up the region's oil-rich assets.

Human trafficking could be Sun's sideline, his financial support and Bond's first step in tracking him down. Sabotaging the conference is Sun's real endgame. When Scaramanga figures this out, he can off Sun and take over the plan by himself, negotiating with the Chinese for sizeable payment to sabotage the conference. Or something. I don't know, the more I write, the more I think I'd rather use this plot for something else. I don't want to make Sun too major a figure.

As for Andrea's new last name, how about Alvarez to keep the alliteration? Alternatively, in looking this up I came across an interesting titbit - all Cuban boys raised in the national orphanage of Cuba were named Valdez, after the founder. In reality it was only Cuban males who got this surname, but we can broaden it for the story. It would be an interesting thing for the knowledgeable Bond to pick up on, useful for Bond when he's trying to turn her. Or it could be Julio's last name - an orphanage runaway, street rat, moulded and seduced by Scaramanga.

Edited by SamuelKevlar, 13 April 2011 - 04:20 AM.

[coco1997]

I like the sound of Andrea Alvarez.

However, as you pointed out, I think the Colonel Sun plot might be too complex and would stray too far away from the plot of the original story. Alternatively, we could just revert the character back to Hai Fat and try to simplify his motives.

[SamuelKevlar]

As long as he doesn't have to be called Hai Fat. Or have a brother called Lo Fat...

[coco1997]

Is there a simpler scheme you can think of that could draw Scaramanga's interest? Or would you say human trafficking could do it?

[SamuelKevlar]

I think whoever is brainwashing these spies, whether it's Sun or Fat or somebody new, has to be dealt with in some way (unless we go straight into Colonel Sun after TMWTGG, and even then...). He could be having people killed to keep them from sticking their noses in his trafficking business (a la The Living Daylights). Maybe the eventual aim is to upgrade to brainwashing world leaders and such - or this isn't Sun/Fat's idea, but Scaramanga's. He sees the potential and is more ambitious. He kills Sun/Fat to get at his brainwashing technology (and probably gets his trafficking ring into the bargain).

[coco1997]

Sounds good. I have high hopes that can be worked into the treatment.

[tdalton]

Just putting this idea forward as a different perspective on the story. I don't really understand where the human trafficking subplot fits into the story. My suggestion would be to strip away all of the subplots (but I feel like if we need a subplot, that it should be revolving around some kind of natural resource since the novel revolved around one) and simply focus on Bond being sent to kill Scaramanga (or, more specifically, that M designs the mission as sending Bond to his death) and the ensuing battle between the two as they try to take the other out.

[dinovelvet]

Just putting this idea forward as a different perspective on the story. I don't really understand where the human trafficking subplot fits into the story. My suggestion would be to strip away all of the subplots (but I feel like if we need a subplot, that it should be revolving around some kind of natural resource since the novel revolved around one) and simply focus on Bond being sent to kill Scaramanga (or, more specifically, that M designs the mission as sending Bond to his death) and the ensuing battle between the two as they try to take the other out.

The human trafficking was something I suggested as a substitute "business" for Scaramanga to be running, instead of the sugar trade from the novel, which isn't much of a threat for a modern Bond film. It doesn't have to be the focus of the plot, much like Dominic Greene's water scheme was not the focus of QOS, but its something that fits in with the Caribbean locale and works as a reason for Scaramanga to hire Bond as a bodyguard.

[coco1997]

It seems as though everyone has very divergent ideas as to the direction this one should take...

dino's idea - The story more of less follows the plot of the book, except that the sugar cartel subplot is replaced with human trafficking.
tdalton's idea - We strip away all of the MacGuffin subplots of the original book/movie and have the story solely centered around a showdown between the greatest marksmen on Earth.
SamKevlar's idea - Bond and Scaramanga are both secret operatives of their respective intelligence agencies who are initially assigned to a mission together (possibly involving human trafficking and/or disrupting a conference on Middle East peace talks) before Scaramanga double crosses Bond, offs Colonel Sun and tries to take over the plan himself.

Of these three ideas, is there a compromise we can reach that can make everyone happy?

[SamuelKevlar]

My main concern is Scaramanga's characterisation, so as long as his personality's along the lines of what I've described I'll be relatively happy. I don't mind, for instance, having the monopoly on a natural resource or a human trafficking ring as the evil plot to vanquish, though it has to be something Scaramanga can realistically be involved/interested in, whether he starts out as a secret agent or a gun-for-hire. In a way something like the Solex (but not actually that) would work quite well, a once-off opportunity that he stumbles upon that could net him millions.

Still, I like the idea of being wrong-footed as to who the villain is, so if we can get that in there somewhere that would be great. And I definitely feel that if we start the film with a brainwashed Bond we have to address that somewhere along the line, at the very least in a subplot. Not just in characterisation either (other peoples' lack of trust in him, his own uncertainties, headaches, delusions, etc) but also in narrative (Scaramanga using Bond as a scapegoat, the people behind the brainwashing revealed). Bond trying to kill M would be the most shocking PTS ever done - that has to carry through to the rest of the film. Otherwise it would be like doing DAF after OHMSS and not having it be about Tracy's death. Hmmm...

Oh, and I always found the idea of Scaramanga taking Bond on as a bodyguard utterly unconvincing. I tried to include the 'feeling' of it a bit in my idea of them teaming up for a mission initially - it equally does the trick of giving them scenes together before going all-out to kill each other, while discarding the problem of Scaramanga trusting a guy he's only barely met.

[coco1997]

Perhaps you could tackle writing the treatment, Sam? You seem to have a very clear vision of where you want to take the story.

[SamuelKevlar]

I'm flattered, really.

But these things are collaborative and I don't think we've yet had enough input from others to start properly structuring the tale (besides the bare-bones version you did a few posts back, for which my thanks). Besides, my ideas for TMWTGG are chiefly character-based. I mostly came out of retirement for that character, because I've always had ideas on how to 'fix' him.

Add to that the issue of time - I have my own treatments to write.

[coco1997]

Hopefully we can get some input from tdalton and dino and see what direction we should take next.

[Mr. Blofeld]

I want Scaramanga to have a "beard"; make it a little more obvious than in LTK, you know?

[SamuelKevlar]

I could see him being flanked in public by both Andrea Alvarez (Eva Mendes) and Julio Valdez (Diego Luna) - it's only in private that we see who he really fancies.

[coco1997]

It appears as though we've run out of people to write these treatments...

[SamuelKevlar]

It does appear that this thread is dead in the water.

[Captain Tightpants]

Well, the reason why I lost interest was because I didn't like the idea of updating what had gone before. It was very difficult to stay fresh when we had to stick to the basic structure of the original film. The best I could do was come up with new sequences to add onto what had gone before, like when coco once asked me what I thought would happen in LICENCE TO KILL if Bond had actually left Florida for Istanbul before he learned of Sanchez's attack on Felix Leiter. It gave rise to a subplot where Bond got help from the KGB in getting revenge on Leiter by agreeing to eliminate a source of cocaine in the Colombian mountains in exchange for information on where Sanchez's cocoa fields were. This was also tied into the role of the Hong Kong narcotics detectives infiltrating Sanchez's operations by giving them a much bigger part to play in the story (they were trying to orchestrate a deal between Chinese triads in Hong Kong and Sanchez's rivals - the one Bond took out - and then taking out the whole lot in one fell swoop, giving them control over a fair share of the south-east Asian drug market). It also had an actual background for Dario. The idea was to show just how far over the edge Bond had gone by giving his actions actual consequences, and global ones at that. Of course, if it had been made as I was seeing it, the film would have gone for about twice as long as it actually did.

I also did one for THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS ... but that would have gone for about six hours.

[coco1997]

Well since the well seems to have run dry, can we at least try to finish up YOLT? Dino, what did you have in mind?