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Quentin Tarantino tells us what Casino Royale could have been


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#1 ckc1ne

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Posted 03 February 2016 - 11:47 PM

Hello all,

Recently I got to chat with Quentin Tarantino about The Hateful Eight and managed to broach the subject of Casino Royale. I was hoping to find out a little more about the larger "pitch process" and how far along he was but he was surprisingly open about his approach to it.

As usual any comments or thoughts appreciated:


Veering slightly from Hateful, is there any chance you could tell us a little bit about your experience with Quentin Tarantino's version of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale?

Quentin Tarantino: Well you know, if I could have done it in the way I truly wanted to do it. I was open to do it in two different ways, because I really likes Pierce Brosnan. I though he did a really good job I didn't think any of the movies were that great, but I though he was a really good James Bond. 

So it wouldn't have had all the action scenes that the James Bond movies keep fitting in and the action scenes that would have been there would have been directed by me not a series of other guys you hire, I'm not talking about Sam Mendes - he does his own action scenes. 

 

 

 Full post here... http://www.theestablishingshot.com/2016/01/i-chat-with-quentin-tarantino-about-his.html


Edited by ckc1ne, 03 February 2016 - 11:47 PM.


#2 SecretAgentFan

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Posted 04 February 2016 - 07:11 AM

It would have been much closer to the novel and it would have been darker and you know he kills the girl at the end, I would have had him kill Vespa at the end, which was a big thing and it would have ended with the last line of the book when he calls M and says 'The bitch is dead'. 

 

Bond kills Vesper in the novel?  Must have read a different version...



#3 Jim

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Posted 04 February 2016 - 07:13 AM

Oh dear.

 

Bless.



#4 graric

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Posted 04 February 2016 - 08:22 AM

It would have been much closer to the novel and it would have been darker and you know he kills the girl at the end, I would have had him kill Vespa at the end, which was a big thing and it would have ended with the last line of the book when he calls M and says 'The bitch is dead'. 

 

Bond kills Vesper in the novel?  Must have read a different version...

Yeah it makes me wonder when was the last time Tarantino actually red the novel- as the movie he talks about making sound more like someones vague memories of the novel they read 30 years ago, rather than what the novel actually is.

(I.e. talking about making the film darker than the Craig version, when I'd say the Craig film had the right sort of tone for the material. Especially as the novel isn't all that dark- barring a couple of key scenes- so it seems like Tarantino memories of the torture scene/ his belief that Bond killed Vesper in the novel etc, has led to him having memories of a much darker work than the novel actually was.)

(I've heard talk in the past about how his version would have Bond doing narration, been shot in black and white, starred Uma Thurman as Vesper, used the 60's setting to be a sequel to OHMSS and several other rumours that made me think his version of CR wouldn't have been as close to Fleming's original story as he would claim)



#5 Dustin

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Posted 04 February 2016 - 08:53 AM

If memory serves Tarantino also had his sights on Len Deighton's Bernard Samson, which strikes me just as odd. Though he may have mixed that with the Matt Helm series he supposedly also wants to take to the big screen. And perhaps Modesty Blaise too.

Actually it's become a bit difficult to find something in genre fiction Tarantino wasn't interested in at some point. Personally I'm happy this went past Bond...

#6 glidrose

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Posted 04 February 2016 - 06:34 PM

So it wouldn't have had all the action scenes that the James Bond movies keep fitting in and the action scenes that would have been there would have been directed by me not a series of other guys you hire, I'm not talking about Sam Mendes - he does his own action scenes.


Sam Mendes does his own action scenes? Quick, somebody tell Alexander Witt.

 

If memory serves Tarantino also had his sights on Len Deighton's Bernard Samson, which strikes me just as odd. Though he may have mixed that with the Matt Helm series he supposedly also wants to take to the big screen. And perhaps Modesty Blaise too.


Yes, QT wanted to adapt Deighton's Game, Set & Match trilogy, tho' it appears he lucked out on that too.

http://blogs.indiewi...tackle-20130412


Speaking of Len Deighton, turns out the recently deceased "Lemmy" from Motörhead was a big Deighton fan.

"Motörhead's first war cry is one of their greatest salvos. "Bomber" sounds like the deadly airplane it celebrates: a megaton blast of gritty distortion, squelching yowls and loose shrapnel riffage. "We shoot to kill, and you know we always will," Lemmy sings like a threat and a brag at the same time. The group anted up the war imagery on tour by bringing a 30-foot wide lighting rig that resembled a World War II plane with them. "I was reading Len Deighton's book Bomber at the time I wrote it," Lemmy told Rolling Stone this year. "It's about a bombing raid on Germany when the British hit the wrong town, and it's what goes on the floor in the air from both sides. It's a really good book."

http://www.rollingst...-songs-20151229

Apparently Lemmy even dedicated that particular album to Len Deighton.

"On the topic of authors and books, Lemmy's favourites include Michael Moorcock, Philip K. Dick ("he's great!"), J. G. Ballard, and Len Deighton. He has a soft spot for Len Deighton's two Bernard Sampson trilogies (Berlin Game, Mexico Set, London Match, continued with Spy Hook, Spy Line, and Spy Sinker), which Lemmy thinks is an amazing piece of work" since they all "fit together as one." Lemmy also reads a lot of documentaries concerning the topic of war, particularly World War I and II. Why about war? "Because it's the most popular pastime in the world. Everybody seems to be doing it. I like the big ones because it shows man at his worst.""

http://www.ram.org/m...yinterview.html

#7 Dustin

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Posted 04 February 2016 - 07:59 PM

Thanks for small favours as far as Tarantino is concerned...

I already heard that Lemmy was inspired by Deighton's Bomber - for some reason seldom mentioned nowadays, sadly - when he wrote the song, though I can't really remember where. May even have been way back when Motörhead was still relatively new and people actually remembered Lemmy playing with Hawkwind and Moorcock hanging out with the band.

#8 Odd Jobbies

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Posted 06 February 2016 - 01:12 PM

Just to play devils advocate here... Tarantino has a very informal approach to interviews and so i could possibly interpret this passage slightly differently:

 

"...and you know he kills the girl at the end, I would have had him kill Vespa at the end "

 

Could QT actually be saying that  he  would have chosen to have Bond kill Vesper at the end?  As in:

 

"...and,  you know,  he kills the girl at the end."

 

To clarify - it could be a Tarantino conversational way of saying "...and, you know [what i would do differently], he kills the girl at the end."

 

It may seem a stretch, but having watched my fair share of QT interviews over the years, i've often seen him abbreviate in this manner. Either way, whatever one thinks of his movies it's surely hard to disagree that his scripts are particularly exceptional. A man that writes so well, winning Oscars for his scripts, surely needs to be given some benefit of the doubt when it comes to his comprehension of the written word. So i'm going with my theory that he didn't misinterpret Fleming's ending (or forget), but intended to adapt it  :)

 

Perhaps he'd have a point - in this day and age would the intended harshness of that final line seem as harsh - perhaps QT felt that to get Fleming's point across - of Bond's transformation from idealist to realist - his end of innocence and the beginning of his bloodlust -  to a modern highly desensitised audience the point has to be underlined by being the action of Bond killing Vesper, rather than just the words alone. That would be turning words into actions which is exactly what good cinema, such as The Artist (2011), or Mad Max: Fury Road is about, after all.

 

For the record, personally i prefer Vesper's suicide; if Bond kills Vesper, then the final 'The bitch is dead' line loses it's shock value and becomes redundant. It would play as deadpan, more befitting Philip Marlowe than Casino Royale's James Bond. But i can see the cinematic-grammatical logic to QT's alternative.

 

As for his notion to end the movie with the book's final line! Well i've bored you all far too many times already with my opinion that as nice as the 'Bond, James Bond' ending of Eon's CR was, i would've preferred to see it end Fleming's way, rather than throwing the line away as they did. It seemed as though Eon were afraid that the line's intentional harshness would alienate the audience, but were also afraid that to leave it out altogether might alienate (some of) the fans. So it's fudged midway into an expositional conversation - barely noticeable... So IMO kudos to QT for recognising the importance and power of Bond murdering Vesper's memory with Fleming's closing line of CR.



#9 SecretAgentFan

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Posted 06 February 2016 - 05:33 PM

IMO, everything Tarantino wanted to do with CR would have resulted in maybe an interesting Tarantino film - but in a desaster for the Bond film series.

 

So, thank you, EON for not going down that route.  So far.



#10 glidrose

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Posted 06 February 2016 - 08:06 PM

Just to play devils advocate here... Tarantino has a very informal approach to interviews and so i could possibly interpret this passage slightly differently:
 
"...and you know he kills the girl at the end, I would have had him kill Vespa at the end "
 
Could QT actually be saying that  he  would have chosen to have Bond kill Vesper at the end?  As in:
 
"...and,  you know,  he kills the girl at the end."
 
To clarify - it could be a Tarantino conversational way of saying "...and, you know [what i would do differently], he kills the girl at the end."
 
It may seem a stretch,


No, in fact I think you're right.

#11 Professor Pi

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Posted 07 February 2016 - 12:49 AM

It would have been much closer to the novel and it would have been darker and you know he kills the girl at the end, I would have had him kill Vespa at the end, which was a big thing and it would have ended with the last line of the book when he calls M and says 'The bitch is dead'. 

 

Bond kills Vesper in the novel?  Must have read a different version...

 

He read the version where Bond kills the girl at the end and says, "I never miss."



#12 AMC Hornet

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Posted 07 February 2016 - 03:23 PM

There are several writer/directors I don't want near a Bond film.

 

Tarantino is most of them.



#13 trevanian

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Posted 07 February 2016 - 05:13 PM

The way QT talks, it is easy for me to think this Bond kills Vesper thing is not quite as intended. He clearly knows Fleming, and even before his interest in CR was expressed I had imagined him doing a Bond film, and I still wish things had gone differently for all Bond this century, which is for me pretty much an unmitigated disaster (haven't loved a Bond film since Dalton.)

 

This is definitely the piece of alternate history I most wish had come to pass (outside of the phony Orson Welles MOONRAKER thing with Dirk Bogarde, that is.) Right up there with Eric Braeden playing Bond for two or three decades starting with OHMSS (nobody has ever suggested it officially, I just always think it would have been grand.)



#14 Dustin

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Posted 07 February 2016 - 05:31 PM

Well, shoot me - I really had to google this Braeden guy. I don't even think he's ever been suggested before, officially or otherwise...

#15 trevanian

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Posted 07 February 2016 - 07:56 PM

He did one of the very first M:I episodes, back when he was called Hans Gudagast, and was superb. If you see him in ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES it shows how he can look very good while running in a suit with gun in hand, and he looks perfect in COLOSSUS THE FORBIN PROJECT as well. But the guy aged amazingly well, and I could see him in the role for a couple decades after that.



#16 Mr. Arlington Beech

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Posted 07 February 2016 - 10:40 PM

But Eric Braeden is german, not from the commonwealth, so I'm glad he wasn't picked for Bond.

#17 trevanian

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Posted 08 February 2016 - 01:21 PM

When I was a little kid, I thought Connery was German or Russian or Eastern European from his appearance. He, Braeden and Dalton all for me fit the 'something unBritish about Bond' descrip that is either in early Fleming or the Pearson book.



#18 Dustin

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Posted 08 February 2016 - 03:29 PM

Both, if memory serves. We know of the old Eon dictum to give the role to either a Briton or someone from the Commonwealth; it's by now one of the commandments of the series, set in stone and not to be messed with. Interestingly, we also know of various occasions when the role was offered very timidly to Americans. And the addition of the Commonwealth came of course as a courtesy once Eon had set its sights on candidates from these shores. At closer look it seems even stone is a remarkably flexible medium - if you just wait long enough. Right now Michael Fassbender is a favourite of some fans to replace Craig - a German-Irish actor. I cannot claim to remember Braeden from anything off the top of my hat. But in 1969 after Connery quit - why ever not? He seems to have had more experience than Lazenby at that point. And given his résumé it seems likely he wouldn't have given Eon the tough time Lazenby did. In all likelihood he would have signed this several films deal and not have argued a lot. It may be an obscure choice, but in the end it's not much more unlikely than Connery coming back to the role twice.

#19 glidrose

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Posted 08 February 2016 - 06:52 PM

When I was a little kid, I thought Connery was German or Russian or Eastern European from his appearance. He, Braeden and Dalton all for me fit the 'something unBritish about Bond' descrip that is either in early Fleming or the Pearson book.


Dalton is part American - his mother is supposedly Italian-American - so yes, there is something curiously un-British about him.

#20 S K Y F A L L

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Posted 10 February 2016 - 04:16 AM

CR by QT 

 

Chapter 1 - Why chapter titles are good for every film

 

Chapter 2 - Set Brosnan's 5th Bond film in the 50s* for continuity?...

 

Chapter 3 - Tim Roth

 

Chapter 4 - Samuel L. Jackson as Felix Lieter, "I'm all in, Mother F@%#3&."

 

Chapter 5 - QT as a henchman that kills you with his unbearable cameos



#21 sharpshooter

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Posted 10 February 2016 - 06:17 AM

Tarantino is my favourite director, and I think The Hateful Eight is a great movie. But I'd rather he tackle the spy genre with his own characters and script. 



#22 Professor Pi

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Posted 11 February 2016 - 02:04 AM

While I respect Tarantino as a filmmaker, I can't usually watch his films more than once.  I'd hate to see a Bond film only once.



#23 plankattack

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Posted 12 February 2016 - 05:24 PM

The Attack is going to throw his Plank down and declare "I am outlier!"

 

I'm a great admirer of QT, but in a strange way I'm a greater admire of his work than the individual films themselves (different conversation, that). Should he be let anywhere near a Bond? Mmmmmm, probably not, but I don't say that with the same decisiveness as everyone else. Rather I'm all for the series taking some chances, and going with a director who writes his own stuff would be new ground for EON, that's for sure. After 50 years, doing new things isn't going to kill the golden goose - I'd offer that just continuing to retread the same old same old will slowly kill the franchise in the way that it nearly has a couple of times.

 

So something different, someone a little out of left-field, like Mr Tarentino? Doesn't bother me at all. And as for QT himself - well, his whole career is an homage, a love-letter, to a number of different fields/styles, from war movies to spaghetti westerns. Anyone who clearly loves cinema like QT, who has talked about Bond, knows what has gone before and so I'm not convinced that we'd end up with something so radical or heretical to the series.

 

Like a rock band doing covers, QT is drawn to what he loves. I suspect that there is some affection for what has existed so no, the idea, while it will never happen, doesn't offend me as much it might some. 



#24 Tarl_Cabot

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Posted 12 February 2016 - 06:36 PM

Maybe QT should go ahead and just make his version as a fan film starring Jamie Fox and Samuel L Jackson.



#25 S K Y F A L L

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Posted 12 February 2016 - 09:25 PM

sharpshooter I agree with you. QT makes QT films and wouldn't fit in the Bond universe IMO. You wouldn't ask Wes Anderson to do a Bond film.



#26 Surrie

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Posted 03 March 2016 - 03:56 PM

Tarantino is also my favourite director. I love the dialogue he uses to characterise throughout his movies, and I love his stories (the one's he didn't direct) 'Natural Born Killers', 'True Romance' etc. but he and Bond could not work together. QT see's the world very differently, and the Bond canon is an already established world in it's own right. 



#27 Thevan7F

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Posted 04 March 2016 - 08:27 AM

Well I don't what Quentin Tarantino say his version is. It never be Eon & he'll make mess with Pierce Bronsan. I'm glad 10 years ago how work out with Daniel Craig.