48 replies to this topic

[booyeah_]

Just so you don't feel left out Loomis, I've taken the liberty of making a Col. Sun poster.


As fire meets ice, so does James Bond and Colonel Sun.

Attached Files

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[Loomis]

Just so you don't feel left out Loomis, I've taken the liberty of making a Col. Sun poster.

Wow, and to my exact specifications too!

Very, very nice work indeed, booyeah_.

[GreggAllinson]

Theme Song - The Smiths

That would be absolutely astonishing...considering they broke up in '87.

Besides, the Smiths doing a Bond theme? I mean, don't get me wrong, they're my favourite band of all time, but I couldn't think of a bigger mismatch than a sauve, sophisticated superspy and the tortured poetry of Morrissey.

Edited by GreggAllinson, 04 March 2004 - 06:30 PM.

[Loomis]

I couldn't think of a bigger mismatch than a sauve, sophisticated superspy and the tortured poetry of Morrissey.

Agreed. However, Electronic (Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr's collaboration with New Order's Bernard Sumner) would have done a terrific Bond song, IMO - listen, for instance, to 1989's "Getting Away With It" or 1991's "Get the Message", and you'll know where I'm coming from.

[ACE]

[quote name='Loomis' post='207998' date='15 January 2004 - 18:01']
I've posted this twice before on other threads, but I thought I might as well resurrect it, since it fits the topic. I tried to imagine what COLONEL SUN might have been like if it had been released in 1991, starring Dalton:

COLONEL SUN (1991)
Directed by John Frankenheimer. (Snap, 007luvchild2! )

Produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. Written by Michael G. Wilson and Bruce Fierstein. Director of Photography: Jost Vacano. Music by Basil Poledouris. Production Designer: Peter Lamont. Editor: Stuart Baird.

Starring:
Timothy Dalton as James Bond
Anne Parillaud as Ariadne Alexandrou
John Lone as Colonel Sun Liangtan
Joan Chen as Jenny Li
J

[4 Ur Eyez Only]

I think Timothy would have kept the 3rd Movie of a bond being the best rule going

You know they would have moved his movies away from the summer, like they have after LTK.

Timothy would have been great!

[Quantumofsolace007]

[quote name='Loomis' post='207998' date='15 January 2004 - 13:01']I've posted this twice before on other threads, but I thought I might as well resurrect it, since it fits the topic. I tried to imagine what COLONEL SUN might have been like if it had been released in 1991, starring Dalton:

COLONEL SUN (1991)
Directed by John Frankenheimer. (Snap, 007luvchild2! )

Produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. Written by Michael G. Wilson and Bruce Fierstein. Director of Photography: Jost Vacano. Music by Basil Poledouris. Production Designer: Peter Lamont. Editor: Stuart Baird.

Starring:
Timothy Dalton as James Bond
Anne Parillaud as Ariadne Alexandrou
John Lone as Colonel Sun Liangtan
Joan Chen as Jenny Li
J

[quantumofsolace]

I like Dalton but he would never have been popular because he did not have the lightness required.

[darkpath]

Wow! I can't begin to tell you how much i would have loved to have seen this treatment come to life, especially with the casting you came up with and in the timeframe you depicted, Loomis. I would have loved to have seen the onscreen chemistry between Timothy Dalton and Anne Parillaud (a favourite of mine ever since Nikita). That it didn't come to pass is one of the great tragedies of Bond fandom. We are all poorer for this not having been made.

[The Breeze]

You stole my idea for the music for Brokenclaw..music by U2.

James is Timothy..no doubt..

Brokenclaw..is Gene Simmons of Kiss

I really liked that book..

John Glen director

I can't remember the rest of the cast..darn it..its been 8 or more yrs since i read it!

[RazorBlade]

You know, I really love this idea. "onscreen chemistry between Timothy Dalton and Anne Parillaud" Yes! Too bad we missed it.

[Agent 76]

You know, I really love this idea. "onscreen chemistry between Timothy Dalton and Anne Parillaud" Yes! Too bad we missed it.

well said.

[Mr. Blofeld]

Oh, what could have been:

[Agent 76]

This video gives a good idea, of a Casino Royale trailer with Timothy Dalton.

http://uk.youtube.co...h?v=nB_I_aNbYdE

[O.H.M.S.S.]

ALBERT R. BROCCOLI presents
TIMOTHY DALTON
as IAN FLEMING'S JAMES BOND 007 in
"THE PROPERTY OF A LADY"
Starring ANTHONY HOPKINS MARY ELIZABETH MASTRANTONIO ALAIN DELON CIARAN HINDS TALIA SHIRE EDWARD FOX and GEORGE LAZENBY as 'M'
Music by ERIC SERRA Director of photography VITTORIO STORARO
Production design by PETER LAMONT Screenplay by JOHN LE CARRE
Produced by ALBERT R. BROCCOLI and MICHAEL G. WILSON
Directed by JOHN BOORMAN

[ACE]

I painstakingly selotaped together this shredded document from MGM's archive revealing an unused pitch and marketing concept*.


MEMO:
From: W Osbourne, W Davies
To: ARB, MGW, J McKenzie, G Paretti
Date: 08.08.90
EYES ONLY

The following is based on the two unfilmed Fleming short stories from FYEO, The Hildebrand Rarity and Quantum of Solace stitching together as many unused Eon ideas from that time. The names and sequence-in-a-skyscraper idea and oriental setting all came from the end of the MGW & Alfonse Ruggerio Bond 17 Treatment (as do the names WEBB, KOHONI, CRISP & YUPLAND) as well as the plot revolving around a stolen piece of technology. The ending was set in a vast automated building - a Die Hard vibe for the PTS. Also casting suggestions and ideas for Bond 16 (ultimately junked for what became LTK). In 1987-88 Broccoli and co. all went to China to set up Bond 16. The story was going to revolve around the Snow Leopard Brotherhood from the previous film and feature Chinese art treasures, the terracotta army, a motorbike chase on the Great Wall and other stuff. This was around the time of The Last Emperor and all things Chinese were in. The infrastructure was not suitable for Eon and also those Communists wanted to vet the script. After Tiananmen Sq, the authorities would want a PR push and what better than a Bond film to deal with East West tensions and advertise the studio facilities of the Chinese. THR is be made in China with their facilities enabling vital budget savings to be made! We keep to the old Eon way of casting models for the females and lesser stars for the villains. After the relative BO disappointment of LTK, TDalton must be talked to about publicity. TD should "perform" the title song, guest hosting Johnny Carson the week of US release (July 1991) and have a homes and lovelife spread in People Magazine. TD must also close advertising deals with Lark cigarettes, the new Ford and American Express as well as Diet Pepsi. THR also touches on recent events including the fall of Communism, Tiananmen Square, the shift to economic espionage, closer European integration, eco-terrorism and the notion of The End of History coined by Francis Fukuyama.

1987 - The Living Daylights
1989 - Licence to Kill
1991 - THE HILDEBRAND RARITY

Starring
James Bond : Timothy Dalton
Etienne Harvey Miller: Powers Booth
Rhodia Masters: Liz Hurley
Fidelle Barbey : Naomi Campbell
Xan Kohoni : John Lone
Connie Webb : Cindy Crawford
Prof. Denholm Crisp : Ian Holm
Felix Leiter : David Hedison
M: Robert Brown
Q: Desmond Llewelyn
Moneypenny: Caroline Bliss
Minister of Defence: Geoffrey Keen
David Yupland: Hugh Laurie

Directed by John McKenzie

Locations: Brussels - Belgium, London - UK, Beijing, the Yangste, Great Wall and various locations in China

Plot:

PTS - A skyscraper overlooking the Forbidden City, BEIJING, CHINA.
Ostensibly attending a champagne auction in the skyscraper hosted by Hong Kong Chinese billionaire, XAN KOHONI, we find Bond flirting with beautiful insurance expert CONNIE WEBB but is really there to protect a revolutionary piece of nano-technology called THE END OF HISTORY which to be handed to SIS under the guise of KOHONI's trade mission. However, in a daring abseil assault on the building by Chinese terrorists, the chip is stolen. Bonds ends swinging from one end of the skyscraper to the other in a dinner jacket with WEBB in his arms drinking vintage champagne before abseiling down them, catching a base jumping terrorist on the way and apprehending him and rescuing the chip.

MAIN TITLE
A Chinese themed title sequence featuring new footage of Dalton to be designed by Maurice Binder (taking his cue from his titles for Bertollucci's The Last Emperor. MB is ill and so we must have LTK pop video director, Daniel Kleiman waiting in the wings on standby). A Bondian, atmospheric, instrumental theme tune called "T.H.R." (featuring Dalton's line reading "The Hildebrand Rarity" sampled throughout and chants of T. H. R.) has been received from ambient dance act, The Shamen. (If the song is later nominated for an Oscar, during The Shamen's performance at the televised ceremony, TD should appear live on stage, saying the line. TD will be distinguished by being the only Bond actor to "perform" the film's title track!

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
French Canadian gas billionaire and industrialist and rabid capitalist ETIENNE HARVEY MILLER (from QOS short story) addresses a Brussels conference of Euro movers and shakers. Suggesting that, with the demise of the Cold War, the Pacific Rim industries threaten European interests, he suggest a trade embargo. At a party in the Atonium to celebrate securing a new NATO contract, Miller and his wife, RHODIA (changed slightly from Quantum of Solace story)is introduced by the Minister of Defence, Sir Frederick Gray to Bond and Felix Leiter (on secondment to NATO HQ). Bond also meets the Seychellois business advisor to Miller, FIDELLE BARBEY (changed to a female from THR short story). The party is crashed by more Chinese terrorists who attempt to kidnap MILLER. Foiled by Leiter (he is sprayed with machine gunfire in his artifical arm and leg), they kidnap BARBEY. A gun battle ensues in the tubular structure of the Atonium. The terrorists then escape but are foiled and Barbey rescued after a high speed car chase through the streets with Bond employing the full arsenal of his gadget laden Aston Martin Volante.

LONDON, UK
In London, M with his new young advisor, David Yupland, Q and the Minister of Defence go through Bond's adventures. THE END OF HISTORY is a top secret technology programme developed in HK by KOHONI and the British. TEOH is the doomsday weapon in military electronic counter measures - a super virus that, if properly positioned, wipes out a nation's computer networks. It seems the Chinese government were involved in the attempted theft. Constantly warned about the imminent Chinese threat by MILLER, the attempt to disrupt the life of the great industrialist is a clear sign of the threat the Chinese pose in the new world order. With the restoration of Hong Kong imminent, Chinese expansion must be held in check.

In gratitude to Bond, MILLER now has invited Bond on a conservation cruise up the Yangtse River to search for the famous fish, The Hilderbrand Rarity and which is then to be bred in captivity. The trip also doubles as a factfinding tour for MILLER in an attempt to downplay diplomatic tensions. Bond is ordered to accompany MILLER to protect him from further attack. Moneypenny wishes Bond well in fluent Mandarin - "Well, you did learn the language at Cambridge!" she adds. "Moneypenny, I didn't know you had such a learned tongue." "Oh James, in all sorts of ways!"

CHINA
The cruise up the Yangste finds Bond with MILLER, his wife RHODIA and FIDELLE and expert naturalist, PROF DENHOLM CRISP. Bond snoops around and sees that there is an unlikely connection between KOHONI and MILLER, in theory, rivals. BARBEY tells Bond of front companies where both are partners. While on the river, an attack by Chinese pirates on the luxury boat is foiled by Bond. However, evidence of this attack connects the 'pirates' with the 2 previous Chinese terror attacks. This is played out in between the search for the rare yet poisonous fish and Rhondia revealing how she met MILLER and lives in a gilded cage but loveless married life (i.e. the Quantum of Solace story recounted like the Fleming Octopussy story in that film). At a certain point, Bond is nearly killed by the poison used to find THR. When found, MILLER reveals it's scales have rare semi-conducting powers useful for nano-technology and exploited by PROFESSOR CRISP. MILLER and co. have no intention of conserving the fish - they want to dissect it to discover it's properties. That night, after a blood curdling scream, FIDELLE is found dead with the fish shoved down her throat.

Bond confronts MILLER. Who reveals he is in league with KOHONI who has a private army equipped with Chinese weapons. They had attempted to steal The End of History weapon in Beijing so that KOHONI was unconnected to it�s use and also discredit the Chinese. However, they were foiled by Bond. The staged "attacks" were to increase tensions and discredit the Chinese. MILLER and KOHONI are going to attack the Chinese networks, crippling their economy and military strength and ending communism there too: MILLER stops the Pacific Rim threat to western industries, KOHONI weakens China preventing the HK takeover. Bond reasons that to destabilize a billion people with nuclear weapons will cause a power vacuum and will lead to Eastern revolution which will engulf the west. The
End Of History, indeed.

007 is taken prisoner in the area where the terracotta army is but rescued by RHODIA. After a series of chases including a shoot up in the terracotta army museum and a motorbike chase on the Great Wall of China, Bond and Rhodia are captured but not before alerting the Chinese army. Taken to a gigantic concrete and steel dam (the ultimate destination of the cruise), a power hub for China which also houses the Chinese military industrial mainframe which, upon a countdown initiated, total electronic devestation of China will occur courtesy of The End of History weapon. Bond and Rhodia escape and with the help of the Chinese army defeat MILLER and KOHONI and his private army in a gigantic battle ending in the dam splitting open and flooding.

THE END OF THE HILDEBRAND RARITY

BUT

JAMES BOND WILL RETURN



* of course, this is utter nonsense!

[DamnCoffee]

Wow Ace! That's Ace!

[Tybre]

Well since I was looking in the forum earlier and Mharkin's post drew my attention it, I just couldn't resist. Enjoy the random insanity my brain has cooked up.

-------

THE FACTS OF DEATH
Released 8 November 1992
Starring Timothy Dalton as Ian Fleming's James Bond 007, Robert Brown as M, Caroline Bliss as Miss Moneypenny, Damian Lewis as Bill Tanner, Jude Law as Agent 008, Gary Oldman as David Shaw, Robert Downey Jr as Felix Leiter, Liam Neeson as Sebastian Riesco, Demian Bichir as Ciro Bergnes. Directed by John Glen. Produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli. Written by Michael G. Wilson, Richard Maibum, Alfonse M. Ruggiero Jr. Music composed by John Barry. Main title, "The Facts of Death", by U2.

In the aftermath of Licence to Kill, Bond decides to retire from Her Majesty's Secret Service. But when an expert hitman in the employ of Fidel Castro kills Felix Leiter, Bond is sucked back into the intelligence world; not for vengeance, but to finish the job Felix started.

Spoiler

The movie does not open with a gunbarrel, instead opening on a small bar. It is late at night. Through the window we can see it is quite clearly somewhere in a tropical climate. Sitting at the far side of the counter is Felix Leiter. Since recovering from his injuries in the last film, Leiter now has a mechanical leg and his shooting arm is too badly damaged to be used again, forcing him to use his other arm, severely lessening his accuracy. The bar is largely empty and kept lit only by a dying fire in the west end of the room. The barman nervously backs away as we hear the door open. A very large man, a good 6'4" at least, with red hair and a red pencil moustache enters and takes a seat near the center of the counter. The man orders the same brand of beer Leiter is drinking. Leiter silently reaches into his coat and pulls out a Smith & Wesson .44 magnum, aiming it at the man. The tall man taunts Leiter, calling his gun "a woman's pistol" and draws his own gun, a custom-made .50 calibre revolver with an ivory hilt. The camera shifts in POV as the man shoots and kills Leiter, making this our gunbarrel.

After the title sequence, we iris in on a street near Regent's Park, in front of a somewhat old-fashioned looking yet very upscale condominium. Standing nearer to the building to the right of this is M, his Rolls parked just in front of him. James Bond walks into view from the left and ignores M, heading straight for the door. M offers him his old job back and Bond pauses he swings the door to the building open, saying, 'I'm just a civilian now.' M responds by saying, 'I thought civilians weren't allowed to carry handguns.' Bond steps out of the doorway and stares at his old boss. M simply says 'It involves that American friend of yours, Felix Leiter' and ushers Bond towards the Rolls. Bill Tanner is waiting in the back seat of the Rolls with a brown file folder that is carefully sealed and has a red star in the top right corner. M takes the file and uses a letter opener to break the seal. M questions Bond if he is familiar with Sebastian Riesco; Bond is not. M runs him over the basics of the file. M explains they believe Felix is dead as the three men climb out of the car in front of the Universal Exports building. Bond, rather than taking the chance to seek revenge, tells M, 'Why don't you get 008 to it?' M responds by saying 008 is busy on a job in Finland. Bond begrudgingly agrees to hear more and follows M into the building, with Tanner bringing up the rear.

We cut to a very pastel-colored, mostly empty office. The open windows display a tropical climate as well. Seated behind the desk is a tall man in an olive drab uniform with an olive beret on his head and a thick beard. The door to the office opens and the hitman enters the room. The two men say something very briefly in Spanish; the hitman seems bored, the bearded man seems tense and frightened. The hitman folds up a piece of paper, tucks it in his pocket, and leaves the room.

At JFK International, Bond is greeted at the terminal gate by David Shaw, a man in drab colored clothes with a Stalin-cut moustache. Shaw and Bond discuss Felix's career with Shaw's detective agency. Shaw explains he was a former CIA agent himself and that Felix's job was meant as a sort of rest cure and training, with plans for Felix to return to the CIA within the next five years. The two men reach Shaw's car, a vintage Ford Victoria from the 1950s, and drive away. The two continue to discuss Felix and the job in Haiti for a short while. As the Victoria pulls up to the hotel where Bond will be staying, the camera situates itself inside a car parked across the street. A man in the passenger seat snaps pictures of Bond and Shaw entering the hotel using a camera disguised in his cufflinks. Shaw bids Bond farewell after Bond receives his room key and leaves the building. We cut to outside as Bond enters the elevator. As Shaw is climbing into his car a man sneaks up behind him and suffocates him. He grabs the limp Shaw and throws him into the trunk of his own car. He takes Shaw's keys out of his pocket and drives away in the Victoria, the car parked across the street following.

The first thing Bond does after entering his hotel room is order breakfast from room service. He pours himself a drink from the bar in his suite and stands in front of the window, drinking idly. There is a knock at the door after a brief while and Bond notes that it is too early to be room service. He opens the door to find a hotel employee with a small brown cardboard box. The man explains it was a delivery addressed specifically to this room to be delivered as soon as the occupant of the room arrived. Bond takes the package and sets it on the counter beside the door, unsure of what to expect. He leaves his glass beside the package and starts for the bedroom to place a call to M. He is nearly to the door when the package explodes suddenly, damaging the area around the door, leaving some scorch marks, and shattering the glass. Bond's room, fortunately, is large enough that he was outside of blast range. Bond calls Moneypenny and tells her to relay what happened to M. He then goes over to the place where the parcel had been and finds two small pieces of paper, slightly scorched. He cleans away some of the filth and looks at the first piece of paper, a note which appears to be written in blood, saying 'From a friend' in Spanish. The second piece of paper is actually a photograph of Felix, lying on the floor of the bar in a pool of his own blood. Bond burns both of these using the cigarette lighter given to him by Della and Felix.

The Victoria pulls into a parking lot somewhere and the man who attacked Shaw slaps him forcefully across the face a few times until Shaw wakes up. Shaw tries to resist, but the man wrestles him down and says if he does not behave he will be killed. Shaw surrenders, though not entirely, and agrees to follow the man and his two associates. They lead Shaw into a train station and board a train that runs along the East Coast, its final stop being not far outside of Miami. In their compartment Shaw reveals these men are members of the drug-running outfit; the same one Felix had been assigned to follow in Haiti. The men respond by telling Shaw that he has interfered with their business for too long and that the boss "just wants to talk" to him. Shaw reaches nervously for his gun, but two of the three men train their own guns on Shaw before he can do anything.

Back in Bond's room, he hangs up the phone, unable to get an answer on Shaw's line. He decides to take to the streets to find out where the hell Shaw went running off to. At Shaw's office building, he finds no sign of the Victoria and hurries inside cautiously, brandishing his Walther PPK. After checking some other rooms, he enters Shaw's office and, finding nothing, shuts the door behind. Bond begins rooting through files to see if any continue clues as to where Shaw went running off to. The door to the office suddenly flies open and we see a tall, skinny man enter, holding a silenced pistol, but only from behind. Bond dives behind the desk as the man opens fire.

Back on the train, one of the men leaves the room. He is attacked in the corridor by the hitman and his corpse is dragged into a janitor's closet. In the compartment, the man who choked Shaw gets up to see what's taking so long and suddenly staggers backward, bleeding, having been stuck atop the head by the butt of the hitman's pistol. The hitman locks the door behind him and stomps on the fallen man's windpipe while keeping his gun trained on Shaw.

In Shaw's office, Bond fires twice on the attacker; the first shot knocks the gun out of his hand, the second wounds him in the knee. The man rushes Bond and kicks the gun out of his hand, driving the two men into a fist fight. In the end, Bond is victorious and pins the man against the wall. He begins to question the man about what happened to Shaw, but the attacker laughs and bites down, revealing one of his molars is a false tooth full of cyanide. Bond drops the corpse and kicks the man's pistol in frustration. As he begins to calm down, Bond notices a folder sticking out of the bottom of a pile on top of Shaw's desk, with the only visible word being Haiti. Bond picks up his PPK and hurries out the door. Bond returns to JFK International, where he is met by a man in a navy blue Italian suit, Agent 008. 008 explains M asked him to assist Bond on the mission. Bond asks if it's to make sure he keeps himself in check this time. 008 responds by telling him M thinks the job is much bigger than anyone imagined. He then reveals he already has two tickets for the next flight to Haiti.

As the train pulls into a station, the hitman gets off the train, holding Shaw at gunpoint, and guides him out to a white Volvo 440. Shaw asks the hitman where they are going. 'To see a friend' is the hitman's only reply. The car turns onto the highway and a sign reveals they are heading east.

The plane lands at Toussaint Louverture International Airport. Bond and 008 proceed out of the airport to the Aston Martin DB5, which 008 arranged to have waiting for them when they arrived. 008 pays the valet and climbs in on the driver's side of the car. Almost immediately after leaving the airport and entering the actual city of Port-au-Prince, a black Chrysler Imperial begins tailing them. 008 tries to lose them by swerving suddenly down a side street, but the Chrysler stays hot on their heels. A car chase across the city ensues. Bond and 008 finally manage to lose their pursuers by taking a sudden turn. The Chrysler follows and it is revealed that the turn drops them into the harbor. With the Chrysler falling not far behind them, 008 presses a button and the ejector seats kick in, sending Bond and 008 to safety while their pursuers are left to drown with their car.

Now sometime at night, we return to the pastel-colored office. Shaw is bound to the chair opposite the desk by ropes and guarded by two men armed with rifles. The man on the other side of the chair reveals himself to be Ciro Bergnes, director of the enforcer division of Fidel Castro's secret police. We cut to just outside the office, where the hitman is leaning against the door, listening in on their conversation, just as we hear Bergnes reveal he has secretly been working for the men from Haiti for three years. At this, the hitman, a loyal supporter of Castro, storms the office and kills the two men guarding Shaw. Bergnes reaches for his gun and for a moment the hitman wavers between Shaw and Bergnes. Ultimately he shoots the ropes tying Shaw to the chair, but is struck and killed almost immediately after by a bullet from Bergnes' gun. Shaw throws himself over the desk and wrestles the gun out of Bergnes' control. He aims the gun at the man and demands to know what they did with Felix's body.

At a hotel in Port-au-Prince, 008 and 007 share the Presidential suite. They sit talking over drinks when suddenly an explosion shatters the windows nearby, which topples 007's chair. Two grappling hooks fly up into view, one in the broken window, and one on the balcony. 008 draws his pistol, a Walther P38K Compact. He shoots and kills the man coming in from the balcony. Meanwhile, 007 grabs his PPK and moves to shoot the man coming in the through the window. The door to the room is kicked down and the man in the doorway shoots the gun from Bond's hand. 008 turns to shoot him but the man coming in from the window shoots the gun from 008's hand. 008 distracts the men by pretending to attempt to talk them down while 007 kicks the chair into the man by the window, causing him to drop his gun and pinning him against the wall. The man in the doorway moves to shoot Bond but 008 throws his glass at him, causing the attacker to drop his gun from the pain of having glass shatter against his hand. 008 lunges at the man and tackles him to the floor while Bond picks up his PPK and runs over to hold the man at gunpoint. The man is revealed to be Felix Leiter.

Bond and 008 lock Felix in the closet and 008 goes to call M while Bond stands watch to make sure Felix does not attempt to escape and in case of another raid by their attackers. 008 returns to the room and says M will send a man from Station J who used to be an expert in de-programming people who had been brainwashed by the KGB.

In the office in Cuba, the man has apparently been shot and killed by Shaw. Shaw tucks Bergnes' gun into his waistband and picks up the hitman's gun. Shouts and heavy footfalls are heard coming from the corridor. The guards have heard the the gunshot. Shaw quickly escapes out the window into one of the trees on the grounds of the building and leaps from the branch down into the streets of Havana. He walks a good distance away from the building before hailing a taxi to take him to the nearest airport. The driver makes idol chat with Shaw briefly. A glass pane slowly descends from the ceiling, separating the back of the car from the front, and the man presses a button on the dashboard. Mustard gas floods the back of the taxi and slowly begins to kill Shaw. Shaw tries to escape, but the doors will not open. Just before Shaw dies, the driver tauntingly tells him he could have been of use to the Cuban secret police like Felix.

007 and 008 meet the man from Station J and his two guards in the lobby of the hotel. They hand the room key off to the man and in exchange the man gives them the keys to the car waiting outside, a white Rolls Royce Corniche III convertible. Bond gets in the driver's seat and follows the directions 008 gives him to the place where the Haitian drug runners were last known to be operating, an import and export warehouse at the harbor. Bond creates a distraction at the front gate, posing as R. Sterling of Universal Exports, who has come to offer a partnership deal with the company here. Meanwhile, 008 climbs a nearby fire escape and sneaks onto the grounds of the warehouse. He breaks a lock on the back door and sneaks inside. The men at the gate finally allow Bond onto the premises just as gunshots ring out from the warehouse. The guards panic and rush to the warehouse to find out what's going on, but one of the men stays behind and points his pistol at Bond. Bond wrestles the man into the sea and hurries into the warehouse to find out what happened. Inside, 008 has been shot dead, his body collapsed into a rack of fish tanks, knocking several of them to the floor. While Bond is stunned at the sight of this several men pile on top of him and knock him unconscious.

Bond wakes up chained to the wall in a dark cellar. Men in black uniforms armed with AK-74s stand watch over Bond. A man enters the room and begins questioning Bond, but Bond refuses to speak until he is released from the wall. The man agrees and moves Bond to a more conventional interrogation room, where only one man stands guard over Bond. After answering a few inane questions, Bond flips the table, pinning the interrogator to the floor and creating cover from the spray of bullets for Bond. When the rifle's clip is empty, Bond lunges at the guard and wrestles the gun from his control and knocks him unconscious. He reloads the rifle and hurries out in the corridors of the basement of the complex. Bond makes it to the staircase when alert klaxons begin going off and guards begin scrambling, pursuing and firing on him as he makes his way up to the topmost floor. Bond comes to a dead end on the topmost floor and enters the room beyond: the office of Ciro Bergnes. As guards rush in through the doorway and open fire, Bond leaps out the window into the trees and then down into the streets of Havana. Bond escapes down a side street and deposits the rifle in a dumpster. He hurries further away from the building and hails a taxi.

Bond orders the taxi to take him to the harbor. The driver, as we in the audience already know, is the man who killed Shaw. The drive begins normally but soon a wall of glass begins to descend from the ceiling of the car, just like las time. Bond begins to open a door but it slams itself shut and locks. He kicks at the glass but nothing happens. As the gas begins to pour into the back of the taxi Bond tears off one of his sleeves and makes a mask to help slow the effects of the gas, which this time is not mustard gas, but simply knock-out gas. Bond attempts to kick out the window, but it also has been reinforced to the point of being bulletproof. With the gas beginning to take effect, Bond desperately begins kicking at the door itself until finally it pops partially out of place and he manages to shove it open, tumbling out of the speeding car into the busy Havana street. The taxi turns around sharply to retrieve Bond but the gas spilling out from the back seat blinds him and the car smashes through the front of an apartment building. Bond darts down an alleyway before collapsing to his knees, retching.

Bond awakes the next morning very much on edge. As he regains his senses we realize he is in a small home belonging to a relatively poor Cuban family, who apparently found him collapsed in the alleyway the night before. Bond thanks them coldly as he walks out the front door and returns to the streets of Havana. He uses a pay phone to call M and explains, in code, what happened since Leiter's attack on their room in Haiti. M tells Bond to meet with a Greek agent coordinating with the CIA on a mission in the city. Bond travels to the address M gives him, a middle-class hotel where he meets Niki Mirakos, his Greek contact. That night Bond and Niki return to the place where Bond was held captive. Niki distracts the men patrolling the yard while Bond slips over the wall and back into the Bergnes' office. Bond hacks into Bergnes' computer and runs through some of his files. The data he reads tells him the location of a headquarters of the drug-runners in Artemisa. Before Bond can read any more, he hears people approaching and shuts off the computer before escaping out the window. He meets up with Niki at the front gate and the two walk away together, dodging down a side street as men inside the building discover Bond's break-in. Bond tells Niki what he learned and the two rent an old pick-up truck to travel to Artemisa.

In Artemisa, Bond breaks form and stays in a rather run-down hotel to help keep his presence secret from the enemy. Niki asks a valet to take the truck around to the garage and when the man starts the car up the engine explodes, destroying it and killing him. Bond and Niki leave the hotel immediately and argue over how exactly the enemy could have planted a bomb in the exact truck they were going to take. Niki thinks they planted one in every car or the dealer was working for them. Bond is beginning to doubt the trustworthiness of Niki. The two proceed on foot to the building where the drug-runners are supposed to be, a large skyscraper whose walls are made almost entirely of massive tinted windows. Bond checks the names of the companies housed in the building until he finds the name of the company at the warehouse in Haiti. He speaks to one of the receptionists and beckons for Niki to follow. They take the elevator up to the penultimate floor, the last floor the elevator runs to. Along the way, Niki gives Bond a PPK/S and arms herself with a Desert Eagle. The elevator comes to a halt and enter the secretary's office at the far back of the building. In the back of the secretary's office is a spiral stairwell that leads up to the topmost floor, which is substantially smaller than the rest of the building, being that it is only one large office.

Bond and Niki storm past the secretary and hurry up the stairs. The secretary presses the silent alarm beneath her desk. In the office on the topmost floor, Bond and Niki confront the head of the company about the drug-running ring. The man tauntingly speaks to them about it, biding time until security arrives. During the battle that ensues, the man is fatally wounded. With his dying breath he gives Bond an address in Havana, the location of the organization's headquarters. Bond uses the PPK/S to shoot open one of the windows and he and Niki leap out towards the large, but slightly lower, building just across the alleyway. Niki lands on the rooftop no problem, but a bullet from the guards causes Bond to lose his footing and Niki barely saves him. The two escape through the building and dodge out the back door. Bond commandeers the first car he sees and the two make for Havana.

When Bond and Niki storm the headquarters in Havana, they find a very spacious room stuffed to the brim with all manner of drugs on the ground floor and empty catwalks above with numerous doors leading to other parts of the building. They hurry up the catwalk towards one of the doors when a gunshot rings out across the room. The camera turns with Bond and Niki to reveal 008, wielding the hitman's revolver. He is flanked by two Cuban men holding AK-74s. Bond confronts 008 about why he suddenly turned traitorous and 008 gives a long-winded speech about how he had only been posing as "a good little Englishmen, doing what's right for Queen and Country" to earn the trust of the intelligence community. 008 was, in fact, an old Spetsnaz sleeper agent who blames the West for the downfall of the Soviet Union. Bond attacks 008 but he knocks Bond over the railing onto a large mountain of marijuana blocks. 008 reveals he stole Bond's lighter in the scuffle and jams it open, dropping it onto the mountain just beside Bond. Bond rolls off the drugs and opens fire, but 008 and his men successfully escape through the door they came in from.

The fire continues to spread across the drugs and Niki helps Bond narrowly escape burning to death. The two escape into deeper parts of the building and ultimately out a window. They arrive at the front of the building in time to watch 008 and his guards escape in a black Rolls Royce. Bond and Niki climb into the car they commandeered and a chase ensues across the streets of Havana. 008, being the better driver, ultimately loses Bond and makes for Jose Marti International Airport. He reaches a puddlejumper his men have waiting and takes over the controls. The plane lands at Kai Tak Airport and 008 climbs inside a car waiting for him. The car travels to the building where 008 has his real headquarters established, a fairly small office-like building wedged relatively out of sight. 008 hurries down to the first basement level of the building, which is a large control center.

Meanwhile, Bond climbs out of the trunk of the car -- he snuck aboard both the flight and the car. He enters the building and takes the elevator down to the lowest level basement, believing that is where 008 is. Instead, he finds a storehouse. After searching through the storage room for a while, Bond finds a large amount of Semtex. He only rigs one block of Semtex to explode, but positions it near the rest of the stash, and sets it on a forty minute timer. Bond hurries out of the storage room up the steps until he reaches the control center where 008 is barking out orders. Upon seeing Bond, 008's men open fire, but 008 orders them to stand down and he invites Bond to the center of the room to watch as his plan unfolds. 008 explains that from this control center he can hijack the US and Russian ICBM arsenals; the drug running was just a simple means of earning pocket money on the side. The timer on the computer until missiles from Russia and the US are fired on England simultaneously is at thirteen minutes and counting when 008 finishes, it was at a little above twenty when Bond arrived. In order to buy himself more time until the Semtex goes off, Bond fires randomly into the sea of computers. The strategy works; the men must reset the countdown at twenty-five minutes, and it will take them five minutes to hack into new missiles to keep from getting caught.

008 attacks Bond but Bond begins to overpower him and he flees. 007 gives chase. The two open fire on one another occasionally as 007 chases 008 through the halls of the building. When at last they reach 008's office on the top floor they grapple for a time, but 008 shoots Bond in the chest with the hitman's gun, apparently killing him. 008 returns to the control room and orders his men to work faster. He then tells a guard to go throw Bond's body off the rooftop into a dumpster in the alley. The guard leaves and does as 008 told him to and then returns to control center. In the alleyway, Niki arrives as Bond sits up in the dumpster. The damage caused by the gunshot reveals he was wearing protective armor beneath his clothes that took the brunt of the shot. He takes a normal PPK from Niki as he climbs out of the dumpster. Bond guides Niki back to the control center where 008 and his men are. Upon seeing Bond, 008 says 'You always did have a nasty habit of surviving'. 008's men open fire, forcing Bond and Niki to duck for cover while 008 makes his escape.

Niki covers Bond while they make their way up to the roof in pursuit of 008. They are nearly to the roof when the exploding Semtex begins to tear through the building. 007 confronts 008 on the roof as the latter agent is climbing into the back of a UH-1 Iroquois helicopter. 008 ignores 007's comments and begins to make his getaway. Bond and Niki leap from the roof of the building as the explosions begin to reach the rooftop. Niki guides Bond to the Bell 412 she used to reach Hong Kong and takes Bond into the sky, following closely behind 008's helicopter as it heads West. Niki pulls the helicopter up close beside 008's and Bond leaps between the two, narrowly managing to make it into the Iroquois. Bond and 008 engage in a fist fight in the back of the helicopter. When it looks like 008 is going to win, Bond kicks one of 008's feet loose, sending both men tumbling out of the helicopter. Bond catches the landing skids of the Bell 412 while 008 falls onto the roof of a building in Hong Kong, snapping his neck.

That evening, we find Bond in a hotel room speaking on the phone to the head of Station J, who says Felix is going to be fine, though he doubts the CIA will be eager to give him back his job any time soon. Bond begins to dial the number for UnivEx to inform M of when to expect a full debriefing, when the door opens, prompting him to hang up the phone. Niki enters the room wearing only a bathrobe and kisses Bond. The two lie down on the bed for a night of passion as the camera pans out to a shot of the exterior of a hotel in Havana and the end credits begin to roll.

Okay, so, yes I know, the Facts of Death came out several years later, speaking in terms of the book, but it was the first title that came to mind. All in all I rather enjoy my idea. Sure it's not the best, but we've certainly had worse Bond films, too. And yes, I "lifted" the girl, but really only in name and nationality. Atm I can't think of an actress for her who was active and not too young or old at the time. Any ideas?

Edited by Tybre, 29 May 2009 - 05:13 AM.

[The Ghost Who Walks]

For all that I love the Campbell/Craig version, I would have given my left arm to see Dalton starring in a faithful, lower budgeted Casino Royale adaptation directed by somebody not named John Glen. Not saying it would have been better than what we got in 2006, but you can't deny it would have been interesting. The story of the novel is tailored to Dalton's approach to the character.