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How real should Bond get?


8 replies to this topic

#1 JimmyBond

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Posted 06 December 2006 - 08:09 AM

I was thinking about this tonight while reading some a thread on another forum about why the reboot was necessary. About how DAD: a film going so far into one extreme, required that Casino Royale essentially wipe the slate clean and start over. While I don't disagree with that statement, I'm curious, if DAD is one extreme, what would the other end of the spectrum be?

Casino Royale seemed to be pretty real at times, yet, most of us acknowledge it was still within that stylized reality that Fleming's Bond inhabits, and I think that's fairly accurate as well. So, what would a totally real Bond entail? Because I'm thinking it'd be more like a Michael Mann film, or close to it...however, I must say that that prospect doesnt seem that bad.

#2 Trident

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Posted 06 December 2006 - 09:04 AM

IMHO, Bond can get as real as possible. Possible within the borders Fleming defined, as you pointed out. That means, there is also a danger of going too far into the realm of ordinary everyday life. Such as showing Bond buying his weekend stuff at TESCO, standing in line with hundreds of housewives and their kids at the cash desk and spending half an hour loading all that stuff into a sensible, fuel-sparing diesel station wagon by VW. That would probably go too far down the road into reality. :)

#3 Blabbermouth

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Posted 06 December 2006 - 08:11 PM

I think that the other end of the scale is Harry Palmer, or at least they way the films of the 60s were. This guy is dull, likes cooking and shops at the local mall. He is everything that James Bond is not.

I don't think that there is a risk of James Bond turning into a copy of Harry Palmer.

#4 zencat

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Posted 06 December 2006 - 08:18 PM

Was DAD really more extreme that Moonraker or YOLT?

I think LTK marks the extreme in the realism range. It went so far as to become common. Drug crime. Ugly violence. The world of low budget action. There was noting Bondian or special about the world of LTK, IMO, and I don't want to go back there...ever.

#5 Damien Hunt

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Posted 06 December 2006 - 08:27 PM

Was DAD really more extreme that Moonraker or YOLT?

I think LTK marks the extreme in the realism range. It went so far as to become common. Drug crime. Ugly violence. The world of low budget action. There was noting Bondian or special about the world of LTK, IMO, and I don't want to go back there...ever.


I couldn't have said it better. LTK never really struck me as a Bond film at all except that the main character was named James Bond, and in coincidentally had some of the same characters as the real Bond movies. I would have to agree with Zencat.

The problem with DAD's scf-fi nonsense is something that happens every few years in the Bond franchise unfortunately. Let's just pray that all of the future Bond films, stay more in the middle of the spectrum.

#6 ComplimentsOfSharky

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Posted 06 December 2006 - 09:00 PM

Was DAD really more extreme that Moonraker or YOLT?

I think LTK marks the extreme in the realism range. It went so far as to become common. Drug crime. Ugly violence. The world of low budget action. There was noting Bondian or special about the world of LTK, IMO, and I don't want to go back there...ever.


I couldn't have said it better. LTK never really struck me as a Bond film at all except that the main character was named James Bond, and in coincidentally had some of the same characters as the real Bond movies. I would have to agree with Zencat.

The problem with DAD's scf-fi nonsense is something that happens every few years in the Bond franchise unfortunately. Let's just pray that all of the future Bond films, stay more in the middle of the spectrum.


They might stay there...but really it's all cyclical and I imagine it will continue to be so. Sure they learned some lessons from OHMSS, from LTK, from DAD...but it's still going to bounce around.

#7 00Twelve

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Posted 06 December 2006 - 09:11 PM

Even though it was an extremely well-made film, I think I'd draw the line at making the Bond films as real as, say, Munich. That was, of course, realistically disturbing (mostly because it was a real event).

I think some of us seek these entertaining stories to partially escape the sometimes-grim realities of the world. So if I want to see something as real as what's actually happening, I wouldn't need a movie to show that to me.

#8 booyeah_

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Posted 10 December 2006 - 04:56 AM

I think the best of the books outlines well what realistic should be. It is quite possible to be to "real". Bond going to a shrink, becoming sober, something different than the actual character.

#9 moorebond82

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Posted 10 December 2006 - 04:42 PM

For as down to earth as CR was it still had a touch of glitz and slight humor once the series loses that like they did in 1989 then they've gone to far.