29 replies to this topic

[IrishCrown]

Bond ends up in the midwestern United States. Have him go where few movies have gone before. How many Bonds in the Caribbean? How many in Europe? Send the man over here and let the mayhem begin!

[JimmyBond]

The thing about the US for a Bond movie is it really isnt that exotic. American audiences do make up a sizeable portion of the gross and they dont want to see Bond go someplace that they go everyday. I know I dont want to see Bond mulling about Texas, if I wanted to see Texas I'd look out my window. If they do us the US they should send him to some of the few exotic areas we have. Bond being chased through the grand canyon would be interesting. As would Bond climbing down Mt. Rushmore (though that one would be a bit hokey).

[Bryce (003)]

I have a quick list of places to send 007 that I'd like to see.

- Pacific Northwest - Seattle, Vancouver BC
- Bermuda
- Vegas..it has changed a bit since DAF.
- Hawaii
- South Africa or Madagascar
- Fiji
- Alaska
- Texas (pay Felix a visit maybe)

Granted, Bond's been about everywhere, but not on screen. I've got a few location specific ideas for some sequences set in the locales above.

Maybe....

[Xenobia]

I would like to Mr. Bond have an adventure in New York...Flushing NY to be exact.

It is dangerous and it is exotic...plus he can have lots of fun driving!

Who could ask for anything more?

-- Xenobia

[Dr. Tynan]

Which States are the mid-western states?

[Rich Douglas]

Dallas Texas.... he could save the american arlines center from impending doom.


Rich

[Dalton]

I think New York would be a pretty good location. The last time we saw it was in LALD, and it wasn't used as well as it could have been.

I would also like to see some action happen in the Grand Canyon. This is just begging for Bond.

As for places outside the U.S., Australia or Italy (Not Venice though as it was used for MR)

[Double-Oh-Zero]

Bring Bond to the Great White North. He'd have to survive through the harsh Canadian winters and there's plenty of alcohol up here to satisfy his needs. Just kidding. I would like to see him go to:

In the U.S:
New York
Washington D.C
Florida
California
Mississippi-if you have seen the filmU.S Marshals, you'll know that it would be at least an interesting thought for Bond to be wading through the backwood bayous.

Outside the U.S:
Scotland-would make a welcome return from the rather short time it had in TWINE.
Australia
New Zealand
Africa
Ireland

[Blue Eyes]

I've got to say it:

Australia How the hell Bond has never been to Australia in the films is beyond me. He's been other places over and over and not Australia. It's got nearly every ecology imaginable, so I really can't see why producers haven't sent him here yet.

[Simon]

At the end of the day, Bond has seemed to work best in Europe. AVTAK, TND, Oct, FRWL, OHMSS, the list goes on to supply sequences where the film has clicked. One might say that consequently, Europe has been done to death and is not very exotic. But then that brings into question just what is exotic in this age of satellite programming where every conceivable area of the world has been photographed and broadcasted to death.

So if we lose the word exotic and focus on what works, then places like the States don't necessarily work, DAF, LALD and LTK during their States portion were a little flat. (Apologies..) Australia has never really clicked for me as an international location except where the narative has been strictly Australian, to wit, MI-2 was flat but Croc Dundee worked.

Bond might be a man of the world, but he's never looked better than in Europe. Plus, if he does stay in Europe, then we might actually get more location filming where Bond is quite obviously in front of the Eiffel Tower and not suffering a "Didcot, UK for Israel" scenario.

[Blue Eyes]

Australia has great potential to work, as long as you take it out of the city. Few cities actually would work, as there's nothing grand about them. That said, cities like Venice are obviously unique.

You've got to put Bond in the Australian country somewhere. Not Ayers Rock, but somewhere more scenic and not commercıalısed.

[Xenobia]

I gotta agree with Blue Eyes on this one:

Australia is (arbuably) uone of the most loyal nations in her Majesty's commonwealth. Bond would love it Down Under: Good food, better women!

Alright...let's start the campaign...most of Bond 21 will film in Austraila...except for the part that films in Flushing, NY at Queens College!

-- Xenobia

[Colonel Moon]

South Africa

[ShockTroop22]

Originally posted by Bryce (003)

- Bermuda

Are you sure Bermuda is big enough? If you mean just for a small sequence (e.g. the Bilbao scene in The World is not Enough) then i agree it would make a great locationg.

However, my Dad lives there, and i can tell you if Bond was let loose with a weapon laden Aston Martin 2004 (assuming he'll be driving one), then, there would be nothing left of the island(s).

Bermuda is a very small place, you can drive from one end to the other in 1/2 hour (and the speed limit is about 20mph). So if your saying have it as a main location then i'd have to disagree with you.

[Loomis]

I think exoticism is definitely most important thing about Bond film locations. The 1960s films had a romantic travelogue feel, taking US and European audiences where they'd never been and probably would never go - the Caribbean, eastern Europe, Japan.... For me, this was a key ingredient of the Bond films' phenomenal success, along with the action, humour, sex, and John Barry's music.
Of course, things have changed. Most of us have almost certainly travelled far more widely and more often than our parents could have dreamed, and probably nowhere in the world (with the obvious exception of, say, North Korea and warzones) seems out of the question as places for us to visit. And plenty of people argue that thanks to various factors, few parts of the globe are as "exotic" as they once were, although that's not a view I personally subscribe to.
While many Bond fans say that they'd like to see 007 spend a whole movie in London, or travel the United States, I still tend to feel that Bond belongs in more exotic climes, the beaches of the Caribbean, the casinos of Monaco, the luxury hotels of Hong Kong....
Of course, the Bond films should also take 007 to places he's never been. It's great that DAD will be partly set in Korea.
As for future locations, Australia has been a glaring ommission for years, but since 90% of "Mission: Impossible II" took place there, I'd guess that the Bond film producers will not be considering Oz for a few more years, at least as a "main" location. But the day when the Bond people do some location filming in China cannot be far away.
I'd like to see Bond in South America again (a real country, not the made-up-so-as-not-to-cause-offence Isthmus City, my top choice would be Quito, Ecuador), as well as the Cayman Islands (plenty of dirty money for 007 to track, and as far as I know has only been seen in one Hollywood film, "The Firm") and Rome. Bond in Africa would also be great.

[Peter]

I have to agree. Anywhere in East Central Africa or West Africa would be something totally new for Bond. The villian could be some power hungry dictator a la Idi Amin, the heroine a beautiful diplomat or transelator fighting for the rights of her people.

Re: Bermuda, I have not been there, but remember in the older movies where they would spend most of the movie in one location? The last few have so ignored their settings it's laughable. One establishing shot of Hamburg and a car rental clerk saying "guten tag" does not give much of an exotic feel to the films. And the Baku/Azerbijian sequences in TWINE where again highly generic. To actually explore an island such as Bermuda would actually depend on going there, revelling in the setting and having a strong story that didn't depend on vulgar sequences like the over-the-top destruction of the caviar factory (TWINE)

That said, some other places I'd like to see are in Sweden or Denmark, Austraila, Quebec/Montreal, and because I live in Chicago, my home town. It's hard to picture Bond going to Iowa (a Midwestern state), defending the farmers from a land hungry villian, but they do have a certain stark beauty. But some of the larger cities in the US midwest (Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Detroit) could be possible destinations.

And definately South America, like Chile or Argentina. Bond needs to make up for Licence to Kill!

[Blofeld's Cat]

Originally posted by Blue Eyes
Australia has great potential to work, as long as you take it out of the city. Few cities actually would work, as there's nothing grand about them. That said, cities like Venice are obviously unique.  

You've got to put Bond in the Australian country somewhere. Not Ayers Rock, but somewhere more scenic and not commercıalısed.

Yep, totally agree there.

Originally posted by Loomis
I think exoticism is definitely most important thing about Bond film locations. The 1960s films had a romantic travelogue feel, taking US and European audiences where they'd never been and probably would never go - the Caribbean, eastern Europe, Japan....

This is totally true, and one of the reasons that made The Man with the Golden Gun more interesting.

Hopefully, if Bond finally gets to Australia, he can find his way to Indonesia. Very exotic, beautiful women, being in the news of late...

....and I'm here to visit the shooting locations.

[Loomis]

I agree with Peter when he says that the last few Bonds (all the Brosnan Bonds, in fact) have "ignored their settings". "Tomorrow Never Dies", despite a total lack of effort in making Hamburg look interesting, did at least take Bond to better-looking locations than "Goldeneye" or "TWINE", but the film's version of Saigon (created outside Vietnam and at least partially shot in, I think, Thailand) was an absolute travesty, nothing remotely like the place.
Maybe the producers think today's modern, well-travelled audiences no longer look for exoticism, or even visually interesting locations, in a Bond film; if so, they're sorely mistaken.
Blofeld's Cat is also right when he says that "The Man With the Golden Gun" (an underrated flick, in my opinion, certainly much better than "Live and Let Die") delivered the goods in this department.

[rafterman]

well, we need to look at this from a story perspective, why would a British agent be operating on US soil or Australian for that matter....he doesn't even work on British ground...so while Australia would be cool and the US not, it needs to fulfill a purpose in the story, but it's nice to think of new places.....personally I want more of a travelogue feel to the films...

[M_Balje]

Engeland (London) America (Newyork,L.A.)

The Netherlands,France, Norway,Denmark

[boeserzwilling]

I always loved the idea of bond travelling to Hong Kong, as it was rumoured in the early 90s. It's a fascinating city, but they never really used it while they could have. I think we can let out TMWTGG and DAD since none of the main cast had to go there. There have only been/will ony be some background shots to be seen in the final movie. Raymond Benson did a good job in "Ziro Minus Ten". It's not the greatest Bond novel, but Hong Kong was very well used as a location.
My other suggestion would be Berlin. It really changed a lot during the last ten years and is the vital junktion between East and West.

[Harmsway]

Let's see - some good locations would be...

IN AFRICA:
Morocco (Casablanca, Marrakech)
South Africa (Johannesburg)
Egypt (sure he's been here before, but it could be a minor stop)

IN EUROPE:
Romania (Bucharest)
Spain (Madrid, Gibraltar, Seville)

IN ASIA:
Malaysia (Singapore, Kuala Lumpur)
Indonesia (Jakarta)
China (Beijing, Shanghai, or Hong Kong)

And especially AUSTRALIA.
Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne - anywhere here would be nice.

I'm against South America - because I just don't think a Bond film set down there would turn out all that well. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't feel that they're elegant enough for James Bond.

[PaulZ108]

There's lots of places I'd like to see Bond go and most of them have been mentioned so I wont bother listing them, but I don't think I'd want to see him in the states unless he paid a brief visit to somewhere in Texas for something involving Felix, if only because I'd be able to go check it out.

[Gunbarrel]

Mexico or Central America could be interesting too.

[PaulZ108]

Mexico could be good if the location was right (I've heard that vast portions of it are incredibly nasty, but that others are beautiful), but Latin America was used a little too recently in LTK, with Mexico City doubling for "Ithmus City" (which I still think was a stupid move to use a fictional city). Besides, Cuba is being used in DAD so it would probably be a while before Latin America was used again.

Anyway I've been thinking and the places I'd like to see go the most are Spain and Australia. It seems that pretty much everyone else wants to see Bond in Australia and since it's one of the few places Bond has never been I guess it's only a matter of time before it happens.

[IrishCrown]

Send Bond to the most alien of all places in The United States....



Send him to New Jersey.

[Tedley King]

I agree with some of the above views. I would like to see Bond in the land of Oz. Only, M:I-2 was there a fews years back, about 2 and so they don't want to do it so quickly. I have a feeling they'll go there in Bond 21 or even Bond 22.
I would also like to see Bond go to the Isle of Wight. For those not familiar with the place, it is the small island south of England, only a few miles south of Southampton. It's beautiful, okay, so maybe not a great place for action, but a place for a secret HQ, like Osbourne House.

[IrishCrown]

I started re-reading For Special Services last night, and Bond does end up in Texas, believe it or not. It CAN be done.

[Number Eleven]

I think 007 needs to visit either Norway, Sweden or Finland. Going to Iceland is the first time he has gone to Scandinavia and I don't know how much scenery we are going to see in Iceland.

[Se]

Okay, Bond's been in Holland, Bond's been in Germany and Bond's been in France a couple of times...
And what's right in between those 3???
Belgium! Indeed. Bond skupped Belgium. Yet it's so close to the UK.
Brussels would make a great setting for a scene like Bilbao.
I WOuld also like to see him go to prague...