1531 replies to this topic

[tdalton]

Since the issue has kind of come up in Mr. Blofeld's exposition scene, what have we decided to do with the Quinn character? Is the PTS, as I've currently got it configured with Mr. White eliminating her, going to stand? Is she going to be eliminated later in the story, or is she being carried over into UB28 to be paired with the Koteas "Shaw" character after being disfigured in this story?

I'm just wondering so I can adjust the PTS again (if it's even necesssary) to avoid confusion so that you all can develop the main body of the story without people getting confused by the various versions of the PTS floating out there.

I prefer the first version, to be honest - even if all the 'Mr Roberts' character does is appear in St. Petersburg alongside Quinn and die, whilst she battles Bond (something similar to CT's suggested scene involving the hovercraft) and is presumed dead by Bond but escapes, scarred and vengeful to make it into UB28.

If she's going to survive the film, then I would like to tweak the supporting character in the PTS to be involved in some other way so that the character the character that was originally to be hiding in the shadows can serve as a partner for her in her quest for revenge against Bond.

[terminus]

If she's going to survive the film, then I would like to tweak the supporting character in the PTS to be involved in some other way so that the character the character that was originally to be hiding in the shadows can serve as a partner for her in her quest for revenge against Bond.

Que? I'm a tad confused.

[tdalton]

If she's going to survive the film, then I would like to tweak the supporting character in the PTS to be involved in some other way so that the character the character that was originally to be hiding in the shadows can serve as a partner for her in her quest for revenge against Bond.

Que? I'm a tad confused.

I had been hoping that the "Roberts" character (as everyone else has taken to calling him) would serve as a partner for Quinn in her quest for revenge against Bond. If he's going to appear in the PTS and then be killed later in the story, then what I was looking to do was introduce a different character so that the "Roberts" character can be used for Quinn's partner in UB28.

To be honest, though, at this point, the PTS has become a jumbled mess within the context of the main story (like my contributions last time), that I'm not really sure I care what direction it goes in anymore because I still don't feel like I'm capable of making it fit into the context of the story. I feel like I've been spinning in place trying to make the sequence work in the context of the story, and so far I feel as though I've been unsuccessful in that effort. I'm sorry if this comes as whiny or whatever, but I feel rather frustrated with my development of the PTS and my ability to fit it into the overall context of the story currently being developed, and wonder if it might just be better off being done by someone else whose actually been active in developing the main story .

[terminus]

Thing is - I think the sequence itself DOES work in the context of the story. I've certainly written it to be that way in the treatment I proposed. It has obviously shifted from 'hunting down anyone who's connected to Bond' to - 'hunting down a specific person for a specific person' (namely as part of luring the Double-Oh Section into a trap) - but it furthers the arc you've proposed for Quinn.

I think the main hurdle is over how you've envisaged the character of 'Mr Roberts' ( my fault in that becoming the term used to describe him, I'm afraid ) proceeding through the course of the movie and the difficulty in integrating that characterisation. I think the way that the character has been proposed - using your original PTS proposal, then killing him off in St. Petersburg - would allow for someone closer to your original envisagment of 'Shaw' in the next movie. By that point, as far as I can figure, Quinn will be hell bent on destroying Bond exclusively (after he near-killed her and disfigured her in Russia in UB27) at the expense of her obligations to Quantum - and 'Shaw' would come part and parcel of that.

What we're essentially doing is taking your arc you'd envisaged for Quinn to have with 'Shaw' in UB27 and breaking it in two, so that some of it occurs in UB27 and some of it occurs in UB28.

[SamuelKevlar]

Well, things have indeed been going rather quickly.

We're all naturally a little prejudiced towards our own contributions, so I'll fill in a little detail on mine, particularly Geoffrey Hastings, 0011. I want to give some impression of his similarity to 007. I realise we don't have much time to establish the character, so some things can be done wordlesslly, things that we see him do that are similar to Bond, not something obvious like "the name's Hastings, Geoffrey Hastings" but a taste for fine living, maybe a quip or two, moments like him making moves on Aoife and later finding her dead - ideally on a bed somehow, in the style of Jill Masterson, Fields, Paula Caplan, etc. Incidentally, that's really the only way I'd be keen on killing Aoife, as both my contributions to this entry so far have been killed off by the half-way point.

Maybe 0011 can show up briefly in Turkey or Georgia or wherever, as Bond's getaway driver/pilot. I can see Bond racing into rough country, enemies in pursuit, only to just make the leap from a cliff (either with his car or motorcycle or abandoning it in mid-air) into the back of a cargo plane. He makes his way to the cockpit to find 0011 at the controls. Hey, maybe Bond can bring along a bottle of wine from the facility - "a graduation present, 0011". Just an idea.

If it is resolved that Quinn will indeed die this time around, maybe she and 0011 can go out together? Whatever ends up happening with her, I think anything's preferable to the anti-climax of a death in the PTS when she's been set up as such a threat in the last film.

I envision an expansive mission across St Petersburg, trying to outsmart Quantum who, after all, MI6 know are trying to lead them into a trap. It's been mentioned the mission would be to take out Quantum's leaders in one fell swoop, but the only ones they know at this point are Mr White and Quinn. Perhaps it should be specifically an assassination attempt on Mr White. They're taking the bait of his presence in St Petersburg because the boon of taking him out is greater than the risk - or so they think. My inspiration here again comes from Mission Impossible, but now the mission at the beginning of the first film, which goes smoothly for the first half only to go very wrong very quickly.

Something along these lines: 007, 008 and 0011 begin arriving at the safehouse where Aoife is set up. Goodnight and Bond can have the conversation on her issues with the job that tdalton proposed here. As evening falls and the streets fill with crowds they set up in different areas (maybe they have conflicting evidence, if they have any evidence at all, of where Mr White is staying). They can also each have a different job in a more complicated scheme to get him out of his hotel room or wherever he's holed up securely (without alerting him to danger), causing a commotion or a fire, get him away from bodyguards and/or innocents, and take him out. Maybe they're also trying to get into his hotel room/access to his laptop or wherever so that besides taking him out for good (they're not going to risk capturing him again after QOS) they also have some info on the rest of Quantum.

This could be 0011's assignment (terminus mentioned he might get his hands on evidence of the Nambola connection which he's able to get to Bond before being killed) only he finds Quinn waiting for him. For instance. Alternatively, he could make it out alive and get back to the safehouse as he hears over his headset that things are going pearshaped elsewhere, or because he can't get a reply from Aoife. Anyway, he ends up in the safehouse and finds her dead and Quinn there, or the room rigged to explode or something. That's another option. What Bond and Goodnight are doing around this time I leave to others, but I reckon Bond should be the one to kill Mr White.

Here's my contribution to the third round:

THE HILDEBRAND RARITY

1 Bond - Daniel Craig

2 Bond Girl 1 (Main ie Vesper/Camille): Inna Korobkina as Yelena Minkova, a Belorussian prima donna ballerina performing in an adaptation of The Daughter of the Snows. She falls in with Bond after surviving an assassination attempt in a case of mistaken identity, having been poisoned with grayanotoxin (a poison derived from honey pollinated by the rhodendron flower). She always wears a scarf to conceal a surgical scar running around her neck after she had an operation on her thyroid, also known as a "Chernobyl necklace"; she survived the accident at Pripyat as a young girl. When the scarf has been removed, it looks as if someone has tried to decapitate her.
3 Bond Girl 2 (Minor ie Solange/Fields): Kerry Condon as Aoife Daly, MI6 logistics agent assigned to St Petersburg (think Nicky in the Bourne movies).
4 Bond Girl 3 (Background Girl): Jeany Spark as Vera (attache to the Space Tourism launchsite in Nambola if we decide to go that route, if not then just a receptionist at a hotel)

5 Henchman: Jason David Frank as Mesquito, a bodyguard/hired gun in the employ of President Sephotho

6 Villain: Giancarlo Esposito as Henrik Sephotho, the President of Nambola
7 Villain 2: Jesper Christensen as Mr. White
8 Villain 3: THE HEAD OF QUANTUM (to be decided by group consensus)
9 Villain 4: Melanie Laurent as Quinn

10 Other Figures: Wolf Kahler as Dr. Emeric Hildebrand

11 M: Timothy Dalton
12 Moneypenny: Emily Blunt

13 Ally 1: Yvonne Strahovski as Mary Goodnight, 008
14 Ally 2: Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter
15 Ally 3: Max Minghella as Geoffrey Hastings, the new 0011, orphan, ex-RAF, idolises Bond, who sees an uncomfortable amount of himself in the younger man, though with an optimistic belief in the cause that he has since lost.

LOCATIONS - CHINA IS NOT TO BE USED, NOR ARE LOCATIONS IN THE CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

16 Pre-Titles Location: Mitre Square, London
17 Location 1: St. Petersburg, Russia, during the Scarlet Sails, the high point of the city's White Nights Festival.
18 Location 2: Cathederal da Sé, São Paulo, Brazil
19 Location 3: MI6 Headquarters
20 Location 4: Nambola (An African country [fictional, of course] and former Dutch colony bordered by South Africa, Angola and Botswana. About sixty percent of its income comes from diamond mining but there is also a thriving gold mining industry too - that said, it is still considered, in comparative terms, to be a third world country. This could be the country that Henrik Feliz is the leader of).
21 Location 5: Germany (because they have the second largest stockpile of gold outside of the US)

KEY PLOT POINTS

22 Villains' Plot: For centuries, many scientists have attempted to find a method of converting lead into gold and vice versa. This has been impossible - until now. A scientist, named Hildebrand, has discovered a chemical process that does the impossible - using a rare chemical isotope/compound known as 'The Hildebrand Rarity'. Our villain seeks to use this process to turn governmental stockpiles of gold into lead - significantly increasing the prices of his own gold stockpiles whilst also creating new-gold using the process.

23 Pre-Title Sequence Stunt: Eric Wright (Stephen Moyer), a high-level MI6 agent, is being stalked through the streets of a city. He can't see his pursuer, as she is hidden in the darkness, with only a silhouette that is visible. She stalks him for several minutes, as Wright ducks into several establishments trying to lose her. Eventually he is cornered in an abandoned square when she catches up to him, shooting him in the leg. He's left immobilized, allowing the woman corner him. When she's revealed to the audience, we see that it is Quinn. She holds a gun on him, demanding the whereabouts of James Bond, Agent 007. He initially refuses, but gives the information up after Quinn promises not to shoot him. When he gives up the information, she continues to point her gun at him, prompting him to beg for his life. "You promised you wouldn't shoot me." "I lied," she says, shooting him. She turns to walk away, and finds Mr. White standing behind her. "You've outlived your usefulness," he says to her, raising his gun and pulling the trigger. He stands over her body, "Thanks for the information, though." Mr. White then walks away into the darkness.


24 Major Stunt 1: Felix Leiter and the CIA are monitoring the apartment of the deceased Quantum agent Marcus (a brief remark lets us know that they know that he was killed in the Grenadines), hoping that, though slim odds, Marcus will have left something in his apartment of great value to Quantum; lo and behold, an "agent" slipping something out of a safe and into his pocket is revealed, at the last second, to be a fake; upon being stopped outside of the apartment door, he shoots his pursuers and barrels out through the hallway window.

Felix, fed up with his cramped quarters, the bureaucratic slowdowns, and the seeming incompetence of his fellow agents, rips off his headphones and runs out of the ramshackle surveillance house (located conveniently near the apartment complex) after the henchman -- and we now see that Felix is running on a pair of Cheetah running legs, giving him a leg up on the pursuee. (Felix footage would be made up of a trained Cheetah legs runner, seen only from behind, close shots of Jeffrey Wright from the legs up, and wide shots painstakingly synchronized of both Wright and the runner, digitally spliced together.)

After a pursuit across busy streets, footpaths, and up the breakdown lane of a highway, the henchman is finally cornered near a ledge halfway up an overpass -- and traffic below is fast. The goon takes his last few shots at Leiter, who ducks and slides across to the henchman, bumping into his ankles with the Cheetah legs. The henchman, now off balance, drops his gun and careens over the side, but Felix, supporting himself with one elbow, reaches up with his legs and scissors them between the goon, keeping him pinned, upside down, to the ledge.

Slowly, painstakingly, with his other arm, Felix reaches into the operative's inside coat pocket to fish out what he stole from Marcus's apartment, but the goon thinks fast -- as Leiter pulls it out, the henchman pulls Felix's gun from its holster, but it's too late; Leiter has the goods. With his other arm, Felix unstraps the Cheetah legs from his thighs, sending them -- and the trapped goon -- down into the busy traffic below.

Felix hauls himself up as best he can and looks over the ledge, wincing at the sight of his gorgeous Cheetah legs smashed to bits within the pulpy remains of the Quantum henchman, then looks at what he's retrieved from the dead man's pocket. We don't see what he has clearly, but shock sweeps across Leiter's face; he quickly pulls out his walkie-talkie and radios his superiors, saying that the Quantum man is dead, but they've got a new, and more dangerous, lead.

"Dangerous to who, Leiter?"
"To us!"

Reverse shot of Leiter's trembling hand, as sirens wail in the background, and we finally see his morbid prize: A Department of Defense identity card, registered to one Dr. Emeric Hildebrand.

25 Major Stunt 1:
26 Major Stunt 2: An assault of some kind involving the whole Double-Oh Branch, ideally involving Mr White who is killed. However, in the process, 0011 is also killed and 008 (Goodnight) is heavily injured, leading to her retirement from active service.
27 Major Stunt 3:
28 Finale Stunt:

STUFF

29 Bond's Car (inc. car gadgets):

30 Gadget 1:
31 Gadget 2:

PRODUCTION

32 Director: Christopher Nolan

33 Music By: Elliot Goldenthal.

34 Themetune Sung By: Depeche Mode
35 Themetune Written By: (if different from themetune singer and soundtrack writer)

36 Titles Designed By:
37 Description of Titles:

[terminus]

We're all naturally a little prejudiced towards our own contributions, so I'll fill in a little detail on mine, particularly Geoffrey Hastings, 0011. I want to give some impression of his similarity to 007. I realise we don't have much time to establish the character, so some things can be done wordlesslly, things that we see him do that are similar to Bond, not something obvious like "the name's Hastings, Geoffrey Hastings" but a taste for fine living, maybe a quip or two, moments like him making moves on Aoife and later finding her dead - ideally on a bed somehow, in the style of Jill Masterson, Fields, Paula Caplan, etc. Incidentally, that's really the only way I'd be keen on killing Aoife, as both my contributions to this entry so far have been killed off by the half-way point.

...

This could be 0011's assignment (terminus mentioned he might get his hands on evidence of the Nambola connection which he's able to get to Bond before being killed) only he finds Quinn waiting for him. For instance. Alternatively, he could make it out alive and get back to the safehouse as he hears over his headset that things are going pearshaped elsewhere, or because he can't get a reply from Aoife. Anyway, he ends up in the safehouse and finds her dead and Quinn there, or the room rigged to explode or something. That's another option. What Bond and Goodnight are doing around this time I leave to others, but I reckon Bond should be the one to kill Mr White.

Excellent thoughts - certainly things that can be considered. I wouldn't be opposed to Hastings being responsible, in some fashion, for getting the information (stealing the computer, for example) and then being blown up in a bomb at the safehouse moments after he discovers Aoife's throat-slit corpse.

Because of the Nikki comparison, I did imagine her set-up being a bit nicer than a warehouse - perhaps something similar to the penthouse that the team use in Hustle? But, yes, I definitely like the idea of those scenes.

And, agreed, Bond needs to be the one to take Mr White out. Maybe Hastings is tasked with recovering data whilst Bond is tasked with taking out Mr White and Goodnight with providing cover for him - but when Quinn injurs HER, it means any cover that Bond had has gone and he has to take the heat in the situation - leading to Quinn's 'presumed death' (in reality, mental and physical scarring and not dead at all, allowing her return in UB28) and Mr White's death.

I'll knock up a new bullet point outline tomorrow for general consumption/discussion.

Just realised somehow that a location has been added (presumably when mrb added his scene which has since been disalowed) so am sliding the Turkey location into that field.



THE HILDEBRAND RARITY

1 Bond - Daniel Craig

2 Bond Girl 1 (Main ie Vesper/Camille): Inna Korobkina as Yelena Minkova, a Belorussian prima donna ballerina performing in an adaptation of The Daughter of the Snows. She falls in with Bond after surviving an assassination attempt in a case of mistaken identity, having been poisoned with grayanotoxin (a poison derived from honey pollinated by the rhodendron flower). She always wears a scarf to conceal a surgical scar running around her neck after she had an operation on her thyroid, also known as a "Chernobyl necklace"; she survived the accident at Pripyat as a young girl. When the scarf has been removed, it looks as if someone has tried to decapitate her.
3 Bond Girl 2 (Minor ie Solange/Fields): Kerry Condon as Aoife Daly, MI6 logistics agent assigned to St Petersburg (think Nicky in the Bourne movies).
4 Bond Girl 3 (Background Girl): Jeany Spark as Vera (attache to the Space Tourism launchsite in Nambola if we decide to go that route, if not then just a receptionist at a hotel)

5 Henchman: Jason David Frank as Mesquito, a bodyguard/hired gun in the employ of President Sephotho

6 Villain: Giancarlo Esposito as Henrik Sephotho, the President of Nambola
7 Villain 2: Jesper Christensen as Mr. White
8 Villain 3: THE HEAD OF QUANTUM (to be decided by group consensus)
9 Villain 4: Melanie Laurent as Quinn

10 Other Figures: Wolf Kahler as Dr. Emeric Hildebrand

11 M: Timothy Dalton
12 Moneypenny: Emily Blunt

13 Ally 1: Yvonne Strahovski as Mary Goodnight, 008
14 Ally 2: Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter
15 Ally 3: Max Minghella as Geoffrey Hastings, the new 0011, orphan, ex-RAF, idolises Bond, who sees an uncomfortable amount of himself in the younger man, though with an optimistic belief in the cause that he has since lost.

LOCATIONS - CHINA IS NOT TO BE USED, NOR ARE LOCATIONS IN THE CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

16 Pre-Titles Location: Mitre Square, London
17 Location 1: Cathedral de Se, Sao Paulo, Brazil
18 Location 2: Turkey
19 Location 3: St. Petersburg, Russia, during the Scarlet Sails, the high point of the city's White Nights Festival.
20 Location 4: Nambola (An African country [fictional, of course] and former Dutch colony bordered by South Africa, Angola and Botswana. About sixty percent of its income comes from diamond mining but there is also a thriving gold mining industry too - that said, it is still considered, in comparative terms, to be a third world country. This could be the country that Henrik Feliz is the leader of).
21 Location 5: Germany (because they have the second largest stockpile of gold outside of the US)

KEY PLOT POINTS

22 Villains' Plot: For centuries, many scientists have attempted to find a method of converting lead into gold and vice versa. This has been impossible - until now. A scientist, named Hildebrand, has discovered a chemical process that does the impossible - using a rare chemical isotope/compound known as 'The Hildebrand Rarity'. Our villain seeks to use this process to turn governmental stockpiles of gold into lead - significantly increasing the prices of his own gold stockpiles whilst also creating new-gold using the process.

23 Pre-Title Sequence Stunt: Eric Wright (Stephen Moyer), a high-level MI6 agent, is being stalked through the streets of a city. He can't see his pursuer, as she is hidden in the darkness, with only a silhouette that is visible. She stalks him for several minutes, as Wright ducks into several establishments trying to lose her. Eventually he is cornered in an abandoned square when she catches up to him, shooting him in the leg. He's left immobilized, allowing the woman corner him. When she's revealed to the audience, we see that it is Quinn. She holds a gun on him, demanding the whereabouts of James Bond, Agent 007. He initially refuses, but gives the information up after Quinn promises not to shoot him. When he gives up the information, she continues to point her gun at him, prompting him to beg for his life. "You promised you wouldn't shoot me." "I lied," she says, shooting him. She turns to walk away, and finds Mr. White standing behind her. "You've outlived your usefulness," he says to her, raising his gun and pulling the trigger. He stands over her body, "Thanks for the information, though." Mr. White then walks away into the darkness.


24 Major Stunt 1: Felix Leiter and the CIA are monitoring the apartment of the deceased Quantum agent Marcus (a brief remark lets us know that they know that he was killed in the Grenadines), hoping that, though slim odds, Marcus will have left something in his apartment of great value to Quantum; lo and behold, an "agent" slipping something out of a safe and into his pocket is revealed, at the last second, to be a fake; upon being stopped outside of the apartment door, he shoots his pursuers and barrels out through the hallway window.

Felix, fed up with his cramped quarters, the bureaucratic slowdowns, and the seeming incompetence of his fellow agents, rips off his headphones and runs out of the ramshackle surveillance house (located conveniently near the apartment complex) after the henchman -- and we now see that Felix is running on a pair of Cheetah running legs, giving him a leg up on the pursuee. (Felix footage would be made up of a trained Cheetah legs runner, seen only from behind, close shots of Jeffrey Wright from the legs up, and wide shots painstakingly synchronized of both Wright and the runner, digitally spliced together.)

After a pursuit across busy streets, footpaths, and up the breakdown lane of a highway, the henchman is finally cornered near a ledge halfway up an overpass -- and traffic below is fast. The goon takes his last few shots at Leiter, who ducks and slides across to the henchman, bumping into his ankles with the Cheetah legs. The henchman, now off balance, drops his gun and careens over the side, but Felix, supporting himself with one elbow, reaches up with his legs and scissors them between the goon, keeping him pinned, upside down, to the ledge.

Slowly, painstakingly, with his other arm, Felix reaches into the operative's inside coat pocket to fish out what he stole from Marcus's apartment, but the goon thinks fast -- as Leiter pulls it out, the henchman pulls Felix's gun from its holster, but it's too late; Leiter has the goods. With his other arm, Felix unstraps the Cheetah legs from his thighs, sending them -- and the trapped goon -- down into the busy traffic below.

Felix hauls himself up as best he can and looks over the ledge, wincing at the sight of his gorgeous Cheetah legs smashed to bits within the pulpy remains of the Quantum henchman, then looks at what he's retrieved from the dead man's pocket. We don't see what he has clearly, but shock sweeps across Leiter's face; he quickly pulls out his walkie-talkie and radios his superiors, saying that the Quantum man is dead, but they've got a new, and more dangerous, lead.

"Dangerous to who, Leiter?"
"To us!"

Reverse shot of Leiter's trembling hand, as sirens wail in the background, and we finally see his morbid prize: A Department of Defense identity card, registered to one Dr. Emeric Hildebrand.

25 Major Stunt 2:
26 Major Stunt 3: An assault of some kind involving the whole Double-Oh Branch, ideally involving Mr White who is killed. However, in the process, 0011 is also killed and 008 (Goodnight) is heavily injured, leading to her retirement from active service.
27 Major Stunt 4:
28 Finale Stunt:

STUFF

29 Bond's Car (inc. car gadgets):

30 Gadget 1:
31 Gadget 2:

PRODUCTION

32 Director: Christopher Nolan

33 Music By: Elliot Goldenthal.

34 Themetune Sung By: Depeche Mode
35 Themetune Written By: (if different from themetune singer and soundtrack writer)

36 Titles Designed By:
37 Description of Titles:

[SamuelKevlar]

Cheers Terminus. And yeah, I was thinking some kind of apartment set-up as well. If Bond and Goodnight are occupied with Mr White and Quinn for most of the Scarlet Sails sequence, perhaps the threat Hastings has to deal with in Mr White's suite is the 'new' henchman tdalton requested in favour of Shaw/Roberts. This new guy can then be the one who does the killing in Mitre Square, allowing the PTS to return to its original format, which I vastly prefer.

[tdalton]

And, agreed, Bond needs to be the one to take Mr White out. Maybe Hastings is tasked with recovering data whilst Bond is tasked with taking out Mr White and Goodnight with providing cover for him - but when Quinn injurs HER, it means any cover that Bond had has gone and he has to take the heat in the situation - leading to Quinn's 'presumed death' (in reality, mental and physical scarring and not dead at all, allowing her return in UB28) and Mr White's death.

OK, I think I finally have a decent idea of where this is headed (and I very much like it as it's described above ). Apologies for my mis-reading or mis-interpreting having a negative effect on the progression of the story, where certainly more time could (and should) be paid on the main bulk of the story rather than on a small sequence like the PTS.

With that in mind, I'll once again alter the PTS to more or less its original form, keeping the mysterious man in the shadows and all, and also decided to stick with the name "Mr. Roberts" as had been suggested earlier (I didn't feel like yet another name change was in order. I think most that have contributed here know him by the name "Roberts", so it might be a good idea to go ahead and stick with it. I'll save "Shaw" for UB28, and already have what I feel is an awesome actor in mind for the part, although I feel the suggestion may be a bit controversial, but we'll see when we get there )


THE HILDEBRAND RARITY

1 Bond - Daniel Craig

2 Bond Girl 1 (Main ie Vesper/Camille): Inna Korobkina as Yelena Minkova, a Belorussian prima donna ballerina performing in an adaptation of The Daughter of the Snows. She falls in with Bond after surviving an assassination attempt in a case of mistaken identity, having been poisoned with grayanotoxin (a poison derived from honey pollinated by the rhodendron flower). She always wears a scarf to conceal a surgical scar running around her neck after she had an operation on her thyroid, also known as a "Chernobyl necklace"; she survived the accident at Pripyat as a young girl. When the scarf has been removed, it looks as if someone has tried to decapitate her.
3 Bond Girl 2 (Minor ie Solange/Fields): Kerry Condon as Aoife Daly, MI6 logistics agent assigned to St Petersburg (think Nicky in the Bourne movies).
4 Bond Girl 3 (Background Girl): Jeany Spark as Vera (attache to the Space Tourism launchsite in Nambola if we decide to go that route, if not then just a receptionist at a hotel)

5 Henchman: Jason David Frank as Mesquito, a bodyguard/hired gun in the employ of President Sephotho

6 Villain: Giancarlo Esposito as Henrik Sephotho, the President of Nambola
7 Villain 2: Jesper Christensen as Mr. White
8 Villain 3: THE HEAD OF QUANTUM (to be decided by group consensus)
9 Villain 4: Melanie Laurent as Quinn; Elias Koteas as "Mr. Roberts"

10 Other Figures: Wolf Kahler as Dr. Emeric Hildebrand

11 M: Timothy Dalton
12 Moneypenny: Emily Blunt

13 Ally 1: Yvonne Strahovski as Mary Goodnight, 008
14 Ally 2: Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter
15 Ally 3: Max Minghella as Geoffrey Hastings, the new 0011, orphan, ex-RAF, idolises Bond, who sees an uncomfortable amount of himself in the younger man, though with an optimistic belief in the cause that he has since lost.

LOCATIONS - CHINA IS NOT TO BE USED, NOR ARE LOCATIONS IN THE CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

16 Pre-Titles Location: Mitre Square, London
17 Location 1: Cathedral de Se, Sao Paulo, Brazil
18 Location 2: Turkey
19 Location 3: St. Petersburg, Russia, during the Scarlet Sails, the high point of the city's White Nights Festival.
20 Location 4: Nambola (An African country [fictional, of course] and former Dutch colony bordered by South Africa, Angola and Botswana. About sixty percent of its income comes from diamond mining but there is also a thriving gold mining industry too - that said, it is still considered, in comparative terms, to be a third world country. This could be the country that Henrik Feliz is the leader of).
21 Location 5: Germany (because they have the second largest stockpile of gold outside of the US)

KEY PLOT POINTS

22 Villains' Plot: For centuries, many scientists have attempted to find a method of converting lead into gold and vice versa. This has been impossible - until now. A scientist, named Hildebrand, has discovered a chemical process that does the impossible - using a rare chemical isotope/compound known as 'The Hildebrand Rarity'. Our villain seeks to use this process to turn governmental stockpiles of gold into lead - significantly increasing the prices of his own gold stockpiles whilst also creating new-gold using the process.

23 Pre-Title Sequence Stunt: Eric Wright (Stephen Moyer), a high-level MI6 agent, is being stalked through the streets of a city. He can't see his pursuer, as she is hidden in the darkness, with only a silhouette that is visible. She stalks him for several minutes, as Wright ducks into several establishments trying to lose her. Eventually he is cornered in an abandoned square when she catches up to him, shooting him in the leg. He's left immobilized, allowing the woman corner him. When she's revealed to the audience, we see that it is Quinn. She holds a gun on him, demanding the whereabouts of James Bond, Agent 007. He initially refuses, but gives the information up after Quinn promises not to shoot him. When he gives up the information, she continues to point her gun at him, prompting him to beg for his life. "You promised you wouldn't shoot me." "You're right," she says, lowering the gun. "I promised not to shoot you. Unfortunately for you, he didn't make that promise." A shot rings out, and Wright falls to the ground. Quinn turns to walk away, joining a figure in the darkness that we see only as a silhouette.


24 Major Stunt 1: Felix Leiter and the CIA are monitoring the apartment of the deceased Quantum agent Marcus (a brief remark lets us know that they know that he was killed in the Grenadines), hoping that, though slim odds, Marcus will have left something in his apartment of great value to Quantum; lo and behold, an "agent" slipping something out of a safe and into his pocket is revealed, at the last second, to be a fake; upon being stopped outside of the apartment door, he shoots his pursuers and barrels out through the hallway window.

Felix, fed up with his cramped quarters, the bureaucratic slowdowns, and the seeming incompetence of his fellow agents, rips off his headphones and runs out of the ramshackle surveillance house (located conveniently near the apartment complex) after the henchman -- and we now see that Felix is running on a pair of Cheetah running legs, giving him a leg up on the pursuee. (Felix footage would be made up of a trained Cheetah legs runner, seen only from behind, close shots of Jeffrey Wright from the legs up, and wide shots painstakingly synchronized of both Wright and the runner, digitally spliced together.)

After a pursuit across busy streets, footpaths, and up the breakdown lane of a highway, the henchman is finally cornered near a ledge halfway up an overpass -- and traffic below is fast. The goon takes his last few shots at Leiter, who ducks and slides across to the henchman, bumping into his ankles with the Cheetah legs. The henchman, now off balance, drops his gun and careens over the side, but Felix, supporting himself with one elbow, reaches up with his legs and scissors them between the goon, keeping him pinned, upside down, to the ledge.

Slowly, painstakingly, with his other arm, Felix reaches into the operative's inside coat pocket to fish out what he stole from Marcus's apartment, but the goon thinks fast -- as Leiter pulls it out, the henchman pulls Felix's gun from its holster, but it's too late; Leiter has the goods. With his other arm, Felix unstraps the Cheetah legs from his thighs, sending them -- and the trapped goon -- down into the busy traffic below.

Felix hauls himself up as best he can and looks over the ledge, wincing at the sight of his gorgeous Cheetah legs smashed to bits within the pulpy remains of the Quantum henchman, then looks at what he's retrieved from the dead man's pocket. We don't see what he has clearly, but shock sweeps across Leiter's face; he quickly pulls out his walkie-talkie and radios his superiors, saying that the Quantum man is dead, but they've got a new, and more dangerous, lead.

"Dangerous to who, Leiter?"
"To us!"

Reverse shot of Leiter's trembling hand, as sirens wail in the background, and we finally see his morbid prize: A Department of Defense identity card, registered to one Dr. Emeric Hildebrand.

25 Major Stunt 2:
26 Major Stunt 3: An assault of some kind involving the whole Double-Oh Branch, ideally involving Mr White who is killed. However, in the process, 0011 is also killed and 008 (Goodnight) is heavily injured, leading to her retirement from active service.
27 Major Stunt 4:
28 Finale Stunt:

STUFF

29 Bond's Car (inc. car gadgets):

30 Gadget 1:
31 Gadget 2:

PRODUCTION

32 Director: Christopher Nolan

33 Music By: Elliot Goldenthal.

34 Themetune Sung By: Depeche Mode
35 Themetune Written By: (if different from themetune singer and soundtrack writer)

36 Titles Designed By:
37 Description of Titles:

Cheers Terminus. And yeah, I was thinking some kind of apartment set-up as well. If Bond and Goodnight are occupied with Mr White and Quinn for most of the Scarlet Sails sequence, perhaps the threat Hastings has to deal with in Mr White's suite is the 'new' henchman tdalton requested in favour of Shaw/Roberts. This new guy can then be the one who does the killing in Mitre Square, allowing the PTS to return to its original format, which I vastly prefer.

I vastly prefer it the original way as well. I went with the revision based on the idea that the revision might have offered a way to unclutter the character situation a bit going into this story, as it appeared as though it was getting a little crowded. Now that it's been proven not to necessarily be the case, I'm happy to go back to the original, and look forward to developing the Quinn/Shaw relationship/revenge mission in UB28.

Edited by tdalton, 01 November 2010 - 05:26 AM.

[terminus]

Okay - here's the bullet point outline as it stands:

• London, England: Quinn chases and kills Wright, an MI6 desk officer through the streets of London - killing him in Mitre Square before vanishing into the night.
• Sao Paulo, Brazil: Felix watches Marcus' apartment - chases a mole through the city (inc. the cathedral) and finds that the mole pilfered a Ministry of Defence ID card belonging to Doctor Emeric Hildebrand from the apartment.
• Turkey: Meanwhile, Bond investigates a drug plant in a half-ruined fort - but discovers only rhodedenrons. Discovered, he makes his getaway (possibly with the help of 0011) in typical Bondian fashion.
• MI6: M reveals the connection between Wright and Hildebrand - as well as revealing that Quinn killed Wright before being seen to board a flight to St. Petersburg. This is a trap, says Bond. M agrees.
• St. Petersburg, Russia: Bond works with field operative, Aoife, to keep an eye on Quinn - and discovers Mr White too. M agrees this is just a bigger part of the trap, Bond points out it's too good to resist. M sends in the whole Double-Oh Section (008 and 0011) - in MI fashion, the trio work together with Aoife to eliminate Mr White. However - it all goes wrong. Aoife is killed in the safehouse and Hastings recovers a laptop with information on it before being killed in an explosion at the safehouse after discovering Aoife's body - whilst Goodnight provides cover for Bond until she is shot through the leg. Bond must continue onwards to a confrontation with Quinn on a hovercraft - she falls into the water during the fight and is presumed dead (she isn't) and Bond continues onwards to a fight with Mr White on the roof of a greenhouse. Mr White falls to his death.
• MI6 (on location in St. Petersburg): M briefs Bond in the ruins of the safehouse - the laptop was heavily damaged in the explosion and the only information they got out of it was a connection between Emeric Hildebrand's abduction and the highest echelons of power in Nambola. This assignment, says M, will require a great deal of tact and diplomacy - 'God help us all'.
• Nambola: Bond arrives as part of the delegation to do with the space tourism program. With the help of another delegation member, Vera, he meets President Henrik Saphotho - who has taken a shine to ballet dancer Yelena. Yelena is invited to spend the night at Saphotho's palace and he, disgusted at her imperfection, brutally abuses her. Bond keeps the palace under observation - and approaches Yelena to plant a bug on the palace's computer system. She agrees - and this leads Bond to a mine (preferably a lead mine) where Emeric Hildebrand is conducting his research. Bond helps Hildebrand to escape - but Hildebrand turns out to be a willing abductee and betrays Bond (and Yelena, by default) to Saphotho.
• Nambola (ctd): Bond escapes Saphotho and rescues Yelena - but doesn't initially realise she has been poisoned with grayanotoxin. He realises (due to familiarity with the toxin due to Turkey) and must break into a clinic to save her. He saves her - and must leave her in the hands of medics as he rushes to ...
• Germany: Saphotho is planning to use Hildebrand's formulae to turn the gold in the German stockpile into lead - sending the German economy plummeting. At the same time, he will turn Nambola's stockpile of lead into gold - sending the countries wealth skyrocketing overnight. A noble goal, but one that will do more harm than it will do good. Needless to say, Bond stops the use of the formulae.
• Epilogues: We meet the Head of Quantum - who declares all out war on the worlds intelligence communities, beginning with MI6 and with Bond. Bond reunites with a recovered Yelena - but the boat they are on is seen to blow up. It appears as if Quantum have made their first move.
• JAMES BOND WILL RETURN IN 'SHATTERHAND' (a placeholder title)

[coco1997]

It's really coming together quite nicely, terminus. Once the rest of the stunts are in place (and I suppose the gadgets, as well), we'll have the foundation for the entire story. This has the makings to be one of the better Ultimate Bonds we've produced, at the very least, the most Bondian.

[terminus]

I am pondering dropping the rounds - and having the two remaining stunts, car and gadgets (and production information) being decided by discussion.

[coco1997]

Might work. It would help if chrisno threw in a few suggestions and Mr. Blofeld filled in one of the pre-existing fields.

[terminus]

chrisno1 explained he's busy though, so we can't expect him to submit an idea if he's not got the time though - same with the other people who haven't participated this time.

I thought about it more because I am seriously considering abandoning the proforma completely for the final round - and have it all decided by group discussion. This would be a bit of a test drive that. What are peoples thoughts on this?

[Mr. Blofeld]

Rhodedendrons? What? I'm confused... and I really think that, despite my scene being illegally placed, it would've tied up some loose ends (the "Dangerous to us!" line, for one) -- I would've even altered it to accomodate for the re-re-revised PTS, but Bond in Turkey, so soon after losing Lucia? What happened to emotional continuity?

Regardless, here's my (legal) input:

THE HILDEBRAND RARITY

1 Bond - Daniel Craig

2 Bond Girl 1 (Main ie Vesper/Camille): Inna Korobkina as Yelena Minkova, a Belorussian prima donna ballerina performing in an adaptation of The Daughter of the Snows. She falls in with Bond after surviving an assassination attempt in a case of mistaken identity, having been poisoned with grayanotoxin (a poison derived from honey pollinated by the rhodendron flower). She always wears a scarf to conceal a surgical scar running around her neck after she had an operation on her thyroid, also known as a "Chernobyl necklace"; she survived the accident at Pripyat as a young girl. When the scarf has been removed, it looks as if someone has tried to decapitate her.
3 Bond Girl 2 (Minor ie Solange/Fields): Kerry Condon as Aoife Daly, MI6 logistics agent assigned to St Petersburg (think Nicky in the Bourne movies).
4 Bond Girl 3 (Background Girl): Jeany Spark as Vera (attache to the Space Tourism launchsite in Nambola if we decide to go that route, if not then just a receptionist at a hotel)

5 Henchman: Jason David Frank as Mesquito, a bodyguard/hired gun in the employ of President Sephotho

6 Villain: Giancarlo Esposito as Henrik Sephotho, the President of Nambola
7 Villain 2: Jesper Christensen as Mr. White
8 Villain 3: THE HEAD OF QUANTUM (to be decided by group consensus)
9 Villain 4: Melanie Laurent as Quinn; Elias Koteas as "Mr. Roberts"

10 Other Figures: Wolf Kahler as Dr. Emeric Hildebrand

11 M: Timothy Dalton
12 Moneypenny: Emily Blunt

13 Ally 1: Yvonne Strahovski as Mary Goodnight, 008
14 Ally 2: Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter
15 Ally 3: Max Minghella as Geoffrey Hastings, the new 0011, orphan, ex-RAF, idolises Bond, who sees an uncomfortable amount of himself in the younger man, though with an optimistic belief in the cause that he has since lost.

LOCATIONS - CHINA IS NOT TO BE USED, NOR ARE LOCATIONS IN THE CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

16 Pre-Titles Location: Mitre Square, London
17 Location 1: Cathedral de Se, Sao Paulo, Brazil
18 Location 2: Turkey
19 Location 3: St. Petersburg, Russia, during the Scarlet Sails, the high point of the city's White Nights Festival.
20 Location 4: Nambola (An African country [fictional, of course] and former Dutch colony bordered by South Africa, Angola and Botswana. About sixty percent of its income comes from diamond mining but there is also a thriving gold mining industry too - that said, it is still considered, in comparative terms, to be a third world country. This could be the country that Henrik Feliz is the leader of).
21 Location 5: Germany (because they have the second largest stockpile of gold outside of the US)

KEY PLOT POINTS

22 Villains' Plot: For centuries, many scientists have attempted to find a method of converting lead into gold and vice versa. This has been impossible - until now. A scientist, named Hildebrand, has discovered a chemical process that does the impossible - using a rare chemical isotope/compound known as 'The Hildebrand Rarity'. Our villain seeks to use this process to turn governmental stockpiles of gold into lead - significantly increasing the prices of his own gold stockpiles whilst also creating new-gold using the process.

23 Pre-Title Sequence Stunt: Eric Wright (Stephen Moyer), a high-level MI6 agent, is being stalked through the streets of a city. He can't see his pursuer, as she is hidden in the darkness, with only a silhouette that is visible. She stalks him for several minutes, as Wright ducks into several establishments trying to lose her. Eventually he is cornered in an abandoned square when she catches up to him, shooting him in the leg. He's left immobilized, allowing the woman corner him. When she's revealed to the audience, we see that it is Quinn. She holds a gun on him, demanding the whereabouts of James Bond, Agent 007. He initially refuses, but gives the information up after Quinn promises not to shoot him. When he gives up the information, she continues to point her gun at him, prompting him to beg for his life. "You promised you wouldn't shoot me." "You're right," she says, lowering the gun. "I promised not to shoot you. Unfortunately for you, he didn't make that promise." A shot rings out, and Wright falls to the ground. Quinn turns to walk away, joining a figure in the darkness that we see only as a silhouette.

24 Major Stunt 1: Felix Leiter and the CIA are monitoring the apartment of the deceased Quantum agent Marcus (a brief remark lets us know that they know that he was killed in the Grenadines), hoping that, though slim odds, Marcus will have left something in his apartment of great value to Quantum; lo and behold, an "agent" slipping something out of a safe and into his pocket is revealed, at the last second, to be a fake; upon being stopped outside of the apartment door, he shoots his pursuers and barrels out through the hallway window.

Felix, fed up with his cramped quarters, the bureaucratic slowdowns, and the seeming incompetence of his fellow agents, rips off his headphones and runs out of the ramshackle surveillance house (located conveniently near the apartment complex) after the henchman -- and we now see that Felix is running on a pair of Cheetah running legs, giving him a leg up on the pursuee. (Felix footage would be made up of a trained Cheetah legs runner, seen only from behind, close shots of Jeffrey Wright from the legs up, and wide shots painstakingly synchronized of both Wright and the runner, digitally spliced together.)

After a pursuit across busy streets, footpaths, and up the breakdown lane of a highway, the henchman is finally cornered near a ledge halfway up an overpass -- and traffic below is fast. The goon takes his last few shots at Leiter, who ducks and slides across to the henchman, bumping into his ankles with the Cheetah legs. The henchman, now off balance, drops his gun and careens over the side, but Felix, supporting himself with one elbow, reaches up with his legs and scissors them between the goon, keeping him pinned, upside down, to the ledge.

Slowly, painstakingly, with his other arm, Felix reaches into the operative's inside coat pocket to fish out what he stole from Marcus's apartment, but the goon thinks fast -- as Leiter pulls it out, the henchman pulls Felix's gun from its holster, but it's too late; Leiter has the goods. With his other arm, Felix unstraps the Cheetah legs from his thighs, sending them -- and the trapped goon -- down into the busy traffic below.

Felix hauls himself up as best he can and looks over the ledge, wincing at the sight of his gorgeous Cheetah legs smashed to bits within the pulpy remains of the Quantum henchman, then looks at what he's retrieved from the dead man's pocket. We don't see what he has clearly, but shock sweeps across Leiter's face; he quickly pulls out his walkie-talkie and radios his superiors, saying that the Quantum man is dead, but they've got a new, and more dangerous, lead.

"Dangerous to who, Leiter?"
"To us!"

Reverse shot of Leiter's trembling hand, as sirens wail in the background, and we finally see his morbid prize: A Department of Defense identity card, registered to one Dr. Emeric Hildebrand.

25 Major Stunt 2:
26 Major Stunt 3: An assault of some kind involving the whole Double-Oh Branch, ideally involving Mr White who is killed. However, in the process, 0011 is also killed and 008 (Goodnight) is heavily injured, leading to her retirement from active service.
27 Major Stunt 4:
28 Finale Stunt: Bond and Sephotho fight on the launch pad of the... whatever Shuttle. Bond gets the upper hand, and Seppy becomes a crispy critter when the rocket takes off -- severely displeasing Mr. White/Whoever's the Head of Quantum, watching from the shadows/a viewscreen/wherever.

STUFF

29 Bond's Car (inc. car gadgets):

30 Gadget 1:
31 Gadget 2:

PRODUCTION

32 Director: Christopher Nolan

33 Music By: Elliot Goldenthal

34 Themetune Sung By: Depeche Mode
35 Themetune Written By: (if different from themetune singer and soundtrack writer)

36 Titles Designed By:
37 Description of Titles:

[terminus]

Certainly an interesting sequence - not how I envisaged the finale playing out or how I imagined in my head we'd get rid of Sephotho, but interesting and workable nonetheless. My envisagement of how we'd deal with Sephotho was that they'd have him arrested, in front of live television cameras, at the United Nations in New York on solid terrorism charges - it seemed a fitting end to the corrupt politician we'd seen over the rest of the plot.

It'll also mean Bond returning to Nambola after he's been gone to Germany - might be a bit difficult to structure, but I'm sure we could make it work if we had to. That said, the scene would have made an excellent way to dispatch Mesquito into the afterlife - meaning we could keep it in the Nambola sequence, keep the above envisagment of Sephotho's arrest (perhaps the rocket that burns Mesquito to death could be one that delivers Sephotho into orbit - keeping him out of the way whilst the sequence in Germany occurs, allowing for his arrest at the UN at the tail end of the movie).

Rhodedendrons? What? I'm confused... and I really think that, despite my scene being illegally placed, it would've tied up some loose ends (the "Dangerous to us!" line, for one) -- I would've even altered it to accomodate for the re-re-revised PTS, but Bond in Turkey, so soon after losing Lucia? What happened to emotional continuity?

The rhodedenrons are used to make the grayanotoxin that is later used to poison Yelena - this is essentially Bond stopping biological warfare. It's unconnected to the rest of the plot, by and large, save for introducing us to Hastings - and arming Bond with some awareness of grayanotoxin and its effects. It is - essentially - supposed to function in the same way a standard PTS usually does - reintroducing us to Bond in the movie.

A quick side note, SamuelKevlar - perhaps when Bond hands the bottle of wine to Hastings as a 'graduation present', it could be a bottle of Raki? 'I picked up something for you in Ankara -' It would tie into the country to use a popular regional beverage as opposed to the generic champagne or wine.

I'm not sure what you mean about emotional continuity with regards to Lucia - those sequences took place in Spain, at the other end of the mediterranean!

[Captain Tightpants]

Rhodedendrons? What? I'm confused... and I really think that, despite my scene being illegally placed, it would've tied up some loose ends (the "Dangerous to us!" line, for one) -- I would've even altered it to accomodate for the re-re-revised PTS, but Bond in Turkey, so soon after losing Lucia? What happened to emotional continuity?

Turkey has nothing to do with Lucia. Bond is on an assignment from MI6: to locate the centre of a heroin distribution ring based in Turkey that is flooding Western Europe with heroin. They suspect that some ancient ruins that have been converted into a winery serve as the focal point for the entire operation and have sent Bond to take it out. Bond infiltrates the winery-ruins, but simply finds that rather than cultivating poppies, the owners have been growing rhododendrons. Unbeknownst to Bond at the time, it is not the centre of a drug ring, but an outdoor chemical weapons facility.

Later in the story, Henrik Sephotho attempts to poison Belorussion ballerina Yelena Minkova with a grayanotoxin, a rare poison that is created by bees. Normally, bees gather nectar from pollinating flowers and convert it into honey; however, when they gather nectar from a rhododendron, they create honey that is contains grayanotoxin. Historically, grayanotoxin has come from rhododendron grown around Turkey and the Black Sea; there have been several reports from Xenophon and Pompey that Greek soldiers behaved erratically and that armies lost huge numbers after eating honey from the region. Sephotho has acquired the grayanotoxin from the site in Turkey that MI6 believed to be a drug ring. Grayanotoxin may also be the chemical weapon he plans to release in Germany.

So I don't really understand what you mean by "emotional continuity". Bond's presence in Turkey has nothing to do with Lucia, and noris he aking up with a local girl (if that's what you're concerned about). The sequence a) serves as an introduction to Bond, gives him the knowledge he needs to rescue Yelena later in the story, and c) ties into the overall plot. And to be perfectly honest, to have Bond become withdrawn and morose and chaste after losing Lucia is just going to be a re-tread of the post-Vesper story arc.

[terminus]

To be fair, Lucia isn't dead either - she's out there somewhere, presumably, in Spain.

I do have a handful of ideas for the Germany sequence which would come across as, probably, a cross between the nuclear bomb theft in Thunderball and the assault on Fort Knox in Goldfinger - it could be a pretty cool sequence with Quantum forces moving in to get their hands on the German bullion.

[Mr. Blofeld]

What I meant was that he should at least be affected from this broken-off relationship; perhaps he's moody and pensive -- a quick shot of that Lucia screensaver would save the audience a lot of time from wondering why Bond has suddenly become a wallflower...

[terminus]

A subtle reference to Lucia/Spain could be done, I expect - it would certainly be easy to implicate in the same way Bond/Tracey was referenced in LTK - in a 'He was married once. But that was a long time ago.' sort of way. That said, I can't imagine that Bond would be the type to have a wallpaper of an ex-girlfriend on his computer, no matter how special she is.

[SamuelKevlar]

A quick side note, SamuelKevlar - perhaps when Bond hands the bottle of wine to Hastings as a 'graduation present', it could be a bottle of Raki? 'I picked up something for you in Ankara -' It would tie into the country to use a popular regional beverage as opposed to the generic champagne or wine.

Sounds good. I made up the wine gag because the chemical weapons lab is operating under the cover of a winery, so I figured he'd grab a bottle on his way out. But I suppose they could have Raki lying around as well. Says on Wikipedia it has an anise flavour. Would like to try that, actually.

Incidentally, regarding the bullet-points, which look good otherwise - surely Wright is killed by Mr Roberts, not Quinn herself? Hence setting up the line "I promised not to shoot you" etc. And seeing as Roberts is going to end up fighting Hastings in Mr White's suite when he goes to fetch the laptop, might I be allowed to add him to the proforma as Henchman 2, and perhaps hazard a casting?

Loving the demise for Mesquito, by the way. And I like that Sephotho is sent into orbit - maybe the authorities are waiting for him when he returns to Earth, or Quantum, through some nefarious means, sabotage his re-entry so he isn't around to be questioned about his affiliation.

[Captain Tightpants]

What I meant was that he should at least be affected from this broken-off relationship; perhaps he's moody and pensive -- a quick shot of that Lucia screensaver would save the audience a lot of time from wondering why Bond has suddenly become a wallflower...

And how, exactly, would you propose working this into the Turkey sequence? Remember, Bond goes to Turkey before he gets a briefing from M. I don't think he actually appears in Brazil, though I think a better ordering of it would be to have the Turkey scenes before the Brazil ones. Otherwise we're going to have two major sequences - Quinn in the City of London and Felix in Brazil - without so much as a sighting of Bond. I think the suggestion is that the Turkish and Brazilian sequences are playing out concurrently, but I think the London and Sao Paulo scenes need to be broken up by the presence of Bond.

[tdalton]

chrisno1 explained he's busy though, so we can't expect him to submit an idea if he's not got the time though - same with the other people who haven't participated this time.

I thought about it more because I am seriously considering abandoning the proforma completely for the final round - and have it all decided by group discussion. This would be a bit of a test drive that. What are peoples thoughts on this?

I think that, simply in the interest of time if nothing else, that we should keep the proforma heading into the third part of the trilogy. It might be, at least IMO, to finish it out the way that it's been done all the way up to this point, as well as the fact that it helps to provide a good, solid way for everyone to see what's going on with the project which I think could get lost a bit if it were all done via discussion.

With that said, I'll certainly participate either way, so whatever the consensus ends up being is fine.

Also, I believe there's still an action sequence open (if I've read the most up-to-date version of the proforma, as it does seem as though things have progressed rather quickly today), I'll see if I can come up with an action sequence to help fill that out, as I think that I'm a bit recharged now in terms of creativity and might be able to come up with something for my third time through.

[Captain Tightpants]

If the remaining categories are open to discussion, then can I make a suggestion? The Maserati Mistral could serve as an alternative to the Aston Martin DB5. It's absolutely beautiful, though I don't know where you could use it. It would be totally out of place in Turkey and Nambola, Bond doesn't visit Brazil, Germany is too late in the story to really use it, and most of the St. Petersburg sequences seem to take palce on foot. Maybe we could save it for UB28.

[terminus]

Sounds good. I made up the wine gag because the chemical weapons lab is operating under the cover of a winery, so I figured he'd grab a bottle on his way out. But I suppose they could have Raki lying around as well. Says on Wikipedia it has an anise flavour. Would like to try that, actually.

Incidentally, regarding the bullet-points, which look good otherwise - surely Wright is killed by Mr Roberts, not Quinn herself? Hence setting up the line "I promised not to shoot you" etc. And seeing as Roberts is going to end up fighting Hastings in Mr White's suite when he goes to fetch the laptop, might I be allowed to add him to the proforma as Henchman 2, and perhaps hazard a casting?

Loving the demise for Mesquito, by the way. And I like that Sephotho is sent into orbit - maybe the authorities are waiting for him when he returns to Earth, or Quantum, through some nefarious means, sabotage his re-entry so he isn't around to be questioned about his affiliation.

Ah - yes - Mr Roberts kills Mr Wright. I certainly wouldn't be opposed to you casting Mr Roberts - but it might be wise to check with tdalton given it was his character inititally, although it has since altered from what he saw it?

And how, exactly, would you propose working this into the Turkey sequence? Remember, Bond goes to Turkey before he gets a briefing from M. I don't think he actually appears in Brazil, though I think a better ordering of it would be to have the Turkey scenes before the Brazil ones. Otherwise we're going to have two major sequences - Quinn in the City of London and Felix in Brazil - without so much as a sighting of Bond. I think the suggestion is that the Turkish and Brazilian sequences are playing out concurrently, but I think the London and Sao Paulo scenes need to be broken up by the presence of Bond.

I get what you're saying - but if the Sao Paulo sequence comes after Turkey then it means the Sao Paulo sequence plays directly in the MI6 briefing about the MOD ID card. I think it needs the gap between the two sequences to allow the briefing to work correctly - and I don't think having the Turkey sequence be that gap hurts the Turkey sequence.

Yes - it does mean we're looking Bond make his entrance about ten/fifteen minutes into the movie, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing either.

I think that, simply in the interest of time if nothing else, that we should keep the proforma heading into the third part of the trilogy. It might be, at least IMO, to finish it out the way that it's been done all the way up to this point, as well as the fact that it helps to provide a good, solid way for everyone to see what's going on with the project which I think could get lost a bit if it were all done via discussion.

Also, I believe there's still an action sequence open (if I've read the most up-to-date version of the proforma, as it does seem as though things have progressed rather quickly today), I'll see if I can come up with an action sequence to help fill that out, as I think that I'm a bit recharged now in terms of creativity and might be able to come up with something for my third time through.

Okay - as I've been thinking about this too, the proforma will be retained for the vast percentage of UB28 until we're a fair distance along. It does help keep track of elements, if nothing else.

I think we've got an idea for the action sequence in Turkey - and if we shift the fight on the launchpad to Nambola, then I've got an idea for the sequence that could occur in Germany. I'll type up an outline and post it for discussion.

If the remaining categories are open to discussion, then can I make a suggestion? The Maserati Mistral could serve as an alternative to the Aston Martin DB5. It's absolutely beautiful, though I don't know where you could use it. It would be totally out of place in Turkey and Nambola, Bond doesn't visit Brazil, Germany is too late in the story to really use it, and most of the St. Petersburg sequences seem to take palce on foot. Maybe we could save it for UB28.

I do like the Maserati. It would be difficult admittedly to get it into a lot of the locations - though I have the idea of Bond using a motorbike in Turkey (much more conducive to the rugged terrain than the Maserati). It depends whether we want to just 'glimpse' it - as we could possibly see it in Nambola and possibly just as a cameo in the MI6 sequence (as Bond drives into the garage at Vauxhall Cross).

[Mr. Blofeld]

What I meant was that he should at least be affected from this broken-off relationship; perhaps he's moody and pensive -- a quick shot of that Lucia screensaver would save the audience a lot of time from wondering why Bond has suddenly become a wallflower...

And how, exactly, would you propose working this into the Turkey sequence? Remember, Bond goes to Turkey before he gets a briefing from M. I don't think he actually appears in Brazil, though I think a better ordering of it would be to have the Turkey scenes before the Brazil ones. Otherwise we're going to have two major sequences - Quinn in the City of London and Felix in Brazil - without so much as a sighting of Bond. I think the suggestion is that the Turkish and Brazilian sequences are playing out concurrently, but I think the London and Sao Paulo scenes need to be broken up by the presence of Bond.

So, does M appear in Turkey? I thought we agreed that "globetrotting M" was out?

[terminus]

No - we only see M at MI6 headquarters at present. We meet Bond in media res (if that's the right term) in Turkey.

[Captain Tightpants]

So, does M appear in Turkey? I thought we agreed that "globetrotting M" was out?

*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*

No. Think of it like the sequence in GOLDFINGER where Bond takes out the drug operation in Mexico. He didn't need M's help there, and he's not going to need M's help here. All we have to do is have Bond return to London was a sample of the rhododendron and/or the honey and throw in a line of dialogue that goes something like "Whatever they were doing, it wasn't opium.They were up to something, though; it was an old fort converted into a winery, but there wasn't a grape in sight. This was the best I could do." [produces samples].

[terminus]

No. Think of it like the sequence in GOLDFINGER where Bond takes out the drug operation in Mexico. He didn't need M's help there, and he's not going to need M's help here. All we have to do is have Bond return to London was a sample of the rhododendron and/or the honey and throw in a line of dialogue that goes something like "Whatever they were doing, it wasn't opium.They were up to something, though; it was an old fort converted into a winery, but there wasn't a grape in sight. This was the best I could do." [produces samples].

What he said.

Okay - the two action sequences I mentioned earlier:

Turkey

Bond breaks into the old fort converted into a winery - to discover it is packed with rhodedendrons. He takes a sample, but is discovered and must evade guards to escape. He finds his way to a sort of garage - there are several trucks avaliable, but Bond opts for a motorbike and escapes the old fort on the motorbike. But he is pursued - and must evade his pursuers by taking the chase off-road, eventually riding the motorbike off the edge of a cliff. He's not dead though - the motorbike skids to a halt in the cargo deck of a Boeing CH-47 Chinook.

Bond makes his way to the cockpit of the helicopter, which is piloted by a handsome young man. Bond removes a bottle of Raki from the backpack and hands it to the man - "I picked something up for you in Ankara. Call it a graduation present, 0011"

Germany (this sequence is much more conceptual)

The Deutche Bundesbanke plan to move it's bullion to three temporary back-up locations whilst they overhaul the bullion storage facility in Berlin - a third will travel by air, a third will travel by rail and a third will travel by autobahn. Quantum plan to launch a multi-pronged stealth attack on the three - grounding the plane at a remote airfield , stopping the train and preventing the road convoy from proceeding further. Bond must work with German forces to intercept and prevent the theft of the bullion - taking part in one of the preventative actions himself.

[Mr. Blofeld]

All right, all right; you did not need a "head desk" -- I'm not that thick.

Now, the drug operation: Could that be an ongoing storyline, somehow tying in with the main plot -- hell, the main plot of the next one, or some such? In the Craig era, nothing's unrelated...

[terminus]

It does tie into the rest of the movie - sorta - as the toxin derived from the rhodedendrons is used on Yelena in Nambola and Bond's knowledge of it from Turkey helps him save Yelena's life

Besides which, I want to see Craig's finale movie being more of a 'nuclear bomb' sort of movie (by that, I mean a 'big threat' sort of movie) given we've got Bond going up against the Head of Quantum.

Speaking of whom - any casting thoughts? I'd like to throw Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and Catherine Deneuve into the pot - they're my Big 3 picks.