Thing is, there is a reason Ian Fleming wrote those titles for chapters and not full books.
What should the title of Bond 24 be?
#271
Posted 11 February 2013 - 05:38 AM
#272
Posted 11 February 2013 - 07:47 AM
Given how good Fleming was with titles, even his chapter titles have promise. And why should short story titles be privileged over them, when many are certainly better than "007 in New York" or "Risico"?
#273
Posted 11 February 2013 - 08:40 AM
Edited by Dustin, 11 February 2013 - 08:43 AM.
#274
Posted 11 February 2013 - 12:52 PM
A while back I went through all of Fleming's chapter titles to see if any could be usable film titles. I came up with the following list. Obviously not every title will be to everyone's liking, but it's an interesting enough pool to select from:
A Whisper of Love, A Whisper of Hate
Cards With a Stranger
The Eye That Never Sleeps
Bitter Champagne
We Don't Like Mistakes
The Job Comes Second
Death is So Permanent
The Slaughterer
The Wizard of Ice
The Beautiful Lure
Black on Pink
The Killing Bottle
Ten Pints of Blood
The Finger on the Trigger
The Long Scream
Reflections in a Double Bourbon
The Pressure Room
Crime de la Crime
The Richest Man in History
Take It Easy Mr. Bond
SPECTRE
How to Eat a Girl
When the Kissing Stopped
The Shadower
The Gambit of Shame
Death For Breakfast
Downhill Only
Fork Left For Hell
Blood-lift
Hell's Delight
The Death Collector
Slay It With Flowers
The Question Room
Blood and Thunder
The Easy Grand
I just don't see that one happening.
#275
Posted 11 February 2013 - 06:36 PM
How about just simply Bond 24?
#276
Posted 11 February 2013 - 06:44 PM
How about just "BOND"?
#277
Posted 11 February 2013 - 08:08 PM
The title should be Bond, James Bond
#278
Posted 12 February 2013 - 02:18 AM
Revelator has something with 'The Wizard of Ice.' I proposed that for the title of Bond 20. That's where it might have fit - instead of the BA inflight magazine referring to Graves as 'the King of Diamonds.'
#279
Posted 12 February 2013 - 11:36 PM
Given how good Fleming was with titles, even his chapter titles have promise. And why should short story titles be privileged over them, when many are certainly better than "007 in New York" or "Risico"?
I think you're missing the point. My point, at least, was that they shouldn't be picking around the floor for scraps of whatever's left over of Fleming's chapter titles and such at all. They need to get creative and stop clinging - even moreso I say to stop with the constant homaging, as if a new Bond film would fail without a bunch of nods and wanks to previous films.
At the end of the day they need to write an original story anyway, so just get on with it - get into the *spirit* of Fleming. Write it well and a good title will come *from* it, rather than desperately scrounging chapter titles and then trying to fit in a story that suits it.. you know what I mean?
#280
Posted 13 February 2013 - 04:05 AM
Everything Or Nothing
#281
Posted 13 February 2013 - 06:16 PM
Given how good Fleming was with titles, even his chapter titles have promise. And why should short story titles be privileged over them, when many are certainly better than "007 in New York" or "Risico"?
I think you're missing the point. My point, at least, was that they shouldn't be picking around the floor for scraps of whatever's left over of Fleming's chapter titles and such at all. They need to get creative and stop clinging - even moreso I say to stop with the constant homaging, as if a new Bond film would fail without a bunch of nods and wanks to previous films.
At the end of the day they need to write an original story anyway, so just get on with it - get into the *spirit* of Fleming. Write it well and a good title will come *from* it, rather than desperately scrounging chapter titles and then trying to fit in a story that suits it.. you know what I mean?
I think you're missing mine in turn. The best way to get into the spirit of Fleming is to actually use him, not ape him. Fleming was a master at titles, and even the titles for his chapters tend to be better than anything the scriptwriters can come up with when being "creative" (Die Another Day or Tomorrow Never Dies anyone?). And in the case of Quantum of Solace the problem was that they didn't fit the story to suit the title, or at the very least didn't provide an adequate explanation for the relevance of the title. Skyfall succeeded as a title only because it referred back to a location of great importance to the film--on its own it sounds like a bad video game. If the screenwriters can come up with a great title on their own (and so far they haven't) then great. If they can't, there's plenty of Fleming left to choose from, and higher quality Fleming than the usual short story titles fans keep throwing around.
Edited by Revelator, 13 February 2013 - 06:17 PM.
#282
Posted 14 February 2013 - 08:27 AM
The thing I always appreciate about Fleming titles is there's some twist to them or turn of phrase. You think you know where it's going and then that last word turns it on its head--You Only Live ... Twice or Live and Let ...Die. Or there's an implied question going against expectation--From Russia with Love? The Spy who Loved Me? The World Is Not Enough!?
Then there are the one word titles--how to describe a King Midas villain who has his fingers controlling everything--Goldfinger!
Or a lightning rod--Thunderball!
His reputation for sexual innuendo forces one to pick up and read Octopussy just to find out what if he means something adulterous, only to find out it's a pet octopus! Some titles have a dichotomy of professional and personal meanings for Bond--For Your Eyes Only and On Her Majesty's Secret Service. So For Queen and Country might be good.
Doctor No, The Man with the Golden Gun, and Shatterhand are intriguing character names because you wonder why a doctor embodies the negative, or who makes a gun out of gold. Hands hold so what is Dr. Guntram Shatterhand about, you wonder.
At best, the non-Fleming titles reflect mere shadows of these qualities--Skyfall or Die Another Day. At worst, a typo could improve the title (*cough* TND *cough*) That's why it's so much fun to try and guess a good Bond title. We appreciate Fleming's genius even more when failing to duplicate it.
#283
Posted 14 February 2013 - 03:34 PM
The thing I always appreciate about Fleming titles is there's some twist to them or turn of phrase. You think you know where it's going and then that last word turns it on its head--You Only Live ... Twice or Live and Let ...Die. Or there's an implied question going against expectation--From Russia with Love? The Spy who Loved Me? The World Is Not Enough!?
Then there are the one word titles--how to describe a King Midas villain who has his fingers controlling everything--Goldfinger!
Or a lightning rod--Thunderball!
His reputation for sexual innuendo forces one to pick up and read Octopussy just to find out what if he means something adulterous, only to find out it's a pet octopus! Some titles have a dichotomy of professional and personal meanings for Bond--For Your Eyes Only and On Her Majesty's Secret Service. So For Queen and Country might be good.
Doctor No, The Man with the Golden Gun, and Shatterhand are intriguing character names because you wonder why a doctor embodies the negative, or who makes a gun out of gold. Hands hold so what is Dr. Guntram Shatterhand about, you wonder.
At best, the non-Fleming titles reflect mere shadows of these qualities--Skyfall or Die Another Day. At worst, a typo could improve the title (*cough* TND *cough*) That's why it's so much fun to try and guess a good Bond title. We appreciate Fleming's genius even more when failing to duplicate it.
This.
Except I disagree about Skyfall - the title is just as intriguing as Live and Let Die or You Only Live Twice. I mean, how could the sky fall? I know the metaphor has been used before throughout the history of literature, but I don't think it's as bad a title as you think, and it's absolutely better than Die Another Day.
Edited by Stavro, 14 February 2013 - 03:34 PM.
#284
Posted 14 February 2013 - 08:48 PM
From Quantum with Solace?
Dr. Thunderball?
How about "The Spy Who Loved A View to a Kill?"
#285
Posted 14 February 2013 - 09:39 PM
Given how good Fleming was with titles, even his chapter titles have promise. And why should short story titles be privileged over them, when many are certainly better than "007 in New York" or "Risico"?
I think you're missing the point. My point, at least, was that they shouldn't be picking around the floor for scraps of whatever's left over of Fleming's chapter titles and such at all. They need to get creative and stop clinging - even moreso I say to stop with the constant homaging, as if a new Bond film would fail without a bunch of nods and wanks to previous films.
At the end of the day they need to write an original story anyway, so just get on with it - get into the *spirit* of Fleming. Write it well and a good title will come *from* it, rather than desperately scrounging chapter titles and then trying to fit in a story that suits it.. you know what I mean?
I think you're missing mine in turn. The best way to get into the spirit of Fleming is to actually use him, not ape him. Fleming was a master at titles, and even the titles for his chapters tend to be better than anything the scriptwriters can come up with when being "creative" (Die Another Day or Tomorrow Never Dies anyone?). And in the case of Quantum of Solace the problem was that they didn't fit the story to suit the title, or at the very least didn't provide an adequate explanation for the relevance of the title. Skyfall succeeded as a title only because it referred back to a location of great importance to the film--on its own it sounds like a bad video game. If the screenwriters can come up with a great title on their own (and so far they haven't) then great. If they can't, there's plenty of Fleming left to choose from, and higher quality Fleming than the usual short story titles fans keep throwing around.
But that's just it - they *wouldn't* be 'using' Fleming material.. they'd just be scraping a chapter title from the bottom of the barrel and then *having *, like you just said yourself with QoS, to fit a story around that title, just for the sake of using whatever's left of a couple of words Fleming put together. It's incredibly amateur practice for a writer of any kind to do this, because they are instantly limiting their creativity.
If there were actual good stories to use along with a good title or two of course that'd be a good idea to use, but there simply aren't. There are a few rather dull scraps of narrative left amongst what's already been done, and the titles left are mediocre. I think Skyfall is a better title for a 007 movie than The Hildebrand Rarity, The Property of a Lady or 007 in New York. That isn't saying they are bad titles, they are good short story titles for very short, in fact rather poor examples of Fleming's work. Face it, you just want them to use them for the sake of it being Fleming, not because it would actually bring anything to the film. That IS amateur writing practice, and since Purvis & Wadehead are no more (THANK F) I would rather they concentrated on writing a good story first, then seeing what happens. If the story they write independently and fully creatively suits one of those titles and it works well I'd obviously not have a problem with it.
#286
Posted 14 February 2013 - 10:30 PM
The thing I always appreciate about Fleming titles is there's some twist to them or turn of phrase. You think you know where it's going and then that last word turns it on its head--You Only Live ... Twice or Live and Let ...Die. Or there's an implied question going against expectation--From Russia with Love? The Spy who Loved Me? The World Is Not Enough!?
Then there are the one word titles--how to describe a King Midas villain who has his fingers controlling everything--Goldfinger!
Or a lightning rod--Thunderball!
His reputation for sexual innuendo forces one to pick up and read Octopussy just to find out what if he means something adulterous, only to find out it's a pet octopus!
It might just be me, but I find Fleming's one word titles (apart from Risico) often have a whisper of sexual suggestiveness about them: Finger, Thunder, Ball, Pussy - OK, Moon and Raker might be pushing it a bit but I still reckon you can get some innuendo out of them.
So, with that in mind I definitely prefer the previously mentioned Silvertongue to titles like Brokenclaw and Shatterhand which seem a little less sensuous or passionate in comparison.
I'll admit I've whiled away many an idle hour trying to think of potential Bond titles myself. The only ones that seem half-decent probably would have to tie into very specific plots, but since we're discussing the subject here you go:
- Foxfire
- Silvertouch
- Who Dares Lives
- Time Kills Everything (yeah, I went with 'Kill' in a title *ducks for cover* )
#287
Posted 15 February 2013 - 12:41 AM
like to "For Queen and Country" as a title since it has this Fleming feel and similar to OHMSS
#288
Posted 15 February 2013 - 07:05 AM
Stavro, Skyfall is a good title. It also brings to mind "sky's the limit."
Aquator, it's not just you, Fleming's one word titles are suggestive. Moonraker too, though I can't explain that one.
I hadn't heard Silvertongue before. That'd be good, though there certainly are more than a couple colored body part titles. But there was a Clint Eastwood movied called Firefox.
I' also liked Pussfeller's suggestion of The Sun Never Sets from another thread. And I'm glad they opted for Licence to Kill over 'Revoked' or 'Renewed.'
#289
Posted 15 February 2013 - 09:33 PM
Stavro, Skyfall is a good title. It also brings to mind "sky's the limit."
Aquator, it's not just you, Fleming's one word titles are suggestive. Moonraker too, though I can't explain that one.
I hadn't heard Silvertongue before. That'd be good, though there certainly are more than a couple colored body part titles. But there was a Clint Eastwood movied called Firefox.
I' also liked Pussfeller's suggestion of The Sun Never Sets from another thread. And I'm glad they opted for Licence to Kill over 'Revoked' or 'Renewed.'
Yeah, I knew about Clint's film. Shame that, though I was hoping the fact the two words were switched around might be enough to distinguish it. For those that don't know Foxfire is actually a term for bio-luminescent fungi and was used as a light source in the earliest submarines.
Edited by Aquator, 15 February 2013 - 09:34 PM.
#290
Posted 15 February 2013 - 11:48 PM
But that's just it - they *wouldn't* be 'using' Fleming material.. they'd just be scraping a chapter title from the bottom of the barrel and then *having *, like you just said yourself with QoS, to fit a story around that title, just for the sake of using whatever's left of a couple of words Fleming put together. It's incredibly amateur practice for a writer of any kind to do this, because they are instantly limiting their creativity.
If there were actual good stories to use along with a good title or two of course that'd be a good idea to use, but there simply aren't. There are a few rather dull scraps of narrative left amongst what's already been done, and the titles left are mediocre. I think Skyfall is a better title for a 007 movie than The Hildebrand Rarity, The Property of a Lady or 007 in New York. That isn't saying they are bad titles, they are good short story titles for very short, in fact rather poor examples of Fleming's work. Face it, you just want them to use them for the sake of it being Fleming, not because it would actually bring anything to the film. That IS amateur writing practice, and since Purvis & Wadehead are no more (THANK F) I would rather they concentrated on writing a good story first, then seeing what happens. If the story they write independently and fully creatively suits one of those titles and it works well I'd obviously not have a problem with it.
I don't quite see why using one of Fleming's titles would not be using Fleming. With QoS they picked a title that themetaically applied to the film, but needed a slight bit of explanation to make that relevance clear. That--in the form of a few lines of dialogue--would not have been too much to ask from the shortest movie in the series. Skyfall is certainly a better title than 007 in New York, but that's the extent of my agreement (I certainly don't agree that The Hildebrand Rarity is a rather poor example of Fleming's work. On the other hand, its title is so specific that it's of very limited use.)
Until you can figure out the exact nature and extent of Haggis and Logan's contributions, I would suggest cutting back on the Purvis & Wade hate, especially since they gave you your beloved Skyfall title.
It is silly to claim "I would rather they concentrated on writing a good story first"--no one was suggesting otherwise. It's clear that the title is often selected after a draft of the script is completed, often quite late in the game, and sometimes by people other than the screenwriters (which is why I trust Fleming's ability more than the film crew's). I would like the filmmakers to use a Fleming title--preferably a chapter title rather than a short story title--if it fits the script or can be fitted without too much trouble. He was a master at titles, and still has some good ones left.
Edited by Revelator, 15 February 2013 - 11:49 PM.
#291
Posted 16 February 2013 - 12:47 AM
I'd like to see something that doesn't sound like it was thought up by either Titan Comics or someone haunting an online forum - and that includes myself.
#292
Posted 16 February 2013 - 02:07 AM
#293
Posted 16 February 2013 - 04:10 AM
Wot I said.
EDIT: However, despite what I said, I suddenly feel inspired by Sebastian Faulks:
"Let the Devil Take Tomorrow"
Or some shortened version thereof.