No Skyfall novelization

John Cox's The Book Bond site got word from Ian Fleming Publications there won't be a Skyfall novelization.

http://www.thebookbond.com/2012/03/official-no-skyfall-novelization-dang.html?spref=fb

Not necessarily a bad thing.

Why?

I'd always enjoyed reading the books before or after watching the movies.

The Christopher Wood novelizations actually added something more than vaguely Fleming-like, and were almost enough to make me forgive Wood for writing the screenplays to SPY and MR!

But man, the Gardner LTK novelization was maybe the worst in history. I mean, I read that and went in expecting a total dud of a movie, and was totally surprised. It was like Gardner screwed up or de-cinematized every good bit. The point of view he took in representing stuff like the escape from the Wavekrest took all the danger and fun and interest out, which is really something for a scene that was the first time since the laser in GF where I actually thought for a second Bond wasn't going to get out of it (when all the scuba guys have him.) I think that is when I gave up on Gardner's Bond originals, too, not that I ever really liked any of those except FOR SPECIAL SERVICES.

Novelisations don't always do justice to a movie (especially if it's good), I hate to say it but the only one I ever cared for was Vonda N. Mcintyre's one for Star Trek II and that was because it padded out story.
Wood's were the better ones but by and large I've mainly read the Benson's and Gardner's and the bad experiences tend to outweigh the positives, such as they are.

McIntyre's novelization for ST III really expanded the story, I think nearly all of the first 80 pages were invented by her. When she has a drunk Scotty starting to sing 'o danny boy' it was pretty damn good, but she had to put so much energy into rationalizing away all the stupid science in those movies ... no wonder she quit doing them after IV.

I wonder if this is perhaps due to the overwhelming secrecy that the filmmakers are going for with this film. They've let almost nothing out about anything contained within the movie and have had even the names of the characters pretty much under lock and key. I would imagine that at least part of the decision not to have a novelization might stem from them not wanting to give out copies of the script to people who it was not absolutely essential for them to be in possession of the script.

Regardless of the reason, I'm not particularly disappointed by the fact that there won't be a novelization. I think the last one that I read, for any film (not just the Bond films) was The World Is Not Enough and I don't remember being particularly impressed with it, although I do remember it being better than the finished film.

dalton wrote:

I wonder if this is perhaps due to the overwhelming secrecy that the filmmakers are going for with this film. They've let almost nothing out about anything contained within the movie and have had even the names of the characters pretty much under lock and key. I would imagine that at least part of the decision not to have a novelization might stem from them not wanting to give out copies of the script to people who it was not absolutely essential for them to be in possession of the script.

Regardless of the reason, I'm not particularly disappointed by the fact that there won't be a novelization. I think the last one that I read, for any film (not just the Bond films) was The World Is Not Enough and I don't remember being particularly impressed with it, although I do remember it being better than the finished film.

You may be on to something. Because of publishing schedules, the writer of the novelization doesn't work from the finished script. Raymond Benson's novelization for Tomorrow Never Dies has the line where M says how the world is not really filled with big-breasted women and masterminds in hallowed out volcanoes. That was in Bruce Feirstein's first draft and apparently survived whatever version Benson was working from. But it didn't make the film. (Feirstein worked it in again in TWINE, it got filmed but didn't make that film either).

In any case, had their been a novelization, the writer would have gotten a copy before now.

Napoleon Solo wrote:

dalton wrote:

I wonder if this is perhaps due to the overwhelming secrecy that the filmmakers are going for with this film. They've let almost nothing out about anything contained within the movie and have had even the names of the characters pretty much under lock and key. I would imagine that at least part of the decision not to have a novelization might stem from them not wanting to give out copies of the script to people who it was not absolutely essential for them to be in possession of the script.

Regardless of the reason, I'm not particularly disappointed by the fact that there won't be a novelization. I think the last one that I read, for any film (not just the Bond films) was The World Is Not Enough and I don't remember being particularly impressed with it, although I do remember it being better than the finished film.

You may be on to something. Because of publishing schedules, the writer of the novelization doesn't work from the finished script. Raymond Benson's novelization for Tomorrow Never Dies has the line where M says how the world is not really filled with big-breasted women and masterminds in hallowed out volcanoes. That was in Bruce Feirstein's first draft and apparently survived whatever version Benson was working from. But it didn't make the film. (Feirstein worked it in again in TWINE, it got filmed but didn't make that film either).

In any case, had their been a novelization, the writer would have gotten a copy before now.

Interesting. I do remember having read the Tomorrow Never Dies novelization after I had seen the film and thinking that it had ended up being quite different from the finished film in some respects. I'm kind of glad that the line didn't make it into the films as that might have been a case of the series being a bit too self aware, which, along with the overboard political correctness of the Brosnan films, would have been a bit too much.

Never read any of the novelizations so it's no loss for me. Besides, I rather see the story as its told in the film first.

Hear, hear. I was so excited to find Wood's MR the day before the film opened that I read half of it that very night. Fortunately I also decided to get roaring drunk as I read it, so I didn't really remember it that well the next day.

I never did that again, when the novelizations resumed in 1989.

I have to disagree with Trevanian, though. I quite enjoyed Gardner's take on LTK, and I expected GE to be even better, since it was more his kind of story. But, like JBaMR compared to JB:TSWLM, Gardner seemed to put less effort into it, perhaps for the same reason as Raymond Benson gave: because neither EON nor IFP really cared about the quality of the tie-in book. Which is too bad, because in each writer's case, I found their first efforts to be very well-presented and enjoyable. DAD should have been special, as it was celebrating the 40th anniversary of the franchise, but it too just seemed too spare.

I suppose if a 50th anniversary tie-in had been commissioned, it too might have been disappointing - depending on who got the job.

When all else fails, you can always do what I did when I was so disappointed with JBaMR that I became convinced I could write a better novelization myself.

I found writing my own version of James Bond and the Man With the Golden Gun to be a great exercise, as I only had to concentrate on narrative description, and not on developing plot and characters. The finished product was crap, of course - I should have concentrated on figuring out and filling in the plot holes and characters' motivations.

Maybe next time.

Seem to remember the novelisation of Spy had a bit where Bond is tortured via electrodes on his testicles ... difficult to imagine that in the movie, to say the least.

In 1977, anyway.

There was a Nick Carter 'novel' (Trouble in Paradise) wherein Killmaster N3 assassinates a Russian agent on a ski slope, is later captured and had his gnads pummeled with a carpet beater, gets a massage from a willing fellow prisoner which heals him right up, gets captured again and has his gnads electrocuted, escapes again, then encounters the villain who pulls off his disguise (nose first) to reveal that he is really someone else. Finally Carter's partner pulls a gun on him and reveals that the man he killed on the ski slope was her lover. Carter kills her too.

This wasn't presented as a pastiche, or a 'best of' collection - just as an 'original' novel. I think I know where Jim Hatfield and Q.R. Markham got their inspiration.

I enjoyed Christopher Wood's novelisation of THE SPY WHO LOVED ME a great deal. Hard-edged yet with a keen wit, sort like a later Fleming novel. Beats any of the Benson or Gardiner novels I've read.

I agree about JBTSWLM, although I found Wood went a little too heavy on the similes. Also, have you ever noticed how short the chapters are?

He lost me right from the beginning of JBaMR with "The 747 was flying high..." Fleming or Gardner would have given a technical description of the aircraft and its capabilities that would have made the reader feel like he was on board.

He briefly won me back, however, with his description of Frederick Gray stalking off across St. Mark's Square "detonating clouds of pigeons."

Unfortunately Moonraker had such a bonkers script that no amount of literary talent could make sense of it without making much-needed fundamental alterations to the narrative.

AMC Hornet wrote:

I agree about JBTSWLM, although I found Wood went a little too heavy on the similes. Also, have you ever noticed how short the chapters are?

He lost me right from the beginning of JBaMR with "The 747 was flying high..." Fleming or Gardner would have given a technical description of the aircraft and its capabilities that would have made the reader feel like he was on board.

He briefly won me back, however, with his description of Frederick Gray stalking off across St. Mark's Square "detonating clouds of pigeons."

Unfortunately Moonraker had such a bonkers script that no amount of literary talent could make sense of it without making much-needed fundamental alterations to the narrative.

Moonraker has that great 'graph where Bond is looking at a Drax girl frolic nude in zero g (a scene that was apparently shot and cut -- FUTURE LIFE magazine had pics of the set, which had a big black hemisphere at the center, as I recall) ... Bond goes reflective in a very interesting way as the girl smiles at him.