How should B26 start?

Given the ending of NTTD - and I'm assuming we're all caught up on spoilers etc. - how should the next film address (or not address) the demise of Craig Daniel's character?

1. Bond/007 is just a codename: Indulge the "James Bond = codename" dorks and just have a new person take up the mantle. Fiennes' M, his hairline now fully receded,  would sigh deeply and take a deep drink of hard cider and mutter about how "Your predecessor made the ultimate sacrifice, so his lovechild wouldn't get nanobot smallpox." Nu-Bond would spend the film trying to get out of Craig-Bond's shadow etc.

2. Another Origin Story: Just like the Spiderman movies seems to have a new origin story movie every few years (poor Uncle Ben), we have another movie where a younger Bond earns his double-O status and M needs to know he/she/they can trust him/she/they.

3. Continue the 'Continuity' of 1962-2002: Let Craig-Bond have his own continuity. in B26 we see the 'old' Bond visiting Tracy's grave to establish him as the same man we haven't seen on screen in 20 years. Walks into M's office and he/she/they says "Come in, 007. Nasty business with that Gustav Graves chap, wasn't it? Anyway, here's your new assignment."

4. I dunno, you tell me.

What I have in mind--and I have precious little hope it will happen--is a long series of period-pieces beginning in 1953 (the year CR was published) and continuing through 1961, the year before DN hit the theaters. That would be nine films and might exhaust my time on earth. After that, I don't give a ruddy toss because I'll be drinking I.W. Harper and chuffing scrambled eggs with Ian Fleming.

Interesting topic, makes me consider that there are some valid options.

Having paused to consider and disregard those other options, I'd start with a fairly young Bond, the guy from TV's spy thriller THE GAME, possibly being promoted into the role or perhaps even working his way up to it by the end of the movie. (I would only go this route with that actor or somebody I don't know of who can bring the same game and has a similar look -- otherwise it would have to be just jumping into a traditional old-school Bond movie, which could also be done with Mr. Hughes.)

This has the advantage that CR squandered ... that somebody who is young and looks young can be convincing as a rookie Double-0, which CR made ludicrous by not going with the director's choice and casting Cavill. If you cast young, you can even justify brash stupid moves, like the moment in CR after losing at cards when UgBond decides to grab a table knife with the intention of upping his body count.

I don't think you get into Bond's backstory at all, instead going back to Connery territory of 'this guy just sprang into existence.' You get his character by his responses and actions and stance and expression, and leave the rest for the audience to fill in (even if they get it wrong.)

A little bit of Dalton angst is fine, because otherwise Bond is just a Craig-like sociopath, but he has to look like he enjoys most of his job and how he handles himself doing it. He can have his reflective moments in a double-bourbon, a la waiting for Paris in TND, and he can even maybe do more dialog than most Bonds (like really tackling some of that 'nature of evil' chapter from CR), but stylish action is a must, and that means the filmmakers have to design action that builds and crescendos and then score the scenes in that same vein. You can't use the 007 theme when Bond escapes torture in SKYFALL and then blows the place up with a single bullet, because there's no build, no choreography, NO FUCKING STYLE! Essentially, there's no Bondness to the thing.

For the fantasy-sf aspect ... well, in a perfect world, you'd do MOONRAKER and set it in the 50s. Or you could set it during the early 80s, which might make it even more political given Reagan and Thatcher and all like that. You kiss off the product placement, but if you make the movie for 100 mil, you can afford to do that, and it'll set a good example for other big-budget shows that they don't need to throw so much money at the wall in attempt to make audiences stick to the siding.

I've probably mentioned before that one of the things I do when driving is assemble set-pieces in my head while playing Barry cuts. I've created a dual steam-train finale for a film with Bond and Leiter working to head off and take out baddies that is a very dynamic riff on Fleming's Spectreville (wholly inspired by Barry's 007 cue) and come up with more than a few PTS bits that could intro a new Bond, a couple of which start with misdirection, like you're thinking the guy you first see is Bond and only realize he is a baddie a minute into things, when the applecart gets upset, followed by fanfare stinger, then the 'getting down' to work part of TJBT when the new Bond is revealed in action.

I mention all this not to say that Bond films should be driven by starting with the music (though that has certainly worked for certain filmmakers), but with a musical sensibility that by its nature informs that you must orchestrate a sequence, not just throw up a staccato beat of ADHD cuts designed to mask your on-set creative failures, like The Bourne Numbnesses.

My other way to differentiate this Bond: if there is machine-gun action, then you have him fire very controlled short bursts to take out individuals instead of wasting multiples spraying the air as well as already-riddled bodies ... basically, not do the COMMANDO-cum-Brosnan of spraying in all directions. That demonstrates Bond-level mastery, too.

Just last night I was reading a recent interview with P&W, and it was the first time I realized they were my age (well, 1 year and 2 years younger, respectively.) So they've basically had my dream gig (even if it wasn't during the dream years -- more like the nightmare era.) I realize I could never have done what they did, because the political niceties have always been beyond me (after hearing the 'doesn't play well with others' line, have felt the expression should have been invented for me), but it does make me wonder about what they have compromised along the way, if the sacrifice in creative greatness is worth the sustainability of their employment and re-employment with Eon.

I've voted for option 3. The Craigs can be a standalone timeline, that's fine. Let's get back to the world around Bond changing/ageing, but him only doing so between the ages of roughly 35 - 50 before looping back around and everybody being fine with that without any of this 'James Bond is a codename' theory shite.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

I'll be drinking I.W. Harper and chuffing scrambled eggs with Ian Fleming.

Sounds like the perfect meal, though I'll have to settle for Wild Turkey and no Fleming for the time being.

trev wrote:

A little bit of Dalton angst is fine, because otherwise Bond is just a Craig-like sociopath, but he has to look like he enjoys most of his job and how he handles himself doing it. He can have his reflective moments in a double-bourbon

Agreed, as long as the tone is more consistent than NTTD, i.e. deep n' gritty family issues mixed in with bad parodies of the Moore era. Otherwise they ought to go one direction or the other if it's too hard.

BI wrote:

I've voted for option 3. The Craigs can be a standalone timeline, that's fine. Let's get back to the world around Bond changing/ageing, but him only doing so between the ages of roughly 35 - 50 before looping back around and everybody being fine with that without any of this 'James Bond is a codename' theory shite.

More or less my position on all this.

#3. Even if they don't acknowledge it to the fullest extent e.g. Tracy's grave and do a "soft" reboot a la GE. The Brosnan era should be what they look to for a blueprint for the character. Let Bond be a larger than life "white knight" again but give him his moments of inner humanity, like trevanian said above.

Yeah, the thing is, we devotees only need a couple of grace note moments to feel like they are on the right track, they don't need to fill the whole film with them, because then the movies stop being about the adventure and instead turn into navelgazing.

Somerset wrote:

#3. Even if they don't acknowledge it to the fullest extent e.g. Tracy's grave and do a "soft" reboot a la GE. The Brosnan era should be what they look to for a blueprint for the character. Let Bond be a larger than life "white knight" again but give him his moments of inner humanity, like trevanian said above.

Agreed. I'd take TND Mk. II as a palate cleanser.

trevanian wrote:

Yeah, the thing is, we devotees only need a couple of grace note moments to feel like they are on the right track, they don't need to fill the whole film with them, because then the movies stop being about the adventure and instead turn into navelgazing.

Yes, indeed. The Craig era, for all its subversion of Bond's fundamentals and supposedly being a self-contained timeline, tiresomely shoehorned in references from Cubby era films. Frankly, I hope to never see a DB5 again (unless it happens to be in my garage).

just open it the way they did with Goldeneye or The Living Daylights
Bond in his prime, at his best with no need to reference past series or lost loves. No deconstruction and keep the mystique and mystery of the character.

CJB wrote:

1. Bond/007 is just a codename: Indulge the "James Bond = codename" dorks and just have a new person take up the mantle. Fiennes' M, his hairline now fully receded,  would sigh deeply and take a deep drink of hard cider and mutter about how "Your predecessor made the ultimate sacrifice, so his lovechild wouldn't get nanobot smallpox." Nu-Bond would spend the film trying to get out of Craig-Bond's shadow etc.

That sounds awful. They’ll probably go with that, then.



I voted for Option 3. As Sarai says, another GE/TLD would work a treat.

Somerset wrote:

Somerset wrote:

#3. Even if they don't acknowledge it to the fullest extent e.g. Tracy's grave and do a "soft" reboot a la GE. The Brosnan era should be what they look to for a blueprint for the character. Let Bond be a larger than life "white knight" again but give him his moments of inner humanity, like trevanian said above.

CJB wrote:

Agreed. I'd take TND Mk. II as a palate cleanser.

With an actual hand made all analog proper gunbarrel as an acknowledgement of how the past era went so completely off the rails. Followed by the tightest and most suspenseful PTS since TB. Just saying how one *SHOULD* do it....