What unused Fleming ideas would you like to see in a future Bond film?

I would like to see the chase back from London to Kent described in MR. Also the shaved heads and mustaches from the same novel. Actually the Krebs character would be great as well.

Anyone else?

What Fleming ideas would I like to see? Well, how about Moonraker, You Only Live Twice and The Man with the Golden Gun.

Krebs would be great. Shame that GE and DAD used up most of MR's ideas so there will never be a faithful adaption of that.

I daresay Spy is closer to YOLT than either DAD or GE are to Moonraker, yet that didn't prevent Spy from being made. There's no reason whatsoever not to make an updated version of what may be Fleming's finest.

The main one for me would be to use the unused portions of You Only Live Twice (which would pretty much be the entire novel), but short of that I would mainly like to see them give the Garden of Death its time on screen.

I'd also like to see The Man With the Golden Gun done properly, and with a serious portrayal of Mary Goodnight rather than the rather poor characterization the writers had for her in the actual film.

I wanna see Nick Nicholson from TMWTGG in a film. As a sorta geeky Felix. Not over-the-top geeky, though. But a tech guy.

I've always wanted to see a brief scene of Bond doing paperwork in his office. Preferably showing some disdain for it, before finally being called in to M's office for a mission briefing.

Louis Armstrong wrote:

I've always wanted to see a brief scene of Bond doing paperwork in his office. Preferably showing some disdain for it, before finally being called in to M's office for a mission briefing.

Agreed. And there's a particularly good example of this in YOLT. IIRC, Bond has had a rough, boozy night and he's also very depressed because of loss of Tracy. He's in his office smoking cigarettes, crunching dry aspirin in an attempt to banish a headache, and is grinding his way through a load of boring paperwork. Then the special phone burrs, and Bond gets the signal that M wants him in his office...

Ed Tom Kowalsky wrote:

Louis Armstrong wrote:

I've always wanted to see a brief scene of Bond doing paperwork in his office. Preferably showing some disdain for it, before finally being called in to M's office for a mission briefing.

Agreed. And there's a particularly good example of this in YOLT. IIRC, Bond has had a rough, boozy night and he's also very depressed because of loss of Tracy. He's in his office smoking cigarettes, crunching dry aspirin in an attempt to banish a headache, and is grinding his way through a load of boring paperwork. Then the special phone burrs, and Bond gets the signal that M wants him in his office...

Or there's the chapter "Night Duty" in GF. M thinks Bond's getting soft, and the PM's considering the 00 Section as obsolete, so she sanctions him to night duty - forwarding calls to cue branch from foreign embassies (i.e. Hong Kong needs " mangoes" - AKA limpet mines to blow up Chinese patrol boats). In the meantime, but writes his own book -a self-defense manual titled "Stay Alive!" and rejects a cup of a cup tea for coffee, blaming tea for the downfall of the British Empire.

Sharky wrote:

Ed Tom Kowalsky wrote:

Louis Armstrong wrote:

I've always wanted to see a brief scene of Bond doing paperwork in his office. Preferably showing some disdain for it, before finally being called in to M's office for a mission briefing.

Agreed. And there's a particularly good example of this in YOLT. IIRC, Bond has had a rough, boozy night and he's also very depressed because of loss of Tracy. He's in his office smoking cigarettes, crunching dry aspirin in an attempt to banish a headache, and is grinding his way through a load of boring paperwork. Then the special phone burrs, and Bond gets the signal that M wants him in his office...

Or there's the chapter "Night Duty" in GF. M thinks Bond's getting soft, and the PM's considering the 00 Section as obsolete, so she sanctions him to night duty - forwarding calls to cue branch from foreign embassies (i.e. Hong Kong needs " mangoes" - AKA limpet mines to blow up Chinese patrol boats). In the meantime, but writes his own book -a self-defense manual titled "Stay Alive!" and rejects a cup of a cup tea for coffee, blaming tea for the downfall of the British Empire.

Yes. I love the Russian "come along hold."

"If a drunk woman is causing a public scene and refuses to comply with your demand that she depart, grasp her lower lip between your thumb and forefinger and twist. She will come along."

Or words to that effect.

Don't know how cinematic all this is, but it makes for very good reading.

dalton wrote:

The main one for me would be to use the unused portions of You Only Live Twice (which would pretty much be the entire novel), but short of that I would mainly like to see them give the Garden of Death its time on screen.

The problem with this is that YOLT is practically unfilmable, for two reasons:

1) A large part of the plot hinges on the way Blofeld technically hasn't done anything wrong on Japanese soil. The Diet is powerless to act because Blofeld has not committed any crime, and as a foreign national, there is nothing they can do. In fact, it is the suicides who commit a crime, tresspassing on Blofeld's land. Although Bond witnesses one of the suicides being thrown into the fumarole by Blofeld's heavies, there was nothing he could do - he certainly couldn't prove it was a crime. I don't think audiences would respond too well to a villain who doesn't actually do anything villainous.

2) Suicide is a pretty serious issue in Japan. They have one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and it is a very politically-, culturally-, and socially-sensitive issue. There was an indie horror film a few years ago (SUICIDE CIRCLE) that tried to address the issue, but even that had mixed results. Given their reputation for being popular entertainment, I think it would be very difficult for a Bond film to properly depict the issue of suicide in Japan proerly.

The only way that I could see the Garden of Death appearing in a film is if it were some kind of private biological or chemical weapons research centre.

I'd like to see Dr. No's dextrocardia given to a villain. It's the condition of been born with your heart on the right side of your body. IIRC, No survived a bullet wound from a Tong thug, thinking he'd get him in the heart. It could play either as back story or something that happens in the course of the movie.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

dalton wrote:

The main one for me would be to use the unused portions of You Only Live Twice (which would pretty much be the entire novel), but short of that I would mainly like to see them give the Garden of Death its time on screen.

The problem with this is that YOLT is practically unfilmable, for two reasons:

1) A large part of the plot hinges on the way Blofeld technically hasn't done anything wrong on Japanese soil. The Diet is powerless to act because Blofeld has not committed any crime, and as a foreign national, there is nothing they can do. In fact, it is the suicides who commit a crime, tresspassing on Blofeld's land. Although Bond witnesses one of the suicides being thrown into the fumarole by Blofeld's heavies, there was nothing he could do - he certainly couldn't prove it was a crime. I don't think audiences would respond too well to a villain who doesn't actually do anything villainous.

This is not a reason that YOLT is "unfilmable". It's only a problem if Blofeld is being introduced for the first time in YOLT, which would pretty much defeat the purpose of it anyway. You set it up so that Blofeld has already done some heinous and villainous acts in the film(s) prior so that it necessitates Bond's pursuit of him (either by adapting the Tracy story arc in the film prior or by having him do something else that directly impacts Bond), and then Blofeld takes refuge in Japan, who provides him sanctuary from those who wish to bring him to justice. While he may not have done anything particularly villainous on Japanese soil, he's still done so over the course of previous films to establish himself as the villain.

Quote :

2) Suicide is a pretty serious issue in Japan. They have one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and it is a very politically-, culturally-, and socially-sensitive issue. There was an indie horror film a few years ago (SUICIDE CIRCLE) that tried to address the issue, but even that had mixed results. Given their reputation for being popular entertainment, I think it would be very difficult for a Bond film to properly depict the issue of suicide in Japan proerly.

I'm perfectly aware that it's a serious issue in Japan. Just because it's a sensitive issue doesn't mean that it can't be touched by the so-called popular entertainment of the world. A good screenwriter would be able to find a way to handle the subject with the respect that is necessary and that the issue deserves.

I still think audiences would respond poorly to "the villain has a property where a lot of people kill themselves" as a basic plot, and I very much doubt that "it's unused Fleming content that has been adapted exactly as it was written" would compensate audiences too well. Likewise, I think trying to address Japan's attitude to suicide is far too risky an approach for a Bond film to take.

People said Casino Royale was unflimable too. Fleming's works are unfilmable only if you're limited by a small imagination.

That's why I suggested taking the Garden of Death and reimagining it. Rather than having it as a place where people go to commit suicide, use it in some other way.

I really liked the deaths of Wint and Kidd in DAF on the ship, from the entire abseiling sequence down the ship with the sheet, and all that jazz. When I was reading it, I imagined Craig in the entire sequence, save for the abseiling bit.

I would like to see Bond in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Maybe taking on Dominic Toretto.

We've already had SHITTY SHITTY NO BANG BANG for the last two films.

Sharky wrote:

We've already had SHITTY SHITTY NO BANG BANG for the last two films.

Speaking of which....kinda..

Death by Guano!

Blades Club, biatches.

Once someone other than Craig-Bond's mother is M, though.

CJB wrote:

Blades Club, biatches.

Once someone other than Craig-Bond's mother is M, though.

Could always have Tanner ask Bond to take down the villain at Blades instead of M, and then have 007 and the chief-of-staff dine and play cards for a night. Would make for a great villain intro, and M would only figure into things when Bond is officially assigned his mission.

Louis Armstrong wrote:

CJB wrote:

Blades Club, biatches.

Once someone other than Craig-Bond's mother is M, though.

Could always have Tanner ask Bond to take down the villain at Blades instead of M, and then have 007 and the chief-of-staff dine and play cards for a night. Would make for a great villain intro, and M would only figure into things when Bond is officially assigned his mission.

Funny you should say this, because in the series of treatments I've been working on at CBn with tdalton, Dench's M is relieved of duty and subsequently replaced by Tanner as the new M. Our "Moonraker", which is one of the later treatments, involves just what you mentioned, with Tanner tasking Bond with keeping an eye out for Drax at the Blades Club.

I nicked my Tanner idea from an unfinished Bond 23 screenplay I have sitting around, actually! =O Great minds...

I think another stretch of card-playing would be appreciated in a new Bond film. Seems as though most people enjoyed the poker sequence in CR, and gambling's something so utterly Bondian but featured so rarely in the recent films that I think people would lap it up.

But gambling and cards are so much in Bond's past. Let him videogame and skateboard instead. Onward and upward!

:*sm*: