Sights You'd Like to See in a Bond Film

You're on a Mosqueathon today.

I had a bad lamb kebab for lunch and am feeling a bit mosqueous.

A fist fight atop one of those mosques' spires would be pretty cool.

Wouldn't be put to film in a million years though.

I've been Mosqued-out by SKYFALL's PTS. I want some very different architecture and natural surroundings in the next one. Off the top of my head, Scandinavia, Australia (the Blue Mountains would be a steal), Borneo (Sarawak, Malaysia, Brunei etc.) or Sumatra, one of the Pacific Islands, or the Afar region of Ethiopia.

I want Bond 24 to be colourful with more tropical and sub-tropical wilderness than usual. Less futuristic cityscapes, shanties, markets and old European towns and etc.

You get the picture.

Spelunking/cave diving would be a welcome new addition to the series - ask Werner Herzog. I'd also like Bond to spelunk the leading girl in the final reel.

Bond needs to head to Australia.

Amiright, Aussies?

Yeah why not. People have been complaining about Bond's avoidance of the Antipodes for years, so he might as well do it already.

Sharky mentioned the Blue Mountains, which could be an interesting location (and for the first time ever, Bond will have been somewhere I've been ). The Jenolan Caves in the area could be a sufficiently sinister spot.

We have socialists for him to shoot. Though I'm not sure if NuBond still does that.

There won't be too many of them left by year's end, insha'Allah.

CJB wrote:

The Jenolan Caves in the area could be a sufficiently sinister spot.

I can see how that might work - Bond and the girl spy on the villain in the caves, only to get captured. The villain abandons them with a handful of glow-sticks (because he's "feeling generous"), sealing the cave with an explosion. They may have to dodge a few stalactities, though it would have to be done in a way that isn't cheesy. Anyway, the only way out is down - which the villain has deliberately pointed out to them - and they come to a pool of icy water. They have to swim through a tunnel on indeterminate length (hence the villain's "helpfulness") and then ascend the other side, and all before their glowsticks run out. They could then emerge under a frozen glacier (if the film were set in New Zealand) or somewhere in the Snowy Mountains Scheme (if in Australia). Tasmania's Gordon Dam or Quebec's Daniel-Johnson Dam could stand in for one of the Snowies. If it were the climactic fight of the film, Bond could chase the villain up onto the dam and push/fight the villain into the intake so that he gets pulled through the turbine. Bond then has to escape from the dam span before the wall collapses under the sheer weight of the water pushing against it.

I think that would be a pretty exciting scene.

When I said cave diving I meant with scuba gear, something we haven't seen Craig's Bond use yet.

I would like to see more underwater stuff from Bond in general, though cave diving might be a little difficult to film because it's incredibly dangerous. I imagine that it would also be difficult to keep it tense and interesting without the usual tropes of the cahracters running out of air or accidentally cutting open their wetsuits. I did like the way TOMORROW NEVER DIES did it, with the Devonshire in danger of tipping off an undersea cliff while Bond and Wai Lin were still inside, but even that felt slow and needlessly drawn-out.

In terms of the actual storyline, the only way I could see it working is if Bond dives into a submerged cave to sneak into a villain's lair, or possibly as a means of escaping from one.

That's how I see it too. As a means to an end, though maybe throwing in stuff like underwater cameras, sensors and laser trip wires, and Bond having to disable or slip through them. In other words heist conventions in an unusual setting.

It could be filmed in a tank on the Pinewood lot, inercut with second unit stunt work and background plattes.

No.CGI olms though. I want the real thing.

I found this image pretty striking:



It's Volgograd in Russia, celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the end of the Battle of Stalingrad. I think something like this image would look great on film.

That sword-bearing statue needs a T-70 tank and a tie-straightening Bond beneath it.

What I think would be cool is seeing Bond aboard a train during a winters night on the mountains following someone who is aboard. Kind of like those Heineken commercials with the briefcase, but instead he's attempting an assassination.
For all we know, Bond is without a doubt going to travel around Europe. I liked what CR brought us.

Maybe it's too soon after SKYFALL to do this, but I'd like to see Giancarlo Giannini come back as Rene Mathis. Or perhaps as someone sent by the villain to impersonate Mathis and throw Bond off, which could work very well if Quantum came back (and were destroyed by the end of the film).

One of the biggest mistakes that QUANTUM OF SOLACE made was not just the way he was killed off, but killing off such an interesting character without really exploring him. And it certainly didn't help that CASINO ROYALE set up up as the one who betrayed Bond, and QUANTUM OF SOALCE decided that he was innocent and did half a job of explaining it away.

I found Mathis interesting because despite his apparent love of life - particularly the finer things - underneath, he seemed to be very sad, and his whole lifestyle seemed to be an attempt to cure himself of that sadness. He also came across as completely disinfatuated with the life of a spy, but continued with it because he was good at it and it was the only thing he knew. Overall, he seemed like he was looking for a place to die or a cause to die for, as if it could make up for his past mistakes.

The trick is in bringing him back in a way that isn't contrived.

If I were writing BOND 24, I'd explain that Mathis was an agent who found hismelf in an impossible position: to commit treason and join a secretive organisation, or die. He chose the latter, but instead decided to study them, and he aided in bringing them down. He was pardoned for committing treason and given an entirely new identity as Mathis (thus explaining why it was his cover name), working closely with MI6 from time to time because he was a good agent, and also because they wanted to check up on him. However, years later, the organisation re-formed as Quantum. He knew it was only a matter of time before they came for him, and so he attached himself to Bond (thus explaining how Le Chiffre knew who Mathis was). He also took certain precautions so that when they did end up coming for him, he would at least stand a chance at surviving, however slim it might be. And he did survive, but was seriously injured. He never told Bond because he wanted Bond to believe him to be dead and he could retire in peace. But he now has to come out of the woodwork because of something that has recently happened, which is the driving factor of the story.

Unfortunately this ain't The Bold & The Beautiful and you can't just bring back characters from the dead. Having said that, Mathis was the only non-awful character in QOS (and I include Pouty McBond in the hall of infamy with the rest).

So throw in a line about how Mathis was recruited from university, where he was studying theatre. Or how he was revived by the first person to arrive on-scene when he was shot. After all, Quantum had the foresight to arrange for the man at the airstrip to contact them once Bond purchased the aircraft, which means that they had to know where he was going. Since the police knew Mathis was in the boot of the Range Rover, the entire set-up was planned (but they were expecting Mathis to be already dead). That means they would have a very good idea as to where to look for the police when they didn't report in. They obviously found Mathis very quickly after that, because you can see the dumpster in a wide-angle shot - Bond didn't try too hard to hide the body, even though his plan seemed to be to stage Mathis' death as a robebry gone wrong.

Or, my favourite version, an explanation that sounds like it could be plausible, then reveal that "Mathis" is an impostor.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

Or, my favourite version, an explanation that sounds like it could be plausible, then reveal that "Mathis" is an impostor.

Is the "real" Mathis gonna be played Giannini too?

Why not? He was pretty damn good in the role. And since it's an impostor, it would have to be convincing to make Bond believe that Mathis somehow survived being shot and has now come back for reasons unknown.

This thread is called "Sights You'd Like to See in a Bond Film" and you pick Giancarlo Giannini.

Whatever floats your bloat...

I'd like to see a female posing a physical threat to Bond once again. We've had a couple of woman-on-man fights during the series:

Pussy Galore wrestling with Bond in GF
Bambi and Thumper doing a credible job against Bond in DAF
May Day kicking Bond's arse in AVTAK (though it was hardly a fair fight considering how fit she was and how old and out of shape Bond was)
Xenia pushing Bond around in GE

But nothing since. I think a Xenia or May Day-type character would work well against Craig; I'd like to see a real knock-down, drag-out fight to the death between Bond and Female X. In only one of the four instances mentioned above does the female henchwoman/villainess get killed by Bond: one is reformed (Pussy), Bambi and Thumper are forced into cooperation (presumably they do prison time for kidnapping and illegal incarceration, but that's obviously speculation) but are allowed to live, and May Day commits suicide to save the lives of millions, but only after having been betrayed by her lover, Max Zorin.

I was watching this news item about two women fighting in a recent UFC match and it got me to thinking that we need a sexy villainess in BOND 24 to go up against Craig; he's more than up for the task.

Congratulations to me: this was my 3000th post! You never forget your 3000th time.

Congrats on your 3000th time, Jerri. Have you considered vaginal rejuvenation?

Largo's Shark wrote:

Congrats on your 3000th time, Jerri. Have you considered vaginal rejuvenation?

I can't. The works fell out years ago. Probably from turning too many tricks in a bus station with some Indonesian businessmen for a little lunch money. Gooood times!