Is it time for a "retro" James Bond film?

[Powerboy]

In general, I think the sweet spot for Bond is soemthing where you can have fun, but maintain dramatic tension - not too goofy, but not completely po-faced.

But an updated Jaws feels like he would be amazing if nailed correctly - especially if they nailed the balance between threat and humor, and him and Bond ending up with a weird sort of frenemy relationship.

At the same time, Jaws is completely and wonderfully unrealistic, a seven plus foot tall man as a professional assassin. Yup, that's inconspicuous. Plus he is nearly invulnerable. Which is why a specified a "recognizable" Jaws. Move it too far from that and he becomes one of those characters or movies about which people say, "We should have known that current Hollywood would f*** it up". I know there is talk that there was a character in one of the Craig movies who was a vague, vague, vague nod to Jaws.

[ChrisIII]

Jaws actually shows up in the Brosnan video game Everything or Nothing which had the full movie voice cast as well as William Dafoe. I'm not sure if Kiel speaks but he's credited. Some considered it the good Brosnan finale we never got.

The villain played by Dafoe is actually Zorin's protege when Max was working for the KGB. Jaws is also back to his old job. I mean he did help Bond a bit in Moonraker but that a lot of that was mainly to save himself and Dolly, he'll still take hitman jobs probably for less elitist guys than Drax.

The idea of Bond working with a former rival does happen with the current comics version of Oddjob though.

(Then again, has any Bond really ended on a truly strong movie? Diamonds Are Forever, Die Another Day and View To A Kill are considered some of the series worst by a lot of fans, LTK and No Time To Die kind of have a mixed reception etc.)


Bautista's Hinx from SPECTRE was indeed sort of a tribute to the mute, almost indestructible henchman like Oddjob and Jaws.

Craig also has the worst henchman ever though, Elvis from Quantum of Solace.

[Powerboy]

Jaws actually shows up in the Brosnan video game Everything or Nothing which had the full movie voice cast as well as William Dafoe. I'm not sure if Kiel speaks but he's credited. Some considered it the good Brosnan finale we never got.

The villain played by Dafoe is actually Zorin's protege when Max was working for the KGB. Jaws is also back to his old job. I mean he did help Bond a bit in Moonraker but that a lot of that was mainly to save himself and Dolly, he'll still take hitman jobs probably for less elitist guys than Drax.

The idea of Bond working with a former rival does happen with the current comics version of Oddjob though.

(Then again, has any Bond really ended on a truly strong movie? Diamonds Are Forever, Die Another Day and View To A Kill are considered some of the series worst by a lot of fans, LTK and No Time To Die kind of have a mixed reception etc.)


Bautista's Hinx from SPECTRE was indeed sort of a tribute to the mute, almost indestructible henchman like Oddjob and Jaws.

Craig also has the worst henchman ever though, Elvis from Quantum of Solace.

I have the James Bond roleplaying game from the 1980s on the bookshelf to my left. I remember when they gave stats for Jaws and gave him strength and durability beyond what should have been possible in the game system because there was no other way to reflect how strong and durable he was except to go superhuman. I think they gave Oddjob the maximum strength possible which is fudging. Sean Connery objected to the scene where Oddjob crushed a golfball because that was not just farfetched but impossible.

[ChrisIII]

There's actually novel adaptations for Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker by Christopher Wood distinct from the original Fleming novels (They're called "James Bond and" to add to that) which are interesting in that they adapt the movies but try to write the stories Fleming style. It basically gives Jaws a sort of tragic backstory where he was nearly beaten to death and his Jaw was permanently broken and became Stromberg's henchman when he stowed away on his ship and Stormberg gave him the metal jaws and teeth. (The movie and Moonraker instead just had him be a mercenary).

A few of the other movie novelizations (License to Kill, the Brosnan films) kind of do the same thing, it's a bit weird having the somewhat more lighthearted movies kind of shoe-horned into the Fleming style.

Then again that's kind of true of a lot of movie adaptations back in the day, which largely often were based on the earlier scripts (Nowadays I think most movie adaptations come well after the movie, if they come out at all) and of course Bond was in a weird place being based on novels in the first place. The Fleming short-stories were even repackaged in a "Quantum of Solace" book, and SPECTRE also was promoted by having the Blofeld novels repackaged as the Spectre trilogy (Which, novel-wise, includes Thunderball but not Diamonds Are Forever, which had the mob as the villains in the novel, not SPECTRE or Blofeld).

[JT221]

The novels and later the movies started when the Cold War was pretty much at it's height, in the 50s and early 60s. It's been suggested by some fans and those interested in the series (Like Tarantino, who pitched Brosnan's last film to be a version of Casino Royale set in the 60s and in black and white, although he was willing to set it in the modern day if he had to) that the next film should do this, or should have done it before.

Some of the comic series and I think some of the novels have tried a period approach to Bond as well; the adaptations of Casino Royale and Live and Let Die for example are both true to their time; and the James Bond origin series has Bond's naval career and early intelligence work in World War II, for example. It's possible the upcoming video game might also take this approach, but we know fairly little apart from it having nothing to do with the Craig movies.

So could the next Bond/reboot etc. try this take on the character? Granted I think most Cold War spy films these days have either been based on true stories (Bridge of Spies) or flops (Man From Uncle) although I'm not sure entirely. The King's Man might be interesting (although it's set before the CW/early Bond stuff) but I'm not sure it's going to do that great either.

I would not mind seeing them do a period piece for Moonraker, one where they actually followed the book's plot a bit closer.

[ChrisIII]

Moonraker's interesting I think in that it seems that aspects of the Drax character in the novel pretty much inspired both Alec Trevalyn and Gustav Graves from the Brosnan era and their plots. Gala Brand was also the original name of Miranda Frost, at least according to Rosamund Pike.

The Blades club in Moonraker was also used in Die Another Day, although the Die Another Day film uses literal blades there instead of card games.

[j9ac9k]

Yeah. I haven't seen the Craig movies other than the first one. So I don't know what's been going on there. But Zack Snyder doing James Bond? No. I really don't want to see James Bond brooding, moping and questioning everything he is, and being totally "deconstructed".

I don't think Snyder deconstructs anything. His pov was just created in the 90s when other, more talented artists were actually deconstructing iconic aspects of pop culture. To me he just tries to ape what they did by making characters burdened by their greatness and denying innocence, wonder and earnestness. He's stuck in the viewpoint of a 14 yr old "dude" who's trying to not be seen as childish by equating angst with pathos and violence with adulthood.

That said, I think there could absolutely be a parallel 60s Bond series that has a bit of fun with the spy genre without being a parody and still be a straight-up adventure using the spycraft of those times.

[Sandy Hausler]

I would not mind seeing them do a period piece for Moonraker, one where they actually followed the book's plot a bit closer.

A bit closer?

[godisawesome]

A bit closer?

In the book, Drax turns out to be surviving Nazi terrorist who faked having amnesia, and his goal is to blow up 60s London with a ballistic nuke for revenge while having his men short the British pound to make more money after the disaster.

There’s no space flight stuff in the book.

[JT221]

In the book, Drax turns out to be surviving Nazi terrorist who faked having amnesia, and his goal is to blow up 60s London with a ballistic nuke for revenge while having his men short the British pound to make more money after the disaster.

There’s no space flight stuff in the book.

I think Sandy was being facetious. The book and the movie only have in common they have characters named Bond, Dax and Gala Brand. The book might be Fleming's best. A translation of it that stayed closer to the original plot might be worth watching...though I suspect it would be too slow for the modern viewer.

Moonraker the movie was drafting off the success of Star Wars.

[ChrisIII]

Goldeneye has a bit of a similar plot.

Kind of interesting how certain plot points from one novel could wind up in the adaptation of another-Live and Let Die's maiming of Felix and climactic water dragging are adapted in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY and LICENSE TO KILL.

OCTOPUSSY's story of how her father was caught by Bond and SPECTRE's Blofeld backstory are both from the OCTOPUSSY short story.

Of course this is not limited to Bond.

[DrNewGod]

Goldeneye has a bit of a similar plot.

Kind of interesting how certain plot points from one novel could wind up in the adaptation of another-Live and Let Die's maiming of Felix and climactic water dragging are adapted in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY and LICENSE TO KILL.

OCTOPUSSY's story of how her father was caught by Bond and SPECTRE's Blofeld backstory are both from the OCTOPUSSY short story.

Of course this is not limited to Bond.

You mentioned Die Another Day. That's the plot that's closest to Fleming's Moonraker.

[ChrisIII]

That as well. Brosnan's Bond pretty much begins and ends on with Moonraker semi-adaptations.

Seems that Tommorow Never Dies used a few ideas left over from the unmade third Dalton movie from what I've read about it.

[CTTT]

I think Pierce Brosnan getting the shift after Die Another Day was unfair. Him being Bond wasn't the problem, his material for Bond was silly. Golden Eye was very good and Tomorrow Never Dies was solid and a big hit even while getting drowned amidst Titanic. WINE was ok but enjoyable. Denise Richards as Christmas Jones was bad. DAD was way over the top. Brosnan definitely deserved better Bond material.

[ChrisIII]

Yeah, he's said several times he'd be willing to do a more serious take on Bond. A lot of his post-Bond work are certainly more gritty spy/espionage thrillers, although he's not always the hero in those.

Curiously his performance in Goldeneye comes off a bit darker than the later films, perhaps because the early script might've been written with Dalton still in mind (and certainly even TND has some elements from the dropped third Dalton film from the early 90s). Of course, it's Martin Campbell who was known for directly fairly dark thrillers at that point (although of course he would also direct Green Lantern and the goofy Zorro sequel later on...) and then TND's director was the guy who directed a fair amount of buddy comedies....

Or it could be he was kind of getting used to Bond like Moore did. Moore's first two films are basically him trying to play Connery lite instead of putting his own stamp on the role which he does by the time of TSWLM.