IC Forum Archive

aderack · Posts: 5018

The fun thing here: it at least looks like the new Casino Royale will be basically contemporary, despite being an "origin" story. I wonder then if this will confirm the suspicion that James Bond is a title passed on, rather than a single man.

winkerwanker · Posts: 2414

As opposed to the rest of them that were all set in the same timeframe?

aderack · Posts: 5018

Until now it seems plausible we were simply expected to overlook the way time kept moving on around the characters, the way we do for comic book characters. Now, this doesn't seem quite so plausible!

winkerwanker · Posts: 2414

Except for the end of the cold war thing the brosnan ones had going

plus all the product placement and everything

FortNinety · Posts: 4591

winkerwanker wrote:

No they won't. The previous Casino Royale film was an unofficial effort so Casino Royale was regarded as a new frontier. And they just brought back the director of Goldeneye rather than doing a Nolan like Batman.

Not according to my film friends who are in the know, regarding them doing other remakes. But hey, like all things, its a wait and see kind of thing...

aderack · Posts: 5018

And the way that Q kept aging despite Bond generally remaining youngish.

winkerwanker · Posts: 2414

That's the only thing that occurs to me that backs up your idea. I'm sure there'll end up being more.

aderack · Posts: 5018

I wonder if the new movie will have John Cleese in it.

EDIT: He isn't listed, though Judi Dench is back as M.

winkerwanker · Posts: 2414

I do hope not.

zebadayus · Posts: 672

My next dentist appointment is going to be on the same day that Spiderman 3 hits theatres. It will be a fine day.

Maztorre · Posts: 1175

FortNinety wrote:

Not according to my film friends who are in the know, regarding them doing other remakes. But hey, like all things, its a wait and see kind of thing...

This film wasn't a remake in the first place. The original Casino Royale was a spoof. This Casino Royale is based on the first Bond novel by Fleming.

I can't imagine them remaking the older films, especially the Connery stuff which generally still stands up very well for its age.

In any case, I can't wait to see this new one. The reviews have all been saying how great it is to have someone who is both a great actor and has a good script in front of them. Craig takes Connery's presence and appeal and mixes in the grittiness Dalton portrayed in his short run. It really works!

I'm going to watch the special edition GoldenEye DVD tonight.

winkerwanker · Posts: 2414

Maz i covered this before you did

Maztorre · Posts: 1175

I suppose I must have ignored your post winker.

Imagine that!

sorry :(

Karoshi · Posts: 968

On a related note I read Giuliani is putting an exploratory committee together to vie for the Republican candidacy in 2008.

aderack · Posts: 5018

They might have a good chance with him.

Don't agree with a lot of his policies. Good guy, though -- and everyone knows it! Seems to have his own compass to him. Probably won't be so easy to bully around at any rate, should the Democrats shoot themselves in the feet again. Obama versus Giuliani would be really fascinating.

extralife · Posts: 3316

I'd rather vote for McCain, provided he can recapture any of his old fire.

108 · Posts: 2600

aderack wrote:

I wonder if the new movie will have John Cleese in it.

EDIT: He isn't listed, though Judi Dench is back as M.

No, Q isn't in Casino Royale. Neither is Miss Moneypenny. It's based on the very first James Bond story, you know. Of, basically, how "James Bond" became "007".

See, the thing to note about James Bond is that he is a trained killer, and he's rather ruthless and cautious about it. The movies play up the "secret agent" aspect; the books tend to focus on the targets of Bond's missions. They read like profiles of villains. The movies play up the villain's eccentricities, and kind of turn them into cartoons.

Bond is somewhat superstitious. "Casino Royale" is his first big mission (basically, he has to win a huge game of baccarat to bankrupt a KGB funder) and during it, he genuinely falls in love with a girl. The bad guy uses Bond's love of this girl to, as it were, raise the stakes.

What it comes down to is a real emotional investment in the mission on Bond's part. And by the end, he's had something of an emotional scarring. This is basically how Ian Fleming set up Bond as a ladies' man for the rest of the series. Ever since that mission, it's kind of a superstition of his, that he has to have a woman involved. Notice how he picks up and sleeps with the first girl he meets on-site at every mission? Like Solid Snake would be searching for a gun. It's obviously a psychological complex of his.

What the movies have never captured of the books is how James Bond genuinely and sincerely falls in "actual love" with all of the "Bond girls". In the movies the "love" aspect is always trivialized, and turned into just plain something to stare at. The girls who survive until the end of the mission are always given a final love scene, and if the image fades to black while they're kissing, the viewer generally gets the impression that, once the credits have started rolling, Bond opens his eyes, asks the girl who the hell she is, puts on his clothes, and walks out the door. Such is the near-robotic nature of the James Bond character.

In a way, you could say that his "always" "falling in love" with a girl is merely an expression that the author would find a spy story boring without some kind of love interest. In other words, the girls -- and, then, Bond's complexes surrounding them -- are narrative devices. Everything is a narrative device. This would make it pointless to argue continuity; Bond's relationships with women are as individually significant as Wile E. Coyote's hospital bills.

In other words, yes, the stories are all fluff.

The Bond character quickly became a legend; and then, eventually, became a pretty huge joke. He became something everyone wanted to parody.

Had it not been for Sean Connery, however, few people today would know who Bond is. Few people would have cared to give Roger Moore a shot if Connery hadn't already built up the notion of who the character was. Connery gave James Bond a voice and a personality just slightly different from the novels. The Bond in the novels isn't funny. He's charming, though he's always thinking about his mission. Sometimes he speaks a little strangely.

In the movies, it's "A vodka martini. Shaken, not stirred."

In the books, it's "A dry martini. In a deep champagne goblet. Three measures of Gordons, one of Vodka, and half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice cold, then add a thin slice of lemon peel."

At any rate!

An American television company bought the rights to the Casino Royale story, and then did a shitty TV movie of it in 1954. No one cared. Then, when EON started making Bond films and the character attained worldwide fame, the owners of the original Casino Royale rights made a shitty parody movie as a cash-in attempt. Now, EON has the rights to Casino Royale once again, so that's where this movie is coming from.

Man!! It looks pretty good, too. There will obviously be a lot more action than in the book, which is par for the course (it apparently opens with an elaborate action set piece, as per Bond film tradition). Though it also seems to be that Daniel Craig is so different from Pearce Brosnan because they wanted him to be able to act the character in a . . . well, a new way. They basically want him to not rely on the colossal image of the character. They want him to try to be himself. You know. The way Sean Connery did. It's no secret that the "movie Bond" was born because Sean Connery basically added a thin layer of his own personality on top of the script for "Dr. No" and then "From Russia with Love", which had bascially just added a thin layer of personality on top of the books. What they're doing with "Casino Royale" is, apparently, ignoring Bond's reputation and playing it straight.

It's actually a pretty big gamble for them! Because if the actor isn't a hit, then it's a failure. Judging by the trailer, I think this Craig guy is totally perfect. Some are comparing him to Timothy Dalton, though I think that's kind of unfair. He seems to have his own nuances, he's not just robotically going through nuance-resembling motions like Dalton was. Craig has emotion and he's not sappy. He has humor though he would look vaguely wrong grinning in a tuxedo. He's an interesting actor for an interesting character.

To think there were people boycotting this film because Craig has blond hair!! "James Blond", they were calling him. Man! Sick fuckers in this world!! He has blue eyes, though. James Bond is supposed to have "piercing blue eyes" -- I don't recall any "look at Bond's blue eyes!!" shots in any other Bond movies, and lord knows I've seen them all a dozen times. Even the really bad ones.

The worst Bond movie, if you ask me, is "The World is not Enough."

The best is "From Russia with Love"! The second-best would be "Goldfinger" or "You Only Live Twice" -- the former for its tight plot, the latter for its complete ridiculousness.

"Goldeneye", however, is very, very, very good. So I'm glad "Casino Royale" is by the same director. I'm certain he can pull this one together.

I will go see it on opening day!!

108 · Posts: 2600

Maztorre wrote:

This film wasn't a remake in the first place. The original Casino Royale was a spoof. This Casino Royale is based on the first Bond novel by Fleming.

Quoting for truth yes.

maz wrote:

I can't imagine them remaking the older films, especially the Connery stuff which generally still stands up very well for its age.

Yes. The old films still stand up to time very well.

What they need to do is not remake any James Bond films. Just let them all lie where they are. So people need to stop getting excited about "more" "remakes". There won't be any.

Actually, if you ask me, the most acceptable way to "remake" Bond films would be -- well. Put a fuck of a lot of money behind them, put Daniel Craig in them (if he's truly good enough -- movie opens 12/1 here) -- and make them videogames.

Playing Gears of War has led me to believe that yeah, maybe they can make a good cinematic game, now.

As regards further Bond films -- they should be original, and they should be contemporary, and they should be emotional? Above all, they should be of high quality. It's a dignified franchise, despite all the camp, and if someone isn't at least trying to make classy films out of it, we get shit like "Tomorrow Never Dies".

maz wrote:

In any case, I can't wait to see this new one. The reviews have all been saying how great it is to have someone who is both a great actor and has a good script in front of them. Craig takes Connery's presence and appeal and mixes in the grittiness Dalton portrayed in his short run. It really works!

I'm going to watch the special edition GoldenEye DVD tonight.

Yes!

And I wish I had the special edition of GoldenEye. Though fuck, after watching the "Casino Royale" trailer in 1080p on my PlayStation3, fuckkkkkkkkkk I definitely need every Bond film on Blu-ray as soon as possible. I just can't look at DVDs anymore.

. . . And that's notjustviral marketing!

aderack · Posts: 5018

So what do you say about the movie version of the character? Is it a man or is it a name?

108 · Posts: 2600

aderack wrote:

So what do you say about the movie version of the character? Is it a man or is it a name?

He is many things, at this point. In the beginning, when Sean Connery played him, he was

1. a secret agent
2. a man (biologically)
3. a killer (by default)
4. a character in a movie

Now, anyone who plays James Bond has to play

1. a cultural icon
2. a name ("James Bond")
3. a secret agent
4. a man (biologically)
5. a ladies' man (charming)
6. an action hero
7. a character in a [James Bond] movie

Or something like that.

evnvnv · Posts: 333

108 wrote:

the owners of the original Casino Royale rights made a shitty parody movie as a cash-in attempt.

Incorrect.

OK it might have been a cash-in attempt but the original Casino Royale is a really really good movie.

Come on do you really think this new one will come anywhere close to the brilliance of fat sweaty red faced orson welles doing magic tricks?

Seriously this movie may be way too long and kind of not that funny sometimes but it's more than just a cash in on the bond franchise. It's more like a horribly bloated cash in on the psychedelic era. It's great!

extralife · Posts: 3316

108 wrote:

They basically want him to not rely on the colossal image of the character. They want him to try to be himself.

I so hope that's the case. That is, above all else, the key to making a good Bond film. Well, that and avoiding lines like "Ice Palaces can be trecherous places!" whenever possible.

alice · Posts: 150

It's Spiderman, prince of Denmark dammit :(.

aderack · Posts: 5018

Alternatively: hyphen.

winkerwanker · Posts: 2414

Extralife why force people to recall Die Another Day? :(

Pierce Brosnan way to only be in one good Bond film. And besides that I never really dug his Bond. A bit too vanilla.

FortNinety · Posts: 4591

My fave Bond movies are the shitty ones from the 70's. You know, the ones where he's in space, or in Harlem, and are fighting gay dudes and midgets, and alongside Chinese girls dressed as Japanese school girls.

winkerwanker · Posts: 2414