House of Eratosthenes

Isn’t it interesting that whenever James Bond has a long snooze, the world just generally withers and dies a little bit? It’s like all the world’s testicles shrivel up and fall to the ground, like leaves on the trees as a winter rolls in that is going to be particularly harsh, dry and dead-looking.

I have a theory about this. My theory is, if people look at men and don’t see anything impressive, they don’t see anything of value in all of humankind either. They’ll never admit it, but once they get that nasty feminist patina, that “Rueben Reuben I’ve been thinking what a fine world it would be” thing, they just naturally see the entire human race as a sort of infestation. Like lice. Good for nothing but an apology.

That’s pretty much what the James Bond struggle is all about, isn’t it? The villain wants to zap the entire planet with his moon laser, and it’s all up to Bond to short circuit the thing. Screw everything that looks good in a skirt, humiliate the bad guy in a contest of golf or skeet shooting or backgammon or downhill skiing or baccarat or whatever, sleep with some more women…just generally make men feel good about being men. And then the happiness and hope of everybody else, just naturally follows.

I think we’re about due. All over the world, people are generally unhappy with other people…with themselves…with the way things are going. The cure is more Bond.

Okay, here’s my wish list:

1. Moneypenny should be someone just slightly older than me, someone who’s been famous before but is now far less so. Miranda Richardson would be good. Phoebe Cates too. She doesn’t have to have any particular look, she just has to work extremely well with Craig. But put her in, by all means.
2. Q too. Since there will never ever be another Desmond Llewellyn, John Cleese is just as good as anybody else.
3. We really need to get this thing back to the five basic Bond chapters. Briefing with M; flying to the location, following the clues, surviving assassination attempts & meeting the oddball characters; confrontation with the bad guy who then monologues & recites his biography; ingenious and daring escape; final assault on the fortress.
4. The camera man from Quantum of Solace — check him into a delerium tremens treatment facility and get someone else.
5. Also, whoever had the bright idea for Bond not to sleep with the co-star, should go onto another project. Fer cryin’ in the sink. “Not sleep with” is what Moneypenny is for. Bond should sleep with at least two women, preferably three. At four, things start to get a little bit silly. Three is a good number.
6. A cool car would still, in 2011, enhance the final product provided it is handled right. Move the emphasis away from the gadgets, and over toward “guys with balls would kill to have this car.” I think that worked well in Casino Royale.
7. What’s really been missing is the grisly demise. We owe the Connery/Moore-era James Bond a huge debt for having pushed the boundaries of the PG movie rating. People don’t realize it nowadays, but back then you weren’t going to see a bad guy get eating by Piranhas, or electrocuted in a chair, or crushed in a car, anywhere, except in a Bond movie. So re-use what works: Bad guy has stockholders. He gathers them around a huge table and says “who’s with me?” Everyone is in except one guy…and you know what comes next.
8. Put some thought into the threat. If it isn’t threatening in some way to every man, woman and child on the face of the globe then it isn’t a good threat.
9. Also, when M has her briefing with Bond, the thing she asks him to investigate should be something MI-6 would really have some business investigating. I would say both Daniel Craig movies passed this test, but some of the older ones did not (some of the Ian Fleming books did not).
10. I’m all for a return to gadgets. I was even a fan of the quasi-invisible car, although I recognize I’m in the minority on that one. But the best gadgets are going to have a Tom Clancy kind of feel to them. Real, or conceivably possible on a micro-level, not just on a Star Trek macro-level. Think of the cover of a Popular Mechanics issue that isn’t going to hit the stands for another year.
11. If James Bond parades around in front of the bad guy in some kind of a disguise, it should work for a good long time. I think if you sat in front of the older movies and did a survey, you’d find the average length of time Bond uses a cover before it is blown, is something around two minutes — I frankly don’t understand why he would’ve kept bothering with it. I also don’t understand why things are that way. If Bond earns the bad guy’s trust right after his plane lands, and we’re well into the second hour before the bad guy figures out who he is and what he’s doing, wouldn’t the bad guy be really pissed off and therefore scary? Just sayin’.
12. Want to see more of the “Dark Bond” thing with Daniel Craig. I think it suits him. Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore were particularly brilliant about this. You know the drill: Bond is being all smartass Napoleon-Solo, in Moore’s case a little bit foppish, and then someone in the bad guy’s hierarchy rubs out someone Bond happened to care about, so after a little cat-and-mouse game Bond has the assassin cornered and out comes this Mr. Hyde sort of a Bond. Quantum was supposed to deliver on this, and failed. Casino Royale delivered, but it was with more of a flavoring of “poor Bond is rather nauseated when he kills people even though that’s what his training is really all about.” Thus far, Brosnan beats him in this department because Pierce had this look of “yeah dude, your time is up.” I’m absolutely certain Craig has what it takes to turn that around.

I think the short lived disguise, or even the no-one-here-should-know-him “Good evening Mr. Bond.” is essential to demonstrate that the evil one is no mere
Title IX advocate, but a REAL heavy hitter- that will require a wicked cool car and haberdashery (BOTH that do astounding tricks), as well as mastery of the type
of self-confidence required to melt the defenses of world class attractiveness kush, just to casually saunter up to the same chessboard.
- CaptDMO | 01/12/2011 @ 16:42
I was in an auto accident several years ago that broke several teeth and now have a beautiful set of gold crowns in about 1/2 my mouth. I’ve wanted everysince that time to be a thug in a Bond movie. “The man with Golden Teeth” Like Jaws only shorter and smarter
- Fai Mao | 01/12/2011 @ 17:26
A great Bond villainess would be the actress who played the Trunchbull in the movie Matilda

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3465871641/

(Pam Ferris….and by the way, I look just like her. It frightens my children, they’re in therapy now as we speak.) What fine ass-kickage there would be, Morgan, if only the Important People would listen to me.
- Jewel | 01/12/2011 @ 19:18
Brosnan knew how to drink his vodka shots and bite ’em down in a fine grimace.

Rowrr!
- JoanOfArgghh | 01/13/2011 @ 05:56
I’m just glad I held my peace when I read this yesterday. I DID have a comment all queued up, but killed it. It had something to do with Ian Fleming, grave sites, and rapid rotation around a horizontal axis.

Oh shit. 🙂
- bpenni | 01/13/2011 @ 12:40
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Bond 23 Date AnnouncedWednesday, January 12th, 2011

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Wednesday, January 12th, 2011