Talk:James Bond

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dainamo (talk | contribs) at 01:22, 4 December 2004 (Inspiration). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Film and Actor info

I think we should make it more clear of the distinction between the real/official Bond films/actors and the spoofs & unofficial versions. For example, David Niven & Casino Royale are spoofs, you can't possibly compare these with the true Bond films. Grunners 20:10, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Personal information

"In the movies he has a degree in Oriental Languages from Cambridge University, although this contradicts the information in the novels and the scene in Tomorrow Never Dies where Bond is unable to use a computer with a Chinese keyboard. "

is this really a contradiction? Just because you have a degree in something that doesn't mean you should know everything that's related to it. He could've specialized in Korean instead of Chinese while receiving that degree.

Also he may have concentrated on the spoken forms of Oriental languages but not the written, which are usually taught separately. (Ben W Bell 13:48, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC))

Wa wa wa waah ...  :-)


To me, Sean Connery was the only and best Bond.

No, in this you are mistaken: David Niven's Bond in Casino Royale was a masterpiece. sjc

Connery. :-)

He certainly is now seen as the definitive Bond. But Niven is much more tongue in cheek and more in keeping with the underlying irony in Fleming's novels. sjc

Irony! Fleming's Bond was cruel/vicious not ironic.


Moved here, because it's one person's idiosyncratic opinion written in first person style:

Many people prefer Sean Connery as Bond. His films are my favorites; I enjoy them enough that I can ignore the male chauvinism of the times they were made. (Feminists beware: character names "Pussy Galore", slapping women on the butt, etc.) With Sean C. as the chavinist, I would let him get away with quite a lot myself!! The later Roger Moore films are more tongue-in-cheek; I think the Sean Connery's are more realistic. In Dr.No, the hero spy shows fear (tarantula!) and boredom. In addition, he actually LOOKS hurt, instead of later films' heroes who never muss their hair or get dirty. In addition, the villains are better; even the secondary henchmen are well done (Odd Job and a young Robert Shaw). Favorite line is by Auric Goldfinger after Bond asks "Do you expect me to talk?" Goldfinger: "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!"

As far as Wikipedia is concerned, more than likely your opinion doesn't count - a collective opinion, or the opinion of some noted critics, is. See the new neutral point of view page for discussion on this point. --Robert Merkel

As for the Goldfinger line - it doesn't end there, but in the film version the rest got left out. It went: "Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die!" "Well, then you can go and f--- yourself." "No, Mr Bond, not even I am capable of that!"

A list of the books (at least the Fleming originals) might be a good thing to add; also, how about some information on the copyright issues surrounding Blofeld, Never Say Never Again, etc.? (I will do these if/when I have time to research it properly but it's exactly the sort of thing some people know off the top of their heads) - Bth

"The Rough Guide to James Bond" ISBN 1-84353-142-9 addresses Blofeld (Kevin McClory owned the rights to him); which is why he is 'bumped off' during the opening of "For Your Eyes Only." Sparky


Not doubting that it's the case, but I'm just wondering how they rationalize it: How can he both be an orphan and have a family motto ('The World is Not Enough')? -- John Owens 23:36 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Just because both his parents are dead, it doesn't mean he doesn't know who they were. — Paul A 01:12 24 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Yeah, shortly after I asked, I realized that while I was en route. Was hoping I could retract the question before anyone noticed, but I see it's too late. ;) -- John Owens (away from home)

I was about to make a minor correction about Desmond Llewellyn (he wasn't in Live and Let Die) but I thought it simpler to move the info to Q's own page. DJ Clayworth 14:15, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)


The Property of a Lady, 1991. Never made due to the legal issues surrounding EON at this time. What is EON? RickK 23:15, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The company that makes the films--(i think?). Alexandros 23:19, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Yes, Eon productions. See the official web site http://www.007.com . Chrysalis 18:40, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Removed the fan films as they were all either speculative, not yet produced, or in one case clearly in violation of copyright. DJ Clayworth 18:18, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)


No, all of them were made except for "James Bond 2015", I checked all of them. Go to fanfilms.net's James Bond section and see for yourself, that's where I got my info.


Assuming you mean "Alligator" is in violation of copyright (in case that's the one you mean, sorry if it isn't), as it's a school-based production (it's technically my final for Advanced Filmmaking), copyright is overridden. (Or so the school told me...) Also, the authors of the book will be notified before any Internet release can take place; not to mention some people relatively close to the Bond business have been previously contacted, and are under the impression that it will not cause a serious problem. If need necessary, the movie will drop all references to James Bond and his surroundings.

Like I said, sorry to jump on you if it's not the one you meant, it's just something I worry about - I don't want it to be killed before it's born, if you know what I mean :-)

The adaptation of "Casino Royale" on the other hand is questionable, but from what I've heard, the EON people are fine with fan produced materials as long as there is no release outside of the Internet - which is why fanfilm sites make it clear that no videos or DVD's are available. I don't know if the rules for using an actual, licensed Fleming story are different or not. But otherwise, EON has not taken any action on fanfilms. (Fan-written stories are a different matter; Glidrose is not happy about those.)

Casino Royale was the 'copyright' one I was thinking of. Of the others, one said 'due to start filing in December 2003', the others 'to be produced'. Seriously, how many fan films are produced each year, and how many use 'James Bond' as a basis? DJ Clayworth 14:41, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

(P.S. It's normal to sign your postings ontalk pages - you can it conveniently by putting four tildes in a row ~~~~)

Oh, sorry for biting your head off then. I suppose about one a year - there hasn't been much of a James Bond fan film scene. I had an article describing mine here, but someone else deleted it (grrr....) Well, hope this tilde thing works: 151.201.140.39 17:31, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)


Added a few bits then fell into some notions on tech improvement of the page:

  • Added some parody refs (mostly found on the de: Page) then found out that oops, maybe 'Parody', 'Other J.B. movies' and 'starring David Niven' should be collated somehow.
  • I consider Casino Royale parody. Well, maybe others object (although the article so far has it that Casino Royal is a spoof)
  • The de: version of the page involves the habit of using IMDb links. What about copying them?

00:26, 19 Mar 2004 - 62.180.204.140 (Sorry I'm being lazy at the moment...)


Bond villains

Is there a page on Bond villains ? Jay 17:30, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it's located here: Bond Villains K1Bond007


Self-parody

"... the successful 1990s revival with Pierce Brosnan in the lead role has increasingly turned the series into self-parody."

Can someone provide examples of self-parody ? Jay 17:30, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

A very early Hemingway novel called The Torrents of Spring, written to be so bad that it would break a publishing contract he wanted to get out of, is generally considered to be a self-parody. As the Bond movies went on and became more and more tongue-in-cheek, they too, I believe, are frequently called self-parody. But I'm no expert on them. Some critics have also called some of the very last Hemingway books to be unwitting self-parodies of his early work.Hayford Peirce 23:22, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ornothologist

Shouldn't the paragraph at the bottom about the ornothologist be on a seperate page? On this page there should be a link explaining that he was the basis for the Bond name. Grunners

Not necessary in this case, as there is only a little information on the ornithologist, and the ornithologist is primarily famous only as the namesake of the fictional spy. --Lowellian 20:10, May 17, 2004 (UTC)

I rewrote the article on the birder and provided a disambiguation at the top of this page. It's at James Bond (ornithologist). I believe the section here could now be deleted. PedanticallySpeaking 17:12, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

Ok, I condensed the section and dropped it into Misc Trivia. K1Bond007 18:13, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Q

I removed Q's name from the link to Q, because the Q article deals with John Cleese Q whose name is clearly not Major Boothroyd. He's much better known as Q. DJ Clayworth 16:26, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Your arguement is right DJ,but we should write Q's name without any conflicts,for all of us Q is Desmond Llewelyn .--Sina 22:06, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Positive identification of Bond-21 as Casino Royale

As far as I know, there's been no official announcement made about the title of Bond-21, so why is it definitively listed as being called Casino Royale? Hig Hertenfleurst 22:35, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Bond Bits

In my last edit I removed a part in the bond bits section that talked about how the number 007 came to be. I removed it for two reasons. 1) Because I didn't feel it was a "Bond Bit". Bond bits, as you can see from what the others describe are things that are always in a Bond movie. Bond saying "Bond, James Bond".. ordering a martini "Shaken not Stirred". That sort of thing. The history of how the number came to be is more part of 007's history or overview. 2) Because it was my long understanding that the number came from Riyard Kiplings stories about a train numbered "007". This is actually even stated in the article under James Bond Ornithologist, although it is my belief that this should be moved elsewhere in the article. If there are multiple stories of how the number came to be, by all means replace what I removed and add the Riyard Kipling part in the the Overview section. K1Bond007 20:51, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I added a section called Miscellaneous Bond Trivia to hold this type of information. I have readded that story on the origins of the number as one possibility, and moved your story into the same section plus a couple of other bits and pieces that seemed to be irrelevant to their actual sections. (Ben W Bell 09:43, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC))
This sounds good to me. K1Bond007 16:13, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
We should not have contradictory information here. Personally I would like to see references given for things like origins of numbers, especially when it's something as obscure as this. DJ Clayworth 13:24, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The problem with that is that there are so many contradictory stories on the origin of the number. I think we should have all the stories since no one but Fleming himself knows the truth. My one came from the official tour of Higham Park where Ian Fleming spent a lot of his time and did a lot of writing, and the 007 was the number of the coach from the 1940s right up until about 4 years ago and does indeed pass by in easy view of the main house. (Ben W Bell 13:45, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC))

Bond Vehicles

Should the "Bond Vehicles" section of the article be moved to it's own page ("List of James Bond vehicles" ??) where information on them can be expanded and some that aren't listed can be added? Just curious, what you guys think. K1Bond007 21:05, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Anyone object? I'm thinking since it's now been molded into "Gadgets" that we move it to another page "List of James Bond Gadgets" perhaps where we can list the gadgets and give more info on the vehicles. K1Bond007 22:54, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

Books to Screenplays

Under "Screenplays to Books" it lists 2 by Christopher Wood, The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. Aren't these technically "Books to Screenplays" or based on the books by Ian Fleming? I realise that the two Screenplays are original works by Christopher Wood since they're nothing really similar at all to what happens in the Fleming novels, but were these actually books too besides the novels that Ian Fleming wrote? If they're not really books, shouldn't these be listed elsewhere? K1Bond007 21:03, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)

I believe it's referring to the novelisations that Christopher Wood did of the two films to which he wrote original screenplays (Moonraker's film is mainly an original work, despite using a few elements from the novel), entitled "James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me", and "James Bond and Moonraker", presumably to differentiate between the novelisations and Fleming's novels. Hig Hertenfleurst 23:46, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Ok thanks for clearing that up. Just wanted to make sure these were ACTUAL novelizations and not just screenplays.

Books/Movie differences

Shouldn't there be some brief info about the diffrences between the books and the movies?

Inspiration

Should there be mention of William Stephenson (codename Intrepid)? Fleming trained in Stephenson's Camp X. "James Bond is a highly romanticized version of a true spy. The real thing is ...William Stephenson" -- Ian Fleming, The Times, October 21, 1962 BeavisSanchez

MI-7?

Although Bond is now a fictional agent of the real MI-6, am I right that the early Bond movies with Connery put hime as a member of a fictional MI-7?