From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.tv

On Mon, 9 Mar 2026 22:20:54 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
<ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On Mon, 9 Mar 2026 12:32:25 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>: >>>The True Melissa <thetruemelissa@gmail.com> wrote:

There's a theory that "James Bond" is not a person but a code name for=20 >>>>whoever's the top agent at the time. Among other things, this explains=20 >>>>how Sean Connery was able to return to the role after Roger Moore had=20 >>>>taken it, with Moore then taking over again. They weren't playing the=20 >>>>same character; they were two different agents using the name at=20 >>>>different times.

For those who believe that theory, a black Bond wouldn't be a problem.

Those people cannot handwave away that

1) Sean Connery fails to notice that the plot is awfully familiar as
it's a remake

Now there you've got me.

But it was a very good remake!

2) Roger Moore, in For Your Eyes Only, returns the same Maguffin stolen >>>by the girl then given to Sean Connery in From Russia With Love

The same /sort/ of maguffin but not the same one.

One was a Russian Lektor, the other a British ATAC

Technically, that's correct, but For Your Eyes Only was a deliberate
call back to From Russia With Love, the novel which was literally Cold
War and the Russians were the enemies. In the movie, Blofeld and SPECTRE
were added. Yet again, the studio didn't have the cash to make a movie
as hideously expensive as Moonraker and they wanted to get away from all
the excesses. Except for the parrot, it's a great movie. The director
forced Roger Moore to ACT, which he did too little of in his career.

Yes, SPECTRE and so Blofeld were introduced in the film /Dr. No/. In
the books, Bond is still a target of SMERSH and SPECTRE lies in his
future. But otherwise the film of /For Your Eyes Only/ is quite close
to the book.
I saw /For Your Eyes Only/ in German when it came out. They dubbed the
parrot. In this case, there was no "book". Instead, they used two
short stories ("For Your Eyes Only", Bond taking revenge for M, and
"Risico", about two smugglers, one of which is working for the
Russians). As I am sure you know. I consider this to be arguably the
best adaptation of two short stories, at least among the James Bond
films.

. . .

The first Leiter went on to star in "Hawaii 5-0". From then it was, as
you say, a mish-mash.

If you hadn't heard the story, Leiter is an important supporting
character in the novels set in the US and Carribean. Lord thought he
could get away with a casting guarantee and a huge pay rise to a star's >salary. Producers thought otherwise. Recast with Cec Linder for
Goldfinger, it was a deliberate choice to cast an actor who looked
different.

David Hedison was Leiter in two movies, Live and Let Die and Licence to
Kill. Filming Dr. No before LALD tossed continuity out the window. The
shark attack from the LALD novel got moved to LTK. There's continuity
between those two movies but later movies have no reference to the shark >attack.

I was very happy when I saw it in /License to Kill/.
Not because I disliked Leiter. I was just glad that that bit had
finally been filmed.

Moneypenny aged out -- unless leaving was the actress' own idea, this
is an example of preferring young actresses to older ones.

Lois Maxwell wanted to retire from playing the character. She and Roger
Moore had been acting students together and long-time friends. She used >Moore's retirement from the role -- The Living Daylights had originally
been written assuming Moore would return but then got rewritten for a
more serious Timothy Dalton -- to retire herself.

Thanks for the info.

Of course,
the new Bond was younger than the old Bond, so it made a sort of
sense. IIRC, one of the reasons /Hush ... Hush Sweet Charlotte/ was so >>popular is precisely because it featured actors of the feminine
persuasion who had not been seen on screen in a long long time due to
their age. Of course, being a very scary film helped as well.

I'll agree.

Blofeld's cat, not a character in the novels, was also recast.

Cats also age out..

Nah. Like Jack Lord, the cat demanded too much money.

6) The theory accomplishes nothing for MI-6. Also, Bond is a ridiculous >>>spy given that every casino and fine hotel in Europe knows who he is.

This is because, as the newspapers once were in the habit of saying
when each and every James Bond film came out, he is not a spy. He is a >>cleaner. And he cleans down to the very nap, if not beyond.

The character is meant to be cinematic, not realistic.

Hey, you're the one that called him "ridiculous". I'm just pointing
out that this isn't necessarily so.

Alternate answer: his reputation as a playboy is useful cover.

Planting his Playboy Club membership card on the henchman (with whom he
had one of the best cinematic fight scenes of all times) he had just
killed was a plot point in Diamonds Are Forever!

I really missed the gang connection in the book. Particularly the line (referring to the mob back East): "tell them they are suffering from
delusions of adequacy" (approximate, from memory).

The only support for that theory is the self-deprecating joke Lazenby >>>makes when Diana Rigg doesn't immediately get dissuaded from her suicide >>>attempt upon encountering Bond. "That never happened to the other >>>fellow." Also, it's the plot of Casino Royale (1967).

And that was understood (at least by me) to be the actor's comment on >>replacing Connery.

. . . and whether the audience would accept recasting. Exactly right.

I would also argue that Connery's Bond is almost a new character in >>>Goldfinger. He wore pastels! But Dalton returned to the way Connery >>>played Bond in Dr No.

I'm not sure pastels make a character "new".

As the consumate English snob, Ian Fleming looked down upon Sean
Connery, who was not only working class but (horrors) Scottish. James
Bond, in the novels, exemplified Fleming's refined opinions (if Fleming
said so himself) and fine taste in clothes, food, and elegant living, to
the extent Bond could afford it on a civil servant's wage.

Connery simply did not look like Bond. Preparing for Dr. No, the
director Terence Young sent Connery to his tailor and created the look
for Bond in at least the first two movies.

The costume -- the very well-tailored evening clothes -- established the >character.

For Goldfinger, the new director Guy Hamilton took Bond in a different >direction. The movie is not a straight adaptation, a good thing as so
much of Fleming's plot concerning the crime had to be thrown out; the
novel is quite weak.

I always liked the line in the book: "once is chance, twice in
coincidence, three times is enemy action" (approximate, from memory).
They killed the second Masterson girl off way to early. And the
inevitable trend toward more massive endings than the books (starting
with /Dr. No/, although /From Russia With Love/ confined it to a boat
chase) was disappointing. Where the book had an improbably massive
getaway with the gold, the film has -- an atomic device. Giving the
film a plot point eventually used in the third Die Hard movie.

While the attache case in FRWL is an important prop, in Goldfinger, you
got the immortal Aston Martin DB5 and future Bond movies' overreliance
on gadgets. And the black humor in the puns are more frequent and less >subtle. Goldfinger sets up the Roger Moore era.

That car -- said to be the very one used in the film, although I
suspect that it was, at best, only one of those used -- actually
toured the USA so fans could pay money to look at it.

That Hamilton changed Bond's costume was part of the change.

I'm particularly fond of the Bond movies that are somewhat straighter >adaptations of the novels, but Goldfinger is fabulously entertaining. We
can enjoy both.

But not caring whether his martinis are shaken or stirred.

Hehehehehehehe

That was actually intended to be a response to the claim that Dalton's
Bond was a return to Connery's. Although Dalton did a fine job, I was
glad with the end of the last one because it pretty much guaranteed it
was the /last/ one. I never really got into the Reboot Bonds.

Those people aren't true Bond fans. We accept that Bond movies lack >>>explanation and continuity, what little there was in the novels, gets >>>destroyed when the movies were out of sequence. Somehow Bond and
Blofeld, both recast, hadn't met in On Her Majesty's Secret
Service. Bond is supposed to be perpetually in his mid 30s. The later >>>novels dropped his WWII navy service. We accept that Craig's Bond is >>>earlier in "continuity" than the rest of them, despite each movie being >>>set contemporarily.

Quite right. Even to accepting the Craig Bond. I'm not sure I want to
see the Reboot Bonds again but, since I am working my way through the
James Bond series at the putative rate of one every six days, and >>/Goldfinger/ is next, it will be a while before I make a final
decision about those.

Casino Royale (1967) is quite entertaining despite its many flaws, with
437 different directors and an overblown mismanaged production that
almost rivals Cleopatra. The David Niven/Deborah Kerr scenes are the
worst portion of the movie. Orson Welles was fantastic casting for Le
Chiffre but because he and Peter Sellers did not get along, those scenes
were ruined as well.

The one we saw in the Army was longer than the current DVD version
(the one I have includes an earlier version done on USA TV, with Jimmy
Bond, CIA Agent, being helped by Felix Leiter, MI6 agent -- all I can
say is "thank God the films were done by Brits!").

But the women -- Joanna Petet, Daliah Lavu, Barbara Bouchet -- plus >Jacqueline Bisset in a small role, were glorious. The Burt Bacharach
score performed by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Dusty Springfield >performing The Look of Love.

Did I mention the women?

Sure, watch it when you are in the mood. It doesn't have to be watched
with the rest of the movies.

Actually, I watch it first, before /Dr. No/. This despite it's
references to both /Dr. No/ and /From Russia With Love/.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"
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From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.tv

On Mar 10, 2026 at 8:49:21 AM PDT, "Paul S Person" <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On Mon, 9 Mar 2026 22:20:54 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
<ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

For Goldfinger, the new director Guy Hamilton took Bond in a different
direction. The movie is not a straight adaptation, a good thing as so
much of Fleming's plot concerning the crime had to be thrown out; the
novel is quite weak.

I always liked the line in the book: "once is chance, twice in
coincidence, three times is enemy action" (approximate, from memory).

Aren't chance and coincidence the same thing?


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From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.tv

On Mar 8, 2026 at 5:00:44 PM PDT, "Ubiquitous" <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:

In article <10okem0$2j96d$1@dont-email.me>, dtravel@sonic.net wrote:

On 3/7/2026 10:59 PM, Ubiquitous wrote:

In article <10nvlrn$3m304$2@dont-email.me>, atropos@mac.com wrote:

"Your Name" <YourName@YourISP.com> wrote:

Everything Larry and David Ellison Will Control
if Paramount Buys Warner Bros.
-----------------------------------------------
Paramount Skydance's sprawling media empire will get a major
boost if the deal gets approved.

Conservative Oracle founder Larry Ellison dropped $110 billion to have >>>> Paramount-Skydance devour Warner Bros. Discovery whole.

He's conservative? Didn't he buy the 007 franchise from the Brocolli
widow, only to remove the gun from all Bond posterwork and announce
the next Bond movie will have a "Bond They/Them"?

All the discussion that I've seen about who the next Bond will be have
been about male actors.

I remember them floating the idea of Bond being a black guy but
I thought someone tried to float the idea of a Jane Bond.

Here's a clip from the upcoming Bond film:


https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/2030035566218113024/vid/avc1/1102x848/2heYFMs0bc96SnVs.mp4


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