And actually, a good documentary about the development of porcelain probably would be quite interesting. I don’t think it’d work as a fictionalized two-hour drama, though. They’d probably try to tack on a car chase.
What’s your opinion of the Daniel Craig reboot Bond? Because I thought that he did capture that “blunt instrument wielded by a Government Department” quality. Though I agree with you that the Moore Bond had his moments—kicking the spectacled baddie’s car off the cliff in FYEO—IMHO, the effect was that of a Golden Retriever that decided to actually nip after growling. I still love FYEO; it’s probably my favorite of the Moore Bond movies.
Dr. No., I think, did capture some of the ruthlessness of the written 007, especially in the scene where he kills Professor Dent. Not the, “That’s a Smith & Wesson, Professor, and you’ve had your six,” though that’s an AWESOME action movie hero line.
No, that Bond puts another one in him while he’s motionless on the ground, just to make sure he’s dead.
On rewatching Dr. No I was struck not only Bond’s coldbloodedness in shooting a man who at that point was unarmed, but also his incompetence in executing Dr. No’s right-hand man, who could have been a trove of information if taken alive.
For what it’s worth, that’s also how Bond iced Stromberg in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME: upon taking a knee, Roger Moore (a) plainspokenly notes that the guy is out of ammo, and promptly (b) shoots him – and then shoots him a second time – and then stands up to shoot him a third time while striding over to shoot him a fourth time.
Part of the charm of the books is the drill about how he cant be saving the world all the time and he gets flabby and disgusted with himself. Would you really prefer the novels to have some jackanape like Roger Moore wisecracking? It’s not a cartoon. You’re supposed to have a little suspension of disbelief, even in a Bond book.
Also every Bond book that I have ever read describes his food and drink preferences in different circumstances. His tastes did not derive from the movie versions! The books make you hungry. The movies? Not at all.
Heh, in “Thunderball”, both novel- and movie-Bond get packed off to a clinic/resort to get detoxed. Novel-Bond has a pretty rough time with it, having withdrawals from cigarettes and alcohol. After he gets out, his primary goals are to indulge himself in a really intense bacchanal consisting of, as I recall, a really hard cheap Chianti, a large plate of heavily spiced spaghetti bolognaise, and the body of physical therapist Patricia Fearing. He goes three for three.
Movie Bond barely breaks a sweat. He gets yanked around on that rack machine like his novel counterpart, but rebounds immediately to nail the therapist in the steamroom.
In Goldfinger there is a great orgiastic meal of Crab Legs with Butter and toast that makes Bond disgusted with himself.
It’s not so much his taste. It’s they way he orders his food wherever he is. He always knows what he wants. I never knew what a rasher of bacon was before I read the books. (Come to think of it I still don’t know)
Did you even watch the clip? You don’t recall correctly. After Bond gets the drop on him and makes him drop the gun, Dent stealthily picks up the gun again and tries to shoot him, but it’s empty. Bond knows this because he counted the shots, and delivers his line. Bond then calmly shoots Dent, who collapses on the floor face down but is still alive. Bond then shoots him again in the back, even though Dent’s gun is empty and he’s helpless.
It never ceases to amaze me the things some people around here get pissy about. No, I didn’t watch the clip. I am and have been posting from my phone while out running errands. So I conflated items from a couple a couple of scenes. Big deal. The point was that Dent was still alive when Bond shot him the second time, as evidenced by the way Dent arched his back and flailed his arms.
In The Spy Who Loved Me, told from the woman’s point of view, Bond nearly gets both of them killed two or three times in the course of one night and still manages to get laid (of course, the woman loves it when they wind up in bed together).
I liked the Craig films, but I thought that they were influenced a bit too much by the Bourne series, especially Casino Royale.
For an otherwise lightheated Bond, if you make a list of most coldblooded and assholish thing done in the movie series, then many of them are Moore moments. FEYO has been mentioned. TMWGG, where his interrogation consisted of threatening to shoot off a mans penis and slapping [del]Octopussy[/del] Maud Adams’s character until she broke.
