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BOND_NOVA
January 30, 2005
James Bond movie ideas
you're unlikely to ever
see in use.
With the original "Q" gone,
the product of "Q Branch"
begins to slip. The equipment
is no longer reliable.
Car chase. Bond fires a
heat-seeking missle... it
gets confused and begins
pursuing his own car. He
zigs, zags, tries to fake
it out, eventually he This would be a new
rolls down his window, running joke with "R". R foists an SUV
punches cruise control, Continual skepticism on him. Bond
and climbs halfway out of about "R"s competence. insists on a
the car, sitting on the test drive and
window, he steers with rolls it over.
one hand, and shoots the
missle out of the air (In a British car,
with his Walther PDK. that would be a left-hand shot.)
At which point his cell
phone rings: M wants to
know what's going on.
While still riding outside (Another running joke:
of the car, he makes M keeps calling
excuses... his cell phone
while he's busy.)
(And then gets
into a collision.) Later: Bond tries
to call for help
on his phone.
A chase scene in the
rain. The windshield Reception is too
wipers break. He has choppy. Then the
to stop. battery dies.
(A general theme:
product non-
Bond attempts to seduce endorsements.)
a Jewish girl from Brooklyn
Exotic, no? He goes looking for
another ex-Soviet
The joke would be that her agent, finds him
sarcastic responses are dead, keeled over
funnier than his idiotic with a bottle of
sexual remarks. vodka (ideally,
Absolut) in front of
him. The second
murder? No,
autopsy shows it was
just cirrhosis.
Locations:
Coney Island in
the winter. Chase scenes on the
deserted boardwalks.
Levittown Information from
a retired Russian agent
A casino in Reno: living in Brighton Beach.
run down, funny smelling,
full of old guys in baggy They talk over
shorts and T-shirts losing poppy-seed rolls.
their rent money.
A strip mall in
Citrus Heights.
Chase scenes through the ailses
of a big box. Ikea? Home Depot?
Seriously:
Those Italian towns on
the Mediterranean *without*
*cars*. Chase scenes on
foot or bicycle (ala "Help"?)
Alternately (additionally?) San Francisco
the bike bit could be done MUNI busses.
in an ordinary urban setting. Does a spiderman,
rides up top
Bond easily confounds the to hide from bad
bad guys, e.g. by guys.
running up stair cases,
zipping down narrow They find him:
alleys, riding through fight scene
hotel lobbies... admist sparks
flying from the
If the unreliable-car joke electrified
isn't getting overdone -- not wires...
that that's a big concern with
Bond, Inc -- you could have (The driver, instead
him running from the bad guys, of being a flustered
glance at his car with a look of comic character,
fear, and steal someone's bicycle is bored, cosmopolitan.
instead. Calls in the problem
and goes and buys some
(You could have him steal a coffee. The passengers
bike messenger's wheels -- groan and leave the bus
Bond evades the enemy agents, without being told.)
but the bike messengers
catch up to him, and he's
in *serious* trouble.)
Cultures --
the hipster/artist realms:
Williamsburg, the Mission,
Amsterdam, Barcelona...
Goa, India... Kuta in Bali...
Arcosanti
Even better:
Invent a locale.
Pick some place, and A green field
as a story premise, new urbanist
claim that it's become location?
the new gathering place
of the underground in-crowd.
Product tie-in: Buy up as
much real estate in this
area as you can. Build
the ultimate hipster Bond encounters
shopping mall art colony. women who think he's
Use the film to advertise it. sexually uptight.
(A woman calls over six
of her girlfriends and
he ends up running in
fear.)
Bond villains:
Ragnar Daneskjold --
a crazed, fanatical TOMDIES
capitalist; running Allies:
a super-pirate sub
out of a norweigian Cooperation with the Americans
fjord. is called for, and Bond is
teamed with a CIA agent --
An anti-nuclear activist, a Russian, formerly with SMERSH
determined to cause a hired by the CIA after the
nuclear meltdown now to Soviet collapse.
alert the world to the
terrible problem. (You are allowed one,
and only one UNCLE joke.)
An evil computer voting
company intent on subverting
American Elections. Young teenage daughter of a
murdered agent, who wants to
A British double agent get in on the investigation
whose cover is being a whacky though she has no official
high fashion photographer. standing.
Get Mike Meyers to play this.
She keeps feeding Bond valuable
(Actually, that idea is information not found in the MI6
so terrible they might files that she turns up with web
do it. Please forget searches.
I said anything.)
Enough skiing already:
Rock Climbing.
International rock climbing
competition. Get a female
climber to do a bond babe bit.
If you can find one silly
enough to take the bribe.
Apparently it's a very common idea for outside
commentators like myself to suggest that the Bond
schtick seems so dated that it should just be done
as a period piece. Set the wayback for 1962.
(Bond at play in the
Cuban Missle Crisis?)
I'm not sure why,
but this idea Bond movies have
doesn't grab me. always had such a
loose connection to
reality, they seem a (So of course,
poor vehicle for a this is what
historical. they actually
did.)
The idea that seems to be
emerging in my above dizzy
rambling is a backward looking
scenario set in the present
day, Bond dealing with left-
over fragments of the Cold
War.
Ex-soviet agents are up to
some nefarious organized crime gig.
Bond makes contact with an ex-soviet
that he's on friendly terms with.
Gets a warning.
Bond is assigned a partner: ex-SMERSH,
presumably an old enemy, (someone who
once tired to kill him?). Come to think of it
that's a bit the
Bond once again goes to see the guy Avengers did. Twice.
who warned him and finds him dead.
(Optional: he has a young daughter
who now wants in.)
This requires a pretty loosey-goosey
connection with time. A fortyish
Bond, reminiscing about the Cold War
era forty years ago, when he was
still in his twenties.
This is nothing unusual for
series fiction, though.
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