You only live twice. Once when you are born and once when you look death in the face
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I am not a jealous man. I do not sit around all day coveting my neighbour’s helicopter or your new hair system. Some people are fortunate and others are not, and anyone who fights that truism is on a path that leads to madness and communism.
That said, however, I fell to my knees and wept with envy and rage last week when I opened my morning newspaper to discover that Ian Fleming’s estate had asked Sebastian bloody Faulks to write the next James Bond book.
“Nooooo,” I wailed, in the manner of someone whose daughter has just fallen from a cliff, as I learnt that the manuscript has already been blessed by Bond movie producer Barbara Broccoli.
Getting Faulks to write a Bond book is like asking Polly Toynbee to write the next Die Hard film. It’s like casting Vinnie Jones as Mr Darcy. In the whole history of getting things wrong, this is right at the top of the list.
I know that we have done this before, but given the impossibly vast sums of money that they get paid, why can’t the film industry leave anything alone?
This chap had been there & done it ...
where as chap is an author ...
Yes, Faulks might well be a fine author, however aside from the fact that his surname shares the first letter with Fleming, that is where the similarity ends. Period. What ever next? A re-make of The Dam Busters?
P.S. I walked into the playroom earlier on this evening to find the nippers watching The Pink Panther – no not the original one, the Steve Martin remake. Now at times Steve Martin can be very very funny but sure as sh1ts brown, he’s no Peter Sellers
Comments
My heart also sank at this news.
But on a slightly different tack and at the risk of sounding heretical how great were the books and their impact compared with the films?. As a kid I guess my first exposure to Bond was getting the Bond Aston Martin for Xmas back in 60s. I started reading the books (with some difficulty) when I was 11 or 12 at school (much to the concern of the English teacher. I admit I was probably too young to be reading them and perhaps should have stuck at that age to Biggles etc. Shortly afterwards I was able to get in to see AA films and it is the latter which continue to keep my interest going.
PS
I got a stash of Bond DVDs for Xmas. Whilst Connery is clearly my favourite Bond, Dalton was good. The Ozzie guy was also good in OHMS. The new guy seems good too. Not a fan of Moore, preferred him in the Persuaders.
Posted by: bill | July 16, 2007 11:33 AM
Bill - For me, being one of the few that seems to have actually read the Bond books, like it or not, Dalton is closest to Fleming's original.
Posted by: Mr Free Market | July 16, 2007 11:58 AM
Fleming worked during the war with my late father in law, he was a character!
Posted by: Tim C | July 16, 2007 2:02 PM
There's already a "remake" of the Dam Busters.
it's called Star Wars EP4 a new Hope.
Posted by: AntiCitizenOne | July 16, 2007 5:17 PM
No Idea why Faulks was chosen, however the fact is that a non Femling written Bond has been in existance for some time:
http://www.klast.net/bond/nov_gard.html
The early novels are well worth a read, and very faithful to the original concept, even adjusting Bond to live in the modern world realistically!
Oh, and I totally agree with FM, Dalton was by far the closest to the real thing!
Posted by: Gremlin | July 16, 2007 5:27 PM
I read them about the same timne Bill must've - the "good bits" had the corners turned over and got traded around school. Later collected pulp-novels for the lurid covers, including several Bond ones - and read them again. The blue on the '62 Pan Books "For Your Eyes Only" cover is smoldering. Fleming was head-and-shoulders above Van Wyck Mason, but IMO Roger Moore was best as The Saint...
Posted by: DirtCrashr | July 16, 2007 10:35 PM