Ian Fleiming's impression of how James Bond should look. Your guess is not as good as mine. |
It’s one of the most successful film franchises ever(take that
Star Trek!). It has some of the most iconic movie moments, dialogues,
glamourous, beautiful, sexy girls (take that Star Trek), great exotic locations
(take that National Geographic), great action sequences (take that Die Hard),great
villains and henchmen (take that Take That) and a bunch of actors playing the
same character heroically, with the first one actually getting away in six
(seven) films with a wig. And he’s the best.
You know the name, and you know the number, but you can
never figure out how the heck did the James Bond film series reached 50 years
with billions of revenue, millions of fan, thousands of rip-offs, hundreds
of wannabes, ten of those who haven’t
watched any of them and all that would not have happened if not for one man that created James Bond.
Well, two, if you consider the fact that the character James
Bond was named after an author of a book on West Indies Birds, because Ian
Fleming wanted a dull name for his hero for that espionage thriller story he
was going to write.
You see. Fleming was trying to recover from the shock that he
was suddenly married at the age of forty with someone (else’s wife first, who
later divorced her hubby) when he was a happy go lucky, ex-Navy commander,
journalist, car enthusiast, chain-smoking alcoholic trying to carve a name for
himself and try to overcome his jealousy of that goddam brother of his, Peter, who
was a lot more famous figure in the literature circle as awesome travel writer
of that time.
Aside: Two, owing to the fact that the owner of that dull
name had mom and dad, remember? You got to give credit where it’s due. For the benefit
of twitter readers: James Bond nmd aftr some birdguy.Fleming mst thx his
parents. Lol: N-of-asside.
It would be difficult for the present day folks, those who
are, well, not even born in 1953, much less those who were born couple years
later, to understand the phenomena of James Bond books. Okay, considering that
most of the readers of this blog are Asians, I think it would be safe to say
that it was not until somewhere in the later part of 1960s onwards when Bond
started permeating Asia. And I don’t mean it in dirty way.
As usual, Japan was one of the first to catch up…so much so
that in 1967 the producers decided that You Only Live Twice should be shot in
Japan because the Novel it is based on is based in Japan. Hah! Fabulous
decision, eh?
Well, Fleming fans knows this. And we say it in most sincere
manner, “Fuck you, producers…"wait, where are all those asterisks. Okay, “F***
you producers, You Only Live Twice novel takes place after On Her Majesties’ Secret
Service novel where Bond’s wife dies????”. I exaggerated. Back in 60s they used
fewer exclamation marks. It hurts the typewriter (they existed as a job function)’s
little finger.
Anyway, it was so phenomenal that we Asians actually managed
to, with some difficulty, to spell, “Phenomenal”. The 70s upped the ante with
more action oriented, humour laced Bond films that so much so, in Asia, any
action films were labelled “James Bond styled action films” unless martial arts
were involved (India and Turkey especially will understand what I am talking
about).
This writer is confused as to remembering which was the
first Bond film he saw. Was it Octopussy bootleg video he watched in a relatives
house during a festive season. Or was it You Only Live Twice open air screening
we (he, his brothers and dad) watched in their plantation (we had to sit on straw mat,
till dad has to force us to walk back to our home to bed, I, 8 or 9 years old,
cried).
It was after this that I (this writer, who were you thinking) started to wonder who the heck
James Bond was. I believe many of the non-European and American kids were figuring
out too at that time. And in 1986, they decided to get another guy as Bond and that was the
time when the name Ian Fleming was bandied about broadly.
This, is because the actor who was chosen at that time
insisted that the character should go back to the book. I was intrigued. I
borrowed books of the author from the school library. In fact, I stole three of
them.
I kept up with the paper clippings at that time. The new guy
is serious following Ian Fleming’s work. This was the time when reboot means
you kick your brother again with your boot. And the producers and this actor just did that, brought back Bond to what Fleming was thinking about.
Also, at that time, they started screening the older Bond movies on TV and I
was hooked as fanatic Bond fan for life, unitl 1995, of course, where I
declared that I am an ex-Bond fan.
The point is. At some point in someone’s life, James Bond
OO7 (not 007) has impacted some or other useless buggers’ life, including mine.
Even if I hated the 1995-2002 version, and feel the 2006-present version got
the right guy and everything else wrong; I still wait in bated breath for the
next installation. 50 fucking years, I mean, 50 f****** years. That’s one badass
achievement. Tonight, wife requested for us to start indoctrinating my son. Dr.
No, here we come.
1 comment:
I always appreciate a great article or piece of writing. Thanks for the contribution.
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