Friday, February 03, 2006

Who is Vesper Lynd?

I've been a little disappointed by just about everything I've been hearing about the new Bond film. The actresses that have been mentioned as possible Bond girls are uninspiring and they've still got no villain. Egotatstic gets it about right:

"Um, this whole bond girl search is going to give me an aneurism. I don't understand what the freaking problem is. Oh, wait, maybe it's the fact that all the last James Bond films have sucked so majorly. Or maybe it's the fact that being a Bond Girl is a sure-fire method for career suicide. Maybe it's the fact that no one thinks they cast the right guy to play James Bond. Or maybe it's that the fact that the Bond producers are morons...."

Posted by jwb at 12:20 PM   

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said:

I just wanted to use this opportunity to unload some Bond observations that I've accumulated over the years, but for which I have never found the proper forum. First: of course Sean Connery is the best Bond of them all. Of course, Moore turned the franchise into a cheezy parody of itself (a fact redeemed only by Live and Let Die). Yeh, Dalton was a little static, but his dramatic gravitas was a bracing breath of fresh air after Moore. The last couple of flicks with Brosnan as Bond have sucked, its true. But the first couple he did were among the best in the series. The opening sequence of Tomorrow Never Dies is the best of them all.

I didn't actually mind Lazenby; he was a good, low-key Bond in one of the more low-key of the original Fleming novels (he even gets married to the Bond girl at the end!). What I like the most about Lazenby, though, is that he is Australian. This creates somewhat of a precedent for the next Bond being chosen from an unrepresented part of the British Commonwealth. Look at it this way: Connery is Scottish, Moore and Dalton are English, Brosnan is Irish. Surely, the pattern is clear: the next Bond has to be either a Canadian or a New Zealander. It's just too bad that Christopher Plumber is past his prime for this kind of role. Of course, he's not much older than David Niven was when he did the original (satirical version) of Casino Royale.

Now, before you start laughing at the idea of a Canadian Bond, there are plenty of valid historical reasons for making such a choice. Ian Fleming actually based his portrayal of Bond on a Canadian agent (the name of whom escapes me at present) he commanded while serving in the British Secret Service during World War II. This agent was well known by Fleming for his many feats of daring do, including several successful infiltrations behind German lines after the Nazi retreat from Normandy, where he captured several key secret weapons installations (V-I&II launching sites among them). Don't believe me? go look it up. It should also be noted that the renowned World War II spymaster, "A Man Called Intrepid", was none other than William Stevenson - a Canadian.

That all having been said, Let's hear it for the next Bond guy being a Canuck. I hear Paul Gross might be available. Any takers? Oh yeah, and Bond should never, EVER, drive anything other than an Aston Martin.

A Canadian Conservative in America
at 5:56 PM     

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