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A lengthy series of Films based on Ian Fleming's literature about a British secret agent, code-named 007, which have also inspired many TV series. The 22 official movies thus far are: (Some of these link to individual pages on the Wiki. Any quote on them that is not identified are from Mr. Bond)
A study of the characters of the James Bond series can be found here.
Sean Connery: As the first cinematic Bond (but not the first person to play him — that title goes to Barry Nelson in the 1954 Casino Royale, while the first person to play a British Bond was Bob "I'll have a Q, Bob" Holness in a 1956 South African radio version of Moonraker), Connery is perhaps the best known. When people think of Bond, they often think of his distinctive accent (especially if you're Tony DiNozzo) and his suave sophistication.
George Lazenby: Lazenby was an obscure actor and an obscure Bond. He only appeared in one movie. OHMSS, however, is well liked among non-Bond fans, hard-core Bond fans, and among casual Bond fans who see the movie, too. The film is widely assumed to be bad, since if it had been good, Lazenby would have made more, right? Well, not really, Lazenby's problems were primarily behind the scenes, and the fact that he was replacing Connery made it a no-win situation with some critics, but most of that criticism has faded with time. The film is well regarded these days among those who have seen it.
Sean Connery Again: See above.
Roger Moore: Moore tended to play his Bond more for comedy, but he did do it pretty serious at times, as in For Your Eyes Only, his finest performance as Bond (although as a movie, The Spy Who Loved Me is better). He probably hung around too long and A View To A Kill isn't very popular among fans.
- Live And Let Die — Includes the line, "take that honky out and waste him." Also prompted some controversy as to whether or not Bond's bedding of Jane Seymour was really consensual. Has a villain who may or may not be an actual Loa (voodoo god). Also has Paul McCartney singing the theme song.
- The Man With The Golden Gun — Christopher Lee tries to hold the world to ransom during the energy crisis. One of the greatest stunts in Bond history is ruined by a sound effect.
- The Spy Who Loved Me — Barbara Bach does a bad Russian accent. The film makes a bad nuclear error. And Jaws (as in Richard Kiel with metal teeth, not the shark) does a bad job of trying to kill 007.
- Moonraker — Bond investigates the theft of a space shuttle, and ends up going into space to stop a genocide plot, then having sex in orbit with Lois Chiles. Basically the same film as the above, IN SPACE!, except Jaws finds true love and executes a Heel Face Turn.
- For Your Eyes Only — In which an Englishman, a Frenchwoman and an Israeli do Greek. In character, a Mancunian does Austrian. Roger Moore's love interests are now young enough to be his granddaughters. And 007 kicks a car off a cliff.
- Octopussy — Maud Adams appears again as a different Bond girl. A mad Soviet general tries to destroy a US airbase. 007 dresses as a clown and makes it work.
- A View To A Kill — Christopher Walken and an exploding blimp. Duran Duran and the Eiffel Tower. 007 has wrinkles. Oh, and San Francisco's City Hall ends up on fire.
Timothy Dalton: Nothing will start an argument among Bond fans as raising Timothy Dalton, the Marmite of Bond actors. He began the trend of portraying Bond in a darker tone, and is still considered the darkest of all of them. At the same time, he has also been praised for having the most organic love scenes. The producers actually considered him for Live And Let Die, but felt he was too young at the time.
Pierce Brosnan: Brosnan is the other person who people think of when they imagine Bond at the moment, especially among viewers who came of age in The Nineties and GoldenEye was the first Bond flick they saw. He was supposed to appear in The Living Daylights, but the production staff of Remington Steele decided to pull a fast one on EON Productions. Brosnan was just what the franchise needed after the six-year hiatus due to legal issues. He rates second on the Bond poll. It's been argued that Brosnan's films are in a continuity of their own, since they have a totally different feel and the closest they come to referencing the past is Bond mentioning the old M's drink preference to the new female one.
Daniel Craig: When Daniel Craig was cast as 007, he got a lot of flak from the press. He was blond. He was ugly. He wore a life jacket on a speedboat ride to the announcement. A "Craig Not Bond" movement started up. Then Casino Royale came out. People shut up.
There are also at least three Bond films outside of the accepted canon:
- Casino Royale (1954): The first screen adaptation of a Bond novel. A 1954 made-for-TV movie which recast Bond as an American. Named "Jimmy". It was performed live, which led to some unintentional hilarity such as Felix Leiter missing a cue and improvised dialogue when Jimmy couldn't undo his binds quickly enough.
- Casino Royale (1967): spoof starring David Niven, Woody Allen (the second “Jimmy Bond”), and Peter Sellers, all as James Bond — along with five other Bonds, after a key point, including Ursula Andress. Despite being either So Bad Its Good or So Bad Its Horrible, depending on your opinion, it had a number of interesting things, such as predicting the official franchise's habit of replacing its leading man, and being the only Bond movie in which Bond dies.
- Never Say Never Again: 1983 remake of Thunderball, returning Sean Connery to the role, albeit at an advanced age.
Common things in the official Bond films include:
- The Q scene, in which Bond gets his gadgets for the movie. Expect humorous other gadgets to be seen i.e. a decapitating tray (completely absent from Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Live And Let Die. While Q appears in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, he doesn't introduce any gadgets).
- Also worth noting that every movie has an Asspull scene where Bond's watch has just the function needed when he's in a tight spot. It almost seems tongue-in-cheek in the video game for GoldenEye
- Bond and Moneypenny flirting (She has yet to appear in the Daniel Craig films).
- The gun barrel sequence, which has started every movie (yet again, except for Casino Royale onwards, where it's moved to the end of the pre-titles sequence).
- The Bond Girls. Usually at least two of them in one movie. You could write a book on the different girls Bond has bedded over the years - in fact, Maryam D'Abo and John Cork did. The former played Kara Milovy in The Living Daylights, so she knows what she's talking about. Although it goes back to Thunderball, the Bad Bond Girl has become something of a feature recently with all of the last three movies featuring one (Casino Royale takes it to the ultimate level with the only Bond girl being bad).
- "Oooh, James!"
- Lavish, surreal opening credit sequences, often featuring silhouettes of naked women and thematic to the movie, set to a Title Theme Tune. May also be a Villain Sucks Song (Most notably, Goldfinger).
- Every Bond film (at least pre-Casino, which includes three of the four) includes at least one of the following
- Underwater action sequence
- Skiing action sequence
- Aerial action sequence
- Car chase (pretty much all of them!)
- Sport vehicle chase: snowmobiles, motorcycles, jetskis, boats so far.
- On a documentary about the making of The World Is Not Enough, one scriptwriter commented that the ending had to be like "the villain's base explodes, as Bond and the girl escape in a rubber dinghy". But because it was a cliche of the series, it couldn't actually be "the villain's base explodes, as Bond and the girl escape in a rubber dinghy".
- Usually a title with one or more of the following:
- "Gold" (such as "Goldfinger" and "Man with the Golden Gun")
- "Day" or similar (such as "The Living Daylights" or "Tommorow Never Dies")
- "Die" ("Live And Let Die", "Tommorow Never Dies")
- "Never" ("Never Say Never Again", "Tommorow Never Dies")
These films include:
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Besides Dr No, Licence To Kill and the Daniel Craig films, Bond will never look awful.
- Clothes Make The Legend: James will wear a tuxedo at some point in the movies.
- Crowning Music Of Awesome: The Bond Theme, for starters.
- Disposable Love Interest: the Bond Girls after Bond is through with them.
- Double Entendre (Double-0 Entendre might well be an alternate number for 007)
- Girl Of The Week: The Bond Girls.
- Heroes Want Red Heads (though only three of them, one of which Bond had killed)
- The Other Darrin (George Lazenby, Sean Connery, Roger Moore, etc.)
- Product Placement (a lot, especially in recent films. It has been joked that Bond has a Licence To Shill)
- Red Right Hand (frequently)
- Star Making Role For Connery, Moore, Dalton and Craig
- Storming The Castle (Bond's preferred method of dispatching his enemies)
- Trying To Catch Me Fighting Dirty (every close combat fight scene)
The cultural impact of 007 is, in a word, immense. The tuxedo has become associated with James Bond. The series has spawned legions of imitators and is pretty much the definitive spy fiction. Legions of media have also tried to "de-glamorise" espionage, such as the works of Len Deighton (the Stale Beer Approach To Spy Fiction, although it in fact pre-dates Bond).
On a number of occasions, people declared that Bond is old hat and that some new spy has replaced him, most recently with Jason Bourne. This troper would like to remind people that the Bond films continue to be massively popular among cinema goers, hugely influential in popular culture and when adjusting for inflation, the franchise is the highest grossing in history (although Potter has done it more quickly).
So let's see what he's responsible for:
Tropes:
- Action Girl (Wai Lin and May Day, principally. Though others, despite not lacking of good moments, go more for the Faux Action Girl side, sadly)
- Adaptation Decay: More severe in some films than others.
- Adaptation Displacement: And how.
- Adaptation Distillation: Also quite a bit, as Ian Fleming was inordinately obsessed with Bond's food and drink.
- Alternate Character Interpretation (007 is either a skilled, charming ladies' man or a manipulative, misogynistic sociopath, depending on who you ask. The movies tend to go with the former, while some view the Bond of the novels as the latter pretending to be the former. Both of these interpretations have more to do with the people's experience with the films: the Bond of the novels in general is more sensitive, prone to guilt and fear, and gentler with women than his playboy movie counterpart. The new Bond films seem to take the middle ground. While Bond doesn't really come off as overly malignant or misogynistic but he does have the cold, calculating, cynical personality one would expect of a professional killer.)
- It mainly depends on how the individual actors portray him. Connery, Lazenby, and Moore's Bonds are more like Version A, while Dalton, Brosnan, and especially Craig's Bonds are B.
- Anti Hero (Sometimes.)
- Badass
- Big Bad Friend
- The Blofeld Ploy
- Bond Gun Barrel
- Bond One Liner
- Bond Villain Stupidity
- Cartwright Curse (for the few times when he has decided to settle down)
- Cash Cow Franchise: The highest grossing film franchise ever. This is largely because it's one of the longest running, as well.
- Character Derailment (M started losing control of Bond as soon as she turned into a woman, but looking at the latest films, it's just ridiculous. Can also be seen as Chickification).
- Even in the older films, Bond has applied liberal interpretations of M's orders, coming to a head in Licence To Kill when he actually resigns from MI-6. It's just that the female M is more exasperrated by Bond's antics (possibly because she was the one who rehired him between movies).
- Chick Magnet
- Cool Car: Varies from film to film, but you can usually count on at least one per film.
- Death By Sex (several of the girls. Bond is also this close to fall on that often)
- Death Trap (not the originator, but certainly a popularizer)
- Design Students Orgasm: The Title sequences.
- The Dragon (several)
- Dressed To Kill
- Eigen Plot (gadget variation)
- Expy: Created a lot of them.
- Food Porn
- Girl Of The Week (or in Bond's case, more a Girl Of The Movie — though some movies have two, often one good and one evil)
- Go Karting With Bowser (The various villains inevitably have Bond over for dinner or cards)
- Heel Face Turn (often happens with Dragons)
- James Bondage (how many times has Bond been bound and/or gagged?)
- Jerk Ass (Sure, he's a hero and he saved the world on numerous occasions, but the guy's an asshole. Just how much is subject to change with every actor.)
- Just Between You And Me (Probably better named "Before I Kill You, Mister Bond...")
- Kill Sat
- Latex Perfection
- No Mr Bond I Expect You To Dine
- Non Indicative First Episode (Dr No lacks many of the trademarks that the franchise is known for. The theme song, shaken not stirrred, the Cool Car, and many others are all absent.)
- No Plans No Prototype No Backup
- Not My Driver
- The Paid For Harem (One of the perks of being a Bond Villain.)
- Pretty In Mink
- Pursued Protagonist
- The Other Darrin (Bond, obviously. But also other recurring characters such as M, Moneypenny, Blofeld, and Felix)
- Overt Operative
- Rare Guns (Bond's Walther PPK, which eventually gets replaced by a P99)
- Ready For Lovemaking
- Recurring Character (Desmond Llewyllyn as Q)
- Right Hand Cat
- Scenery Porn
- Sealed With A Kiss (Nearly every one, with three notable exceptions.)
- Shoe Phone
- Spy Drama
- Spy Speak
- The Name Is Bond James Bond - rather obviously, the Trope Namer
- Time Bomb
- Trust Password - Being spies, James has a number of signs and countersigns for when he meets friendlies. (In Golden Eye, for example, he refused to even speak to Jack Wade until Wade showed him the Embarrassing Tattoo on his hip.)
- Tuxedo And Martini (those sort of character are usually very shallow Bond rip-off or parodies; however, the Moore Bond sometimes ended up like this yet normally with hints of self-parody)
- Universal Drivers License (at least the most extreme example of it)
- Wicked Cultured - most of the villains.
- Wouldnt Hit A Girl - In forty years, the number of women Bond has directly killed can be counted on two fingers.
- You Should Know This Already - This site's entry pages for the movies spoil every single plot point, including those that weren't common knowledge and would have been otherwise intriguing. But then again, TV Tropes is hardly alone in this.
Works it inspired / influenced:
It's sometimes been stated that James Bond is the quintessential Englishman. Which is a tad ironic considering that he's half-Scottish/half-Swiss and been played by a Scot (who is why he was RetConned to half Scottish), an Aussie, an Irishman and a half-American Welshman.
- Daniel Craig, the current James Bond, is in fact English... which still doesn't change the fact that the character is not.
- So is Roger Moore. Why does he get no love?
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