katied wrote:I'll have to get back to you on a story...
They should get someone who's written for U.S. TV. I know it sounds crazy, but they can come up with great stuff(Law And Order-almost any of them, ER(the early seasons only, though),to name a few.
I think that's exactly what they should do. I work with US TV so I'm well aware of what's going on, and truth is that right now the best producers and screenwriters are on TV or come from TV, not from movies. There are heaps of great US TV writers who could write stories for Bond. Just to cite examples, Hawaii Five-0 (The new series, remake of the old one) has superb writers. They never overcomplicate things and they're great at putting in the story the right amount of humour. Plus the hot babes.
Not coincidentally, one of those writers was on the amazingly great writing crew for "Alias". I would say get JJ Abrams to write for Bond but he'd never do it. He's already doing it with the Mission:Impossible franchise, and if us fans have it our way, he'll also be busy with an "Alias" movie, so no can do. But that said, there are all the people who worked with him, his writing team, including for example Bob Orci (who is now on Hawaii Five 0 as exec producer) who are awesome writers and would write a great Bond story. Alias did have Bond elements but it wasn't copied at all. For example, Marshall was clearly the Alias version of Q on Bond, but it wasn't the same character at all. So I'm sure if they were to be involved, they'd do a great job, because they clearly already knew all that was Bond back then (which I would imagine anyone who starts writing a spy show would know). I think Jeff Eastin, the creator of White Collar, could be an excellent choice, too. I have no idea whether any of you have seen White Collar, but it is a great show. And the lead character, Neal Caffrey, although being a con artist, is VERY Bondian in the most classic sense of the term. I would say a mix of the Alias writers (for the action/gritty plus humor part) plus Eastin (for the more "refined" plot ideas plus the style and the classic banter between characters) is ideal to write a Bond movie.
As far as the story, I think there are two possible ways to go: you either try and get it from what's going on in the world, or you forget about that and keep it more "fantasy"-like. In the first case, I think both the Wikileaks events (news being leaked, national security threat blah blah) or for example the Mexico situation (narcos taking over the country) provide good starting points to develop a story. Otherwise, I think they need to have a new formidable villain to defeat, and yeah I'd stay away from Spectre because of the legal issue, and from Quantum because it's just the same thing with another name (plus I really, REALLY want no Craig references in future movies. UGH.). The plot in QoS was SO ridiculously and uselessly complicated that they need to keep it WAY simpler if they want it to be effective. Nobody cares about the water thing, besides.
I think keeping it simple with the new big baddie is the best thing: do something like SD-6 in Alias. SD-6 was a secret organization made up by EVIL CIA agents that went rogue and created their own "spy cell". And they traded in weapons, drugs, intelligence... something like that would work perfectly for Bond. The idea of the evil rogue agents group is good because Bond is all about secret services, so it would provide a great angle to start from and it would allow them to create lots of stories. And Bond could do the same as the protagonists of Alias in the first movie, he'd have to find out who these people actually are, and stop them in the short-term but without managing to take them down. Then the following movies would be all about the next big horrible thing the organization has come up with, with Bond fighting them. Eventually he'd have to take them down, but it's easy to see how this type of formula would allow them to go for maaany movies, each with a different plan.
Hm, now that I think about it, they should also cast David Anders as the bad guy on Bond. He was GREAT as Sark on Alias. And he can do a great British accent if needed. He could totally be one of the agents gone rogue who created this parallel intelligence organization with the goal of just making money and acquiring the most power as possible. As I said trading in weapons, drugs, intelligence... just about anything. I don't know if any of you were Alias fans or have seen the series (If you haven't you TOTALLY should, it's by far one of the best series of the past 10 years), but I think having that type of approach would work great for Bond. Obviously Bond has its own elements that would make things completely different.
As far as Bond girls ,they really need to do a lot better with casting. The last two were horrid (in QoS). And I truly disliked Eva Green, too. If Cavill were to be Bond (yeah, I know LOL) the only one I can think of right now is Taylor Cole. She is on a new show in the US, called "The Event". She's reeeally hot and she CAN act. And she's not all that famous yet, but known enough in the US on TV to be recognised by some of the public.
