I Can't Wait!

Which James Bond you like depends on how old you are. If your first Bond film was with Roger Moore, that's who you think Bond is. If your first Bond film was with George Lazenby - you're screwed. My first memories of James Bond was watching some Connery film (maybe GOLDFINGER, probably YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE) reflected in the back window of my parent's car at the Pleasant Hill Motor Movies when I was *supposed* to be sleeping in the back seat. This made Bond both forbidden (there was violence and nekkid chicks) and something adult... something to look forward to. Eventually I saw Connery Bond films on TV, and that's who I think is the "real Bond". Connery punched people. He wasn't elegant - he was savage. The joke was when Moore took over that Connery was the Bond who had a wetsuit on under his tuxedo... Moore was wearing a tuxedo under his wetsuit.

One of my favorite opening scenes is in THURDERBALL. It begins with a funeral for "JB" - James Bond is dead? Then Bond is revealed at the funeral with that hot Japanese chick who might have been Kissy Suzuki... and we discover the funeral is for a SPECTRE agent named Jacques Bouvar. Bond and Kissy watch the funeral procession... Then, at Bouvar's mansion, Bond shows up to pay his respects to the widow, Mrs. Bouvar.... then hauls off and punches her in the face! What? Then Mrs. Bouvar returns a punch - and this massive savage fight begins. What? Revealed that it's not *Mrs* Bouvar - but Bouvar himself, who has faked his own death. Bond figured it out when she opened her own car door at the funeral. Heck, everything you think you know about the story so far keeps changing! The fight is amazing - no pice of furniture in that room is not used as a weapon and subsequently destroyed. Chairs, sofas, fire pokers - if it's in the room, it's used to hurt someone. They just don't make fight scenes like this anymore... except for in the last Bond film.

For me, the Bond reboot CASINO ROYALE was a return to the Bond I grew up watching. Though my first "legal" Bond film was LIVE AND LET DIE (also at the Pleasant Hill Motor Movies - Mom allowed me to actually watch the film, and that meant my little brother and little sister could watch, too) with Moore, I always think of Bond as the guy who can really throw a punch. There was all of this talk that Daniel Craig was too wimpy to be Bond, but that opening scene where he basically destroys every appliance in a men's room with a bad guy's *head* gave me confidence. And the rest of the film, though flawed, delivers that Connery style Bond I'd been craving. Part of the reboot was Bond for the BOURNE audience - a more realistic style of action. When I was writing my SLEEPER AGENT script, I was trying for something between FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and the BOURNE movies...

There were rumors that the new Bond film was going to go back to teh Roger Moore style - that it was going to be filled with dopey action and quips and not nearly as brutal. Okay, here's the trailer... you be the judge.

Don't know about you, but I'm excited. One thing I think is cool is that it seems to take place *seconds* after the last one ended. And that Bond is still that violent renegade agent who smashed through anything that gets in his way. Where do I stand in line?

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: You Need A Busload Of Scripts To Get By. New script tips M-T-W this week!
Yesterday’s Dinner: Panda Express in NoHo on the way to my friend's movie premiere.
Pages: Lots of pages of new tips! Probably because I'm supposed to be working on something else. I've also poked around on the DEMON HUNTER script, which I think I'm going to call SECOND SON, even though there is a Charles Sailor novel from 1979 with that title that is also about the second coming... though completely different than my story.