Monday, April 07, 2008

25 Years: Never Say Never Again

Just a quick post with some love for the heilige Never Say Never Again.

The most recent bond, Casino Royale, was actually as good as I had hoped. We now have an adequate 'beginning' for Bond, the way the book should have been adapted. During the hiatus after the execrable Die Another Day, I had hoped that if they did scrap Brosnon (who was the third best Bond, after Connery and Connery - so good he gets the top two slots) that they should re-start the franchise.

And now that we have the well-crafted Bond beginning, can we finally take Never Say Never Again out of the Apocrypha and put it in the official canon? There the reasons of quality (it's based on the best plot of all Bonds, Thunderball, and is actually much better than the original movie - better villain, technology, women, etc), the reasons of overwhelming sentimentality (it's Connery for goodness sakes) but mainly because it's 'unofficial' nature becomes feature, not a bug.

Because while Casino Royale is the - out of sequence - beginning of Bond. Showing how our hero comes into being and hardens into the ruthless lothario we know... Never Say Never Again shows how Bond will retire. And it's wonderful: living in Ian Fleming's Jamaica, with a young Kim Basinger.

Enjoy the (lo-res) intro:


Pic from here. Backpost finished 2009-11-30. This was totally finished, by the way, but I've fixed a broken link.

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