![]() ![]() Intentionally or not, the script slid towards Goldfinger but with computer chips instead of gold. Future series producer Wilson insisted on a more down-to-earth story. But that’s not much help when you get down to basic plotting.”Ĭo-written by Wilson and long-serving Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum, whose initial draft of the script had Zorin plotting to bring Halley’s Comet down on Silicon Valley, in reference to the comet’s then-topical reappearance. We will bring in the occasional Fleming element from the books that haven’t been used in the films. Wilson explained in a 1985 interview with Starlog Magazine: “For all practical purposes, we’ve been out of material for the past five films. ![]() The franchise had gone through all of Ian Fleming’s novel titles bar one ( Casino Royale) and started using the titles of his short stories (though Quantum Of Solace wasn’t on the cards, yet).Īs producer and co-writer Michael G. ![]() Still, the big challenge at this stage in the series’ history was creating a story. Nevertheless, the films were efficiently made and considered profitable enough to keep the studio off the filmmakers’ backs. Starting with For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy and continuing here, his films are notably edgier and more violent, but also not-so-deft with the comic relief bits that were Moore’s bread-and-butter. Glen rose through the ranks of editor and second-unit director on the franchise and was very well-acquainted with its operations before leading the series back to basics. Under the stewardship of director John Glen, Eon kept costs relatively low, despite inflation and other financial woes that were going on in the background. ![]() Broccoli was being pressured to lower Bond’s budgets. Throughout the 1980s, United Artists had undergone various upheavals, starting when the failure of Michael Cimino opus Heaven’s Gate tanked the studio and prompted a merger with MGM, and then continuing with a revolving door of moguls in charge of the new part-stakeholders in the Bond franchise. By this point in the series, the question is not whether A View To A Kill is a good film but whether or not it’s a good James Bond film. On Moore’s advancing years, I can’t think of a way to say it better than they say it in 2015’s Premium Bond With Mark Gatiss And Matthew Sweet, a delightfully geeky BBC Four programme in which the two writers don formal wear to sip cocktails and recap every era of Bond, from Connery to Craig.ĭuring the Moore section, Gatiss observes that “if you watch, not as a James Bond film, but a film about an elderly man who thinks he’s a secret agent, it’s absolutely charming.”Īnd yet, the stuff it gets away with in bringing back a 57-year-old leading man for one last jolly is bedded entirely in Bond as a known quantity. 007 tangles with Zorin’s girlfriend May Day (Grace Jones) and stubborn oil heiress Stacey Sutton, (Tanya Roberts) but also stumbles upon Operation Main Strike, a scheme to destroy Silicon Valley. And for some of us, (me – I mean, me) it may just be that marathoning Roger Moore’s Bond films in order does A View To A Kill absolutely no favours in either category.Īs expected at this stage, the film has very little in common with Ian Fleming’s 1960 short story, From A View To A Kill, which sees Bond go undercover to break up a cabal of motorcycling assassins who have stolen top-secret government documents, instead playing out a techno-thriller story that’s more reminiscent of familiar beats from Goldfinger and other previous outings.Īfter recovering a Russian duplicate of a microchip pioneered in the West, Bond is assigned to investigate French-American tech mogul Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) and his potential ties to the KGB. For many, the highly subjective distinction between “good film” and “good Bond film” might go in either direction towards the modern Daniel Craig films or the earliest Sean Connery adventures. In a series as long and variable in quality as the James Bond franchise, we all have our biases as fans. Try three issues of Film Stories magazine – for just £1: right here! ![]()
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