h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

All these threads eminating from the 'talking point' entry on James Bond do indicate a lot of enthusiam for Fleming's formula. Unaware of this forum until recently, I coincidentally posed a question at 'ask h2g2' to which no one has yet replied. I must allow that all serious Ian Fleming fans have been hither-to indulging their interest here-about. But I wonder if any would like to consider another, potentially frightening, aspect of the works. My proposition is that Ian Fleming was either dead-on in predicting the future or he has in fact created the template for the current state of world affairs. What think you? http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F19585?thread=142463 peace ~jwf~

It's certainly a very pertinent point. I know many people who have expressed the thought that the recent events in New York have seemed to be a James Bond plot come to life without a hero to thwart them.

But is it that Fleming predicted this sort of thing? Or is it that he was merely writing in a time when the threat of these sort of attacks was much more obvious than it was to us before September 11th?

I think it's important to realise that the conspiracies and meglomaniacs of Fleming's novels were more an exaggerated reflection of the world of the 50's and 60's than we might expect today. Men like Blofeld seem less alien when considered alongside Stalin and Hitler. The plot of Moonraker isn't so much a prediction of the World Trade Centre attack as an extrapolation of the V2 rocket programme - which was only just over a decade in the past as far as readers were concerned.

And there's a lot which Fleming, understandably, wasn't able to predict. I've no doubt that he would be surprised at how the British Empire diminished so quickly, and astonished at the collapse of Communism. The US/Soviet world order was seen by contempories as an enduring status quo (just look at Kubrick's 2001).

Having said that, it's impossible to tell to what extant the Bond phenomenon has shaped our perceptions of these events over the last forty years. A whole generation has grown up - and is now in power! - which has surreptitiously absorbed all the plots and characters and never known a world without 007. The success and ingenuity of the film series has enabled our attitudes to be defined by their subject matter, and certainly movies like Die Hard and True Lies are the b*****d offspring of James Bond. Can we deny that they are films which have in some ways directly foreshadowed these terrorist attacks? Who can tell how all of these have affected the way we think and act, not just in London and New York, but also in Moscow, Jerusalem and even Kabul?

Certainly movies like Die Hard and True Lies are the b*****d offspring of James Bond, and they are films which have in some ways directly foreshadowed these terrorist attacks.

The rich super-villain with the mindless army and horrid weapons isn't the only thing Bond has given us.
I believe Bond was the first hero who killed and got a laugh.

Oh sure, there was plenty of gratuitous violence and death in films; swarms of red Indians, Zulus, Indian-Indians, Japanese etc had fallen before the cameras. And films also showed us serious murder plots as well as justifiable law enforcement by US Marshalls. It may have been 'neat' or 'righteous' but killing was still a serious business before Bond. It was James Bond who first killed, casually, almost for laughs.

Indiana Jones got a big laugh by pulling out a gun and dimissing a sword waving Arab.

More recent heroes like Arnold (Hasta la vista, Baby), Rambo and Bruce Die Harder have made killing fun. It's not just for expediency and for belly laughs anymore. It's what heroes do, with a vengeance!

For me the scary bit is that 'license to kill'.
Our Canadian defense minister was asked a few days ago if any Canadian troops were now on the ground with special forces in Afghanistan. His answer, "None I'm allowed to talk about."
Ho-ho-ho!

Thanks for your mature and well considered response.
You made me think. I enjoyed it.

peace
jwf

Thanks very much - you're right though. I remember reading a book where someone talked about going to see Thunderball at the cinema (the first Bond film he'd been allowed to see). He talks about the thrill of a hero whose first impulse, on killing a man, was to straighten his tie.

Luckily there's at least some morality in both the books and the films which cover Bond's dislike of killing and the fact that he's a 'blunt instrument' for the state.

My point is that Fleming's original justifications for using a 'blunt instrument' have by now completely desensitized public opinion about 'covert operations'.
They used to be considered 'shocking but necessary' but have lately evolved to be the standard operating procedure, with the public expecting good TV footage of the explosions.

I finally got my peace symbol!

~jwf~

I think it is worth mentioning that there is a huge difference in the attitude to killing (in relation to humour) in the Bond novels as compared to the films. To paraphrase Fleming; (When Bond killed)...."he had never liked doing it and when he did it he did it as well as he knew how then forgot about it". (Goldfinger c1)

There is practically no humour at all in the Fleming books, as with the gadgets, that evolved with the Bond films.

Good point DI. It was Hollywood and not Fleming who wanted to 'celebrate' jusifiable homicide.
Hard to believe you're either drunken or an idiot.

It's always a treat to find that an old conversation will inspire some drunken idiot to revive it. Thanks.


peace
-jwf-

Thanks, you right about the idiot thing, perhaps not the drunken...

Anyway you might want to look here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A754643

Yes < you are right, I did want to look there. Thanks.
And I replied 'there' rather than here or in Peer Review (where I probably ought to have - so feel free to copy and paste any of my comments to the Review thread in the unlikely event you need further support for its acceptance).

-j-