BEFORE: Well, I finally made it to the Bond films - for a while there I kept adding serial killer films, and it felt like I was never going to get here. They ran almost all of these on the Encore channel late last year as a tie-in with "Skyfall", and I took the opportunity to put them all on DVD in release order. But what is the proper viewing order for me? I rejected four separate possibilities:
1) Release order. Sure, I could have started with "Dr. No" and just moved forward through the movies, but anybody could do that. Also, I'd hit Bond's rebooted origin story at film #21, and that wouldn't really work. Plus, I really wanted to use Daniel Craig as my lead-in and lead-out, carrying over from "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo", and then leading into the sci-fi chain.
2) Book order. This seemed like a natural fit, since "Casino Royale" was the first Bond book published in 1953, followed by "Live and Let Die", "Moonraker", "Diamonds Are Forever", "From Russia, With Love", "Dr. No", "Goldfinger", "For Your Eyes Only" (also including the short stories "From a View to a Kill" and "Quantum of Solace"), "Thunderball", "The Spy Who Loved Me", "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", "You Only Live Twice", "The Man With the Golden Gun", and "Octopussy and the Living Daylights".
The down side there is, that only covers 16 of the films. So at some point that order would run out, and I'd be forced to switch back to the release order for the remaining movies. And besides, there's no real way to tell when the short stories take place - in between the novels? There are also the post-Fleming books, and the novelizations of the later films, where do those fit in? There's no real way to establish a Bond chronology, is there?
3) Ah, but there is. Scholar John Griswold made a high-level chronology of Bond's life, based on the time periods and current events depicted in the books. It runs more or less like the above publication order, except after "Thunderball" he suggests "Octopussy", "The Living Daylights", then chapters 1-5 of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", then chapters 10-15 of "The Spy Who Loved Me" - now how would THAT work when I'm watching the films? Plus, same problem, the chronology runs out with the Fleming novels, so after "The Man With the Golden Gun" I'd have to revert to film release dates anyway.
4) Then I found the chronology of Win Eckert, which starts out the same as Griswold's, but then places "A View to a Kill" seventh, followed by "Quantum of Solace", "Goldfinger", "For Your Eyes Only", "Thunderball", "The Living Daylights", "The Spy Who Loved Me", "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", "You Only Live Twice", "The Man with the Golden Gun", THEN "Octopussy", followed by the remainder of the films in release order.
I was intrigued by this, but I can guess what you're thinking - "That order is crazy, because it jumps from Daniel Craig to Sean Connery to Roger Moore and back again - so Bond's going to look different from film to film!" True, but that was sort of going to happen anyway. "There could be a villain who dies in one film, and then appears alive again a few films later!" True, but that could also have happened with any order I choose.
Finally, I scrapped any thought of relating to the continuity of the novels, since the films have created their own world, and I'm going to watch the origin story first, then "Quantum of Solace", and then proceed with the rest of the films in release order, ending with "Skyfall". It's not perfect, there are bound to be continuity issues, but I'll deal with them as they come. Besides, each film takes place in a magical time period called "Story Time". And I'm trying not to be so obsessive about these things. (How am I doing?)
THE PLOT: Secret Agent James Bond sets out on his first mission as 007 and must defeat a weapons dealer in a high stakes game of poker, but things are not what they seem.
AFTER: There was another version of "Casino Royale" made in the 1960's - and David Niven played Bond. When I was a kid and a trivia question asked you to name all the actors who have played Bond, you had to start with Niven. It's kind of like how Pluto used to be a planet. The film was made as a comedy, also starring Peter Sellers and Woody Allen (both of whom also played characters named "James Bond", just not THAT James Bond). Yeah, the movie kind of sucked. I tried to watch it once, and it made no sense - everyone should just try to forget about it.
But this film takes itself more seriously, giving Bond the origin story he deserves. We learn quite quickly what the "00" in his number stands for (it's a good point, why isn't he just "7"?), we almost learn M's real name, and we also find out that the Cold War is over (though I have a feeling it will heat up again later this week...). We also learn why Bond prefers sleeping with married women, how he got his first Aston Martin, and why he switched to vodka martinis, shaken not stirred.
More importantly, we see a Bond who's capable of making mistakes. How else is a young secret agent going to learn? He makes a big tactical and diplomatic mistake in the (second) opening sequence, and then makes another one in the main plot. If anything, the second one comes from trusting the wrong people, leading with his heart and not his head. It costs him the love of his life, and (nearly) his career - but this also could explain his later fear of commitment. If loving Vesper Lynd is wrong, why does it feel so RIGHT?
In addition to the firsts listed above, because this is the origin story, there are many others - first time Bond is involved in a chase scene on foot (as opposed to in a car or a snowmobile), first without the standard "naked ladies" in a title sequence, first to have a sequence filmed in black and white, and I think the first time he drinks something besides a martini - the "Vesper" cocktail, which seems to be a big hit with the casino crowd.
NITPICK POINT: If Le Chiffre was really in debt to the terrorist organization, and he paid the fee to enter the poker tournament, couldn't he just NOT do that? Couldn't he have just given the money for the entry fee to the terrorists? Maybe he needed to win the tournament to pay them off, but if that's the case, then he was in pretty deep. Please, kids, bet with your head, not over it.
Since I never met a set of data I couldn't over-analyze, let's start breaking it down:
LOCATIONS: Madagascar, Bahamas, Miami, Montenegro, Venice
VILLAINS: Alex Dimitrios, Le Chiffre
BABES: Solange Dimitrios, Vesper Lynd
ALLIES: M, Rene Mathis, Felix Leiter
GAMES: High-stakes Texas Hold'em (changed from baccarat + chemin du fer in the novel)
CARS: Aston Martin DBS V12
GADGETS: Walther P99 pistol, tracking microchip, (REDACTED)
THEME SONG: "You Know My Name" by Chris Cornell
Also starring Eva Green (last seen in "The Golden Compass"), Judi Dench (last seen in "J. Edgar"), Mads Mikkelsen (last seen in "The Three Musketeers (2011))", Giancarlo Giannini, Jeffrey Wright (last seen in "The Ides of March").
RATING: 7 out of 10 bloody tears (I'll admit, I didn't see the point of that...)
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