The future of James Bond

LambshankRedemption · 23-04-2025 07:05PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123383243#Comment_123383243

It's absolutely not beyond the writers. The problem is, it is beyond the ad men, or I should say beyond their philosophy which is usually targeting the lowest common denominator.

In You Only Live Twice(one of my favourites), Bond goes to Japan and sees Japanese Intelligence is far more advanced than MI6 (Tanaka has a private subway just for himself). Sony is from Japan, so I am sure Sony could be inserted in somewhere in a retro-set Bond movie, but the problem still remains - nothing that Sony is currently selling could feature.

If the Brocoli's were still in charge, I think an older-set movie would be possible, but with Amazon taking over, I don't see it happening.

Any real thing, actually probably every real thing that gets shown will be available for purchase on Amazon.com.

Dystopian future prediction: Maybe not in Bond 26 but by Bond 27, you will be able to watch it on your Amazon Firestick on the same night it arrives in theatres, and using the new Firestick mouse, click on the suit Bond is wearing in the casino scene, and instantly add it to your amazon cart.

Bogey Lowenstein · 23-04-2025 08:54PM

I remember Dolly with braces, that funny scene always stuck in my mind when she and Jaws smiled at each other with the corny romantic music playing. I was looking at reddit and it seems the braces went sometime around the late 90s or the 00s. So people who saw it later will not have seen them. People were saying they have it taped off the TV from years ago and she has them also somebody posted a couple of old articles that mention her braces.

LambshankRedemption · 23-04-2025 09:01PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123383717#Comment_123383717

Ok, I'm not really shocked. I'm just trying to figure out what is real and what is not.

Either: She did have braces in the original, and someone somewhere decided to digitally doctor all releases after VHS to show her not to have them. And coached the production team, most of whom are still alive, and the actress who is still alive and all say she did not have them.

OR

She did not have braces, and everything else that has happened is totally made up.

saabsaab · 23-04-2025 09:01PM

I don't think you are entirely correct, this camera for example current but could be used in a film. Classic enough to blend in the 60s.

https://www.sony.ie/electronics/interchangeable-lens-cameras/ilce-6100a?cpint=SG_OUT_OF_FLOW_SEC-TOUT-OTHER-ILCE-6100-EN_GL-2019-07-M01-6100-TOUT01-6100-MIRROR

Tony EH · 23-04-2025 09:25PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123383717#Comment_123383717

It kinda became a thing in people's heads, because the joke is so obvious and she's dressed up in a juvenile/teenager fashion, so braces on her teeth wouldn't be out of place. Jaws smiling at her with his metal dentures and her smiling back at him with braces is a joke that's created itself.

But the fact is she never wore braces and I believe that the actress (Blanche Ravalec) has attested to that. The screenshot I posted was taken from the Blu Ray, which was I believe was a 2K scan from the original camera negative.

Below is a newspaper cutting of a contemporary review in 1979 by Charles Champlin of the L.A. Times…

It's like when some people used to swear blind that 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' was the goriest film they'd ever seen. But the reality is that the movie is pretty bloodless. Sometimes things that never happened go into people's heads and happily lives there.

saabsaab · 23-04-2025 09:32PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123383828#Comment_123383828

Well here is the evidence even the review at the time.

https://www.mi6community.com/discussion/21659/dolly-did-wear-braces-photo-and-video-evidence-reveals-truth

LambshankRedemption · 23-04-2025 10:00PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123383743#Comment_123383743

24.2 Megapixel camera. About the same as my own camera.

It's a digital camera.

You want to write it into a Bond movie set in the 50s?

Tony EH · 23-04-2025 10:05PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123383858#Comment_123383858

Well then the actress must be lying so, as even in that article she claims that she never wore braces.

Reading the comment under that video, it appears that the snippet shown could be from a VISA commercial and not the actual movie. So maybe they were added for that. A number of comments remarking that that clip has been faked.

Or there exists an alternate take where so has braces that was added for a home video version.

On the OCN, where the blu was scanned from, she doesn't wear braces.

Personally, I never remember her wearing braces in any of the versions I've watched, whether it was 80's TV, 80's video, DVD or Blu ray.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also if she did, in fact, wear braces in any of the versions of 'Moonraker', it really wouldn't be that hard to find in a clear and unequivocal example.

saabsaab · 23-04-2025 10:50PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123384005#Comment_123384005

I saw the original cinema release back in 82. She did have them then. It must have been edited out since or edited into the early releases.

If the suggestion of braces is so strong as to fool so many why don't more still swear she has them now?

Tony EH · 23-04-2025 11:08PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123384149#Comment_123384149

'Moonraker' came out in 1979. It was first shown on TV in the early 80's.

Here's Facebook post about someone with an original 35mm print.

No braces.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=726899474129148&id=181317472020687&set=a.181380415347726

Here's another post from the same site you mentioned earlier MI6…

https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/moonraker-dolly-did-not-wear-braces

https://imgur.com/a/7J9J4

No braces.

As for strong suggestions, people's brains tend to fill in gaps all the time. Dolly having braces makes absolute perfect sense. It's the obvious comic moment. But it wasn't there in the original film according to any of the clear evidence. Plus, as I said, if there was an alternative take or a home video version where she did have braces on, we'd really have no problem tracking it down. 'Moonraker' is a multi million dollar, major studio, production, not some obscure Yugoslavian B movie.

Here's something to illustrate what I mean. Without looking on the web or checking, does the Monopoly Man wear a monocle?

For a bit of fun, have a think about it and answer with looking.

Bogey Lowenstein · 24-04-2025 07:00AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123384193#Comment_123384193

The filling in the blanks theory doesn't track (for one I haven't got that good of an imagination) when you read through reddit and see the stories: people who saw it in the cinema remember the braces reveal scene getting a big laugh from the audience, there is no reason to laugh at the non-braces version. People who remember a family member or friend remarking on Dolly's braces during the scene, one young lad had a crush on Dolly and rewinded her scenes many times, he is certain of braces. Another little git saw it with a group of friends and they started calling a girl at school who had braces Dolly.

There must have been two scenes filmed, one with and one without, therefore two versions of the film. If the studio scrapped the braces scene or edited them out because they didn't want it to look like Jaws is having a relationship with a young girl then it makes sense the Dolly actress would have been told to deny wearing braces in the film.

Good luck finding an original video of Moonraker though. I binned my tape collection years ago like everyone else did when DVDs came along.

Bogey Lowenstein · 24-04-2025 08:13AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123384149#Comment_123384149

Good point. We wouldn't be having this conversation because Tony and all the others would have remembered seeing braces 🤔

LambshankRedemption · 24-04-2025 08:33AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123384454#Comment_123384454

If you are taking reddit stories of "my friend" and "family members" who saw it in the cinema and they specifically remembered this one minor detail of a movie 47 years ago as proof that it did happen then I'm not going to bother arguing with you.

You may not have much imagination, but clearly open to suggestion.

Tony EH · 24-04-2025 11:25AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123384454#Comment_123384454

If there were so many people who "remembered" the character having braces, then there would be multiple sources available to prove that. 'Moonraker' isn't some forgotten cheapo B movie that only exists in a partial form. It's a big studio production that has been released to the public in many forms.

So far we have one highly suspect YouTube source that, on the face of it, looks faked.

On the other hand, we have the actual actress stating that she never wore braces and a blu ray that was sourced from the original camera negative (the 35mm film the movie was shot on) that clearly shows her without braces which certainly trumps a dodgy looking YouTube video. Into the bargain, nobody from the production has come forth to say that the character did, in fact, wear braces or that they were, somehow, removed in some versions.

Also, I'm not buying, for a single second, that there's some kind of conspiratorial angle where the producers are forcing people to tell lies about something as silly as braces from a movie that's 46 years old. That doesn't wash at all.

Anyway, I never thought I'd spend so much time talking about a minor character from a James Bond movie. But if people want to believe that she wore braces, then off they go.

But the evidence really does point to the contrary.

*BTW, not "everyone" binned their old video tapes. There's actually a thriving underground market for such things today. You'll even find Betamax tapes of movies older than 'Moonraker' knocking around. Why anyone would want a film on such dated tech is beyond me, but there it is.

odyssey06 · 24-04-2025 01:45PM

The future is …

*braces*

…

for impact.

LambshankRedemption · 24-04-2025 02:01PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123384995#Comment_123384995

Something people are underestimating is the effort it would take to "remove" braces from a movie back in 1997 or whenever the DVD came out.

The didn't just delete the scene because the scene is still there.

Today we have AI, and I have seen black and white Laurel and Hardy films that have been colourised by AI, but in the mid to late 90s that tech didn't exist.

For what amounts to maybe a 10 second clip, would have involved a huge amount of work. Why would the studio be bothered?

ArmaniJeanss · 24-04-2025 02:11PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123385475#Comment_123385475

I guess a simple explanation might be that they shot the scene a few times (not unusual obviously) with/without braces/glasses etc, and somewhere along the line they changed the 'official version' to put in a different take. So no AI-style messing required, and nothing like the cumbersome editing that you suggest.

But even more clearly, it looks like everyone who remembers her with braces (me included) is wrong as surely someone would have found compelling evidence by now. This saga seems to have been around for years.

Tony EH · 24-04-2025 06:06PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123385475#Comment_123385475

Thing is though, people are saying that the absolutely "remember" this from when they saw it in cinemas…in 1979. Nearly half a century ago.

Most people find it hard to remember what happened half a week ago.

There's also those that will swear blind that they "remember" this when they saw it on tele or video, both of which would be from the early 80's when such a technical manipulation would have been nigh on impossible and also cost a ridiculous amount of money to do.

Tony EH · 24-04-2025 06:21PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123385537#Comment_123385537

If an alternative take happened, then surely the actress playing the part would have remembered it? Or Richard Kiel? Or any number of people on the shoot?

Also, there would be ample evidence available. There's video of stuff floating around that's older that 'Moonraker' and in a quality that doesn't look like it's been through a dozen filters in Adobe Aftereffects. Someboby, somewhere, would have a copy that's a clear example. Jesus, I have video tapes knocking around the house of stuff that's older than 'Moonraker'.

It's funny, I had a look at lunchtime at all of this and this nonsense really has been on the go for a long time. I never knew it was such a bone of contention.

😄

LambshankRedemption · 24-04-2025 08:10PM

As it's the 50th anniversary, I am watching Jaws right now and can confirm there are no braces to be seen on those pearly white teeth.

Tony EH · 25-04-2025 06:31AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123386552#Comment_123386552

You can clearly see them in Jaws 2 though.

I remember it well.

salmocab · 25-04-2025 06:53AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123387294#Comment_123387294

Think you’re gonna need a bigger Bond

JP Liz V1 · 26-06-2025 02:34AM

Denis to helm

lumphammer2 · 26-06-2025 10:32AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123580092#Comment_123580092

He looks to be a safe pair of hands ….. I liked his Blade Runner sequel ….. and he is a Bond fan ….. he directing with the right actor playing Bond and the right script should be good ….

DexterMorgansGhost · 26-06-2025 11:03AM

He is about to start shooting Dunne 3 and is attached to film two other films after that so it could be a good few more years before the Bond film even gets anywhere ready to start filming.

Plenty of time find a new Bond.

walkonby · 26-06-2025 12:13PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123580617#Comment_123580617

the two other films will be shelved in favour of Bond. Amazon didn’t spend all this money to acquire the franchise then hire a director they have to wait several years for.