(Funny story: the school suffered a major fire in November, forcing its closure until mid-January... Because of the delay, the projects were cancelled by the professor. However, my friend and I had used the free time to finish our own, and so ended up being the only team to submit their work! Needless to say, we got pretty good marks).
Now my friend and I were more than just fans; we viewed ourselves as Bond
scholars. We actually knew very little, mind you, but had seen most of the films during the yearly "James Bond festival" on Radio-Canada television, and had analyzed the formula behind the franchise. Said formula said our plot demanded certain key elements, on top of the essential exotic locales and deadpan one-liners. To wit:
- An opening scene involving a high adrenaline chase of some kind, preferably involving a mode of transportation that was not used in similar chases from previous movies. We decided on a snowmobile chase, and I'm glad to report that we were there five years before «A View to a Kill».
(Yes, James’ snowmobile works underwater too, thanks to Q’s magic. That’s how he gets rid of his pursuers: by breaking the ice cover of an Austrian lake and dunking everyone in frigid waters. Take that, evil minions of Stalin! We were there before
Living daylights, too.)
- A visually striking villain, like Blofeld with his scar or Dr. No with his metal hand. We decided on a one-eyed old man in a tricked-up wheelchair. He’s a WWII veteran who was severely injured during a kamikaze attack, explaining his hatred for, and nefarious plot against, the country of Japan (which is the crux of the story).
- Flirtatious banter with Ms. Moneypenny. Naturally!
- Gadgets that should
all be used during the story (poison dart-shooting shades, pills that explode when you spit them out and they dry). We decided to innovate by having one gadget that isn't used: our shades can use two types of dart, a rapidly acting one and a slow acting one. Only the former was used.
- A dream car (we chose a Lamborghini Countach).
- Car chases. We have one in Nagoya, involving a drawbridge and a pursuing car falling into the chimney of a passing boat.
- At least two lovers for Bond, the first one having to meet some terrible fate at the end of the first act, and for which Bond will feel, like, half a second of guilt, and the second one being his main partner. (We had the first one be eaten by ants. The second woman is a Japanese agent first posing as a nun).
- Some funky way to dispose of unsatisfactory henchmen. We replaced the electrified chairs and trapdoors that throw you into a shark tank or a basin of piranhas by a high stool that doubles as a siege perilous of sorts, seeing as a two foot tall blade can pop out of it at the push of a button.
- A cordial first meeting between Bond and the villain, in which veiled threats are traded and sibylline language used.
- A murder attempt against Bond during or shortly after said visit. The bad guy sicced a ninja at him (because I loved ninjas). To explain that, we had the villain associate with some Yakuza.
- Bond demonstrating amazing levels of knowledge in an academic field (because nobody does it better, right?) Here's he's suddenly as knowledgeable as an encyclopedia on the subject of nuclear energy, as we simply copied what was in the Encyclopedia Universalis for his dialog. He briefly poses as a peddler in rogue nukes.
- Bond demonstrating amazing levels of skill in some athletic field (because nobody does it better,
part two). Here we have him escaping the villain's manor on... a skateboard! I don't think he's ever done that before or since. He did indulge in some impromptu snowboarding in «A View to a Kill», though.
- A heinous scheme to cause great damage to the world order, in the vein of starting WWIII, nuking some city or creating a world-wide plague. Here our villain wants to trigger earthquakes in Japan by detonating a few nukes along a fault line. (The Japan sequence is set in Nagoya, because we thought it doesn't always have to be Tokyo).
- A last-minute «James Bond saves the day» sequence.
- An appropriately graphic end for the villain, like being sucked out of an airplane's window, being thrown out of a space station airlock or being inflated by a gas cannister. (Here our bad guy is run over by the shinkansen).
- A final scene with Bond and his lady friend in bed, with Bond giving his boss double-entendres over the phone. Phones had cords in those days! Oy!
And that's the recipe!!! Now a good chef can of course try a few variations, but sticking to this plan will give a recognizable James Bond plot.
We had a great time coming up with the story. We worked sort of Marvel style; we had plotting sessions in which we jotted down ideas, and then worked on our own. My friend wrote all but one of the chapters, and (this is still flabbergasting to me, even after all these years) managed to type every page, recto-verso, in a fully justified manner, on a mechanical typewriter.
He never added an extra space between words to make lines fit; whenever there was a spacing problem, he's break out the thesaurus and change words for others of the proper length. That sounds like a bad plan, but it worked beautifully. For my part, I drew the storyboards in India inks and grey washes. I couldn't draw real people back then, so I settled on a "Bond-esque" look for the hero, looking neither quite like Connery nor Moore.
A few years ago, I was contacted by our old professor (who was turning 90). Bless him, he had kept the book all those years and even had made a few copies -without breaking the spine of the book, which must have been pretty complicated). He gave the material back, and told me that it was the most impressive homework he had ever received. Darn, it's funny to feel pride at a compliment from your High School teacher when you're 52! I guess we always remain little kids inside, somehow.
