Jul 1, 2013

First Fleming Teaser

Sky Atlantic has released the first teaser trailer for their upcoming miniseries Fleming, starring Dominic West as James Bond creator Ian Fleming. They've also released some images. The stills look good. The teaser... well, it's not really fair to draw to many conclusions from a 30 second teaser, but I'm going to go ahead and do it nonetheless. The imagery will look awfully familiar if you've seen Skyfall, and that's hardly surprising. They'd be crazy not to capitalize on the biggest Bond film ever! But I'm hoping this is some sort of fantasy sequence. Because if there's actually a scene like this in the miniseries, then it looks like it will be another along the lines of the 90s TV movies about Fleming, presenting the author as a stand-in for 007 himself allowing the filmmakers to tell a Bond-style story. And of course there's really nothing wrong with that. Except that it wouldn't be accurate, and Fleming's real life story is far more interesting, I think, than that approach. I'm still hoping this miniseries will attempt to tell the true story. Anyway, here's the teaser:

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7 comments:

Mark said...

Not sure about fantasy, something about that says 'training session' to me

3:49 PM
Tanner said...

Yeah, that possibility crossed my mind, too. Partly because it seems very similar to the "training session" from Goldeneye (the Charles Dance Fleming TV movie). I just hope if this is a training sequence, it doesn't end with Fleming ordered to shoot an unshootable ninja like that one did!

I don't really think there's much chance of it being a fantasy sequence, but I'd LIKE it to be a fantasy. Mainly because I'd love to see someone approach a Fleming biopic one day in a Walter Mitty manner. Here's an incredibly creative guy who's stuck at a desk as he dreams up wild missions for men in the field and as "his" commando unit undertakes all sorts of feats of derring do. But Fleming can't go out there himself. He knows too much to be put at risk of capture. So he dreams about undertaking that sort of heroism himself. (And eventually he puts those dreams on paper and finds they're worth a lot of money...) No matter how many people are purported to be the "model" for 007 (various 30AU commandos, Dusko Popov, etc.), I remain convinced that Bond was to a large degree Fleming's fantasy version of himself. And I'd like to see a biopic done that way. That could be a cool way to incorporate the Bondian imagery all these Fleming filmmakers so desperately want, yet also be true to the real story and lend the whole endeavor a unique point of view!

4:08 PM
teeritz said...

Tanner, I agree completely. A Walter Mitty approach makes the most sense, but think that the filmmakers will go for the 'Fleming-as-model-for-Bond' angle. Still, it'll be good to see, even if Dominic Cooper looks nothing like a young Fleming. Actually, maybe Joseph Gordon Levitt would look more like a young Fleming, come to think of it.

5:29 PM
Mark said...

Absolutely Tannera

5:30 PM
Christopher Mills said...

I may have missed it; did you note here that one of those aforementioned 90s Fleming TV movies, SPYMAKER: THE SECRET LIFE OF IAN FLEMING has just been released on DVD by Warner Archive?

Sad to say, the transfer appears to be the same as the 90s VHS, but it's out there.

8:46 PM
Silent Hunter said...

Might not be from the series proper... could just be a special teaser bit.

9:46 AM
Tanner said...

You're right, Silent Hunter; it could certainly be something that was filmed exclusively as a teaser. Let's hope so! No, Christopher, I'm afraid you haven't missed it. I'm just WAY behind on writing about new spy DVDs, including WAC's Spymaker and Human Factor releases. Hopefully I'll get caught up this week!

2:39 AM

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