People who read books [people who read books?] might know that ‘Orbis Non Sufficit’ is the family motto of James Bond but film buffs, fans of the Bond movies, probably don’t know that because in the film, when Elektra King tells Bond, “I could have given you the world,” Bond replies, “The world is not enough.” He doesn’t say, “Orbis non sufficit.”
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There is something ironic—not cool, smart irony just ugly, dumb irony—about James Bond saying those words to Elektra King.
Before Bond shoots the unarmed Elektra and kills her, it is Elektra who is fighting for a different world than this one, a world wrenched away from the status quo, a world not dominated by amoral British businessmen, British aristocrats and the Western infrastructure that has grown up around such people.
It is Bond who is fighting for orbis per se.
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I would like someday to make a non-canonical James Bond movie.
I mean non-canonical in the sense of the 1967 farce “Casino Royale” or the 1983 ‘Thunderball’ remake “Never Say Never Again.”
The movie “The World Is Not Enough” itself is partly non-canonical in the sense that it is not an adaptation of an Ian Fleming novel, even though the Orbis Non Sufficit back-story is taken from “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” which is from the Fleming canon.
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I would like someday to acquire the screen rights to the story from “The World Is Not Enough” and remake that story as an animated film.
I would makes some changes to the story, however.
My version would still begin with Elektra King murdering her father. James Bond, however, would know from the start that Elektra was a supervillain. Bond would know, too, that he could never worm his way into her confidence because he is too well-known as a spy. So in my version Bond would recruit a young artist whose work Elektra admires and prevail upon the young artist to infiltrate Elektra’s organization.James Bond would reveal his identity to the young artist. He would reveal Elektra King’s supervillain plan to the young artist. He would explain to the young artist that the fate of the world depended on him striking up a friendship with Elektra King, winning her confidence and then setting up Elektra so that Bond could foil her scheme.
In my version, as Bond worked his way around the fringes of Elektra King’s organization while the young artist became acquainted with Elektra herself, the young artist would be appalled at the way Bond killed Elektra’s henchmen in cold blood. The young artist would be appalled at the way Bond stalked and prepared to kill Elektra King.
The young artist would be appalled, too, at the way Elektra ordered British businessmen to be killed and the way Elektra plotted to explode nuclear devices around the globe that would topple the national superpowers and enable regional insurgents to establish footholds over many millions of people.
But the young artist would notice that Elektra was driven by passion and Elektra was driven by having watched the British aristocracy marry into her family and destroy the family’s ancestral homeland. And Elektra was driven by having lived through being kidnapped and left for dead by her father and his aristocratic friends who on “principle” refused to bargain or pay-off kidnappers. The young artist would observe that Elektra was attempting to over-throw an almost omnipotent evil and replace that monolithic, unassailable evil with a fragmented, rag-tag collection of bad guys that individuals could fight against if they chose to fight for themselves.
The young artist would notice that Bond killed as a business. Bond’s job was to protect the status quo. Bond did not kill out of some passion to establish a better world or even a less evil world. Bond killed as a business tactic to keep his employers in a position of global power.
In the climax of my version of the movie, Elektra King and all the other lesser villains would be gathered at some famous European exterior, maybe Stonehenge. James Bond would do something tricky that disarms everybody except the young artist. As Elektra King prepared to give the command that would explode nuclear weapons all around the globe, Bond would yell for the young artist to shoot and kill Elektra King.
The young artist would think about it.
The young artist would remember all the people Bond killed and why Bond killed them. He would remember everything Elektra had done and planned to do and why.
Then the young artist would turn and shoot James Bond.
The young artist would be a bad shot, however, and Bond would get shot in the leg. Bond would collapse to the ground. Bond would scream at the young artist, telling him that the world would remember him as a traitor, a gutless turncoat, a despicable Quisling.
Elektra King would walk over to the young artist, take his gun and then walk to James Bond and shoot Bond in the head, killing him.
Then Elektra would give the order to start exploding nuclear devices all over the globe. She’d gesture to the other villains, giving them the signal to go to their helicopters and return to their territories.
Then Elektra would walk back to the young artist. She’d stand in front of him. In the background, in the distance, we would see missile launching from hidden silos.
“Why did you do that?” Elektra would ask the young artist. “Why did you shoot James Bond and not me?”
The young artist wouldn’t smile. He’d say, “Maybe I’ve fallen in love with your smile.”
Elektra would shake her head. She would say, “You have never seen me smile.”
“I did,” the young artist would say. “On the train from Paris to Berlin. You fell asleep leaning against me. Your face was tilted down, but I saw your reflection in the window. You were smiling. There was nothing...nothing evil...in your smile.”
Elektra would stare at the young artist. The corners of her lips would pull tight, but stop. The corners of her lips would start to turn up into a smile, but then stop.
Then she would give in and smile.
In the background, in the distance, we would see missiles coming down, impacting on targets on the horizon. We’d see bright flashes, mushroom clouds forming.
Elektra would grab the young artist’s hand and pull him toward her helicopter. They’d both get on board and the helicopter would take off to fly them to her secluded and protected secret lair.
As the camera followed their helicopter, the camera would pull back to a great height and we’d also see more missiles impacting, more nuclear explosions and satellite laser systems firing down at targets on the ground. We’d see cities collapsing into rubble. Dams would collapse and release vast waves of water over population centers.
The camera would zoom in on Elektra King’s helicopter. We would look in through a window. We would see Elektra King and the young artist looking out at the destruction unfolding below them. Neither Elektra nor the young artist would be smiling.
Then the frame would freeze on their two faces.
The end music would begin and the credits would roll. We would hear a custom cut of that old Dawson’s Creek song. We’d hear a singer sing:
This is the story of a girl
Who cried a river and drowned the whole world
She looks so sad in photographs
But I absolutely love her
When she smiles
How many days in a year
She woke up with hope but she only found tears
How can I be insincere
Making promises never for real
As long as she stands there waiting
Wearing holes in the soles of her shoes
How many days disappear
When she looks in the mirror how does she choose
Her clothes never wear as well the next day
Her hair never falls in quite the same way
But she never did run out of things to say
This is the story of a girl
Who cried a river and drowned the whole world
She looks so sad in photographs
But I absolutely love her
When she smiles
How many lovers would stay
Put up with this mess every day
How did we wind up this way
Watching our mouths for the words that we say
As long as we stand here waiting
Wearing our clothes and the souls that we choose
How do we get here today
Walking too far for what’s left of our shoes
Her clothes never wear as well the next day
And her hair never falls in quite the same way
She never did run out of things to say
This is the story of a girl,
Who cried a river and drowned the whole world
She looks so sad in photographs
But I absolutely love her
When she smiles
Her clothes never wear as well the next day
Her hair never falls in quite the same way
She never did run out of things to say
This is the story of a girl
Who cried a river and drowned the whole world
And while she looks so sad in photographs
I absolutely love her
This is the story of a girl
Her pretty face she hid from the world
And while she looks so sad and lonely there
I absolutely love her
When she smiles
This is the story of a girl
Who cried a river and drowned the whole world
She looks so sad in photographs
But I absolutely love her
When she smiles
When she smiles
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