From Dr No to Skyfall: The Reg's one month of Bond
007-size science, technology and myths in depth
Bond on Film It’s 1962 and John F Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev are facing off over nuclear missiles in Cuba while Telstar bounces the first satellite transmission through space.
Meanwhile, James Bond is making his cinematic debut in Dr No in London, with Sean Connery bringing Ian Fleming’s naval officer turned secret agent from book to screen.
Fifty years on, Kennedy and Khrushchev are gone and satellite comms are boringly commonplace but one thing remains fresh: Bond. The latest movie serving of 007 – Skyfall – will hit the big screen on 26 October.
In 50 years Bond has seen off megalomaniac industrialists, egotistical hackers, rogue KGB agents, assailants with steel teeth and dwarves with poisonous spikes in the tip of their shoes. He's survived gassing, crushing, lasering, drowning and free falling and gone from schoolboy hero to national figure.
The Reg, for your reading pleasure, has decided to celebrate everyone's favourite government assassin with a month of specially commissioned and written pieces on the science and technology of Bond.
Among the highlights:
- The physics of making a martini
- Five villainous plot myths busted
- Interviews with the 007 crews on the making of Skyfall, Thunderball and Octopussy and more
- Updating gadget man Q for a world of hackers
- Was a plot to take out Silicon Valley realistic?
- Your love of Bond tested with a month of polls
The 50th official anniversary of Dr No falls on Friday: the film premiered in London on October 5, 1962. The Reg’s month of Bond – Bond on Film – also kicks off on Friday with a look at how you get a job as a real life Double O operative with a licence to kill. ®
COMMENTS
Was a plot to take out Silicon Valley realistic?
Spoiler alert - the villain is a patent lawyer
Re: You must mean Physics of Heineken advertising?
According to last night's Standard, the latest film includes a scene where Bond is drinking Heineken, from the bottle, in bed.
Short of having him watching daytime TV in his pants while eating cold takeaway from the carton, I can't think of anything less cool.
But what about the books?
I think there should be at least a nod to the books on which the films were based. (Only the Ian Fleming ones, though - all the others - at least the two or three that I've read - are pale imitations of the real thing).
This is how Bond orders a martini in the first book, Casino Royale:-
“A dry martini," he said. "One. In a deep champagne goblet." ...
"Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?”
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