Wonky World Building and JJ
All storytellers have different strengths and weaknesses. In telling a story, they’ll play to their strengths, and hopefully that compensates for their weaknesses. But what happens when a storyteller’s weakness is storytelling? I can’t fault director JJ Abrams’s ability to make visually stunning movies (lens flares and all). But his storytelling is terrible, which is born from his appalling world-building. Word-building is paramount to me. Get it right, and you can sell me anything. I’ll believe immortals are living among us who can only die if they lose their head; I’ll believe an eccentric inventor builds a time machine out of a DeLorean; I’ll believe an archaelogist is retained by…
James … who?
As I grew up with James Bond in the 1970s, there were two entrenched Bonds: Sean Connery and Roger Moore. The question that hovered over them was, Who is your favourite Bond? I couldn’t pick. I’d flip to whoever’s movie I was watching. I like Sean Connery’s calm, ruthlessness, and accent, while I enjoy Roger Moore’s affability, suave, and polish. My brother told me about another Bond, George Lazenby, who made only one picture, and was a closer fit to author and creator Ian Fleming’s template. I was still just a kid when I finally saw On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), but I liked it. I think Lazenby is…