10 Iconic Things We Miss From Classic James Bond Films

1. Impossibly Expensive Lairs

bond 1 - lairs

Time was when you could judge a villain by the size and complexity of his lair. It's not just the hollowed-out volcano that earns you respect, there's mono-rails, massive banks of computers, helicopters, a public address system that can say "INTRUDERS DETECTED" and hundreds of trained men waiting to get picked off by Bond. I always liked the uniforms, did they buy them in or was there a support team of bespoke designers working in a different part of the volcano? Skyfall's villain gets his own island, yes, but it's a desolate abandoned rock with a few computers, rather than an ocean liner that can eat ships, hotel carved out of ice, or an invisible-to-radar space station. Maybe the expensive lair died out when villains looked at the economics, as these figure-crunching boffins did, and discovered start-up costs of $17 billion and estimated annual running costs of $15m. To be honest, if it costs that much then holding the world to ransom for $5m will only really cover the gas and electricity each year, it's not really worth it. Are there any things from past classic Bond films you miss? Share your thoughts below in the comments.
Contributor
Contributor

I'm a Westcountry exile now living in Yorkshire with lovely wife and cats (also lovely). I'm a big fan of films, robots, timetravel, and films about timetravelling robots, as well as lots of other action, sci-fi and comedy. I'm currently trying to write a sitcom that doesn't involve robots, and I also blog nonsense on timolsky.blogspot.com. Thanks for taking the time to read my stuff, and feel free to comment.