back to article Slip of a lad to play James Bond's Q

Brit thesp Ben Whishaw will play Q in forthcoming Bond outing Skyfall, the BBC reports. Ben Whishaw in The Hour At 31, Whishaw will be the first head of Q Branch to be younger than 007, since the character first appeared in 1962's Dr No, played by Peter Burton. Burton's small role was actually as "Major Boothroyd" – Ian …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. pctechxp
    Thumb Down

    Surely not

    Desmond Llewelyn was Q, John Cleese was R so is this guy going to be S?

    How will the phrase 'grow up 007' work when his technician is younger than he is?

    C'mon there has to be a bitter and more mature choice.

    Anthony Head?

    Anthony Hopkins?

    1. King Jack
      Headmaster

      Cleese was joking when he said he was R. He was in fact Q. As the Head of Q branch. "Do pay attention, 007."

    2. stucs201
      Mushroom

      I'm not sure there will ever be another Q as good as Desmond, but Giles may be a reasonable substitute.

      Explosion icon? Do I really need to explain?

    3. TRT Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Q is short for Quartermaster, ie stores and supplies. Do pay attention.

    4. Tim Almond
      FAIL

      It just seems wrong. Q for me was part of the furniture of MI5, a solid, dependable, somewhat boring type.

      I can't get into this bond. I want a villain with an audacious plot, Bond wise-cracking after killing off a henchman with a gimmick and a few gadgets (but don't go OTT). I'm there to be entertained. If I want an exploration of the human spirit I'll go and buy some Bergman movies.

    5. Sooty
      Joke

      Anthony Head?

      Explosive coffee beans :)

      just give them a good shake and then throw!

      1. Sooty

        Re:Anthony Head?

        I get the horrible feeling this joke went completely over the head of anyone under 30!

  2. Anonymous John

    Skyfall,

    I wonder who will play Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Deng?

    1. Steven Roper

      They've already done Rupert Murdoch

      in Tomorrow Never Dies...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well ...

    He was good in "Cock".

  4. A. Lewis
    Thumb Down

    Engage grumpy old man mode.

    I liked the fact that Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace (to a lesser extent) eschewed the traits of earlier films. Gone were Q and the silly gadgets. Gone was the slapstick and the wise-cracking 007. I liked these because I really like the books, and the first two films were a lot closer to those classics.

    I just hope them having cast a Q doesn't signal a return to the cheesy Moore-day bond films.

    1. Paul 25

      Agreed

      I'm not a grumpy old man, but I really enjoyed Casino Royale precisely because it didn't have too many of those Deus Ex Machina moments, where Bond escapes from something because he was given just the right gadget for the situation at the start of the film (although that bit with the defibrillator in the car was pretty dumb)

      I hope that after the cluster-fuck that was Quantum of Solace they haven't decided to just revert to the old model rather than build on the hard edge of Casino Royale.

      Of course, Q being a young bloke might signal that they are not simply going to make him the same old character, like they tried with Cleese. The worst thing they could do is try and make him some kind of young version of the original Q.

      Fingers crossed.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I think though the plan was to make Bond more believable. Medical equipment and guns would be fairly obvious things to have if you were some kind of Spy.

        I wouldn't be too surprised to see the return of some of the more hidden Bond items, like the watch... we Brits do have a history of hiding things in every day objects... see the whole history of OSS.

      2. stucs201
        Headmaster

        re: Paul 25

        Not so much Deus Ex Machina. More Chekhov's Gun.

    2. Andrew Moore

      Hopefully they will return Q to the role of armourer rather than a producer of silly toys.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh how times change.

    Lovely footage. Lighting matches by shooting at them, indoors? Brilliant.

    Amazing how but a few of scares can take away even responsible, upstanding citizens' toys. It's what politicians do best when they look all stern and eager to be seen doing *something*.

    1. frank ly

      Yes indeed

      I was wondering if it would be possible for anyone in the UK, nowadays, to own a collection like that - and practice indoors or in the garden.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Agreed, and it made me sad

      Amazing how much the UK has changed over a relatively short space of time. I'm not sure the word 'progress' applies either...

    3. Armando 123
      Devil

      And it's happening here in America, too

      Though not as much. Tell someone you've gone deer hunting and they'll look at you as if you just told them you were "a long time assistant at a major collegiate sports program". (*) Even if you just enjoy shooting clay pigeons, some people (mostly overeducated urban busybody types) are ready to start a "Save the Clay" campaign. Fortunately, if they protest, I'll give them my address, then dupe them into the back yard, at which point it become legal for shooting an unauthorized intruder in this state. Or better, I'll tell them I'm herding deer for a fellow hunter (not legal here) and if they keep it up they can get arrested as well and have it ON THEIR RECORD when they try to join an animal rights group.

      And honestly, WHY would you annoy someone with a gun who just wants to be left alone? Doesn't seem to be the wisest choice in the world. But I digress.

      --

      (*) If you don't get this, don't ask; you can't unread something.

  6. GuyC

    Cleese for Q

    If you really want someone with a really condescending attitude and an aptitude for not being taken seriously, whilst being beleivable, my money is definiteley on Cleese, it's like Bobbit without the machete

  7. TRT Silver badge
    FAIL

    Bond. Fail now.

  8. Robert 31
    Thumb Up

    perfect if they make him a non-comedic geek type

  9. 1Rafayal
    Black Helicopters

    The short film was an eye opener.

    In those days it was normal to say to your friends that your favourite pistol was the Ruger .44 Magnum, and demonstrate as to why this is by shooting a can of Tomato juice with it.

    These days, if you happen to mention you like playing The House of the Dead, or Time Crisis, you are pilloried.

    Not that I think people should be maintaining a Dutch dresser full of guns as shown in the film, of course.

  10. Dom 3

    Desmond L.

    Years ago I went to see him do a talk about his role. Salient points:

    - as a person, he knew nothing about technology (happy to admit to this).

    - the briefcase with hidden knives etc. was in a sorry old state (he produced it)

    - quite a lot of the tech., at least in the earlier films, was real

    - the ejector seat in the DB5 was an afterthought. He'd done his scenes and then they called him back in to the studio for an extra day's filming to introduce the ejector seat, which meant an extra day's pay

    (from which I had to conclude that)

    - despite his almost iconic stature within the series, he never got star wages.

    Now, I did think that Cleese as Q's successor was an inspired bit of casting, and I'm surprised by this decision - but let's see how it pans out, eh? It seems to me that the Craig era is a long way from EOL. I don't think we'll see the idiocy of Moore's Moonraker or Brosnan's DIAD, at least this time round.

  11. JDX Gold badge

    "I think though the plan was to make Bond more believable."

    Have you _seen_ the stunts in the recent films? I'm thinking the chase scene at the start of one of the Craig films especially (can't remember which right now)

    1. Steven Roper

      If you're talking about the scene

      where the killer chases Bond onto the jib of a dock crane and across rooftops and so on, it's perfectly believable. Google "parkour" if you don't think there's people that can do that shit IRL!

  12. Youngdog
    Thumb Up

    Loved the video

    And Connery's slightly awkward introduction was ace - that man really was cooler than a penguin-flavoured ice lolly*

    *Britlander word for 'popsicle' for any stateside chums reading this

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Defib would work

    To Paul 25, the scen with the defibrillator was actually pretty close to waht we would be done in real life. The poison induced ventricular tachycardia which would be treated using a defibrillator, a process known as cardioversion. The scene was created with advice from an A+E consultant in Abderdeen called James Ferguson who I worked with in my early years as a junior doctor. He has now been reatained as medical advisor to all the bond films.

  14. Lamont Cranston
    Go

    Good news.

    Now, get the film made, so we can all get on with forgetting QoS.

  15. LuMan
    Stop

    Believable Bond?

    Shurely shome mishtake. Bond's not supposed to be believable. That's why it was so good. It all went wrong when someone thought it was a good idea to set the stories in the contemporary world.

    Here's the fix - set all Bond films in the 60s, give him groovy gadgets with lasers and stuff, ensure that he humps his way through every female Soviet spy he happens across (as long as they're fit, natch), include an underwater scene (including gratuitous sub-aquatic snogging) and make sure there's at least 5 scenes where he beats up multiple assailants or a massive henchmen using a mix of ingenuity and very bad karate!

    Oh yes, bring back the DB5.

    If it's 'realism' you want, go and watch Bourne!

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Indeed.

      And those names! But I wonder if Bond would have slept with an enemy agent named Gina Talwurtz?

  16. John 62
    Boffin

    Why the QoS hate?

    Granted after watching it I don't remember much about it, but that also means I don't remember hating it.

    Cleese as Q was too 'big' a screen presence: literally and metaphorically. Llewellyn was good because he looked like he was just a man in a shed who couldn't abide Bond breaking all the things he'd made.

This topic is closed for new posts.