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Octopussy and The Living Daylights

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Octopussy and The Living Daylights (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

As of 10 January 2025, 08:49 (UTC), this page is active and open for discussion. An FAC coordinator will be responsible for closing the nomination.
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Nominator(s): SchroCat (talk) 07:39, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This book is a collection of initially two but now four Bond short stories. It was published the year after Fleming's death and it comprises the remaining work about Bond that hadn't already been published up to that date. It wasn't widely reviewed and hasn't been as analysed as any of his novels, but it has some points of interest and some nice writing in it too. A profitable PR saw help from Tim riley and Dudley Miles, to whom many thanks. Any more constructive comments are most welcome. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 07:39, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Prose readthrough

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  • Lede good.
  • Bond sees Trigger get in position to kill him and he realises that it is the cellist I might be sleepy, but I have no idea what "it" refers to here. I assume you mean the cellist is Trigger; Why not "she was the cellist"?
  • employee known to be a double agent working for the Soviet Union whose employee - the secret service? Might be easier to say "one of their employees" or something similar
  • "Background and writing history" good to me.
  • Development and style also good.
  • Release and reception good, well written reception section. (wow, they still used Guineas as a unit of currency?)
    Only as an invoicing mechanism to squeeze an extra 5% onto the bill, rather than the coin, which stopped in 1816! I remember seeing bills from professionals in the 1980s in guineas, but that was just an affectation by then, although it's still used in some animal auction houses (the extra 5 pence per pound being the auctioneers commission) - SchroCat (talk) 07:59, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • plot device of auctioning of a Fabergé egg maybe "the auctioning"?
  • Went through and corrected some misordered citations.

@SchroCat: that's all! Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 08:17, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks Generalissima. All your suggestions duly enacted. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 07:59, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Looks good to me, good job. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 08:03, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support from Tim riley

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I apologise for this, but on rereading for FAC I've found a few things I must have overlooked at Peer Review. Nothing to cause alarm and despondency but worth a mention, I think:

  • On reading the latest text I'm not wild about "an octopus that lives off his beach". The OED defines "live off" as to subsist on, derive food, etc., from; (figurative) to be supported by. whereas you, I think, mean Octopussy lives (i.e. dwells) offshore of the beach.
  • "While in New York he sent her a telegram that he needed time ..." – might be better with "saying" after "telegram"?
  • I'm sure you have excellent reasons for capitalising and including the definite article in the link for The Sunday Times but not for that for the Express, but it looks a bit odd to me.
    • Because The Sunday Times is the correct name for that publication, while Daily Express is as low class as it's contents suggest and drops the article. If only it would drop the poisonous articles in its pages too, the world would be a better place... - SchroCat (talk) 08:10, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "too long and specialised for the target audience, so he wrote the story" – you know my antediluvian views about pressing "so" into use as a conjunction in formal prose.
  • "Although he liked New York, his experiences on the trip soured his view" – this is the first we're heard of a trip there. Perhaps "on a recent trip" or some such.
  • "the part of the story where Smyth hunted ... Smyth is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of Fleming ... Fleming and Smyth were ex-military men ... Smyth is one of only two British villains" – but back in the Plots section he's "Smythe", with an e, six times.
  • "reprinted in Playboy in January 1964, while "Octopussy" was serialised in the March and April 1966 editions – I suggest a plain "and" or semicolon instead of "while" which seems too temporal for comfort here (the Bishop preached the sermon while the Dean read the lesson)
  • "published daily in the Daily Express newspaper – it is necessary (or even accurate) to identify the Express as a newspaper? You don't identify Playboy as a magazine or The Observer, Manchester Evening News et al as newspapers.

That's my lot, I hope. Over to you. Tim riley talk 16:24, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks Tim; your suggestions all followed, except where noted otherwise.
Happy to support the elevation of this article to FA. It seems to me to meet all the criteria; it's a good read, well and widely sourced, seems balanced, is well illustrated (I bet you had to do a fair bit of digging), and strikes me as comprehensive. I look forward to seeing it on our front page – as another of your Fleming articles is today, I see. Tim riley talk 13:34, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from PMC

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You know it! I'm a bit backlogged so maybe a bit longer than the usual one-week turnaround, but I'll get to it. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 04:31, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • "published in different publications" reads a little awkwardly because of the repetition, although I understand if it can't be written around
    Tweaked a little around this - SchroCat (talk) 11:16, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am absolutely floored to learn that Octopussy was the name for an actual Octopus, what
  • Nothing to remark on until the Style section, which is unfortunately a little skint. I might even make it a subsection under Development, but won't insist
    Let me have a think about this - SchroCat (talk) 11:16, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In "Octopussy" he sees the hooks in action, keeping the pace of the story moving, despite no passages of action." - Repetition of "action", and also to be honest I'm not entirely sure what this means
    Tweaked a bit - SchroCat (talk) 11:16, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The story, which he considers a morality tale uses the flashback technique that Fleming liked." - needs a comma after "tale", but also how does the morality tale aspect relate to the flashback technique? Does he elaborate at all?
    Comma added. He doesn't link the morality tale to the flashback (neither do we, explicitly) but doesn't make too much of the point either, so we either have a medium sized sentence like this, or two very stubby sentences. - SchroCat (talk) 11:16, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's really all I've got. There's not much left to go over, following the PR and the other prose reviews already at this FAC. Nice to see you making your way through the entire Bond archive. Cheers! ♠PMC♠ (talk) 10:19, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks, PMC. All addressed. Happy to talk over any of them further, particularly the final one. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 11:16, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good to me! Happy New Year :) ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:28, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Images

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Images are appropriately licensed. Nikkimaria (talk) 06:04, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks Nikkimaria; I think this is a first for me, that there hasn't been a single quibble over any of the images. It's only taken a decade to get a clean sheet...! - SchroCat (talk) 08:11, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Crisco

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  • Octopussy, starring Roger Moore as James Bond, was released in 1983 as the thirteenth film in the series and provided the back story for the film character Octopussy; - The short story provided her backstory, or it was new to the film?
  • Fleming had often hiked and skied in Kitzbühel in the late 1920s, while attending a small private school to study for entry into the Foreign Office and knew the area well; the experiences were used as the part of the story where Smythe hunted for the gold. - Feels like the comma is misplaced. Would "Fleming had often hiked and skied in Kitzbühel in the late 1920s, having attended a small private school to study for entry into the Foreign Office, and knew the area well; the experiences were used as the part of the story where Smythe hunted for the gold." work better?
    Reworked it in a different way: how does that look? - SchroCat (talk) 11:01, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • who he named "Pussy" - I believe this should be "whom" or "which", as the subject is Fleming rather than Pussy
  • he wrote an article about the animal for The Sunday Times in 1957 "My Friend the Octopus" - Would a comma be better after 1957?
  • partly based on Amaryllis, Fleming's half-sister. She was a concert cellist with blonde hair, and Fleming managed to get a passing reference to her in the story, saying: "Of course Suggia had managed to look elegant, as did that girl Amaryllis somebody. - You have two links to Amaryllis in two sentences
  • Fleming also used her name as Bond's own housekeeper, May - Would "for Bond's own housekeeper" work better? The name is not the housekeeper; the woman with the name is.
  • The historian Jeremy Black sees Bond's colleague, the officious Captain Sender, as the antithesis of Bond and an echo of Colonel Schreiber, the head of security at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, who appeared in the 1960 short story "From a View to a Kill". - How so? Did they relish killing?
    In their officious manner - quite the opposite of Bond's approach. - SchroCat (talk) 11:01, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • the daughter of a character Bond had allowed to commit suicide, rather than face the shame of arrest and imprisonment - Is the comma needed here? — Chris Woodrich (talk) 18:52, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Many thanks Chris. All sorted, more or less down the lines you suggest, except where commented up above. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 11:01, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Looks good. Thanks! — Chris Woodrich (talk) 13:46, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from MSincccc

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Placeholder. MSincccc (talk) 10:01, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Many of the elements of the stories derive from Fleming's own interests and experiences, including climbing in Kitzbühel, Austria, wartime commando deeds and the sea-life of Jamaica.
    I think I'll stick with what's there - SchroCat (talk) 11:12, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rest of the lead is fine.
MSincccc (talk) 10:06, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Background
MSincccc (talk) 10:12, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Adaptations and reprints
  • Yaroslav Horak could be described.
    We describe him as illustrating the work: I think it's a little superfluous to describe him as "the illustrator Yaroslav Horak" as well. - SchroCat (talk) 11:12, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • ... he was adapted to be the father of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the leader of the criminal organisation Spectre, and the former legal guardian of Bond in his youth.
Release and reception
Style
Within the James Bond series, Benson identifies what he described as the "Fleming Sweep", ... Could the full name be used here given that his name is being taken for the first time in the new section and that he was introduced in a previous section?
We could, but the previous full name and introduction was not too far above that people are likely to forget. - SchroCat (talk) 11:12, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Inspirations
  • Blanche Blackwell could be linked and described as the Jamaican heiress... as it's the first instance of her being mentioned in the article.
Characters
SchroCat The rest of the article is fine though I will take another look at it later. Minor comments above. MSincccc (talk) 10:32, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fleming was so unhappy with the final piece, he wrote to Wilson and refused payment for something he considered so lacklustre. Could be reworked for clarity and concision.
    It's all good as it is. - SchroCat (talk) 12:02, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Dissatisfied with the final piece, Fleming wrote to Wilson, refusing payment for what he deemed a subpar work. What about this one? MSincccc (talk) 12:24, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    As I've indicated, I think it's fine as it is. There are lots of ways we can phrase it, but I don't see this change as an improvement. - SchroCat (talk) 12:37, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fleming had often hiked and skied in Kitzbühel in the late 1920s, while attending a small private school to study for entry into the Foreign Office and knew the area well... Could be reworked. Id you ask, I have an alternative sentence.
    This doesn't appear in the article: it was reworked based on a comment from a previous reviewer. - SchroCat (talk)
@SchroCat Two more only. The rest of the prose appears flawless. Regards. MSincccc (talk) 11:56, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support MSincccc (talk) 13:27, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

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Why are #5 and #53 formatted differently from the other paginated sources? What makes Slashfilm, Mutant Reviewers and Empire reliable sources? Otherwise, I see little that seems problematic. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:44, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

##5 and 53 (and 57) all now have pages nos added, which I think is all of them. I think these three are considered generally reliable sources (there was nothing at RSN that debars their use on film topics), and they are the highest quality I could find that deal with the level of information being cited. Many thanks for your review, as always. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 11:22, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Jo-Jo, does that do it? Gog the Mild (talk) 22:06, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I guess it works. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:49, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

750h

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@SchroCat: i'll review this. ping me if i don't get back within seven days. 750h+ 18:53, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

750 Ping. :-) Gog the Mild (talk) 16:27, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry!! been a but stressed but will try fit a review in within the next 2 days! 750h+ 16:51, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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