Last night I realized something important had slipped under my radar in relation to my fascination with bond – something quite epic: Bourne! Lyn and I watched the latter three quarters of a Bourne film last night, and I was hooked. Almost instantly, of course, I saw how much they had had a bearing on the more recent Bond films: it’s obvious that, stylistically, the Craig-era bonds draw a lot from Bourne. But, more than that, I was intrigued by the character; with how, unlike 007, Bourne works against rather than with the agency who trained him. On that level, dare I say it, he is much more interesting than Bond.

Time, then, for me to go shopping. What I need to do now is to get my hands on a bourne DVD box set and give them a serious viewing, just as I did with Bond. I was surprised to realise just how little I know about this franchise, especially given it’s importance in contemporary mainstream cinema. Time for me to do something about that: time to engage with Jason bourne. Although there are clearly huge differences, it is also clear that there is a relationship between the two characters, and that, to some degree, Bourne is a response to bond: perhaps Bourne can be seen as a modernized, Americanized version of bond, or one film company’s attempt to muscle in on the most successful film franchise ever, or an expression of American jealousy that film’s most successful hero is, if fact, British, or a bit of each.

Either way, I was struck by an intriguing idea: if Bond can escort the queen to the Olympics, that seems to beg for an American, Bourne-based response. But what could he do? If you think about it, as I touched upon in this entry , bond was an obvious choice: the situation with Bourne is more complicated than with 007, as with Bond you can just assume that M simply asked 007 to go to the palace and escort her Majesty to the stadium. They might even have made a short sketch showing the two talking, perhaps with bond complaining, trying to get out of what he sees as a mundane task in order to go and hunt villains instead. However, his attitude was conveyed far more subtly through a cough – a touch I felt very Bondish, managing to demonstrate something of 007’s character as both part of the established hierarchy yet not entirely respectful of it. With Bourne, of course, things aren’t so straightforward: he does not follow orders, so what would such a Bourne-based stunt look like? What could he do, and at what event?

To me it is an intriguing prospect: in making this short film, it seems to me that Danny Boyle threw down a gauntlet – surely more such postmodern juxtapositions are in order? Indeed, would it not also be cool if bond and Bourne actually met somehow? I must say I’m just itching to work on that idea. Who knows, given the current appetite for such crossovers, maybe I could write a script and put it forward to someone.