What Bit Of Fan Fic/Edit/Theory Made a Thing Better or even GREAT For You?

[Mannahnin]

Very possible, though a quick search doesn't find any acknowledgement of an influence.

Hidden Fortress is still a pretty archetypal heroic story, just the viewpoint framing is from the picaresque farmers.

Sure. Just noting the common element of both stories involving a couple of peons getting caught up in great and dramatic events, and us seeing them through their eyes.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Makes me wonder if Tom Stoppard took any inspiration from that for Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. The play debuted just 8 years after The Hidden Fortress...

I mean ideas get into people's heads all sorts of ways, but I think if the two are connected it's because the origin source for both is likely that so many plays of Shakespeare (of which both Stoppard and Kurosowa were obviously avid fans) involve a secondary cast of (usually menial) characters less connected to the main narrative events who nontheless witness some of them and have their own secondary narratives. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern did not get this treatment in Hamlet, they are supporting players in every scene they appear despite the fact that they end up getting killed ignomiously offstage by the play's events, so Stoppard gave them their own play.

I'm less confident in speaking to Kurosowa's inspiration because, while he certainly had studied Shakespeare (cf. Throne of Blood or Ran) I don't know what other inspirations he had, and while there are many authors and traditions of narrative, theater, etc. which never give secondary characters scenes front and center or their own narrative, its still not an idea unique to Shakespeare.

I read or saw all of the works referenced above more than a decade ago so if I wrote something wildly nonsensical I apologize.

 

[haakon1]

For Downton Abbey, I imagined Evelyn Napier was a spy. Based on his cagey answers about what he did in the Great War - something about being in Navy offices in London, yet someone else mentioned he was wounded in action - along the lines of Ian Fleming and his fictional creation James Bond, both of whom were nominally Royal Navy HQ officers but of course actually spies.

It made this occasionally recurring character, who was involved in some diplomatic/spy like things, including accompanying Mr. Pamuk in the pre-War period when the UK was courting Turkey - a little more interesting. IIRC, he was also involved with Bates in stealing a letter that was a problem for the Crown Prince, and alerted Mary to the rumor spreading about her and traced it back to her sister.

That it was never actually revealed that he’s a spy - and it never even crossed the minds of any other character - actually fits fine.

 

[Bohandas]

Has anyone brought up the idea that "James Bond" is a codename and the different actors in the Bond films are all different James Bonds

 

[TheHand]

Has anyone brought up the idea that "James Bond" is a codename and the different actors in the Bond films are all different James Bonds

I think someone mentioned it above, but that’s how I like to watch the Bond films myself. They almost lent credence to this theory when they wanted cast Sean Connery as a retired agent in Skyfall (in the final standoff in the mansion).

 

[jian]

Has anyone brought up the idea that "James Bond" is a codename and the different actors in the Bond films are all different James Bonds

It’s one that’s bare millimetres away from being canon but has never been officially confirmed. The fact that the writers are still struggling with it (and how to deal with Craig Bond being dead) is a sign they should just embrace it.