NEVER SAY NEVER isn't really McClory's film; it is what Schwartzman and co made after making a deal with him. If you want to see something closer to what McClory had in mind, there are drafts called JAMES BOND OF THE SECRET SERVICE and WARHEAD from 1975 and 1976 (written by Len Deighton and Sean Connery) that would better convey McClory's intent (those scripts aren't great either, but they do have an AWESOME endpiece with SPECTRE taking over the statue of liberty and US copters firing into it, with Blood coming out of Lady LIberty's eye and Bond hang-gliding into the structure.)
I think of NEVER as one of the biggest missed opportunities ever (why bring Connery back to do something nearly as light as Moore -- it'd be like hiring Olivier to sell comic books), but the real tragedy is that McClory couldn't get the thing going himself in the late 70s, before Roger Moore settled in as the public's idea of Bond (which pretty much ruined the whole character for me till Dalton.) And the reason was because of all the lawyer crap Eon's Bond people kept tossing (the same thing happened on NEVER, but it was Schwartzman who fought Eon in court during that time, and Schwartzman had pretty heavy hitters on his side, else the film wouldn't have been made.
I think of NEVER as one of the biggest missed opportunities ever (why bring Connery back to do something nearly as light as Moore -- it'd be like hiring Olivier to sell comic books), but the real tragedy is that McClory couldn't get the thing going himself in the late 70s, before Roger Moore settled in as the public's idea of Bond (which pretty much ruined the whole character for me till Dalton.) And the reason was because of all the lawyer crap Eon's Bond people kept tossing (the same thing happened on NEVER, but it was Schwartzman who fought Eon in court during that time, and Schwartzman had pretty heavy hitters on his side, else the film wouldn't have been made.
