Why Did Indian Railways Force James Bond Action Sequence to be Rewritten?

For the past few months producers of the 007 franchise have been frantically negotiating with the powers that be in India. They've been trying to sort out a major action scene involving Bond and train. From the get go they've only be interested in filming this scene in India, but were making no headway. At first it was revealed that the delay was caused by concerns of shutting down a track for five to eight days during a busy time of year. But we are now learning is the railway ministry is more concerned about the image of the country.

The big hiccup in negotiations were actually a result of the scene involving passengers on the roof of the train, which is a common practice in India despite what officials say. Even so railroad officials would like no mention of or images of passengers breaking the law with rooftop travel.

The railroad ministry also has requested and received permission to use Daniel Craig as their spokesman. He'll film commercials promoting the Indian railroads as stronger then Bond.

Below is an excerpt from mi6-hq.com's article found here.

http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/bond_23_report_aug11e.php3?s=bond23&id=02941

"When the Indian line producer came for discussions, I said Bond will have to promote Indian railways and be its brand ambassador. They agreed. We will soon have a written agreement," railway minister Dinesh Trivedi said.

A mock-up of the stunt sequence was shot in England with model trains to demonstrate what would be required to shoot the stunts full scale.

The sequence will see 007 jump a speeding motorcycle on to the roof of a moving train, run along the roof on foot, and then leap to another moving train. Due to sequence ending with Bond jumping off the second train in to a large body of water below the tracks, producers had requested to shoot in Sabarmati in Gujarat or Goa.

After seeing the model footage, Indian Railways requested a few changes, namely that trains would not be seen crowded with passengers clinging to the roof. "One of the conditions for allowing the shoot is that they cannot show India or Indian Railways in bad light and the assurances will have to be given to us in writing. The film will be viewed across the world where it will seem as if all trains here have people traveling on roof tops, which is not true. Also, traveling on the roof of a train is prohibited by law and that cannot be encouraged," Trivedi said.

I'd like to add that I understand where the Indian Railways is coming from with their argument. Nobody wants to promote prohibitive activities, but we also shouldn't gloss over the facts. People do, do it, and a great way to make them stop might be seeing it on film as something not glamorous but actually quite dangerous. Having James Bond plow through a bunch of illegal passengers doesn't seem like a bad way to make people buy tickets. Fear is quite powerful, just ask Sinestro.

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Craig's third outing as James Bond will be released on October 26, 2012. Daniel Craig will be joined by Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, as well as a Judi Dench as M.

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