Feirstein talks Blood Stone and GoldenEye

Den of Geek posted a short interview with Bruce Feirstein, the screenwriter of such Bond films as GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World Is Not Enough as well as the video games Everything or Nothing, From Russia with Love, and the upcoming Activision games Blood Stone and GoldenEye 007 (2010).

“In the case of Blood Stone, the producers, EON, Michael Wilson, Barbara Broccoli, David Wilson and Gregg Wilson, had an idea for a story, and had a lot of it done. And I came in, worked with them, fleshed it out. – Bruce Feirstein“

In the interview Feirstein briefly talks about how he transitioned from being a New York journalist for magazines such as The Sunday New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, and The New Yorker to a screenwriter and then again to the video game world. “At heart, in games, you’re talking about a narrative, and a narrative that involves the player over ten or twelve hours”.

A helicopter chases Bond in James Bond 007: Blood Stone

Feirstein also talks about how he came on board with Blood Stone and states that the idea of the story came from the Bond producers themselves, “In the case of Blood Stone, the producers, EON, Michael Wilson, Barbara Broccoli, David Wilson and Gregg Wilson, had an idea for a story, and had a lot of it done. And I came in, worked with them, fleshed it out.” Feirstein also worked closely with Activision kicking back and forth ideas on just about everything from locations to the action sequences. “Two weeks ago, we were still working on lines of dialogue, the multiplayer elements of the game.”

For GoldenEye 007, Feirstein mainly talked about how they went about updating the game while still staying true to the general story. It’s not said specifically, but Alec Trevelyan is clearly no longer the son of a Lienz Cossack, which was his motivation for turning on the British government. “One of the central plot-points in the movie was that the character of Trevelyan, his father was a Lienz Cossack, who was massacred in World War II. Again, that character would be 80 years old today. So, why should Trevelyan turn against the UK?” Another character getting a face lift is Valentin Zukovsky who appears to be nothing like his former ex-KGB self. “That character now owns a nightclub in Barcelona and would actually like to own a British soccer team,” Feirstein stated.

Facility level from GoldenEye 007 (2010)

Feirstein also discusses his thoughts on the booming video game industry and what Ian Fleming himself may have thought of the medium. You can check out the full interview at Den of Geek.