No Octopussy for Daniel Craig

This just in: Daniel Craig won't get his Octopussy moment after all.  

The inside dope is that the Indian railways has demanded that the makers of the forthcoming James Bond flick rewrite a stunt sequence that was to feature Craig's double jumping from a speeding motorcycle onto an Indian train (not *exactly** speeding, if we are talking cinema verite) and then jumping from one train car to another, reports the Australian Age.

The reason? The sequence was slated to depict a passle of Indian passengers riding on the train roof, while "Rooftop travel is illegal in India and it cannot be encouraged," as Indian Railways Minister Dinesh Trivedi told AFP on Saturday.

Of course, many Indians seek to avoid paying for tickets by travelling on the roof, especially during the packed holiday season, and one of the most famous Bollywood sequences of all time is a Shah Rukh Khan dance sequence shot — yep — on the roof of a train.  But dancing is not riding, then, is it?

Accordingly, the makers of the as yet untitled Bond flick agreed to edit out the passengers, according to Trivedi.  "Rooftop travel will not be shown," he said, adding that the government has also stipulated the filming "has to be safe and passengers should not be inconvenienced."

That's a far cry from the days of Octopussy, when filmmakers took over Udaipur for a rickshaw chase, and Bond chased a knife throwing villain (if I can recall correctly) across the roof of a speeding train.

You knew that Danny would be jealous of Roger Moore sometime.