The New James Bond Issues
My concern is wondering where JB can go from here. With Pierce Brosnan the films took on a full-fledged violent video game style where the producers filled up so much time with violence and chase that essentially just follow the same formula and for some of us are exceedingly boring and too predictable. Add to that the need to be politically correct and to appeal to certain audiences thereby narrowing the appeal of the underlying concept of the M16 Anglo-centric "Us versus Them" orientation that has existed since Dr. No.
And the need to adapt each succeeding generation to the original film canon of the MI6, with an M, a Moneypenney, and a Q and the fancy gadgets in the succeeding Bond universe. To top it off, there is the need to appeal to the financiers, making a new Bond more sexy without being sexist (as part of our current culture which claims to be egalitarian, but which can't sell a can of soup of shoelaces without showing a skimpily dressed female).
I wonder how Barbara Broccoli and the others are going to do it, and may fail with their reinvention. If they already want a younger Bond then they will go for an actor who was born when Pierce Brosnan played the part. Imagine, someone BORN when Sean Connery was acting as Bond would be around 60 years old today.........How time flies.........
Comments
It's not like they didn't just make a Bond film a couple of years ago. It's not like everything in that is suddenly against the law. It's fine, don't let the culture war people get you stoked up, Dovy.
I agree.
I doubt that they are going to mess with things as much as some might fear.
It's not like films these days have less sex and violence.
A comment about women in Bond movies and feminism: as I see it feminism in general isn't against beautiful women in movies and women in movies having sexual feelings and acting on it. They are very much in favour of women making their own decisions about things, especially sex. What they're much less in favor of is stuff like Bond using blackmail to have sex with a woman (TB), Bond slapping women left and right (multiple examples) and slapping their behinds and telling them to leave because... "man talk". But do any of us want that kind of thing back?
As long as the women are seen to make the decision to sleep with Bond because they want to and he treats them as equals in what happens I don't see any reason why Bond can't bed several women in movies. In fact I hope he will, and it's not misogynist.
I think that's true and I think also the fan favourite Bond women tend to be the ones who are stronger and more interesting as a result, like Diana Rigg as Tracy. I look at Thunderball and tend to think that Fiona should have been the main villain of the whole film: Luciana Paluzzi is giving a much more interesting and screen-filling performance than Adolfo Celi, who just sits there like a joint of pork in an eyepatch.
So I don't think any of this is contra to anything Bond fans have enjoyed about the films over the years or can't fit with them. If the next Bond film can create a female character as strong (and still feminine) like Rebecca Ferguson as Elsa in the Mission Impossible films, then I think it would be much improved.
I've never thought about it before, but Fiona as the main villain in TB is a great idea!
She's so good, and there's even a feeling of her and Connery starting to spark off each other, and then she's dead. Such a shame.
Connery and Luciana Paluzzi were magic together in TB.
Paluzzi as Fiona was actually a character good enough to return in other Bond films (if she didn't die of course😯).
Barbara Carrera's version of Fiona in NSNA was good but for all intents and purposes basically a psychopath.
Luciana Paluzzi as Fiona was so much more nuanced and believable and she had real chemistry with Connery. In many ways, Paluzzi's Fiona was a villainous / sociopathic version of Bond himself. And thank goodness the producers didn't feel compelled to dub her and ruin her performance.
Luciana Paluzzi fans be sure to watch the first Man from UNCLE movie To Trap a Spy
she's basically playing the same character, doing all the same things, a year before Thunderball
Thanks, will check that out.
I can't believe I was in the audience with her at the Albert Hall for the Sound of 007 and missed her!
I'd like to see an occasional-cigar-smoking and slightly misogynistic Bond again. Bond movies are entertainment featuring a fictional character who makes his living extinguishing people while living a luxurious lifestyle on a government salary. The series is clearly an escape from the sometimes mundane and judgmental realities of life.
That's why.
Cigars I can deal with: it looked like they shot a scene in NTTD where Bond chomped on a stogie whilst at his Jamaican home, but it didn't make it to the film. Not necessarily because you can't show that or anything: the cool stuff with the harpoon gun didn't make it either.
I'd be less keen if he smoked cigarettes: they're not as cool as they used to be and I think it'd make him look a bit desperate or weak.
Speaking of Bond Girls and feminism has anyone of you here have read the latest James Bond Dynamite Comics, the prequel to King And Country? The Bond Girl there, Gwendolyn Gann/003, I think is really great, I think they could create a Bond Girl like that, still feminine, but a tough gal.
And I want a Bond Girl that's not intimidating us into thinking she's tough, like even without telling us, she's slapping on our faces that she's tough, but in deeds or actions, she couldn't prove it (yes, I'm looking at you Anya/XXX and to the lesser extent, Jinx sans the sword fight), these Bond Girls who were pretentious that they're tough, but in the actual scenes still got rescued by Bond, not believable.
I'd liked to see a Bond Girl that's not pretentious, but one can really see in her actions that she's tough, think of Holly Goodhead, Tracy, and Paloma, they're not telling straight to our faces that they're tough, nor showing any clues of it, but once they got involved into the action, they may shocked you because they did really have skills, like in the saying "action speaks louder than words". One may not see it in their looks, but they have hidden skills that they may show in case of necessary.
I'm not against of Bond smoking cigarettes or cigars, for me it's kinda cool, we could have Bond sex, drank and booze, but not to smoke? That doesn't make him weak, that adds to his strong masculinity!
Also would love to see Bond gambling again! That's one of his popular traits, he's the best gambler in MI6, he should play and outwit his enemies, showing that he's the king of luck and high stakes!
always wondered if Craig, who seemingly has smoked cigars occasionally for decades, was smoking at that moment on set in Jamaica to give them the butt that appears in the film.
Do you mean Feix's delictado? I doubt he'd have needed to do it himself, but he was seen to be smoking one in a little scene where he guts a fish and feeds some to a cat:
I think there was some debate that he might not have been in character and just having a puff on set, but I tend to think that seems a bit unlikely.