James Bond

I wonder how many people only know about the theme to Live and Let Die and not the movie itself.

You know in addition to TND, I find its successor to be rather ahead of its time, too. Amoral oil companies profiteering off of the fallout from disasters; gee, that sure sounds familiar...

Just thinking it over, most Bond films are definitely reflective of concurrent politics. Thunderball involved the fear of nuclear weapons in the 60's. Man with the Golden Gun reflected the 70's energy crisis. License to Kill involved the drug war of the 80's. Brosnan's entire tenure as Bond reflected post-Cold War mentalities (especially Judi Dench's M), which was pushed even further with Craig.

edited 27th Apr '17 3:13:59 AM by KJMackley

Even on a meta-level, Golden Eye oozes Why We're Bummed Communism Fell, since the series nearly ended in part due to a perception that it had no place in a post-Cold War world. A key aspect of that film is the notion that Bond is irrelevant because the world has moved on.

Interestingly, or perhaps ironically, Sky Fall takes a similar but in some ways opposite approach with the idea that in a world of infinite surveillance, a lone wolf agent like Bond is either completely irrelevant or an absolute necessity in order to cut the Gordian Knot and fix the world's problems. Spectre continues this somewhat too.

Adding to the examples of above, later Moore films such as For Your Eyes Only saw the Russians, particularly Golgov and his Dallton equivalent Pushkin, become Friendly Enemies. Hell, neither man was ever a true enemy to Bond, and the former even had the Big Bad of Octopussy killed in the end. This reflects the growing global move towards detente, with the real bad guys being hawks and terrorists looking to undermine an inevitable peace.

You can see that in the early films, too - in the books, the Russians were usually trying to heat up the Cold War themselves whereas even in the '60s films they were usually being framed or manipulated by third parties like SPECTRE.

edited 27th Apr '17 11:22:18 AM by HamburgerTime

Ssssssoooooooo anyone else generally like the movies better than the books? Don't get me wrong, the books are pretty good, and are rather fascinating as time-capsule pieces of the '50s, but they have a lot of Values Dissonance even compared to the early films that makes them hard to read at times, such as Bond happily befriending an unrepentant rapist in From Russia with Love, Bond thinking Koreans aren't human in Goldfinger, and the general fact that Fleming feels the need to go out of his way to point out that every competent minority character, good or evil, is part-white.

There's also a lot of places where the plot randomly grinds to a halt to luridly describe fancy food or some other luxury Bond is partaking in (fanservice for impoverished post-WWII Brits) and I also feel like having SPECTRE there from the beginning made the various Evil Plans more interesting.

Movie Tiffany is awful though.

edited 10th May '17 5:01:13 PM by HamburgerTime

The book versions of Moonraker and You Only Live Twice are basically unbeatable Bond stories. The rest are either acceptable yarns, or embarrassingly of their time. I've acquired a distaste of Stale Beer Spy Drama because of how much the average edgelord Daniel Craig fan fetishizes the genre. I absolutely loathe the influence the Bourne series has on current-day Bond. I mean, the greatest stale-beer spy stories are Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Quiet American; James Bond should be over the top, and taking the subject matter too seriously has hurt the franchise in ways that aren't immediately apparent.

Don't forget The Spy Who Came In From the Cold.

I agree with Zephyr. The real James Bond of the modern age is Kingsman.

I will confess I really liked book!Moonraker, and I haven't seen movie!Moonraker yet but I've heard that's the one adaptation near-unanimously agreed to be inferior.

It's not an adaptation.

I can't speak much for book versus movie, but Moonraker the movie is often viewed as a fun whiz-bang adventure story. It's not that far off tonally from The Spy Who Loved Me (one of the most beloved movies in the franchise), just switch out underwater city for space base. But it's clear the producers knew they needed to scale back and do For Your Eyes Only.

It's a noticeable trend lately to play off classic heroes, especially spy heroes, as relics on the edge of retirement. Both James Bond and Mission Impossible have dedicated back to back movies to having their organization dismantled and they have to prove themselves still valuable.

@ Zephyr: From what I understand the decision to do a gritty reboot on Bond was prompted by two things:

• The producers feeling that portraying terrorists as over-the-top supervillains would be in exceptionally poor taste after 9/11.
• And a fear that the Austin Powers series would pull an Airplane! and make classic-continuity Bond impossible to take seriously anymore.

Well, your summary does miss out a crucial third factor, one that I'd personally put first on the list.

Jason. Bourne.

There is no way in hell that EON Productions missed those original three Damon-starring movies make bank out of doing things that the public thought that Bond was getting too old and creaky as a franchise to do. The only Bond films that beat all three original Bourne movies at the world wide box office came in the Craig era. As seen here in these handy lists from Box Office Mojo:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=jamesbond.htm

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=bourne.htm

I'm fully aware of the effect Austin Powers, Jason Bourne, and 9/11 had on the franchise, but turning Bond into the same, dull, gray spy drama as your average War on Terror film has made the franchise somewhat generic. I mean, Skyfall got rave reviews, but by and large, the Craig era has been chock-full of eye-rolling topicality and masturbatory self-importance. These films seem fundamentally devoid of a sense of fun, or very many fresh ideas in general, but gin up enough Grimdark Oscar Bait tropes to rope-a-dope Internet edgelords into hyping them.

RE: Our reception on the Craig-era: Personally, it makes sense that the world in Craig's films appear pseudo-realistic. Why? Because it helps fit Bond's characterization in it. Forgive me if I haven't touched much Bourne, but to me, the idea of Bond tackling post-9/11 terrorism adds that Bond is no "good guy in an intelligence agency" like he was from 1962-2002 who enjoys the privileges of being in an intelligence agency, but a man who realizes that while being in an intelligence agency has its perks, he has the personal cost to consider. Some pointers on that:

1. Casino Royale: Vesper dying and Bond finding out she was in cahoots with Quantum. Remember, after M/ansfield contacted Bond after Vesper was drowned to death in Venice, Bond called Vesper "bitch," but really didn't mean it.

2. Quantum Of Solace: Bond getting entangled with a country's plight because he was after the people mostly responsible for said country's plight.

3. Skyfall: M/ansfield being before that inquiry having to do with the question of what men like Bond should be really doing. The former's retort was that men like Bond have to do things that politicians cannot approve if it means taking on terrorism.

4. Spectre:

a. Bond's career in MI 6 has him in conflict over everything that happened in Skyfall after M/ansfield's death shook him. Hence why he made no effort to decorate his apartment, and why Moneypenny was sleeping with someone else. He focused too much of his career as a way to pacify personal scars that no one should have. It's hidden well, but meeting Madeline and hearing further about Quantum's connection with SPECTRE re-opened his heart's wounds, especially given that Vesper's death is brought up.

b. Bond refusing to kill Blofeld at the end and ride off with Madeline was to show he made his peace with everything he had to put up with.

Bond has literally always been exactly of his time. The books were post-WWII British power fantasy, escapism for a people still not used to the fact that they weren't a superpower anymore. The early movies were about maintaining the fragile peace of the Cold War and the fear of nuclear annihilation, then as they went on you got films about the fear of the use of outer space for warfare, the 70s energy crisis, Blaxploitation, the 80s drug crisis, the USSR's old baggage once the Iron Curtain finally fell, and the rising power of mass media and oil tycoons (before 9/11, even!). Then you get the reboot where you have Casino and Quantum as dark, gritty action movies reflecting the post-9/11 zeitgeist, followed by the more somber, world-weary Skyfall and Spectre for the post-post-9/11 era where people are losing their jobs to machines and everybody's just sick of it all.

Ever-mutable, is Bond.

edited 17th May '17 6:38:33 PM by HamburgerTime

Roger Moore has passed away.

As I've said in another thread, may his memory be eternal.

My personal favourite, in terms of his performance: The Spy Who Loved Me. Second place for me would be For Your Eyes Only.

edited 23rd May '17 9:16:16 AM by Quag15

Oh goddammit. We've lost our first Bond. I blame 2016. Yes, even though it's 2017.

TIL that in an earlier draft of Spectre, it was going to be Denbigh who was actually Blofeld, with Oberhauser as a Red Herring.

It's more indicative of the state of things in the world of movies in 2017 than anything else, I guess, but, yeah. The phrases "James Bond" and "Cinematic Universe" are now being used in the same sentence as each other.

I mean, there's potential, I guess, but.

Urgh.

edited 29th Jun '17 2:01:33 PM by LE0Night

Oh dear. Maybe Jinx will have her day in the sun after all?

NO! NO! Ew, NO!

So, lately Bond has had stronger continuity than in the past, which cinematic universe-ish. But who aside from Bond himself would even warrant having a movie made about them? Maybe someone in Spectre? Or 006? Especially if it's part of a Start of Darkness.

edited 29th Jun '17 3:11:38 PM by WillKeaton

I'd watch a Moneypenny movie (maybe about her prior to meeting or being partnered with James?).

And maybe a M & Q movie (think brawns + brain partnership). But that's about it. I don't think there's a need to go for a whole cinematic universe thingy.

edited 29th Jun '17 3:43:57 PM by Quag15