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I am surprised we haven't had a female villain for 20 years, just even for the sake of variation rather than representation.
The Man From UNCLE (2015) and X-Men: First Class showed tremendous "Bond potential". Why not ditch the cell phones and post-9/11 traumas and settle for the feeling of the Connery Bonds but with the best photography and technology modern filmmaking has to offer? I'm not saying they have to re-adapt all the Flemings verbatim, but perhaps an effort can be made to take us back to the days when the AM DB5 was the coolest car ever made.
I tend to think that not only would you be making the films even more expensive, and you'd also lose a lot of the product placement that covers a lot of those costs, but also you'd be directly comparing your star to Connery etc. even more than he already is, which is maybe not fair on him. Plus we already have Bond films actually made and set in that time, and it can never look as convincing as that. UNCLE does look pretty cheap and limited in places: I don't believe its Berlin like I do in Funeral In Berlin, say.
For me it's a bit of a backwards step, and it's not as if he wouldn't still have to be 'updated': he can't go around forcing himself on women like Connery's Bond did and he wouldn't be smoking like a chimney, even though it would be set in the past. Professor X and Napoleon Solo weren't puffing away, after all. Though I get what you're saying about world politics being safer to deal with in the past, and it's a good point.
Yeah that's fun, I like that.
Eon should just focus on creating exciting new villains and love interests. I think it will be a mistake if they start rebooting classic villains, and god help us if they bring back Ernst Stavro Blofeld anytime soon.
I like the idea of a duo of villains--husband/wife, brother/sister, etc.
They need to get rid of the Aston Martin. It reads "old man's car" at this point. They waste valuable screen time with it in every damn movie, getting reconstructed, etc. It was funny when Connery was Bond but my god, make it stop. At least TLD had the sense to choose an updated version.
If they want a younger audience--and that seems to be what Eon is always chasing--then give them a breath of fresh air, not "Oh, maybe I saw that in a movie from 1965." Too much nostalgia.
CR felt fresh because Craig was hungry to prove himself, we hadn't seen characters like Mathis before, there is no Moneypenny or Q, and a different M even though it was still Dench--"arse-covering prigs"--love it.
Since then, though, I think they've lost their way a bit. I'd like action as good as CR, and particularly some top-drawer fight choreography, and much tighter writing that doesn't lean heavily on being an 'important' adventure for Bond, in that it doesn't lean heavily on life-changing events for 007, personal revelations, or deaths of long-running characters - it's not that those things are all bad, it's just that you absolutely can't keep doing them every film without it getting stupid; if you can't make a basic 'Bond on a mission' film gripping, then in my opinion the franchise is sunk.
New Bond, new MI6 and a standard mission. Forget the past, don't worry about continuity and get on with telling the story one film at a time
Anyway, I think that some of the traits that were brought to the part during the Craig years will remain, because they're a satisfying update. When he's a womanizer, there will still be some black cloud remaining, as he distrusts women due to some unmentioned trauma in his past. The audience will probably fill in the dots and understand it's due to Vesper or some equivalent in the new timeline, without any need to dwell on that. Similarly, you can't go back to the pre-Naomi Harris versions of Moneypenny, as they were increasingly played for cheap laughs.
@Jordo007 Totally agree with that take (even if Desmond Llewelyn was still there as Q). I guess they can still use SPECTRE when they want, as an already established foe (with some villains affiliated to SPECTRE), to have some kind of a loose arc, but I think that Blofeld is now out of the picture for good. Let's face it, the character had already become some kind of caricature outside of the films and he's so notorious anyway that there would be no point to have a silhouette lurking in the shadows for a few films, as the sixties films did, when we already know about him. New management, maybe...
Easily one of the worst films I ever watched. Worse than ATTACK OF THE LILLER TOMATOES. And I am a Steed/Peel-Fan.
I think that is what we'll get. And I think they should keep SPECTRE around as a recurring foe.
IMO that is never going to happen, Bond must always move forward to stay relevant
If the movie franchise ever dies, then maybe the BBC will do a period James Bond series based on Flemings books, but never for the cinema.
Most of the modern audience would barely be aware of what the "Cold War" was, or that there ever was one (but perhaps they soon will be, when it becomes known as "The First Cold War")
The "Second" Cold War is just getting under way with China, but as you mention, these days movies tend to try and steer clear of sensitive political issues, especially given the new increased value of the Chinese movie market.
Funnily enough when I watch old espionage TV series and movies, I've been surprised how often they used to use China as an adversary, I assume because during the Khrushchev era the "Cold War" was so close to becoming hot (after the Berlin border confrontation and the Cuban missile crisis) that the word was passed down from on high to avoid anything that might be perceived as a provocation to crazy Nikita, with his banging shoe (at the UN in 1960) and nuclear arsenal, and the Chinese were the next cab off the rank and involved in Vietnam.
My pet theory about Spectre is that that was the real reason Fleming adopted it as a substitute for Smersh / Russia. The official Eon line has always been that Fleming thought the Cold War was becoming old hat and the real Smersh had been disbanded.
However in reality the real Smersh had actually been disbanded in 1946, before Fleming wrote any of his novels. Five of the seven James Bond novels released up until 1959 featured villains with connections to Smersh / Russia. Fleming was knocking them out at a rate of one per year, then there was a gap until Thunderball in 1961, where Spectre replaced Smersh as Bond's arch nemesis.
The official line is that "Spectre was originally conceived by Bond novelist Ian Fleming in 1959 for the novel Thunderball as a villainous organization that could pose a threat to the British government even as the Cold War ended"
And yet, in fact, the "Cold War" had never been more chilly and was about to reach a crescendo of tension, in Berlin in 1961 and Cuba in 1962. After the fall of Khruschev in 1964 things settled down a bit and the Cold War again became a fit subject for movies to utilise, which they did for several decades to come.
So, personally, I believe Fleming had been requested, by his old friends at MI6, to drop the Russian bogeyman theme and come up with something more neutral.
By the time Dr No became a movie, in 1962, Smersh was replaced by Spectre there as well
https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20211012/lashana-lynch-wants-see-more-women-leading-film-franchises
Give women original leading roles, don't replace established male roles with females.
This is precisely what I hope we get, but I have serious doubts they're going to convince themselves to do this. Craig's run has been so successful and it's rid itself of that anthological formula. Diehard fans love the formula of course, but producers know the Craig threaded dramatic continuity makes the $$$ and has kept Bond culturally relevant.
On the other hand, it looks like his most succesful film - at least money-wise and possibly on the "cultural impact" side as well - will be the one that is the most stand-alone (while of course plumbing Bond's childhood, M's past and taking liberally from the old iconography) in Skyfall and the most adored among fans and the other contender for most critically acclaimed Craig-film - Casino Royale - didn't follow on from any other film at all (while again playing with the preconceived notions on the franchise). So depending on your exact feelings about the other three and especially NTTD, the films that do the heavy lifting on the narrative continuity are the less-liked ones, both in the fandom and with general audiences.
I still maintain that nobody in Hollywood really understands how and why the MCU is as succesful as it is and all attempts to copy it or portray that style of filmmaking as the "new paradigm" are doomed to fail - at the very least in comparison. The question is whether studio execs see it that way, too or conitue to try and force "cinematic universes" onto everything.
Modesty Blaise.
For example, yes. I'd like to see that one.
Also, don't do the opposite either, I'd hate to see a film about Lauren Croft, the Tomb Raider, specially if they make him wear those skimpy shorts...
Considering the current state of action movies, I don't think it is possible to completely go back to a film without any personal connection for the main character; however, it is possible to distinguish the goal of the mission and how it is carried out by Bond. To go back to the FYEO comparison, Bond don't have any personal connection with Kristatos, the ATAC or the Havelocks; but his team-up with Melina is nonetheless personal as he doesn't want her to become what he is.
Although it's not as developed as it could be, it seems clear that Maibaum and Wilson wanted with this story to offer sort of an introspection of the character of Bond through his opposition with Melina. Something similar could be pertinent for B26.
So they would either need someone to do Dench-M karaoke or do a FYEO and only use Tanner. There could be no Moneypenny and either no Q or played by someone other than Whishaw.
I don't think they are going to go that way anyway, but there really is no realistic justification for bringing those actors back other than the Mawdsley-Mansfield conjecture, meaning they play alternate universe versions of broadly the same characters.
Hollywood ? I gather you are using it as a general term, meant to include studio locations in England, yes ?
Nolan is the only current director who has the right character and attitude to tackle Bond, traits which recent directors have totally lacked. However, he might demand too much creative control for Eon's and Amazon's tastes.
Yes. Bond movies are international productions but they mainly draw talent from Hollywood.
How about Rian Johnson? Writing & directing?
I don't think they do as a rule, no. They mainly draw money from Hollywood, and obviously executive decisions come from there.