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I agree, LTK is my absolute favourite, but after 14 straightforward mission and a mere one 'personal' story twenty years earlier that's a very unique and refreshing idea for 1989.
In 2020 however, after a whole era of all sorts of personal involvement, not so much.
Interesting…maybe the Bond producers no longer think that general audiences believe that the world is actually worth saving (on its’ own merits, that is)! After all, why would Bond want to save this crummy world unless the mission has a personal aspect to it.
And to be honest, there are days – usually after a check of the news – when I think the same thing!
:))
The issue of Bond's treatment of women could be discussed at great length, and yes, the DB-5 needs to be retired for several films...but I don't really mind Felix in sunglasses, and Bond hasn't been killed in the PTS quite as often as one might think. But we're all going to be a little sensitive to the personal angle until Brother Blofeld is relegated to a bad memory. Maybe 20 years from now. At the current rate of release, that's only going to be 4 movies away....
I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but the worst aspect of it is that so many villains are connected to the British government. 006, the husband of Bond's ex, the daughter of M's best friend, whatever Miranda Frost was, Vesper from Treasury, another former agent in the form of Silva, Bond's foster brother. It's like Britain is at war with itself!
If it's good enough for the USA then everybody else should want a piece of it too.
I don't have an issue with the 5 tropes identified, repetition in Bond films is a given. If pressed I'd go with person in shades.
Yeah it does seem unnecessarily risky! :D
He does it in TLD too. Golden Gun, Moonraker... I can't be bothered to go through them all, but isn't it just a part of the series? I don't see what's tedious about it. Conflict is the source of drama.
Which films hit the top spots when Bond fans vote on it? Casino Royale and On Her Majesty's.
Great discussion on these nominees! I sense a landslide winner but I shall let the academy vote! Welcome to some of our newer voters! Love adding new voices to the academy.
When I said it "started with LTK" I was referring to the "going rogue" trope which is connected: Bond is so personally driven that he takes on the mission for himself and not as his duty. EON has gone overboard with this idea during the last decades.
I don´t really mind a personal story if it´s done well, far from it. However, we seem to have stumbled into a corner now where every single villain has to have had some history related to MI6 or Bond himself, and where a straight mission seems to be intolorable. The whole idea loses some of its purpose. My favorite dessert is a home made créme brulée. I always make it for special occations and when I eat it it feels like a celebration. However, if had a créme brulée every day, it would lose some of its magic and sense of festiveness. It is the same with the "personal angle" and Bond "going rogue". It´s not unusual or special anymore. It has become a tedius staple.
I don't mind the touches of it listed in some of the examples above, but not overwhelming it as we've had for numerous movies now. I think of Bond needling the villain or the small actions such as Bond's killing of knife-throwing twin Greshka in OP with the line "That's for 009" or saying to Scarmanga, "I admit killing you would be a pleasure." I find those so much more effective than "I never miss" in TWINE for instance.
Also tired of the DB5. Fresh and welcome in GE. Nice little surprise in CR. I may have been the only person who say indifferent and not particularly enthused at the reveal scene in SF.
We need to be careful what we mean when we talk about attitudes to women (trope 5 on the list). There is a distinction to be made between (A) the films’ attitude to women and (B) Bond’s attitude to women. Bond is a character in fiction and like all such characters his attitudes do not necessarily reflect the attitudes of the authors of that fiction. If he behaves in ways that viewers do not approve of, that is not necessarily a fault, because it makes the audience think about behaviour. If fiction can only include characters who are morally upright then fiction would be very boring. But if the actual film appears to treat women as objects (I’m thinking of scenes like Jill St John in the second half of DAF) then I find that more difficult.
Anyway the trope I choose is the DB5. I do not understand why it has to be in Craig’s films at all.
- This time it’s personal: the plot reason for this is that it raises the stakes in the film, it makes the plot more urgent and tense
- Guy in dark shades: this has a plot purpose too, it increases a sense of mystery and threat
- Treatment of women: this reveals character, which is vital for any good story
- Bond is dead: this drives the plot forward too, and it can also reveal character, in that it shows the efforts Bond must make to get back to anything like normal (eg Skyfall)
-DB5: er, what reason does it actually serve? What purpose does it have? Why not use a Lotus Esprit instead?
Can be looked at as a staple like the PPK and the martini. Or not.
Good point about the PPK. I hate when they try to modernize Bond's carry with the P99.
But with the car, I'd rather they kept using more modern Astons instead of always using the DB5... interesting.
You might also be referring to Bond ordering a different bottle of champagne than the one on M's shopping list in TLD, but I don't know.
It sounds pretty good when you put it like that.
I don't think he goes rogue in CR (disobeys a couple of orders and leaves the service, but no personal missions), QoS (he goes on the run for about a minute in the hotel before she basically gives him her blessing), Sf (not at all), and yes, he's rogue at the beginning of Spectre.
In MWTGG it's about as personal a mission as it could possibly be(!) and he's not working for the SIS, no. In Moonraker he's ordered off the case by the Minister and has to go on the mission unofficially.
If either of those had happened in the last couple of films you'd probably be counting them! :)
In Spectre he's given the go-ahead by the previous M, so that shouldn't count either ;)
He defies his direct orders to kill both of them, yes. Jobo specified 'defying orders'. He knows Pushkin and doesn't believe he'd do it.
Do we have to start including all the times he needed to avenge the obligatory sacrificial lambs in that as well?
Bond's treatment of woman -- At its worst in the early 70s, but much improved since then, despite a few glitches along the way.
The DB-5 is everywhere -- Certainly annoying. The Bond films should be making us fantasize over modern dream-cars, not shamelessly relying on nostalgia. Ultimately though this is a minor annoyance.
The person in shades and behaving suspiciously is really the ally -- Corny but fun, and I don't know if it'll happen again.
James Bond is dead...no we mean it this time -- I don't mind it too much. The character is unkillable by time and man, so having him die over and over again sort of makes sense. An allegory for Bond's regenerative staying power?
This time the mission is personal... -- The winner. This trope has been humped to death by the recent Bond films. I would love for Bond 26's marketing tagline to be "This time it's impersonal!" There is a difference between Bond getting emotionally involved in a case and getting personally involved, but that has gotten blurred. This is the only trope that is actively harming the series and needs to be curtailed, so it gets the Klebbie.
Whether it's official or not, M knows what he is doing. And in TMWTGG he is officially given the mission as soon as he reports back that Scaramanga is involved in the Solex agitator business. In MR he ends up at Mi6's South American base, and is sent off again on a mission to find Drax.
So no, neither example is anything like in LTK.
If you are trying to claim disobeying orders in TLD is akin to Bond either 'going rogue' or being as personally involved as he is in the Craig era then you're grasping at straws.
But I get your point overall. He's not always strictly on a mission. But clearly the Craig era is something else - culminating in NTTD.
It is never really explained why he chooses to investigate the ELLIPSIS clue in Casino Royale. But the fact is that he does even if M's orders are to go on holiday and "stick his head in the sand somewhere". What drives him? Is it to remedee his mistake? To show his worth as an agent? Or is it simply a case of moral responsibility? I don't know, but he obviously has to be quite driven in order to put his life on the line.
In Skyfall his initial choice is to "stay dead", not reporting his whereabouts, leaving his old job and life in London behind. Only when he receives the news that MI6 is under attack does he decide to "report for duty". He could very easily have chosen not to. Why would he continue risking his life? Another case where his actions are decided by his personal drive and motives; first to stay away, then to return when his country needed him too.
To me the PPK will always have its place alongside bigger firearms when Bond needs it, like assaulting the villain's lair.
I understand getting tired of the DB5, five films in a row. But on the other hand I wouldn't miss any Aston Martin
Anyway, I'd have to go with this time it's personal for my vote on this round.
One thing that didn't seem to make a lot of sense to me, maybe you know more about it, is in Skyfall Q gives him what he says to be a "PPK/S 9mm", and I did a small amount of research on this, and I think I turned up that the PPK/S was developed specifically for the US market to adhere to size requirements? If so it wouldn't make much sense for Bond to be issued this specific gun, would it?
Dug this up:
https://www.crossbreedholsters.com/blog/walther-ppk-ppks/
PPK/S, where the S stands for "Sport", was a response to a change in US Import regulations.
No, no he's not.
I also hated this in The Dark Knight Rises.