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"When I said to bring it back in one piece I wasn't talking about YOUR piece, 007."
"It's the most reliable field equipment I've got... better than the Beretta I used to be attached to."
Female M obviously works perfectly fine. And tbh, I'm not completely sold on Ralph Fiennes' M.
What I prefer not to happen is that Bond does get romantically (physically) involved with any of the 'home team'. With Spectre they already took it too far with Moneypenny if you ask me.
I guess maybe on reflection I’d like a female M: there’s no reason Dane Judi should be a one-off. M is a bit easier to cast than Q in a way: M’s basic traits don’t need to change, but because Q is basically a comedy character you need to find a new gag. I thought they did that really well with Whishaw, but I have no idea where they can go next. They’re cleverer at writing these things than I am though!
Bond: "I'll try and bring it back."
Q: "No, don't bother. It's just version one beta. Early prototype."
Bond: "Well, where's the upgrade?"
Q: "Oh I gave it to 009."
The casting of CR was just spectacular. Confident and right in every role.
This…
Yes Menzies is always great to watch. Shame he couldn't have been part of the team from there but I guess he was probably busy.
What does another female M bring to the party? I thoroughly enjoyed Judi Dench as M, but I don't want that again. The woman with balls bigger than a man's is way past cliché. I want fresh characters, not imitations of characters past. That's reinvention. No doubt a tall order, but when you take a breath for five years for reinvention, then you need to come back with reinvention. Maybe. Hopefully, EON will.
100% agreed. That's why if Ralph Fiennes comes back as M, the least EON can do is make him Sir Miles. And above all, NOT have him connected to the main villain(s) or the villain's plot. That's one thing that EON needs to do for reinvention.
What does another male one bring? Being a woman isn’t a gimmick, 50% of people are women. They don’t all have the same personality.
Cheers, in before I could say that and nicely put.
I'd like to see this - I'd love more women who are just colleagues and friends. One of my favourite minor characters in Bond is Rosika Miklos in TLD, because she has the sort of straight, respectful working relationship with Bond that's usually reserved for the lads.
+1.
How about a non-binary M? That would be different.
Why not discuss that next?
Would you rather Craig's Mi6 crew return OR a new set of actors for the new guy?
In previous films the Mi6 crew was the only constant. Even though the actors playing Bond changed, Mi6 stayed which lead fans to believe that the same Bond that was played by Connery was the same Bond played by Moore. Even from Moore to Dalton only Moneypenny changed. Brosnan saw a new M and a new Moneypenny. Then with Craig everyone changed except for M. Though we were told it was a new character.
But with Craig's Bond dead, does it make more sense to recast everyone and start fresh? Or should the gang stay to help make the transition to the new fella less chaotic. At least with the Craig crew you are giving the audience some familiarity.
What do you say, what would you rather EON do? Feel free to cast the new folks or give us your passionate reasons for retaining the Craig crew!
So I prefer a fresh Mi6 team for Bond 7, even if I would have liked some of the old faces to return.
Other than being your usual snarky, smart ass self, anything to add to the discussion of another female M? As I said in the rest of my post, I would like to see someone who brings something new to the role. Would you like to add to that discussion?
Here's your full post:
If you were trying to say that you'd like a new female, or indeed male M as long as they brought something new to the role then you chose all the wrong words, because I and several others very much took it to mean that you were suggesting that another female M would by definition be exactly the same as Dench's and be clichéd as such and that you were against the idea. You very much picked out the idea of a female M being the one which would need to be reinvented rather than the male.
I don't really want to add to the discussion as we've moved on to another subject now.
Yeah, I think a new team as they're so associated with Craig's Bond, but if they did the same thing as last time and kept Fiennes on playing a different version of M I wouldn't be upset by that; I also wouldn't if they got someone new.
Yeah, I'm confident that they could find a new bunch of top actors as they managed it last time, but I do really like the old bunch so I'd be happy to see Whishaw as Q again, for example as he's great, and like yourself I'm happy to ignore continuity if it means we get something or someone great. But I think even ignoring the continuity thing, they'd probably just feel a bit wrong with a new Bond as they kind of grew as a team with Craig's Bond.
Yeah, I think she could do that. Kind of bittersweet in a way as Lois Maxwell did say a few times in the early/mid 90s that she wanted to play M when the Bond series came back, it would have been pretty fun. And then they did actually do a female M so she must've felt like she missed out!
To be honest, that’s exactly what I’m struggling with. On the one hand, it makes the most sense to keep the team firmly rooted in the Craig era, which is now over. On the other hand, we’ve invested time and backstory in Harris’s Moneypenny, Whishaw’s Q, and Fiennes’s M—it would be a shame to lose all of that.
Take Mallory, for example. He was introduced as one of “the suits,” yet he didn’t hesitate to pick up a gun and confront the bad guys. He clearly didn’t give a damn about the rules when it came to stopping Silva. We were told about his past, but Skyfall actually showed us that side of him, adding depth to his character. That layer of backstory makes his mission against C in Spectre more compelling to me.
These may seem like small details, but I’ve grown particularly fond of them. Of course, I understand that in the next Bond era, films like Skyfall and Spectre will essentially be erased from continuity, which renders my point moot. But subconsciously, I’d probably carry some of my affection for these versions of the characters into the new films, no matter what.
Or maybe I just hate the thought of losing them. Quite frankly, Harris, Whishaw, and Fiennes have many more years of great performances ahead of them. They could easily fill the shoes of Maxwell, Llewelyn, and even legends like Lee and Dench. We’re talking about seasoned, talented actors—one of whom could’ve been a Bond girl, and one of whom could’ve been Bond himself. I love the dynamic of this team; No Time to Die feels too soon to retire them.
But if this is the end, so be it. I’ll always treasure the charisma, freshness, and diversity they brought to their roles. Small though those roles may be, they left a lasting impression on me.
All other considerations aside, age and health would probably prevent this.
The Craig incarnation of Bond, in it's entirety, is closed, done; the next incarnation now has a clean slate. I want an all new cast.