It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Funny. The word "woke" shows up a lot, and I'm not sure anyone can explain to me what it means anymore. It seems to be a placeholder for a long list of things people don't want to see imposed on Bond. But why not outright state them? No LBGTQ+ Bond? No gay Q? No female 'M'? ... I'm not trying to start a fight. I simply keep reading the cryptically used word "woke" when people may as well spell out what they don't want to see. That at least can keep the discussion going, whereas "woke" is typically used to elicit an angry response from people in disagreement and an affirming response from like-minded people.
It's just a buzz word and lazy shorthand for a perceived overt political correctness "gone mad." Another word that's similarly overused these days is "fascism". Quite frankly it's thrown about so much nowadays that it's lost much of its original meaning. Fascism was a political philosophy which originated in Italy from D'Annunzio in his occupation of Fiume and more famously from Mussolini and which derived from the fasces, the bundle of rods with an axe up the middle carried by the lictors of Ancient Rome as a symbol of state authority. German Nazism was its most extreme example but most of Europe was fascist at one point or another between 1922 and 1945. But there has been no proper fascist state since the end of World War II in 1945. It was a political experiment than failed and brought inevitable massive destruction to people and nation states.
Of course fascism is nowadays (quite rightly) a pejorative term and really only shorthand for "bad" and "evil" and basically "everything I don't agree with". But like all words that are overused it has become diluted down and now means very little and tells us very little as well about what the person using it means to say. It's little more than an insult now. The terms "woke" and "wokeism" are in the same overused and diluted state as "fascism" has been for many years. It's in the graveyard of words that, without further clarification, now mean virtually nothing.
You're the one who started on an obnoxious political rant when this discussion is about James Bond.
Well, I don't see Mr. Beez as one who'd enjoy starting a war, but he'd be okay with Mr. Orange doing it. As long as there are profits to be made... exclusive broadcasting rights & all.....
My sentiments exactly.
I keep looking at what Disney has done to the Star Wars franchise and wonder if the Bond franchise will be going through a similar situation which can be a good or bad thing for the brand.
It's quite simple actually, woke in this context is the shortest and best way to describe the perverse pandering to whatever needs pandering to. Often self sabotaging productions to forcefully make them as 'inclusive' as possible, often thematically crippled. For years now it comes across as an unwanted doctrine, which treats audiences as a bunch of infantiles that need re-educationing. It's downright belittling, whereas the productions themselves (e.g. Star Wars, Rings of Power) become hollow shells of either the source material/lore
Again, no idea what you’re on about. I said that I think it’s unlikely we’ll get anything but a white 007 and explained my reasoning for that, nothing exists in a vacuum.
Are you American?
Does that mean they’ve got black people or women in?
Mtm being silly mtm again.
/ignore
You're really going there again, time and time again, you never change. Your 'question' misses the mark and is beside the point I've conveyed.
Hurr durr does it have black people and women innit. Hurr durr.
Time to ignore you.
Worst case: we get creatives in who can make a polished film with all the Bond tropes, but we lose what makes Bond the character we know, or the movies the films we know, at least in the short term. In the long term we get diminishing returns and a lack of interest.
I'm sure Amazon can create a successful Bond film in the short term financially speaking (although never say never - they've made some absolute rubbish). But for me that's what my concerns about the next era will boil down to.
I wonder if the worst case is even: they make a couple of films which do okay but not great and then just drop 007 completely because they have something new, and the series ends.
I guess the thing with MGM is they have pretty much nothing else as regards franchises, but the situation may change.
I suspect it'd eventually come back in that case in film form, but who knows (there's a lot of factors in that scenario I don't know about - would EON still owning it's chunk of Bond make a difference in that case? Who would Amazon eventually sell their share of Bond or keep them? etc)
Today we have companies that feel they must state what side of things they agree with. The problem is that companies are just that companies. They are out for a porfit and they will go whichever way the wind blows. They end up virtue signaling and not really meaning what they say. For they know when a new sheriff comes to town they will need to either appease the new guy or risk losing out on tax breaks and corporate welfare.
Companies sucked up to Biden. They suppressed stories for him, they fact checked people and they censored folks. They created DEI sections and showed the world how much they treasured those principles.
Then a new guy comes in, out goes the fact checkers, dismantling of DEI was next and now they are showing the world another side.
The better route for a company to take is to remain neutral. Cubby was smart to never allow politics into Bond. He famously rejected a screen treatment for Spy for that very reason. I hope the new creative takes stock of that and keeps the politics out of the next Bond!
It's Bezos' Amazon, and Bond is just about the most visible thing they have now, especially to you-know-who, so like it or not they'll be being mindful of that.
They were not political in the sense of they did not use states as the villains but they were definitely political in that they existed in the context of the anxieties of their moments. It will be interesting to see how Amazon does or does not deviate from that point. Would an Elliot Carver villain exist?