I finished the main story. Itâs one of the greatest Bond stories of the last 30 years! It was truly made by Bond fans for everyone, Bond fan or not. Some takeaways: Is this the first non-book or radio appearance of Loelia Ponsonby? When I first saw her, I knew that some Bond fans were in charge! I liked that the writing seemed so fresh in the game. I hope these writers come back for the next game. More of my opinions to come, but I think this game in particular is the shot in the arm James Bond as a whole needed. Hopefully, new fans have become hooked with Bond and his adventures. James Bond HAS returned to gaming, and we couldnât have asked for better. Hopefully, it will sell more copies than GE 007 N64, only because it deserves too. Also, I hope that this gets a novelization, because like Everything or Nothing and Bloodstone, nongamers deserve to enjoy this great story. First Light was worth the wait, I canât wait to see where it goes next. You could say that this is the âFirst Lightâ of promising Bond games to come.
Minor details about the 007 First Light music. Minor spoiler about one of the most famous themes in the 007 saga.
One minor shred of ânewsâ: German public broadcaster ZDF had First Light as one of their buying tips in their consumer segment of todayâs morning show. Meaning a significant push for the game in the mainstream market: parents and grandparents who donât know what to buy their offspring, as well as casual buyers who arenât necessarily into the entire gaming thing but willing to give it a try with 007.
These segments are available on ZDFâs mediathek (kind of an archive for public broadcasters) and usually pop up two to three times within the next two weeks on their daily schedule. Trust that other networks may pick up on First Lightâs success with the gaming community, too.
Iâm hoping that the gameâs reception (both critically and commercially) help to breed interest for a new generation of Bond fans. It seems like, lately at least, Bond has struggled with staying relevant due to the difficulty of the productions and the dearth of releases (films, books, and games included). Itâs time for a Bond resurgence and I think First Light is perfectly positioned to start it.
Agreed, especially on the books. Part of Bondâs appeal has always been that heâs a man of the moment, yet the literary side of things has been stuck in the past for the better part of the past couple of decades. It makes the franchise feel old and no doubt at least turns off some potential fans that could be brought in via the literary route, as small as that number ultimately might be anyway.
Theyâve built a solid foundation upon which to build for future Bond games. Theyâll need to make improvements for future releases, but the foundation is undeniably there, especially with the reception itâs received from gamers thus far. Hopefully they can build on it and liven the franchise up a bit, as the other segments of the franchise have felt rather stuck in the past for a while now.
If we look at the last few films the last one that brought a significant number of new fans to Bond was probably 2012âs SKYFALL, almost 15 years ago. And before that CASINO ROYALE a full 20 years in the past, almost a generation now. Sure, the other films of Craigâs run certainly attracted some younger folks*. But the main theme of the whole era was the comparatively tight continuity CR through NTTD. And if you werenât on board by SKYFALL it likely passed you without a ripple.
Looking at the literary side of things, that too produced several books by Faulks, Boyd and Horowitz aimed fairly at the centre of the already existing litBond fans. Projects aimed at breaking ground with new generations were, weirdly, Young Bond and Project X/Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver, both now decidedly closed cases. Kim Sherwoodâs OO trilogy is actually the first concept demonstrably intended to bring a new generation of fans into the fold.
Incidentally, I chatted with some friends of my neighbours during a garden party this weekend, one a production assistant for some tv producer - in her late 30s/early 40s? Anyway, young people - and while there are some casual fans amongst that age bracket none of them are anywhere near as invested as even the casual CBners. Some of their kids would be about 12 to 14. None of them are to any noteworthy extent interested in Bond.
I dare say out of that non representative small sample of 30 people nobody has watched a Bond film at the cinema in the last decade. That is a problem for the brand - and I suspect Eon was already quite aware of what was happening with 007, thatâs why they ordered First Light.
*as likely do the old films in their various streaming incarnations over the years. Like the old serials bring new fans to Flash Gordon.
Thereâs also that the continuity didnât really factor into it until Spectre, so those new fans that may have been gained with Skyfall probably went into this wondering why they were being asked to remember things from almost a decade ago from a film that some of them had never seen before.
The continuity between Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace is pretty tight and rewards the viewer over the course of those two films. Itâs then dropped for nearly a decade and old and new viewers alike are asked to pick it up again, which I would have to imagine didnât necessarily make things easier to both retain and attract further new fans to the franchise that came along due to the success of Skyfall
The biggest mistake was to space out the movies during the Craig tenure.
Yes, there were all those problems. But the âwe wait for Mendes, we wait for Craigâ-mindset wasted the momentum and cost too many potential fans who just went to see the continuing waves of Marvel.
Now, Bond is a bit like Sherlock Holmes. A relic of the past, resurrected in unpredictable intervals.
In a way, all that talk in the Craig era films about relevance became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If we compare Craigâs run to Mooreâs - not quite fitting since Craig started very strong - SKYFALL was Craigâs TSWLM moment, the point from which he was Bond (for that general audience). Only in Mooreâs case they tailored each following film to bring in fresh fans, not any more on TSWLM/MR level, but still aimed at attracting casual audiences each summer, the people who just wanted to have a good time with the most spectacular offerings at their cinema.
Craigâs last two films were aimed specifically at people who were already following him since 2006. And Iâd say his success at the box office masked the fact he lured few fresh fans to the franchise after SKYFALL. Craig didnât get a MOONRAKER. Instead, they first tried to give him a CR/QOS/SPECTRE trilogy, then tacked on a PART II to this (that was somehow supposed to work as OHMSS/YOLT inverted remake).
How is that supposed to interest new audiences? The answer is probably that Eon knew when to quit and bowed out at the perfect moment. Whatever we think of Amazon, itâs IMO right that we have a chance for clear slate and a complete relaunch of 007.
Absolutely. The long gaps in between the Craig era did hurt. Iâm guilty as much as anyone when it comes to brooding about the past. But ultimately I settle on the thought we can only move forward. This is the environment we find ourselves in. First Light is the first step in relaunching James Bond for a new audience and itâs doing as good as it can, IMO. But itâs not going to be enough on its own, which is why the movie must deliver.
And they compounded the problem even more by making the film that they did (Spectre), which is no way a suitable cap to a trilogy. We finally see the organization, but we see them sparingly, with the meeting scene in Italy being the only time they, as a group, appear as anything recognizable as an organization with any kind of reach or power. Aside from that, the film relies on a bureaucrat in London and the ten minutes or so that Waltz actually appears on screen to give Bond a villainous threat to operate against. Much like Spectre had in the previous Craig films (allegedly, anyway, since they werenât actually the antagonist of those films at the time) had operated silently and below anyoneâs radar, they continue to do that in the film where they are revealed as the villains, not really giving Bond or the audience a tangible threat to get invested in and feel as though thereâs urgency to stop them. All the truly horrendous things they do in Spectre happen off screen, and instead we are left to watch them perpetuate their villainy by casting a single vote while M looks around perplexed.
On top of all that dullness, they demand of the audience to remember what happened in a relatively unpopular film from almost a decade ago. Thatâs not how a trilogy should be capped.
SPECTRE made 880 million dollars. Seems there were enough fans.
What I find intriguing is what that relaunch will be from an oligarchâs production company that just cut ties to an almost completed film because it might offend another oligarch the company does business with. Be interesting to see the profile of the villain.
They are a tangible threat. Most threats in the world operate below the radar. In American politics, it is called âdark money.â What exactly is happening in the meetings Peter Thiel is convening?
Kubrick went from depicting this kind of historical threat:
to this contemporary one:
Blofeldâs desert base is not the AI data centers the oligarchs want to put in peopleâs backyards and homes. Be afraid (gift link):
Iâm not sure thereâs really a lot to learn if one was privy to such âsecretâ meetings. History teaches most of the sub rosa stuff behind closed doors tends to be dreadfully trivial, a mix of gossip, smears and neuroses with the odd nugget of hard fact that might be of technical interest for the military side of the intelligence community. And thatâs probably oftentimes something observers could already guess at by open source analysis and previous statements. What could a figure like Thiel utter that he and his team didnât already say in some interview or conference? Or by christening their tool âPalantirâ?
These people may style themselves in some end-of-days or tech-messiah scenario. But in the end they tend to be captives of their own fantasy world, not different from a basement dweller wasting their days on an ego shooter, just with more money to do it. Hannah Arendt wrote about the âbanality of evilâ - but not every banal thing needs to be a Wannsee Conference or lead to the announcement of a âspecial military operationâ. Even in those cases, one could either already guess where things were headed in 1942. Or just listen to RUSI if one didnât trust CIAâs - correct - assessment of Russiaâs invasion plans.
Oftentimes, we already know enough to assess a situation and decide on necessary measures. We just donât act on the knowledge.
Thatâs what would be Bondâs job. Acting on it.
But were there? Or was this mostly three quarters of the SKYFALL audience checking out the next CraigBond while a continuing building younger fanbase may have watched the film but shrugged it off as their dadâs idea of entertainment, with no desire to watch the next one.
Heck, I couldnât even bring my nephews to watch NTTD on free streaming, and they were in their early 30âs at that time. They had seen CR when they were kids, QOS and SF later on but already with not much enthusiasm. Bond was and remains for them a relic of cinemaâs past. Like Indiana Jones, by the way. They still are interested in Star Wars, though. But they prefer Episode 1-3. Weird.
Such wise youth. LOL.
Understandable. As you noted, Craigâs run as Bond went on too long to result in only five movies.
The fact that there are so many entry points helps.
Depends on how old they were when they encountered Episodes 1-3 (which improve film over film). Also, they had a Star Wars animated series.
My sweet spot for becoming a Bond fan ranged from DAF to MR. My love for that time period has sustained me for the subsequent four decades. Part of my love for SPECTRE stems from its Moore Bond touches, and how they light up dormant brain pleasure centers.
Yeah, thatâs it - they were 9 and 5 when Episode 1 was released. And they did not listen to me even back then.
Absolutely commendable. EON probably thought that fans like you or us, really, since we all probably love a particular era which sustains us even through the rockier times, would carry the series further than any regular release date.