September 26
Continuing the theme of inanimate objects, having yesterday considered the contribution of The Actor Pierce Brosnan, today’s vote for what goes into the bin is below.
The issue, such as it is, is not whether or not to use such things again in future (although the risk remains with these two) but which could be erased from the series to date without as much loss to the series as erasing the other would inflict:
0 voters
Well, this means I can’t chose! The explanation why to choose Brosnan is also very persuasive.
This one is easy: it doesn’t realy matter what gun he is using. General audience even has no clue what gun he has.
The DB5 is iconic and, among other things, made Goldfinger a classic.
Never liked the Aston
I don’t think the gun is important anymore.
But the Aston has been so annoyingly pushed into audiences‘ minds in order to help Craig into the CLASSIC BOND stratosphere.
Ironically the exact opposite of the Moore era which did not need the Aston at all.
After the over the top revival during Craig times I don’t need to see the Aston come back again.
So… keep the Walther.
Or bin them both.
Aston Martin may have been one of the iconic symbols of the Franchise (even brought back in the Craig Era), actually the Franchise did became successful and went further even without the presence of that car (hence, The Lotus Esprit, whom I would argue also became iconic, even the Invisible Car too).
But James Bond is not without his Walther PPK, that’s what makes him a secret agent in the first place, even though he could use different types of guns (he did in some occasions), but even in the symbol of 007, there’s that gun in that side, so what makes Bond is his gun, 007 is for me will be always associated with his gun (even Archer picked that type of gun as to parody Bond), so, for me, Walther PPK is an important aspect of Bond’s character, of what he is and his job.
Walther PPK or any type of gun, guns are essential to James Bond than cars, James Bond is not a racer or Supercar Blondie, he’s a secret agent who works for MI6.
The DB5 is an icon of the series, thanks to Goldfinger, and more than that a sort of short-hand symbol of “Bond gadgetry” in general. Having said that, its return in TB was inconsequential and not entirely necessary and the over-reliance on it in the Craig years borders on pitiful. No other Bond actor leaned so heavily on that crutch, and it’s a disservice to Craig to have assumed he couldn’t pull his own weight without stacking the deck.
At the end of the day, though, the PPK is nowhere near as iconic. It’s not as recognizable unless someone’s either a fan of Bond or guns and it was quietly replaced around 1983 or so without a lot of the audience even realizing it went away.
Soooo…if the question is which element is less central to the Bond mythos, the answer is the Walther. If the question is which element does Eon itself seem to need less as a security blanket in order to keep the films going, the answer is again the Walther. If the question is which can I live perfectly well without, the answer is both of them.
In what I think is the spirit of the question, I disarm myself of the Walther, but with the caveat that if bringing back the Walther was what it took to keep the DB5 from ever appearing in a future Bond film, I would gladly welcome it back. Of course under those conditions, I would also welcome back double-taking pigeons, slot machine-playing elephants, Jaws and Dolly make-out scenes and short, pink ties on 007.
Dump the Aston.
Frankly it had met the perfect demise in SF. Destruction of it and the ancestral home the perfect way to put a line under it all without in any way undermining or underplaying its part in franchise history.
Therefore its return in SP (don’t-put-the-boot-in, don’t-put-the-boot-in, methinks) is emblematic of all that is wrong with the franchise and its relationship with its own history, an inability to go deeper and beyond the obvious. I’m not hostile to callbacks - just the same one over and over. Sixty years has not left anything else of note to be referenced so obviously? My gosh, this whole thing is a piece of junk…
I’m blasting the Aston and wearing Silva’s self-satisfied grin as I do so.
Yes, but my take on these questions (and I may well be wrong) is that we’re being asked to decide what we want expunged retroactively from Bond history, as if we had a Tardis and could go back and pluck the debated items (or people) from the timeline, so they never happened at all. And in that reality, it wouldn’t matter how well or poorly the car’s destruction was handled in SF because it wouldn’t HAVE “its part in franchise history.”
I still think the car represents a net gain for the Bond mythos despite how sick I am of it by this point. I would never vote to remove it from GF because it’s so central an element to that film’s place in cultural history. Now, would I have been happy to move on and leave it confined to that film along with Oddjob, dead golden Jill and the laser vasectomy? Totally. But for GF, it’s perfect.
I think EON made all the right choices with the Moore era: no Aston, nothing that would recall Connery (yeah, yeah, the PTS of FYEO did use Blofeld but without naming him).
Let’s hope the tired tropes were used in the Craig era for one last round.
Ok, now you’ve gone one step too far. 
Definitely
New Bond, new car, no tuxedo etc.
Tuxedo he should have. Already in his suitcase, however.
September 27
Whose contributions go in the bin? Time for bin-bin.
0 voters
Michael G. Wilson has done a lot for this series over the years from screenwriting to producing, but it was Peter Hunt’s editing style over the first five films that helped put the James Bond series on the map and revolutionized the entire film editing industry. Hunt also gets brownie points for directing a great and pivotal 007 film in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and for helping select the unknown George Lazenby (the best of an admittedly rather poor finalist lot) to take over for the supposedly irreplaceable Sean Connery in the iconic role of James Bond–and going on to get a solid performance out of the acting rookie as well. No mean feat that.
Wilson has been more important and, I suspect (what more can one do on the internet), ongoing guide for so much longer.
I also like his screenwriting efforts.
Hunt was there, at the right time, but there were other great editors with more influence and more consistent directing abilities. Well, at least there was one.
Sorry, Mr. Hunt.
Hunt was imported with his edititing, directed one of my favorite all time Bondmovies,
but the contributions of Wilson is much longer. First of all he helped Albert Broccoli with the legal issues between 1974-1977 and in the eighties he started a writting partnership with Maibaum and they wrote together all screenplays for the Bondmovies from the eighties, often using parts and bits from the Fleming novels, most of the time with great results. And ofcourse he was/is a great help for Barbara Broccoli producing the movies together.
Goodby, Mr. Hunt.
My original instinct was to keep Hunt. He was an important part of the team that birthed the whole cinematic thing, and set a style that has been aped ever since.
But…WIlson has been part of a group that have kept the whole thing afloat, through some choppy times, some changing times, while tastes have evolved, while the landscape has been far wider and deeper than the one the franchise first stepped into.
While we’ve spent decades (I’ve been around for a couple of iterations of this very site) debating some of the choices, one can’t argue that Wilson has played a large hand in adapting, updating, and keeping fresh the whole thing, without losing too much of the essence of what it was founded on.
A bit like CBn, one might say…
For September 28
BIN! Do it, y’hear. Do it or you’re in the bin. I have now spake.
0 voters
Shirley Bassey, there are many singers who could’ve done her part.
But Guy Hamilton is what made the Goldfinger, now it would’ve been different had it been held by a different director and it wouldn’t led to the Bondmania.
Quality wise, Shirley Bassey still remained consistent in her quality of singing, while Guy Hamilton deteriorated in quality.
But regardless, it’s Hamilton who made the golden goose, without him, the Bond Franchise wouldn’t be in the same situation as it is today.
Goldfinger is what opened the doors of success to the Franchise and introduced James Bond to the world, it made Bond a star, an icon.
Shirley Bassey became a great contributor to the Franchise, but the Franchise could also live without her, so I’m putting Bassey in the bin (but I wouldn’t take her out, just keep her there 
).