I’ll go you one better: I don’t give a crap about Bond’s background, either. Just give him a mission already and nevermind excavating the past and indulging in psychoanalysis. The more I learn about “how he became Bond,” the less impressed I am that he IS Bond.
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For a long time that was also how Fleming handled the backstory; there just wasn’t any to speak of (until You Only Live Twice).
He likely imagined himself in Bond’s shoes - though sometimes he seemed to think of Bond more as a Commando type he encountered during the war, one he didn’t get on with particularly well - but he never felt the need to tell his readers about it. Bond just was, case closed.
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Backstory. Prequel. Origin story.
It‘s all just another expression for:
- cashgrab
- lack of ideas
- no knowledge of how to start and end a great story
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Q as tech geek makes sense, and a nice shift away from military Q.
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September 29.
You. Do. New. Now.
A sufficiently clear Key Performance Indicator, one hopes.
Today’s choices from the 2006-2021 series, the only “Bond” there is:
- There’s this gunbarrel thing and you can do what you want with it and where it appears.
- The production must persistently announce its presence with something show-offy; “single” shot, black & white, hyper-editing, filmed through treacle, stuff like that.
- Bond’s background is unutterably fascinating and not just a means of fluffing the “script”.
- Big red hot NO rammed with vigour and zeal right up where the Sun shineth not.
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voters
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If we’re really bringing this Bond guy back, big if, and if we’re really doing it in the spirit of the only Bond there ever was - evidently necessary since there’s no other spirit we could take inspiration from - then there’s only the gunbarrel thingy to put something like a trademark on and being creative about it and honour the legacy of our great venture.
And if we’re really lucky enough to do more than a single reanimation of the carcass we might as well learn from the best: The Simpsons.
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I‘m going for no since that word has prolonged every studio executive‘s career. Also, on a message board it is as intoxicating as a bad review, and it makes me feel so superior.
Okay, here we go. No to…
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the gun barrel: we put it everywhere, at the beginning of the titles, at the end, at the beginning of the film… well, we did not try in the middle, okay. Or after a love scene, but that would be too Hitchcockian - or is it rather Hitchcocoonian in these delicate times? People don’t seem to care anyway, only the handful of „fans“, and it does not make sense to see Bond through a gun barrel (have you ever tried to look through one, it’s disgusting) and even lesser sense to have him fire a bullet exactly into it and have the gun holder bleed through everything? That’s so absurd. Then again, so is having an agent going rogue more than once before he is considered a target himself instead of a hero.
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Bond‘s back story: Orphan. Military man. Marriage wrecker. Marriage wrecked. Wow, that’s so much. Can we make at least ten prequels of it? Or… what‘s my favourite word? No. Boundaries, you know? Let‘s just reference it umpteenth times in every film until people can start a drinking game about it.
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Visual STYLE. You know the sort of thing audiences don’t notice nor care about, only the critics who feel intelligent when their bit of film school or books about it pays off with recognizing a camera move. Wouldn‘t it be enough to be able to see what‘s going on in a professional manner? And why build the sets and waste hours of lighting if the sleepy guy at the color grading consule turns everything orange anyway? The director will be ecstatic to call it his intention when in reality he begged the producers to have another go, only to be told he used up almost too much of the money they have already repurposed for their lear jets.
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This? 
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I liked the moving gun barrel, but it helped that it went back to its traditional place in the last 2 with just a very small change.
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I think we’ve hit on the perfect way to introduce a new element while porting over several “great” traditions from the Craig era:
- gunbarrel in the wrong place
- over-reliance on the DB5
- too much screen time for the “office” crew
- “cleverly” styled location titles when we go to new places
- dodgy CG
Stay with me, here’s my idea: Whenever it’s time for the plot to take us to a new location, the gunbarrel sequence appears. Inside the little dot, Bond’s figure walks on and fires at us. The gunbarrel is rendered with CG, as is the bullet, but as the bullet reaches us, we see it is not a bullet at all but a silver Aston Martin DB5, and the “barrel” doubles for a highway tunnel. Bond is behind the wheel, and in the passenger seat is either M, Q or Moneypenny, holding up a placard with something written on it. As we zoom in through the windscreen, we see the writing on the placard is the name of the next location. Then we get a wipe transition as the new scene takes the shape of the dripping “blood” until it fills the screen and we are there, wherever “there” is.
Babs, I’m waiting for my check.
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All hail @stromberg!
Gun barrel as Batman twirl is genius!
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September 30.
What a month it’s been for you on your personal journey to seek validation via the approval of anonymous persons on “the” internet.
Some of the past four weeks or so you spent as Barbara Broccoli, although I don’t think you were meant to eat that lipstick and it is only correct that you meet the dry cleaning bill, given that… thing you … did.
Last go round the whirling dervish of decision-making until autumnal mists drive you back into your warren. You’ve tried responsibility and accountability and it’s been too heavy a crown to bear. Best to scuttle away and leave your droppings for others to pick apart and study. I did mention that dry cleaning bill, didn’t I?
Today’s final choices for homaging THE ONLY BOND THERE’S EVER BEEN:
- This “James Bond” might be a man to admire but not to aspire to be, for his life is just horrible.
- “James Bond” must appear semi-naked in every film and his body must be the subject of camera-fetish.
- If you are are woman in this World, your chances of survival are patchy, at best.
- Not one single sodding second of these please, although I suspect at least one of them will happen.
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voters
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Still sticking with No - maybe because I want to keep on feeling superior knowing I’ll never be that, but complaining on a message board masking my own shortcomings seems to be the best way to self-medicate.
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Female characters are likely to die in a Bond film? That’s pretty unavoidable with our “hero” being a blunt state-sanctioned assassin, only pining for those with big breasts and/or tooth gaps, letting the others walk the plank whenever he is through with them. Will we have more of that? Why not, I say. But these days throw in a few men as well to keep the enlightened happy. And since this is a visual medium killing off only pretty people might be advisable, too. Cruel world, isn’t it? At least people like me would survive then. Yay! - But seriously (oh, no): how else to make the villain really despicable and dangerous if not one or two we care for / love to ogle have to go?
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Admire Bond but not aspire to be? I never did. My life is dangerous enough with visits to the doctor, the supermarket, taking part in public transportation or driving a car, visiting family, paying taxes, asskissing bosses etc. I don’t need steel-tooth assassins or petty stepbrothers, too. - But again, seriously (yawn): I would love to enjoy Bond again, and that does not include him feeling troubled and sulking and already preparing to be a goner.
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Semi-naked and camera-fetish? Please. Haven’t we seen enough bodybuilders in the last two decades posing as leading men? I certainly did. (Didn’t help me admiring them, noticing the difference to my own aging ass.) I never yearned for seeing Moore take off his shirt, and it did not take away from my enjoyment of his Bond. (There’s no double meaning in that.) Connery only stripped down on the beach, so that was okay. Lazenby, well I forget what Lazenby did (except wearing a kilt). Dalton was too busy being a Secret Agent (“Sod it, I’m not stripping for you, I’m already baring my soul here”, and thankfully at that time men still looked like men and not comic book heroes, with no personal trainer job in sight), and Brosnan… I won’t talk about Brosnan here again. A parting gift to you, Jim, for this last Sideswipes of September 2024.
So, I can only hope that this James Bond series of five films will continue but continue differently. Very differently. Been there, done that. Feel free, Babe and Mike, feel refreshed and unburdened by what’s come before. Amazon will complain any way. And since this time no UA/MGM crash will make you readjust to a new partner (Amazon will be there forever… and ever… and ever… and…), it would be just too much fun to annoy them with interesting takes on Bond even or rather because they won’t reimburse them with enough money.
Or even better: tank Amazon with huge losses by making Bond a fully clothed spy with no big action scenes but really well written stories which only appeal to adults over 50.
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So glad I can put away my Barbara Broccoli drag mantle (by Loro Piana, exclusively via 007.com and a catch for just £ 97.000; comes with a squeaky chewy toy for your bloodhound and a bag of vegan - sort-ish; no animal meat in this stuff - treats for your shark tank). It’s quite comfy to wear but the heels are murder on my knees. But I digress…
NO it is, to all of it. But the sad truth is, the longer Bond is absent from our current entertainment landscape, the greater the chance his return will likely be as generic and lowest-common-denominator as humanly possible. Boosted and pimped by Amazon’s GDP for Q4 (any Q4). It will likely be the cinematic equivalent to Rings of Power, just larger and more expensive.
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Oh, my, you‘re so right…
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If I voted otherwise, my gay card would have been revoked.
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I have to ask: what was the appeal of the mostly fully clothed Bonds before Craig?
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Probably the same, only society wasn’t used to seeing men unclothed. Remember that Davidoff Cool Water campaign back in ‘88? That was probably the first time the male body was objectified as a fetish in the mainstream. From that point onwards the idea seeped deeper into society’s subconscious.
But, crucially perhaps, the moment Lazenby undresses in his hotel room in that frilly (stretchy?) shirt already anticipates that trend. Hunt made the most of Lazenby’s physique for the time and the theme of the film.
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For me, the most appealing were Moore Bond (with his MR outing being the peak), and Connery Bond of DAF. I think it was the stylish way they went about their tasks that attracted me.
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I don’t know
I think Connery’s physique was fetishised by Terrence Young from Dr No onwards, Hamilton used it in a different way, Lewis Gilbert wasn’t comfortable with fetishism of the male torso ( less so with the female one)
Young uses Connery’s body more than Craig’s was used but in a similar way.
With Lazenby there was an attempt to utilise the body in the same way as Connery, perhaps it was a combination of director(s) and both Moore and Dalton, but there is a marked shift away from Bond as a physical object of desire and more of a trope ( it is there but we don’t show ) I think both Glen and Gilbert were uncomfortable filming Bond as a physical object of attraction.
When Campbell directed Goldeneye, I think he understood that Bond has to be fetishised has to appear as an object of desire as much as the female counterparts in the Movies.
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