My Bond friend and I are pretty much in agreement that, say what you will about the Bond series – it certainly has its ups and downs – the EON company has been an incredible shepherd of the Bond franchise. Do you agree or disagree? Here’s my top reasons why I’m glad this is a family owned business:
They have absolutely nailed the casting of each new Bond. Stellar job in this regard.
Bond films continue to be an “EVENT” in the theaters. I love that I have to WAIT between Bond films. I can only imagine what a movie studio would do – a la what Disney has done to Star Wars & Marvel: a movie a year (or more), sequels, spinoffs, and endlessly watered down TV/streaming shows. No thanks. I like Bond to be something special.
While I wouldn’t say they are “leading” the action genre any more (that probably stopped somewhere in the Moore era) – they are savvy enough to stay on trend and keep the franchise relevant.
The Broccolis (by all accounts) run a class act. I am so glad we are spared stories of in-fighting and people being treated like crap. Seems to be a real family culture – and I think it shows in the films.
The amount of films wasn’t their fault. They DID put out films on a regular basis when MGM actually had money, but MGM kept being surprised they were broke every few years
I’m very grateful to the James Bond fandom. We can disagree while being respectful to each other. That’s one thing that Bond fandom has over other fandoms. I’m always interested to other’s James Bond opinions. Let’s always be kind. We are one of the luckiest fandoms in the world. Let’s always be appreciative of each other. Most franchises burn out. Bond hasn’t, and probably never will at this point. It’s because of respectful fans that this has happened. Please respect each other, it is shown. We are lucky.
As for EON, they generally know what the fans want, yet can still surprise us. They still have some surprise in store for us, for a while to come. Amazon owning part of Bond can be a mixed bag, but I think that movies (and possibly books from IFP) will come at a faster pace. EON will always be thinking of us and we should be grateful for that.
If we have a solid Bond actor there’s a desire to have more of a good thing. It’s been shown with Craig that even if it takes over a decade they’re willing to give five or so films to an incumbent, which is a decent tenure any way you slice it. And which is possibly the number they were always going to make, just stretched out over a longer period of time.
Contrast that with the Star Wars fandom, for example, one of the most toxic fandoms. I hate talking Star Wars with almost anybody because of the vitriol that comes out.
The fandom is arguably why George Lucas sold Star Wars. Now, they complain if it’s similar or too different from the original trilogy or what they thought it would be. Thankfully though, Michael and Barbara are no Kathleen Kennedy with their films.
They literally complain about everything. Making a Star Wars movie or show or whatever is a Lose-Lose proposition. No matter what you do, Star Wars fans are predetermined to hate it. It makes being a Star Wars fan not fun. I’ve made it no secret that I’m not a fan of the JJ Abrams Star Wars films. TFA is a shameless remake of the original and ROS is, in my opinion, one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. However, if others like them, then great. I wish I enjoyed them as much as others. However, when I say that I like TLJ far more than the other 2 films, all I get is insulted.
The difference being you don’t blame the films themselves for the fact 40 years have passed. Something Star Wars fans seem stuck on. Bond fans seem to be much better at accepting that time has passed.
I’d argue Bond fans are far too much on the other end of things , I’ve almost never seen any sort of constructive criticism for any decisions that EON has taken .
Every questionable decision seems always to be attributed to P&W, which I find quite amusing .
But doesn’t that assume the films have been bad (btw we do live in a world where The Room and Birth of a nation don’t exist. Saying objectively bad on something you don’t like is probable hyperbole) QOS and Spectre are better than most films. Not being perfect shouldn’t be a damnation. The best Bond films could hope for, pre-Craig, was “meh, it exists, it’s a Bond film so whatever”
No it does not at all assume that the films are bad, quite the opposite. You can love the series while having criticisms for certain elements or decisions taken by EON. Otherwise it’s all just an echo chamber.
While I’m guilty of criticizing Purvis and Wade, if there’s one Bond writer that gets overhated is the Bond continuation authors. Basically, writing a James Bond story is the most thankless Bond job there is. Ian Fleming admitted he could make mistakes. Despite what he thought of himself, even Richard Maibaum made mistakes too. He just tended to blame others, for “not understanding” his scripts. At times, his ego could be as bad as George Lazenby’s. Thankfully, EON knew not to use him every time. But we’ve had more good writers than bad writers. I’d be interested to have Phoebe Waller-Bridge come back. EON always thankfully has a backup plan.
Well, I’d counter that by saying P&W did Die Another Day, but they also did Casino Royale. P&W didn’t do much of QoS or SP (the brother angle that is heavily derided by fans didn’t come from them). But they did do Skyfall and No Time To Die. I would say that the Bond fan community is not anywhere nearly as openly hostile to the Bond franchise and everyone who makes the film as say Star Wars fans. I love all of the films (well maybe not so much Never Say Never Again) and will watch them all, even the quote-unquote bad ones. I play all of the games, even the bad ones. I read all of the novels I can, though I haven’t finished the Gardner run and I definitely have what you would consider constructive criticism for those and I don’t even really blame Gardner for the drop in quality of his later entries. What I’m trying to say, is that I like the general positivity amongst the Bond fandom as opposed to um other far more toxic fandoms. cough cough Star Wars
I know we in the Bond Community can at least disagree while being respectful of each other. There are a few bad apples (one that unfairly threatened Raymond Benson, for not writing their way), but here and the other Bond forum that I post to, we are respectful of each other. As for Star Wars fans, they’ve actually ruined lives (Ahmed Best, Jake Lloyd, Kelly Marie Tran) to the point their own careers suffered because of personal reasons. We haven’t done that to James Bond alumni. Let’s keep it that way.
