I would say that they are necessary. The open question is to what extent should they be involved in the narrative. Bond films have worked with them when minimally, moderately, or maximally involved.
I could imagine that once the new Bond is established, there being a streaming series of Bond adventures that feature just Bond, with cameos from supporting characters. Also, those supporting characters have their own series, with cameo appearances from Bond.
A good deal will depend on the audienceâs desire/need for nostalgic entertainment.
She displayed such arrogance, and need for control and being listened to. Clearly, she disregarded the memo outlining proper etiquette for female producers in the Age of the Oligarchs.
âThe problem with the Bond [franchise] is that they canât get a good villain that works. In my opinion, they havenât had a villain that worked in a very, very long time.â
CR, QOS, and in the case of just Q, LALD, would indicate otherwise. If they are to be involved, it should be to the smallest extent possible, an appearance so short that audience members turn to each other and ask âWas that Moneypenny?â
I refuse to believe that someone would walk out of an otherwise great Bond film and be upset that Q and Moneypenny didnât make an appearance.
Well, I remember a number of people - some longtime fans amongst them - who did just that after CASINO ROYALE. It was by no means the majority, or even a significant portion of the general audience. But for some these things are god-given integral parts of their very own personal Book of the Holy Church of Bond.
I think Amis maybe defined the role of Moneypenny (he didnât bother with Q) best as the sister-like ally against the grumpy father figure M - together they form Bondâs homebase that lends his character a sense of belonging and provides us readers with familiarity needed to balance the tale. We âknowâ these allies and sympathise with them for the support they give Bond. They are frame to the picture - you can have the picture without the frame, but the effect is quite different.
This is the point Iâve been trying to make. A significant portion of the general audience wouldnât miss it, or would care if they did notice. What these characters have morphed into, from the smallest of bit parts to almost being co-leads in these films has done a great disservice to the franchise and to the character of James Bond. And, in the literary wing of the franchise, theyâve flat out taken over as the leads while Bond remains missing in action except for his weird new Harry Potter-like childrenâs series.
And if weâre going to insist on shoehorning in the entire MI6 gang, then Loelia Ponsonby and Mary Goodnight need to become recurring characters in the films as well.
CR and QOS are origin films, so they could get by with just M and Felix Leiter from previous movies. Once Bond is part of MI6, he is part of an institution that guides his work (until he goes rogue again), and there will be MI6 personnel.
I do not believe that is the correct metric. The questions are: 1) when they hear that Q and Moneypenny are not in the film, will they wait to see it on streaming; and 2) what will be their response to and report on a film without Q and Moneypenny.
And sometimes Bond picks up allies over the course of a filmâs narrative, who facilitate a viewerâs support for Bond and his mission. He is a lone wolf when he goes rogue, or directly disobeys M, as in SP (doing so by following the commands of the former/now spectral M). But at the end of a rogue episode, Bond returns to the fold, abandoning the lone wolf posture.
What âgreat disserviceâ has been done? The franchise has flourished to the tune of billions of dollars in ticket sales, which indicates that the character has retained his appeal even as he has gone through new iterations.
I do not think that including certain MI6 characters means that all MI6 characters need be present. I think there is a creative middle path between the Scylla of excluding MI6 characters and the Charybdis of including them all.
Q was given loads to do back in the day. Whether much or any of it was worth doing is another matter. Octopussy is particularly egregious, and Licence to Kill the âcharacterâ is basically fourth lead. Giving at least one of them more screen time isnât a recent ploy. True, it wasnât all of them.
Iâd be okay with reducing Moneypenny and Qâs screen time but I donât see the need for their complete removal. If MI6 supporting characters are to be used in those functions Iâd rather it be them.
I have been thinking about @daltonâs concept that the Craig Bond films went the M:I route with bringing in Q, Moneypenny, and M, and realized that when I reflect on the films in this light, I do not perceive them that way. I will use SP as an example, since it is a film I like, and seems most team-ish of the five Craig Bond movies.
Bond starts the movie going his own wayâperforming an assassination on the order of a dead person (as remorseless a state actor as he has ever been). He then cajoles a reluctant Q to lie about the start time of the smart blood tracking; steals a car from him; drops a cellphone off for Moneypenny, with the expectation she will answer whenever he calls; and goes off on his merry way. Seems more lone wolfish, than team leader-ish.
When I broaden my look, Bond seems to have always gone his own way. Although he will both rely on his MI6 colleagues and pick up ad hoc help along the way, Bond is self-directed once he has been given a mission. Bond is never a team leader to meâhe is the Boss, and whoever happens to help him in a particular instance, serves as an underling. M is one of the only characters to whom Bond appears to defer.
Itâs definitely different from Ethan Huntâs ersatz-family consisting of people sacrificing their crime-ridden past to exist only as shadow agents surrounding Hunt and assisting his plans.
Question is: will the next iteration go into this direction?
With a Bond who will be younger than before, I believe, he will not be the experienced lone wolf but learn to rely on help from his âposseâ, and marketing will dictate that no old guy/gal will be part of that.
Letâs face it: Amazon would never have allowed a Moneypenny growing older. Nor a Q being a grandpa.
Marketing may also dictate that Amazon will not rely solely on the appeal of the actor they choose to play Bond. Those who portray M, Q, and Moneypenny may be cast with thoughts of what audience demographic they will draw in.
It reads more like a clickbait title than anything else, trying to grab peoplesâ attention by making them think that Amazon has made some progress in casting the new on-screen 007.
I have no idea who Amazon is going to cast, but I doubt theyâre going to feel tied to what IO has done with this, especially since this game has spent most of its production so far under the former regime at MGM/EON. Theyâll also want to make their own stamp on the character and the franchise, not look like theyâre following the lead of a fairly small game studio.
They would also be wise to not marry themselves to this iteration of Bond since itâs quite possible that this game will not be the runaway success that everyone is just assuming it will be.
Tied? No, they surely arenât. But the game seems to take a few no-brainer decisions, like a younger Bond. And if they pay off - big if - Amazon will likely be happy to have this on the record as their first success. Regardless whose work it was or if that really influenced their own Bond reboot (bloody unlikely, unless they hire a director and writers who happen to be also gamers).
Wasnât the last director a gamer? The film seemed to me to have some game sensibility (I could be wrong given my limited knowledge of games. I think the stairwell scene made me think game).