Recommend (or don't) a movie thread v2

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by photon

Make "It's a title rather than a specific individual" more formal, done.

Heck you could have a new origin story for a new person where they become a 00 agent and then assume the 007 title after some emotional thing that relates to the previous 007.

No more origin stories! Just make Bond movies(good ones, not bad ones).


I agree ignoring is the best option, but I doubt they go that way.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by trackercowe

I don't think a single Bond movie has ever integrated the previous movies when they changed the lead. Why would anyone expect that to change? Other than keeping Q (Desmond Llewelyn) and M (Judi Dench) I don't think anything has been consistent in the previous movies.

While true Bond has always been alive through the franchise, they never killed him, and as a character while his stunts and escapades have at times been a bit silly they have always kept the pretense of reality, he isnt Superman or even Batman, his stunts are (in theory) set in todays world with semi believable plots and stories, ordinary guns cars planes etc

[Coach]

Even if the filmmakers and companies involved say otherwise, I choose to believe that 007 - James Bond is a code name given to different agents who reach that status. It makes perfect sense and makes things much more interested IMO.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by trackercowe

I don't think a single Bond movie has ever integrated the previous movies when they changed the lead. Why would anyone expect that to change? Other than keeping Q (Desmond Llewelyn) and M (Judi Dench) I don't think anything has been consistent in the previous movies.

Bond’s marriage was referenced several times both directly and indirectly after On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Before Craig, the films were loosely connected but even then it was acknowledged when convenient and at other times totally ignored.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by trackercowe

I don't think a single Bond movie has ever integrated the previous movies when they changed the lead. Why would anyone expect that to change? Other than keeping Q (Desmond Llewelyn) and M (Judi Dench) I don't think anything has been consistent in the previous movies.

The only Bond movies that appear to have any continuity were the Daniel Craig ones (sometimes, stupidly).

It would be stupid to try to rationalize it "Somehow Bond returned"

[Cecil Terwilliger]

What we need is a Bond multiverse movie to explain all this. With star studded cameos! With AI when necessary for any of the actors that are dead now.

[Strange Brew]

I have always thought that every time a new actor is introduced, it is a brand new set of movies with a blank slate. Just keep the cool music, cars and catchphrases. No need to explain anything.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

What we need is a Bond multiverse movie to explain all this. With star studded cameos! With AI when necessary for any of the actors that are dead now.

Bring back Timothy Dalton!

[Fuzz]

Bond is a character. Actors play a character. That's how these movies work. The "reboot" only really happened once in the Bond universe with Craig. Otherwise it was just people playing James Bond. Not a random person who takes that name and 007, because that doesn't make sense. Unless they take the mannerisms, desires, etc of the Bond agent before them? Nah, illogical!

What happened here is that the writers killed the character. You can't play a dead character, so before they can find a Bond, they need to contrive a stupid story to explain it, or pretend to ignore it. They may even do something dumb like finding some space in the non-existent Bond timeline to shoehorn in a story with digital recreations of actors from past Bond movies as cameos. Sheriff J.W. Pepper, welcome to international police and spy training camp, you are bunking with a British chap named James.

Unless it Kenney or Wil-E-Coyote, you don't kill the character.

[direwolf]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Bond is a character. Actors play a character. That's how these movies work. The "reboot" only really happened once in the Bond universe with Craig. Otherwise it was just people playing James Bond. Not a random person who takes that name and 007, because that doesn't make sense. Unless they take the mannerisms, desires, etc of the Bond agent before them? Nah, illogical!

What happened here is that the writers killed the character. You can't play a dead character, so before they can find a Bond, they need to contrive a stupid story to explain it, or pretend to ignore it.

They don’t have to do any of that. Once again, continuity does not matter at all in the Bond universe, and you can easily reboot it with a new actor and create any new adventures you want with the character, and Bond fans will still enjoy it. All you need is the famous gun barrel opening, the fancy cars, the cool gadgets, the beautiful women, the exotic locations, a few action set pieces, and bam. You’re off to the races.

[Fuzz]

It seems the creators have discarded that option, which means they are going with the alternative, which will be bad, which is why they shouldn't have killed him.


Asking a writer to ignore a challenge is like asking a painter not to paint. They are going to take the challenge. Just look at Star Trek and the Klingons. Or Star Wars and computers. They'll make it dumb to try to make it explainable or consistent.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

You don't have to reboot anything. Everyone knows who James Bond is. You can simply premise a movie on, "at some point in Bond's career, this thing happened", and you're fine.

The biggest problem is that the character's key identifying traits are basically just toxic masculinity at this point such that any film will inevitably end up being at the center of a culture war struggle (which you can't win; if you eliminate those aspects of the character you'll just be accused of "going woke") and although that generates press it's not tended to be a great strategy for actually making money.

Might just be better to let the franchise sit for a decade or so.

[Fuzz]

Bond movies are at their best when they have a strong women to balance Bond's attitude and poke a little fun at it.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Bond movies are at their best when they have a strong women to balance Bond's attitude and poke a little fun at it.

Yeah the move is not to forget his misogyny, it's to throw it back at him on screen.

[PepsiFree]

Maybe I haven’t been paying attention but has any recent Bond film been mired in “culture wars” controversy? At least in any actual way that impacted box office or anything beyond Twitter?

I also don’t really get “toxic masculinity” from the Brosnan or Craig era Bonds, though I’ve maybe seen half those movies. But I think it’d be super easy to write Bond in a way that maintains all of his core traits without writing him as some one dimensional pickup artist.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Maybe I haven’t been paying attention but has any recent Bond film been mired in “culture wars” controversy? At least in any actual way that impacted box office or anything beyond Twitter?

I don't think there has actually been a Bond film since those culture wars kicked into high gear. The last one was during COVID and outside of the Cuba part was pretty forgettable, and Spectre even more so.

I also don’t really get “toxic masculinity” from the Brosnan or Craig era Bonds, though I’ve maybe seen half those movies. But I think it’d be super easy to write Bond in a way that maintains all of his core traits without writing him as some one dimensional pickup artist.

I think you're both underselling some of the stuff in Casino Royale and Skyfall and underestimating the degree to which the culture wars are on a hair trigger and eager to look for something to fight about. Like, Sydney Sweeney is apparently a White Supremacist now, and I know I for one can't wait for next month to see how the Christmas Wars play out under a Project 2025 administration.

[Erick Estrada]

I would prefer a direction back to the Connery/Moore years of campy fun, gadgets, over the top villains, while still maintaining a serious story. Austin Powers was a parody on Bonds films but if a person has only seen the Craig movies, they would probably have a difficult time seeing the connection.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I don't think there has actually been a Bond film since those culture wars kicked into high gear. The last one was during COVID and outside of the Cuba part was pretty forgettable, and Spectre even more so.

I think you're both underselling some of the stuff in Casino Royale and Skyfall and underestimating the degree to which the culture wars are on a hair trigger and eager to look for something to fight about. Like, Sydney Sweeney is apparently a White Supremacist now, and I know I for one can't wait for next month to see how the Christmas Wars play out under a Project 2025 administration.

And I think you’re overselling/overestimating them. There are some situations like the Sydney Sweeney one which seem largely made up an inconsequential but have some complexity behind them, but I think most films come and go without a whole lot of controversy. And I don’t really think the “culture wars” or how bad they are in the US are a post-2021 advent. And in absence of a civil war, I also don’t see them getting in a decade if you’re planning to park the franchise in hopes of that.

Like, as long as they don’t make bond a MAGA or trans I highly doubt anybody is going to care that some of the movies in the however many year old franchise are sexist.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

I think Sydney Sweeney should be the next Bond girl. She can play a dual role of the super villain. She’ll be a white supremacist.

She can’t act worth #### so this role should be easy. She can just play herself.

[Wormius]

If reddit is to be believed, she must be the anti-christ.