So my wife was telling me the other day that, since the rights to James Bond were sold to Amazon, she’s worried about what’s going to happen to the franchise. And all I can think is “See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya!”
Because I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but I don’t care for James Bond. All the 007 movies could be erased from the planet tomorrow and I wouldn’t give a fig. He’s narcissistic, misogynistic, quippy, arrogant, flamboyant, a know-it-all, and above ever getting injured. Come on, he’s a Mary Sue. And it’s hypocritical not to point it out when others only dump on women protagonists for being so (i.e. Rey from Star Wars, Sabrina in the new Sabrina, Bella Swan, Twilight Sparkle). He does nothing but drink, gamble, and have sex. He never makes a mistake and has no flaws. He has no past so the viewer can project himself into the role. The only difference between him and a sociopath is that he doesn’t really exist.
Sure, a few of the recent ones have been pretty good. Casino Royale was a gamechanger with the parkour and the flooding building at the end. Skyfall was a good time. But Quantum of Solace was a fizzle, Spectre required you to know all the James Bond lore, and No Time to Die was depressing. The only reason I was partially interested was Daniel Craig, who portrayed James Bond with less ego and more grit. He wasn’t a womanizer any more than a typical action movie star (e.g. Ethan Hunt, Mad Max, various superheroes). I’m not too keen on latching my star to a franchise that only gets on base 50% of the time. None of these movies would my life be empty without. It’s all wish fulfillment, and it’s a wish I wouldn’t make.
James Bond is a franchise rooted in misogyny, spectacle, racism, and bad writing. Q always happens to have the exact thing Bond needs to overcome some obstacle. He’s always a straight white male. It’s based on a cultural phenomenon that died out in 1952… for a reason. They weren’t even necessary back then, during the Red Scare and nuclear arms races and diamond theft. I talked about this a little in The Villain of Today–all the faceless big bads have faces now, like Elphaba, Loki, Kylo Ren. Some of them even started without faces, then gained them over time: Magneto, Anakin Skywalker, and the Joker. There are no more Nazis, no more KGB, no more Chinese Peril, no more Libyan terrorists. Now we fight ourselves.
Do they even have scripts? They just have a series of stunts they want to do, then film something around that. Jumping off a dam, and helicopter leaps, and train crashes. All loosely connected by melodrama like past enemies returned, dead bosses, dead girlfriends, surprise children, etc.
We don’t need James Bond or anyone like him anymore. It’s done, tired, kaput. There’s nothing fun about him anymore. Who are these movies meant for anymore? Who’s still interested in them? Certainly no one I’d want to meet. All it does is remind me of a bad time in our past, both in history and entertainment.
