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Soul Collector wrote:rollingstock wrote:Was really hoping for Idris
Same. I thought that woulda been enough diversity for them and be good casting too but nah.....wahmen power.
Mua ha ha ha ha haaaron17 wrote:Meanwhile ...Dr evil is still holding the world ransom for 100 billion dollars.
maj. tom wrote:I liked Captain Marvel though. I thought it was a good film with a lead female role that had good acting. But then you would see the unrealistic Black Widow clearing a room with no super-powers. I really don't understand the Hollywood beat-up stance that feminists take when trying to compare a masculine character. Are men and women even supposed to be equal? "oh 2 billion years of evolution, you so stupid!"
De Dragon wrote:Fackery. I'm all for diversity and empowering of women, but some roles are destined to be male only.
sMASH wrote:sooo y not demo idris elba for 007? or even a 008
Country_Bookie wrote:This movie will be a flop. People paid money to see the last 24 bond movies because they want to see a bad assed spy beat the crap out of the bad guys and not give a damn about anybody while getting the girl. Tastes are not gonna change because of the feminist agenda and all the woke nonsense. A woman in that role is not gonna be believable.
agent007 wrote:Guess I'll be changing my name after 11yrs.
racedriverpro wrote:Clearly you haven't factored in wakanda forever.Country_Bookie wrote:This movie will be a flop. People paid money to see the last 24 bond movies because they want to see a bad assed spy beat the crap out of the bad guys and not give a damn about anybody while getting the girl. Tastes are not gonna change because of the feminist agenda and all the woke nonsense. A woman in that role is not gonna be believable.
amd-dude wrote:So the new bond movie will be Ms Bond picking up beta males at the bar?
Ben_spanna wrote:I hope holly wood is thinking about putting a big man as the next Cat woman!
And fak yes, not going to see that new bond movie..
RedVEVO wrote:^^
This woman liberation tingy is not my cup of Grey Earl or Chia Latte tea.
Why woman does have to mess up everything ?
Now if the Woman 007 have a Bond Girl and they scissoring
Well I good then .
We hardcore Bond fans crave seductive escapism – not a morality tale of #MeToo and 'toxic masculinity'
Madeline Grant
In many James Bond films, the pre-credits sequence has very little bearing on the rest of the plot. Take Octopussy, where Bond deploys the smallest jet plane in the world (housed in a fake horse’s nether regions) to destroy a Cuban airfield, or Moonraker’s mid-air tussle over a parachute. Yet Casino Royale’s intro depicts a truly formative moment. Shot in grainy, Hitchcockian black-and-white, Bond gains his 00 status by confronting and killing two enemies - a turncoat MI6 section chief and his contact, in particularly gruesome fashion. After Pierce Brosnan’s final outing in the CGI’d monstrosity Die Another Day, Casino Royale’s intro indicated what kind of Bond Daniel Craig might be; cold, calculating and ruthless.
As a lifelong Bond fan, my heart sank when I heard the latest news from the set of the 25th instalment in the series. One insider told the Daily Mail about a “popcorn-dropping” moment, when it is revealed that Bond has retired and a female MI6 colleague, played by Lashana Lynch, has inherited this all-important codename. The source gushes over “a pivotal scene at the start of the film” where M says “‘Come in 007’, and “in walks Lashana who is black, beautiful and a woman.”
We learn that Bond must navigate “the world of #MeToo”, and the film seems to position him as a Weinstein-like figure. “Bond, of course, is sexually attracted to the new female 007 and tries his usual seduction tricks, but is baffled when they don't work on a brilliant, young black woman who basically rolls her eyes at him and has no interest in jumping into his bed.”
The announcements suggest PR dark arts at work to rescue a production that has suffered its share of setbacks; directors and actors walking away, the producers drafting in script doctors, injuries and accidents on set and controversy over its title. With Bond having already left MI6, the assignment of 007 to a female agent will presumably mean her character is killed off at some point, enabling Bond to resume his role, or else we’ll be in reboot territory yet again. But the stamp of identity politics is unmistakable.
Why does this matter? Audiences don’t go to Bond to be reminded of the perils of toxic masculinity - they go for escapism. Of course Bond shouldn’t remain frozen in time, but the series already shows how to update and critique his character without emasculating Bond or making him and the role obsolete. Think about when Judi Dench's M skewers Bond as a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War”, or how, long before the advent of #MeToo, Timothy Dalton’s Bond took a far more respectful approach towards his love interests.
Yet recent versions have featured Bond’s inner torments so prominently that the writer’s hand on the scales is painfully clear - and there are consequently very few laughs. Who wants an introspective Bond? Many highlight the flaws of Roger Moore films; the gags and silliness, the feeble attempts to make us believe that a near-pensioner is executing the extraordinary stunts. But ultimately they are far more fun, and recognisably ‘Bond’ than several of his recent outings.
Granted, some of the greatest Bonds go ‘off piste’. The woefully under-appreciated Licence to Kill follows a vigilante plot, in which Bond ditches his 00 badge and arguably the only thing that ever meant anything in his life to avenge his friend Felix Leiter. In Casino Royale, Bond similarly abandons his MI6 career to travel the world with Vesper Lynd. These were powerful, emotive moments. But the trouble is that every film since Casino Royale has scorned recognised Bond formulae, and the alleged ‘novelty’ is wearing thin.
Pre-Craig Bond films were self-contained episodes which occasionally referenced Bond’s tragic past in subtle fashion, as in For Your Eyes Only, when Bond delivers flowers to the grave of his murdered wife. But following the rebooted Casino Royale the series has never quite returned to ‘business as usual’ - and seems overburdened with emotional baggage.
Skyfall saw Bond blowing up his entire family home in an effort to cleanse himself of the past, but even this was not enough. Spectre, enjoyable for much of its run time, ended with a ludicrous backstory that sought to tie all the previous few films together - and the news that Christoph Waltz will reprise his role as Blofeld in Bond 25 means we can expect this tedious thread to continue. Lea Seydoux’s return as Madeleine Swann also breaks a convention observed since Goldfinger of not recalling the same love interest twice.
Recent filmmakers have tried consistently to derive deeper meaning than being “just a Bond”, in scorning traditions like one-liners and fiendish inventions dreamt up by the tekkies back at HQ. When Bond laments the absence of gadgets in Sam Mendes' Skyfall, Q replies, “What did you expect, an exploding pen?” Many loved this homage to fan-favourite Goldeneye, but I read it as a smug put-down of a far superior ancestor.
Eon Productions should be careful to avoid torching too much of Fleming’s raw material. Recent YouGov polling found, unsurprisingly, that tinkering with the core elements of the Bond line-up, introducing a female Bond, gay Bond, non-British Bond and so on, registers much less favourably with long-term fans than occasional viewers.
The direction of the Star Wars series under Disney, and particularly the divisive Last Jedi, which sacrificed plot consistency for 'woke' political messaging, should remind filmmakers of the risks of trying to appeal to the right-on commentariat rather than giving fans at least a little of what they want. Critics loved The Last Jedi; Guardian reviewers praised its feminist credentials. But these are not the people the series needs to impress. They are not the fans who turn out in their droves, buy the merchandise and pass on their love of Bond to the next generation.
When it came to the next Star Wars feature, Solo, millions voted with their feet and stayed at home. I fear the same may happen to my beloved Bond if filmmakers continue to portray him as a problematic character to be pitied, not the flawed, but undeniably seductive, powerful and enviable figure he is.
Les Bain wrote:I remember when Disney had pissed off a lot of geezers by removing the late night block of black&white programming of their youth. Disney basically said, the time for that gone and those shows aren't only unrelated to their current demographic, they are products of times that need too much explaining at risk of upsetting people.
World seemed to have moved on from Bond IMO. Cold War done, the gadgets are very commonplace and masculinity is taboo.
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