No Time to Die **Spoilers from post #1449 onward**

I love that version of Bond. It's stupid but way more fun than the Craig movies and at least it's aware of the absurdities of Bond.

How come when in a tight spot Craig never muses about how his old Lazer gun and cloaking car would come in handy?

Wouldn't agree with that at all... I mean he's historically been an especially poorly written character completely lacking depth, with only occasional movies here and there capturing the more interesting double-sided nature of someone who does what he does - living on the razors edge of death, and effectively being a last resort tool for his government. Far too many Bond movies just skipped over this in favour of throwing out the gadgets, guns, and girls they reckoned the audience wanted.

I think the best portrayal of Bond as a character to date is a relatively recent one, in Casino Royal. That movie properly dug into the emotional toll taken by the job. The cynicism and isolation of it. So I think it's entirely possible for brilliant interesting Bond movies to be made in this age, and indeed any age. And I say this as someone who was hugely disappointed in both Skyfall and Spectre, because of how poorly they were written, getting lost in their tone and texture, and forgetting about the nuts and bolts of storytelling needed between bouts of beautifully crafted cinematography.

Bond had to change after both Powers and Bourne. Personally I don't like the change as I liked silly Bond but it wouldn't work now.

As for woke Bond has always changed which led to a shift in viewers and certain older fans (like me) not liking the new thing but I bet you it will still smash box offices around the world thanks to casual fans who don't notice what colour suit Craig wore or where he sits on the scooter

Again, I totally disagree. And if you made and released Casino Royale right now, it would still be excellent. All the best things about that movie would be just as welcome today - the opening coldness of Bond as he becomes a 00. The physicality of the parkour scene, where the other guy is all technique and skill while Bond literally runs through walls, doing whatever it takes - summing up everything about the man without saying a word. And in the embassy scene just after, you can see how actively Bond is trying not to kill people - until he's cornered, and then he does what he has to do. Then the cold use of Dimitrios' girlfriend, and his uncaring response to her death, pointed out by M. There was tonnes of cool stuff, and action around all this, but it perfectly laid out the man both for better or worse. None of this would have been a problem in any movie made now - because it's all about how it's framed. Casino Royale, in contrast to older Bond movies, showed his womanizing as tactical, and we see it as an uncomfortable part of his character, and something that has caused some psychological damage to him - he's shut himself down emotionally so as to be able to do his job. The old Bond movies just showed him moving from conquest to conquest as a sign of him being cool. It was empty storytelling.

To be honest, the Bond legacy is a marathon, not a sprint. It's not at all surprising that a franchise that has historically treated most of its women like absolute morons at best, and merely inhuman objects at worst, will obviously do a bit of course correcting - it's what Bond movies have always done, as I mentioned above.

Whether or not they do make good Bond movies in future, who knows. But they absolutely can. He's a brilliantly interesting deeply flawed and complex hero, so there will always be an opportunity to do interesting things with him. The biggest problem is almost the expectation of 'bigness' that comes with modern Bond... I think it's a franchise that would be better served by scaling back a little bit at this stage.

Bond could only scale back if one of its movies was a massive flop and required a brief hiatus another reboot or rethink which happened post Moore and post Bronson

The versions of those core concepts from the 70s are indeed obsolete, but to be honest they were rubbish chewing gum portrayals even back then. Like, take a film like The Hustler - released before any of the Bond movies - which dealt with a similar type of flawed character but in a much more grown up nuanced way.

I just fundamentally disagree that there are any concepts or traits inherent to Bond that can't entirely be explored in this or any age by framing them intelligently. There will always be scope for films about people who are utterly elite at what they do, but flawed as a result.

So, it's certainly the death of things like Bond climbing onto a random stranger's boat and immediately riding the woman inside - but that's no loss to the franchise..

Well the rules are different on a boat

"Because of the implication" 😆

Does any other rather mediocre movie franchise command the same amount of publicity and scrutiny.

They're not serious movies, why are they treated like some sort of reflection on society.

I don't quite understand your opening bit there... I mean, it's a hyper-fictionalized role and always has been. I don't think anyone's suggesting Bond should take a turn towards Tinker Tailor Solider Spy or The Conversation or something. As for the womanizing thing, it's already been explained how it can easily be explored in a modern setting - and Casino Royale did it perfectly, in a way that would not be at all problematic today. Literally all it takes is showing the depth of the character behind it, and not portraying it as an awesome thing that he's doing it.

It feels like you're picking faults that aren't faults, and can all work if just reframed intelligently. Like, the lavishness - if you want to keep that aspect of it in the films - is easy to explain by Bond having to fit in with the worlds he works within. He works best as a chameleon who can fit into any situation, beit off in the jungle, or blending into a cityscape, or at an extravagant gala or a high stakes poker game setting. It's easy to build your situations out in your narrative so you can justify as much or as little of each as you want.

I just don't see any of these as impediments towards making good films in the future. I expect, as ever, there'll be hits and misses - primarily as a result of good or bad writing and execution.