An Open Letter to EON Productions

 To Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson:

Can we have a little talk about the future of OO7? I know I'm a cranky old man who technically isn't the target audience for movies anymore, but I've been a Bond fan for most of my life. I've seriously watched the movies for almost 45 years and I'm only 50. I'm not the only old Bond fan out there. You'd probably be surprised at the number of us old heads there are who still go to these movies. I have one friend older than me who only goes to the movies when it's a new Bond film. So, yeah, there's quite a number of us out there.

So you've done your Daniel Craig miniseries of Bond movies. All in all, Craig was plenty good as Bond. A couple of the movies were really terrific, too. Casino Royale was the best, and oddly the one that most felt like old school Bond. Probably because it was actually based on an Ian Fleming book. Anyhow, Craig is done. You brought an end to the story. I wasn't initially happy with the ending, but I'll get over it. I'll give it another chance and end up buying the Blu Ray when it comes out. I buy all the Bonds, even the ones I initially don't like, and give them a second chance. But now that the Craig run is over, you're going to reboot the series again. So let's talk about this for a moment.

First off, don't do like Spider-Man or Batman and have another origin story. Bond doesn't need an origin story. Casino Royale didn't need to be an origin story. Just because it was the first book doesn't mean it was an origin. Bond in the book was already fully formed. Bond in the Dr. No movie is also fully formed. He can just be James Bond without an origin. Actually, no origin makes him more mysterious and interesting. So let him just Be James Bond. He drinks vodka matinis shaken not stirred, he drives fast cars, he has a license to kill, the whole nine yards.

Second, can we please please please drop the "this time it's personal" angle? The character existed for 27 years before doing a personal story. The problem is, every film has been personal since then. Simply have a villain out to take over or destroy the world like OG Blofeld, Goldfinger, Largo, etc. He has a large henchman like Oddjob or Jaws who gives Bond a hard time. Bond is literally the only person in the world who can stop the villain. He meets some women with hilariously inappropriate names like Pussy Galore or Holly Goodhead along the way. Maybe even give him some crazy gadgets. Certainly give him some crazy stunts.

I'm talking about the Goldfinger formula. The formula that Cubby Broccoli followed for years. I know, I know. Some crazy SJW is going to scream that you can't do Goldfinger anymore. Yes, you can. Know why? Because people still love Goldfinger. People will still go see Goldfinger and enjoy it. Revival showings of that movie and Thunderball are always popular. Yes, you're going to have an SJW or two howling on the internet, but they won't keep the real fans away.

You almost had the Goldfinger formula right in Spectre. It had all the elements up until "James, I am your brother". Take that goofy twist out and you've got a classic Bond. And guess what? Spectre is actually a pretty damn good entry in the series. I liked Christoph Waltz. I loved Bautista. I just hated the unnecessary twist.

By the way, you might consider dumping Purvis and Wade: Richard Maibum they aren't. I know that you try to be loyal, but all these guys do is borrow material from the earlier films without doing it justice. It's one thing to follow a formula, it's another thing to just keep recreating scenes like a cosplayer. And get a director who is more respectful of the legacy of the series than Cary Fukunaga. I mean, seriously, you've had American directors like Spielberg, Scorcesse and Taranatino ask you to do a Bond film--guys who genuinely love the series--but you let the first American director be a guy who disses Sean Connery's Bond as a rapist? Do better, guys.

Bond is a legacy. He's gone longer than any other movie character except for Godzilla. And his movies have been a heck of a lot better than Godzilla. Live up to that legacy. You Can do this: I've seen it. Goldeneye is wonderful. Casino Royale is wonderful. Spectre is almost wonderful.

By the way, can we pick up the pace of release again? Cubby got them out basically every other year. Roger Moore did 7 films in 12 years. Craig did 5 in 15. Four to six years between movies is a LONG time. Even if you can't do every two years like Cubby did, at least go for every three. 

One more thing: whatever else you do, don't reboot the series again when the next guy leaves in two-five movies. One thing Cubby did was make it all one guy. All one guy in a floating timeline works. It worked for 40 years. It can work again.

What Happened to OO7? A Look Back at the Craig Era.

Before we get started, I will warn you that there's major spoilers about No Time to Die in this posting. So if you haven't seen it, you might want to come back to this after seeing it. I'll also warn that this is the rant of someone who might just be a cranky old white dude.

I've been a fan of the James Bond series since I was seven. My first film was The Spy Who Loved Me. I had the View Master reels for Moonraker. I owned and read and re-read the comic book for For Your Eyes Only so much, it basically disintegrated. My family wouldn't take me to the movies in the theater but I watched them on TV. When we got our first VCR in 1984, I started renting all the films. Heck, I would do double features on a Saturday night as a teen. My first one in the theaters was A View to a Kill, which I loved. The only one after that I missed in the movies was License to Kill. I've seen all of them on opening day since Goldeneye. And that includes No Time to Die, which I saw last night in 3D. I've waited all these years for a 3D Bond film. I couldn't be more excited for a movie. And yet, after seeing it, I'm kinda pissed off right about now.

Nothing to do with the 3D, by the way, which was serviceable and about what I'd expect from the modern 3D era. Nice depth, a couple of mild pop-outs.

The movie itself is what angers me. As I sit here and look back on the Craig era, I can't help but feel insulted.

Maybe it's because director Cary Joji Fukanaga denigrated the prior films in an infamous interview with the Hollywood Reporter, calling Connery's Bond a rapist. It seems to me that it's in poor taste to promote your movie by tearing down other films.

Maybe it's because in retrospect, the entire Craig era seems like a slap in the face to fans of the series.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm a cranky old white dude.

Maybe it's the fact that they fucking kill James Bond.

Look, I'll cop to the whole cranky old man thing. I AM, in fact, a cranky old man and I know it. But killing James Bond is just stupid. Denigrating the older films to make yourself look woke is stupid. Insulting the fans repeatedly is stupid. And the Craig films have, much like the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, done just that.

Think about the Sequel Trilogy. Forget the whole wokeness argument that gets brought up. I don't mind Rey, Finn, and Poe. I don't mind diversity. I actually kind of like those three characters. But the entire Sequel Trilogy seemed to be set up to kill off the characters I and other Original Trilogy fans grew up on. And so they did, one film at a time. It didn't occur to me watching them in the theaters what the filmmakers were doing, but when I watched all 11 Star Wars films in story order last year, I realized that yeah, the Sequel Trilogy was about killing off beloved characters and in a sense, giving OT fans the middle finger. Needless to say, I am in no rush to rewatch the Sequel Trilogy.

The Craig era kind of seems to have been set up the same way. It's not obvious in his first film, Casino Royale. In fact, that film seems closest to old school Bond out of the five. Yes, there's no gadgets in it. Yes, the idea that this is a reboot but Judi Dench is still M is kind of goofy. Yes, Bond at one point growls about not caring if his Martini is shaken not stirred. But the film in general comes off like one of the older Bond films, specifically the more grounded ones like On Her Majesty's Secret Service or For Your Eyes Only. Possibly because it's a reasonably faithful adaption of the novel. I didn't care for the change in game from Baccarat to Texas Hold 'Em, but I also recognized that it was simply a case of Bond following and adapting to the trends of popularity as he frequently did.

But yes, Casino Royale was a pretty faithful adaption, up to and including the death of Vesper. I remember sitting in the theater in 2006 and being impressed that they did the second half of the novel. The 1954 TV version with Barry Nelson did a reasonable adaptation of the first half, so seeing them cover the whole book in the Craig version impressed me. Unfortunately, killing Vesper then seemed to set the tone for the rest of Craig's run.

Quantum of Solace followed and it's a bottom five Bond, right down there with the likes of Never Say Never Again (I know, I know--it's not an official Bond film) and Die Another Day. A large part of this is the way the thing is shot. It's shot like a Christopher Nolan Batman movie with rapid cuts that make it impossible to know who is doing what to whom. That works for Nolan's Batman. It does not work for Bond. Add in an awful villain plot--stealing the water supply--and the killing of Giancarlo Giannini's Mathis and you have a film that quickly goes south. To add insult to injury, you could tell who all the new Bond fans were by how they kept talking about how innovative and original the movie was while I sat there counting all the scenes stolen from earlier films.

Next up was Skyfall. A lot of people love Skyfall. I like it quite a bit myself. But two things do bother me. First up is Bond having mommy issues involving M. That seemed a little much. Second is the film's direct slap in the face: the new Q making snide comments about exploding pens. There might be people who think the gadgets in the older Bond films are silly, but those gadgets are part of the fun of the older films thank you very much. And by the way, Goldeneye is a better Bond film. Fight me.

Skyfall ended with the promise that old school Bond was finally coming. The last scene where Craig walks in to the new M's office set the next film up to finally take us back to the glory days. Spectre started really delivering on that promise, too. At least it did up until the dumb twist of Blofeld saying "James, I am your brother". No, no, no, no. Ten hundred billion times no. Talk about unnecessary! I wanted to bang my head into a wall when that happened. Seriously, cut that twist out and Spectre fits nicely with the Connery and Moore films. But we had to continue the trend of "this time it's personal" that the Bond series has beaten into the ground since License to Kill.

And now we have No Time to Die. A movie Bond fans have waited patiently for six years for. The last time there was a six year gap was between License to Kill and Goldeneye and we had a switch in Bonds then. Six years waiting for Daniel Craig's last film and the first Bond in 3D.

It starts promisingly. The opening action scene is pretty good and the machine guns in the headlights is a nice nod to the earlier films. There's a wonderful sequence in Cuba with a hilarious performance by Ana De Armas as a CIA agent with three weeks training who ends up totally kicking ass. It's the type of scene you want in a Bond movie and I loved it. I wish she had stuck around for the rest of the movie. Unfortunately, right after she's done, they kill off Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright). Why? Just why? I liked Wright's take on Leiter. And hell, outside of David Hedison, he's the only guy to play the character more than once. Killing him off does nothing but ensure that if the character ever does return to the series, it's a different actor again. The film continues to go south from there.

What the movie wants to do is remake OHMSS. What Rami Malek's Safin is up to is not terribly different from Telly Savalas's Blofeld in the earlier movie--a plan to poison the world. And there's plenty of cues to the earlier film since music from it is used repeatedly in this one. Unfortunately, this movie isn't OHMSS. Safin is not Blofeld, not even Savalas's take on the character, which wasn't up to Donald Pleasance's take. Malek might have made for a decent Freddie Mercury, but he's definitely one of the weaker Bond villains, especially after Christoph Waltz's fantastic Blofeld (stupid twist notwithstanding). I like Lea Seydoux's Madeline Swann enough, but she's no Diana Rigg. And one thing can be said for George Lazenby's Bond is that there's at least a sense of humor. Craig is still too dour in the film. In fact, outside of Casino Royale, Craig hasn't really been all that funny as Bond at all.

But the film commits the ultimate sin. Whereas OHMSS killed Bond girl Tracy, this film actually kills James Bond. Like the earlier question about Leiter, the question here is Why? Because Craig is leaving the series? Five other actors left the series before him without being killed off. Bond isn't a doomed noir character, destined to die. He's James Bond, who runs around and saves the world. He's a fantasy character, kind of a superhero. I often wonder if the people who made these last four Bond movies actually bothered to watch any Bond movies.

Here's the problem with what this movie has done: it forces another reboot of the series. We already had one reboot with Casino Royale. So now we have to have another. Does this mean a new M, Q, and Moneypenny? I kind of  liked the current line up, but it would make little sense for them to be in the next film considering the ending of this one. Certainly we're going to need a new Leiter.

And please, none of that stupid fan theory that Bond is a codename. The first 20 films made it very clear he's the same guy. Is it going to be like Spider-Man or Batman where there's a reboot every time the actor changes? The genius of Bond is that didn't happen. It was the same guy for 20 films and 5 actors. The older films make it a point to let it be known that it IS the same guy. Do we really need a full reboot every time there's a new Bond actor now when we didn't?

I admit that when I first saw it, I didn't care much for OHMSS. In my defense, I was 14, I was used to Moore and Connery and didn't know what to make of Lazenby, and I didn't care for the killing of Tracy. But I grew to appreciate it as I got older. Maybe I'll grow to appreciate No Time to Die. In some respects, its better than QOS, but that's a low bar. There's very few Bond movies that aren't better than QOS.  I may look more favorably on it if they get back to the business of James Bond saves the world and not reboot every few years. I Want to like this film. I want to like all the Craig films. But right now I feel like writers, producers, and especially the directors have given me and fans like me who grew up loving Connery and Moore the middle finger.

I don't like that. I don't like it one bit.