Tag: James Bond

Could Phoebe Waller-Bridge Be The Next James Bond?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve heard some chatter here and about that Phoebe Waller-Bridge might be tapped to write and direct the next James Bond movie. She already did a touch up of the No Time To Die script and she apparently really impressed the James Bond family in the process.

Given the dynamics of Hollywood, it’s at least within the realm of possibility that Waller-Bridge might not only write and direct the next James Bond, but BE James Bond. How they would pull this particular hattrick off, I don’t know, but that’s why they pay them the big bucks.

They did kill James Bond off in the last movie, so anything is possible. Even though Waller-Bridge would do a great job as James Bond, if a woman was James Bond every “anti-woke” crusader worth their talking head status on Fox News would freak the fuck out in a very, very public manner.

And, remember, there were rumors that the producers of the next Indy movie wanted to use time-travel to reboot the franchise so Waller-Bridge would be the next Indy. Apparently, at least according to the dubious YouTube movie grapevine, that idea has been shelved.

Anyway, it will be interesting how things develop going forward. Waller-Bridge definitely is a very talented woman and of all the people I could think of who might bring back the good olde days of campy James Bond updated for modern sensibilities, Waller-Bridge is definitely at the top of the list.

James Bond’s Future

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The world is descending into fire and brimstone at an alarming rate, to the point that we may not live to see the next James Bond come out. But, just for fun, let’s mull how we might revamp the storied franchise.

A new Lisbeth Salander in the Bond universe?

The obvious “woke” answers are — a female James Bond. Or a black James Bond. Or an Indian female James Bond? But I think all those ideas kind of miss the point and might even kill the franchise.

What we need to do is for three movies turn Bond into the bad guy — sorta.

Use his status as the ultimate “legacy brand” to allow you to wallow in all the unwoke elements of his character one last time before even Bond is finally enveloped by the all powerful embrace of Hollywood wokeness.

Here’s how I would do it.

Have Bond up against a woman who wants the same McGuffin that he wants — or whatever. Someone who is his equal. While I think it would be neat if his foe was a Indian woman named Raj, I still believe that pulling Lisbeth Salander into the Bond universe would be a great way to juice the franchise in an interesting way.

My favorite Bond.

Get some young, tiny actress to play Salander and then let these two de facto superheroes have at it for three movies. I could see the whole thing being based on some sort of misunderstanding between the two of them. Bond does his usual Bond shit with a Bond girl…but…he’s a little too rough with her maybe? And this accidently roughed up Bond girl complains to Salander who decides to come after Bond with everything she’s got. Throw in them both wanting something from SPECTER then you really do have a three movie franchise on your hands. It would be so cool!

Given Salander’s absolute moral code, having her fight it out with the old school, rakish Bond would be very entertaining. Salander could be a proxy for “woke Hollywood” sensibilities. Or something.

Anyway, the point is, doing something to put Bond in a bad light and then have him fight it out with the equally alienating Salander would be really fun because you could have people who took Bond’s side and people who took Salander’s side. In the end, of course, the misunderstanding is fixed and the two former rivals come to respect each other as they go their separate ways.

What To Do About James Bond (& Lisbeth Salander?)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The core issue with Lisbeth Salander is, well, she’s not very nice or endearing. And to have her done right, she needs to really alienate the audience — the definitive anti-heroine. Then there is James Bond, who is, as a character, in something of a transitional phase.

Alicia Vikander

So, work with me here, why not have a three picture cross-over between Lisbeth Salander and James Bond? Have, for three pictures, Bond and Salander do some sort of twisted cat and mouse thing, where they both go after SPECTER for some reason.

Something that would cause them to hate each other but ultimately have sex in some cool way. Or something. Something that would make the audience go ooo and ahhh as the story progressed. As for who to play Salander in such a hypothetical three picture cross over, I think Alicia Vikander would be the perfect new version of Salander.

My favorite James Bond.

Now, some context.

If you REALLY wanted to get edgy, you still make Bond’s foe a woman, but you make her an Indian woman name Raj who hates Bond and all things British because of the legacy of colonialism.

Anyway, I think it would be cool to pit Salander against the new Bond for three movies. I think it would be a way to sort of ender a very interesting, but unlikeable character — Salander — to a new generation of audiences.

The Tragic Missed Opportunity of ‘No Time To Die’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve written about this before, but I’m drunk and irritated and so here we go. It is well known that Phoebe Waller-Bridge was brought in to punch up the No Time To Die screenplay.

You can occasionally see glimpses — I think — of her input in the movie’s third act. So, here we are — Bond has a family (at last) and his daughter is in danger as the Range Rovers are bouncing around in the forest. This was the point in the movie when I found myself the most engaged — I was leaning forward in my seat as I saw this, wondering what was going to happen next.

And, what happened next was not much. We’re invested in this unique situation for Bond — having a family — and THEN nothing happens. His daughter bites the villains finger and she escapes. That’s it.

I mean, that’s it.

There was so much more that could have been done with the concept of Bond Family Values. You could have had the little tyke prove her mettle in any number of different ways. It would have been really cool. This is even more so given that they’re going to kill of Bond (or a little while at least.)

And, yet, I still love the Bond franchise I understand why this happened. Bond is supposed to be lightweight summer blockbuster fun. So, lulz. But I do wish the Bond producers would at least think about making the next Bond a lot like The Dark Knight.

Anyway. No one listens to me.

[Spoilers] Let’s Fix ‘No Time To Die’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ugh. No Time To Die was a really good film, and, yet, that third act was a huge let down. “Teerrbile,” as my some of the Southerners I know might say. The issue is this — we have this GREAT concept — Bond with a family in danger….and it’s just dropped when Little Bond Daughter bites the finger of the bad guy?

More Phoebe Waller-Bridge in the next Bond!

What the fuck where they thinking?

So, let’s fix it.

Act 1

Inciting Incident: Bond gets called back into service to stop The Bad Guy.

Bond finds out not only does he have a family, but The Bad Guy knows this too and has kidnapped them.
Act 2
His personal life and his mission keep intersecting in ways that force Bond to reflect on his life and all the women he’s banged over the years as well as what he might have had with Vespa. This happens in the context of vintage flashbacks from throughout the last 60 years of Bond that the audience sees in glimpses now and again.

Midpoint: Bond’s baby mamma dies in such a way that it leaves him thinking his daughter is dead, too — has a moment of grief.

He finds out his daughter isn’t dead and this only redoubles his efforts to stop the fiendish plot of The Bad Guy.

Bond manages to get his daughter back, but they’re on the run. The Bad Guys are chasing them through the woods and you lean in as you watch all of this, wondering, are they really going to kill Bond’s daughter? They don’t and the family Bond gets captured.

Bond is forced to have his “Bow, to Lord Zod” moment that is in the real movie. But, hopefully, you would have built out the emotional framework for this scene so when it happens, there is a lot more identification with the audience than what was actually there in the real movie. I found the real scene rather perfunctory.
Act 3
The Bad Guy escapes with Little Girl Bond and the chase is on. But this time, our Little Tyke Bond is far more street smart and makes life hell for The Bad Guy to the point that it’s both amusing like a Roger Moore Bond movie and emotionally compelling.

The climax of the movie is structured such that Bond is forced to work with his daughter for some reason. There’s a massive fight between Bond and The Bad Guy and just as it looks as if The Bad Guy is about to murder her dad, Little Tyke Bond shoves a Glock to her dad and he shoots The Bad Guy dead.

For a moment, all is well.

I would use the new 007 as the person who is babysitting little tyke Bond in the last few scenes as he prepares to kill himself off.

[Spoilers] The Third Act of ‘No Time To Die’ & The Potential Influence Of Phoebe Waller-Bridge On The Screenplay


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really liked No Time To Die. I only rolled my eyes a few times and checked my watch a few more. And I only once felt the need to think about leaving the theatre in mid-film. For me, a person who walks out of movies constantly, that’s a big deal.

But it’s the third act of the movie I want to talk about.

It’s in the third act that the stakes are raised and a child’s life — Bond’s daughter — is put in harm’s way.

It’s in the third act when something about how unfocused the movie is becomes clear. Somewhere in the movie’s nearly three-hour run time was an even better movie, waiting to come out. The emotional highs and lows of the movie were blunted by how muddled it all was.

I think it was so muddled because that is the point of a Bond movie. You go to a Bond movie to have a good time, not to really get your emotions played with. But had they wanted to make not just a Bond movie but a Bond “film” they could have focused a lot more on the implications of Bond having a family for once in his life and what he was willing to do to save them.

As it is, we’re introduced to his daughter as a plot point, she’s put in danger and then…she escapes because she bit the finger of the villain? What the what? It was a huge letdown.

You have something unique in the Bond franchise — he has a family to protect — and in the end the whole thing is dismissed in a rather ham-handed manner. There was not nearly the emotional pay off that it could have had.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Maybe I’m seeing the influence of Phoebe Waller-Bridge? But because she was just punching the screenplay up and wasn’t the main screenwriter, we just saw glimpses of the far more powerful movie that could have been? I dunno. But it definitely is weird that something so potentially powerful — Bond with family — was introduced and then not a lot was done with it.

As I mentioned, I think some of what I’m noticing is just something that is basic to the Bond movies on an existential basis. We don’t really expect them to be No Country For Old Men or There Will Be Blood. There’s just a fun way to entertain yourself for a few hours.

I Have My Eye On You, Mr. Bond



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I saw the latest James Bond film, “No Time To Die,” today, and for once I didn’t walk out of a movie. There were a few time I rolled my eyes and a few times when I checked my watch. But, overall, it was a great movie and highly recommend it.

They definitely updated the character some by giving him some heart. I’m a life-long Bond fan and some of the additions to the character were long, long over due.

But having said that, I will also note that I got a significant amount of inspiration from watching the movie. The four book thriller series already has a lot of Bond-like touches to it and I realized something important about the Bond franchise when I watched No Time To Die.

My series about an a American, female James Bond-type person was missing something and I didn’t even realize it. But now that’s fixed and the series, once done, will be a mixture of James Bond, Stieg Larsson’s stuff and Mare of Easttown, if that makes any sense.

I will note in closing that it’s a testament to how much cultural self-confidence Americans have that No Time To Die would pick us so much and we just don’t care. It’s a lulz.

James Bond Has Really Let Us Down In The Gadget Department


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My novel is growing far more scfi in nature far earlier than I predicted. Or, put another way, my heroine’s interaction with advanced technology is beginning to become a central part of the plot sooner than expected.

Right now, I have two major issues to deal with — how often we get to see the heroine’s POV and how often the “embraced and extended” gadgets of James Bond I’ve given her influence what she does as part of the plot. I also have the issue of the nattering nabobs of negativism at VOX waiting to pounce on my pop-lit novel if it doesn’t fit their corporate liberal metrics.

But I’m being both “delusional and stupid” about even selling this novel at this point. I’m an untested, unknown male author who probably comes off as just a well-meaning Internet crank if some lit agent looked at my online ID at this point. I can always self-publish if need be.

Anyway, I’m very pleased with the gadgets I’ve come up with for my heroine. They’re very innovative, next generation and kick ass. And, in the second book, some REALLY cool things are going to happen because of them. I’m really into flipping the script as much as possible, so a lot of themes one might expect in a novel such as this are implemented in an unexpected fashion.

I at least hope so.

The point of all of this is I feel the folks at Eon have let James Bond — and us — down. Bond is about girls, gadgets and guns. While the girls are still hot, the gadgets these days are so so. Just turn on the TV for your inspiration. There’s some seriously cool things being cooked up in tech right now, why not use it?

I guess some of it is producers and screenwriters just aren’t woke to some of the cooler things being designed right now. So, I guess, in a sense, I have my in to entertain readers in an unexpected fashion. I’ll put a move on you, as they say.

A Tale of Two Franchises: The Real Reason Why ‘James Bond’ Succeeds While ‘Star Wars’ is a Dumpster Fire


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

You hear a lot of bullshit among the Joe Rogan types about how Kathleen Kennedy has “ruined” Star Wars for this or that reason. They think up a lot of thinly veiled misogynistic rhetoric that boils down to a MAGA circle jerk. And, yet, another franchise run by a woman that men love — James Bond — continues to do well on both a commercial and artistic level.

I would suggest that it’s not a matter of Ms. Kennedy being too woke for her own good. I would suggest that the difference between Ms. Kennedy of Disney and Barbara Broccoli of Eon is one of fandom. Given the steaming pile of dreck that Ms. Kennedy has managed to churn out from the Star Wars universe compared to what Ms. Broccoli has produced it definitely seems as though Ms. Broccoli is a Bond fan while Ms. Kennedy is not a Star Wars fan.

I have no idea if I’m right or not, but just as an audience member — an aspiring novelist obsessed with story — the most recent Star Wars movies suck so bad because they’re not seen as movies so much as vehicles to sell toys and a “message.” The Bond movies, meanwhile, are, on their merits, good movies. Ms. Broccoli “gets” Bond in a way that Ms. Kennedy does not “get” Star Wars.

Now, I’m pleased that Eon is working to update Bond by bringing in someone like Phoebe Waller-Bridge to spice up the script. That’s really cool and makes a lot of sense. But it’s still being done within the context of understanding what the audience goes to see a James Bond movie for — girls, guns and gadgets.

Meanwhile, Star Wars movies are all over the place. They totally misunderstand the origin of the passion associated with franchise. The whole thing is so top heavy with identity politics, “slaying the patriarchy” and, most of all making that sweet, sweet cash from selling toys that the thing that brings people to the movies — a swashbuckling space opera — is totally muddled into oblivian.

The sad thing is, it doesn’t have to be this way. The Star Wars universe is massive. There are soooooooo many secondary characters that are beloved. There’s a whole canon to be referenced and riffted upon in a way that would bring tears of joy to millions of fans. But they have totally squandered all of that in an effort to get little kids woke and to get them to buy toys along the way.

Part of the problem Star Wars faces is it each movie is such a cultural event — and it’s so associated with little kids — that’s its difficult for them to pair back the edifice and get back to the fundamentals of good storytelling. Just by using the Star Wars brand, you can’t really have any type of sex and your violence has to be comic in nature.

In an ideal world, you would have an “adult” Star Wars franchise and a “kiddy” Star Wars franchise. For adults, you would have The Empire Strikes Back with sex and violence. For the kids, you have the more campy aspects of A New Hope. As it stands, you have a Star Wars movie with a 30 minute subplot designed specifically to get kids to buy toys. What’s more, you have a very contrived and painful to watch plot point that creates a massive hole in the entire Star Wars canon simply to bludgeon audiences with the idea of “trust women.”

This is not brain surgery. You could very well get an actual Star Wars fan like Kevin Smith to write and direct a really good Star Wars movie that would bring back the magic of A New Hope and The Empires Strikes Back. But I would suggest trying to be a least a little bit original by thinking up an entirely new clan to follow the exploits of. You have an entire galaxy to play with — why do we have to keep getting Skywalkers to blow up bigger and bigger Death Stars? It’s becoming quite ridiculous.

The James Bond franchise, meanwhile, has a winning formula and runs with it. What’s more, they’ve managed to turn the campy Roger Moore James Bond that I grew up with into a very serious, dark Daniel Craig James Bond that really takes the whole franchise to the next level.

It’s wild how out of all the franchises that exist in Hollywood today, Bond is the only one that hasn’t either run out of steam (MCU) or that hasn’t been strip mined into irrelevance (Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien, Terminator.)

But no one listens to me. And maybe they shouldn’t. But it’s a tragedy to me that Star Wars has all this unlocked value and its producers are such non-fans that they don’t understand what to do with it.

The Case For Henry Cavill Being The Next ‘James Bond’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m sure Eon Productions is scanning the Web for posts like this, so let me throw my 2 cents in — Henry Cavill should be James Bond.

I’m well aware that Tom Hardy has allegedly been chosen for the role, but that’s just a rumor at this point. He’s a great pick, but when I think of the modern James Bond, I think of Cavill.

But there are a few obvious problems with Cavill. One, he’s a little too young. Bond is a bit older and grizzled. Also, he doesn’t have the hyper-masculine looks of Hardy, which seems to be what the producers of the modern Bond films are looking for.

And, yet, given Cavill’s stand-out role in Mission: Impossible — Fallout, I think he’s perfect. He’s a big guy and if the producers of the modern Bond films continue to have Christopher Nolan envy, then I think he’s just the guy for the role.