James Bond 26

[ChrisIII]

Vesper and Madeline were pretty prominent in the Craig films. Also he didn't even have a romance with Camille in QOS apart from one kiss or either of the non-Madeline Bond girls in NTTD(Although to be fair, he kind of expected Nomi to be and kind of thought that was Paloma's intention in the wine cellar),

[Thunderous Monkey]

My pet theory is still that they are going to make the "James Bond is a code name" idea a reality. the next movie has the existing M need to create a new type of agent. This new agent type will need a code name so he and Q and Moneypenny get together and decide to use the name of their friend who sacrificed himself to save the world. Thus you can rotate new actors with new personalities while keeping the history of original James alive.

Also if you wanted a female Bond, his daughter would be grown up enough after a while to take the Bond codename for a run.

[Frontier]

My pet theory is still that they are going to make the "James Bond is a code name" idea a reality. the next movie has the existing M need to create a new type of agent. This new agent type will need a code name so he and Q and Moneypenny get together and decide to use the name of their friend who sacrificed himself to save the world. Thus you can rotate new actors with new personalities while keeping the history of original James alive.

Also if you wanted a female Bond, his daughter would be grown up enough after a while to take the Bond codename for a run.

I think they've said they have no intention of gender-flipping Bond.

I really doubt they would go with the codename idea...especially just to keep the Craig cast because I can't see them ever approving it.

[phonogram12]

'Progress' with the Bond series usually has meant one of two different things:
1. Have him engage some current themed bad guys, which leaves the film feeling like a generic contemporary action film with Bond name tacked on it. See 'License to Kill' for the most obvious example.
2. Producers paying lip service to 'modernizing' the franchise by (most common example) claiming how in THIS movie the 'Bond girl' is actually a strong, independent character who can look after herself.

So you can see why 'progress' is not a big buzzword with the fans of the franchise.
For example, much has been made of how 'progressive' Craig era Bond movies supposedly were. But in what way? Were Bond Gi...err, 'female leads' somehow more capable and prominent? Heck no. Actually Craig era is weaker in that regard than Brosnan era. Was Bond himself less womanizing and chauvinistic? No, not at all. Ummm...the M was female! No wait, she was already that during Brosnan era, by same actress no less. Other than the superficial technical aspects, almost only major change was that Craig's character was somewhat more upfront with his emotions than more detached take of his predecessors. But even that was actually just closer to the Bond of original books, rather than some truly novel innovation for the franchise.

Okay. If that's the case then, they should continue this path since I loved the way they did it with Craig. I am more than happy with continuing in that direction.

Judging from the success of Top Gun Maverick I'm going to have to disagree with you

I've never been able to get into the Top Gun films. Or any Cruise film for that matter. They all just seem like vanity projects to me (with the exception of The Outsides way back when, which was an ensemble). Add that they've always seemed like thinly veiled military recruitment films...absolutely not.

[Scott Taylor]

My pet theory is still that they are going to make the "James Bond is a code name" idea a reality. the next movie has the existing M need to create a new type of agent. This new agent type will need a code name so he and Q and Moneypenny get together and decide to use the name of their friend who sacrificed himself to save the world. Thus you can rotate new actors with new personalities while keeping the history of original James alive.

Also if you wanted a female Bond, his daughter would be grown up enough after a while to take the Bond codename for a run.

He'll be like the Dread Pirate Roberts!

[Anthony W]

I've never been able to get into the Top Gun films. Or any Cruise film for that matter. They all just seem like vanity projects to me (with the exception of The Outsides way back when, which was an ensemble). Add that they've always seemed like thinly veiled military recruitment films...absolutely not.

It doesn't matter if you aren't able to get into them. What matters is that everyone else is able to get into them. The character of Maverick is very much a (to use your words) dinosaur.

And people love it. So maybe it has less to do with the "rapidly changing taste of the public" and more to do with having a good director, good writing and a charismatic star and maybe we shouldn't be in such a hurry to modernize a franchise that has already been modernized since the Bronsnan age ( It's true, the modernization of the franchise occurred under Bronsnan) that we accidentally kill the Goose that has been laying Golden Eggs for quite some time because we are desperate to do our own thing.

[Sandy Hausler]

I kind of want a Bond in his prime again because we had Craig go from burgeoning super spy to "getting too old for this @#$%" pretty quick.

My idea for redoing Bond (which will never be done, but that's fine) is to go back to his source -- Ian Fleming's books. Can we do a streaming Bond? One that takes place in the early 50s when Bond has just become a 00, having worked in intelligence during World War II and thereafter (so he knows what he's doing). And there are other 00 agents. (As I recall, one of the books mentioned a 006 and 0011.) Call the show Universal Exports and have fun.

[Vic Vega]

My idea for redoing Bond (which will never be done, but that's fine) is to go back to his source -- Ian Fleming's books. Can we do a streaming Bond? One that takes place in the early 50s when Bond has just become a 00, having worked in intelligence during World War II and thereafter (so he knows what he's doing). And there are other 00 agents. (As I recall, one of the books mentioned a 006 and 0011.) Call the show Universal Exports and have fun.

I could see a retro Bond working, given the reception Madmen got. There's always a demand for nostalgia, especially swanky nostalgia.

The Men From UNCLE film didn't work because at the end of the day it was a premise few remembered done by actors who nobody cared about at the time.

[Scott Taylor]

The real James Bond was an ornithologist who wrote a book about Birds of the West Indies.

[Ikari]

Vesper and Madeline were pretty prominent in the Craig films. Also he didn't even have a romance with Camille in QOS apart from one kiss or either of the non-Madeline Bond girls in NTTD(Although to be fair, he kind of expected Nomi to be and kind of thought that was Paloma's intention in the wine cellar),

While Vesper was one of the classic Bond girls, I always thought Madeline was quite useless and poorly defined: a great disappointment since I love the actress. After much hype of 'female 007', Nomi turned out to be relatively weak character, not at all on par with earlier takes on the theme such as Wai Lin or Anya Amasova.

[phonogram12]

It doesn't matter if you aren't able to get into them. What matters is that everyone else is able to get into them. The character of Maverick is very much a (to use your words) dinosaur.

And people love it. So maybe it has less to do with the "rapidly changing taste of the public" and more to do with having a good director, good writing and a charismatic star and maybe we shouldn't be in such a hurry to modernize a franchise that has already been modernized since the Bronsnan age ( It's true, the modernization of the franchise occurred under Bronsnan) that we accidentally kill the Goose that has been laying Golden Eggs for quite some time because we are desperate to do our own thing.

That's great. I'm not sure why that should affect my opinion in the least. I don't care if anyone else liked it. If other people like dinosaurs and military recruitment films, great, good for them

[phonogram12]

I could see a retro Bond working, given the reception Madmen got.

I would love this, personally.

[Ikari]

My pet theory is still that they are going to make the "James Bond is a code name" idea a reality. the next movie has the existing M need to create a new type of agent. This new agent type will need a code name so he and Q and Moneypenny get together and decide to use the name of their friend who sacrificed himself to save the world. Thus you can rotate new actors with new personalities while keeping the history of original James alive.

Also if you wanted a female Bond, his daughter would be grown up enough after a while to take the Bond codename for a run.

'James Bond is a codename' doesn't really work as the character already has a codename (007). And it would be pointless, as either the character would be similar to the Bond, thus nullifying the need for 'codename: Bond', or it would be completely different, in which case why bother keeping the Bond name at all? Just write it as an original character without all the associated baggage.

As said, producers have said they have no intention for a female Bond, and why would they, as it is a trite concept. In general, the idea that gender-flipping a character makes them more interesting is a sign of artistic bankrupcy.

[Sandy Hausler]

I would love this, personally.

And it's a perfect time for Bond-style villains -- escaped Nazis and Communists.

And I'd like to see Loelia Ponsonby, the principal secretary of the 00 unit.

And maybe more with Felix Leiter, my personal favorite character from the James Bond world (well, him and Moneypenny)!

[ChrisIII]

My idea for redoing Bond (which will never be done, but that's fine) is to go back to his source -- Ian Fleming's books. Can we do a streaming Bond? One that takes place in the early 50s when Bond has just become a 00, having worked in intelligence during World War II and thereafter (so he knows what he's doing). And there are other 00 agents. (As I recall, one of the books mentioned a 006 and 0011.) Call the show Universal Exports and have fun.

008 gets mentioned in two films as a possible replacement for Bond who seems to be somewhat more of a 'by the books' agent than Bond. 006 of course is well known...a lot of the other 00s sort of have a tendency to wind up dead in the films, though.