The Bond ‘Arc’ & ‘Reset’. [Spoilers]
Jflynn2112
Posts: 68MI6 Agent
I’ve been thinking about the ending to No Time To Die, which I loved by the way.
And how with Craig we’ve reached an emotional crescendo with the Bond series and I was put in mind about how with every Bond we see their story reach a peak and then a reset.
Usually it’s in terms of story line or gadgets. Going to space, invisible cars. The reaction then comes where they bring Bond ‘back down to earth’ again (so to speak).
It gets to the very peak, sometimes ridiculous, then they reset.
And that’s not really any different here. Instead of an invisible car we have Bond with a child and Bond dying at the end and honestly it’s a toss up between which is more ridiculous in the ‘Bond universe’.
I just thought it was an interesting observation that the more things change, the more they really stay the same.
Comments
I’m not a big fan of arc storytelling in general but especially in films. These days, it just takes too long to make movies to see the same story dragged out for 15 years. What I find most interesting about the Craig Bond arc is how he turns out to be a deconstructed, White male loser at the end. They played with our conventions to see Bond as a traditional hero. Instead, over the course of his career, he gets multiple people killed, including M, is betrayed by a girlfriend who rules his personal life, goes five tears without knowing he’s a father with another girlfriend he falsely accuses of betraying him, fails in various missions, and ultimately is shot, infected, and then blown up by bombs he called in from his own forces after trying to stop a mad man from using a weapons program the British created.
As I understand it, Fleming’s works confirm Bond’s imperfect and dysfunctional nature, “white male” and all. Is that how we prefer to see him on screen? Probably not. But if Broccoli’s intent is to shake things up to the point of rebooting toward a new market, then she’s well on her way.
DC will be a tough act to follow IMO, so his Bond’s demise may be just as well in that regard. 25 films are more than enough to keep me entertained.
It's always a matter of degree. Bake bread at 425 degrees F, and it rises steadily to a golden brown. Bake bread at 425 degrees F for five minutes too long, and it's ruined. Stay out in the sun 15 minutes too long and you get burned.
Literary Bond's life had its tragedies and failures, but they were not the dominating nor defining elements of it. Without setbacks, he wouldn't have been identifiable as a human being, pulpish fantasy character though he was. But the setbacks did not become his life.
Put another way, there are hints of impotence in the books (mostly through his depression in You Only Live Twice). His "rebirth" is marked by his ability to love Kissy Suzuki both emotionally and physically, resulting in her pregnancy, the ultimate symbol of his return. About 10 years ago, physicians analyzed Bond's drinking habits and concluded he would absolutely have been impotent from the alcohol alone, too.
But if every Craig Bond film dwelt on his impotence in some way, at some point, people would realize he's being deconstructed and not the sexual athlete we thought he was. If someone argued, well, the books deal with his impotence, too, I'd say, not this much and not to the degree it defines his existence.
So, yes, Bond was not perfect. No one is in the books. Is he dysfunctional? Only in relation to specific events, the death of his wife being the most profound. But we follow his adventures because of all the 00s, he's the closest to perfect and the most functional. He's far more interesting, and on balance, has his life together in a profession where that's not always possible. It's the other guys who are lessers and that why the books are about 007 and not 002.
When the Connery films came out, they decided to focus on Bond's admirable (for then) qualities, to the near exclusion of everything else. With each film, they ramped that up, in part because the fans responded well. Films only have a couple hours to tell their story, and people generally didn't go to the movies to be depressed back then. The stories were escapism with an edge and a nod to verisimilitude audiences were not yet accustomed to.
Times change, and the Craig films essentially invert the proportions. How many times did we ever see Craig's Bond truly happy? How long did his triumphs last, and how common were they? If the Bond films are meant to be a reflection of the psychological state of their audiences, then people were pretty happy in the 60s. In the 2000s? Well, quite a few people must be on mood medication. It is a matter of degrees in the presentation.