Should Bond 26 take place in the present day or go back to the 1960's?
Bear with me on this one :)
In my opinion modern Bond films have several problems they need to overcome for every film:
1) Nowadays there are far more action style film which compete with Bond. It has to somehow distinguish itself.
2) The modern world has moved on and a drinking womaniser is no longer acceptable, Bond has to change if the films are set in the modern day.
3) Technology makes the modern spy less relevant. This was even a theme of Daniel Craig's films which portrayed him as a was a dinosaur and with a lot of the plots being information based. Even mobile phones can cause problems for the plot of a Bond film (e.g. why doesn't he simply call someone for help).
To set Bond apart again, to explain away and justify his character as a drunken womaniser and to remove a lot of modern technology then maybe the next iteration of Bond should be set back in the 1960's. The NTTD ending may have even set this up as a possibility, allowing a reboot of the character back to a very different time. Maybe this approach allows the whole theme of Bond to change and not just the actor playing 007.
Comments
I'd agree with that approach, but think it should go back to the 50s before it does the 60s.
I read an interview with the producers not long ago that said they wouldn't do this. Bond should be current; he's already appeared in the 60s and it was great, but we've done that. Also it would drain the budget and mean they'd have less for the big scale things we expect in Bond movies.
While your post has some substance, ask yourself this question: what is the biggest threat to Bond? The same threat that is hurting baseball: the age of the audience. Would setting the films in the 50s and 60s help with this? I have a hard time seeing how this propels the franchise into the future. You no longer have product placement, so your film has to be a huge hit to justify your decision. Doubling down on an aging audience seems to be a worse hill to die on than the one Bond chose in the last film.
Given the geopolitical context of the modern world, it would be such a shame not to focus on the current stakes.
GE deals with the relevance of operatives in the post-Cold War era. CR06 deals with international terrorism and the way it is financed in a post-September 11 world.
It would be great to have Bond 26 dealing with the new "Iron Curtain" the current events seem to lead to, but they have to find a subtle way to do it, like Spectre replacing Smersh in the 60s movies for instance. I also remember TND was supposed to deal with the Hong Kong hangover until they realized it was a tricky topic, especially if it happened to go wrong (if I'm not mistaken, Kissinger was even hired as consultant to give advice).
Anyway, I don't think a Bond movie should be anachronistic. However, having a series taking place in the 50s and describing the atmosphere of Fleming's first novels (I insist on the 50s decade, not the 60s) could be very interesting.
James Bond movies often had the cold war as the backdrop of the plot, but not really the plot itself. I think that's the way forward too.
Why not both? Make "James Bond" movies set in the 60s with all the racism and sexism for the traditionalists, make "007" movies set nowadays where the protagonist doesn't have to be a middle aged white guy?
The romance of having Bond set in the 50's/60's does sound appealing, but agree with others that ultimately, it wouldn't be a good move long term for the franchise's continuation and survival.
Bond is always set one day in the future and many of the threats that did exist back in the day, are still present now, albeit under different guises.
With the right scripts, direction, actors and some genuine creativity! There is no reason the series can't go from strength to strength.
Often, but there are some movies where the plot is fully built on that.
I never really enjoyed FYEO as a kid while today I consider it as a masterpiece plotwise, precisely because I developed some kind of passion for history and geopolitics over the years.
I think it mainly depends on the period the plot deals with. The late 70's/early 80's constitute a real turning point of the conflict, leading to movies like FYEO and TLD, with stakes that are established to be connected with the Reagan/Thatcher years and the Soviet-Afghan War.
That's why I think it's important to have a spy thriller back in the series. Let's be clear, I don't expect Bond 26 to take place in Ukraine, but I think it would be weird to skip that major event and its consequences in the future. I don't want another personal vengeance story in the next movie.
You see my point ?
I do. I wouldn't mind if cold war II influenced future Bond movies.
In another medium (the novel), Horowitz shows how 'new' 'period Bond' can be made to appeal to modern sensibilities. I'm not sure that the choice of a period mise-en-scene in itself would limit the audience to older age groups. Period action has worked well enough, with broad appeal, in other popular franchises. And as has been previously mentioned, the stories themselves might benefit from a de-technologisation of spycraft, comms and the villain's plot, in favour of a traditional heroism based on improvisation, wit and fisticuffs, and a villainous, pre-cyber atomic threat. It's in that sense that Bond works best as a dinosaur... not the '-isms'... so, rather than continuing to present him as an anachronistic figure, hounded by in-world institutional disapproval (as he has been, more or less, since GE), let's seem him do his thing in his original milieu.
Besides which, visions of 'the contemporary' in Bond have largely been a matter of fantasy, of course - often teetering on the brink of sci-fi - rather than 'real world': Bond occupies fantasy environments, anyway, whatever the period. Surely some of the most fun/ chic recent elements of the Bond films have been the more retro elements (e.g. Eva Green's look in the Casino Royale, the DB5.) Time to roll back the sci-fi, not to make a dour contemporary film, but to dazzle with some witty period mise-en-scene...