VICE: Daniel Craig James Bond Films Are Boring

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43qp4d/daniel-craig-james-bond-boring?utm_source=vicefbus

Aside from the Skyfall bashing, and the CR praise, I'd agree.

My immediate reaction was "Ugh, a Vice article." Then I got to here:

Quote :

Over the decades, the James Bond movies have gotten a lot wrong, from a troubling legacy of racism, sexism, misogyny, stereotypes, and xenophobia

... and I remembered why that was.

Sure, valid points are raised about the grimness of the Craig films. Yes, it's all well and good that the writer wants to bring back "adventure, danger, elegance, and fun... high-tech gadgets and sports cars, the beautiful locations and exciting action sequences, the martinis and witty quips." However, there's a lack of self-awareness on the writer's part that publications - nay, Leftist Outrage Outlets - like the one he writes for are part of the reason why the James Bond of old is dead. For authoritarian cultural Leftists and the Millennial yoof who swell said ranks, the existence of a heterosexual white male who battles the enemies of the capitalist West is "problematic" and not "woke." What use does this generation have for the James Bond of 1962-2002? Even Friends - hailing from the distant dark ages known as the 90's - is considered racist and alphabet-phobic by contemporary SJW kiddies. I don't think the precious petals are mentally ready for a Bond resembling the literary or the Connery/Moore incarnation; nor do they deserve one.

The writer thinks you can get away with having an inoffensive person called James Bond - gender fluid of course - who may occasionally drive an expensive (carbon-neutral) vehicle and make non-problematic jokes, but ultimately that's just a shell of a man with a "007" sticker plastered on his forehead.

Interesting post CJB. I'm not sure I agree that Millennials are more progressive on average than Generation X. There are a lot of interesting stats out there which suggest the opposite. Just yesterday I read a stat which suggests young women now have more old-fashioned ideas about husband-wife roles than their counterparts 20 years ago.

It's a vocal minority who truly believe in the shit, but the majority of the generation is silently complicit for fear of being labelled x-phobic. And hey, guilty as charged, I often hold my tongue in the presence of "progressive" moral police. Over here, in the lead up to our national day, we presently have a yoof-driven social media campaign to put Australia in the Left's Israel category - i.e. an illegitimate state with no right to exist. People who don't think their homeland should be on the map are not the sorts of people who want to see a libido-driven Anglo-Saxon hedonist make double entendres.

So just as George Lazenby wondered if the hippie generation had outgrown traditional Bondom, so too must we pose that question for this generation. The difference is that the former's raison d'etre was protesting a war which eventually ended, thus allowing them to grow up and perhaps appreciate the values of their parent's generation who'd fought to save democracy; this generation, on the other hand, seems to want to fight a perpetual cultural war on anything male and pale. What's the end game here? As for looking to their parent's generation (late era Boomers/Gen-X) for a grounding in something meaningful... *shrugs*

They are boring in the sense that the stunts no longer have that 'wow' factor especially in the last 3.

Other movies are doing that better, with Bond doing 'catch up' at best.

This is an outrage that Babs needs to address instead of hee-hawing like a jackass over a black Bond.

In that they are mindless, soulless and not about the actual Bond character yes. In that they try to ape modern trends blatantly and poorly whilst occasionally failing to utilize tropes of the original series yes.

But the rest of the "article" seems to be from someone who has never seen the original series, nor read a Fleming novel or any adventure storytelling for that matter. I absolutely hate it when someone labels Bond as something he clearly is not; particularly the accusations of misogyny. That all started up with M's line in GE which was designed to be a barb thrown at 007 and the audience as part of the 90's revival of the character into the post-Cold War landscape and an attempt at character psychoanalysis which also pops up in the film in other places most notably the beach scene. Of course Bond is not a misogynist but in modern terms that goes out the window.

When you have even the actor portraying the namesake labeling it as such, you're screwed. Craig has said it several times and it just isn't true. I like the guy and think he is a good actor otherwise, but the difference is this: Dalton did the homework and really found insight into the character. He portrayed a real human being with inner turmoil, thoughts and emotions. Currently no one can be bothered with putting thought in. But hey just slap on a logo and foreign box office will do the rest!

Dalton truly was the only actor of the last three decades to understand the character as penned by Fleming. Brosnan (to some extent) and Craig have bowed to the requisite self-flagellation about James Bond as dictated by the zeitgeist of the times.

I mustn't have read the full article after posting it. 

Why do you say "to some extent" with the Brozzer, CJB?

hegottheboot wrote:

In that they are mindless, soulless and not about the actual Bond character yes. In that they try to ape modern trends blatantly and poorly whilst occasionally failing to utilize tropes of the original series yes.

But the rest of the "article" seems to be from someone who has never seen the original series, nor read a Fleming novel or any adventure storytelling for that matter. I absolutely hate it when someone labels Bond as something he clearly is not; particularly the accusations of misogyny. That all started up with M's line in GE which was designed to be a barb thrown at 007 and the audience as part of the 90's revival of the character into the post-Cold War landscape and an attempt at character psychoanalysis which also pops up in the film in other places most notably the beach scene. Of course Bond is not a misogynist but in modern terms that goes out the window. 

When you have even the actor portraying the namesake labeling it as such, you're screwed. Craig has said it several times and it just isn't true. I like the guy and think he is a good actor otherwise, but the difference is this: Dalton did the homework and really found insight into the character. He portrayed a real human being with inner turmoil, thoughts and emotions. Currently no one can be bothered with putting thought in. But hey just slap on a logo and foreign box office will do the rest!

Exactly. Though again I'll make a case for Skyfall that the writing is highly evocative of a latter Fleming novel but Craig just isn't up to the task.

I could be wrong, but I don't think Brosnan mouthed off about what a shitty cunt James Bond is as much as Craig, though I'm fairly sure he's called the character sexist etc. to keep up his Hollywood liberal cred.

Following on from my earlier posts...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5315501/Millennials-watching-old-James-Bond-not-impressed.html

Quote :

Dr NO! Millennials watching classic Bond movies for the first time blast 'sexist' and 'racist' plots online - and describe Sean Connery's 007 as 'basically a rapist'

   Young viewers watching vintage James Bond for the first time left shocked
   Older movies in the decades-long Bond franchise dubbed 'sexist' and 'racist'
   People have taken issue with Sean Connery's 007, insisting he was a 'wife beater'
   Others have said in a post-Weinstein world old Bond flicks are 'offensive'
   Comes after Friends criticised by new generation of viewers on Netflix  

Article continues with Twitter whines etc.

Poor dears.

Makes me wonder where we might be heading. A distinct lack of emotional intelligence and rationality.

Heck, we're already there.

Just saw this old thread and wondered how folks here might have changed or kept opinions after the most recent painful outing (no pun intended.)

Outside of the brief Cuba sequence, NTTD was largely the same grim slop as the other Craig entries. No, the Phoebe Two-Dads/Marvel style of sarcastic "humour" was out of place and couldn't hold a candle to genuine wit.

I mean, anything that ends with a decades old literary/screen hero being incinerated to stroke the ego of a lead who didn't want to be there is going to leave a sour taste.

The puritans also won out and made Bond a sexless automaton.

So no, my opinion hasn't changed in the past 5 years, except to say that when it comes to the generations, Gen-Z are even more neurotic, fragile and emotionally stunted than millennials and the Bond of old is even less suited to their viewing needs.

I basically agree with CJB. And I can say definitively that NTtD is trending downward with me. Oddly enough, however, SP is trending upward.