Looking for Double-O Seven

I am not a huge fan of James BondThe world's most famous secret agent, James Bond has starred not only in dozens of books but also one of the most famous, and certainly the longest running, film franchises of all time.. I have watched through the whole series as part of Action Adventure April here on the site, and I do own all the movies (although that was largely because I had a friend who was getting rid of them and I hated the thought of breaking up a full set), but that doesn’t make me a fan. I find the movies tend to be silly, outdated, and at times verging on unwatchable. Getting through the whole series, for me, was a matter of just pushing through to see a task done. I didn’t really enjoy it, for the most part.

With that said, there were a few bright points in the run. I loved On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and I will stand as one of the few George Lazenby defenders out there. I thought Timothy Dalton was a solid Bond and while his two films (The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill) weren’t top-tier, they were still a damn sight better than just about anything from the Roger Moore era. GoldenEye is watchable and, along with spawning one of the greatest video games of all time, also showed the promise of Pierce Brosnan’s Bond (even if his other films would never live up to that promise). And the Daniel Craig films had more hits than misses, with Casino Royale being a stand-out film that cleared away the past history of James Bond and gave us a new version that was solidly watchable. There are films that I will enjoy watching… they just are few and far between in this 25 film (and, presumably, counting) franchise.

With that said, I much prefer the films inspired by, and in conversation with, the James Bond franchise. The Jason BourneLost without his memory, but bearing a particular set of skills, Jason Bourne has to figure out who he is and just why everyone seems to want him dead. movies were solid (at least until the last couple of films), providing visceral action the likes of which Bond himself hadn’t seen for years (until Casino Royale). The Mission: ImpossibleIntroduced in 1966, the original Mission: Impossible featured a team of agents (with varying skills) heading out into the field to solve puzzle-box like cases on a weekly basis. This simple concept spawned a long-running series, a second series in the 1980s, and a hugely successful movie franchise starring Tom Cruise that continues today. films were far better at interesting stunts, spectacle, and spy-craft than James Bond had been in some time. And the tropes of the franchise were so ingrained that a spoof like Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery could prove to be a better James Bond film that anything the main series had produced in years.

What it always comes down to, every few years, is that the James Bond series is due for a creative breath of fresh air. The Daniel Craig era was decent enough, one of the better runs of films for any version of Bond, but it was flawed. Fans are mixed on which of the films (past Casino Royale, of course) are the good ones, but it is generally agreed that Craig’s era went off the rails with Spectre. In theory that continuity is done, since Craig’s Bond died at the end of No Time to Die (oh yeah, spoilers, I guess), and the producers for the franchise have to decide what to do next, where to go with the franchise now that their big draw version of the character is done.

There are a couple of ways this could be handled. They could simply reboot again. Go with the back-to-basics approach that seems to be desired every few years in the franchise (at least until the fans start demanding a return of all the gadgets and gizmos and tropes once more). A new Bond comes in, a trainee given their first assignment in the field, and they have to prove they are the stuff that MI:6 is looking for. This is, more or less, the path that Craig’s Bond took for his first adventure, and it is a proven formula. With that said, we’ve seen that before. If they did the same kind of story again, it would inevitably be linked right back to Casino Royale. It would draw comparisons and feel less fresh.

Which is funny since Casino Royale was, in itself, a response to all the spy-craft films that had come along while Bond was out in the weeds during Pierce Brosnan’s era. Craig’s hard-hitting, thuggish Bond was clearly inspired by Bourne, and you could see that the director of that first Craig film (Martin Campbell, who also directed GoldenEye) was working to directly mimic the hard-crunching feel of the Jason Bourne series. This wasn’t James Bond doing something new, it was the franchise copying what was suddenly working.

Not that this should come as a surprise to fans of the series. While there was a time when the James Bond films were trend setters, defining action cinema for over a decade, that time passed during the Roger Moore era. The films there were directly responding to other trends in action cinema, from Blaxploitation (Live and Let Die), Star WarsThe modern blockbuster: it's a concept so commonplace now we don't even think about the fact that before the end of the 1970s, this kind of movie -- huge spectacles, big action, massive budgets -- wasn't really made. That all changed, though, with Star Wars, a series of films that were big on spectacle (and even bigger on profits). A hero's journey set against a sci-fi backdrop, nothing like this series had ever really been done before, and then Hollywood was never the same. (Moonraker), and “that cop if off the rails crazy” films like Lethal WeaponFirst started with a script by Shane Black, the Lethal Weapon franchise (movies and television) tells the story of older cop Murtaugh and his loose cannon, living on the edge partner Riggs. (License to Kill). You can find examples for just about every James Bond film in Roger Moore and beyond where something that was released recently became the main influence for the British spy’s next adventure. Hell, one of Craig’s beloved films, Skyfall, feels more like a response to The Dark Knight than a proper James Bond movie. That’s just where the franchise is at.

I think if you’re going to continue the James Bond franchise you need to take bolder steps. As I discussed with Ghoul Mike on our podcast (Season 6, Episode 7: Will the Next 007 Please Stand Up?) one of the best ways the franchise could reset and push forward would be to do something it’s never done before: have a James Bond film without Bond in it at all. The franchise shifted to the 007 branding with the Brosnan era, a major change from the Connery films – “Sean Connery is James Bond” – and then James Bond 007 for Lasenby and beyond. At this point, the films are the 007 films and not just James Bond adventures.

So why not own it? By the fifth Craig film the code number had been reassigned (after James Bond’s fourth retirement at that point) to Agent Nomi (Lashana Lynch). She’s shown to be a capable and effective agent, at the level of Bond. If the producers wanted to do something bold and fresh, to say, “hey, this franchise can live on and we want to try and make it new again,” they should keep with the Craig continuity but make a couple of films following Agent Nomi as our Double-O agent. They could even introduce a younger agent she trains, a guy who has potential but doesn’t really get what it means to be an agent. And, after a couple of films, Nomi could retire and they could give this new guy the 007 designation and assign him a new secret identity, that of Bond, James Bond.

Now, sure, the producers aren’t going to do this. For starters, as fun and wild as this idea does sound, there is a strong contingent of people that have been watching these films for years and years and if Eon Productions announced that they were doing 007 films without Bond, those fans would flood the internet, complaining loudly and downvoting everything associated with the films. It would make the toxic fan culture of Star Wars pale by comparison. Just for the fear of what kinds of ticket sales would be lost, the producers will never do this.

But at the same time, it’s intriguing to think about the implications this could have for the series. Instead of having to recast every time and pretend that each new actor is playing the same Bond, or trying to do a full reboot and having fans question if this was part of the same continuity or not (as plagued the Craig era for years), the production could set in stone, “Bond is a codename, just like his number.” It neatly folds in a simple explanation and a baked in solution any time an actor wants to bail on the role. Let them have their grand finale, maybe their character dies or maybe they go on to be the next head of the agency, the M, and then trot out the next person to take over the role.

The first time you pull this trick you’d want to have a couple of films to establish a smooth transition. That’s why I think a Nomi pair of films makes sense: you clearly show what it takes to be the next Double-O. But then, after that, you could speed up the transition. Maybe have a trainee already showing up before the James Bond actor steps down so, like Nomi, they can take over the role easily. It becomes de rigueur, the thing that Bond does to allow in the next Bond. It just works.

I’m sure instead we’ll get another reboot, and the franchise will continue to spin its wheels and copy what other action films are doing. But deep down, I hope they don’t. I want to see the series let loose and do something new. I want it to be fresh and interesting. Above all, I want it to be a series of films I’d actually enjoy because, damn, more often than not these films suck.