I'm in that predicament right now for a school assignment. I'm not out to look for sympathy or advice, just amusing stories of possibility. I have no doubt I'll get to my minimum, I chose a pretty big topic.
So, have any of you guys managed the impossibly possible?
(I might tell you guys how mine turns out once it's done.)
EDIT: You guys are inspiration to us all, I'm very proud of everyone.
But, honestly, the posts you guys have made have been pretty uplifting. A lot of you guys seem really good at this sort of thing. The kind of grades you guys are getting seem like something out of a fantasy. Writing papers is starting to seem like a dice throw at this point. It's a complete balancing act of writing in a formal that isn't boring while also giving what the teacher is looking for, which can be tricky it the teacher hasn't set clear standards. I'm getting sick of these classes where our only assignments are these papers that take up a quarter of our final grade.
Anyways, I managed to turn it in today.
*applause*
I'm not sure how well it's going to go ever, but, we'll see.
If anybody wants to look at it, I can post it right here and you can try to predict what kind of grade I'll get(The most I'm hoping for is a C). So, this is for a film class and I give a very broad look at James Bond. It's not my best work, but I was surprised that it at least sounded intelligible. However, I am a little bit anxious on this, but there isn't a lot I can do about it now other than just do really well on my final(which is what I do plan on doing).
(Also, there are some copy and paste errors to this that I don't feel like fixing just for this. Sorry!)
So, have any of you guys managed the impossibly possible?
(I might tell you guys how mine turns out once it's done.)
EDIT: You guys are inspiration to us all, I'm very proud of everyone.
But, honestly, the posts you guys have made have been pretty uplifting. A lot of you guys seem really good at this sort of thing. The kind of grades you guys are getting seem like something out of a fantasy. Writing papers is starting to seem like a dice throw at this point. It's a complete balancing act of writing in a formal that isn't boring while also giving what the teacher is looking for, which can be tricky it the teacher hasn't set clear standards. I'm getting sick of these classes where our only assignments are these papers that take up a quarter of our final grade.
Anyways, I managed to turn it in today.
*applause*
I'm not sure how well it's going to go ever, but, we'll see.
If anybody wants to look at it, I can post it right here and you can try to predict what kind of grade I'll get(The most I'm hoping for is a C). So, this is for a film class and I give a very broad look at James Bond. It's not my best work, but I was surprised that it at least sounded intelligible. However, I am a little bit anxious on this, but there isn't a lot I can do about it now other than just do really well on my final(which is what I do plan on doing).
(Also, there are some copy and paste errors to this that I don't feel like fixing just for this. Sorry!)
It is challenging to give a broad overview on James Bond without bringing up the clichés of Bond saving the world countless times with fast cars while managing to find another gorgeous woman to seduce, but those broad things seem to be the main driving force of what is keeping the series going since 1962. Based on a series of books by Ian Fleming, James Bond is the ultimate power fantasy for just about any male to indulge their lust for action, sex, defying superiors, being impossibly good at gambling, and cars which nearly all of the 007 movies provide. However, getting past the iconography of what makes a James Bond movie, the series shows a convoluted history of how movies are made within the era from which they come.
There were two movies before the one that really started the whole ?Bond Movie? series, but Goldfinger was the one that embodied all of the Bond tropes in a way that lot of the other movies would later keep using. Since then, Bond movies have usually followed the iconic Bond tropes of the gun barrel sequence, an exciting action scene that sometimes has nothing to do with the rest of the plot, an intro credits sequence with provocatively dressed women, James Bond seducing a girl for intel only to have her be killed for betraying the villain of the story, Q giving Bond gadgets, Bond embarrassing Q, a new car a female co-lead known as a ?Bond Girl,? a grandiose villain with a master plan that usually involves nuclear weapons, a hidden master lair, a brutish henchman, a battle sequence, and Bond defying his superiors. These are the key elements that make a movie unique to James Bond?s character. There are some variations and not all of these tropes get used in every movie, but this is the basic formula that most of the Bond movies use. In Goldfinger, the variables for the formula involve a larger than life villain, named Goldfinger, whose master plan involves making the gold stored in Fort Knox worthless in order to destroy the world economy and to make his gold more valuable. The henchman is Oddjob, a character who can kill people by throwing his hat at them. In order to advance the plot to find out more about Goldfinger, Bond seduces Goldfinger?s assistant, Jill Masterson, which leads to her death. To help Bond on his mission to fight back Goldfinger, Q provides him with the gadgets and the fast car and Bond manages to get Pussy Galore, the Bond Girl of this movie, to help sabotage Goldfinger?s plans. All of this leads to a final battle at the end involving two armies. The only thing that this movie did not have, compared to the rest of the movies, is the secret hidden lair inhabited by the villain of the story. This was first started by the movie Dr. No, a story involving the villain doing his dirty work from a secret underwater lab.
The filmmakers behind this film must have thought it worked really well because the next film, Thunderball, follows the exact same structure with different characters. This is where the cycle of these movies being made based on how well the last movie did starts. They are in a state of endlessly reacting to the last movie and to the movies that are popular at the time which affects the development of the next movie, which is why Thunderball is nearly identical to its last movie, Goldfinger. This time, the master plan is from the villain Largo who steals nuclear Warheads. Through the use of gadgets and help from the female co-lead, Domino, Bond executes his mission which leads to a battle between two different armies. There are different characters in the story, but the same basic setup from Goldfinger is present in Thunderball. This is also when the series had established a consistent tone that would go on throughout the rest of the movies. Dr. No and From Russia with Love are different in tone from the following two, even though Terence Young was the one who directed the first two movies and Thunderball. This seems to have all started when Guy Hamilton directed Goldfinger as the movie had a balance between the grandiose aspects of Bond and the more serious aspects that help people get involved with the plot. However, the later Bond projects that Guy Hamilton directs seem to show the kind of intention he had with the Bond franchise. However, his first Bond project with Goldfinger was what set the stage for the rest of the movies, showing how each movie is affected by the last one. It seemed that the production team was ?learning? that people wanted more fun in the Bond franchise, which lead to You Only Live Twice, a movie where Bond disguises himself as an Asian, where Bond girls are interchangeable within the same film, and the most grandiose villain yet named Blofeld.
The reaction to You Only Live Twice must have not been a very positive one as On Her Majesty?s Secret Service opts for a different Bond story that actually does not follow the formula as much as the other movies did. On Her Majesty?s Secret Service places Bond, played by George Lazenby this time, into a love story that actually challenges Bond. The Bond girl for this movie is completely different from the Bond girls in the previous movie as Tracy outright rejects Bond from the very start of the film. After James Bond saves Tracy from a suicide attempt, a couple of henchmen come to fight Bond which gave Tracy the chance to escape the situation. Her attitude towards Bond is rather callous as Bond remarks ?This never happened to the other fellow? as a fourth wall break to the audience showing that this is going to be a completely different Bond. Not that On Her Majesty?s Secret Service does not use Bond tropes as there is one point in the movie where Bond goes around door to door sleeping with different women. There is no function to this part other than that they still need to show Bond?s trait of being able to seduce any woman that he wants. But then the movie takes a turn around on actually giving Bond a meaningful relationship with Tracy. It happens at the point in the movie where Bond is at a new low in his life where the villain, who is Blofeld again, actually has him matched and Bond is not sure if he can actually win this time. This is the point where Tracy shows up in Bond?s life again and that she actually acknowledges Bond as a person with whom she can relate. Since this is the person who attempted suicide, it is suggested that Tracy finally befriends Bond because they find themselves on common ground in dealing with difficult emotions. The two characters end up getting married in the end, but the film ends with Tracy tragically dying. This part of the story gives a whole new dimension to James Bond as a character as this is one of the few times something happens to Bond on a personal level. Unfortunately, the next movie, Diamonds Are Forever, brings back Sean Connery as Bond going back to the basics of a Bond movie which suggests that the reception towards On Her Majesty?s Secret Service was not a positive one, but On Her Majesty?s Secret Service showed that James Bond could be taken seriously as a character.
The Roger Moore period of Bond films was the period where the franchise was basing itself off of what was popular at the time which resulted in a set of different kinds of Bond films. The formula was still present within all of the movies Roger Moore was in, but some of the Roger Moore movies were carrying an ironic tone that the series had never possessed before these movies. Live and Let Die was a product of the Blaxploitation Films that were happening in this period where the villains involved heroin dealers. The Man with the Golden Gun involved an assassin whose signature weapon was the Golden Gun, but, now, it was harkening to kung-fu movies that were happening at the time. Guy Hamilton is back as the director for these two movies, but this is a point where he cannot seem to take the franchise seriously anymore as most of the things he adds the franchise is a downright joke. Sheriff Pepper is introduced as a character and his purpose to the two movies in is nothing more than a joke. He has a comical southern accent while also being clueless to what is going on while James Bond gets to do his serious work. Sheriff Pepper?s character might have been an attempt to help appeal the franchise to Americans so the series can look a little less snobbish. The other joke is the introduction of a different kind of henchman named Nick-Nack. He is a dwarf who ends up getting locked inside a suitcase, which is obviously played for laughs. If there was a reaction to these two movies, it seems that the reception was that the tone and direction the series was taking was not working anymore so they went back to make a ?safe? Bond film known as The Spy Who Loved Me. Out of all the Bond films, The Spy Who Loved Me is the one that embodies everything that a James Bond movie has, including a new brutish henchman named Jaws, another secret underwater lair, and another plot involving the capture of nuclear weaponry but it was all done a little more seriously.
After The Spy Who Loved Me, the movie advertised For Your Eyes Only as the upcoming film. However, this was a pivotal time in the Bond franchise that really showed how much of a product of its time the series was once the film Star Wars hit the mainstream. What actually came after The Spy Who Loved Me was Moonraker, a movie complete with all of the Bond tropes one could think, only this time it all ended with a laser battle in space. For Your Eyes Only finally released after Moonraker and the two movies seem to be complete opposites with For Your Eyes Only being more of a low key spy thriller compared to the epic space adventure from the last movie. This suggests that people were wanting a James Bond movie that was more realistic which is why For Your Eyes Only deals with plausibility. The plot is simple, as it just involves a search for an encryption before the villain gets to it, but it takes James Bond on various dangerous situations involving an attempt on his life where he and the Bond Girl, Melina Havelock, are dragged by a motor boat and a scale up a cliff to get to the fortress of the villains. But the next two films in the series suggests that people were getting bored with the franchise. The next film was given the name of the title character, Octopussy, which feels like an attempt to find a clever way of seeing if they could get away with naming a movie like that. There is not a whole lot to this film other than James Bond has to dress into a gorilla suit and a clown outfit. But then there was A View to a Kill where James Bond started to become a parody of himself. The film begins with an inconsequential action scene that involves skiing and Beach Boys music. The rest of the film involves someone important getting killed by a poisonous butterfly, a sequence involving a chase where Bond drives in a car that keeps going while it falls apart, and a villain, played by Christopher Walken, devising a nonsensical plan involving killing the very people from where he plans to make money. Bond was starting to become a joke and it was time for the series to take a new direction.
This is where Timothy Dalton came in as the new James Bond and this is where the character starts taking on a new life. The Living Daylights has all of the things that makes a Bond film, but Timothy Dalton took the title role and turned it into something completely different. James Bond had always been a character who could smirk and smooth talk his way out of any situation while looking cool doing so, but Timothy Daltons performance shows a kind of Bond who is able to do all of that while also giving a sense of urgency and emotion to the character. The story for The Living Daylights starts with James Bond defying orders in order to save the assassin he was sent to kill. The assassin turns out to be the Bond Girl for this movie named Kara and it turns out that she is only a pawn of a more sinister plot from the villain. But the most interesting thing about this film is that it goes back to a sort of love story that actually plays an integral role to the plot of the movie. Unlike most of the other movies where the Bond Girl exists just for Bond to seduce her, Kara?s character subverts that expectation as she develops into a real character with her own thoughts and emotions. Eventually, Bond does get with her in the end, but it shows that the filmmakers were trying to find a way to get away from the standard Bond formula so they could do something different. This resulted in the next film, Licence to Kill, and, out of all of the movies so far, this is the least formulaic Bond movie. The story is less of a espionage spy thriller and more of a cathartic revenge film. Breaking away from any kind of formula to try something is risky in terms of people being accepting of it and being unsure if what happens will make for a good movie. Unfortunately, the movie is confused and inconsistent with its tone as there is not a good balance between the ?campy? and the ?grittier? side of the story. The story involves a gang, lead by Sanchez, nearly killing Felix, a close friend to Bond, and completely killing Felix?s newly wedded wife which gives James Bond the excuse to go out on a rampage to kill everyone involved in the gang. This is an interesting direction for the series to take but it did not work as well as people would have hoped which, once again, leads to another basic Bond film, but things become a little different next time.
Pierce Brosnan is the new guy to take on the role as Bond and his take on the character is much more similar to Connery?s impossibly cool personality than all of the other Bonds. This is what makes Goldeneye, Brosnan?s first Bond movie, an interesting movie in that this is one of the few times where the story is actually personal to the Bond character himself. The formula for a standard Bond film is shamelessly present in this movie but by making the story being about a central moment in Bond?s career is what makes this movie stand out a bit. The movie starts off with a mission where James Bond is working with his partner, Alec Trevelyan, to destroy an enemy base. Alec seemingly gets killed on this mission but, as a twist, later comes back as the actual villain in this movie. This personal history suggests that Bond has had a rough life and the fact that he keeps on a ?cool?, ?easy going? personality might be more of a coping method of his dangerous life. Goldeneye is also the first and only time that the Bond Girl gets her own part in the story where we vicariously experience Natalya seeing the plot unfold with the villains using a secret weapon known as the Goldeneye. This movie is one of the few times where the plot is less about the spectacle and is more grounded in the characters that drive the plot rather than James Bond reacting to the plot that is happening around him as he does the standard Bond things he usually does. Unfortunately, the reaction to this film seemed to be that Pierce Brosnan?s ?coolness? was what was driving the film and that they needed the following movies to be more about being cool. Tomorrow Never Dies puts Bond against a pompous super-villain who plans to control the world by controlling the news it produces. The World is Not Enough goes even further by trying to draw the spectacle of a Bond film by involving more lasers and even more grandiose super villains. But then came Die Another Day which had all of the traits for a parody, much like A View to a Kill, but none of the self-awareness. The plot was settled on having a giant laser beam being shot from space like an previous Bond entries, but this only serves as an excuse to send Bond on a journey of nothing but spectacle with a villain having a diamond encrusted into his forehead, a hidden fortress that is completely made out of ice, and an invisible car. There really was not a limit to how far this movie wanted to go just for the pure spectacle of the story, including a sequence where Bond parasails from a collapsing ice-berg. If there is any way the series can get any sillier, it has yet to come. It was after this era that the franchise rebooted for the next movie.
The 21st century has been saturated with reboots, remakes, and reimaginings of familiar stories and the whole trend started with Batman Begins. Much like James Bond, Batman Begins was following a movie that was a parody to its own franchise, so it was decided that they needed a fresh start to get the series running again by making the series ?darker? and ?grittier?. James Bond is very much a product of this kind of filmmaking as the next movie started at the beginning of how his character came to be. Casino Royale is a movie about the beginning of James Bond, played by Daniel Craig this time. This James Bond is nothing like any of the previous Bonds that people have come to know as he is more ruthless and less experienced. It is not necessarily a James Bond movie but more of a story on how a character like that would be made in the first place. His first kill as a 007 agent is shown in this movie and its more of a tragic kill where Bond realizes that this is his profession and is something that he is going to have to get used to. But the arc of the story is more about Bond finding love with Vesper Lynd, only be betrayed by her in the end. All of the previous movies have only hinted the personal things that goes through James Bond?s mind, but it was not until Casino Royale that they explicitly show what kind of character James Bond really is. This lead to Quantum of Solace, a movie that reacted to Casino Royale as a success by way of its ?gritty realism.? Quantum of Solace took all of the ?realistic? aspects from the last movie while leaving most of the personal elements that made the first movie memorable. There is definitely a personal element to Bond in this movie as he uses his anger to fight the new villain in this movie, but they do not expand on this kind of story other than that it might have provided closure for the character from the last movie. As much of a Bond Quantum of Solace was not, it set the stage for what would be an attempt to a return to classic Bond.
Skyfall is the latest entry into the Bond canon and, while this is an obvious attempt to get Bond back to being the classic character people are familiar with, there is a darker commentary and tone to the character with a question that has never been asked before. The film asks if James Bond is even useful anymore in the 21st Century and it is the running theme in Skyfall. James Bond finds himself up against the world of technology and espionage that can be done in one?s own home. This new world makes Bond?s relevancy questionable and it is a danger to Bond that no one will need his handiwork anymore. However, since this is a franchise where the movie ends with the classic phrase ?James Bond Will Return? displayed in the credits, James Bond does prove himself to still be useful. But, what is interesting is how the film acts as meta commentary on what people want out of James Bond anymore. Movies have evolved over the course of time and the Bond series finds itself in an endless cycle of trying something different only to get back to something that is familiar. Are audiences even going to want to see James Bond movies anymore in an age where the new heroes possess superpowers? Skyfall took this question into consideration by using The Dark Knight?s plot as a template. Both movies have the same plotting and structure with eerily similar villains. The Joker from The Dark Knight seemed to have also started a trend in where the villain of the story plans on getting captured by the hero in order to advance their own agenda, something that has happened in this movie, The Avengers, and Star Trek Into Darkness. They made Bond relevant again by embracing the current world around this movie in much of the same way as Bond embraces the modern world that surrounds him.
At this point, it is not quite clear where this franchise will go, but, if studying all of the movies have revealed any kind of pattern, the next movie might involve more of the classic Bond tropes as that is what the last movie was going for. Only, this time, it will be more of that kind of classic James Bond. But, what is more interesting is how long the series has been going. Skyfall marked the 50th Anniversary of the movie franchise and there does not look to be an ending in sight. The movies will probably continue on an endless loop of reacting to its previous movie and the world around it. However, that also means the series will never run out of ideas if it embraces and adapts to the world around it. Regardless of what that means, James Bond will always return.
There were two movies before the one that really started the whole ?Bond Movie? series, but Goldfinger was the one that embodied all of the Bond tropes in a way that lot of the other movies would later keep using. Since then, Bond movies have usually followed the iconic Bond tropes of the gun barrel sequence, an exciting action scene that sometimes has nothing to do with the rest of the plot, an intro credits sequence with provocatively dressed women, James Bond seducing a girl for intel only to have her be killed for betraying the villain of the story, Q giving Bond gadgets, Bond embarrassing Q, a new car a female co-lead known as a ?Bond Girl,? a grandiose villain with a master plan that usually involves nuclear weapons, a hidden master lair, a brutish henchman, a battle sequence, and Bond defying his superiors. These are the key elements that make a movie unique to James Bond?s character. There are some variations and not all of these tropes get used in every movie, but this is the basic formula that most of the Bond movies use. In Goldfinger, the variables for the formula involve a larger than life villain, named Goldfinger, whose master plan involves making the gold stored in Fort Knox worthless in order to destroy the world economy and to make his gold more valuable. The henchman is Oddjob, a character who can kill people by throwing his hat at them. In order to advance the plot to find out more about Goldfinger, Bond seduces Goldfinger?s assistant, Jill Masterson, which leads to her death. To help Bond on his mission to fight back Goldfinger, Q provides him with the gadgets and the fast car and Bond manages to get Pussy Galore, the Bond Girl of this movie, to help sabotage Goldfinger?s plans. All of this leads to a final battle at the end involving two armies. The only thing that this movie did not have, compared to the rest of the movies, is the secret hidden lair inhabited by the villain of the story. This was first started by the movie Dr. No, a story involving the villain doing his dirty work from a secret underwater lab.
The filmmakers behind this film must have thought it worked really well because the next film, Thunderball, follows the exact same structure with different characters. This is where the cycle of these movies being made based on how well the last movie did starts. They are in a state of endlessly reacting to the last movie and to the movies that are popular at the time which affects the development of the next movie, which is why Thunderball is nearly identical to its last movie, Goldfinger. This time, the master plan is from the villain Largo who steals nuclear Warheads. Through the use of gadgets and help from the female co-lead, Domino, Bond executes his mission which leads to a battle between two different armies. There are different characters in the story, but the same basic setup from Goldfinger is present in Thunderball. This is also when the series had established a consistent tone that would go on throughout the rest of the movies. Dr. No and From Russia with Love are different in tone from the following two, even though Terence Young was the one who directed the first two movies and Thunderball. This seems to have all started when Guy Hamilton directed Goldfinger as the movie had a balance between the grandiose aspects of Bond and the more serious aspects that help people get involved with the plot. However, the later Bond projects that Guy Hamilton directs seem to show the kind of intention he had with the Bond franchise. However, his first Bond project with Goldfinger was what set the stage for the rest of the movies, showing how each movie is affected by the last one. It seemed that the production team was ?learning? that people wanted more fun in the Bond franchise, which lead to You Only Live Twice, a movie where Bond disguises himself as an Asian, where Bond girls are interchangeable within the same film, and the most grandiose villain yet named Blofeld.
The reaction to You Only Live Twice must have not been a very positive one as On Her Majesty?s Secret Service opts for a different Bond story that actually does not follow the formula as much as the other movies did. On Her Majesty?s Secret Service places Bond, played by George Lazenby this time, into a love story that actually challenges Bond. The Bond girl for this movie is completely different from the Bond girls in the previous movie as Tracy outright rejects Bond from the very start of the film. After James Bond saves Tracy from a suicide attempt, a couple of henchmen come to fight Bond which gave Tracy the chance to escape the situation. Her attitude towards Bond is rather callous as Bond remarks ?This never happened to the other fellow? as a fourth wall break to the audience showing that this is going to be a completely different Bond. Not that On Her Majesty?s Secret Service does not use Bond tropes as there is one point in the movie where Bond goes around door to door sleeping with different women. There is no function to this part other than that they still need to show Bond?s trait of being able to seduce any woman that he wants. But then the movie takes a turn around on actually giving Bond a meaningful relationship with Tracy. It happens at the point in the movie where Bond is at a new low in his life where the villain, who is Blofeld again, actually has him matched and Bond is not sure if he can actually win this time. This is the point where Tracy shows up in Bond?s life again and that she actually acknowledges Bond as a person with whom she can relate. Since this is the person who attempted suicide, it is suggested that Tracy finally befriends Bond because they find themselves on common ground in dealing with difficult emotions. The two characters end up getting married in the end, but the film ends with Tracy tragically dying. This part of the story gives a whole new dimension to James Bond as a character as this is one of the few times something happens to Bond on a personal level. Unfortunately, the next movie, Diamonds Are Forever, brings back Sean Connery as Bond going back to the basics of a Bond movie which suggests that the reception towards On Her Majesty?s Secret Service was not a positive one, but On Her Majesty?s Secret Service showed that James Bond could be taken seriously as a character.
The Roger Moore period of Bond films was the period where the franchise was basing itself off of what was popular at the time which resulted in a set of different kinds of Bond films. The formula was still present within all of the movies Roger Moore was in, but some of the Roger Moore movies were carrying an ironic tone that the series had never possessed before these movies. Live and Let Die was a product of the Blaxploitation Films that were happening in this period where the villains involved heroin dealers. The Man with the Golden Gun involved an assassin whose signature weapon was the Golden Gun, but, now, it was harkening to kung-fu movies that were happening at the time. Guy Hamilton is back as the director for these two movies, but this is a point where he cannot seem to take the franchise seriously anymore as most of the things he adds the franchise is a downright joke. Sheriff Pepper is introduced as a character and his purpose to the two movies in is nothing more than a joke. He has a comical southern accent while also being clueless to what is going on while James Bond gets to do his serious work. Sheriff Pepper?s character might have been an attempt to help appeal the franchise to Americans so the series can look a little less snobbish. The other joke is the introduction of a different kind of henchman named Nick-Nack. He is a dwarf who ends up getting locked inside a suitcase, which is obviously played for laughs. If there was a reaction to these two movies, it seems that the reception was that the tone and direction the series was taking was not working anymore so they went back to make a ?safe? Bond film known as The Spy Who Loved Me. Out of all the Bond films, The Spy Who Loved Me is the one that embodies everything that a James Bond movie has, including a new brutish henchman named Jaws, another secret underwater lair, and another plot involving the capture of nuclear weaponry but it was all done a little more seriously.
After The Spy Who Loved Me, the movie advertised For Your Eyes Only as the upcoming film. However, this was a pivotal time in the Bond franchise that really showed how much of a product of its time the series was once the film Star Wars hit the mainstream. What actually came after The Spy Who Loved Me was Moonraker, a movie complete with all of the Bond tropes one could think, only this time it all ended with a laser battle in space. For Your Eyes Only finally released after Moonraker and the two movies seem to be complete opposites with For Your Eyes Only being more of a low key spy thriller compared to the epic space adventure from the last movie. This suggests that people were wanting a James Bond movie that was more realistic which is why For Your Eyes Only deals with plausibility. The plot is simple, as it just involves a search for an encryption before the villain gets to it, but it takes James Bond on various dangerous situations involving an attempt on his life where he and the Bond Girl, Melina Havelock, are dragged by a motor boat and a scale up a cliff to get to the fortress of the villains. But the next two films in the series suggests that people were getting bored with the franchise. The next film was given the name of the title character, Octopussy, which feels like an attempt to find a clever way of seeing if they could get away with naming a movie like that. There is not a whole lot to this film other than James Bond has to dress into a gorilla suit and a clown outfit. But then there was A View to a Kill where James Bond started to become a parody of himself. The film begins with an inconsequential action scene that involves skiing and Beach Boys music. The rest of the film involves someone important getting killed by a poisonous butterfly, a sequence involving a chase where Bond drives in a car that keeps going while it falls apart, and a villain, played by Christopher Walken, devising a nonsensical plan involving killing the very people from where he plans to make money. Bond was starting to become a joke and it was time for the series to take a new direction.
This is where Timothy Dalton came in as the new James Bond and this is where the character starts taking on a new life. The Living Daylights has all of the things that makes a Bond film, but Timothy Dalton took the title role and turned it into something completely different. James Bond had always been a character who could smirk and smooth talk his way out of any situation while looking cool doing so, but Timothy Daltons performance shows a kind of Bond who is able to do all of that while also giving a sense of urgency and emotion to the character. The story for The Living Daylights starts with James Bond defying orders in order to save the assassin he was sent to kill. The assassin turns out to be the Bond Girl for this movie named Kara and it turns out that she is only a pawn of a more sinister plot from the villain. But the most interesting thing about this film is that it goes back to a sort of love story that actually plays an integral role to the plot of the movie. Unlike most of the other movies where the Bond Girl exists just for Bond to seduce her, Kara?s character subverts that expectation as she develops into a real character with her own thoughts and emotions. Eventually, Bond does get with her in the end, but it shows that the filmmakers were trying to find a way to get away from the standard Bond formula so they could do something different. This resulted in the next film, Licence to Kill, and, out of all of the movies so far, this is the least formulaic Bond movie. The story is less of a espionage spy thriller and more of a cathartic revenge film. Breaking away from any kind of formula to try something is risky in terms of people being accepting of it and being unsure if what happens will make for a good movie. Unfortunately, the movie is confused and inconsistent with its tone as there is not a good balance between the ?campy? and the ?grittier? side of the story. The story involves a gang, lead by Sanchez, nearly killing Felix, a close friend to Bond, and completely killing Felix?s newly wedded wife which gives James Bond the excuse to go out on a rampage to kill everyone involved in the gang. This is an interesting direction for the series to take but it did not work as well as people would have hoped which, once again, leads to another basic Bond film, but things become a little different next time.
Pierce Brosnan is the new guy to take on the role as Bond and his take on the character is much more similar to Connery?s impossibly cool personality than all of the other Bonds. This is what makes Goldeneye, Brosnan?s first Bond movie, an interesting movie in that this is one of the few times where the story is actually personal to the Bond character himself. The formula for a standard Bond film is shamelessly present in this movie but by making the story being about a central moment in Bond?s career is what makes this movie stand out a bit. The movie starts off with a mission where James Bond is working with his partner, Alec Trevelyan, to destroy an enemy base. Alec seemingly gets killed on this mission but, as a twist, later comes back as the actual villain in this movie. This personal history suggests that Bond has had a rough life and the fact that he keeps on a ?cool?, ?easy going? personality might be more of a coping method of his dangerous life. Goldeneye is also the first and only time that the Bond Girl gets her own part in the story where we vicariously experience Natalya seeing the plot unfold with the villains using a secret weapon known as the Goldeneye. This movie is one of the few times where the plot is less about the spectacle and is more grounded in the characters that drive the plot rather than James Bond reacting to the plot that is happening around him as he does the standard Bond things he usually does. Unfortunately, the reaction to this film seemed to be that Pierce Brosnan?s ?coolness? was what was driving the film and that they needed the following movies to be more about being cool. Tomorrow Never Dies puts Bond against a pompous super-villain who plans to control the world by controlling the news it produces. The World is Not Enough goes even further by trying to draw the spectacle of a Bond film by involving more lasers and even more grandiose super villains. But then came Die Another Day which had all of the traits for a parody, much like A View to a Kill, but none of the self-awareness. The plot was settled on having a giant laser beam being shot from space like an previous Bond entries, but this only serves as an excuse to send Bond on a journey of nothing but spectacle with a villain having a diamond encrusted into his forehead, a hidden fortress that is completely made out of ice, and an invisible car. There really was not a limit to how far this movie wanted to go just for the pure spectacle of the story, including a sequence where Bond parasails from a collapsing ice-berg. If there is any way the series can get any sillier, it has yet to come. It was after this era that the franchise rebooted for the next movie.
The 21st century has been saturated with reboots, remakes, and reimaginings of familiar stories and the whole trend started with Batman Begins. Much like James Bond, Batman Begins was following a movie that was a parody to its own franchise, so it was decided that they needed a fresh start to get the series running again by making the series ?darker? and ?grittier?. James Bond is very much a product of this kind of filmmaking as the next movie started at the beginning of how his character came to be. Casino Royale is a movie about the beginning of James Bond, played by Daniel Craig this time. This James Bond is nothing like any of the previous Bonds that people have come to know as he is more ruthless and less experienced. It is not necessarily a James Bond movie but more of a story on how a character like that would be made in the first place. His first kill as a 007 agent is shown in this movie and its more of a tragic kill where Bond realizes that this is his profession and is something that he is going to have to get used to. But the arc of the story is more about Bond finding love with Vesper Lynd, only be betrayed by her in the end. All of the previous movies have only hinted the personal things that goes through James Bond?s mind, but it was not until Casino Royale that they explicitly show what kind of character James Bond really is. This lead to Quantum of Solace, a movie that reacted to Casino Royale as a success by way of its ?gritty realism.? Quantum of Solace took all of the ?realistic? aspects from the last movie while leaving most of the personal elements that made the first movie memorable. There is definitely a personal element to Bond in this movie as he uses his anger to fight the new villain in this movie, but they do not expand on this kind of story other than that it might have provided closure for the character from the last movie. As much of a Bond Quantum of Solace was not, it set the stage for what would be an attempt to a return to classic Bond.
Skyfall is the latest entry into the Bond canon and, while this is an obvious attempt to get Bond back to being the classic character people are familiar with, there is a darker commentary and tone to the character with a question that has never been asked before. The film asks if James Bond is even useful anymore in the 21st Century and it is the running theme in Skyfall. James Bond finds himself up against the world of technology and espionage that can be done in one?s own home. This new world makes Bond?s relevancy questionable and it is a danger to Bond that no one will need his handiwork anymore. However, since this is a franchise where the movie ends with the classic phrase ?James Bond Will Return? displayed in the credits, James Bond does prove himself to still be useful. But, what is interesting is how the film acts as meta commentary on what people want out of James Bond anymore. Movies have evolved over the course of time and the Bond series finds itself in an endless cycle of trying something different only to get back to something that is familiar. Are audiences even going to want to see James Bond movies anymore in an age where the new heroes possess superpowers? Skyfall took this question into consideration by using The Dark Knight?s plot as a template. Both movies have the same plotting and structure with eerily similar villains. The Joker from The Dark Knight seemed to have also started a trend in where the villain of the story plans on getting captured by the hero in order to advance their own agenda, something that has happened in this movie, The Avengers, and Star Trek Into Darkness. They made Bond relevant again by embracing the current world around this movie in much of the same way as Bond embraces the modern world that surrounds him.
At this point, it is not quite clear where this franchise will go, but, if studying all of the movies have revealed any kind of pattern, the next movie might involve more of the classic Bond tropes as that is what the last movie was going for. Only, this time, it will be more of that kind of classic James Bond. But, what is more interesting is how long the series has been going. Skyfall marked the 50th Anniversary of the movie franchise and there does not look to be an ending in sight. The movies will probably continue on an endless loop of reacting to its previous movie and the world around it. However, that also means the series will never run out of ideas if it embraces and adapts to the world around it. Regardless of what that means, James Bond will always return.
