"Funny how often it does mean seducing women though , and not so often things like
Crawling through a sewer pipe or Seducing a man
or sitting still for 52 hours reading printouts of intercepted communications."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is not a very strong argument. For starters, would you (as a viewer) really WANT to watch Bond just sitting there combing through documents and paperwork for 52 hours? No, I didn't think so. Plus, we can assume he does that sort of thing....off camera, so to speak. We can also assume, he eats off-camera....sleeps....exercises...checks email, etc, etc.
Certain things you just need to presume he does. And because we only get roughly 2 hours within the confines of a movie, we just get to see the....highlights. The most interesting stuff.
Seducing a man? Is that something you WANT to see? Do you feel a majority of the viewing public would? The producers need to take into consideration what the majority of the viewing audience will enjoy seeing...(and especially the vast majority of Bond fans). That all said, I'll humor you on this one...and go so far as to point out....when SIlva (in Skyfall) had him tied to a chair and began to get sexually suggestive with him....it was a form of seduction...and Bond went with it, to gain a psychological foothold.
And BTW....people seem to forget....Bond himself has at times been seduced and taken advantage of as well. For example, in Octopussy, when Magda seduces Bond, she does so to steal the Faberge Egg. In Die Another Day, Miranda Frost seduces Bond to gain an advantage. Heck....even Jinx uses sex to gather info from Bond. And certainly Anya in The Spy Who Loved Me....not only beds Bond to gather intel and trust, in another scene...she kisses him...in order to blow poisoned smoke in his face and steal his blueprints. There are countless other examples.
Seduction, in many forms, has always been a part of espionage. Heck, look at the Eric Swalwell story in the news last year...in which a U.S. politician was seduced by a Chinese spy. Now....seduction, and manipulation, in spy films like the Bond movies....is somewhat glamorized...because it's a movie! People want to see the glamorized version of this stuff.
Sex, seduction, etc....it has been a key component in stories dating as far back as stories themselves. Greek tragedies...Biblical tales...Shakespeare, etc, etc. It can be tantilizing...it can be sexy....it can be tragic....
The Bond films have always been adult stories. And sure....adult fantasy. To NOT include sex, seduction, etc... in them would just not make much sense. It has always been part of a winning formula. Barbara Broccoli knows this, and is smart to keep that formula intact. That said, it has been toned down substantially in the past 15 years.
As far as watching Bond crawl through a sewer pipe for Queen and Country? Well...he has (a couple of different times) shot through pipelines in various capsules (for example, The World is Not Enough). They simply did it in a bigger, more interesting and compelling way than just crawling. And maybe that's a perfect microcosm of what a Bond film is. A bigger, more glamorized and tantalizing fantasy version of spy life. Just like the fans have always liked it. There's a reason why the formula has made this film franchise the most successful franchise in the history of film.
reply
share
moviechatterer (13226)
3 years ago
a great reply!
you're right i dont want to see those things ,
i was just reponding somewhat tongue in cheek to the previous "has to use every means possible" post
reply
share
cyberbob (3488)
3 years ago
You made a great point, don't back down just because somebody makes superficial allusions to Greek plays and shit like that. It's such a disingenuous argument
We can agree that the point of Bond movies isn't to display, realistically, the life of a spy. But then why does Butter-Nutter feel the need to explain why seduction IS a very real and important part of espionage? It's fucking silly
Sure, I GUESS sometimes a spy will need to seduce or trick a person, or use sexuality to advance their objectives. But certainly there are other tools which they use much more frequently and play much more important roles in advancing the interests of intelligence operations. Tools such as reading shit for 52 hours
Screenwriting as a craft has many tricks up its sleeve. We do not need to literally see Bond reading for 50 hours, just like Bond scripts/movies don't actually show explicit sex scenes, they simply imply them or allude to them. There are CUT TOs, there are montages, etc.
In fact, that is why I argue that Bond fucking women in every movie is NOT necessary to the success of the franchise. Bond movies, like all other hyper-successful franchises, are PG-13. They cast beautiful women in important roles, sure, but so does every single other tentpole movie. Sex is just implied in modern Bond movies. It's almost like a bad porno: characters have sex and then never talk about having had sex because talking about sex is not very PG-13. These are not, AT ALL, adult depictions of sexuality, unlike Ripkens claims
Besides, the Bond franchise isn't the most successful franchise of all time, except perhaps by the metric of longevity. It's not the most profitable and doesn't have the largest fanbase. It's simply an untrue claim
I can, and will, debate this for hours with Mr. Ripkens if I have to, because I know that his arguments are hollow. But it's ultimately a big waste of energy and will only waste if I know he wants to discuss this in good faith
reply
share
cyberbob (3488)
3 years ago
If we are going to argue that the title of "most successful franchise of all time" should be defined by longevity, then that title does not belong to James Bond, but to either Sherlock Holmes or Shakespeare or Hercule Poirot
If you are going to argue that those characters don't count, then you will probably use one or more of the following arguments: that adaptations of them have been more sporadic than those of Bond, that their stories are usually not based on actual source material, or that their adaptations have not nearly made as much money as adaptations of Bond films have
The argument that adaptations of these older characters are more sporadic can be argued against thusly: these literary characters (or writers in the case of Shakespeare) all pre-date the 20th century. OBVIOUSLY they will not be as timeless as Bond. But that's not a real argument because it assumes that Bond himself will not be outlasted in film adaptations by more recent franchises. Marvel characters are, as a whole, RAPIDLY outpacing Bond in terms of movie adaptations. Only time will tell if Bond proves to be less relevant than more modern franchises. The Bond films have long-abandoned the plot of Ian Fleming novels, so I would not advise that anybody argue their importance on the basis of them being based on a single coherent source
In terms of overall profits, the argument against Bond is just easier. Bond movies are not the most profitable of all time. This is something that can be fact-checked by anybody. The MCU and Star Wars already have it beat, and the margin would only be larger if were to take into account the fact that the film rights of Marvel characters have been divided over a number of different studios
I'm eager to hear a justification for the claim that Bond is the most successful film franchise of all time, because I do believe that any such arguments in favor of this position are fatally flawed
reply
share