Yes, Nathan–I understand what you wrote. The Fleming novels were (0ther than the special effects and comedic foofery) pretty much what was displayed for decades, prior to the advent of the Craig group. I agree that Bond didn’t run around pissing off his bosses indiscriminately, but spreading sperm–oh, yeah.

And sure, that was then and this was now, but he was never…I guess the way I would phrase it is, a 2020’s metrosexual. Tamed and domesticated. He was a different character for a different era. I thought the franchise was headed this way after Craig’s first movie and surprise!–I wasn’t wrong. All that Sturm und Drang, all the DRAMUH about how he’s all traumatized about his g/f dying…meh.

I don’t have a problem with the idea of harkening back to the original Bond–but I do think it will NEVER happen. For crying out loud, Timothy Dalton’s Bond was the closest to the Fleming Bond, long that lasted. People for what, 20 years, clearly wanted the…goofier Bond, the Roger Moore Bond (which I also didn’t, for the record, like). Actually…after Connery, I next liked Dalton’s scripts and after that…well…Not many, to be honest. I’d rather go back and re-read Fleming.

I’m trying to think of some films or shows that have been set retroactively, that I’ve seen lately–having lived through those eras as an adult–and they’re all set and cast, etc. using today’s sensibilities. The last show that was even remotely close was Mad Men. I think it’s blindingly obvious that Mad Men would have died a terrible horrible death in the era of Twitter.

Frodo? People who complained about Frodo, the ring, and all that–they clearly did *not* read the books. There’s a reason that 50 years ago, “FRODO LIVES!” was all over the Manhattan and SF subway and metro stations.

Look, you liked it. More power to you. I most certainly didn’t–and I didn’t much care for the however-many that came before it, either.

So it wasn’t what Fleming wrote? Fleming also didn’t write a puckish playboy whose main “skills” are being a target, spreading sperm indiscriminately and pissing off his bosses with his irresponsibility, yet that’s what the pre-Craig franchise had been for decades. Your argument isn’t that the Craig movies are “never what Fleming wrote”; they’re a different “never what Fleming wrote” than the franchise up to that point. You also must have missed my suggestion for what to do with the franchise now: Set Bond in the era in which he was created, i.e., RETURN TO WHAT FLEMING WROTE.

The final Craig Bond wasn’t transitioning the franchise to either a female Bond, or a Bond who kisses his wife and child goodbye each morning before he goes to be a superspy; it’s an END to the arc. This is how James Bond stops being a disconnected killing machine for the government. Complaining that at the end (even ignoring his death) he’s no longer the Bond he was before the final chapter is like complaining that Frodo at the end of LOTR is a betrayal of the character because he no longer has the Ring. That’s the POINT; the arc is finished with resolution, one way or another.

The Bond of the “last” Bond film is a neutered shadow of his former self and honestly–I turned it off. I have ZERO interest in a female 007. I don’t know why modern-day “feminists” (or whatever you wish to call them) feel that they have to poach that which has been predominantly male territory, like pissing on his leg. It’s…tedious to watch and highly ineffective. There is a reason that the older Bonds still run, still get watched and all that.

That you feel that the final Bond movies support what you feel is the “right” mode–a committed, growing love yadda–that’s fine, but that was *never* what Fleming wrote. I don’t want to see Nero Wolfe 200 lbs thinner, riding a moped, either. Ya know?

KISS OF THE DRAGON and STARCRASH were the two that came to mind (and I love STARCRASH, but for all the reasons I should hate it).

Heh…like some of those early Dario Argento films? or Kiss of the Dragon?