[Spoilers] New James Bond

Who wants who to be the new James Bond my tip is benedict cumberbach

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I do think Rege-Jean Page would make a suave Bond :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

Seeing how the last one ended should really put it to bed now. Not sure how they carry on unless I fear they are just going to remake the old classics for new audiences. If they are going to appoint someone Iā€™d like to see Chris Hemsworth.

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Watched Henry Cavill in Mission Impossible last week, thought heā€™d be a good Bond.

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I think Idris Elba could carry the role ?

Damian Lewis all the way

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Totally disagree Iā€™m afraid. Idris is a good actor but I wholeheartedly disagree that you should change a white personā€™s ethnicity to suit current society.

Iā€™m all for creating a role for Idris, think heā€™d be great in ā€œthe adventures of double 08ā€ or something similar, but I feel if we just randomly change then we are simply pandering to popular opinion.

Same as a female Bond, by all means go and write a spin off with a female spy. Donā€™t change a character that has been white for over 50 years (and is supposed to be the same person).

Iā€™m a believer that writers should be creating roles that are more diverse and not changing what is and has always been. Where does it stop?!

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Totally agree with you. :clap::ok_hand:

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Whatever the wrongs or rights of casting Idris, heā€™s 50 next year, and i assume theyā€™ll be casting with the idea of at least 3 or 4 films in mind, at two or three years between films heā€™d be pushing 60, so i assume theyā€™ll be casting someone under 40 at least.

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I think when a role has been played by multiple characters itā€™s natural to start to think how far you can push that envelope, and how varied it can be, while still holding onto the essence of the character. So far theyā€™ve all been played by white men, but none of them have looked the same. The film tells you that who youā€™re looking at is ā€˜James Bondā€™, and you as viewer take the rest from there.

Iā€™d be quite interested to see Idris Elba as Bond. Iā€™d like to hear his Bond voice first though. If he hasnā€™t got that, then Iā€™m on the fence. :slightly_smiling_face:

Same for a ā€˜James Bond as womanā€™ (though I feel a character from scratch would be better overall). It may still be terrible for a whole host of reasons completely unconnected to the gender of the casting, but Iā€™d still find it interesting to watch. :slightly_smiling_face:

Am I missing something here? How can you have another James Bond when heā€™s already been killed off :thinking::thinking::thinking:

Another 007 yes but another Bond no, personally agree with @Scottishfunk on this one.

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But remember as a Bond fan (more anorak really), James Bond is based on Ian Flemings character. 6ft 2 tall, white with Black hair. Father was Scottish mother was Swiss. The actors up until Daniel Craig have generally met that description then they went for the short 5ft 11 Blonde Bond.

I realise heā€™s a fictional character but where does it all end. I personally feel that to change it we encourage that people get jobs because of the colour of their skin or their gender and not based on credentials.

Nobody would contemplate making black panther a white man, or Blade as itā€™s equally stupid.

But again, this is just my opinion. Everyone is entitled to theirs and this topic is going to rage on for the foreseeable. Doesnā€™t matter who gets chosen, there will be some folks upset.:man_shrugging:

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I think a character is much more than their physical appearance and back story details. And, in Bondā€™s case, a lot of those details donā€™t influence the story or character arc at all. Would it affect the franchise at all if Bondā€™s mother was from Milton Keynes instead? Probably not much.

Bond doesnā€™t really have ethnicity as part of its core story-telling, so I think itā€™d be really easy to swop in a Black or Asian Bond, and have them ā€˜feelā€™ just like the James Bond we know from the films. Itā€™s not his ethnicity that defines him.

Swopping in a female Bond would be trickier, as Bond has a pretty tricky history with women. :slightly_smiling_face:But theyā€™re also trying to move away from that image too, so maybe after the evolved Modern Bond has been around for a bit a female version might be less jarring. Iā€™d still very much like to watch it if anyone made one though, as looking at how they chose to handle that would be really interesting.

Black Panther has his Wakandan ethnicity pretty up front and integral, so I donā€™t think that would work as well for any other continent. Youā€™d have to change so much that it would already be a different story. Blade could maybe be a white guy though? Half in one world, half in another. I think it lends itself to race, but it could be something else?

Fiction is the safe place to explore all of these ideas. We can play them out a hundred different ways, and refine them in each retelling. I think it helps us grow.

@Ian_Chimp I beg to differ and we will never come to an agreement on this topic Iā€™m afraid. No matter what point I make you will have a very intelligent and thought out response to consider. All I can do is voice my view and some people will agree and some people will not. In my simple mind Bond is a white male and always should be. Write a character and create a new franchise, donā€™t take an established british icon and use him as a pandering vessel, because there appears to be nobody who can write a decent ethnic or female role!? With the bit of luck the Fleming estate will have enough rights to the name and character description for it to never change anyway.

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Just to say, no where in any of the Bond books was Bondā€™s ethnicity mentioned, theoretically a Black person could play Bond. That said I completely agree with your sentiment

I really do agree with that statement.

On another note, I was not going to mention this as did not want to give any spoilers away, but it has already been mentioned, Bond is dead-Why they decided to do that is beyond me-The next film will most likely be a 007 but under a new name. As to who plays that character, I am not that bothered as long as they continue along the lines of previous 007 characters. I did read somewhere they are considering a TV spin off series, not sure thatā€™s a good thing.

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In the books he has been described as white Caucasian in a field report from spectre. As you say by all means make a new 007 any ethnicity or sex you wish. But when people start saying ā€œJames Bondā€ that gets to me. As stated previously James Bond is dead. Leave him dead. I donā€™t have a problem with the ending (even though it doesnā€™t really make sense) but I think the film was generally poor and over hyped because of covid.

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In the Flemming books he was not, which I referred to should have explained that.

Who ever playā€™s him/her I hope they continue the same ethos of the character awarded the title.

@DanceswithPenguins Iā€™ve read the Fleming books. He is described in one in a description report if I remember. But at the risk of being blunt, itā€™s very hard to imagine a snobby, etonian, fantasist bachelor writing about an RNVR commander and him not being white in the 1950s when the casino Royale was written. Sadly just how it was. Bear in mind also Fleming was not initially impressed at a working class Scottish milkman playing James Bond as he wanted someone like Carey Grant to play him, suggesting connery was beneath his creation.

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:rofl: fair point
Can you imagine the book being written today? Borris would be at the forefront saying ā€œIā€™m lead roleā€ :wink:

@DanceswithPenguins :joy: