It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
That would be tacky AF.
I expect amazon will want not to be seen 'Americanizing' the franchise, so we'll sadly see more and more pointless iconography.
Best use of the union fleg is in TSWLM.
Exactly. Plus, I think it should also be noted that, apart from being British, Bond -both in book as well as onscreen- has also always had an international vibe (from admiring Alfa Romeo's in the books to wearing Brioni suits in the films, ordering figs for breakfast, speaking several foreign languages including "taking a first in Oriental languages").
To be honest I feel in safe hands with David Heyman as he's been in charge of some very British blockbusters in Potter, Paddington and Wonka and got it right every time - Paddington has even become a bit of a renewed national icon.
I was thinking this about the Mission Impossible films the other day: they're curiously non-flag waving. The IMF seems to be part of the US government in those films and yet seems more like a sort of UN operation with people from around the world working in it, and their missions are usually just to save the world, with the team pretty much never seen in the US itself or making much reference to it, and I feel like they have more of an international appeal because of that. M:I3 showed them back at base in the US and felt a bit weird, somehow.
With Bond, his being a British agent is a bit more of a USP, really.
Agreed, we’re there for the man, not the flag. I don’t need to see the Union Jack front and centre every film, especially now that nationalism is rearing its ugly head all across the globe.
Not sure one can cite 'King and Country' without being nationalistic.
It's why LTK deserves more and more plaudits. Bond is motivated personally, rather than out of some toneless nationalistic fervour.
Bond's character isn't contingent upon nationalism.
Insofar as the specific story can give Bond any motivation, even a personal one, I suppose... But a film like LTK is rare in the Bond series, and ultimately he's not an anti-hero: his job is to get sent on missions for the British Government or act in their interests. If he doesn't have some sort of higher sense of duty I don't think it's quite the same character.
I would also say nationalistic and patriotic are slightly different things, or at least potentially can be. With Bond as a character it can be an important distinction.
Whatever moral base he has ought to be founded on ideals, discourse and possibly experience. 'I loves me country' is insufficient, but I've always viewed Bond in the aforementioned context: he'll fight for ideals and arrange his 'Britain' around them, rather than the 'country first' approach of Fleming's novels.
I agree between patriotism and nationalism whole-heartedly, by the way. It's an important distinction and cheers for making it.
Sure, but why he does is do is the character.
I can't see any version of Bond outright saying he loves his country (he's not overly nationalistic as a character even if he's arguably quite patriotic when all's said and done). But he'd definitely say he's doing his job as an agent of His Majesty's Government and that's ultimately where his loyalties lie (even if in more recent film he tends to actively take matters into his own hands to get the job done - very much an element he's doing stuff for a greater good).
Because it's his job and because he enjoys that lifestyle. Is any special motivation needed?
The lifestyle and adventure is a factor. But if it were only about that he'd just be a rogue or some sort of Jack Reacher-esque wanderer looking for adventure on his own. Bond needs that higher sense of duty. I can see them leaning into that without going jingoistic.
Yeah I feel like he's basically a loyal soldier and has a sense of duty to his superiors along with a moral sense of right of wrong; I'm not sure he's hugely driven by nationalistic, or even massively patriotic concerns: he basically retired twice in the most films and both times he happily lived his time out in countries other than the UK. In the psych test in Skyfall his response to 'Country' is 'England'; later he mentions 'love of country' in Skyfall, but sarcastically. And I think that is true of both the book and film versions of the character.
This is the bother: why his superiors or even a country at all?
Fleming's Bond exists to substantiate the chauvinistic 'Empire Man' dotage of 1950s UK, which was the on the wane. The films have no such political basis to make Bond in any patriotic manner, and frequently excel when they don't.
I rather liked Q's Union flag toaster in NTTD..
What do you mean 'why'? Are you saying he shouldn't work for SIS anymore?
That's what I'm saying, he's not really defined by patriotism. And Fleming didn't define him that way either; Bond often had more personal reasons to do what he did, not least a slightly pathological need for adventure.
That's actually one thing I always disliked about LTK: not British enough. It feels like Bond is making a long cameo in an American action movue.
All Bond movies are American (Broccoli/Saltzman). LTK gets Bond out of his comfort zone
and features a solitary London scene, in which Moneypenny essentially saves the day.
We get a red double decker, too, just in case the intended American audience don't realise where it is.
Could be just want to shoot people, preferably foreigners, if they don't do thy bidding.
Aye, but it's not the first (or last) film to be contemporaneous. Been going on since LALD.
Rather think 'American' is the wrong charge, too. Is Moonraker 'American' as it apes Star Wars?
Who would want to watch that?