![]() The grit and self-seriousness that defined the era that James Bond returned in is now becoming a bit outdated. It doesn’t feel the need to excuse itself, it simply does what it does and forces the audience to take it seriously. At no point do the Wick films feel insecure in their identity, no matter how silly or unusual things might get. Rather than being ashamed of its lineage like newer Bonds seem to be, John Wick movies revel in their roots, treating the films' form of “gun-fu” (famously popularized by John Woo) with respect and reverence. All these components aren’t mandatory, acting more as supplementary material to the series’s excellent genre action scenes. Does that mean there’s no lore at all? Absolutely not, the films continuously drip-feed the audience with information about this world of assassins and mysterious organizations catering to them that the film presents. This competitor is of course Keanu Reeves’ John Wick, now four movies strong with no sign of stopping.Īs opposed to James Bond, the John Wick franchise's lore and lineage is brief and to the point: John Wick is an internationally renowned assassin who simply can’t be stopped once he gets moving against a target, and that’s essentially all you need to know. Well here’s the thing, Bond isn’t the only game in town anymore, and his competitor has cornered that hypothetical movie’s market quite well. So if new Bond doesn’t fit with the old tropes and movies that defined the character, why not jettison these tropes entirely? Remove all of the hints of wacky gadgets, super spy suave, and silly series staples and just do a straightforward action spy movie? Take the parts of James Bond that the new movies have done pretty well, such as their excellent action setpieces, and just focus on those. The campy James Bond movies might’ve been a bit silly at times but that was a feature, not a bug the movies were fantastical and ridiculous because the creators thought that made them more fun. The series keeps running into the same problem over and over again, where it seems ashamed of the series’ own beloved tropes. When Q first shows up in the new movies he subtly mocks Goldeneye (the best of Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond movies) by joking that they “don’t do” things like exploding pens anymore. ![]() While the series has attempted to address more legitimate issues with the series, like its famous abuse of its female characters, most other changes feel embarrassed by the source material. ![]() Blofeld is just one example though the new films seem to, for the most part, continuously eye-roll at its past. The character also now has a familial relationship with Bond which feels so absurdly contrived and unnecessary that Austin Powers had already parodied the idea thirteen years earlier. The two most identifiable features of the character, his scar, and white cat, feel like shallow easter eggs and references, almost a joke about how the character is now too “silly” for the new direction that Bond is headed. Daniel Craig’s James Bond, for the most part, didn’t indulge in these tropey villains as much as the old movies did, but that changed with the release of Spectre, with Christoph Waltz taking the reins of the character.Ĭhristoph Waltz does an admirable enough job, but the problem with his depiction is the same problem that most of the modern Bond movies encounter when looking at their lineage: there’s a sort of insecurity pervading it. This type of confident, powerful, and slightly silly character is representative of many other iconic and similarly odd classic Bond villains, such as the gold-obsessed Goldfinger ( Gert Fröbe) or the webbed finger-toting Karl Stromberg ( Curt Jurgens) and his self-made Atlantis. He’s a character that works really well with old classic Bond, a mastermind in charge of seemingly all evil in the world, wielding a fun and campy energy as he strokes his loyal lapcat. The character only appears in three original James Bond novels, but proved so iconic that his presence was extended to eight James Bond movies. ![]() The leader of SPECTRE, Blofeld is often shown sitting in his chair, stroking his cat and sporting a huge scar across his face as he dictates orders to his many criminal underlings. Ernst Stavro Blofeld is such an iconic criminal mastermind that his design is practically the modern stereotype of a criminal mastermind. Take, for example, the character of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the closest thing that Bond has to a nemesis. ![]()
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