I think the cool assassin running around in style shooting bad guys and surviving just barely thing is played out.
Give me a quiet guy who is an insurance adjuster. He’s got kids in school or college. He was given a a soldier’s sidearm (maybe his grandfather’s?) as a teen, and his grandad taught him to shoot. His grandpa was always big on accuracy, and told him the horribleness of war. He gets into competitive shooting, but before his first competition, his grandfather is murdered, and the case goes cold. He never competes after his grandfather dies, but takes meticulous care of the gun, and shoots at his grandfather’s private range, every day after work.
Then, out of some crazy unrelated event, a story in the local newspaper mentions his grandfather’s name, prior to him living in whatever country he lives now. He pushes the local investigators to reopen the case, to no avail. In a series of adjustment investigations, he notices a pattern of accidents, and damage to properties. One particular one alarms him as it’s the property of one of his grandfather’s close friends. He brings the gun out of fear of the weird coincidences. Drama ensues, and in the fight scene he’s hiding under cover, trying not to get hit, hasn’t shot back, but at one point the shooting stops. He takes a calming breath. Stands up. Hand in pocket, gun drawn, fires one round. The bullet richochets off one of the assailants guns, causing him to fire a burst killing two more, one who falls down steps to take out a third, the richochet hits a fourth square in the forehead who drops his incandescent flashlight onto the ground which breaks, sparking a gasoline spill that had been there burning up the guy who’s gun was hit in the first place.
Our protagonist puts down the pistol, and walks out, calling his boss giving him some information about it being insurance fraud or something. Meanwhile a sixth assailant escapes the property and calls someone. In a foreign language he says in a panic: “Boss, it’s the Adjuster.” “Impossible, he was buried decades ago, the grave is in the family estate.” “No, boss, the insurance adjuster for this property. It must be an offspring.” “But none of his children or grandchildren were ever marksman?! How many men did he cost me?” “Five.” “And what did it cost him?” “A single bullet.” And the bossy guy says something badass like "it’s heavens adjuster or some adjuster to avenge the fallen adjuster in his language.
Then the movie ends with him eating dinner with his family, but his grandfathers gun is now at his side.
The Adjuster
SteveFromMySpace@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Idk Bond is this interesting cultural touchstone that I think is important to keep around. I know for me it was actually a very effective first step in to becoming critical of how women are depicted in cinema, and that message got through to me at actually a pretty early age. Around high school IIRC.
That being said I do think directors should be bolder in their vision and take bigger risks with it. It could be so much more and its history in many ways will make that all the more impactful.
TL;DR: We aren’t beholden to Fleming’s original vision. Bond can be whatever we want them to me.
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
The different “interpretations” of the character have always interested me. Most of the screen depictions of bond have not aligned with the literary version, to varying degrees. In my opinion, Timothy Dalton came the closest.
But more to your point, the depictions of both women and minorities in Bond films is kind of an interesting timeline. Live and let Die is a good example. It has the first Black bond girl. Not insignificant in 1973. But, it’s also peak “blaxploitation” and contains so many racist stereotypes that it sounds like a worn out record.
I remember watching it as a kid and thinking the antagonists, most of whom are black, seemed more like cartoon villains than anything, despite some half-assed attempts to sprinkle in a little sophistication here and there. It’s a movie with some strange paradoxes.
SteveFromMySpace@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Right? There’s nothing quite like it. It has this tendency to combine several tropes and ideas from major films surrounding it. It’s safe in that it’s often familiar but it always has a “bond flavor” that alters it heavily