The various stages of the various stages of Bond Films

Right! So:

Connery: "Working out what the franchise is going to be and then blowing it up to one billion."
Lazenby: "Making a proper movie but bungling the transition."
Moore: "Nailing the transition but bungling proper movies."
Dalton: "Grr."
Brosnan: "Extremely idiotic villain plots."
Craig: "Giving Our Hero yet another psychological scar."

Alternatively:

1962-1967: "Setting up the formula and pushing it as far as it can go."
1969-1974: "Getting burned, falling back on proven routines, and going inane."
1977-1979: "Spectacle."
1981-1989: "Increasingly cheap-looking decline that not even a recast can save."
1995-2002: "JAMES BOND, isn't that enough?"
2006-present: "Not Yo Momma's Bond Film."

Alternatively alternatively:

Before watching it: "It's getting overhyped."
While watching it: "They ripped that part off from Thunderball and that part off from Live and Let Die and that part off from TWINE, where it was ripped off from OHMSS..."
After watching it: "Well, it wasn't terrible."


So the new trailer for Spectre - or is it SPECTRE - dropped, and it looks like we've gotten rid of The Old James Bond Gimmick They Never Did (thankfully), which was to make Blofeld Goldfinger's brother. (Seriously, this was a plan. It almost happened. Repeatedly.) Instead we have a Totally New James Bond Gimmick, which appears to be making Blofeld Bond's brother.

Ugh.

Hasn't this been played out enough in GoldenSky? Eyefall? What, pray tell, is going to be the difference between the poorly-defined motives of Alec Travelyan, the poorly-defined motives of Mister Silva, and the poorly-defined motives of Ernst Bond? Bond's already demonstrated a willingness to murder old friends, girlfriends, and all assortment of foreigners. The Service is Mother, the Service is Father. And even then, Bond's likely to get over your death with a stiff one (or two) and a sparkly new/old office.

I also note that the trailer begins with a nuked-out shot of MI6. So we're in "direct sequel" territory, ignoring the fact that audiences hated the Quantum one for imposing "continuity" on us two years after the fact (and Quantum's lone defender hated Licence to Kill for imposing "continuity" on us twenty years after the fact).

One wonders if, judging by the recycled quality of the Craigs, the second-generation Broccoli are running through their father's old junk drawer, ignoring the fact that it was labeled "junk" for a reason. Yes, one understands that there's some sort of contractual obligation to make a spiritual successor to OHMSS every decade or so (For Your Eyes Only, Licence to Kill, TWINE, Casino Royale, Spectre if its skiing and logo is anything to go by). A deal with the devil, or more likely the ghost of Ian Fleming. But then we also see them shove discarded ideas in our faces as though something they gave up on back in the 80s can be presented as fresh and new now.

Still, there is a silver lining in all this. Whatever sins the Bond producers have to think on, they haven't yet gone the Comic Book Movie route of throwing way too many supporting characters at us.

Oh, I missed this little detail: as of the end of Skyfall, we have Bond, M, Moneypenny and Q all played by actors who hadn't been born yet when Dr. No came out (the franchise is older than Ralph Finnes by a couple of months).