Action Spies MEGA EPISODE (Mission Impossible, James Bond 007, Is James Bond Still Relevant)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to Geek History Lesson. I am Ashley
Victoria Robinson, a comic book writer from Canada, and you
have found the podcast where we take characters, constructs, and
tropes from popular culture and teach you everything we need
to know about them in about an hour, unless you've
opened this secret mission and you are here to listen
to several hours on several different character dives. We recently

(00:23):
had Mission Impossible Final Reckoning debut in Cinema's Worldwide. The
James Bond franchise has left the auspices of the Broccolis.
It's now at Amazon Studios and we're going to see
that continue to evolve. So, in celebration of both of
these iconic franchises really coming to an evolutionary standpoint, we

(00:45):
put together a mega episode re exploring some of our
favorite discussions on these topics from the past. Today you
are going to hear Mission Impossible with Sam Levine and
Rachel Cushing, James Bond double seven very early Geek History
Lesson episode format, and then our discussion on is James
Bond still relevant with Danny Price? So open up your docket,

(01:11):
get your license to kill, put those secret earbuds in
and let's take it away past agents Jason and Ashley.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to
listen to this Geek History lesson about Mission Impossible. Hello,

(01:40):
and welcome to Geek History Lesson. I'm Jason Justice Inman,
and in honor of the release of Mission Impossible Fallout,
we're gonna talk about the Mission Impossible film franchise, our thoughts,
what works, Tom Cruise, and more So. This episode is
going to be a little different, mainly because this is
the first Geek History Lesson with out Ashley Victoria Robinson,

(02:03):
who could not make this recording because she is acting
like she loves to do. But we have somebody that
is also an actor that is here to replace her.
He's a film lover, a film champion. He is in
the movie Trivia Shmowdown. You know him as Sam Levine.
Hello Sam, Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
My pleasure. Jason, I'm so happy to be here. I
did not realize I'd be replacing anyone. I thought I'd
merely be adding.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well you're adding and replacing.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, all right, I mean, but I'm not alone, that's right.
It's not just the two of us in here.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
No, we also have an extra bonus guest, also a
film lover, also a film champion, as I like to
call her, Rachel Cushing.

Speaker 4 (02:42):
Hello, thank you very much for having me on. This
is a fun, little last minute edition. And as anybody
who follows the movie trivia shmodown knows, action movies are
not really my thing. This franchise is the one exceptions.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
I know as soon as you're very exciting. I'm excited
that you're here because as soon as I announced that
I was going to do a Mission Impossible podcast, you
did not stop texting me.

Speaker 4 (03:03):
I'm like, they're the ones, It's the one series they
just just it's so much fun and it's and it's
you know, come a long way, which I'm sure we'll
talk about. So yeah, ready to dig in.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
We'll really quickly here before we jump into the Mission
Impossible franchise. I'd love let's start with you, Rachel. I'd
love for you to explain to our listeners what are
your bonus feet days like, why are you a film lover?
How much do you know about film? How long have
you been watching movies? Why do you love movies?

Speaker 4 (03:27):
Oh geez, that's a loaded question. How many hours do
we have but it goes definitely started in childhood. You know,
I'm of the age where Star Wars, you know, blew
my socks off, and I was like, how'd they do that?
And I want to, you know, work behind the scenes.
It was always my angle to it. I love behind
the scenes videos and and things like that, and it
was enough to get me to go to film school.

(03:48):
So I have a film degree from Boston University back
on the East Coast, and once I graduated, I moved
out to LA to pursue a career in it. I
ended up working in television because there's a lot of
crossover these days.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
With that.

Speaker 4 (03:59):
I work behind the scenes, is an editor, but I
am at the movie theater every week, you know, seeing
the latest and greatest from indies to blockbusters. Speciality, as
Jason Well knows, is the nerd movies, the fantasy, the
sci fi, the.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Ones about the Lords and the Rings exactly.

Speaker 4 (04:17):
But but I have I love all movies really. I
mean there's I don't think a single genre that I
can't at least pick a movie or two out of
that I've enjoyed.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Your whole resume sounds impressive because it may be a
thing that I don't know. Many of our listeners and
many fans of the Clyider Shmowdown may not know that.
Besides you knowing so much about movie trivia, yeah, you
are a professional film medal.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
Yeah, I tell stories for a living.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
That's a great way to put it. Yeah, all right, Sam,
how about you?

Speaker 5 (04:46):
Now?

Speaker 2 (04:46):
I know you've acted in many films with hot American
summer freaks and geeks.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
But the film freaks and geeks, yes.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
The film freaks and geeks television series. We're cross pollinating
them both, because again we're talking about a television show
that became a movie. Sure. Where did your love of
film come from?

Speaker 3 (05:02):
I'm just lazy. It's easier than reading.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
That's a great answer.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah, thanks, It came from my parents. My parents are
both huge film nuts. Going to the movies, movie night,
staying up late way past our bedtimes for me and
my brother has been a Levigne family past time my
whole life. Also, I was a really sick kid. I
spent a lot of time home from school in the hospital,

(05:29):
and so movies became a really great way to pass
the time and not focus on how sick I was
or the fact that I was in the hospital. Again
and yeah. So I've just been always a fan of
films and good storytelling and bad storytelling if it's fun,

(05:50):
and yeah, action movies have always been one of my favorites.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
That's awesome. So before we jump into this, in case
you have no idea what Mission Impossible is, and we
want to point out that at the time of this recording, everybody,
we have not seen Mission Impossible Fallout. This episode comes
out before the movie's even released. But in case you're
watching or listening in the future, you know, we haven't
seen it yet. So that's why we're not talking about it.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
Can I do a spoiler alert, which are all one
hundred percent speculative guesses? Beca please?

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Do I have not seen the film right now, let's
go crazy.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
I cannot believe that they brought back Elizabeth Taylor in
three D hologram form my God to ride the horse
into the sunset like that at the end of the movie.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
I mean I was more impressed actually when Henry Cavell
pulled his face off and he was John voydt yep,
John Voyd the whole time, Jim Phelps, the secret villain
of the entire franchise, the whole franchise. He's the architect, yes,
of Ethan Hunt's demise. After all this time, he didn't
really get crushed by that helicopter.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
No, no, he I mean he got crushed a little bit,
but he was fine. They pulled him off the track.
A couple couple decades are rehab. He's fine.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, it's all good. You know, the channel doesn't go
as fast as we think it does. Okay, uh so
solid spoilers. Those are grade spoil Mission I Possible fall Out.
Here's a quick ten cent origin on the Mission Impossible franchise.
And if you don't know, Mission Impossible is an American
television series created and initially produced by Bruce Geller that
chronicled the exploits of the team of secret government agents

(07:14):
known as the Impossible Mission Force. The series, of course,
was filmed and financed by Desilu Productions. Yeah in fact,
if you don't know, fun fact Lucy from Isle of
Lucy Fame, she, after her divorce, got to develop three
television series, and of the three television series, two of
them were very successful. Mission Impossible star Trek Wow yep.

(07:39):
Then she had to fight to keep both of these
series on the air.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Louse Seal Ball.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
The Seal Ball is responsible for Star Star Trek and
Mission Impossible. Of course it's a woman, yep, she saved
it all.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Okay, let's I'm I'm petitioning for a lucial Ball statue
on Hollywood Boulevard starting right now.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, fun fact. Mission Impossible the television series actually aired
from September nineteen sixty six to March of nineteen seventy three.
It was then revived in nineteen eighty eight for two
seasons at ABC, and then it was made into a
full film series starring Tom Cruise. All right, now we're
gonna go into full spoiler mode on all of these movies,
so if you haven't seen these films, please go watch

(08:19):
them and then come back later. And then also, I
would love again each of us to tell about which
Mission Impossible movie is our favorite when we get to it.
So we're gonna start off with Mission Impossible, the first
one in nineteen ninety six, directed by Brian de Palma,
with a screenplay by David Kepp and Robert Town. The
synopsis is Ethan Hunt is framed for the murder of

(08:41):
his fellow IMF agents during a Prague embassy. Mission gone
wrong and falsely accused of selling government secrets to a
mysterious international criminal known only as Max. That's right, all right,
So thoughts on the first mission impossible?

Speaker 3 (08:55):
Guys, you want to do? You want to kick it off?

Speaker 4 (08:58):
Sure? Actually, my first memory of this one was I
went to see it with my parents and they were
huge fans of the TV series, so, I mean, we
all knew Tom Cruise was the star, but he was
playing Ethan Hunt and John Boyd was playing Phelps, so
like they loved the connective tissue of it all. They
also said that I haven't seen the series, but they

(09:19):
said it felt very much like the series, but modernized
in that perfect way. And I think that sort of
encapsulates why that movie did so well, because it had
like an old school flare, but it was, you know,
a movie of the nineties. I mean, thanks to Tom Cruise,
and I love the all of the small cameos. You
have this cast and then like fifteen minutes in, most

(09:41):
of that cast is gone, and you know, it's a
great way to start a movie. And yeah, I just
remember being really floored by it in the sense that
it was a little smarter than some action films. A
lot of fun. And say what you will about Tom
Cruise couch jumping that came later or whatever. He is
a charismatic lead and he was sort of born to

(10:04):
play Ethan Hunt. In my mind, I agree with that.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
That's a great decision that he's Yeah, he is born
to play. It is his only franchise, by the way.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
Yeah, no, that's a solid assessment for me. I was
fourteen years old when the movie came out. It was
a perfect action movie for fourteen year old because the
action sequences are fun to watch. I mean, the dangling
from the ceiling to steal the knocklist. That's a such
a phenomenal sequence. Of course a genre. No playing ultimately

(10:35):
a bad.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Guy jeanre No, I forgot about him.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah, Krueger, I believe it's his character's name, or is
it Kruger Kreeger, No, it's Kruger. And then I mean
the sequence with a chunnel at the end, and I
will not lie. I mean the first time I saw
it in theaters when I was fourteen, I was definitely
confused as to what was going on with the plot.
There were some twists and turns there that I couldn't
really follow. The first time I saw it, but it

(10:59):
did not me with a bad taste in my mouth,
because upon seeing it a second time, everything made sense
and I was like, I really like what they did there.
I think that's awesome. And uh, yeah, no, I really
enjoyed the hell out of that movie. I thought, Uh,
you know, John Void is as Phelps, you know, and
we already said it spoilers, so you know the big turn,

(11:20):
Phelps being the mole, Phelps being the bad eye. That
was great and uh and it made terrific use of
the uh the camera glasses.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Oh yes, you know which forgot of the camera glasses
which were which were.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
Just imagine that, like this was nineteen ninety six and like,
oh glasses with the secret camera in them. That's crazy.
And here we are with those snapchat horrible things. And
Google glass came and went.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
And obviously people remember right from the first mission of Possible,
they still get their missions on a cassette tape.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
That is correct, ye, on a little VHS that self destructs.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
On a plane, on.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
A plane perhaps the cinema of the Caribean.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
So one thing that this movie introduces that all the
mission of Possibles carry through is the idea that the
team leader changes every movie and generally, for I think
every movie, with the exceptional fallout, they change the castium
and it's generally a character actor that is pretty well known,
this one starting out with John Vod. Do you guys
think that's a clever little trope that they carry through

(12:25):
all these movies? Is it too similar to James Bond?
How do you feel about that?

Speaker 3 (12:29):
I don't mind it.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
I like it.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
I think if there were in fact an IMF, that's
probably how they'd operate, in the interest of safety and
making sure that nobody knows in advance. You know what's
going to be on the this is your mission, should
you choose to accept it, VHS or whatever to you know,
to subvert the actual mission at hand.

Speaker 4 (12:55):
Yeah, And in terms of a movie franchise, like, I
know that it's a balance, right. You want some people
to come back because they're, you know, what you fell
in love with to begin with, but it's also an
opportunity to change it up in every movie, and you
know we can the villains too. Like, the caliber of actors,
unknowns and knowns that we'll get to throughout this series
is really impressive, and so by changing it up. It

(13:17):
gives us the opportunity to see all of those people
come in and out of the franchise in really great ways.
So yeah, I mean, I like, yeah, it's an action movie,
spy movie trope in some ways, like a James Bond,
But at the same time, like Sam said, it makes
sense within the world. But I also just like it
because you never know what you're going to get in
movie to movie.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Well, fair warning, we're going to talk about each of
these bosses as we move through the movies because the
mission of Possible franchise is full of repeat occurrences, like
somebody always dangles from a wire in every single movie
because it's inspired from the very first scene. The boss
always changes and there's always a big insane stunt. This movie,
of course, has almost two of them. One is the

(13:58):
dangling from the wire in the CIA, which, by the way,
if you ever played the Nintendo sixty four Mission Impossible game,
which was quite terrible, that was the hardest level and
I could never get past it and it was a
pain in the ass. But go google that on YouTube
and watch how impossible that level is is insane. But
the chunnel, Tom Cruise and a lot of early CGI

(14:19):
sort of leaping at the camera, But they used that
sequence in every single trailer for this movie. That was
how they sold this movie, and it is kind of
the climax of the movie, and that has almost become
a trademark of Mission Impossible as well. They show you
the big stunt in the trailer and that sort of
pulls you in to see the rest of the movie.
The movie usually builds that big event. What did we

(14:39):
think about the chunnel sequence? And is that a big
action sequence? Was it satisfying? What did we think of
red Light green Light Gum?

Speaker 4 (14:48):
I really enjoyed it. I remember, you know, you have
to put yourself back in my sixteen year old choose.
When I was seeing it in the theater with the
popcorn and everything else, it was like, WHOA, I haven't
seen anything like this before in this way, and I
really thought that, and I think that we'll get to it.
Each of the movies has has lived up to that

(15:09):
in its own way, paying homage but doing its own
thing too. It's really interesting what you say about the
marketing campaigns for these movies and how they use those
stunts as their centerpieces. And you know, you can argue
what you will about trailers giving away too much or whatnot.
But like Sam said earlier, this movie is so full
of twists and turns, and it's plot driven, it's not

(15:30):
necessarily action driven, so there's still plenty to see and enjoy,
even if you know you know that there's this big
helicopter in a train sequence coming because I saw it
in the trailer, but I just thought it was fun, honestly,
like the idea of helicopter's never gonna fit in that
tunnel and hope that's going in. It's like, look that
that's the movies and that's the fun. And I remember

(15:53):
loving it the first time I saw it, and still,
you know, ninety six CGI not perfect today, but still
I think.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Pretty it mostly holds up, I would say.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
And there's also the first red light green light gum
shot at that aquarium restaurant HM where he goes running
away and they apparently shot that like for real, yeah,
like if the behind the scenes, like they made that
restaurant explode behind a running tom cruise. So that's that's
pretty wild.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
And I believe too, if I can remember right, it's
a combination of two shots like the inside of the
restaurant is a completely different location to the outside of
the restaurant.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Yes, I believe it is correct, and for me, the
chunnel sequence is terrific. I didn't mind that they used
it in the trailer because at that time we didn't
know it was the big climactic scene. And I always
have a weird thing when Tom Cruise screams red light,
green light at the very end of the movie, right
before he smushes it against the outer part of the helicopter,

(16:49):
it sounds like he's saying it with a very weird accent.
I mean, understandably, he's yelling at the top of his
lungs in the middle of a heavy action moment. But
I'm gonna I'm gonna hold the mic away from me
and I actually say it like he says it right now.
He goes red.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
Light, green light like he does that.

Speaker 3 (17:07):
Yeah, And if you think I'm kidding, rewatch it right now.
He says light with a lot of o's and us
in it. But it works.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
One thing, Let's go through some fun facts. I'd love
to hear your thoughts about him. Amelia Estevez is the
kind of tech guy. He rides ontop of the elevator
and he gets stabbed by these yeah jacks something yeah, yeah,
something like that. The only reason he was casting this
movie was to give the audience a surprise about why
he could be killed, that anybody on the team could
be killed at any moment. So that's the reason why

(17:39):
they stunt cast at Emilia Estevez.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
There.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
Also, here's a weird thing. This is the only Mission
Impossible movie that doesn't feature a gunfight. Ethan Hunt never
fires a gun in this film. That's anywhere astic.

Speaker 4 (17:59):
I hadn't even even thought about it like that, you know,
And now I'm like running through all the movies in
my head and and you're right, like that's kind of crazy.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
Because two is all gun fights. Yeah exactly.

Speaker 4 (18:11):
Yeah, you're not gonna tell John Way you can't do that.
I wonder, yeah, I wonder where that generated from.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
I would to me that scream. It screams like a
DiPalma thing. It screams Brian to Palma like very much,
being like, let's make a cerebral movie. These are spies.
They're not going to fire a gun because then everybody
knows where they are.

Speaker 4 (18:28):
Yeah that's yeah, that's a really good point. Well, never
thought about.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
It before is the first gun we even see in
Mission Impossible, held by Voight at the end of the movie.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
I think you're cracked. Yeah, I think you're cracked. I
don't think you see. Well, unless Krueger has one when
he's in the CIA, maybe he doesn't.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
He uses a knife. That's his weapon.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
A choice, that's true. Okay, So then John Voight, it
holds the very first gun bananis that is crazy, but
also it works for spy stuff. Last thing before and
we're gonna talk about the first Mission Possible a little
bit longer than the rest of them, because you know,
it's the granddaddy, it's the first one. So another thing
that changes throughout these movies Tom Cruise's hair style. No,

(19:07):
it's do we do you? Just fun fact, do you
have a preferred Tom Cruise like like, because his hair
does change every single movie.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
For Tom Cruise within the franchise or just in general
within the franchise. Certainly two is at the bottom of
the list. I don't know what was going on there.
Oh and Rachel appears to be nodding in a dreaming
all right, very well, uh yeah, I don't know. I
guess probably am I one just because it's it's not
a part of the movie. Yeah, it's not noticeable. What's

(19:38):
going on with his hair? Yeah, I like the shorter look.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
It's fine.

Speaker 4 (19:41):
Rachel thoughts, Yeah, it's sort of classic. I think it's
the shortest of the entire series. I'm gonna say, am
I three That's where I'm at too. Yeah, I think
that that was kind of a little classic Tom Cruise

(20:03):
edged into the character and had a just it's a
little bit longer, a little bit more fun. Just you know,
that buzz cut works. I'm not saying it doesn't. And yeah,
we won't talk about the second movie's haircut. But yea,
I'm gonna go on my three.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
But we will talk about the second movie now. Mission
Impossible two in two thousand, four years later, directed by
John wu screenplayed by Robert Town, with a story by
Ronald D. Moore and Brown and Braga, who, by the way,
are Star Trek writers. Oh. They wrote Star Trek Generations
in Star Trek First Contact. The synopsis of this is
Ethanson's international thief Nia nordolff Hall played by Sandy Newton,

(20:40):
undercover to stop a rogue IMF agent and Nia's former
lover Sean Ambrose played by Dougary Scott, from stealing a
deadly virus to start a pandemic and sell the antidote
to the highest bidder. Now here's some fun facts for
this one right off the gate. Apparently, the original cut
of this film was going to be three hours long,

(21:00):
and the studio forced John Mood to cut it to
two hours.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
A side note only because I'm reading off of my
my crib sheet here as well. It was going to
be three hours long and one hour and fifty minutes
of that with slow motion birds.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah I heard that, slow motion birds. Doves. Yeah, lots
of doves, lots of dubs. Sorry to interrupt, No, it's
all good. So what are your thoughts on Mission Impossible too?
This is a hard left turn for this franchise.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
It it was. It so turned me off the franchise because,
as you will know, it then took them what was it,
six years?

Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, six more years until you can get.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
To the next one. So for six years I thought
this is dead. They started with a really really cool
thing and four years later they went for this weird
cash grab and it just creatively speaking, did not pan out.
I mean that movie was so galactically different in tone
from the first one, which is not to say I'm

(22:00):
not taking shots at John Wu. John Wu is a
terrific director. When you were talking about a straight up
action movie, if you are talking like Face Off, ye
is a great John Woo movie because the plot is
ludicrous and it's allowed to be ludicrous because everyone going
in knows what they're going into. And the action sequences

(22:21):
in that movie are badass. But the problem was we'd
already established in Mission Impossible one that even though there's
gonna be some outlandish action sequences, the realm of reality
is important in this world, and John Wu just ignored that.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yeah, like the whole.

Speaker 3 (22:40):
The virus thing and the leaping out of airplanes like that,
it just it right off the bat. I was like,
what the fuck am I watching? And then the action
sequences were so over the top, with the with the
motorbikes on the beach and those scenes. It just it
left such a bad taste in my mouth, and I
was really bummed. I thought the Themi franchise was gonna

(23:03):
go the way of like the Faster the Fury Is
franchise quite frankly, you know, but but without taking six
movies to get there like Fast and Furious one was like, oh,
it's a movie about illegal street racers. Seven movies later,
they're saving the world from nuclear submarines. I was like, wow,
mission if possible. Did it in one fell swoop one

(23:23):
movie to the next. But luckily it got back on
its feet. But but yeah, that second movie was not
a was a bold missstep for me.

Speaker 4 (23:33):
Yeah, it's funny, like I don't know what they were thinking.
I mean there was four years in between, but like,
and you know, don't hate me, Bond fans, but like
it felt like some executive said, you know this, we
want the franchise to be bigger, more Bond like. So
hence the reality that Sam was talking about, the the
reality of the action and the reality of the plot

(23:55):
sort of gets tossed out the window in favor of
you know, flash and explosions and you know, eye candy
kind of stuff. And that was, you know, kind of
disappointing coming off of the first one, because, like I said,
the reason why I like the first one so much
is that it's actually a smart movie, and that's what

(24:15):
differentiated it from Bond and from other spy movies. So
why not embrace what you establish yourself as being, especially
because it was a success. So yeah, I don't know
what I wish. I was a fly on the walls
in those you know, development meetings when somebody suggested this
was the new direction to go in, and you know,
and it makes sense that you said that it was
gonna be originally three hours long, because it is an

(24:37):
uneven film. It is not well paced. It does not
build in the way that the first one did in
any sort of like really tense, interesting kind of way,
kind of like whiplashing through these scenes. The chemistry of
the characters wasn't there in the same way. I actually
do love Doug Ray Scott any other ever After fans
out there, like, but he just didn't live up. Sorry,

(25:00):
I'm representing the girls on the panel here.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
No, it's all good.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
So yeah, it was.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
He could have been a really great villain and he
could have had a kind of like GoldenEye, why the
bombing whereas it you know, the evil IMF agent.

Speaker 4 (25:12):
There was you know a lot of interesting pieces in here,
because they also loved Handy Newton and Brendan Gleason's always great,
like there's you know, there were pieces here, but it
just you know, it's one of those things. Maybe it
would be we'd like it better if it wasn't called
a Mission Impossible movie. Maybe it was just an action movie,
you know, John Wu action film. But because we'd had

(25:34):
a precedent set with the ninety six original, this one
just you know, made everybody go, what's going on here?
Like this is stuff we've seen.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
One other fun fact about this movie, apparently, is that
John Wu when he directs most movies, he will design
the action sequences and then give that to the writers,
and the writers are responsible for writing a script that
combines the action sequences, which was the case on this movie. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (25:59):
I mean, I honestly that that you can tell right
like you know, it's it's it's reverse engineering it and
and you're never going to get a tight, interesting, well written,
well thought out story that way, or you're very rarely
going to get one that way.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
This also was the movie that lost Doug Rey Scott
the role of Wolverine because he was supposed to be
Wolverine X Men one.

Speaker 4 (26:22):
I'm okay with that, Sorry. I really like Doug Ray Scott,
but Hugh Jackman is Wolf.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
I think I think it worked out in the long
run for huge for Hugh Jackman in US viewers, But
I don't know. I wonder if Doug Rey Scott is
still it's still to this day is like God damn
Mission Impossible too, because the filming went long, which you know,
that's what lost in the part.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
That's as an actor. That that kind of thing breaks
your heart to hear.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
But there's no there's no way to know exactly.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
We'll never know for sure if Doug Gray Scott had
been Wolverine, if he would have gone on to the
Acclaim and you know, career that gave us Viva Laughlin.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
That's right. Sorry to butt in here real quick mind
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to hire. Now back to the episode, But one thing

(28:30):
that is interesting that mission Impossible to did give us
is that because it was such a hard shift. Because
it was such a hard turn, I think it almost
created the characteristic of the franchise that each installment is
gonna be almost tonally and completely different than the last one.
We're gonna have a different style, We're gonna have a

(28:51):
different look, We're gonna have a different feel almost every movie.
It's almost a little weird that we're going into the
sixth movie for the first time having the same director.
So it's going to have a very similar feel to
Rogue Nation. Now do you think that is a strength
to the franchise or a weakness of the franchise? I
actually think that the blessing in disguise mission possible to
gave this franchise is that every movie is gonna be

(29:13):
completely different and gonna be fun because of that.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
Right, Well, I'm I'm not going to disagree with you
because you're you're right. It's the first one with the
same director. However, since the third one, Jj Abrams has
been on as director and now producer, So it is
it's my understanding that he is he remains somewhat heavily
involved in the production and direction.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
They do have a similar Tonish feel, yes, and.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
So starting with the third one is what bridges the
gap between the the the different feels of the first
two movies and what they have become now. And I
don't necessarily find it a coup that each one has

(30:02):
such a different feel and look, But I don't think
it's it's detrimental in any way. It's it's nice. I mean,
if anything, the different look and feel of three, four
and five show us just how bad two was by reference,

(30:24):
But I don't know. I think Ghost Protocol and not
to jump around, but Ghost Protocol had a different a
considerably different look than three, and three had ache considerably
different look and field than two and one. So but
I felt like they were getting better, Like yeah, almost

(30:45):
pretending two didn't happen. If it had gone one, three four, basically,
I'd have been like, this is fucking great. Where are
they going next?

Speaker 5 (30:53):
You know?

Speaker 3 (30:53):
Or if it stays the same, I'm happy. If it changes,
but it changes for the better, I'm happy. So for me,
I I didn't mind it as long as the quality
and storytelling and action sequences remained fun.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
All right, let's move on into unless you have any
final thoughts, Mission Possible too, Rachel.

Speaker 4 (31:11):
Now, the less we say, the better.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
Let's move into Mission Impossible three in two thousand and six,
directed by JJ Abrams, his first feature film. It was
written by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orsi and JJ Abrams. Ethan,
retired from being an IMF agent team leader and engaged
to be married, assembles a team to face the elusive
arms and information broker Owen Davian played by Philip Seymour Hoffman,

(31:35):
who intends to sell a mysterious, dangerous object known as
the Rabbit's Foot. Now, personally, I'm gonna tell you this
is my favorite Mission Impossible film.

Speaker 4 (31:45):
It's it's not mine.

Speaker 6 (31:47):
But it's in a fight with mine. Okay, interesting love
this one. Yeah, it's it's such an This one to
me feels more like the TV show than any of
the other movies, which is weird, and I think maybe
that was on purpose by JJ Abrams. But if I
were to give any knock to this movie, to me,
I don't know. I understand the reasoning to give Ethan

(32:10):
a relationship and to almost marry him and make him
a married man, because you want to differentiate, you want
to explore that character and how his job fights with
that relationship. But every movie since then we've had to
fight against that or explain way why this guy isn't
going back to the woman he loves, which I think
almost every time we come to that scene in every

(32:31):
previous movie or a movie after this, I feel like
it kind of knocks that movie down a little bit.
And again, you know, we haven't seen the amazing scene
and Mission Impossible Fallout where Henry Cavill of course steals
his wife and flies her to the top of the
Swiss Alps and throws her out of a helicopter spoiler
for Mission Impossible Fallout.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
But she's in that movie. And you know that's another
part where I'm like, well, I don't know, man, Like,
if you love her so much, just go to her.
What's wrong with you?

Speaker 1 (32:56):
See?

Speaker 4 (32:57):
It's funny. I love it. Maybe we're drawing gender lines here,
I'm not sure, but like there's anytime you can flesh
out a character, it to have motivations, of conflicting motivations,
I think is a good thing. And I think that
it's incredibly interesting to start this movie with him not
being in the field and him being in a relationship

(33:17):
and training recruits, and I love Carrie Russell and you
know it, so to me that was like a layer
and I really liked that layer. And then to come
out of this movie and moving into the other ones
where he's back in the field and but still having
Julie what's her name, Oh, my.

Speaker 6 (33:36):
God, yeah, the wife Julia.

Speaker 4 (33:39):
Julia, Okay, Michelle Mannan, Yes, yeah, that works to have
her in the back of his head on every mission.
I think this just that that that's just a tiny
little complexity, and we'll talk about ghost protocol and Jeremy
Renner and what all of that means. And I thought
that was a great ad, a great twist. And then

(34:00):
you know, I'm very curious to see where a fallout
comes from or goes with it. Excuse me, my love
for form I three. It starts with and I won't
say ends with, because there's plenty else I love, But
it's Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Yes, as Owen David.

Speaker 4 (34:16):
I mean, it's the best villain of the series. I
think he's The interrogation scene to me is just it's
it's it's having Oscar Worthy acting in an action movie.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
And in perfect J. J. Abrams fashion, they start the movie, yes,
out of chronological sequence with that scene.

Speaker 4 (34:35):
It's it's it's just the right way to right in
the ship after two. I mean, as soon as I
had that and I was like, Okay, we're back on
track here. And then to fill out. I mean, we're
talking about the different IMF leaders. Lawrence Fishburne in this one,
and I love him, and Jonathan Reese Myers, and we
get Simon Peg for the first time and Billy kritup.

(34:57):
Like this cast might be my favorite cast to So
everything about this one felt much more well balanced, watch,
much more well thought out. I liked the wife addition
because it gave the complexity and layers to Ethan Hunt
as a character, and so the conflicting aspect of that's great.
The mystery of the rabbit's foot and who's who's you know,

(35:18):
the mole in this one, there's it brought us back
to the first one, but was also its own thing too,
And I think that's because of this, you know, collaboration
between JJ and his guys, Like I mean, he's always
working with Orsi and Kurtzman. I mean, the three of
them do a lot of stuff together and you can tell.
So yeah, I think that this was you know, this
was a huge few. Okay, they they realized their mistakes

(35:43):
and they're on the right track, and this one is
just this one might be the most rewatchable for me too.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
I go back. I kind of agree with that, as
it's funny in this Tom Cruise apparently chose J. J.
Abrams because in between as he was looking for in
between movies, as he's looking for a director for this movie,
he had watched the first season Alias Wow, and he
loved it and said, get me that, get me a
meeting with that guy.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
That's how J. J. Abrams got this job.

Speaker 3 (36:07):
That's fantastic, And I love that it was his directorial debut.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
That is fucking nuts.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yeah, no, I uh, this is much like Rachel. This
is a an almost tie for me for a favorite
film in the franchise. But we'll come to that later.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
Tiny things I love in this movie, uh, Greg Grunberg, Yeah,
JJ Abrams, lucky charm Uh.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
Aaron Paul Yes as the cousin or the younger brother as.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
Julia's younger brother. Uh in the party scene and then
later on the phone, a pre breaking bed Aaron Paul
you you you guys are both correct. Hoffman as Owdavian,
my god, just such a spectacular bad guy. And it's
funny when you said the interrogation scene, I wasn't even

(36:58):
thinking about that one. I was thinking of when Ethan
is interrogating him on the cargo plane and has him
dangling and yeah, that's that's There are so many great
sequences in this movie. The the prison break scene, if
you will, the transpo breakout scene where they get him

(37:19):
on the bridge. H and that's an insane sequence that
is so ridiculous to watch. Yeah, there's a lot that
is so great about this movie. That definitely from the
first two and even the second one, which was crazy.
The the ratcheting up of the action sequences in this

(37:40):
movie was crazy to me, and they all work. Is
why it was so successful, I think, and why it
was so well received. There were no motorcycles on a
beach in slow motion scenes, and that's what I was
so afraid we were gonna get more of, and we didn't.

(38:01):
It was it was terrific stuff. And the whole last
act in China did not see that coming.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
And they actually shot it there.

Speaker 3 (38:09):
Yeah, yeah, that's I mean that shot with Tom Cruise
running forever forever, jumping off buildings, ups, running past people,
going fight into the background of the frame, coming into
the foreground of the frame. That is such an ambitious

(38:30):
shot for a first time director, for JJ Abrams and
oh my god, I can't believe I don't immediately know
who the director of photography was on that movie, but
for the for the two of them and Tom Cruise
to all agree, yes, we should do this, Yes we
can do this. Let's fucking do this. That is no

(38:52):
small feat and and that is hats off to them
from a creative filmmaker standpoint. Have we got have I
I'm googling. I've bought enough time to get it.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
Youandan Mindel, Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
Dan Mindel, Thank you Dan Mindell, thank you JJ, thank
you Tom Cruise for putting that shot in there that
anyone who's ever been on a set went, holy fucking shit,
they did it. Yeah, Like, that's that's a ridiculously hard
shot to do.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
And this is a beautiful movie, by the way, really,
and it sort of became I don't want to say
the calling card of that because I mean they used.

Speaker 3 (39:24):
Camera trickery in an earlier shot in the same movie
when he's on the building top on the rooftop with
thing raims and they do that long wide push in
and then the shot kind of pans around his face
and now it's a close up without cutting. That's a
beautiful shot, but that's that's camera tricks. Yes, the shot
in China, that's that is practical, that's real, and that's amazing.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yes. Now the leap that that Shanghai leap actually off
the top of the building, which I think, I guess
you would call that's the big stunt of this movie,
because what else is there? Because every one of these
movies has like a big stunt, and I think it's
the leap off the Shanghai tower, even though it was
achieved a little bit CG, a little bit of bakery,
but they did. Tom actually did leap off that tower,
and apparently his leap was over two kilometers long. His

(40:10):
arc was two kilometers long. Do you know who I
want to be.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
For these Mission I possible movies? I want to be
the insurance company that when that when Paramount is like,
oh we're going to another Mission impossible movie and Tom
wants to do most of his un stunts, it'd be like, cool,
your premium is.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Eighty million dollars.

Speaker 5 (40:33):
That's that's the best week on offer you Because when
a fifty year old man he wants to leap off
building tops on a fishing line, there's a significant amount.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
Of risk we're incurring. Yeah, but I would.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
Say, yeah, the building leap, and then also, like I
said that, the bridge escape sequence. Yeah, the drones and
that's probably another big sequence that that probably cost them
ten million dollars. But yeah, there there were a lot
of sequences. Let's see, what's the other big one. I
don't know is there. It's not quite but yeah, the

(41:08):
Vatican Wasnay, it's not quite as slashy. Yeah, but there's
the you know, there's that.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
Hole which they they fun fact about that is they
had a whole fake film crew wandering around Rome pretending
to be the Mission Impossible film crew so that they
could drive into the opening courtyard of the Vatican and
use that as their background, because you know, you cannot
film in the Vatican, it's impossible. But what they did

(41:33):
is they got as close as they could with John
Reese Myers, put the camera there so that when he
got out, you saw like the Vatican the backgrounds, it
would look like he was in the Vatican. And to
make sure that the security guards did not come after him,
they did this big fake They hired like a fake
Tom Cruise impersonator and they did a whole fake film
shoot over there so the guards would look over there,

(41:54):
so they would do their shot very simply.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
So they were filming Harvest Moon.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah basically yeah, yeah, are you come on?

Speaker 3 (42:00):
That's gotta buy me songs? Interer geeked them points that
is between the two of you. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
All right, so let's move on into Mission Impossible Ghost
Protocol in two thousand and eleven, five years later, directed
by Brad Bird, first time live action film director, and
written by Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemick. The synopsis is
Ethan and the entire IMF are blamed for the bombing
of the Kremlin while investigating an individual known excuse me,
an individual known as Cobalt. He and three other agents

(42:30):
are left to stop him from starting a global nuclear war.
All right, let's talk about this first Mission Impossible movie
to not just be numbered. We now get the colon
slash Ghost protocol, colon slash whatever, like dislike, what do
you think about this?

Speaker 4 (42:46):
It's it's fine, I.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Guess by the way, this is a double colon title.
It's Mission colan impossible colan ghost.

Speaker 4 (42:53):
Part of it? Right, Yeah again, it's like one of
those show as a fly on the wall, Like why
did they decide this was necessary? I mean, it's certainly intriguing.
I mean, take it outside the context of being in
a series that's never had the subtitle before. You know,
what does ghost Protocol mean?

Speaker 3 (43:12):
That?

Speaker 4 (43:12):
Like it as a title and a standalone film, there's
like a curiosity factor, like, you know, what is this
in regards to in terms of the plot? What does
that mean for Ethan and everybody? So, okay, I get
it in that respect, I suppose.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
What are your general thoughts on the movie?

Speaker 4 (43:28):
Though it's funny? Is this your favorite or it is not?
Which now no means isn't my favorite?

Speaker 2 (43:33):
Well, it was miss impossible, followed right the scene where
Henry Cavill suddenly seduces a live action Lucille Ball just
blew our socks.

Speaker 4 (43:40):
Off, and the winner is Yeah for me, this one
is not when I've revisited very often. For me, this
is the Dubai Tower one. That's basically what it is
you want to talk about. Of all the stunts and
all the movies, isn't this the quintessential one.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
I don't think they've beat this one. I don't think
they have.

Speaker 4 (44:02):
Yeah, I mean, just the way it was shot and
brad Bird clearly was having a field day with with
the action stuff. I also adore Paula Patten. I think
that she was wonderful in this movie. But I think
it's it's just a little bit more forgettable to me
in terms of plot, I mean the specific things that
I remember, even besides that, you know, Josh Holloway the

(44:25):
beginning Sawyer. This was in the middle of Lost Things
and UH in in some of this stuff towards the end.
So it was in India, right.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
The finale was the clix was in India.

Speaker 4 (44:39):
Yeah, yeah, so I certainly remember things, but not in
the same clear way I do with with one three
or five, but but still like in terms in terms
of the progression, in terms of like where this UH
series could go, I thought, you know it was is
great in continuing to push the envelope, certainly with the action,

(45:00):
certainly with I thought the the interesting idea is like, oh,
Julie is dead, but she's not, and like I liked that,
Like I do feel feel like that's an interesting thing.
And then the mystery of Jeremy Jeremy Renners Brant, like
who easy good guy, bad guy? And I like that
you don't know? And so yeah, there's a lot of
specific things I remember that I liked, but as a

(45:23):
whole it doesn't stick with me as much as some
of the others do.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
Yeah, well it's funny. Jeremy Renners brand was originally supposed
to replace Tom Cruise. He was supposed to be the
new lead of the franchise. Now there are some.

Speaker 4 (45:36):
Because that works so well with Jason Bourne.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Well that is there is no conclude, there's no proof
out there on the internet. But in the production of
this movie is when Born Legacy was released and quickly
dropped off everybody's radar, and everyone thinks that that is
why Brant suddenly didn't end this movie as the head
of the IMF team.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
Wow, that is shocking. And also this is gonna sound crazy.
Jeremy Renner is not that much younger than Tom Cruise.
This would have bought them what ten more years?

Speaker 2 (46:14):
Well, we get a mission to possible movie like once
every five years now exception.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
That would have bought them what two more movies?

Speaker 2 (46:19):
Two more movies.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
I'm Jeremy Renner was in his forties when he did Swat. Yeah,
Tom Cruise is so that's Jeremy Renner has to be
Cruise witching fifty right.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yeah, Tom Cruise is on like fifty six.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
I think, yeah, so out here, but you guys have
tops and stuff in this room.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Yeah, check it out.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
But that that doesn't surprise me that that might have
been a studio thought that perhaps originally the film could
have ended in a way where it was maybe open ended, like, oh,
maybe Ethan really is done and now Brand's gonna take over.
But uh, yeah, I don't know. I I certainly got
a kick out of this movie because they had Josh

(46:58):
Hollowey and the trailers. Yeah, and I fully assumed, you know, j. J.
Abrams is producing it, and maybe in two thousand and
six he couldn't get Holloway any of the major roles
in that movie because you know, Lost was only on
the air maybe a full season by the time they were.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
In production on eleven, Lost is over.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
Lost is Yeah, it's ending right right when this movie
is coming out, So they were probably in production same time,
and he was like, Oh, Josh, I want to make
you a movie star, now get over here. And that's
certainly what it looked like to me watching all the
TV spots and the trailers, and so it was shocking
to have him die so quickly. I mean, just like

(47:41):
Carrie Russell. Yeah, like I was like, oh wow, they
get man. You know what, something just occurred to me.
If JJ Abrams had hired you on a TV show
and asked you to be a mission apostle, You're gonna die.
You're gonna die in the first fifteen minutes. Yah, You're dead.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
Don't say well, Jennifer Garner, don't do it?

Speaker 3 (47:59):
Scott, Oh well, what's his name? Scott Speedman or Folly?
The two Scott's stay out of here, Barten, do not
do it?

Speaker 2 (48:07):
Annatour of go Away.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
Yep, you guys are all dead. So so yeah, but
I don't know. There were some really cool sequences, like
the the the Dubai sequence, the which I believe the
Burj Khalifa is. I'm correct, that's the white man way
of pronouncing it. You're sure my pronunciation is awful, but
that is the I believe it is still currently the

(48:30):
tallest is.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
Still currently it's twenty seven and twenty two feet.

Speaker 3 (48:34):
Yeah, but that's including the spire. I don't know how
I feel about that.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
They were apparently they were seventeen hundred feet above yeah,
ground level when they were filming that.

Speaker 3 (48:42):
That is a lot.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
It's well you know. It's it's funny because I really
like that movie. And you do think about this movie
as this is Tom Cruise hanging outside, you know that
that tower. It's so amazing and you're just sitting there
watching them. Especially like when I saw this movie and
I'm act and I could not. It made me uncomfortable
because I was like, oh my god, he is gonna die.
He is gonna die. And the movie, to me, never

(49:07):
matches the intensity of that sequence. But the movie goes
on for like another half hour after this.

Speaker 3 (49:12):
Does Yeah, and then they've got that so then after
the building, they've got the chase and the sandstorm and.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
There's a fight with an old man in a garage
an automi.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
Yeah, that's the big finale, the old man in the
garage and that one is that that that's an unfortunate ending.
It's it does not of the of the previous films.
I guess the the finale was underwhelming to compared to
some of the action sequences within it. But uh, but

(49:41):
I don't know, I mean it it It was a
fun movie.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
I really enjoyed it.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
It's a very enjoyable and and I don't I don't
mind that the action sequence at the end, isn't the
you know, it's not the Fireworks finale, because I felt
like there had been enough action provided throughout that I
didn't feel like I could walk out of that movie
go the action sequence is not good?

Speaker 2 (50:05):
But yeah it was.

Speaker 3 (50:06):
It was great. And and uh LEAs Sado by the way,
in Inglorious Bastards. So fun to watch someone who was
a relative unknown, uh really start making her mark in
Hollywood action movies. Nice because that's my point. Yes, she
went on to do James Bond, so good for her.

(50:26):
She's great.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Another fun fact about this this is the fourth Mission
Possible movie, but it's also the first one where none
of the antagonists are former IMF agents. A four movies
in we finally got to that. All right, wait, wait,
wait ahead.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
Something just occurred to me that we none of us
mentioned for three ore Ghost Protocol Simon peg.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
Oh, that's right, Benji, the first appearance of Benji.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
And you know the So they added comic relief in
m I three and it's so easy to accidentally have
your comic relief b jar Jar binks in a in
an action movie and it didn't happen. And I'm so
glad it didn't accidentally have.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
A nice addition to the Franchi.

Speaker 3 (51:11):
He's a solid addition to the franchise because they used
him perfectly in Mission Impossible three, which is to say
he's behind a computer or a desk the whole time
he's only helping from afar and it went really well
and people liked that, and so they took it to
the next level in Ghost Protocol. They were like, no, no, no,

(51:32):
let's get him in the field. And the whole time
he's in the field, he's doing the right thing, which
is saying I'm not a field agent.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
I don't belong here.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
The snakes are too high for me. I'm very comfortable
behind a desk, which is what you want to hear
from someone in that position. They don't oversell it. It's
not when Rick Branis puts on a proton pack, it
goes out at the end. This doesn't feel right to me.
He's should be saying I don't belong in this proton pack.

(52:03):
What am I doing here? This feels wrong, and so
that's why it works nice.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, he's a strong addition to
the franchise, and now he's been in more Mission Impossible
movies than there haven't been Benji. You know what, you
don't know what The reason why he's in this movie
is kind of a joke. He I can't remember the
movie that he was doing press for, but in the
interview he's they they asked him about like his success
and his career and where are you gonna go next?

(52:30):
And he knew Mission Impossible three was filming because he's
buddy was Jaj And he said, oh, it's not like
I'm going to be casting Mission Impossible three or anything.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
J J.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
Abrams called him the very next day.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
Yep, yep, that's exactly. I've heard that as well. Yeah,
he said, you know, because they asked him. I think
the question was I think he might have been promoting Hot.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
Fuzz Ye something like that.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
Yeah, And they asked him like, you know, so are
you gonna stick with the smaller movies where you have
control than everything? Are you're gonna go all Hollywood on us?
And he said something yeah, And so it's not like
I'm gonna start doing Mission Impossible movies. Yeah, and there.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
And there is and there is. All right, let's move
into Mission Impossible. Rogue Nation released in twenty fifteen. It
is the shortest gap between any of the two of
these movies. Directed and written by Christopher McCory, the synopsis
is Ethan Hunt comes under the threat from the Syndicate,
a near mythical organization of rogue agents who who killed
to order face with the ims disband a. Hunt assembles

(53:25):
his team for the mission to prove the Syndicate's existence
and bringing the organization down by any means necessary. Now,
I love that they added the Syndicate into this movie
because not only is they tease it at the end
of Ghost Protocol you hear him get the call about
the Syndicate, but the Syndicate was a big antagonist in
the original television series they so it's a nice little

(53:48):
homage back to the original television So also, I like
when spies get giant organizations like Spector, like James Bond Spector.
And I like that Mission Impossible finally got there on screen.
What do you feel about the Syndicate? How do you
feel about Rogue Nation there, Rachel.

Speaker 4 (54:02):
Uh In case I wasn't clear earlier, it is my
far by far, my my favorite Mission Apostle movie. I
love three, I love it, and I love one, but
this one took all of the things that I loved
about the various other movies, even you know, maybe something
from two. I don't know, I'd have to think about that,
but and put it all in one movie in a

(54:23):
way that I think it's incredibly smart. I think that
this one isn't all about the big action. I think
that there there's the one water sequence or the server
room under the water, and and that was pretty spectacular.
I liked the the close hand to hand combat stuff,

(54:45):
and this movie the best of all the movies in
terms of that stuff goes. I love the idea of
this shadowy organization, you know, that that wants to work
behind the scenes in this you know, really nefarious way,
and so like there's just like there's no way you
can trust anybody, and they come out of the gate
swinging at the at the very beginning, I mean, he's

(55:06):
captured the record store scenes a great way to set
everything up. And then then then ilsa faust. I mean,
Rebecca Ferguson's amazing. She is beyond amazing in this movie.
And and one of the greatest things about it is,
I mean we did learn and ghost protocol that his
wife is still alive. This isn't about a romantic connection.

(55:28):
This is about a professional connection. She rescues his ass,
does it in a spectacular fashion, so we have a
great intro to her character. And then again, similar to
Branton in the previous film, who's she working for?

Speaker 1 (55:42):
Is she?

Speaker 4 (55:42):
Is? She a double agents' triple agent? Like what's going
on here? And I love the mystery of that. But
I loved their chemistry as coworkers and not as necessarily romantic.
And She's she's incredible the opera scene that from the
dress to the action to all of it. And I
loved all of these pieces. So you have all these characters,
you have this great villain, you have Sean Harris, whose

(56:05):
voice alone is a spectacular villain. And I just I
think this one is the smartest of the movies, and
it's the strongest story wise and character wise, and Alec
Baldwin's a great addition, and the former Yeah, like that's
there's a lot of you know, still fun little bits
to it. But to me, it's the one that in

(56:29):
every way and a movie can be good, it's good
and it's sort of like a cumulative I guess it
is the way I would best look at it, and
that's why I'm so excited that Fallout is literally picking
up where we left off in this movie. So we
do have mcquarie coming back. So I think, you know,
kind of talking about what you said earlier and all
of these films sort of being their own thing, but

(56:51):
they have been building to a place where now it's
it's a true sequel in the sense of where the
pretty much.

Speaker 2 (56:59):
All they're not sort of one offs anymore, like James Bond.

Speaker 4 (57:02):
Yeah, I don't think. My guess is still haven't seen it.
But my guess is you would not particularly understand Fallout
if you hadn't seen Rootination. I think it would be difficult,
but we'll see soon.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
You are correct, Miss Christopher mccorrey does do something very
smart in this movie is that this movie is very
much about the giant action sequences, which is something that
I love of the Mission Impossible franchise. Again, I'm putting
on a record here that I think we're going to
watch Tom Cruise die for a Mission Impossible movie for
some crazy stunt, but those don't overwhelm the movie. Yeah,
this is a very smart spy movie. How do you

(57:37):
feel about this? Sam?

Speaker 3 (57:39):
Unfortunately I have to plead a little bit of ignorance.
This is the Mission Impossible movie. I've seen the fewest
times of any of them, which is to say I
saw it one time in theaters three years ago, and
that's my fault. It's not that I did not enjoy
the movie. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I remember having a
great time in the theater, and so I remember very
few things about it. I remember Rebecca Ferguson being great.

(58:00):
I remember the underwater sequence. But I am old school.
I watch movies mostly as they appear on cable, and
I have direct TV, and so this has never come
on any of my directive challenge three years. It must
be on epics if it's on cable at all. So
I owe myself a serious rewatching of this movie before

(58:23):
I see Fallout, And yeah, I I I probably should
have done a little more research on it, but well, frankly,
I just didn't have time. You are very punctual, and
uh yeah, So I I remember enjoying it, and I
remember what's the bad guy's.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
Name, Solomon Lane.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
Solomon Lane played by Sean Harris. He was fucking great.
You got a voice like that, You better be a
bad Guy. Yeah, that's uh. He was tremendous and uh
and and and like you said, the Syndicate being a
part of the thing. I remember reading an advance review

(59:05):
talking about how the Syndicate was a major thing in
the TV series, and I remember thinking, Wow, they're five
movies in and they're just getting to a huge part
of the series. That's ballsy, because there's anytime they make
one of these movies. If they make a Mission Impossible
movie and for whatever reason it tanks, that's the end

(59:28):
of it. They're laying out two hundred plus million dollars
every time they make one of these and promoted, so
if it misfires and only makes one hundred million dollars worldwide,
they're fucked and we'll never get another one.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
So that was a ballsy play to take five movies
to bring the Syndicate in, you know, not unlike a
ballsy move for them to take that long to bring
Specter into the new James Bond franchise. But it obviously
has worked, at least it for Mission Impossible. Remains to
be seen whether it's really worked for the James Bond franchise.

(01:00:05):
But yeah, I was excited. I thought I thought that
was a really cool thing. It's and it allows the
bad guy world to extend as far out as they want. Yeah,
within the realm of no No. These are bad guys
who are all working together, so the conspiracy can go

(01:00:26):
as fucking deep as they want. And that's that's a
great tool I wanted this series.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
I also want to talk about something in this movie
that I really it irks me, yet I admire the
hell out of it Tom Cruise hanging outside of a plane.
It was in every trailer. It was the first imax.
This is the big stunt of the movie. It's in
the first five minutes.

Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
Yes, it sure is.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
I I love it and I hate it at the
same time, but I admire. Christophercuory is like, yeah, let's
just forget it, Like, once they get past it, it'll
be all good. We'll use it to sell the movie
and who cares. But then at the same time, I'm like,
I kind of think, I go back to the the
leapying outside of the tower. I'm like, man, why wouldn't
you make that part of your climax? But then I
don't know, I go, why do you guys feel about
the big stunt hanging Outside the Wind. We'd seen it

(01:01:12):
so many times in every trailer.

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
Right, We've seen it in every trailer, And then they
talked about it to death promoting the movie. The fact
that it really was Tom Cruise strapped to the side
of a plane that was taking.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
Special contacts so he could open his eyes eyes.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
Yeah, I mean, that's that's nuts right there. And again,
I want to be the insurance company that collects the
premium for Tom Cruise being his own stunt man in
these movies. It was a great stunt, and it was
smart of them knowing we see it in the first

(01:01:48):
five minutes, and then that's that to talk about it
so openly, because that way anyone.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
Stopped giving away the best stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
Anyone who works for a studio can be like, trust me, yep,
that's the tip of the So I have no problem
with it.

Speaker 4 (01:02:04):
I adore it. I think it's the smartest thing they
could have done. Because clearly, like in my whole like
praising this movie, I didn't even mention it because yeah,
it was part of the campaign. It happened at the
beginning of the movie. It's a wow moment. But everything
else about this movie was more character driven and more
plot driven and more interesting to me. As for me

(01:02:26):
as a moviegoer, I like the big action sequences, but
to me, them on their own is not that interesting
to me. I want the movie to live up to
it in all the other ways, and this movie does so. Yes,
trick us fine, I'm so on forward with you, like
selling the hell out of this thing, getting it out
of the way, and then saying, okay, and here's my movie,

(01:02:48):
and this is it. It is freaking amazing on its own.
It just relax and enjoy, Yes, exactly, I've got plenty
more coming for you. And and there are action sequences
and they're beautiful, and I think this one is shot
very well too. But like I think that's like it's
just clever on the part of Macquarie. And I get
the idea of your biggest action should be your climax.

(01:03:12):
But I'm also a big fan of turning tropes on
their head. Sure, as long as you do it in
a way that still appeals you know, the largest majority,
and still tells a good story and still a good movie,
which I think this movie did so well.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
We've gotten through all the mission impossible movies, of course,
you know, we all enjoyed Mission impossible Fallout, especially the
scene where Tom Cruise rode the herd of horses right
straight through the streets of London. That was pretty impressive,
and you know, jumped onto the hot air balloon in
mid takeoff front.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
And that scene where Pee Wee Herman comes in with
the uzy that was greaks out half of the agents
of the syndicate.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
I'm just glad that he's he's He's going to now
get an exposure to a new audience.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
Still working, has not slowed down.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
Love it and I love it. So where do you
feel let's talk about the franchise as a whole. How
many more mission impossibles do you think they can pull out?
And do you see a point where maybe this franchise
does get handed off to another actor?

Speaker 3 (01:04:12):
Well, first, let's answer my question from twenty minutes ago.
Do we have an age difference between Tom Cruise and.

Speaker 4 (01:04:18):
Jeremy Red Tom Cruise is nine years older than Jeremy.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
Okay, thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
Like I said that, it best gets you to maybe
three extra movies. So where does the franchise go from here?
I sincerely hope Fallout is as good as we all
want it.

Speaker 7 (01:04:36):
To be.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
Early reviews say it is yep.

Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
So that being said, I sincerely hope that they continue
to churn these out one every two to three years
as long as they can, because we're already stuck as
moviegoers in this world where studios only want safe plays.
They only want to make movies that are existing franchise

(01:05:00):
with known quantity movie stars who are going to bring
in X amount every time worldwide. So as long as
they're all we're already stuck in that. I'm fine with
Tom Cruise and the Mission of Possible movies because they're
all really good. I cannot say the same for other
franchises that keep turning out.

Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
It is impressive. It's a pretty solid franchise with only
one stinker in the whole back. Yes out of six
six yeah, presumably presumably, So I.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
Hope they keep doing that. I hope Tom Cruise keeps
making them until he decides he's just physically unable to
do them and or or is you know, but look,
as long as he has XENU protecting him, I think
he's gonna be fine.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
Sure, so, I I legitimately hope we get it least
three more out of them.

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
Wow at least three, that would be terrific.

Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
As far as if they wanted to hand it off
to somebody else, I don't know. I mean it's tough
because you know, the the easy example is to say,
look at James Bond.

Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
They did it, but I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
It was a different time, and it's tough to me
because James Bond, those were all there was a series
of books. You know, if Mission Impossible was a TV series,
and a lot of the fans I would say, the
bulk of the fans of the Mission Impossible movies have

(01:06:29):
no idea anything about the series.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
Oh exactly, they have no idea that they were young.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
It just it did ever appeal to them. So for them,
Tom Cruise is Mission Impossible. Whereas at the time when
James Bond was happening, a lot of the people were like, oh,
I love that book. I kind of want to see
how it turns out. So it was not the hardest
pill to swallow when Connery said I'm done. So I

(01:06:55):
don't know, but but I'd like to think if Renner
as Brand, if Henry Cavill, you know, somebody who it's
not totally implausible for them to somehow pick up the
Mantle in a way that's not disrespectful, where it feels organic.

(01:07:15):
If they wanted to continue the franchise, as I'm certainly
sure the Paramount Studios will want to if they do
it the perfect way, I'm fine with it, and I'd
like to hope the fans will be fine with it.
But I think we're still at least one, if not
two movies away from and that being a reality.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
It'll be interesting to see the point where Tom Cruise
is like, I'm done with Mission Impossible. Yeah, because again,
it is his only franchise in a very franchise heavy Hollywood. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
Would he have done a sequel to the Mummy if
it hadn't have been so terrible?

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
I bet he would, Okay, I bet he would have.
All Right, good to know, Good to know? Rachel, how
do you feel? Where do you feel? Because I also
have the idea that I would love although it is
very you have a very great point about the Mission
Possible franchise being so deeply tied to Tom Cruise. I've
always thought it'd be interesting to see it return back
to television, especially in this world of streaming.

Speaker 4 (01:08:06):
Yeah, I'm I'm with Sam in the sense that like,
I think that we've got a few more in the
current series, especially coming off the absolute high that was
Rogue Nation, and from what it seems by early reviews,
Fallout is continuing that. Like, I want to ride that
train for a while because I just think that that
has been its pinnacle.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
That was a great part of a Mission possle Fallout.
By the way, the train sequence with all the clowns,
that's okay, yeah, right in that train.

Speaker 4 (01:08:31):
Clearly, this one's gonna give my my favorite to run
for its money, obviously. So, and I'd been having this
conversation with people about summer movies this year, and this
movie topped so many people's lists as something that they
were looking forward to, even over like ant Man and
Wasp and and.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
I'm gonna be starting interrupt you. I'm gonna be honest.
I think I'm more excited for Mission Possible Fallout than
I was Infinity War. And I'm a big compook NERD.

Speaker 4 (01:09:00):
I mean, well, we had Sam's pointing to himself and
it is not a surprise, but so clearly we are
at the height of Mission Impossible right now, So now
is not the time to be getting out. I think
that cruise knows that, and I'm certain Paramount knows that,
and I think we're we're gonna have at least two
more with him, and then it's going to largely depend

(01:09:20):
on what Cruise wants to do. I mean, he's already
seemingly ageless, but like it is, it's incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
I think it's the subtitle the next.

Speaker 4 (01:09:30):
Missions, but he's gonna have to hang up the mantle
and it's funny. I think I disagree with Sam in
the sense of I think I would like a from
Ground zero reboot after that. I think that I would
like to see a whole new team come in, a younger,

(01:09:50):
a different, you know, maybe even somewhat a little bit
more unknown, like not dissimilar to what Daniel Craig did
with Bond, because he wasn't a huge star at the
point at that point, and then what Casino Royale did
was it It gave Bond a new tone than it
hadn't had before. It was a little rougher, it was
a little edgier, it was a little darker, and I

(01:10:13):
feel like Mission Impossible could have that same kind of
new spin on it, like you have to go to
But I feel like, you know, in ten years some
you know, the next j. J Abrams comes in and says,
you know, I got this like slightly different take on it,
and I got this guy and and and I feel

(01:10:35):
like it's a franchise that has the ability to take
a little twisting but still be honor what it was before.
And I'd be curious to see what that next visionary
would do with it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:50):
That's a great point. I don't disagree. If somebody wanted
to come in and redo it a lah Daniel Craig
more of an origin thing, that'd be fine because then
we can get Jim Helps back.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
From the death I was gonna say, Jim Phelps and
he's still a good guy. Is the lead of the
TV show, Ethan Hunt never appears anywhere on the TV show.
He's a brand new character. They created a movie, so yeah,
you could throw it back to Jim Phelps, and I
think accomplished exactly what you were talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:11:12):
If they wanted to reboot it and have Jim Philps
be the guy, yeah, that'd be fine because then it
would be a lot less distasteful to people who, you know,
I'm sure at the time, were like Sean Connery is
the only true good who's this new guy? Get him
out of here. I don't know why they were so angry,
but they were.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
There were some reviews like that for the very first
Mission Impossible. You can go find them online where people
were like, what did you do to Jim Phelps? He's
a hero. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:11:44):
So if they wanted to do new you know, Mission
impossible whatever as the Jim Phelps thing, that's fucking great.
If they want to do that. I mean, that's the
good news is there's any number of ways they could
do it. So I guess that to me would be
more palatable and probably to more people would be more
palatable than if they wanted to try to continue the
franchise and the storylines where they are now but make

(01:12:04):
a different character the focal point. But you know, let's
let's cross that bridge and we come to it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):
Guys.

Speaker 3 (01:12:11):
We still got so, we got fallout. Then we have
Mission impossible, ageless wonder, then we have Mission impossible, Early retirements,
Mission impossible, Bingo night, Bingo Night sounds good, and finally
Mission impossible. Eulogy. It's look, it's sad, guys, it's sad.
The series took a dark turn, but we knew we

(01:12:32):
were getting.

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
Into I actually could see eulogy actually being.

Speaker 3 (01:12:36):
Onets oh man.

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
All right, Rachel and Sam, thank you so much for
joining us on this conversation about Mission Impossible franchise. Sam,
would you please let our listeners know if you have
any upcoming projects that they should check out or where
they can find you online?

Speaker 3 (01:12:54):
Yes, thank you. Well, you can find me online on
the twitters and the instagrams. I'm at Sam Levine s
A M M L E V.

Speaker 2 (01:13:01):
I any nice? Rachel, how about yourself?

Speaker 4 (01:13:04):
I'm on a Twitter and Instagram at Rachel J. Cushing.
I'm always up for you know, geeky discussions, Lord of
the Rings, Harry Potter, geeky movies, movies in general.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
All right, Agent, tell me your name Bond James Bond. Yeah,
I've never heard of you. Which organization? Which branch are
you with? Again?

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
Am I sick? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:13:27):
Not ringing about not CIA and n FBI. Well, what
are some of the missions that you've done that I
would know you from?

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
From Russia with Love Thunderball?

Speaker 1 (01:13:36):
I don't, I don't think those are real things, mister.
What was your name again?

Speaker 2 (01:13:41):
Bond? James Bond?

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
Well, I still don't know who you are so it's
a good thing that this Geek History Lesson on James
Bond is now in session.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
Hello and welcome to Geek History Lesson. I'm Jason Bond inman.
I am Ashley Victoria Robinson. Do W two and to
enter your Mind University, which today might be a mind
Secret Agent service. Yes, it is a mind secret or
service agent. Because we are talking about double O seven

(01:14:10):
James Bond, because Specter's coming out this week. At the
time this recording, Specter is not out, we have not
seen it. So if you're in the future and listening
to it, just we haven't seen it. That's the reason
wh're I talk about it?

Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
Oh spoilers, But you have stumbled onto the podcast where
we take one character construct or secret identity from popular
culture and teach you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):
Everything that you need to know about it in about
an hour and this week Double O seven James Bond.
This was suggested by Arlen A. Harrow at aa Horrow
on Twitter. Now, just to let you know really quick,
this is going to focus more on the literary character
of James Bond and a little bit on the official movies.
Why would we do that, Jason, Well, because honestly, if

(01:14:47):
you want to know about James Bond and the movies.
Just watch the movies. Yeah, I mean they're enjoyable, they're fun. Yes,
there are some bad ones, but i'll tell you what
a James Bond movie marathon of all twenty four film holmes,
the official twenty four films. Yes, I know there are more.
I don't like to speak of those. They're fun. Even
the bad ones are fun.

Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
It averages out to a pretty good time.

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
Yeah, it's about a fifty percent ratio. You have fifty
percent good, fifty percent bad, fifty percent so bad.

Speaker 1 (01:15:16):
It's funny.

Speaker 2 (01:15:16):
Yeah, and we'll talk about that as we get there.
But also I feel the literary characters because of course, kids,
James Bond comes from books.

Speaker 3 (01:15:23):
What.

Speaker 2 (01:15:23):
Yeah, I know, those little things with paper that aren't iPads. What.
But it's fascinating. I don't think a lot of people
know a lot about the Larry James Bond, but there
are so many James Bond books that we're not going
to talk about every James Bond book in fact. Okay,
so let's start with the ten cent origin.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
Yes, the ten cent origin is the part of the
podcast where we give you the basic constructs, caveats, ideas information.
Should you go to a cocktail party and someone's like,
who's James Bond.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
We are starting with his name, James Herbert Bond. Yep.
His alias is Double O seven. His title or rake
is Command in the World Navy as one of his ALII.
Book historians, yes there are. Book historians have estimated that
his birth date is November eleventh, in nineteen twenty or

(01:16:12):
twenty one, depending on who you listen to. Oh rememberay now.
His hair color is black, his eye color is blue gray.
He's six foot tall, so yes, I am taller than
James Bond.

Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
That's cool.

Speaker 2 (01:16:23):
And his weight is one hundred and sixty seven pounds,
so he's kind of a slight. He's a skinny dude.
He's little, swimmer looking guy. His relatives are Andrew Bond,
who is his father, and Monique Bond, who is his mother.
His nationality, of course is British and his occupation is
Senior Operational Officer in the six the Double O Branch,
so he also is formerly affiliated with the Secret Intelligence

(01:16:46):
Service and Section six also known as six AW and
he was created by Ian Fleming and Casino Royal published
in nineteen fifty three. Now Bond appears in twelve novels
and nine short stories by Ian Fleming and twenty four
Eon Bond films. What I mean by Eon is the
company that produces like the quote unquote official ones. Yea,

(01:17:06):
there's been a couple like quote unquote unofficial ones. I
don't like to count those, do you not speaking? Also,
Ian Fleming is the one who created James Bond. So
that's why this key Kissory lesson is going to focus
on his books.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
Awesome love It.

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):
There are plenty of other authors out there. There are
other plenty great James Bond novels, but the Fleming ones
are the ones of the movies. Reference. Yes, so those
are the ones that we're gonna stick stick to, stick to,
stick to, all right, So now let's move on to
the meat.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Cute Meet Cute is the part of the podcast where
we tell you the first time we met this character
and how cute it was.

Speaker 2 (01:17:38):
Now, Ashley, where did you first encounter James Bond?

Speaker 1 (01:17:42):
I think it was probably about nineteen ninety six or seven,
and T and T or Spike TV or one of
such networks.

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
It was TNT at the time.

Speaker 1 (01:17:53):
I don't know what it would have been in Canada. No, OK,
where I was living, did you used to do like
thirteen Days of Double O seven or fourteen days? You know,
I got bigger every year.

Speaker 2 (01:18:01):
Seven Days of Double O seven, yes, and my.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
Brother and I watched them with my father for the
first time, and yeah, that's where I first encountered James Bond,
and I thought, I was like, oh, that's pretty cool.
I didn't really get really invested in the character though,
until the Danielle Craigman.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
Do you know who would have been your first bond?
Like who? Because its kind of like the doctor for
Doctor Who, Like some people think that whoever your first
bond is is your bond for life.

Speaker 1 (01:18:25):
It's not true.

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):
It's not true. But I would wonder which Bond movie
do you think it would have been?

Speaker 1 (01:18:28):
Well, the first one I saw in theaters was one
of the Brosnan movies, probably.

Speaker 2 (01:18:33):
The second one Tomorrow and Advice.

Speaker 1 (01:18:35):
Yes, so he was my first James Bond. But I
think the first movie that I would have seen on
TV would have been a Connery movie. But I mean
I was very small, so I don't honestly remember what
the first movie was that I.

Speaker 2 (01:18:45):
Saw, but we watched them all the way through Great. Yeah,
for me, I can't say for certain. We rented a
lot of VHS tapes. Yes, so you don't know those
are go google them from the Walnut, Kansas Public Library.
And I know that some of them that we rented
was James Bond movies, and I remember I watched them
with my parents and stuff like that. And to be
honest with you, the one that I think it is

(01:19:05):
is Goldfinger because Goldfinger sticks with the most, it always
has and the theme song, isn't it. A lot of
it's that song, but a lot of it's the visuals
and driving through Switzerland and the Kirby wrote, So I
think that that was my first encounter. And Connory has
been and always will be my bond, your bond. Yes,
so there's a reason. But at this point, I've read

(01:19:28):
all the books, I've watched all the James Bond movies
at least once, and I really love James Bond. But
I think it's Goldfinger, and I think it's Connory, and
Connory is my Bond. So Okay, that's it for the
mee cute section, because we're talking about secret spies and
we don't need to be cute, So let's move on
to history one O one.

Speaker 1 (01:19:44):
Yes, the main medt of the lesson where you are
going to open your mind and stick all the secret
James Bond knowledge in side.

Speaker 2 (01:19:49):
Now, just to let you know, this is going to be,
as we always said, a little bit different than normal
geekistory lessons. We're going to tell you about the creation
of the character, because honestly, the James Bond book, the
James Bond movies are so good you should go read them,
you should go watch them, you should go read them.
So on the morning of February seventeenth, nineteen fifty two,

(01:20:13):
that's so specific. Ian Fleming started writing what would become
his first book ever, Casino Royale, at his estate named GoldenEye,
in Jamaica.

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
Oh I see, I see now.

Speaker 2 (01:20:27):
Fleming based his fictional creation on a number of individuals
he had come across in his time during Naval Intelligence
Division during World War Two, and he admitted that Bond
was a compound of all of the secret agents and
commando types that he met during World War Two, including
Ian Fleming's brother who he idolized, and according to some

(01:20:49):
other rumors, he also based parts of Bond on his
cousin Christopher Lee. Soduma who was a secret agent during
the war, Christopher Lee, who would later go on to
become a Bond villain, yes, and who recently passed away
as Star Wars villain and a Star Wars villain, and
the village Dracula. Now, the name of James Bond comes

(01:21:09):
from an American ornithologist named James Bond, who was a
Caribbean bird export and the author of a book called
Bird of the West Indies. Now, Fleming was a keen
bird watcher. He himself what a weird old time he had, Yeah,
and he had a copy of James Bond's Guide. And
when he was writing the book for Cassina role, Fleming says,

(01:21:30):
and I quote, when I wrote the first one in
nineteen fifty three, I wanted Bond to be extremely dull,
an uninteresting man to whom things, to whom many interesting
things happened. I wanted him to be a blunt instrument.
So when I was casting around for a name for
my protagonist, I thought, by God, James Bond is the
dullest name I have ever heard.

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):
That's interesting. That reminds me a lot of Clark Kent
in the idea that like he is so dull, and
there's no way you would know that there's this other
side to him.

Speaker 2 (01:21:56):
Now. Fun Fact, in a future Pierce bros in the
movie Died of the Day, Pierce Brosnan is in Cuba,
the Caribbean, and he has a copy of The Bird
of the West Indies by James Bond, and he actually
has a pair of binoculars and he's like he's watching
somebody I can't remember who exactly, and somebody asked him

(01:22:17):
what he's doing, and he's like bird watching.

Speaker 1 (01:22:19):
And fun fact in Casino Royale and played by Judi
Dench calls Daniel Craigs James Bond a blunt instrument. Maybe
difficult for a blunt instrument to understand.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
Now, Fleming always thought that Bond should resemble. An American
singer named Hogy Carmichael.

Speaker 1 (01:22:35):
What a name, yep.

Speaker 2 (01:22:36):
Now, if you don't know who Hogy Carmichael is, he
is an American composer, pianist, singer, actor, band leader. But
he's best known for composing the music for Stardust, Oh Georgia,
on My Mind, The Nearness of You and Heart and
Soul That was a very yeah. He is responsible for

(01:22:57):
some of the most played American songs all the time.
So it's interesting that Flemming is like, that's my James Bond,
that guy.

Speaker 3 (01:23:04):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:23:04):
Fleming also imbued Bond with many of his own traits,
including he gave Bond his same golf handicap he gave. Yeah, yeah,
he gave Bond his same love of scrambled eggs and
toss sala and Bond uses the same brand of toilet

(01:23:24):
trees that Ian Fleming does. Oh wow, and fun fact,
Fleming was actually known for taking from all aspects of
his life, including using names of school friends, acquaintances, relatives,
and lovers throughout his books. Lovers Goldfinger was his neighbor

(01:23:46):
erno that's crazy. Ernauld Goldfinger. Ernold Goldfinger was a famous
architect and neighbor of Ian Fleming, and Ernold Goldfinger is
he's best known for creating these They're described as like
brutal high rise buildings and for loving concrete concrete a
joke from lacus I did the same way that or
Goldfinger loves gold.

Speaker 1 (01:24:07):
Oh that's so interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:24:08):
Yeah, So in the James Bond books, any of those
character names could be like cousins of Ian Fleming, friends
of the Inflaming and apparently, like many of his acquaintances
and family would. Some of them would love it, but
most would get really annoyed.

Speaker 1 (01:24:24):
Well because he probably made them not nice people.

Speaker 2 (01:24:26):
Well, he made them like villains or like you know.

Speaker 1 (01:24:28):
Or like the girl, the Bond girl that he slept with.

Speaker 2 (01:24:30):
Yes, yes, yes, Now you may be asking yourself where
did double O seven come from?

Speaker 1 (01:24:34):
Where did double oh seven come from?

Speaker 2 (01:24:36):
Well, let me tell you, Ashley. In the films and novels,
the double low prefix indicates Bond's discretionary license to kill.
I have as to kill in executing his duties, so
he can kill people.

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):
Right, mm hmm, no consequence, yep.

Speaker 2 (01:24:49):
Now. Bond's number double oh seven was created by Fleming
in reference to one of British naval intelligence key achievements
in World War One, the breaking of the Germanic diplomatic code.
One of the German documents cracked and read by the
British was the Zimmerman Telegram, which was coded zero zero
seven to five, and it's one of the factors that

(01:25:11):
led to the US entering the war. It's it's a
telegram that it's like, oh, we're going to go off
for these US ships and we're gonna get us you know.

Speaker 1 (01:25:15):
Hey, yeah, the one that they made the inmitation game about.

Speaker 3 (01:25:17):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:25:18):
Subsequently, subsequently the material was graded double oh. It meant
it was highly classified. Oh so. In fact, as Ben McIntyre,
a Bond enthusiast and journalist points out, to anyone verse
in intelligence history, double oh seven signified the highest achievement
of British military intelligence. Cool. That's really cool. So here's

(01:25:40):
the thing. If anybody out there is enthusiastic about writing
a book or doing anything like that, you need to
do it the Ian Fleming method. Let me tell you why.
Tell me why he wrote Casino Royale in thirty days.

Speaker 1 (01:25:55):
He did a nanoorimo.

Speaker 2 (01:25:56):
Yep, he did a nanaimo. Here is Ian Fleming's writing method. Okay,
he says, and I quote, I write for about three
hours in the morning, and I do another's hour's work
between six and seven in the evening. I never correct anything.
I never go back to see what I've written. And
by following in my formula, you write two thousand words
a day.

Speaker 1 (01:26:14):
Wow, that's so many words.

Speaker 2 (01:26:17):
Yep. He never so met. He never edits until he
gets to the end. He never reads anything previous until
he writes it all at the top of his head.

Speaker 1 (01:26:25):
I will say this though, I mean, obviously you go
back and correct for continuity. I color whatever. Casino Royal
is not a long book. It is less than two
undred pages.

Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
Most of the bomb books are shure.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
The're shure. Yeah, but I mean it's still impressive to
write a book in a month.

Speaker 2 (01:26:37):
Ye. Now, Fleming finished his first manuscript of James Bond's
Casino Royale, which he described himself as a dreadful opus opus.

Speaker 7 (01:26:47):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:26:49):
And this was actually retyped in an interview by Joan Howe,
his red haired secretary whom the character Miss Moneypenny was
based upon. Now Claire Blanchard, a former girlfriend, advised him
not to publish the book because she thought it was dreadful.

Speaker 1 (01:27:05):
Little did she know.

Speaker 2 (01:27:07):
Casino Raal was first released on April thirteenth, nineteen fifty
three in the UK as a hardback edition by publishers
Jonathan Cape, with a cover devised by Fleming. Flemming made
the cover. That's awesome. They printed four thousand, seven hundred
and twenty eight copies sold out in less than a month.

Speaker 1 (01:27:24):
It's a great book, it's super fun.

Speaker 2 (01:27:26):
And eventually went on to become multiple, multiple, multiple printings,
and started the James Bond franchise. Wow. So this led
Ian Fleming to publishing a whole series of books in
this order. Now, the reason why I'm going to tell
you all of these is because you should recognize the
titles of all these books as titles that they've used
for the movies. Okay, but but they're out of order

(01:27:48):
with the movies.

Speaker 1 (01:27:49):
Dun dun dum. The movies are out of order with
the movies. What well, because now we have we have
a soft reboot.

Speaker 2 (01:27:56):
In Oh, don't count that. Don't listen to her. Okay,
here we go. So here are the books in order.
Number one Casino Reale, Number two, Live or Let Die.
That's Roger morris first movie, Wow. Three, Moonraker, four, Diamonds
Are Forever, five From Russia with Love, Number six Doctor No.

(01:28:17):
The sixth book is the first Bond movie, Interesting gold Fingers. Next,
for Your Eyes Only, and for your Eyes Only is
a collection of short stories, and in those short stories
is from a View to a Kill for your Eyes
Only Quantum of Solace yep Resikio, which has never been
made in the Hilda Brandt rarity.

Speaker 1 (01:28:39):
So look for those ones coming in the next decade.

Speaker 2 (01:28:41):
Other books are Thunderball, The Spy, You Love Me On
Her Majesty, Secret Service, You Only Live Twice, The Man
with the Golden Gun, and the final short story was
Octopussy in the Living Daylights, which included Octopussy, The Property
of a Lady, The Living Daylights, and my favorite, which
I can't wait to see as the next Daniel Craig movie,
Double O seven in New York, which was the final

(01:29:03):
James Bond story.

Speaker 1 (01:29:04):
Just him going to Broadway shows, not the Empire State Building.
I love catch.

Speaker 2 (01:29:10):
So that was the final James Bond short story written
by Ian Fleming. Now there again, there are a whole
bunch of other awesome novels. I actually heard some of
them are pretty pretty decent. Very recently.

Speaker 1 (01:29:20):
They are the subsequent ones.

Speaker 2 (01:29:22):
There's a whole series of them. They've given so many
other authors. Very recently. Actually, they let an American author
write these James Bond novels for the first time, and
a lot of people like, oh, they can't.

Speaker 1 (01:29:32):
You know, Yeah, I don't really know if he's going
to stay on with that project too much longer, because
he's saying things in the press that people are getting
all up in arms.

Speaker 3 (01:29:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:29:38):
Yeah, But there are many other great James Bond novels.
I haven't read in many of them. I think the
Ian Fluming ones are the important ones because they really
haven't adapted the subsequent ones.

Speaker 1 (01:29:48):
They haven't.

Speaker 2 (01:29:49):
They keep mining the originals.

Speaker 3 (01:29:51):
They do.

Speaker 1 (01:29:51):
We've we've adapted short stories, We've adapted stories that were
just alluded to in those novels. I mean, but they're
coming to the end of them.

Speaker 2 (01:29:58):
So and now I want to tell you about the
literary character of James Bond. Please do. But first, have
you ever said to yourself, I want to listen to
Geek History Lesson a day early, or I want episodes
to be like twenty minutes longer.

Speaker 1 (01:30:12):
I always say that to myself.

Speaker 2 (01:30:13):
Do you say that to yourself every day? Well, good
for you. If you go to patreon dot com slash
job one jawii in, you can do just that. That's right.
It's certain perk levels. You get Geek History Lesson episodes early,
and at the five dollars level you get Geek History
Lesson Extra, which is a Patreon exclusive podcast where it's
twenty more minutes of us talking about the topic. So

(01:30:36):
over there, very recently to the release of this episode,
you can find another twenty minutes of us talking about
James Bond. It's stuff that you only find on Patreon.
So Patreon dot com slash John on JAWII in the
support of people over there, lets us do more episodes,
more videos. Hey, eventually we want a film.

Speaker 1 (01:30:56):
We do. We want people to see us.

Speaker 2 (01:30:58):
We want to see us as we're talking. We want
that to happen. So the only way that will happen
Patreon dot com slash John onan thank you to all
who support us over there.

Speaker 1 (01:31:06):
Thank you, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:31:07):
Now back to the docile copyright. Now, let's go to
Jimmy's history.

Speaker 1 (01:31:15):
Jimmy's history, our close friend, Jimmy Bond.

Speaker 2 (01:31:17):
Oh, Jimmy Bond. And there that is an easter egg
for any way that caught that. If you know what
I'm talking about, Jimmy Bond. Okay, here we go. In
Ian Fleming's stories, James Bond is said to be in
his mid to late thirties, but he does not age.
In the book Moonraker, he admits to being eight years
shy of mandatory retirement age from the Double O section
forty five, which means that he would be thirty seven

(01:31:40):
at the time, and in the penultimate novel You Only
Live Twice, Fleming finally gave Bond a family history. Yes, now,
this was the first book to be written after the
release of Doctor No.

Speaker 1 (01:31:55):
Oh, that's so interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:31:56):
And Fleming definitely let Sean Connery's depiction of Bond influences
interpretation of the character.

Speaker 1 (01:32:02):
We must have liked it, yep.

Speaker 2 (01:32:04):
The novel. We'll get to that. I have quotes from
Fleming and what he thought of Sean Connery.

Speaker 1 (01:32:09):
Oh, that's so cool.

Speaker 2 (01:32:10):
The novel reveals Bond is the son of a Scottish father, yeah,
Andrew Bond of glenn Clough, and a Swiss mother, Monique
Delacroix Delacrourx yep, of the Canton de Vaude. The young
James Bond spends much of his early life abroad, becoming
multi lingual and German and French because of his father's
work as a vicar's Armainence company representative, and Bond is

(01:32:34):
orphan at the age of eleven when his parents are
killed in a mountain climbing accident in the uh ages
Rouge near Chemonier. That was pretty good, pretty solid. Okay,
there you go I speak europea okay. After the death
of his parents, old Jimmy Bond goes lives his aunt,
Miss Charmaine Bond, in the village of pet Bottom, where

(01:32:56):
he can stop where he completes his early education. Later
he briefly attends he attends Eaton College at you know,
he's eating college. I don't why I was getting confused
with this part, but he is removed soon after because
of girl trouble with a maid.

Speaker 1 (01:33:18):
Because I believe Eaton was an all boys school.

Speaker 2 (01:33:21):
Oh okay, wow, it's one of those old timey prep
schools PERHPS schools. Ya. Bond soon went to FET's College
in Scotland, his father's school, and soon during his first
visit to Paris at the age of sixteen, Bond loses
his virginity because he reminisces about the event and from
a view to a kill because he started early. Yep.
Because actually, fun story or fun fact. The literary Bond

(01:33:45):
is not as promiscuous as movie Bond.

Speaker 1 (01:33:48):
No, but it's kind of part of being a double Oh, like,
you use seduction and sexuality to get what you want,
but he doesn't sleep.

Speaker 2 (01:33:54):
With like seven people a book like the movie Bomb
would no, but movies are sexy. Yeah, that's true. At
the start of Fleming's first book, Casino Royal, Bond is
already a double Low agent, having been given the position
after killing two enemy agents, a Japanese spy on the
thirty sixth floor of the rcability of the Rockefeller Center
in New York City. That's so sispic, and a Norwegian

(01:34:18):
double agent who had betrayed to British agents. So that's
how he got his double Ow status. James Bond lives
in a flat off the King's Road in Chelsea. That's
a really nice neighborhood, and his flat is looked after
by an elderly Scottish housekeeper named May now May His
name is taken from May Maxwell, the housekeeper of Fleming's

(01:34:38):
close friend Ivar Bryce neat Yep. In nineteen fifty five.
It has said Bond earned around two thousand pounds a
year in about twenty twelve pounds. That would be our
twenty twelve pounds, as exactly as thirty nine thousand pounds.

Speaker 1 (01:34:55):
Wow, so somewhere in the neighborhood of like fifty thousand.

Speaker 2 (01:35:00):
I don't don't ask. I'm not a math.

Speaker 1 (01:35:02):
I mean I'm just saying I'm making a broad a
broad jump.

Speaker 2 (01:35:06):
It's more it maybe American. Yeah, although when on assignment,
he worked on an unlimited expense account.

Speaker 1 (01:35:14):
So well, he's not spending money on much back home.
So they're like, here, have a black card, you'll be fine.
I like the idea that he's just going out and
he's like, well, I can have this fancy cappuccino because
I have a black card.

Speaker 2 (01:35:24):
Yeah. He's basically banking all of his money. Yeah. Yeah.
Bond was married only once in Her Majesty's Secret Service,
to Teresa Tracy de Vinsau di Viensa Vienza. That's what
I'm going to say with that. But their marriage was
short lived when she was killed on their wedding day
by Blofeld. That's pretty rude, the head of Specter. In

(01:35:47):
the penultimate novel of the series, You Only Live Twice,
Bond suffers from amnesia and has and has a relationship
with a diving girl named Kissy Suzuki, and as a
result of the relationship kiss he becomes pregnant and does
not reveal her pregnancy to Bond after he leaves the island,

(01:36:08):
So Bond Bond Baby Bond has a son. In the
novel Never Send Flowers, which was not written by Fleming,
it is said that at some point, oh wait, my,
by apologies, it is said that at some point this
is a fun fact. This is not about I'm going
to get to that son. We're gonna get to that.
This is another fun fact that I thought was funny. Okay,
At some point in his life, Bond visited Disney World

(01:36:29):
with a girlfriend, Sure, intending to only stay for two days,
but he liked the park so much that he stayed
for a whole week. And Bond in this book showed
that he recognized a great deal of Disney characters.

Speaker 1 (01:36:41):
That is so interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:36:45):
I think it was the Disney World that was still new.

Speaker 1 (01:36:48):
Yeah yeah, well, I mean I get it, but it
just seems really weird.

Speaker 2 (01:36:51):
Of now here is the Bond novel not written by
Fleming that has something to do with the sun okay.
Nineteen ninety seven, a short Bond story called Blast from
the Past was published in Playboy in which Bond's adult
son contacts him from New York and asks him to
turn up. When James Bond shows up in New York,
his son is killed.

Speaker 1 (01:37:12):
Of course, because if you love James Bond.

Speaker 2 (01:37:14):
You dine and his full name is James Suzuki. That
is the son of James Bond. Other habits of Bond.
He hates tea, he calls it mud, and he loves coffee.
Coffee is better yep. Bond is a heavy smoker, at
one point smoking seventy cigarettes a day.

Speaker 6 (01:37:34):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:37:35):
Bond has his cigarettes custom made by Moorland of Grosvenor Street,
mixing Balkan and Turkish tobacco and having a higher nicotine
content than normal cigarettes.

Speaker 1 (01:37:45):
To me, that's so Sherlockian, right, because it's a big
thing about Shirl Combs is like that he smokes this
tobacco and whatever. I think that's really funny.

Speaker 2 (01:37:52):
Fleming himself smoked up to eighty cigarettes a day.

Speaker 1 (01:37:55):
Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2 (01:37:56):
Yeah. So secret agents won't kill Bond. Cancer will kill Bond.

Speaker 1 (01:38:00):
Yeah yeah, yeah. Well he's short life spanned anyway, so.

Speaker 2 (01:38:04):
From Casino Rale to from Russia with love. Bond's preferred
weapon is a point twenty five ACP Burretta automatic pistol.

Speaker 1 (01:38:13):
Yeah. They always in the movies, they always reference Burretta's.

Speaker 2 (01:38:15):
However, however, Fleming was contacted by a Bond enthusiast and
gun expert Jeffrey Bothroyd or Boothroyd. I'm gonna say his
name is yeah who.

Speaker 1 (01:38:24):
Who Q gets named after later on in the.

Speaker 2 (01:38:26):
Movie Stop Spoiling My left, So I'm sorry. Who criticized
Fleming's choice of firearm for Bond and suggested a Walter
PPK seven point six millimeter instead. Fleming used the suggestion
in Doctor No, the sixth book of the series, also
taking the advice that it should be used with the
Burns Martin triple draw shoulder holster. And by way of thanks,

(01:38:47):
the Secret Service armorer who gives Bond his gun was
given the name Major Boothroyd and is introduced by as
Q the greatest small arms expert in the world. So
he gave his name. And then fun fact, where do
you think Ian Fleming got the name of IM?

Speaker 1 (01:39:05):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:39:07):
Im is what he called his mother.

Speaker 1 (01:39:09):
That's weird.

Speaker 2 (01:39:10):
Yeah, he didn't just call her mother, No, he called
her IM. And so he made the boss of James
Bond mother.

Speaker 1 (01:39:18):
I think that's fascinating considering what that role has become
with Judy Dench playing her, because she's very much like
Bond's Bond's mom.

Speaker 2 (01:39:26):
Also, it is said that Bond is the second best
shot in the service, only bested by the man who
trains all of m I six. And then, if you
want more details about the literary James Bond, I suggest
to read the books. They're great.

Speaker 1 (01:39:37):
They are great.

Speaker 2 (01:39:37):
So what do you think, Ashley, you've read all the books.

Speaker 1 (01:39:40):
I really like the books. I think I like Assina
Royal the best because I love an origin story and
Felix is in it, and Felix later is like a
really weird text in guy in the book, so that's
really super fun. But the books are like super accessible.
You can get them for like nine books of pop
in paperback.

Speaker 2 (01:39:54):
I actually think my favorite book is You Only Live Twice. Yeah,
I think it's the best one. I like the idea
of because I feel that with the amnesia, he does
love that girl.

Speaker 1 (01:40:07):
Yeah, you feel like it's like an honest and relationship.

Speaker 2 (01:40:10):
And then when he leaves, I kind of feel like
that's a sad It's like one of the only emotional
moments that I think that literary character gets to have.

Speaker 1 (01:40:16):
Well, he's not an emotional character, no.

Speaker 2 (01:40:18):
Not at all. Now onto the movies. Movies, Bond has
been played by these actors, Okay, Barry Nelson, Sean Connery,
David Niven, George Lasmbee, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan
and Daniel Craig some actor that may or man.

Speaker 7 (01:40:35):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:40:36):
Yeah, now you may be asking yourself, Hey, there's a
couple of names in there that don't make sense. Well,
let me tell you this.

Speaker 1 (01:40:43):
Tell me.

Speaker 2 (01:40:43):
In nineteen fifty four, Ian Fleming sold the television rights
to Casino Royle to CBS for one thousand dollars.

Speaker 6 (01:40:50):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:40:51):
Television production done that same year was the first screen
adaptation of James Bond and starred Barry Nelson, and this
was part of the Climax Mystery Theater. CBS adapted the
story to appeal to American audiences, making Bond an American,
and they referred to him as Jimmy Bond. Yep, they
sure do. So it's best to forget that. Also, David

(01:41:12):
Niven wasn't an adaptation of Casino Row that was comedic,
not that great.

Speaker 1 (01:41:16):
David Niven best friend of Errol Flynn, h total scoundrel.

Speaker 2 (01:41:20):
So we're gonna ignore those and we're going to focus
on the Eon Productions Ones the officially licensed the correct
ones Okay. In nineteen sixty one, Eon Productions began work
on Doctor no and adaptation of the novel the same name,
and the result was a film that began a series
of twenty four films that actually celebrated their fiftieth anniversary
in twenty twelve. Cool and Soon Sean Connery was cast

(01:41:43):
in the role of James Bond. Connery six to two
taller than me.

Speaker 1 (01:41:50):
I'd like you said James Bond wasn't elevant.

Speaker 2 (01:41:52):
Literary James Bond is shorter than me. Ah, but he
also Connory at the time was a bodybuilder. He was
muscular for the time for the time.

Speaker 1 (01:42:00):
That it's funny is when you look at him now
compared to like Daniel Craig, for example, he looks very slim.

Speaker 2 (01:42:05):
He was the non steroided out Yes, yeah yeah. Fleming
originally disapproved approved of his casting as James Bond, believing
him to be an overgrown stunt man who lacked the
finesse and elegance to play James Bond. In fact, Fleming
actually preferred David Niven playing the role.

Speaker 1 (01:42:25):
Oh no, way ye.

Speaker 2 (01:42:26):
Producer Albert Broccoly, known to all as cubby Cubby Brocoli.
If you've watched any documentary in James Bond, Cubby Broccley's there.
He disagreed with Fleming's view, later commenting, I wanted a
ballsy guy to play Bond.

Speaker 1 (01:42:40):
And he's like Sean Connery clearly is the most balls
He's Scottish.

Speaker 2 (01:42:43):
Now, Connor's interpretation of the character differs considerably from Fleming's
actually like being more promiscuous and movie James Bond is
more cold blooded. Definitely, definitely. Connory described Bond once as
a complete sensualist sense is highly tuned, await to everything,
quite a moral and he's like I particularly like him

(01:43:06):
because he thrives on conflict.

Speaker 1 (01:43:08):
That's true, That's very true, especially of the movie Bond.

Speaker 2 (01:43:12):
Now. Academic James Chapman once observed from Doctor Know that
Connor's interpretation of the character showed the actor should be
credited with having established a new style of acting performance
a British screen hero in the manner of an American
leading man.

Speaker 1 (01:43:30):
I would say that's very true, because British gangster movies
are not or British crime movies or not what you
get in a James Bond movie.

Speaker 2 (01:43:37):
Although in. Many critics and historians agree that if you
watch Doctor Know, you can kind of see that Connery
is unsure with his performance. But from Russia with Love
he's very relaxed, and he's very subtle. And after From
Russia with Love, Ian Fleming admitted that it now it
would be impossible for him to see anybody else in

(01:43:58):
the role with Sean Connery.

Speaker 1 (01:44:00):
That's nice, that's very nice.

Speaker 2 (01:44:02):
Connory says this about his time as playing Bond and
how he approached the character. He said this, and I quote,
I said to the producers, I shouted the producers of
the character had one defect. I won't do that. The
entire time, there was no humor to him. To get
him accepted, they'd have to let me play him tongue
in cheek so people could laugh. And they agreed, And
there you are today. Bond is accepted to such an

(01:44:22):
extent that even philosophers take the trouble to analyze him.
Even intellectuals enjoy defending him or attacking him, even while
they're laughing at him. People take him terribly seriously. Connory
and went on to add, Bond is important, this indivincible
superman that every man would like to copy that every
woman would like to conquer this dream we all have

(01:44:45):
of survival. One can't help liking him even though he's
a killer.

Speaker 1 (01:44:50):
He is and he's a cad. Yes, he's like he's
not a nice dude, And thus a Bond franchise was born. Now,
I thought it'd be cool to talk through every film.
Of course, we're not going to describe everything of every film,
because again, go watch them.

Speaker 2 (01:45:07):
Right, they're cool.

Speaker 1 (01:45:07):
We don't have that kind of time.

Speaker 2 (01:45:09):
But I have a short synopsis of each one, okay,
and then Ashley, i'd love you. You've seen all the
Bond movies, right, yes, I have. I would love for
you to give your short reactions to each one.

Speaker 1 (01:45:19):
Okay, Okay, By the way, do you know what Eon
production stands for?

Speaker 2 (01:45:22):
No? I did not write that down. I remember being
told once a while ago, but I don't remember.

Speaker 1 (01:45:26):
It stands for everything or nothing, which I think is
super interesting because it very much defines like the way
James Bond looks at the world, so.

Speaker 2 (01:45:32):
It's very Bondian. Well, these are all the Eon Bondian productions. Okay,
here we go. Number one Doctor No. In nineteen sixty two,
James Bond with Sean Connery. The Bond girl was Honey Rider,
who is a Bond name herself. Is directed by Terrence Young.
The synopsis is Doctor No. Bond is sent to Jamaica
to investigate the death of I six agent John Strangways.

(01:45:55):
He finds his way to crab Key Island, where the
mysterious Doctor know awaits Ashley. What do you think about
Doctor now?

Speaker 1 (01:46:01):
I think Doctor No is the mold by which every
other James Bond movie is built. You get everything, most
of the most important, most of the most important aspects
of a James Bond movie here that will be copied
into eternity.

Speaker 2 (01:46:14):
I will disagree with you on that that this is
not the one that everybody's copies. Actually it is the
start of the series, and Bond acts very unbond like
in this movie.

Speaker 1 (01:46:23):
But you have like you have, you have the Bond Girl,
you have the villain with the layer. I don't know.
I just think of like, that's all you get, that's
all you get from this Fine, because there's no que
in this movie. Fine, that's my opinion. It could be wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:46:36):
It doesn't matter, all right. Number two for Russia with
Love nineteen sixty three Sean Connery. The Bond Girl is
Tatiana Romanov. The director again is Terrence Young. The synopsis
is when I six gets a chance to get their
hands on Elector Dakoder, Bond has sent a Turkey to
seduce the beautiful Titanya and bring back the machine. With
the health of Karen Bay Bond escapes on the Orient Express,

(01:46:57):
but he might not make it off. A love for
Russia with Love, quick quick thoughts in.

Speaker 1 (01:47:03):
Russia love, I think from Russia with Love is like
the sexy Sean Connery one.

Speaker 2 (01:47:07):
From Rushia with Love is a good one, by.

Speaker 1 (01:47:09):
The way, might be my favorite one of his.

Speaker 2 (01:47:11):
It's a strong one. Robert Shaw is the villain.

Speaker 1 (01:47:14):
Oh is he really?

Speaker 2 (01:47:15):
Yeah? It is a big fight. That's the climax movie
and also a really kind of fun video game on
the PS two where Sean khd a video where Sean
Connery voiced Bond.

Speaker 1 (01:47:24):
That's interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:47:25):
Yeah, go check it out. That's cool. Number three Goldfenga
nineteen sixty four Sean Connery again. The Bond Girls Pussy
Galore director was Guy Hamilton, in my opinion, is the
best Bond director of all time. The Bank of England
has detected an unauthorized leakage of gold from the country,
and Bond is sent to investigate. The suspect is one
or Goldfinger, the richest man in the country. Bond catches

(01:47:47):
Goldfinger cheating at cars, and with the assistance of Jill Masterson,
who is killed and painted gold and revenge, Bond must
spoil his plots while avoiding the deadly Korean odd job.
What are your thoughts on Goldfinger.

Speaker 1 (01:47:59):
I think it's definitely the most iconic of this Bon movie.

Speaker 2 (01:48:02):
This is what I say. This is the one that
everybody copies, sure because it has Q, it has Gadget,
it has the car, it has the Boss, it has
Moneypenny best theme song by far, the best Bond song.

Speaker 1 (01:48:14):
And every time I hear somebody say pussy Galore, I
want to stab my eyes out. I hate I hate
I hate that pun I hate it so much. I
hate it. It makes me so uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (01:48:25):
Come over here and play push he gross Okay? Number
four Thunderball nineteen sixty five Sean Connery Bond Girl Domino
Drval By the way, I didn't I just now realize
that my list I wrote down the Bond girl names,
not the.

Speaker 1 (01:48:40):
Actress's name, so that's okay, so I apologize that every
Bond Girl actress Domino Duval the director again.

Speaker 2 (01:48:47):
Terrence Young from the first two movies Emilio Largo Number
two at Spector has stolen two nuclear warheads. He threatens
to destroy a city in the United States and England
unless a large ransom is paid. Bond is sent to
the Bahama must to investigate. Thunderball thoughts Ashley dumb worst
theme song. There's a lot of underwater fights and Thunderball, so.

Speaker 1 (01:49:07):
You know what, And you and I talked about this
the other day, and I thought you made a very
interesting point. The underwater fight is super slow and super boring.

Speaker 2 (01:49:15):
But at the time, no other movie had ever.

Speaker 1 (01:49:17):
Done that, right, so I kind of understand, like why
you would want to do it for twenty.

Speaker 2 (01:49:20):
Minutes, and why is Terence Jung's the director. You're like,
hold on the water, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:49:24):
And I see the like the artistry in it, But
I really think you could clip that fight out and
like forget the rest of the movie totally.

Speaker 2 (01:49:31):
Number five You Only Lived Twice nineteen sixty seven. Sean
Connery again Aki is the Bond Girl and Louis Gilbert,
a first time director, Ernst Starvo Blowfield, the head of Specter,
is hijacking American and Russian space shuttles an attempt to
start a war between the two nations. Bond is sent
to Japan to investigate. With the help of Tiger Tanaka,

(01:49:53):
the head of station in Tokyo. Armed with over one
hundred trained ninjas, Bond infiltrates Blowfelds volcano layer. Now just
let me know, let you know. At the time, this
was Sean Connery's last Bond film. Yes, which is why
they killed him in the opening scene. And don't say
spoilers on me. This movie has been out since nineteen
sixty seven.

Speaker 1 (01:50:12):
Yeah, possibly the best name for a James Bond movie.
One another great song, really racist though it is by
modern standards, like it's tough. I find it tough to
watch it is, but I will say you only live
twice is my third favorite Sean Connery film. Third favorite, well,
because I would ring a Sean Connery's I would go,

(01:50:33):
we should do that, like, okay, let's ring.

Speaker 2 (01:50:35):
Okay, we just finish Shan Connery. Sure, there's one more,
which this is the only one we count. Best Sean
Connery film of those bunch. You go first Goldfinger.

Speaker 1 (01:50:45):
I would go Goldfinger ejectively, from Russia with Love, Jacobe,
you have to say Goldfinger, but I like from Russia
with Love.

Speaker 2 (01:50:50):
Cool, better person. It's good. We're gonna have plenty of
more of that discussion. In the Extra Great Okay Number
six on Her Majesty's Secret Service nineteen six, James Bond
is now played by George Lazenbee. Bond girl is Tracy
d Vienso and Peter Hunt directed. Bond rescues the suicidal
Tracy and has brought a gunpoint to meet her father.

(01:51:11):
Father Mark Draco, the head of one of the largest
criminal organizations in Europe. Dreco, strikes a deal with Bond,
agreeing to reveal the location of Bufield if Bond will
look after his daughter. What are your thoughts on the
only George laszmanbe Bond movie. Uh, it's weird. He's a
weird Bond, fair enough. That's probably why he didn't come back.

(01:51:32):
Number seven Diamonds, that's title though. Number seven Diamonds one
of the best songs. Yeah, Diamonds are Forever. In nineteen
seventy one, Sean Connery returns as Bond because the producers
got shaky and he's too old. The Bond Girl is
Tiffany Case and the director is Guy Hamilton. Sean Connery
is back for a fast, page paced hunt through a
diamond smuggling pipeline. I six arrests small time smuggler Peter Franks,

(01:51:54):
and Bond takes his place, meeting courier Tiffany Case. He
follows the trail of diamonds as everyone who touched get
killed and at the end of the pipeline's blow filled
with another plan for world domination. You know what I
remember about this movie? What Vegas? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:52:07):
Yeah, I think this movie is silly, good naratively but
fun it is, And you are right, Connor is way
too old. He's like, like, you know he's wearing a
rug from the first movie, but this is the one
where you're like, I really believe he's wearing rug number eight.

Speaker 2 (01:52:21):
Live and Let Die nineteen seventy three, Roger Moore's first
Bond film, The Bond Girl Solitaire. The director Guy Hamilton again.
Several British agents are killed in a short period of
time during routine surveillance of dictator Doc dot Knanga. Bond
is set to New York to investigate and falls into
a trap of gangster mister Big thanks to his psychic

(01:52:42):
tarot card reader Solitaire.

Speaker 1 (01:52:44):
I think this movie has a really interesting premise and
that's about it.

Speaker 2 (01:52:50):
But you know what what, you got the job to do,
You got to do it well. Yeah, God, I hate
that song. I'm sorry. You may love liver Let Die
the theme song.

Speaker 1 (01:52:59):
I hate it because I think it's a great song
if it's not a James Bond.

Speaker 2 (01:53:03):
It's a great song if it's not a James Bond
theme song. But like to hear the you got the
job to do, you got the do it well in
the middle of a James Bond credits you're just like,
oh my god. Number nine, The Man with the Golden
Gun nineteen seventy four Roger Moore again, Andrea Anders is
the Bond girl. Literative Names Guy Hamilton again directs six.

(01:53:24):
Is sent a golden bullet with double oh seven engraved
onto it in fears that Bond will be assassinated by
friend cessco Scottamonga. The Number one million a shot hit man,
so he gets paid a million dollars to go kill
somebody known for his golden gun.

Speaker 1 (01:53:37):
Great great movie.

Speaker 2 (01:53:39):
Christopher Lee is the villain I dig to be honest you,
this is my favorite Roger Moore movie.

Speaker 1 (01:53:43):
I think it's definitely the best Ruder More movie.

Speaker 2 (01:53:45):
Cool.

Speaker 1 (01:53:45):
I don't know if it's it's not the best James
Bond movie.

Speaker 2 (01:53:48):
No, no, no, no no, but it's fun. Number ten The
Spy Who Loved Me nineteen seventy seven. This same year,
A Star Wars Roger Moore, Anya Amasaba, Lewis Gilbert directs.
British and Russian submarines have been hijacked in the two
countries together, sending Double O seven and Russian agent Anya
I'm a Sofa to truck down a stolen microfilm and investigate.

Speaker 1 (01:54:06):
Yeah, Austin Powers ruined the title of this movie for me. Yeah, yeah,
that's I always think of that. That's good enough, all right,
But I'm like, there's a lot of parody here. I
get it.

Speaker 2 (01:54:16):
Number eleven Moonraker nineteen seventy nine, Roger Moore, Holly Goodhead
is the Bond Girl. Lewis Gilbert returns to direct a
space shuttle on loan to six by Hugo Drax is
hijacked in mid air. Space Shuttle Midair. Bond is sent
to investigate Dracs on the pretense of an official apology,
and Bond discovers that Dracks hijacked the shuttle himself.

Speaker 1 (01:54:38):
Stupid.

Speaker 2 (01:54:39):
Yeah, we're all stupid. Let's move on. Number twelve For
Your Eyes Only nineteen eighty one, Roger Moore. Bond Girl
is Malina Havelock. The director is John Glenn. The synopsis
is A ship containing an automatic Targeting Attack communicator Attack,
which can control ballistic missile attacks, is sunk. Bond is
sent to retrieve the at before the Russians.

Speaker 1 (01:55:01):
Do, and a fun fact in Skyfall. Bond turns in
some fragments to be tested and says for her eyes only,
referring to m I did not cast there. You gouch
that movie's okay. Oh yeah, that's all right, It's okay.
Number thirteen Octo Pussy nineteen eighty three Roger Moore. Octopussy

(01:55:22):
is the Bond girl. John Glenn directs, not the Western
John Glenn I wish Agent Double O nine is stabbed
and crashes through a window of the British Embassy in
Berlin holding a forge Faberge egg. Bond is sent to
investigate and begins at the Suburby's auction for the real
Faberge counterpart this is the Bond Girl's name. That makes
me the second most uncomfortable pussy.

Speaker 2 (01:55:44):
This is you want to talk about a weird movie,
that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:55:46):
This is a weird deVie. I mean if it starts
with a Faberge egg, you know what's going to be weird.

Speaker 2 (01:55:50):
Number fourteen of You two Q Yeah that song nineteen
eighty five, Roger Moore, The Bond Girl is Stacey Sutton. Yeah,
a lot of literal names. John Glenn returned. Bond investigates
a drugged horse racing scandal and has led to Max Zorin,
an accentric industrialist who plans to destroy Silicon Valley.

Speaker 1 (01:56:09):
Stupid.

Speaker 3 (01:56:10):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:56:12):
Christopher the guy who thoughts like this helped me out
for walking Forwalkins. I couldn't remember his last name. That's
amazing that happened. And there's a really dumb fight at
the Golden Gay Bridge. I do not like this movie
at all.

Speaker 1 (01:56:27):
But may Day, Who's the Bad Girl, is the first
African American woman to sleep with James Bond on Hallibery,
and I think that's re noting.

Speaker 2 (01:56:32):
Number fifteen The Living Daylights nineteen eighty seven, Timothy Dalton's
first Bond movie, The Bond girl's Kara Milova director John Glenn. Again,
Bond is assigned to protect Georgie Koskoff, an ex KGB
officer who is defecting to Britain.

Speaker 1 (01:56:48):
This movie is not as bad as everyone thinks it is.

Speaker 2 (01:56:51):
No, it's not. I actually don't think it's that bad.

Speaker 1 (01:56:54):
I think Timothy Dalton gets a bum rap.

Speaker 2 (01:56:56):
He doesn't. He was basically Craig twenty years early.

Speaker 1 (01:56:58):
Yeah, like before it was cool.

Speaker 2 (01:57:00):
He's the angry Bond number sixteen, licensed to kill in
nineteen eighty nine. Timothy Dalton. The Bond girl is Pam
Bovier John Glent. Now here's the one thing about this one.
The synopsis is great, the setup is great. The end
of the movie is not. Bond and Felix Lighter catch
drug lord Franz Sanchez during a raid in Miami, but
Sanchez escapes, and Sanchez kills and rapes leader's wife and

(01:57:21):
later is later fed to a shark, losing a leg.
Bond must infiltrate and destroy Sancha's operation, avenging the death
of Lighters.

Speaker 1 (01:57:30):
Yes, anytime we get Felix and Bond together, I'm happy.
The movie has a better premise than it has followed.

Speaker 4 (01:57:35):
Them.

Speaker 7 (01:57:35):
Yo.

Speaker 2 (01:57:36):
Now we go six years into a Bond movie. GoldenEye
nineteen ninety five.

Speaker 1 (01:57:43):
I'm Alive.

Speaker 2 (01:57:44):
Pierce Brasen, Natalia Simona and Zogna on a pop directed
by Martin Campbell. You will hear that name again. Zogja
Onotop and Colonel Onomoff hijack a special helicopter that is
I mune Jul electromatic pulses. The pair then go to
a Soviet bunker that is going to troll based for
the Golden Eye satellite weapons. They didn't kill the staff
and protect themselves. Bond must investigate the attack.

Speaker 1 (01:58:07):
More explosions than you've ever seen in a Bond movie.

Speaker 2 (01:58:10):
And also Sean Bean as the villain.

Speaker 1 (01:58:13):
Oh see, that's my favorite thing about the Pierce Brosen
era Bond movies is Alex Chvlaine. He's so good, so interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:58:21):
Number eighteen Tomorrow Never Died. I will say that I
think all of the Pierce Brosman movies have great titles.
They do Tomorrow Never Dies nineteen ninety seven. James Bond
again is Pierce Brosnan. Bond Girl's Paris Carver. The director
is Robert Spuctus Woody or have you say I'm sure
that's how it is. Media mogul Elliott Carver plans to
use a stolen encoder to start a war between China
and the United Kingdom in order to boost ratings for

(01:58:43):
his cable networks. Dumb idea. Okay, let's move on nineteen
The World Is Not Enough. James Bond is Pierce Brosnan,
The Bond Girl is Christmas Jones. The director is Michael
ebris apstad Renard played by Robert Carlyle, a tear who
feels no pain, is slowly dying due to a bullet
lodge in his brain, and he assassinates billionaire Robert King.

(01:59:06):
Bond is assigned to protect the daughter Electric King.

Speaker 1 (01:59:09):
Yeah. Not great.

Speaker 2 (01:59:11):
I actually don't think this one is. This is another
one like I think Timmy Dalton. World's Not Enough is
not as bad as everybody thinks. So, but you know
what makes it better is Robert Carlyle. Yes, it's nothing
about the rest of them. To be honest with you,
I would say that World Is Not Enough is Brosen's
second best Bond movie. Yeah, because Tomorrow Never Dies starts
off great, but as soon as you learn that it's
about the newspaper man it completely falls out.

Speaker 1 (01:59:32):
Oh yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:59:33):
So Number twenty die another day or we've given up.
This is the James Bond Movie, starring Pierce Brosnan, The
Bond Girls, Jinx, and the director Eli bert Is Lee
tom Ahore. Bond is betrayed during a mission in North
Korea that he served into North Korea and is captured
and tortured for fourteen months. After revealing nothing, Bonds released

(01:59:54):
a deal with Sex who release a terrorist. In return,
Bond escapes from six to find the trader and killed
the terrorist he was for. Stupid Invisible car. That's all
I'm gonna say about that.

Speaker 1 (02:00:09):
Invisible Car also Pierce Brawson's tool to play Bond.

Speaker 2 (02:00:14):
I didn't at that point. I didn't think so.

Speaker 1 (02:00:15):
I think he's right on the line.

Speaker 2 (02:00:16):
He was getting pretty close. Number twenty one Casino Royale
two thousand and six Daniel Craig, The Bond Girls, Vesper Lynn,
directed by Martin Campbell, the same guy who rebooted the
franchise in GoldenEye and a reboot of the series. Casino
Royal opens with Bond gaining his Double OH status and
by killing two enemy agents, he earns his license to kill.
Bond must then win a high stakes poker game against

(02:00:37):
terrorist financer l Sheath. I love this movie. It's too long, yes,
Jimmy Poker Scenes Number twenty two Quantum of Solas two
thousand and eight. Daniel Craig The Bond Girls. Camille Montez.
The director is Mark Forrester. In a continuation from Casino Royal,
Bond is set to eliminate Dominic Green, a wealthy businessman
who is trying to control the water supply of Bolivia.

Speaker 1 (02:00:59):
Not as bad does. Everyone thinks it is crappy villain.

Speaker 2 (02:01:02):
But you have to yeah, very very crappy villain. Number
twenty three, Skyfall twenty twelve. Daniel Craig The Bond Girl. Severen,
the director of Sam Mendez and James. Bond's loyalty to
him is tested as her past comes back to Hunter.
As I six comes under attack, Bond must track down
and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.

Speaker 1 (02:01:23):
Best c ever, My favorite James Bond movie.

Speaker 2 (02:01:27):
Number twenty four, the one that we haven't seen yet,
Spector twenty fifteen. Daniel Craig The Bond Girls. Madeleine Swan
that is raina Brocker. No, no, what's Monica belietion regards
Sam Mendes returns and the synopsis is while in battles
political forces to keep the Secret Service alive, Bond peels

(02:01:48):
back the layers of deceit to reveal the terrible truth
behind the organization known as Spector. Spector finally returning to
the James Bond franchise after lost in a lawsuit for
over thirty years.

Speaker 1 (02:02:03):
I'm really looking forward, Inspector.

Speaker 2 (02:02:05):
I hope it as well as well as well as good. Okay, now,
recommended reading. As we've said, you have plenty of James
Bond books to read, and you have plenty of James
Bond movies to watch. So instead of recommended reading, let's
do James Bond fun facts.

Speaker 1 (02:02:19):
Oh I love it.

Speaker 2 (02:02:20):
Okay, here you go. Okay, I want you to guess
how many people James Bond has killed up to now.
I'm counting Skyfall, but not Spector because we don't know.
We haven't seen it yet. Okay, including Skyfall in all
twenty three of the movies, how many people has James
Bond killed?

Speaker 1 (02:02:38):
Eight hundred fifty four?

Speaker 2 (02:02:43):
No, not, you're way over three hundred and sixty two.

Speaker 1 (02:02:48):
Yeah, you didn't give me a between this and.

Speaker 2 (02:02:51):
No, because I wanted to see how far you go.
And yeah, that's like killing a guy every ten seconds.

Speaker 1 (02:02:55):
So I was like, a thousand, it's probably too many.

Speaker 2 (02:02:57):
Now, there are a couple of different numbers on in
the Internet that comes from the Oral Notts video game.
They have a video called Bond Kill Count where you
can actually watch them.

Speaker 1 (02:03:05):
All depending on how many people you think are in
cars that explode or buildings that.

Speaker 2 (02:03:09):
Explore, planes or stuff like that. Yet, now, Pierce Brosnan
is actually the deadliest Bond. He killed more people than
anybody else.

Speaker 1 (02:03:14):
He's got the most explosions.

Speaker 2 (02:03:15):
How many women has James Bond slept with?

Speaker 1 (02:03:19):
There's twenty four movies that we're talking twenty four.

Speaker 2 (02:03:22):
If you count Specter H.

Speaker 1 (02:03:24):
Thirty two, you're quite low.

Speaker 2 (02:03:29):
He's fifty four. He slept with fifty four women. Shut up.

Speaker 1 (02:03:32):
I was like, surely it's not double that.

Speaker 2 (02:03:35):
Oh, there are several movies where Relealy's with like three girls.

Speaker 1 (02:03:37):
Wow, I've been in the Craig world for a long time.

Speaker 2 (02:03:41):
All right, now here's some iky, here's some more fun facts. Okay,
Bond's preferred drink in Ian Fleming's first book, Casina rout
was the vesper martini, part Jin, part vodka, a touch
of le le Blanc wine. And however, when it came
to filming the first Bond movie, Smirnoff paid for their
vodka to be promoted, meaning they didn't want Jin mentioned,

(02:04:03):
so Bond's brand, the Booze quickly caught on and changed
the cocktail forever.

Speaker 1 (02:04:08):
Yeah, and when Cassino Royal happens, Gordon's gin, which is
why it's the only it's the only name brand dropped
in that movie.

Speaker 2 (02:04:14):
Yep. According to Bond lore, young James was briefly educated
Eton as I said, before going on to study at
FET's College in Edinburgh. That was a public school that
was attended by Ian Fleming himself and also a former
Prime Minister, Tony Blair. And less cool funny as it sounds,
Sean Connery once worked as FETs College's milkman. Oh really, yep,

(02:04:39):
that's so crazy.

Speaker 4 (02:04:41):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:04:41):
Fifth Bond, Pierce Brosnan, was long pursued by Ian producers
for the role even in the eighties. Like he was,
he was originally considered before Timothy Dalton. However, when he
finally signed his contract for GoldenEye, Brosen was informed that
he was free to pursue any additional other roles between
Bond movies, but the actor could have here in no
other film wearing a tuxedo.

Speaker 1 (02:05:03):
Yeah, I knew that. Yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (02:05:06):
Uh, you know, we all know what James Bond's rank is, right,
what's James Bond rank? His his designation?

Speaker 3 (02:05:12):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (02:05:12):
I was like, I don't know, lieutenant, but let me
tell you about some of the other Double ow agents
we've seen in the movies. Oh please, I love that
Double oh two is killed in The Man with a
Golden Gun, Double oh three dies in the opening scene
of A View to a Kill, Double oh four gets
killed in The Living Daylights, Double oh six with Sean Bean,
and others like Double oh one we've never met. However,

(02:05:35):
Double oh nine probably has the worst career as a
sex agent because he's killed while dressed as a clown
in Octopussy.

Speaker 5 (02:05:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:05:45):
Here are some of the other actors that have almost
played Bond over the years. Cool Eric Bannon, really, Hugh Jackman,
James Purfoy, Julian McMahon, Julian mcmannon, sorry, Gerald Butler, Sam Neil.
Clint Eastwood was considered in the eighties. I knew that

(02:06:07):
and Dougary Scott.

Speaker 1 (02:06:08):
Can I add two people to that list, Adam West
yep and Burt Reynolds.

Speaker 7 (02:06:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:06:14):
Burt Reynolds I knew about too.

Speaker 1 (02:06:16):
Yeah, and I was like, wow, really, Adam West.

Speaker 2 (02:06:19):
Another fun fact, stuntman Bob Simmons is the figure who
appears in the opening gun barrel sequence for the first
James Bond movie Cool, where he's wearing the fedora. That's
actually stuntman Bob Simmons. Good for Bob Sibbons. I didn't
know if you know this, but President John F. Kennedy
is responsible for Bond success in the United States.

Speaker 1 (02:06:37):
I did not know that.

Speaker 2 (02:06:38):
In nineteen sixty one, in an interview with Life magazine,
he listed From Russia with Love as one of his
favorite novels of all time. Sales boomed, and actually this
made the producers, because they had already made Doctor no
specifically choose From Russia with Love as the next film.

Speaker 1 (02:06:55):
Oh that's that's such a smart moved.

Speaker 2 (02:06:57):
Due to the president's influence. Incidentally, this was the last
movie that JFK ever saw. He watched it the day
before he flew to Texas in nineteen sixty three.

Speaker 1 (02:07:08):
Well, that's dark.

Speaker 2 (02:07:09):
But actually JFK also included Fleming in his conversations, in
fact even inviting him to the White House to ask
him his thoughts on how to defeat Fidel Castro in Cuba. Okay,
there are some articles out there about what Fleming suggested,
and one of his ideas was a radioactive beard like

(02:07:29):
there to radiate Castro's beard.

Speaker 1 (02:07:32):
That's amaze, that's see, that's like a silly James Bond
thing to do.

Speaker 2 (02:07:36):
Yeah, that's so funny. IM's house in the movie Skyfall
is the former home of John Barry, the very famous
Bond composer. Have you ever have you heard the James
Bond theme the dun he made that We pleaded it
in my high school Jackman and final fun James Bond. Fact.
Goldfinger was the first film ever to show a laser beam.

Speaker 1 (02:08:02):
Really that Star Wars, Yeah, yeah, Star Wars.

Speaker 2 (02:08:07):
And also it is the the film that Sean Connery
was most concerned for his life because in the very
famous scene with the laser beam, they're the table is
burning and it's coming closer to his crotch, his manhood
as you would say. It was actually a stagehand with
an assettling blowtorch, moving closer and closer to Sean Connery. Wow.

(02:08:30):
And Sean Connery calls it his worst day at James
Bond because he thought his let's just say his his
manhood was going to be burned off and enjoy it. Yeah,
and if you watch that movie, it gets very close. Yeah,
you know. So that's it.

Speaker 1 (02:08:44):
We had a dance belt on. He's probably fine.

Speaker 2 (02:08:45):
There you go, and that's it for the key history
lesson on James Bond. What did you think, Ashley? Did
you learn it out about Double oh seven? I did.

Speaker 1 (02:08:51):
I thought that was fascinating. He did a really good job.

Speaker 2 (02:08:54):
Yay, Okay, that's it for this lesson of James Bond.
Go out there and read some of those James Bond
on books and movies. And while you're doing that, get
on over to iTunes and Stitcher and download and subscribe
to this podcast. Give us a rating over there, because
it lets other secret agents find the podcast just like you.
And if you think we miss something, you're like, you
didn't talk about Paris Brosen enough. I love the Brosen

(02:09:16):
And then you need to do that on our social media,
which is where.

Speaker 1 (02:09:18):
Ashley it is at Facebook dot com slash Geekhistory Lesson
and Geekhistory lesson dot com.

Speaker 2 (02:09:23):
That's right. You can follow Ashley on Twitter Ashley V. Robinson.
You can follow me on Twitter at jawin and don't
forget Patreon dot com slash jawin jawi in. Help support
the show and you get to listen to the Geek
History Lesson extra if you're at our five dollar level, Well,
that's it. If we're gonna close this dossi air, we're
gonna classify it. We're gonna put it in the shelves

(02:09:43):
that nobody else can listen to it, and maybe twenty
years later when Russia falls again. I'm not saying Rusha's
gonna fall, but if it does, you just lost all
our Russian lists and we have to pull a British
agent out there to go find the at track, they'll
find this episode. That's it.

Speaker 1 (02:09:59):
Well, to Jason, where do you take us a what?

Speaker 2 (02:10:03):
Well, I'm really quick, I'm Jason in.

Speaker 1 (02:10:05):
Then I'm as Victoria.

Speaker 2 (02:10:06):
We got to give ourselves an astro. That's the standard procedure.

Speaker 1 (02:10:08):
Double two.

Speaker 2 (02:10:09):
You want to be double two? Professor Ashley, Yes, will
you please sign seal deliver this classified document of a
podcast out that's a disco song. Sure, just do it.

Speaker 1 (02:10:24):
I'm trying to do fully of signing and ceiling and
delivering there. It's out in the world. Class is dismissed.

Speaker 2 (02:10:34):
From the mountains of Switzerland to the deserts of Morocco,
everybody across the world is asking this one question, including
Specter themselves. Is James Bond still relevant? And we're going
to answer that question today because your Geek History Lesson
is now in session. Hello, and welcome to Geek History Lesson.
I'm Jason Shaken, not stirred inn. I am Ashley Victoria Robinson.

(02:10:59):
Welcome to your Mind University because you have stumbled onto
the podcast where we take one character contruct or superspy
from pop culture and teach you everything you need to
know about them in about an hour. Except this week,
because we've done like four or five or six, I
don't know how many James Bond episodes, so we're gonna
do another one. I do like the idea though, of

(02:11:19):
Andrew Scott as a proxy of Specter being like, what
is James Bond?

Speaker 1 (02:11:24):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:11:25):
Well, our listeners know that we have been going through
most of the Bond films. There's still a chap that
we have not there's two chaps that we've not hit
up in terms of the Bonds, but we have been
loosely going through for the last couple of years a
series because as we all know, No Time to Die
was supposed to come out last year, it did not
got delayed, so we thought that this would be the

(02:11:47):
perfect wrap up to our two year Bond series to
actually have a discussion about James Bond and his relevancy
in the year of twenty twenty one in the future.
Now we all know that No Time to Die is
in theaters right now at the time that you're listening
to this podcast. Fun fact, I just want to say,
it's not really a fun fact. There will be no

(02:12:08):
spoilers for No Time to Die. I have not seen
No Time to Die. Ashley has not seen No Time today,
and as far as I know, our special guest has
not seen No to Die. But maybe we need to
ask her, and actually let's bring her on the podcast.

Speaker 1 (02:12:20):
So today, because Jason and I couldn't possibly do this alone,
we are joined by the fabulous Danielle Price, who is
the co host of The Angle Files and a featured
talent on James Bonding. Danielle. Welcome, tig Gee, getstry lesson.

Speaker 7 (02:12:35):
Hi guys, thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (02:12:38):
Now, Danielle, I want to ask you.

Speaker 1 (02:12:40):
Have you seen No Time to Die?

Speaker 4 (02:12:41):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (02:12:41):
Yeah, have you seen No?

Speaker 7 (02:12:42):
No, I have not seen it yet. I have the tickets.
Tickets are but we do too, we do. Yeah, the
data set. I'm excited. Yeah, but I have not seen
it yet. I'm trying not to hear too many things.

Speaker 2 (02:12:55):
Me too, me too, And I already feel I've already.
I will not say what it is, but I already
feel like I've been spoiled on a little thing that
I wish I did not know. No, But anyways, Danielle,
we have to ask because I know our listeners are
asking this as well. Are excellent my university students, They're
saying to themselves, Danielle, what is your bona fides when

(02:13:18):
it comes to James Bond? I mean, how much of
you loved James Bond? When did you first see James Bond?
Give let's hear some of your your your love and
your expertise around James Bond.

Speaker 7 (02:13:27):
M Okay, yeah, I definitely first started watching them. Well,
I mean I saw them when I was a kid
in the nineties. There was I feels like there was
always a Roger Moore marathon on TV. Yeah, so like
just perpetually on so my dad would put them on
and so I definitely remember seeing little bits of them

(02:13:51):
when I was very young, just on TV. Didn't know
what I was watching, but later when I watched all
the movies, realized, oh, I remember this from being a kid. Yeah.
And then in my early twenties, I was looking through
used books and I found a James Bond encyclopedia book

(02:14:15):
and I think when it came out, Skyfall was about
to come out, and so I was like, this is
great because it listed everything from villains to every Bond,
every Bond girl. And that's when I started to really
be attracted to this franchise from that standpoint, just from

(02:14:35):
a history standpoint, because it's such a long franchise and
I'm a sucker for lore, especially a franchise that has
a ton of lore, and this franchise does. So I
just got really really nerdy about wanting to know, like,
you know, who are all the villains, who are all
the henchmen, Like what terrorist organizations has he fought, so

(02:14:56):
I got really into it, I think kind of from a.

Speaker 2 (02:15:00):
From that standpoint, we should also make this clear, just
for all the listeners, that I'm a huge fan of
the Ian Fleming original novels. But for the for the
perspective of today's conversation, this will only be covering the
twenty seven film productions. Actually I won't be covering two
of them because only twenty five of them were made
by Eon Productions. But it will only be covering the

(02:15:23):
films that have been starring actors such as Sean Connery,
George Lasimbie, Roger Moore, Timothy Dwalldon, Pierce bros Than, and
Daniel Craig. So all you David Niven fans out there
just need this role. I know. I'm with you. I'm
with you, but slow down, We're only gonna be talking
about those films.

Speaker 1 (02:15:40):
I would encourage you, if you would like to remain
a fan of him, don't check out his memoir My
Wicked Wicked Way Night.

Speaker 2 (02:15:46):
That also would be a great autobiography title for chees Boosually.

Speaker 1 (02:15:50):
It's kind of funny because I feel like by a
modern standard, he'd like preemptively canceled.

Speaker 2 (02:15:55):
Yeah, all right, all right, Well, that's great. That's all.
So wait, Daniel, do you still have the James Bond encyclopedia.

Speaker 7 (02:16:02):
I do. It's actually in front of me right now.

Speaker 2 (02:16:05):
You're going to like use a kind of a cheat
sheet as you're going to the podcast.

Speaker 1 (02:16:09):
Have you hear some No?

Speaker 7 (02:16:11):
No, I didn't think I would need to reference it,
but I just, you know, maybe ceremonial. Ceremonially, I was like, ooh,
I'm going to record this. I better bring this book
in here with me.

Speaker 1 (02:16:19):
Yeah, that's good vibes.

Speaker 2 (02:16:20):
That is a well prepared teacher's assistant. I love it. Ashley,
well a listener. Just let everybody know Ashley is well
prepared most of the questions for today. She did an
amazing job. So Ashley, let's just start the conversation off.
Why don't you kick us off?

Speaker 1 (02:16:35):
Okay, So we're going to start with a question that
is pretty close to the theme of what we're discussing today.
I pulled this from a twenty eighteen Den of Geek
article written by Tim George, and he wrote, quote, when
Bond was created, the Cold War had only just begun
and Britain was slowly coming to the realization that it

(02:16:56):
was no longer a world power end quote. So that
into consideration, I want to ask both of you. We'll
start with Jason. We're gonna let Daniel ease into this
is a Cold War hero inspired by a Second World
War character archetype, is that the person that modern filmmakers

(02:17:17):
should be positioning as a hero.

Speaker 2 (02:17:19):
That is such a difficult question, because I yes.

Speaker 1 (02:17:23):
So we'll get it right out of the way. First thing.

Speaker 2 (02:17:25):
Honestly, my honest answer to that is yes and no.
Sure because yes, because I do think the Cold War
is a fascinating era of history and how the world
powers were very much always on this precipice of nuclear war,
and that sort of leans and feeds the giant perspective

(02:17:46):
of the James Bond franchise that there are these huge organizations,
these madmen, these villains out there. But also, when you
think about it, we at this point are now thirty
years removed from the Cold Old War, and the world
is quite different, and you know, don't I don't know.

(02:18:08):
I've said this, I think on some of our other
James Bond episodes where I do think that there is
a decent idea of possibly making James Bond a period
piece of like that it's always set during the Cold War,
because there are a lot of James Bond tropes and
stuff that only work in that time period. And you
can see how much the franchise, sometimes the movie franchise

(02:18:30):
bins over backwards to make these like nineteen seventies and
these nineteen eighty things work past that time period. I
think there's the Pierce Brosnan film franchise of James Bond
is full of those things. So to me, it truly
is a yes or no, like it can be well,
it can be done very well, but we've also seen
it done very very and I think you're still seeing

(02:19:01):
it in the Daniel Craig films that the producers are
still struggling with this. How do we make this Cold
War basically superhero work in a twenty twenty one world?

Speaker 1 (02:19:11):
Yeah? Yeah, yeap.

Speaker 7 (02:19:14):
How do you feel about this, Danielle, I completely agree
with you when it comes to yes and no, because yeah,
it's like, I feel like the character and the franchise
have already evolved past the need for the Cold War
as a setting. I know that in the Everything or

(02:19:36):
Nothing documentary there they kind of mentioned that there was
a little bit of worry. When Golden Eye came out
because the Cold War had ended, they were like, does
this still work? And Golden I worked very well, so
they were like, cool, we can keep going. So I
do think that this is a franchise that can work

(02:19:59):
no matter how far its origin it gets. But at
the same time, it still has that origin, you know,
so it's just hard to get away from it. And
I do agree with you. I mentioned this to somebody
else that it would be kind of cool if it
became a period piece.

Speaker 2 (02:20:21):
All in the sixties, like it's always in the sixties. Like, guy,
I love that.

Speaker 7 (02:20:25):
It would be cool, but you would lose some of
the traditions of the franchise, which include, you know, showcasing
the fashion of the time, showcasing weird trends for the
better or worse.

Speaker 1 (02:20:38):
You know.

Speaker 7 (02:20:38):
I feel like when you watch Bond films, you're seeing
like cutting edge technology, although in some movies it's very
very cheesy technology. But like in Casido Royale there's Parker.

Speaker 2 (02:20:50):
Yeah. I was just about to bring that up.

Speaker 7 (02:20:51):
Yeah, Like watching it now, you're like, wow, remember when
Parkoer was like the biggest thing in the world. It's
kind of like it's it's always been that it's been
able to really like showcase all these amazing things that
are like the newest of the new. But yeah, I
don't know. I feel like the last couple films haven't

(02:21:11):
really been able to do that.

Speaker 2 (02:21:13):
I will say, Danielle, real quick to bounce off of
what you've been saying about the trends and stuff like that.
I do specifically remember watching Casino Royale in theaters and
thinking to myself, oh, wow, this is the first film
I've ever seen where people are texting mm hmmmm, because
there was like two thousand and six and they were
like there was so much of that phone is about

(02:21:34):
people texting the lipses to each other.

Speaker 1 (02:21:36):
Yeah wow.

Speaker 7 (02:21:38):
So I just rewatched Casino Royale a couple of days ago,
and I didn't even think about that.

Speaker 2 (02:21:44):
Yeah, yeah, I remember that was the I remember, like,
you know, like texting wasn't a new thing at that
time period. But I remember seeing James Bond text and
thinking like, oh, it's Maine, like everybody text Now if
James Bond texts Ashley, what do you? How do you
feel about this?

Speaker 1 (02:21:58):
I think it's really interesting that you both not only
agree on this, but this is a conversation that Jason
and I have had a lot about the Fantastic Four
over at Marvel, which very much comes out of that
post Kennedy Raw Raw. We are Americans and we can
do anything, and we're gonna, you know, and this like

(02:22:18):
period of hebal in terms of like sciences and society,
and I think Bond is sort of like the English
pop culture version of that, because obviously the Cold War
went over very differently overseas than I feel like it
was a bigger thing in America. I'm sure our nice
English rends story Jordan are gonna disagree with me. And

(02:22:40):
I think, like everything that is more than and I
think a lot of superheroes fall under this. I think,
like any property that's more than maybe twenty years old,
it's hard to eat your cake and have it too,
to have one foot genuinely planted when this was created,
but then still make it feel modern and fresh because
as my favorite Felix later is not a white guy

(02:23:05):
from Texas, you know what I mean. And seeing women
that Bond is not sexually harassing at every.

Speaker 2 (02:23:12):
I just want to say, is really great. I want
to say to all our listeners who are big Jack
Lord fans from Doctor No. I apologize, I don't. I
don't lean with Ashley jack Lord all the way.

Speaker 1 (02:23:22):
You think Jack Lord is the best Felix later, I
think he's the coolest Felix l You're incorrect. Jeffrey Right
is one always the coolest person in any room, and
definitely its very cool.

Speaker 2 (02:23:33):
Jeffrey Wright is a robot to me, and that's what
world spoilers.

Speaker 1 (02:23:37):
Honestly make Felix a robot, that would be That's the
twist I want. I want Ronny Mallick to reveal that
Felix Slider's.

Speaker 7 (02:23:45):
And has been the whole time.

Speaker 1 (02:23:47):
Dunt Dunt and then Ed Harris walks out of the shadow.
I only have like three or four West World touchdowns.
I've never seen show. But now that we've completely derailed it,
well what next.

Speaker 2 (02:23:57):
We're talking about trends and how Jane Bond loses connections
to the modern world. It is very influenced by like
trends in the modern world. But Danielle, I want to
ask you, it's interesting because James Bond in a lot
of ways is very analog. He is a guy that
has to be in the room for him to be

(02:24:19):
able to perform his espionage.

Speaker 1 (02:24:21):
So you're gonna pass up the Hamilton joke, I.

Speaker 2 (02:24:24):
Mean, sorry, nothing about James Bond over. Do you think
James Bond is in danger of becoming trophy because there
seems to have been several James Bond movies post Cold
War where a lot of the storyline has been well,
should the double o's even exist?

Speaker 7 (02:24:45):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (02:24:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:24:48):
I think that's a great question, And I mean the
franchise has already become very trophy, so I don't. I mean,
I feel like it's still in danger of being more troophy.
But as far as you know, how much do we
need a spy to be there in the room, I

(02:25:11):
personally think it works. Some of my favorite moments in
the Bond film history, Some of my favorite moments in
any spy story is when a spy is playing people
face to face and either impersonating someone or you know,
just getting away with something. I love when a spy

(02:25:32):
gets caught in like a little lie or something and
they have to like think really quickly and cover it.
So I think Bond is at his best when he's
face to face with people. And so I know that
that now that we're like living in an age of
you know, we're getting all of our data digitally and
all of our intelligence is kind of done that way.
I know that it's probably harder to keep bond, you know,

(02:25:59):
the guy like the guy you have to send instead
of just like why you're tapping, But I think that
if you can make that work, then it's incredible.

Speaker 2 (02:26:10):
What do you think, Ashley?

Speaker 1 (02:26:11):
I would like to say to all of the spies
who are currently listening, I hope you all remain employed,
and please don't, please don't track our signals and come
to my house. It's tough, and I think Skyfalld did
a good job grappling with it. In the scene where
we meet Q for the first time, which is one
of my favorite James Bond scenes because I love Ben.

(02:26:31):
I was gonna call him little Ben Wisha.

Speaker 2 (02:26:32):
He is much.

Speaker 1 (02:26:34):
Older than I am. He's a grown up person. I
love the discussion between like I can do more from
you know, in my pajamas, from my couch out of bed, yeah,
or whatever, then you can do and it's like, well,
sometimes you need someone to pull the trigger. And I
think that Bond stories trade on that, and then they
trade on the fact that like we like attractive people

(02:26:55):
fighting each other on screaming. Yeah. I mean, Hong Kong
builds a whole film system based on that. But I
think the analogiess is what should be leaned into more.
And I think this is why we keep touching on
the idea of a period piece. And and I'm sure
we're gonna bring it up later or address it later,

(02:27:15):
but something like Kingsman, which is said in the modern day,
does also a really good job at straddling that. And
I think Bond as just slowly, because it's such a behemoth,
been moving more toward that.

Speaker 2 (02:27:29):
It's interesting you bringing up Kingsman because at the time
this recording can we were still before the release of
the third Kingsman movie, which is actually going to be
a period piece it is, Yeah, which is so it'll
be interesting to see if the Kingsman franchise is like
kind of loses all of its specialness because it's suddenly
a period piece.

Speaker 3 (02:27:49):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:27:49):
It's interesting. Interesting that film might be a weird precursor
for James Bond in the future, Like if if James
Bond could successfully achieve a period piece.

Speaker 1 (02:27:59):
Movie, I'd love to see it, honestly. Yeah, yeah, it
wouldn't be bad matter for one second.

Speaker 2 (02:28:04):
You know, it's interesting to me because you know you're
talking about the tropiness and Bond being obsolete. To me,
it all comes down to, like, it's exactly the superhero argument,
because like when you think about our superheroes, the Marvel superheroes,
fighting a person like Galactus or Thanos, Yeah, the least
logical and tactical way to do that is to walk
up on the guy and punch him in the face.

Speaker 1 (02:28:23):
The same thing Batman, like Briswayne is a billionaire, he
could actually help Gotham in much more meaningful ways than
dressing up and endangering the lives of children.

Speaker 2 (02:28:32):
But that's good storytelling, you know, because I actually do
think in a modern world that Bond is obsolete. I
think that secret Agent is done so and I'm sorry
you guys all listening right now that have been like
put into the office to just like filter through podcasts. Yeah,
I wish you went to I wish you went to
Morocco too, but it doesn't happen. They don't have the

(02:28:52):
budget when they can email it. But I think for movies,
I think the reason why I think I wanted to
really include this question is because because I think we
as viewers of Bond have all accepted the trope, like
we know what we're getting with a Bond movie, and
I and I don't appreciate the movie producers and the

(02:29:13):
writers constantly being like, wells Bond obsolete? Maybe he is,
I do it. It's like every they just keep reminding
of it, and I'm like, look, we've all accepted this
suspension of disbelief. It's the same as every Mission Impossible
movie is about Ethan Hunt becoming going rogue, Like he
goes rogue in every single Mission Impossible movie, and it's
like we've accepted that that is part of the franchise.

Speaker 1 (02:29:35):
But an interesting thing that I think Bond has just
due to the like how old the IP is is,
we have seen some of the tropes evolve.

Speaker 2 (02:29:43):
Yeah, It's like tropes are.

Speaker 1 (02:29:44):
Tropes for a reason. Trope is not always a bad word.
I know we're using it like a touch pejoratively here,
and I know we have another question about it that
we'll get to. But like, even looking at the way
Bond Girls have evolved over the years, you know, Naomi
Harris is very different from some of the earlier Bond Girls.

Speaker 2 (02:30:02):
For example, do you just want to go to the
Bond girl question?

Speaker 4 (02:30:04):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (02:30:05):
It okay, So I'm gonna skip right down to this question. So,
Bond Girls, like I said, have been evolving. Do they
need to keep evolving? Do we feel like Bond girls
are fully realized women of the future, Danielle.

Speaker 7 (02:30:28):
This is like the one of the hardest It's one
of the hardest things to address, I think when talking
about this franchise as a fan but also as a feminist,
I've had so many thoughts because, yeah, like the franchise
has had such a problematic history with female characters and

(02:30:53):
it has gotten better. But personally, what I want to
see are you know, female agents. I know there have
been some that he ends up working with and sometimes
it's romantic, but that's really what I want to see.
If I want to see cool women in this franchise,

(02:31:16):
I want to see them doing exactly what he does
and what Bond has been doing. And it doesn't to
me have to be like, Wow, she's doing it even better,
but just like just show them as equals side by side,
with the same abilities and skills, and that I think
would be great.

Speaker 2 (02:31:35):
Well, and if the trailers are to be believed, for
No Time to Die. It looks like we're getting a
couple of two like very strong women in the in
the upcoming movie. I'm very excited for all Our listeners
are screaming to us. They're like wave saying that you're
behind the times, and it's like, look, that's this helps
producing words look just like James Bond. We're also analog Ashley,

(02:31:58):
what about you? I want to hear from from the
other woman on the podcast. How would how much further?
Let's say this actually and the Danielle feel free to
chime in on this as well. Do the Bond movies
need to evolve Bond girls even more than what they've done? Yes, equivocally,
And I would love to either one of you actually,

(02:32:18):
if you want to go first, sure, do you have
any what would be like your pitches for evolving them?

Speaker 1 (02:32:23):
So it's tough because Bond girls are sex objects, of course,
and I fully think in James Bond there is room
for sex and sexuality. That's a really dynamic part of
what somebody doing that type of job would actually realistically
have to be willing to do and have to have as.

Speaker 2 (02:32:40):
A skull is it is a hunter? It is again
I only keep bringing up these things because weirdly listeners.
I literally just spent the last year on a television
show that was all about espionage, and our showrunner made
us read the Cia Field Manual of Espionage, which is
a very dry read but very fastating, and there is
so much an espion, especially if you ever look up

(02:33:01):
the honeypot trap where you're like specifically enticing somebody with
sexuality to like give up the missile coads.

Speaker 1 (02:33:11):
And I have no issue with women being sexual. I
think a lot of things that need to change are
like very like small production minded things like could the
Bond Girls be the same age as the actor playing
James Bond? Ah, that's fair, Monica Balucci, I think is
the first I'm gonna say, only ones who has been
of age of peerage with the lead. She still looked incredible.

(02:33:35):
The character was nothing in a complete waste of space.
But even like and Daniel Craig I know, very much
advocated for that as well, but obviously he's not a
producer and he was a great champion of her being inspector.
And look, she looked great. I wasn't sad that she
was there anything, but I think that's like to me,
like that is step one. Step two is like give

(02:33:55):
them some lines. Step three is like the way you
shoot it, like you can shoot a sex scene. So
it's less male gazy. Bridgerton, which I think has too
many sex scenes. Actually, I think does a really good
job at accomplishing something like that.

Speaker 2 (02:34:08):
I can I ask a follow up question on that,
would you consider because you said the male gaze, of course,
is would you consider Bridgington to be an excellent POV
of the female gaze?

Speaker 1 (02:34:19):
Bridgerton and Anya Taylor Joys Emma are a great job
of like a more feminine in filmmak.

Speaker 2 (02:34:26):
So there you go, everybody, if you want to know
specifically what that is, now you have some touchdowns.

Speaker 1 (02:34:30):
But I thought my big into James Bond was Casino Royal,
which I think for a lot of people and a
lot of women I think of my generation, it.

Speaker 2 (02:34:37):
Was as well.

Speaker 1 (02:34:39):
Vesper to me is like the closest thing we've come
and she I think fulfills a lot of the things
that Danielle was talking about, like yes, their love interest,
but like she is as smart and as capable, really
smarter because she plays them and she's a villain. Then yeah,
then Bly she's technically like three different roles. But I
think that even if you want the trope of the

(02:35:00):
Bond girl just being the babe who he sleeps with
for in one scene to get the information, I just
think you could do it more dynamically. That's not a word.
And I think Bond actually has done an okay job.
Give her to other franchises in their diverse casting, like
we had Grace Jones as a Bond girl, but I
would love to see that keep evolving. Danielle, let me

(02:35:20):
let me bounce a question that is sort of in
the same conversation. To keep the Bond girls evolving to
to get the correct female perspective in there, would making
more of the villains female solve this or help towards
this issue.

Speaker 7 (02:35:39):
That is a great question.

Speaker 2 (02:35:41):
Does there haven't been many James Bond female villain?

Speaker 7 (02:35:44):
Yeah? I mean you you yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:35:46):
Because I'm talking about the big the big villain, not
the hens.

Speaker 1 (02:35:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:35:50):
I was gonna say, like Rosa Club comes to mind.
But I believe she is a henchman, so Sophie mar So,
I think.

Speaker 2 (02:35:59):
The world enough she's the big henchman. Yeah, she's the
big villain.

Speaker 7 (02:36:03):
Yeah, And I think was like the first like actual
female villain. Unfortunately, I don't think that movie is great.

Speaker 1 (02:36:11):
I don't think that's a controversial opinion. No, it's that's all.

Speaker 2 (02:36:14):
Right, it's all right for me.

Speaker 7 (02:36:16):
It's got like doubt, like heavy downsides, but I think
it's got some things that really shine, like, for instance,
Sophie Marso.

Speaker 2 (02:36:23):
Oh, we also forgot. I'm sorry, I just want I'm
sorry to interrupt Daniel. I went, I went and googled
we all forgot. Rosa Club is considered to be the
main villain from Russia with Love because she's the person
that sends oh god, the oh the gentleman on the
red grant. Yes, yes, yes, but yeah, so I.

Speaker 7 (02:36:43):
Considered her to be a villain. But I have been told,
and I think it was on the James Bonding podcast
by Matt Meira, that she is. I mean, he considers
her henchman.

Speaker 2 (02:36:54):
Interesting.

Speaker 7 (02:36:55):
Oh no, some of this might be subjective.

Speaker 2 (02:36:57):
Yes, an electric King was the villain from the world
is not enough. She's definitely the main villain and yet
so there we go. I just looked at the Giant list.
According to the James Bond Wiki, they only consider two
females to be official villains and not henchmen. Mm hmm,
but hench people, Yes, hench people. Excuse me they I'm
looking right at the word that says henchpin. So yeah, like,

(02:37:20):
I mean, would that solve it or like or do
you think do you think the issue is to you know,
put more contemporaries, like do we need They attempted this
with Jinx and Die Another Day, where they tried to
create the She was a CIA agent. She was like
sort of a female contemporary.

Speaker 1 (02:37:37):
She was like a Felix analog almost, yes, exactly in
a lot of way.

Speaker 2 (02:37:40):
And they were going to spend her off into her
own movie for a while.

Speaker 7 (02:37:43):
And this guy who loved me also, yes, yeah, she was.
She was kind of like a female James Bond Anya,
I think, and she is incredible and I love her.

Speaker 1 (02:37:56):
I think the issue is they all have to die
right or go away and never come back. So no
matter what, they're not getting I mean a twenty seventh
of the character development that Bond is going to get
because he's going to show up in the next movie
and the next year in the next movie.

Speaker 7 (02:38:11):
I mean maybe, like I personally don't need for there
to be a romance flirtation is great, and I agree
with you, Ashley, Like, it's not that I don't want
to see sex or sexuality in the franchise, but it's like,
do we need to make these awesome female characters always
end up with him romantically?

Speaker 1 (02:38:31):
I don't.

Speaker 7 (02:38:40):
I think we do well.

Speaker 1 (02:38:42):
I want to ask this because one of my favorite
moments in Skyfall, and I think I've brought this up
in every single James Bond podcast we've done, is when
Silva has Bond tied to the chair and he's like, oh,
mister Bond, your first time, and without missing a beat
down at Craigs, like, what makes you think this is
my first time? So do you think there will ever

(02:39:03):
my mom's boyfriend have My mom is not actually dating,
she is obsessed with him. So, Danielle, I want to
ask you, because I know Jason's answer to this, will
we ever see a Bond guy? And would we like
to see it?

Speaker 7 (02:39:20):
I would love to see it too. Yeah, I know
that would be great. I think if you know, like
mainstream society ever understood the concept of bisexuality, then it
would be perceived a little better unless Yeah, So I

(02:39:41):
mean that would be cool.

Speaker 1 (02:39:42):
I all I know is that.

Speaker 7 (02:39:46):
I've seen a lot of fandoms speaking up in the
last five years about oh my franchise is becoming woke,
complaining and complaining and complaining, And honestly, from what I've
seen from the Bond and online fans, they are not
as bad as you would think they are.

Speaker 2 (02:40:08):
You could say no more.

Speaker 1 (02:40:10):
But also, nobody ever accuses James lot of being wock
no no, no, no.

Speaker 7 (02:40:15):
But but I am saying, like you know, we've seen
Felix later become black, and Moneypenny become black, and yeah,
I just I was expecting a more toxic online fandom
with the Bond fandom, but from what I have seen,
it is nothing compared to the Star Wars fandom.

Speaker 2 (02:40:37):
Maybe they're more gentlemanly, maybe maybe gentlemanly, better class. I
would love it. I agree with you, Danielle, like I
kind of feel that I would love to see a
Bond guy. I think it would be such a step
forward to me. I think it's totally in the character.
And if you've read the Infleming like books or even

(02:40:59):
the comics or seen any of the movies, and you
think that James Bond has not kissed or slept with
the man you are watching, You're fooling yourself. It's all there.
Man like James Bond, if the mission would be accomplished,
would marry a car. He would do it. You know,
you know, he would do it. That's like the mission.

(02:41:19):
It doesn't matter who he has to kiss or bed
or anything, he will do it.

Speaker 1 (02:41:23):
Bond is also just like as a franchise, just begging
because they've done it with the women. Sometimes for like
an enemy's two lovers story and you have two huge
dudes in a mist fight, like come.

Speaker 7 (02:41:33):
On, I mean already Like so the train fight in
Form Russia with Love with Him and Robert Shaw, that
is slightly homo erotic if you slightly, the way that
he kills him at the end, this like release that
he has when he's yeah it's h so I feel like, yes,

(02:41:55):
we've already had the stirring, yes, you know.

Speaker 2 (02:42:02):
And I would even argue that I don't think that's
the only Bond fight that has some homo eroticism in there.
I really there are some, you know, and and that
I think goes to this idea that you know, Bond
is all about style and and you know, and and
and it's and its attitude, like there is even you
can even get the impression that when Scaramanga invites James

(02:42:26):
Bond in the in The Man with the Golden Gun
to his island and like he gives him dinner before
their grand duel, you get the impression that it's almost a.

Speaker 1 (02:42:34):
Day always on a date.

Speaker 2 (02:42:35):
Yeah, Like like you're like, like this is like Scaramonga
wants to kill James Bond. But if the roles, like
if it just pivoted just a little bit, they might
get married.

Speaker 1 (02:42:49):
That would have been so funny just with that movie,
specifically with it being Christopher Lee, who is you know,
arguably the real James Bond.

Speaker 2 (02:42:56):
Yeah, and that goes into our next thing we want
to talk about. Well, actually, before we get to this, Danielle,
I want to ask we talked about the Bond guy,
and this has been a question that's been given to
Daniel Craig very recently. Is there anything to a woman
stepping into the role of James Bond, a female and

(02:43:19):
actual female James Bond.

Speaker 7 (02:43:23):
Yeah. I mean people have been talking about James Bond
as a code name for a while. So it's one
of those things where I would rather if this were
to happen, I would rather it be a female Double
O seven, some female agent who is not James Bond
takes over his code name. That's actually how I would

(02:43:47):
like to see this franchise progress. I would love to
keep seeing Double O seven spy stories produced by Eon,
but no longer with a white man in the role.
So yeah, I mean to answer your question, yes and no.
I don't know if I need her to be James Bond,

(02:44:08):
but it would be great to have a female Double
O seven.

Speaker 2 (02:44:11):
Well, just let everybody know. Daniel Craig, in an interview
with the BBC Radio Times, was asked this very question
and his answer was he said, and I quote, the
answer to that is very simple. There should simply be
better parts for women and actors of color. Why should
a woman play James Bond when there should be a
part just as good as James Bond, but for a woman. Ashley,

(02:44:34):
what do you feel about a female James Bond? And
even mister Craig's statements.

Speaker 1 (02:44:38):
Yeah, I feel very much the same way as Danielle,
like I am something I'm really looking forward to and
no time to die. Stop yelling at your iPhone if
you've already seen it is seeing a woman in the.

Speaker 2 (02:44:48):
Role of Double O seven.

Speaker 1 (02:44:50):
But I don't like if in the next movie they
were like, Haley atwell is Janie Bond. I'm like, I
am not interested in that. Yeah, that's for sure, she
won't because she's in Mission Impossible now forever.

Speaker 7 (02:45:02):
So I think also, like, we wouldn't want to see
some awesome female actress come in and then suddenly be
relegated to the entire history that this man has had. Yeah, yeah,
so I would rather it be like a fresh start,
new character.

Speaker 1 (02:45:21):
But I don't think Ian is gonna give it to us.

Speaker 2 (02:45:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:45:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:45:25):
What's interesting is that I have heard I mean, you know,
who knows what happens in the new movie. But I
was hearing rumors last year that we were heading the
direction of a female Double seventh, that James Bond himself
was retiring. That was the rumor, and I was so
happy and I was like, yes, this is the only
way that this franchise can continue. And then now all

(02:45:48):
these things are like going around where it's like, oh,
who's next, Like who's gonna be the next James Bond?
Here are the favorites, the fan casting, and I keep
ignoring it because I'm like, wouldn't it be cool if
if it wasn't him anymore?

Speaker 2 (02:46:04):
Well, you know, I guarantee you they had that meeting.
I guarantee you they sat in a boardroom and batted
it around and actually like talked about like what it
would be. But I think that is actually not going
to happen because in the same interview with the BBC
Radio Times, actually Barbara Rockley said Barbara Rockley, producer and
owner of the rights to James Bond, said he's a
male character. He has written as male, and I think

(02:46:25):
he'll probably always stay male. We don't have to turn
male characters into women. Let's just create more female characters.

Speaker 1 (02:46:32):
Yeah, well, hopefully they'll do that.

Speaker 7 (02:46:34):
That's what I hope so too. Yeah, so they've already
done it in the franchise. M was always a man
until Judy Dench came in and took on the role
of EM. And again, she's not playing the same m
that we've seen in all the previous movies, but.

Speaker 2 (02:46:48):
So arguably not arguably the best m we've had. Yeah,
also arguably the best Bond Girl ever. Yes, she's technically
the Bond Girl of Skyfall. I say that all the time.
You know, let's talk about this, Danielle. We talked about

(02:47:10):
like how is Bond gonna change, how it's gonna be relevant.
But like, what do you think James Bond as a
franchise does well, Like what is it good at.

Speaker 7 (02:47:19):
Ooh uh locations? Depending on the film. Heck, yeah, that's
something that you can always count on. I mean, like Specter,
I need to rewatch it. But I was very I
wasn't underwhelmed. I wasn't overwhelmed with Spector. I was just
very whelmed and didn't love the story. But you know,
when you go to see one of these movies, you

(02:47:40):
are going to see very nice looking cars, very nice
clothes on everyone, and usually great locations. I think The
World Is Not Enough is one in which the locations
were just not great.

Speaker 2 (02:47:56):
Yeah, because they spend most of the time in the
Baltic Sea at all. Yeah, they were like basically they
stay in the Eastern Europe for a lot most of
it for most of the movie. You know, I think, God,
the locations is something because you've always read these in
some of the Bond bio books and stuff like that
that people talk about that in the sixties and seventies,

(02:48:18):
when Bond would go to these exotic locations. The reason
why they think a lot of the Bond movies blew
up was because it was showing people that would never
be able to travel to those places. What these places
look like. It was pre internet. It was pre internet,
before the internet. And I agree with you, that's something
I would really like Bond to having, like because I know, like,

(02:48:38):
and is this a joke from the James Bonding podcast.
Bond has never been to Canada, not once. He He's
only been to America twice.

Speaker 1 (02:48:47):
Especially, what are you gonna do have him run across
the tundra, Like.

Speaker 2 (02:48:50):
I don't know, Like, there's got to be some locate.
There's gotta be a waterfall or something in Canada.

Speaker 1 (02:48:55):
Yeah, we have. We have the largest waterfall in North America.

Speaker 7 (02:48:59):
Because it is America. They're like, not exotic enough.

Speaker 2 (02:49:02):
Well, Bond has also never been to Australia.

Speaker 1 (02:49:04):
He's like, you know what, I am from England, f
the other Commonwealth.

Speaker 2 (02:49:09):
That's kind of what it seems, you know, something that
I would say that I think Bond does really well.
And this also is what I think creates part of
the problematic nature of Bond is Bond movies have a
style and a tone to them that other movies don't,
and almost to where they are so much of a

(02:49:31):
dream fantasy like part of the Bond movies. I feel,
and part of the reason why I think Bond has
become this cipher is because and this happens to me
in certain scenes is I feel sometimes when you're watching
a Bond movie, like you see yourself as Bond walking
through that movie, and I think that's something that like,
I think that is.

Speaker 1 (02:49:50):
I can I interrupt you really?

Speaker 2 (02:49:51):
Please?

Speaker 1 (02:49:51):
Do you think that's because you're a man? I don't
feel that way when I watch.

Speaker 2 (02:49:55):
Well, yes I do. I think that is definitely for
a male audience. But but I mean, you know that
is the sad thing to say that that James Bond
movies do scale skew heavily male.

Speaker 1 (02:50:04):
Yeah, I don't even think they're trying to do.

Speaker 2 (02:50:05):
Yes, yes, you know, you know, which is why I
was so excited to have Danielle two female awesome co
hosts here. That's why I was like, yeah, I didn't
want this to be a sausage Bond party anyways. But
you know, they for definitely for male viewers. They I
do think they take on that like, oh yeah, I

(02:50:25):
could wear that suit.

Speaker 1 (02:50:26):
They did also tell you in every single movie that like, hey,
Bond was like a poor orphan, like he's not he.

Speaker 2 (02:50:32):
Is supposed to be every but there's every British birth,
there's that air of he's the coolest guy in the world.
And it's interesting that even in the movies where they
try to knock that down, like Skyfall, where they're just like, oh, man,
he's an old man, he's still the coolest guy in
the world. Like you know, like every movie, he's the
coolest guy in the world. And it's interesting that Daniel

(02:50:53):
Craig franchise has been a lot of films about like
he's not he's tired, he's haggard, he doesn't like the
government anymore, and he's like no, but he's still the
coolest guy. Ashley, what do you think the Bond franchise
does really well?

Speaker 1 (02:51:06):
I think they do a really good job casting really
pretty people. I also think we like Bond movies because
of something that you both brought up earlier. We like
the familiarity you know what a James Bond movie is
going to be, and even the garbageist James Bond movies,
and there's more than one. I'm sad to say, your

(02:51:27):
mileage on which one those are may vary. They're all
still going to give you the opening fight scene. They're
gonna give you the barrel shot, They're gonna give you
the Bond girl. They're gonna give you at least two countries.
They're going to give you a lecture from m They're
going to give you gadgets from like we go to
Bond movies to see those things, which is why Cassina

(02:51:48):
Royale in a lot of ways is such an outlier
because it's it's.

Speaker 2 (02:51:51):
Absent of a lot of those things, or even the
song and the title sequence exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:51:54):
Exactly, Yeah, like you know what you're getting into. And
I think especially for I think most consumers now grew
up watching Bond in some way, shape or form, because
the franchise is so old. It's like kids grow up,
you just know who back it was?

Speaker 2 (02:52:09):
The Cable was it T and T? There Spike that
did the twenty fours?

Speaker 1 (02:52:13):
The Network for men, twenty eight days of double oh seven.

Speaker 4 (02:52:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:52:16):
Every time there was a new Bond, they would do
twenty four hours of dang.

Speaker 1 (02:52:19):
Yeah yeah, yeah, fifteen days double whatever whatever it was.

Speaker 2 (02:52:23):
Yeah, it was so weird for like most of the
nineties Bond films for Thanksgiving movies is weird, which is
very weird.

Speaker 7 (02:52:34):
I think that's that's so interesting. I think Die Another
Day was my first in theater.

Speaker 2 (02:52:41):
I think mine was The World is not Enough.

Speaker 1 (02:52:43):
Mine was because.

Speaker 7 (02:52:46):
Wow, ours are all three like back to back.

Speaker 3 (02:52:48):
Yeah, yeah, so funny.

Speaker 5 (02:52:50):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (02:52:51):
All right. Danielle Katie Rosinski asked in The Evening Standard
how long Bond can remain a big screen behemoth in
this streaming central era of content overlord, excuse me overload
before concluding, Dragging Britain's cinemas out of the COVID doul
drums is probably Bond's toughest mission yet, and the entire

(02:53:12):
industry will be watching to see if he can pull
it off. So No Time to Die, even more so
than Black Widow, was the film that got delayed more
than any other film. I think it's been delayed like
six times at this point. I'm actually surprised. At the
time of this recording, No Time to Die has not opened,

(02:53:34):
and I will say to listeners that hasn't open domestically,
has an open domestic has opened internationally, but I still
think they're going to pull the rug out from under
I said, delay it again, Like there's still part of
me where I'm like, Oh, we may not see it.
We may not see it. I don't know. It's performing
really well set. But Daniel, I want to ask you
this question. We've had Bond for fifty plus years. How
many more years of James Bond movies do you think

(02:53:55):
we have?

Speaker 7 (02:53:57):
Wow? I feel like not that many. Oh whoa, just
because just because you know, I mean, and maybe it
is one of those things that's just always going to
be there in some shape or form. Maybe we'll have
like maybe there will be like a Doctor Who thing

(02:54:18):
where there's a break and it's gone and then it
comes back and.

Speaker 1 (02:54:21):
Then all five living James Bonds.

Speaker 7 (02:54:27):
So it could very well be something that just you know,
continues for a very long time. But I think it's relevance.
I'm just not sure, because you know, we're we're starting
to get more and more in tune with the stories
of you know, more diverse stories. And right now we

(02:54:51):
have the most privileged man, I mean, not by birth,
but by a cha to travel and stay in the
nicest hotels, and he you know, is legally allowed to
kill people. So I mean, it's like the greatest privilege.

Speaker 2 (02:55:13):
So I don't know, a great Bond movie titled The
Greatest Privilege.

Speaker 1 (02:55:17):
The Greatest, the Greatest Privilege.

Speaker 7 (02:55:23):
It just feels like not that people are gonna you know, Oh,
I don't want to watch this anymore. But I just
wonder how long until they run out of things you
can do? Because we're essentially looking at, you know, this
character who has so much lore? Now you know, how
long until the stories that you start telling about him

(02:55:46):
directly contradict you know, previous movies.

Speaker 2 (02:55:48):
Previous movies. Yeah, yeah, and some of them have I think,
But Ashley, what do you feel? How how many more
years of Bond do you think we have?

Speaker 1 (02:55:57):
So I wrote these questions, but I think the more
I think the better question is how many more years
of good James Bond movies do we have? Answer to
both question, I think I think I'll die before they
stop making James Bond content. How many more good movies
do we have? I think that depends very heavily on

(02:56:17):
the Broccolis. Unfortunately. I would say that they have made
some some smart decisions, But I think the longer Bond
has gone on. I think that the Broccolis sometimes do
hamper the evolution of the character and the franchise. Also,
please uh, I can send you my reps information. I
would love to be in a James Bond movie at

(02:56:37):
any time.

Speaker 2 (02:56:37):
We actually I Barbara Broccoli on the phone right now.

Speaker 1 (02:56:42):
But I think that's the and and I think and
you can say this about literally any franchise owned by
any specific person, but it is the difference where Bond
is not just owned by a studio, right it is
owned by this specific family who has stuck their nails
into it and said you're not gonna you know, it's
Disney with the Mouse and it's wb with Superman. And

(02:57:03):
my hope is that as future Broccolies come along, because
it's the family business, that they continue to make really
intelligent casting choices. I remember when Daniel Craig was cast,
people were like, Bond can't be blond, and we're so bad.
It was, it was, it was, it was wild, and
he is you know, for my money, certainly if not

(02:57:23):
the best Bond, like a top tier Bond. They've also
cast people who were not right for the time but
turned out to be really fabulous choices in my opinion
like Timothy Dalton, and I think if I really hope
that they I don't think you have to listen to
your families for everything, but I do hope that the
fact that people like Idris Elba are in the discussion

(02:57:44):
for fan front runners, I hope that that stuff is
on boarded because if it is, I think we could
have like twenty five or fifty more years of like
middling to good James Bond movies. But I unfortunately think
if we cast a Tom Hardy he or Richard.

Speaker 2 (02:58:09):
Madden who is zach Efron, I guarantee you the conversation
has been I'm sorry, we will pass away. It'll hurt
my heart as well. Will it will hurt my heart
as well, but I can pass away. I guarantee you.
A movie executive has been.

Speaker 1 (02:58:24):
Like what I went on zach Efron James because he's
not because he's not English.

Speaker 2 (02:58:28):
That's why I don't think they care.

Speaker 1 (02:58:29):
I think they do.

Speaker 2 (02:58:30):
I think the Broccolis care. I don't think Sony executives guilt,
but the Broccolis have the.

Speaker 1 (02:58:35):
Final say on a lot of this stuff.

Speaker 7 (02:58:37):
I love.

Speaker 2 (02:58:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:58:38):
So so my point is, I think if and I
like Tom hardy and I like Richard Madden some place.
Don't argue with me about that. But I think if
we get more of the same, I think we're going
to get twenty five or fifty more years of kind
of what we got in the nineties, you know, like,
oh he's good looking. Oh there's a good seen here

(02:59:00):
in a good song here. But boy, that's this is
really just a movie. So we're we're in this interesting
and I know that I wrote this question and I'm
not answering it at all, but we're in an interest.
We're at an interesting precipice right now because we don't
know what's happening next. And I kind of thought we
were going to go full Doctor Who, and they were
going to announce the new Bond before.

Speaker 2 (02:59:23):
I thought so too for No Time to Die aired,
But their answer has been we'll tell you in twenty
twenty two.

Speaker 1 (02:59:28):
Yeah, yeahah yeah. So I think that's actually kind of
nice because you're letting Daniel Craig exit his last.

Speaker 2 (02:59:34):
Which, which, by the way, most he's kind of the
first Bond to actually get a real exit. I mean,
we haven't seen the movie yet. No, that's no, but
I'm saying I'm just saying as an actor.

Speaker 1 (02:59:45):
Ah, I see, I see, like that's not just what
that is. Contract wasn't real.

Speaker 2 (02:59:49):
Most saying exactly. Most of the other ones just they
just didn't activate their contract.

Speaker 1 (02:59:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:59:54):
So like Pierce Browsman didn't know he wasn't coming back
for a number five.

Speaker 1 (02:59:57):
Well, I guess Daniel Craig had the better agents than Okay,
So I want to ask around.

Speaker 2 (03:00:05):
Can I answer the question? Sorry, that's okay. I want to.

Speaker 1 (03:00:07):
I want to I apologize.

Speaker 2 (03:00:08):
It's all good, It's it's all good, Ashley. I want to.
I have a theory about how many more years we're
gonna have Jamond movies. I do agree with you, Ashley
that I think we're going to see James Bond content
before until all of us die. Yeah, but I think
we only get movies for the next twenty years at Max.

Speaker 1 (03:00:25):
You think then it's all holiday programs.

Speaker 2 (03:00:27):
No, I think what's going to happen is is I
think I think the movies will kind of go back
into a trophy stage, like they will become a little silly.
We'll get too many invisible cars. We're gonna we're gonna go,
you know with future technology that I don't even know yet,
And I do think, like Danielle said, they will take
a doctor who break like Bond will disappear for a while,

(03:00:51):
and then I think we're going to get a James
Bond streaming series. And since Amazon co I.

Speaker 1 (03:00:57):
Was gonna say, did you think do you think that
because it was Perch history?

Speaker 2 (03:01:00):
Well, I also just think that like if somebody were
to do like an HBO level or a Queen's Gambit
level series, like based on the novels, I think it
would make an astounding television show.

Speaker 1 (03:01:10):
But do you think Bond is a character for development
in that sort of like we usually only see him
for like almost three hours now at a time.

Speaker 2 (03:01:18):
Well, to me, I think that's the only way you
can evolve the character to stick around longer.

Speaker 1 (03:01:22):
Do you think do you not think that if they
do a television series it's not going to be some
eighteen year old actor playing Bond.

Speaker 2 (03:01:29):
I don't know, because I'm not a cast as it first,
you know, I don't know what's like my fear, I
don't know what it will be. The interesting thing will
be is how long can the Broccolis hold onto the rights?
What will Amazon change of the steal because that's going
to be a big factor. And Amazon did say that
they're going to let him keep them on the big screen,
but I still think I also think Amazon's going to
be like, we need a James Bond show and we

(03:01:49):
need it now.

Speaker 1 (03:01:51):
Well, Jack Ryan did well for them.

Speaker 2 (03:01:53):
Well yeah, and you know Amazon is.

Speaker 1 (03:01:55):
Did I say the right Jack?

Speaker 3 (03:01:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (03:01:57):
Jack Ryan? Okay.

Speaker 1 (03:01:58):
I don't know the difference between Jack Ryan and Jack reacherd.

Speaker 2 (03:02:01):
But I think the current Eon franchise of films is
I think twenty forty at the map.

Speaker 1 (03:02:09):
You think, do you think she's on our last legs?

Speaker 2 (03:02:11):
I think we're on the downward slope, I really, And
I know like the movies have gotten bigger. But I
only say that because I can look at Pierce Brows then,
and I can look at Daniel Craig's films and the
storylines that they're producing, and great writers have wrote both
of those things. Yeah, but they're still all grappling with

(03:02:31):
what don't we do with this guy outside of the
Cold War?

Speaker 1 (03:02:34):
Yeah? Yeah, Honestly, I'd be like cut the budget in
half and force them to be created.

Speaker 2 (03:02:39):
I'd go to Canada for God's sake.

Speaker 1 (03:02:41):
But the original Bond movies are b movies, and I
think maybe we should embrace part of that as this
character of all's going forward? Okay, can I yes, I'm
sorry now, yes, I'm super excited to do this, which
is also I apologize for jumping the gun good. So
we're talking about this is not the this is the
penulty by question. Our final question will be is James
but it's still relevant? But I would love to go

(03:03:01):
through each of the actors who have played Bond and
through the lens a modern lens reflecting on them. Are
each of these Are their stories still relevant? And I
think your question your answers might change for each of them.
So we'll let Danielle go first this time because I
I a back seated the last time Danielle is Sean

(03:03:22):
Connery's James Bond still relevant?

Speaker 7 (03:03:26):
Damn?

Speaker 2 (03:03:29):
I don't know, probably the hardest one, right.

Speaker 7 (03:03:32):
It's hard because I know that it's set the tone,
know what the franchise is, and I honestly think From
Russia with Love is one of the greatest Bond films
ever made. It it is, It's my favorite Connery and
I think that it can't be topped. I love it,

(03:03:52):
So I mean, like I don't know. It's just so
hard because every thing about him is so problematic. Now
yeah yeah, yeah, you hear, you know, people quoting him
about like stuff he said in real life, like yeah,
also not super great of a guy. So yeah, so

(03:04:17):
it's really hard. I look at his era with fondness
in certain ways, but you also have to look at
it with a little bit of pain.

Speaker 2 (03:04:29):
All right, Jason as a secret agent, yes, in dealing
with women, no, big, big no. But in terms of
like how he is a secret agent, I think he's
still very relevant and he's he's still to this day,
is the most. And it makes sense because Ian Fleming
is live. He's the most like Ian Fleming Bond, with

(03:04:50):
Dalton being a close tie.

Speaker 7 (03:04:52):
I was, yeah, I was about to argue with.

Speaker 2 (03:04:54):
It's it's a coin toss about whether it's Dalton or Connery.
But you know, but like he is the most. I
don't know, because I still view like everybody talks about
secret agents and stuff like that, and to me, in
my head, I'm always like, James Bond is an assassin.

Speaker 1 (03:05:06):
More than a secret agent. Yeah, certainly he's usually sent
into places to just shoot somebody. Yeah, he's not usually
gathering actual yeah, and then he stumbles upon the real
plot or whatever. And Sean Connery is the one in
terms of relevancy to be in an Assassin is, yes,
but Connery is, as Danielle said, he's a very problematic.
But also he's the guy that originated Madden talk and

(03:05:27):
he slapped that girl in the butt, yeah, which is
probably the most offensive thing James Bond might have done
besides a couple. Uh, there's some there's some stuff, other
lovey dovey stuff, but like the man talk is pretty problematic.

Speaker 2 (03:05:41):
I think I think of.

Speaker 1 (03:05:43):
You looking at this, I I'm sort of approaching this
as like what I tell someone who never watched James
Bond to check out this era. Oh okay, that's like
the metric by which I'm coming to it. And I think,
as Danielle pointed out, from like a pop culture perspective,
I think Sean Connery Bond is relevant because it's in
so much that's come of since then. But it definitely
comes with a big caveat of like, but Women was

(03:06:05):
filmed in the sixties. This was filmed It's very like
Doctor No. Anyway, all right, I think this is gonna
be a quick dirty answer. George Lasanbye, Danielle. Is he
still relevant?

Speaker 2 (03:06:18):
He's alive?

Speaker 1 (03:06:18):
He could find you on Twitter.

Speaker 7 (03:06:21):
I don't care. I'm personally not a fan. I think
I'm not. I mean I think his I think his
one film is pretty good.

Speaker 1 (03:06:31):
But yeah, you're a welcome in.

Speaker 7 (03:06:36):
Hard and Diana Rigg is great. Yes, personally I'm not
a huge fan. And a little bit of it is
also knowing that he he didn't approach it the way
I think a lot of actors approached the role. He
was just like, oh, I want to be that guy.
I want to be cool, which you know, you know,

(03:06:57):
I'm sure every actor who's played Bond was like, oh cool,
I'm gonna be the cool guy. But he just was
very up friend about it. You know, he wasn't approaching
it from like what story can I tell? So I'm
not a huge fan, Jason, Yes, Yes, in all aspects,
because one, not only does George lasnim Be wear the

(03:07:18):
suit that was later made famous by Austin Powers, but
he's the only Bond that gets married as far as
we know.

Speaker 2 (03:07:27):
As far as we know, he he like truly falls
in love with Tracy, and to me, that makes him
a very relevant Bond.

Speaker 1 (03:07:33):
Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna saying no, I think this movie
is I think I think his tenure is infinitely skippable.

Speaker 2 (03:07:40):
All right.

Speaker 7 (03:07:41):
Well, also, I do also want to point out he
slaps the woman who later becomes his wife.

Speaker 2 (03:07:46):
Yes he does, that's true. It was the sixties.

Speaker 1 (03:07:49):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (03:07:50):
I know that doesn't explain it all the way, but
damn the sixties.

Speaker 3 (03:07:53):
Damn Yeah, civil rights?

Speaker 1 (03:07:55):
What Huven's lib who? This is a James Bond movie.

Speaker 2 (03:07:59):
All right?

Speaker 1 (03:08:00):
I think we're getting into the two most controversial Danielle
is Roger Moore's James Bond percent.

Speaker 2 (03:08:08):
Percent.

Speaker 7 (03:08:09):
I love him, and here is why.

Speaker 1 (03:08:11):
Please.

Speaker 7 (03:08:12):
They're definitely films in his stretch that I skip, but
a couple of them are my favorites. And what I
love about him as a Bond is that if you
look at Daniel Craig, if you look at Pierce Brasen,
if you look at Connery even, they are so tough
all the time. And one thing that I love about

(03:08:34):
Roger Moore is that he doesn't. He's not always trying
to pretend like he's tough, Like he's got vulnerable moments,
moments where you know Bond always like in a lot
of the films, like his life is in danger, and
there are a couple of moments where Roger Moore looks
severely freaked out, And I really appreciate that because I
think there's something to be said for like, you know,

(03:08:56):
a bit of the softness that he brought to the role.
And I think you can still be an awesome bad
ass while still you know, showing vulnerability. And so that
is why I think Roger Moore is great relevant Jason.

Speaker 1 (03:09:10):
Is Roger Moore's bond relevant?

Speaker 2 (03:09:13):
No? What this is the bell bottom bond? He literally
weller suits with bell bottoms on it. Now, I like
Roger Moore. I do have the Roger Moore I think
is probably the most suave of all of the bonds.

Speaker 1 (03:09:28):
But I think when he's good, he's very good.

Speaker 2 (03:09:31):
Yeah, but I think, to me, yes, and when he
when a Roger Moore film is good, like The Spy
Love Me like it is solid. But I feel that
like for me, the producers in the franchise took the
wrong messages or the wrong notes from the Roger Moore
and as he progressed through the series, he to me,
he kind of becomes the parody of Bond that we

(03:09:53):
all make fun of. Like I feel like when you
make fun of Bond, you're making fun of Roger Moore's
Bond or Pierce bros And Bond. We're gonna get to
that later. But also I mean, yeah, he he wears
bell bottoms of his bond, Like his bonds to me
are even more aged than Connery's, like whereas like when
Connery's you look at how people are dressing, but like
in terms of like the storylines and the way like

(03:10:15):
Conrie acts in some of those scenes, like I feel
like that is a movie that could have been made
ten years ago, whereas like every Roger Moore film feels
like a seventies film. And also I will never let
Roger Moore live down that he brown faced it in
Octopussy as Colonel Luis Toto.

Speaker 1 (03:10:33):
Yeah, as the most like very see Connery was in
yellow face.

Speaker 2 (03:10:39):
That is fair, that is fair, that is fair, But
Colonel Luis Toto, I felt, was like wowsers of offensiveness.

Speaker 7 (03:10:47):
Great.

Speaker 1 (03:10:48):
I also want a caveat it by saying that of
all the actors who have played James Bond, I think
Roger Bore might be the only one who's nice.

Speaker 2 (03:10:55):
Yeah, you're probably correct why.

Speaker 7 (03:10:57):
He was like a pacifist in real life.

Speaker 1 (03:11:00):
Yeah, he seems. He seems like a lovely man. I
don't think his films are incredibly relevant. I think there's
a couple of caveats of like, there are some really
really good ones in there, and then there's a movie
that has Grace Jones in it. So just like I
don't know, in vibe your if you do it all right, yeah,

(03:11:20):
it's toxicative choice, and like, just watch the movie for
Grace Jones.

Speaker 7 (03:11:23):
It is a personal favorite of mine that I know
is trash. Oh yeah, I know it, but I watch
it way more than Goldfinger. Well, this is a Goldfinger household.

Speaker 1 (03:11:36):
So we're gonna we're gonna have to get together and
we'll do a double feature of gold.

Speaker 2 (03:11:44):
Oh no, no, that's like that's another thing that I
meant to say this earlier, in the strength of the
James Bond franchises. I also think that a strength of
James Bond franchise is that we all, I think all
Bond fans, whether we like the same films or not,
we all have like a silly, goofy Bond that we
know is Bill Google, but we love it.

Speaker 1 (03:12:02):
But also another strength of the brand as a whole
is that you can put three people in a room
and say what's your favorite Bond movie and we could
all say a different Bond like that is That's lovely.
But now, second, I think most controversial Bond we're going
to talk about, Danielle is Timothy Dalton. Is James Bond relevant.

Speaker 2 (03:12:21):
To me?

Speaker 4 (03:12:22):
He is?

Speaker 2 (03:12:24):
That's the correct answer.

Speaker 3 (03:12:25):
He was.

Speaker 7 (03:12:26):
I think Timothy Dalton was the first Bond who I
was sexually attracted to.

Speaker 1 (03:12:34):
Yes, Danielle.

Speaker 7 (03:12:37):
Yeah, the rest of them, I think they're clearly all
very good looking guys. I've never been into a single
one until Timothy Dalton. He just he's everything. He looks amazing.
Licensed to Kill is not something I watch a lot.

Speaker 2 (03:12:56):
It's a tough one.

Speaker 7 (03:12:58):
Well, it's the it's the least spy movie of all time.

Speaker 5 (03:13:02):
I like it.

Speaker 1 (03:13:03):
You're wrong, your opinion is well, I'm just saying like, oh,
I'm just I'm fully teasing.

Speaker 7 (03:13:11):
It's just, uh, it doesn't have a lot of espionage
in it, which you know, no, people need different levels
of espionage. But yeah, it's hard because he only had
the two. I do think what's cool is people have
pointed out he is the most monogamous Bond, part of

(03:13:31):
that being that he only had two movies. Part of
it also being the like the AIDS scare happened during
his run, so they were like, let's not have him
hooking up with everyone. But he is a personal favorite
of mine, Jason.

Speaker 1 (03:13:46):
Is Timothy Dalton's James Bond still relevant?

Speaker 2 (03:13:48):
Yeah, I think so, because it's the thing where I
think more people realize this now is that Timothy Dalton
was the pre Daniel Craig Bond before Daniel Craig. And
you can see that the audiences of the late eighties
early nineties were not ready for that because they went,
they turned the down way too far the other direction
for a dac nows.

Speaker 1 (03:14:07):
Back Roger Moore, We're gonna find a young man who
looks exactly.

Speaker 2 (03:14:10):
Like well, maybe not Roger Moore, but and PRIs Posen
is very Roger Moore in is. But they they decided,
they were like, we got to go back to campy,
like we got to go back to the silly, over
the top villains and we cannot have realism.

Speaker 1 (03:14:21):
Yeah, the Bond franchise utterly failing to find a middle
ground because then with Daniel Craig. It's like, oh no, no, no, no,
He's gonna kill someone with his bare hand.

Speaker 2 (03:14:28):
It is interesting because I do agree with everything you
said about Licensed to Kill, Danielle, but I also think
that License to Kill is a good one to show
people that are very like anti Bond, or people that
think Bond is too silly and too like because because
that movie Licensed Kill is just a revenge quest. It's brutal. Yeah,
and and and you know, and I think it's it's

(03:14:49):
for me. I kind of feel like it's an easy
like entry way into Bond before you get to some
of the more extraordinary or exaggerated elements of What do
you think about Timothy Dallan? You like Timney Dolan, right,
love him.

Speaker 1 (03:15:04):
He's also enjoying a really neat career like renaissance right now,
where like Samothy Dalton is cool.

Speaker 7 (03:15:10):
And he still looks so good.

Speaker 1 (03:15:12):
He looks he's aging better than Daniel Craig. And I
think Daniel Craig is very attractive. But yeah, no, when
Timothy Dalton showed up in Doom Patrol, I was like, yeah,
looks really amazing.

Speaker 7 (03:15:25):
And I don't know if you guys watched Penny dreadful. Yeah,
my gosh, he's amazing.

Speaker 1 (03:15:32):
He also green.

Speaker 7 (03:15:33):
He also kisses Eva Green, which means she has kissed
two bonds.

Speaker 1 (03:15:38):
Good for Sir Timothy, two of my favorite bonds. Jealous
Yeah yeah, okay, back to the camp. Camp Danielle is
Pierce Broson relevant?

Speaker 7 (03:15:54):
I guess it depends on what you mean by relevant.

Speaker 1 (03:15:56):
Whatever you want, baby, it's your opinion.

Speaker 7 (03:15:59):
I mean, I I think GoldenEye is great. I think
it's wonderful. It's in my top three. And then also,
if you were a kid in the nineties, like GoldenEye
was such a huge deal because of the video game. Also,
Natalia is one of my favorite Bond girls of all time.

Speaker 2 (03:16:16):
Oh yeah, except for the level in the video game
where she kept getting in the way and I'd shoot her.
Yeah not that, not that that's a real YouTube video.
That's a real thing.

Speaker 7 (03:16:26):
But yeah, No, her her character is great. You know,
she's not a spy, she's just like, what is she
a programmer?

Speaker 2 (03:16:35):
Yeah, she's a computer programmer.

Speaker 7 (03:16:36):
Yeah yeah, but she's like she's she's wonderful. She's one
of my favorite Bond girls. So I love that movie,
and because of that, I can't hate on his era
because of GoldenEye. Yeah, and then my dad liked him,
so I always thought, you know, I know some people,

(03:16:57):
some men who think he was like too pretty to
be Bond, but my dad liked him, and my dad is,
you know, like the usually only likes the man's man
type of guy. So yeah, I think he's pretty cool.
I think I think people like.

Speaker 1 (03:17:11):
Him as a daddy's girl. I always I completely appreciate
the well my dad liked it, so I have a
soft spot for it. Jason, let's argue, is Pierce Brosnan
still relevant.

Speaker 2 (03:17:22):
You know, interestingly enough? I think all of Danielle's assumptions
about Golden Eye are correct. I do think that like
Pierce doesn't get enough credit for basically bringing the franchise
back to life, because there were so many articles in
the early nineties in movie fandom and you know, all
the magazines like Fangoria and stuff like that, that they

(03:17:44):
thought that Timoth Dalton killed the Bond franchise, like absolutely
killed it dead and there was no way that it
was going to come back because I forget his second movie,
The Living Daylights.

Speaker 1 (03:17:54):
Yeah, the Living Living British song all time. Sorry, Living
Daylights was the first one.

Speaker 2 (03:18:01):
It was licensed to oh, licensed to kill, Yes, but
licensed to Kill is the one that like a lot
of people thought killed the franchise and no revenge question
and GoldenEye. GoldenEye really brought it back. So like, for GoldenEye,
I'm going to say yes, and for the rest of
his films, I'm gonna say no.

Speaker 1 (03:18:21):
I think through the larger pop culture e sperence, so
much of this is the video game, which is we
and we talked about that ad nausea in our Prierce
Brasson episode. I think for the impact on pop culture,
it's yes. But again, if I'm showing you the canon,
I'm showing you only GoldenEye. Yes, And then I'm like, no,
matter how much you like him, I'm like, please, don't

(03:18:42):
waste your time unless you're a completion is when you're
going all in, then it's all game.

Speaker 2 (03:18:47):
What about jins I have?

Speaker 7 (03:18:49):
I was gonna say I have a little bit of
love for Dian another day one, not being like I
know it's hot garbage, but you know me, I will
never argue that it's not.

Speaker 2 (03:18:59):
But it is your first bond.

Speaker 7 (03:19:01):
It was my first one in theaters.

Speaker 1 (03:19:04):
There's also a nothing wrong with liking something that's bad
and knowing that it's.

Speaker 7 (03:19:10):
Because it's like the entertainment value is there for you.
So yeah, I also think Gustav Graves is a great
character played by the incredible Toby Stevens. So I have
a little bit of love for that movie in a
this is a fun watch to just throw it on.
Watch it.

Speaker 1 (03:19:27):
It's not great, but I do love the fencing scene.

Speaker 2 (03:19:31):
It's right, like Madonna's canon, very silly, you know.

Speaker 1 (03:19:34):
I could use here's a controversial opinion. I could use
less Madonna in all things all right, most specifically Avida,
but that's another podcast.

Speaker 2 (03:19:46):
Actually, uh okay, we're down to the final bond, so.

Speaker 1 (03:19:49):
I don't know if it's fair to do Daniel Craig
because he's our bond right at the time of this recording,
so he is the most relevant.

Speaker 2 (03:19:58):
I have an answer for this.

Speaker 1 (03:20:00):
If you don't, you say no, I'm coming over this table.

Speaker 2 (03:20:02):
Well here's the answer. It's yes for now. Yeah, I
think it's going to be known about ten years.

Speaker 1 (03:20:09):
Because I don't think Casino Royal alone will Well, here's
the thing, because we just talked about right, Pierce Brows,
and we kind of all agreed that GoldenEye like kind
of like singularly like stands above the rest of his films,
and so you got to give Piers a little bit
of props of that.

Speaker 2 (03:20:24):
And I do think Daniel will get props for Skyfall
and but even more so Casina Rale and maybe no
time that. I don't know, we haven't seen it at
this point. But the interesting thing about Daniel Craig's films
is that they are very much a sort of there's
no better way to describe this, a sort of Christopher
Nolany type tone, all of them, because you can tell

(03:20:47):
the Casina Rale is very inspired by Batman Begins. In fact,
that's where they got the idea that Broccoli has actually
even said that that's where they got the idea to
reboot the franchise. And I do think that Daniel to
keep grants to Batman again began. It is fantastic. But
you know, the the Daniel Craig series of films, I

(03:21:07):
do feel, weirdly feel very much of their time period,
and you are correct that I don't think we can
answer this, but it'll be interesting to see that, like
in twenty forty, if we were to watch Skyfall, would
we be like, oh boy, that's definitely twenty eleven.

Speaker 1 (03:21:22):
You're gonna put in the calendar, Danielle, can we pin
you to come back in twenty four?

Speaker 2 (03:21:25):
Yeah yeah this text just text me yeah. But other no,
we're gonna hollogrout holophone on you. Oh yeah, yeah we
got a hollow phone.

Speaker 7 (03:21:34):
I get it.

Speaker 2 (03:21:34):
But no, I would say he's definitely yes for now
because he as well as like just Pierce bros. And
he saved the franchise because Pierce bros. And almost killed
with Day Another Day. They actually the second time in
our lifetimes, they were all like or my lifetime, they
were like Bond's gonna die and it's never coming back.
And Daniel Craig saved the franchise. So he is of
course a yes. But I'm curious again, like when we

(03:21:56):
have this reunion episode in twenty forty, will we say
yes again? I don't know. It'll be interesting.

Speaker 1 (03:22:02):
We're all gonna look so good when we're forty of course.

Speaker 7 (03:22:05):
For sure.

Speaker 3 (03:22:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (03:22:08):
No, it's interesting because I think we've already seen I
mean I have at least, and I'm solely basing the
some conversations I've had with other Bond fans over the
lastly handful of years. But I've already seen the love
for Quantum of Solace grow a little bit upon reasons.

Speaker 1 (03:22:28):
So interesting that you bring that up, because.

Speaker 7 (03:22:30):
Like, I don't love that movie. I believe that was
during the writer's strike and Daniel Craig kind of had
to like write part of it.

Speaker 2 (03:22:37):
That is correct, Yeah, that is correct.

Speaker 7 (03:22:40):
It's really not a standout film at all. But I
have noticed, and I've spoken to a couple of other
people who said that they have. I don't know how
indicative that is of the fans in general, but it
is much better watching it now than it is when
it first came out. And part of that might be
we've seen more of the care and we're able to

(03:23:01):
kind of like project what we think of him now
on him during a rewatch, I.

Speaker 2 (03:23:08):
Will say, Danielle, I am one of those people. We
did a big James Bond rewatch last year, and now
I will say because Quantum the sauce, it gets a
lot better if you follow it up very close to
when you watch Casina 'real, because they are very much
of a piece. It's a sequel, yes, exactly, And I
will say that I preferred Quantumo Sallace over Specter in

(03:23:30):
rewatching all of Daniel.

Speaker 7 (03:23:31):
Gregg's films, I agree with that. Yeah, yeah, because Specter
doesn't suffer from certain downsides the way that Quantum of
Salace does. But again, Quantum of Solace might just pull
through because of a few good elements.

Speaker 2 (03:23:46):
Yeah, I mean, and weirdly, I think it's because one
of its main problems is Quantum Solace has too many
action scenes. But weirdly, I think that also helps it
make it less boring, you know. So yeah, there we go.

Speaker 1 (03:23:57):
So it's interesting because I did want to ask to
close this out, the title of the episode is James
Bond Still Relevant? I really feel like we're all of
a piece here, even though we've had various differing opinions.
Answer well, i'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say my
thesis and then of course let everyone else chime in.

(03:24:17):
So it seems to be that we're all like yes
asterisks right.

Speaker 2 (03:24:24):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (03:24:25):
However, we all seem to agree that there are some
things that continually need to evolve in order for it
to stay relevant, And it seems like the big question
that we don't have the answer to is who's going
to carry this going forward because there's a big difference
between I'm just gonna pick three actors who are in
the conversation between Idris Elba, Kit Harrington and Haley Atwell right,

(03:24:49):
like all of them, it would mean something different if
they took on the role, so right, one of them
would be exciting. So if any every one this is
like wants to add, this is your final time to
stand up before we're closing the class. So final thoughts
on is bond relevant And we'll throw to Danielle first

(03:25:10):
because she is our hallowed guest.

Speaker 7 (03:25:14):
Yeah, I think it's a yes and a no. Yes
because we love this character and we love this genre
possible No, just because while we don't need to abolish
the character of you know, a white man, how much
more do we need to see uh.

Speaker 1 (03:25:38):
In that vein?

Speaker 2 (03:25:40):
So yeah, I don't know, Jason, you know, I'm gonna
say yes just for the simple fact that, like, we
just spent an hour talking about this.

Speaker 1 (03:25:50):
Guy and we had opinions and.

Speaker 2 (03:25:53):
Whether they were like right or wrong. I kind of
think that definitely makes them relevant. So I'm just gonna
say yes.

Speaker 1 (03:25:59):
Well, I'm gonna gonna stick with my yes with an
asterix of I hope he keeps blooming and growing the
way he has.

Speaker 7 (03:26:07):
I think I guess I'm going back to my to
my answer absolutely if that's okay. I don't know if
the character is relevant, but I think that the genre
and franchise is.

Speaker 2 (03:26:23):
That's a fair way to put it said. I like that.
Now we all know that the character of James Bond
Junior always relevant, So I think that's yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (03:26:32):
Where is my James Bone spin off starring a dog?

Speaker 2 (03:26:39):
He's gonna hire me at and I have Barbara on
the phone. Wow, Danielle, thank you so much for joining
us in our conversation of is James Bond relevant? Would
you please let our listeners know where they can find
your awesome podcast and where they can find you online?

Speaker 4 (03:26:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (03:26:57):
So yes. I co host the Anglophoneles podcast that is
files with an F. It is a play on Anglo
file a person obsessed with England and English media.

Speaker 1 (03:27:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (03:27:09):
We cover British TV shows and British movies and franchises.
We cover anything from British sitcoms from the seventies to
stuff being made now. Yeah, and you can find us
on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, anywhere that you can find podcasts.

Speaker 2 (03:27:28):
Nice, well, everybody out there go listen to that podcast.
We want to thank Danielle for participating in our James
Bond Junior Conversation as I'm telling it right now, everybody.
You can find recommendations towards James Bond on our website, Ashley,
where can they find us?

Speaker 1 (03:27:44):
If you go to geekhistory lesson dot com slash recommended reading,
we are going to have some reading and viewing options
for you. Of course, this round, there's a cute little
Amazon widget. You go in there, you pick what you
think is good, and your spy power steal money from
Jeff Bezos's pocket and put them back at hours that's right.

Speaker 2 (03:28:00):
And we're also gonna kidnap Danielle and keep her around
on the Patreon over at patreon dot com slash job
only if that's yeah, that's right. Depend detends on how
good our invisible car is. So if at patreon dot
com slash jaw one, that's jaw i I in. We're
going to have an extra podcast with Danielle talking about
the best Bond moments, some of our favorite Bond moments,

(03:28:21):
So don't forget to check that out and support the podcast.
You can find Ashley on Instagram and Twitter at Ashley V. Robinson.
You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at John One.
That's jw I I in. That's it for geek history lesson.
Professor Ashley, will you please close out this secret document file.

Speaker 1 (03:28:40):
I'll right you. Two blunt instruments classes now dismissed

Speaker 3 (03:29:00):
At a

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