Beyond James Bond

Should James Bond Stay Dead?
Photo: Mike Marsland/WireImage 

Note: This post contains a spoiler for the film No Time to Die

The marketing forces behind the James Bond films are at it again, stirring up the perennial debate over who should play the next 007. Online chatter is reaching a fever pitch. All of this suggests that an announcement is pending. 

According to this chatter, traditionalists will just have to get over the fact that, with Daniel Craig’s retirement from the role, straight white guys are no longer first in the running to succeed him. 

 

But the casting conversation is a diversion from the real issue. These movies always ended with the message, “James Bond will return.” The question today is, should he? As the world contemplates the future of the British monarchy, let's also reconsider Britain's most famous cinematic export.

Lest you think me callous, Bond has always held a special place in my heart. As a boy, my father introduced me to James Bond when he took my brothers and me to a drive-in on a school night to see a triple feature of Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Thunderball. That experience made me tingle with excitement. I bonded with James Bond. For decades, I got that same feeling whenever an opening sequence rolled on a new Bond escapade. 

 

So as a longtime fan, I thought I had skin in the game to determine the next James Bond. But the more I played along, I realized I was just going through the motions. My heart wasn’t in the debate. It was time to start thinking beyond James Bond. 

 

The idea of a moribund Bond has been baked into the films since 1967 with the fifth installment, You Only Live Twice. Before the opening credits, he ostensibly got gunned down in an upright Murphy bed. The character has been cheating death ever since.

1971’s Diamonds Are Forever is usually considered a low point among Bond aficionados, yet it is one of my favorites. I will go into why some other time. With Sean Connery’s final (for then) outing in the role, Diamonds foreshadowed the series’ end. The film even went so far as to put Bond in a coffin and arrange his funeral. At the time, many felt that the character could not and should not go on without Connery.

 

Well, it did. Nearly forty years later, many recognized Skyfall (2012) as a great film, not just a great Bond film. A Bondian masterpiece, Skyfall accepted the idea that the superspy’s best days were behind him. The plot involved Bond getting rusty, sober, and long in the tooth. His maternal relationship with spymaster M provided a long-absent emotional center. Here, at long last, the series reached its Oedipal apotheosis. The writers could do no better. Craig’s Bond would be back twice more after Skyfall, each time with diminishing returns.

 

This brings us to the question of succession, a loaded topic if ever there was one in Great Britain these days. I had intended this post to be a listicle of my top ten picks for a genre-bending Bond to succeed the great Daniel Craig. But I got stuck. I could not come up with ten luminaries, British or not, from the world of film or elsewhere I would truly like to see brandishing his Walther PPK or ordering shaken-not-stirred martinis.

 

Harry Styles, Cardi B, Prince Harry, Lin-Manuel Miranda, RuPaul, Paris Jackson – even Oprah could not save Bond. The time for boat rocking had passed. No one seemed capable of breathing new life into a dead-end role. All the talk of women, people of color, and LGBTQ actors is just stunt casting for a character who probably should have been retired along with pleated pants and dial-up internet access. 

 

It is hard to type those words. It feels both sacrilegious and a betrayal of something that gave me significant pleasure in my moviegoing past. But it was the Bond producers themselves who tipped me off. They came to the conclusion that Bond must die when they decided to kill off their moneymaker in Craig’s final film, No Time to Die. 

 

It disturbed me as much as the next fan to have my longtime hero meet such an unworthy demise. But the producers had it right. 60 years of Bond is long enough. They should have called it High Time to Die.

 

Since Bond’s own creators had the gumption to kill him off, maybe we loyalists should just try and quit him. Things are in flux across the pond these days. It is time for looking at things with fresh eyes. The late queen famously skydived with Bond in the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics. That quite literal high note won't be replicated any time soon.

 

Bond has lived twice and then some. Let’s see who gets the part, but be prepared to move on. Maybe Bond just needs to stay dead this time, and we all need to find another hero.