Amazon turns James Bond into the Man Without the Golden Gun In more than 60 years of adventures, James Bond has faced off against villains ranging from Blofeld to Le Chiffre. But none of them has managed to do what Jeff Bezos and his henchmen did to the international superspy: take his weapons away. Last week, eagle-eyed movie fans noticed that the promotional images used on Amazon …
This has nothing to do with "snowflakes", it's about the money.
James nets several times more money outside the USA than "domestic". A large part of that is earned in East Asia.
It seems those non-US viewers don't think gun fights are that cool. A gun is for back shooters. They prefer "honest" man-to-person fist&foot fights. Maybe a sword, but that's it.
It's just muricans who think drive-by shootings are somehow entertaining.
Anecdotally, I am aware of several Asian countries that tend to find displeasure in gun violence, at a government level anyway (China? Japan?)
They accept it exists. But the culture really is not the same.
Frankly I am not Asian, nor am I all that bothered if the gun appears or not. It all seems rather silly. But yes, I could imagine Chinese censors may object to glorification of guns in Western movies, and I could imagine Amazon Marketing execs could bow to those feelings
Ok, the box office numbers are quite obvious. Non-USA is 4x USA.
Then look at popular movies from Europe and East Asia. How many shootouts do you see? The average "spy movie" from East Asia is all about martial arts, think Jacky Chan et al.. Guns are too easy. Europe is even worse.
Shooting people is simply much less fun than beating, or cutting, them up. And there is no sponsor value either. You can't sell (pseudo-)assault rifles anywhere but in the USA.
So, James Bond is catering to the audience, and the audience is mostly non-USA.
If the Asians don't like bullets how do you explain the success of films like "Let the bullets fly"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_the_Bullets_Fly
Which grossed around 110 Million dollars ?
...warnings before the Rumpole reruns
What was that about then? About his QC interpretation?
Personally, I see this more as yet another tick on the "1984 to do" list. Only difference is that we don't need people anymore. They seem to have the nasty habit of being lazy, working slowly, and not always following orders blindly.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
George Orwell, 1949
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Mad Red Hatter is always right.”
I corrected that now outdated text.
A lighter, less violent Bond works to prevent a Chinese takeover of the cheap textiles market in The West, going into deep cover to disrupt their workshops:
Dye Another Day
No Time To Dye
Live And Let Dye
Following on, the "next big baddie" is an international whaling consortium, hunting baleen whales to extinction; Bond is sent to lure their prey away into safer waters:
Licence To Krill
I know at least two Ex-Friends online:
One is in a permanent state of denial about reality, heavily hinting that I will be part of the 51st State in the very near future.
Another telling me that what happens in her country is no concern of mine & I should stay on my side of the border or go forth & multiply back to the UK.
"Do you actually know any real MAGA people? Or are you just relying on third hand information?"
I can't speak for the OP but there are quite a few MAGA people in fairly prominent positions in US politics, so I don't think you really need to know them personally to be aware of their views on a wide variety of topics. Following the news is quite sufficient.
The next James Bond after the upcoming one will no doubt be all or mostly AI generated. It's conceptually not that much more work to have different versions for different audiences. Who needs real actors anyway when the company controlling it is owned by a robot anyway?
(by hook or by crook) the actual immutable versions of the media.
I can see why vinyl is so big.
I have terabytes of media safely burned onto DVD/CDs as a backup to my backed up media store.
Also means I can't fall victim to a "you really thought we meant forever" when it comes to paid-for content.
True, but useful though it is to have original media (which may or may not last a few decades), I don't want to waste space storing all those CDs and DVDs in an easily accessible way. You can't win really. There are advantages too to trusting companies like Apple, Sky, Amazon, Google etc to look after your media for you. It's not just corporate pressure (though that's a large part). It's just the utter convenience (though at a cost) of not having to keep shelves of CDs, books, DVDs, records etc. tied in with human laziness.
TBH the Bond franchise has been shit for quite some time. I gave up watching them after the first Daniel Craig one where the opening sequence shows him leaping 100ft off a crane onto hard ground, walking away as if it was nothing and then inexplicably running through a concrete block wall without a scratch. At that point I stopped caring whether he got shot because he's probably bulletproof as well. There was no sense of anything being difficult or dangerous. He's supposed to be a British gentleman spy, not an invulnerable Terminator robot. And it only got worse from then on as he spent most of the movie dicking about with a cellphone in obviously contrived product placement.
Amazon has found the right way. Me support this.
They are giving a shiny bright example with series about love, tenderness, support, personal strength, inclusivity and NO GUNS OR BARELY ANY in The Boys and Gen V. This is how it's done, for a world with no violence gun violence.
Who on Earth would want to watch those bullets flying when it can be people fighting fairly with their...errr...pfffrrrttt...Ok, I can't keep that straight face, sorry
Anyone here remember the original release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial? When Elliot flew over the cops, they were all pointing guns at him. The later releases of the movie changed the scene to pointing walkie-talkie radios instead.
Legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg now regrets that decision.
"I never should have done that because ‘E.T.’ was a product of its era. No film should be revised based on the lenses we now are,......All our movies are a kind of measuring – a signpost of where we were when we made them, what the world was like, and what the world was receiving when we got those stories out there.”
Sure, if Amazon wants to remove guns from all future Bond movies, that is their choice. Not sure how they would do at the Box Office, but they are welcome to target new movies to whatever demographic they choose. But do not edit older movies to remove the essence of what they are.
"Since it is widely understood that firearms are usually displayed to compensate for certain male anatomical features, why not replace the pistols with privates? Or rubber facsimiles thereof?"
This might create an increase in demand for certain "male appendage shaped" devices from Anne Summers or LoveHoney.
And if a Bond villain was called "Aunt Peg", then those of a certain age who might remember that name, might expect her to wear a strap-on and for Bond to be tortured using it.
Maybe the issue could be that those non-USA audiences don't want to see the impact on the human body. Assuming so, they could follow the approach taken with The A‑Team TV series of the 1980s; first 3 seasons/series please. For those too young to remember or forgot, no matter how many bullets were fired, or explosives detonated, by our heroes, the indented antagonists just got up afterwards with little more than a few scratches and bruised egos.
