Idk Bond is this interesting cultural touchstone that I think is important to keep around. I know for me it was actually a very effective first step in to becoming critical of how women are depicted in cinema, and that message got through to me at actually a pretty early age. Around high school IIRC.

That being said I do think directors should be bolder in their vision and take bigger risks with it. It could be so much more and its history in many ways will make that all the more impactful.

TL;DR: We aren’t beholden to Fleming’s original vision. Bond can be whatever we want them to be.

Edit: yes the “them” was intentional

I think the cool assassin running around in style shooting bad guys and surviving just barely thing is played out.

Give me a quiet guy who is an insurance adjuster. He's got kids in school or college. He was given a a soldier's sidearm (maybe his grandfather's?) as a teen, and his grandad taught him to shoot. His grandpa was always big on accuracy, and told him the horribleness of war. He gets into competitive shooting, but before his first competition, his grandfather is murdered, and the case goes cold. He never competes after his grandfather dies, but takes meticulous care of the gun, and shoots at his grandfather's private range, every day after work.

Then, out of some crazy unrelated event, a story in the local newspaper mentions his grandfather's name, prior to him living in whatever country he lives now. He pushes the local investigators to reopen the case, to no avail. In a series of adjustment investigations, he notices a pattern of accidents, and damage to properties. One particular one alarms him as it's the property of one of his grandfather's close friends. He brings the gun out of fear of the weird coincidences. Drama ensues, and in the fight scene he's hiding under cover, trying not to get hit, hasn't shot back, but at one point the shooting stops. He takes a calming breath. Stands up. Hand in pocket, gun drawn, fires one round. The bullet richochets off one of the assailants guns, causing him to fire a burst killing two more, one who falls down steps to take out a third, the richochet hits a fourth square in the forehead who drops his incandescent flashlight onto the ground which breaks, sparking a gasoline spill that had been there burning up the guy who's gun was hit in the first place.

Our protagonist pockets the pistol, and walks out, calling his boss giving him some information about it being insurance fraud or something. Meanwhile a sixth assailant escapes the property and calls someone. In a foreign language he says in a panic: "Boss, it's the Adjuster." "Impossible, he was buried decades ago, the grave is in the family estate." "No, boss, the insurance adjuster for this property. It must be an offspring." "But none of his children or grandchildren were ever marksman?! How many men did he cost me?" "Five." "And what did it cost him?" "A single bullet." And the bossy guy says something badass like "it's heavens adjuster or some adjuster to avenge the fallen adjuster in his language.

Then the movie ends with him eating dinner with his family, but his grandfathers gun is now at his side.

The Adjuster

John Wick is played out too, and more recently so. I've seen all of them, including the spin-off series and only the first one needs to exist. I'd much rather have a Bond thing.

I wonder how he'd look bald. I've always believed that a well-done Hitman series would give James Bond a run for their money. The catch is that it'd have to be self-parodying but presented without a hint of irony or humor.

A good hitman movie/TV show would swing from serious to absurd and back so hard you'd get whiplash

Give! me! that! now!

https://olympics.com/en/news/paris-2024-turkiye-shooting-yusuf-dikec-medal-pose

The Turk olympic shoot guy. Showing us how to do the shoot without all the crazy addons the other olympians use.

Kier Starmer, the prime Minister of the UK. /s

Och aye tha noo.