James Bond and Quantum of Less

I waited a while to write about this but there is a reason: The concept problem with the latest Bond pic is only showing up now.

November 2008 seems a long time ago. Do you remember? Better still, do you rememberQuantum of Solace? Right there, with your silent, perhaps uncertain answer, you touch upon the conceptual problem within that James un-Bond film.

In Casino Royale, they updated Bond. In Quantum of Solace, they changed the concept of James Bond. A few more movies like Quantum and the franchise will be in deeper trouble than James was when he was being poisoned in Casino. 

Of course with a little Bond magic, you can recover the franchise’s dominance; but why take that risk?

If you ask enough movie goers if they liked Quantum, you may find another hint of the problem. Many of the people I asked didn’t say they liked the movie, they said they love Bond. There is a difference. That difference spells trouble.

So I have a new question: Have you seen Quantum of Solace again and on purpose, and not just because it was on cable? The significance of that question lies in this follow-up: How many times have you seen Live and Let Die? Or Goldfinger? You know a film is a true Bond movie if you want to see it again and again and again. It doesn’t matter why you want to; if it is just for the Bond girls, a chase scene or Bond himself; you just have to like seeing it again.Solace? Once is enough. Oh yeah, I have seen The World is Not Enough several times.

Bond is off concept. Quantum of Solace is a lot less Bond. Well made. Well written even. But it was not Bond.

I can guess how the conceptual problem with Bond happened. Casino Royale was a strong update of the Bond concept. In that film they updated the character by stripping down Bond. It worked well, Casino Royale is great, but with that success they gave into the temptation to strip it down even more for Quantum of Solace.

Conceptually speaking, there is a difference between updating something and changing it. With the former, you keep your audience and bring in new fans. With the latter, you allow for competitors, like the Bourne Identity franchise, to take in your audience. Yes, fans can like two franchises, but again why do that? Who are the top brands likely to invest in five years from now? Before Solace that wasn’t even a question.

Did you notice that there are no gadgets in Quantum of Solace? Better still, a half a year later, do you remember the villain in Solace? Do you remember Goldfinger or Oddjob? Still? After all these years?

Not having super villains is not just a story structure problem, for Bond it is a conceptual one. The concept of Bond has always included the super villain. Imagine Bond going after convenient store robbers. Drop that twinkie!

Still the Un-Bonding of Bond started in Casino with what everyone does remember: that horrific torture scene.

Look, we all love James. We love the action. We love the girls. We love the gadgets. But most of all, we love ourselves.

We all want to be Bond. But the truth is, conceptually speaking, we want Bond to be us too. And that is the point.

One of the primary concepts of Bond is that it is a fantasy. That means he can’t get tortured for “real.” Why? The character purpose of him getting beaten up is to show us how tough he can be. Why? The deeper purpose is to show us how tough we could be.

It is a subtle but critical difference. We want to be tough, but none of us want to be tortured to the breaking point. By “real,” I mean to the breaking point. There is a difference between the pounding that Bond can brush off because he is tough and the kind of torture that changes his character forever. The concept of war wounds that don’t go away is relevant here.

If the film makers can shift that, they can shift the rest of him. In Solace they shifted Bond too far.

Casino, I could see over and over. Solace? I am not sure I want to, and that is the problem. Keep in mind that with Bond we always know the ending. We don’t see it for the story. When we are talking about Bond and a dominant franchise, Quantum turns out to be a little less.

© Winston Perez, 2009