007 gets woke

The next James Bond movie will introduce Lashana Lynch, a black woman, as the new 007. She won't be Jane Bond, but rather take over the 007 number for a retired James Bond.

Thought 007 could never be a woman or black? Well, she's both! James Bond will hand the number over | Daily Mail Online

 

Whose bright idea was it to do that? Sounds like a way to finally kill Bond off.

 

Sadly (well, not really sad like I care about the franchise), I think you’re correct.

 

Isn’t a fan theory that James Bond/007 has always been an alias? Aka, why he looks and sounds different every few years and has a career that spans more than 50 years?

 

Yes, and it even makes sense. But as far as I know it's never been established as canon. If they were going to do this, they should have gone the Doctor Who route -- establish that Bond/007 is an alias, like you said, and not the same person. Show the passing of the torch to a different person (that's what end credits scenes are for), and that there are other 00-agents who have changed personas from male to female, perhaps even featuring one of them in a movie. Then do this with the main character.

 

Yeah, but it doesn’t have to be 00-7:

00 Agent - Wikipedia

There’s been references to 0010 through 0013, so they aren’t constrained to 007 obviously, nor are they constrained to 00x where x is a single digit.

There are creative ways to expand the 007 franchise of sequels, but I think this particular way isn’t going to be that successful.

 

Yeah, they've had other 00 agents before. IIRC, one of the main villains in Goldeneye was 005 or 006. And in the famous laser scene from Goldfinger he says 008 will replace him if he fails to report.

 

Exactly. Which is why they can vary the franchise, update it, modernize it, without doing something that looks just like getting “woke”.

Now, if she meets someone called Dicky Galore, I’d LMAO.

There is a lot of fertile ground for double entendres. Could be hilarious if they don’t shoot their wad on the very first movie.

 

Agent 0069?

 

It should be that way, but the movies never stick to it. In "For Your Eyes Only", they reference Tracy Bond in the (crappy) cold open, which makes you think Roger Moore's Bond is the same as George Lazenby's. In "Spectre", the movie finishes at the Bond estate. The books never established it, as far as I know, but they were all written close together.

Bond has always been weird that way. It's almost as if you shouldn't think of it as different Bond's, but the same Bond's participating in alternate timelines.

A female 007 is fine by me as long as they create compelling storylines. The problem with Daniel Craig's Bond is the movies have been so damn uneven in quality and in plot direction. He's rebooted Bond at least twice, so might as well do it again.

 

I guess British spies aren't like the Yankees where all the single digit numbers get retired.

 

Damn, you hit that one out...