ZingJ

His name is Bond, James Bond and he is possibly the best known secret service agent in the world. Originally created by Ian Fleming in twelve novels and two short stories, the James Bond series were novelized by seven other authors including Christopher Wood and the latest installment released in September 2015 by Anthony Horowitz.

Fleming’s Bond is an  intelligence officer in M16 (the British Secret Service is also known as 007 which is his code name in the 00 scheme). The character was inspired and based on multiple individuals Fleming had encountered during his service in the Naval Intelligence Division during WW2 including his brother Peter. The name was chosen to be ‘simple, dull, plain, unromantic yet masculine and intriguing’.

The idea was to keep the name ordinary to emphasize the extraordinary things that happen to and around him.

Bond was given habits that reflected Fleming’s own traits such as passion for golf and gambling. As another personal touch, Fleming made use of his experience in the espionage career he had, including names of friends and acquaintances along the way.

James Bond has been adapted for television, radio, comics, games but the most recognizable adaptation has to be the films series. The films are the longest running and third highest grossing film series ever.

The series began with Dr. No starring Sean Connery, the first ever Bond. 24 films later, Daniel Craig, the sixth actor to portray James and my personal favourite Bond next to Roger Moore, has just released his 4th Bond film, Spectre. The other three include Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. During these four movies, the character of James Bond evolves for the audience.

The first two releases show a much more secretive character as we do not know much about his past but as we reach the final two installments in Craig’s films, we are shown much more family background and in Spectre we see a some what real romance between James and his Bond girl after Casino Royale in which Bond claims his love for Vesper Lynd (the second time Bond falls in love after George Lazenby on his majesty’s secret service).

Casino Royale, the first in Craig’s series, is a personal favourite.

Royale brought a fresh new vibe into a series that had grown to become repetitive. After Brosnan was relieved of his license to kill, Craig was given the role and at first there was disbelief and outrage after seeing Martin Campbell’s Casino Royale.

The thrilling first mission for Bond in which he defeats a weapons dealer in a high stake game of poker; the audience was blown away but my rather minute synopsis doesn’t have the capacity to cover the electrifying and breathtaking story that this movie presented to its audience.

In response the pleased audience rewarded the movie with 600 million dollars in worldwide grossing, a number that was topped by Skyfall in 2012.

The latest release, Spectre is however, arguably the best Bond movie yet says The Guardian and IMDB ratings. It’s packed with action, mystery, suspense and heat but much more emotion than the other films.

This particular film follows Bond’s ‘unofficial’ mission after receiving a cryptic message. A series of events follow in a series of different countries from the homeland in England to, Mexico, Rome and Austria. He embarks on a journey to uncover the sinister organisation, Spectre finding his connections to the enemy along the way, bringing in the background on Bond, a matter that would haunt most fanatics.

All done with the help of Bond girl, Madeline Swan with whom we see an unusual and different relationship presenting a different side of Bond since even Craig himself has said to think of Bond as a misogynistic character despite Bond’s somewhat romantic personality.

Despite this slight change, Spectre did not fail to continue with the traditional motifs of a classic Bond film. Musical accompaniment in Bond has received academy award nominations and a win in the past and this time the artist to sing the title track was Sam Smith with his song, ‘Writing’s on the Wall’.

Guns, gadgets and cars supplied by the Q branch also make up a important part of Bond, the Bond mobile this time being the Aston Martin DB10, a sleek and fitting mean of transport. And finally, the Bond girls. The films are noted for Bond’s relationships with various women, some relations stronger than others but all beautiful and spectacular (Not to forget the slight flirting between Bond and Moneypenny).

With Daniel supposedly stepping down from his epic reign as Bond despite the fact that he is very much wanted by the producers and director Sam Mendes as well as the rest of the cast, he is still claiming that he’d slit his wrists than feature in another Bond film although teasingly saying that he has the rights to stay on if he wished to.

The likes of Tom Hardy, Henry Cavill and Tom Hiddleston are possible candidates as well as Idris Elba, who would be the first black Bond, but that is exactly what is putting him off of the role. Elba states that Sean Connery isn’t known as the Scottish Bond and Craig isn’t the blue eyed Bond and therefore doesn’t wish to be known as the black Bond and completely agree with this.

With the rumours about Elba being Bond, people have now started to question whether James Bond can be for example a homosexual or a female, changing the name to Jemima Bond. The cast of the current Bond film have given their view on the matter but an agreement or disagreement is entirely dependent on personal perspective.

Roger Moore however has quite openly stated that he does not believe that any of these changes are possible.

How do you feel about this slight ordeal?

Let us know and leave your comments below or tweet us @CelebMix

ncG1vNJzZmiblaGyo7nIsWWcp51kv6a4wK2gqKZdl7yvsIyorZ6qpp6yuHs%3D