It is a lazy plot device, that is all

Probably my favorite TV and movie villains had similar backgrounds, if I recall correctly:

TV: Alex Krycek, X-Files, played by Nicholas Lea, creator: Chris Carter, wide receiver, Minnesota Vikings doncha know
Movie: Khan Noonien Singh, most recent Star Trek, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, creator, first Star Trek: Gene L. Coon

(Apologies to the 6's, Battlestar Galactica, second series and Merle Dixon, The Walking Dead, each of whom had the semi-virtuous streak thing going on.)

I liked Specte a lot but your point is on the money Dino. I'm just a huge Bond fan and as gritty and more realistic the Craig movies have been, it's still a fantasy.

I liken Spectre most closely to Austin Powers. I mean Blofeld turns out to be Bond's step brother? That's exactly what the relation between Austin Powers and Dr. Evil turned out to be....more than 10 years earlier than this Bond flick!!!! Crazy!!!!

I think Craig will do another movie. His comments about slitting his wrist before he would play Bond again is just a way to up his salary. Don't blame him. The next flick I think will almost be a remake of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. He will marry this broad from Spectre, but then she gets killed. The one aspect of Bond that has not yet been solidified completely is his nonchalant using of women. He still fancies being in love and being with one girl. Marrying and then his wife dying will change all that and make Bond the complete character of James Bond that we all know. It's been a fun arc seeing James Bond become James Bond in the Craig series.

I didn't realize the connection to Austin powers..thats sad.that they copied a comedy..but I did notice that blofeld was having a problem keeping his pinkie under control..by the time the next movie comes out Daniel craig will be on social security with the delay between movies.
hopefully the next series will begin with bond at age 27-30....thanks cw.

Thanks for starting this post Dino. A fun and different kind of thread for the forums indeed!! I'm not sure the timeline of when Bond became a secret agent. He was a naval officer first so he might not have been a secret agent until his 30s.

Do you have any suggestions who might be the next Bond after Craig?

One thing I've wanted to see happen with this franchise is to put Bond back in the 1960s. I understand the producers want to take Bond into our century--they have to in order to interest the young fans. But wouldn't it be cool if a director like Tarantino could make a trilogy of Bond flicks that put the secret agent back in the time he belonged? Make it a period piece. Makes more sense for the character.

tarantino or Spielberg.....believe it or not Jeffrey deaver wrote a james bond book a few years ago and it was great..it was a bond begins story...bond was in britsh forces in afgahanastan and was 30-32 when he started in mi6...the book is highly underrated..forget reviews...you have to go with a relative unknown..they need to put out movies like marvel does..seamless and faster....I wouldn't mind putting the series in the 60s...I would really enjoy more grounded realistic plots like the first 2 craig movies....but the spectre plot line ruined this series for me.

Dino - you should create a James Bond theme Sim League. I'd join it!!! I'm not sure what elements such a league would have. I'm in a back to the future league right now and that one was one of the most fun drafts I've ever done and I'm not really a big fan of that movie. You had to draft a player named Doc, a player named Marty, 5 players from 1885, 1955, and 2015. A player from the 2015 Cubs and one from the Marlins because those were the teams in the futuristic world series. And a player from 1905 which was when Einstein came up with the theory of relativity. Really cool idea.

Thoughts on what a James Bond theme could include? Maybe a player named James and one named Bond. A player from the year 2007 (007). Moe Berg has to be on the team because he was a MLB player who was also a spy. I'm really not sure where else to go with this. Lol.

I agree with pretty much everyone here - way too much of the family thing. That in the first Hulk movie - one of the worst movies ever made - the Hulk's father ...do I even need to go into it? Why does Bruce Banner/Hulk need a father anyway? He's a grownup. 

Even the Original Series Star Wars did the father-son thing. 

Can't a villain not actually know the hero before they encounter each other? In a world of 7 billion people is it really so hard to imagine that the hero wants to save the world from a villain he is not actually related to?

In the Star Trek movie "The Final Frontier" the Vulcan who wants to bring back emotion and who can use Vulcan powers to take away people's emotional pain is Spock's half-brother. 

Now, how did that remotely help the plot? It added nothing, not even some interesting scenes between the brothers over who their father favored. 

PLUS: let's assume that Spock's father had had another wife that passed away after giving him a son and before he married Spock's mom. 

Okay, now, the dynamic would be: father favors first son because he is the first son AND fully-Vulcan. 

If anyone, at all, ever in the history of Vulcan, would be a candidate to lead a pro-emotion movement among Vulcans, it would be...the guy who is half-human. Spock. But since Spock, because he is half-human will naturally tend to work hard to maintain his Vulcan composure so as not to be too human, that is not likely. The second most likely person is the guy who married a human woman, Spock's father, in which case it would reverse the polarity and the half-brother that is all-Vulcan would be utterly anti-emotional because the emotional thing would be Spock's thing. Except it can't be as we saw above. 

But of all the people on Vulcan - a planet of billions - the least likely person to lead a pro-emotion movement would be Spock's brother because if he did so, he would naturally want Spock on board but Spock would ALWAYS be MORE capable of emotion than he would be by virtue of being half-human. 

In other words, just make it any other Vulcan, but NO, it has to be his brother. 


Take the original Star Wars films, which I love deeply (there were no prequels period !). Even so, and even though they do a great job with the whole redemption ending, it was not really necessary. This led them to focus on the non-existent prequels as the story of Vader, which was a disastrous choice (instead of the story of Obi-Wan whom everyone still would like to have learned more about but did not, and Yoda too). 

But the worst is making Leia his sister. WTF? Why does she need to be his sister and if she is his sister why is she not a Jedi Knight too? Does he have a best friend? 

The Indiana Jones film with Sean Connery was okay, I liked it, but Indiana Jones does not need a father either. He is a man, one we all (guys I mean) want to be and one that all the women want to be with, he does not need to please his dad. 

Somehow Captain America manages just fine without having an aunt, or a second cousin.  IronMan had to have a father though, even if I don't remember him having one in the comics. But okay. Thor has to have one because of Viking mythology, leading to the rule: if you have the hero have family, they have to have had them for at least 1000 years. 

At least Sauron is not Gandalf's half-brother, or uncle, and neither is Saruman. 

" cant a villain not actually know the hero before they encounter each other ? "....thank you...that really encapsulises what I am trying to say....they need jr high school editors for these 300 million dollar movies..they couldn't do worse...insane !
cw - for a james bond league my team will be called ***** galore.....baker bowl or wrigley teams will be called thunder ball.

I have thought of a good counter-example: Buffy. She is never related to the vampires, demons etc. as relatives (though she occasionally dates them !). 
. 
Her advantage over other Slayers, all of whom die young, after a few years as the Slayer is that she has friends. This enables her to mobilize resources that make all the difference: other people sometimes have her back. 

The only family are a mother who is either ignorant or later reticent about her role in the world and a sister who is not of much use all things considered. 

In fact, thinking through all the Joss Whedon Opus - none of it involves someone's father etc. So there is at least one creator who knows how to tell a story without this lame approach of family at the center always. 

I loved the buffy/angel shows..i bought every season of each of them..watched them all.......agreed...he did a great job...my point includes more then just family connections...too many plots have the hero or family somehow doing something that ends up creating the villain....like age of ultan for example.
spike was a great billy idol...that was a hoot........the danger was really palpable in those shows.