Best Of

Daily Mail confirms he's an Islamist, and he apparently shouted Allahu Akhbar before the attack

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15157191/Suicide-belt-Manchester-attacker-Islamist-terrorist.html

We must grasp the nettle. Voting Reform might not even be enough

Oh God. You are going to be insufferably over excited at discovering the petp was an Islamist terrorist. Did it come as a complete surprise to you after seeing the video and photos at lunchtime?

I am very worried where this is going and what may follow

We may even find ourselves in a national emergency where all protest marches are banned no matter by whom

This would be extreme but I fear this is a dangerous moment

James Bond: the British owners made a nice mess of the IP themselves to be honest. Escapist entertainment requires the protagonist to escape.

The clear path forward is to make it a period piece. The cars, fashion, music, locations. The main issue bond has had is the big bad in real life is China but they are such a big market for movies they daren’t show that on film.

I think the Craig films were generally pretty good, and a bit of a change from the paint-by-numbers, repetitive approach that the Brosnan era (and before that, Moore) ended up falling into.

Their failing was in trying to tie everything together and write an “ending” for the era (modern screenwriters are generally appalling at writing effective and logical endings).

I think it’s probably time that the series did trade on its nostalgia again. A period piece, as you say, would probably work pretty well nowadays.

It is the 21st Century obsession with arcs. It ruined Dr Who; it ruined Star Whatever; it ruined James Bond. Out went the inter-film reset button, to be replaced by the accumulation of in-universe lore over multi-year story arcs until collapsing under the weight of its own internal logic.

Arcs are good so long as the stories being told are good. Many of the best franchises are good because of good arcs.

Star Wars (original trilogy), Back to the Future, Godfather and in recent years Dark Knight and the MCU Infinity Wars.

It needs to be done well. It needs a compelling overarching vision that tends to require someone who understands what they're doing and plans it out well.

Bad storytelling is a failure whether in an individual story or an arc.

Harry Potter was a brilliant example of a series, with a great overarching plot arc and story, great characters that grew with the series, and superb world-building. It all generally just works. The films are slightly more uneven, but still excellent.

The extensions to the universe (in film form) were flops IMV - because they failed in all those areas. Unlike the book series, there was no magic. Having magic in the story does not make the story magic.

James Bond: the British owners made a nice mess of the IP themselves to be honest. Escapist entertainment requires the protagonist to escape.

The clear path forward is to make it a period piece. The cars, fashion, music, locations. The main issue bond has had is the big bad in real life is China but they are such a big market for movies they daren’t show that on film.

I think the Craig films were generally pretty good, and a bit of a change from the paint-by-numbers, repetitive approach that the Brosnan era (and before that, Moore) ended up falling into.

Their failing was in trying to tie everything together and write an “ending” for the era (modern screenwriters are generally appalling at writing effective and logical endings).

I think it’s probably time that the series did trade on its nostalgia again. A period piece, as you say, would probably work pretty well nowadays.

It is the 21st Century obsession with arcs. It ruined Dr Who; it ruined Star Whatever; it ruined James Bond. Out went the inter-film reset button, to be replaced by the accumulation of in-universe lore over multi-year story arcs until collapsing under the weight of its own internal logic.

Arcs are good so long as the stories being told are good. Many of the best franchises are good because of good arcs.

Star Wars (original trilogy), Back to the Future, Godfather and in recent years Dark Knight and the MCU Infinity Wars.

It needs to be done well. It needs a compelling overarching vision that tends to require someone who understands what they're doing and plans it out well.

Bad storytelling is a failure whether in an individual story or an arc.

Harry Potter was a brilliant example of a series, with a great overarching plot arc and story, great characters that grew with the series, and superb world-building. It all generally just works. The films are slightly more uneven, but still excellent.

The extensions to the universe (in film form) were flops IMV - because they failed in all those areas. Unlike the book series, there was no magic. Having magic in the story does not make the story magic.

And so the enshittification of James Bond has commenced. The government really needs to think about having restrictions on foreign ownership/control of culturally significant property. Amazon are going to take a great franchise and ruin it and ruin it's legacy.

What's happened?

Amazon seem to believe that using pictures of guns in advertising pictures for James Bond would be triggering for folk.

That must be why Amazon refuse to stream any films and series with any gun violence, well apart from the James Bond films they show, and the millions of other films etc where there are guns and shootings.

Bezos doesn’t strike me as being particularly woke or anything so I’m guessing he will be a bit annoyed at this and get it fixed.

That Reacher show, there is absolutely no over the top violence in that, other than perhaps 75% of every single episode.