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The director of the latest James Bond film No Time To Die, Cary Joji Fukunaga, has compared the long-running 007 franchise to The Simpsons. The latest in a long line of directors to helm the franchise which has hit cinema screens consistently for almost 60 years, Fukunaga rose to fame in Hollywood when he helmed the first season of the hit anthology crime show, True Detective. The season earned two Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Directing. While his feature film efforts, Jane Eyre and Beasts Of No Nation, were relatively small in scale and produced on modest budgets, the movies earned him a significant status.
When Danny Boyle left the 25th Bond film in pre-production, Fukunaga was a surprise choice to replace the prestigious and experienced British director. No Time To Die has been praised for its new, emotional approach to the often-worn and cliched Bond series. The film is a swan-song to Daniel Craig’s fifteen year reign as the infamous secret agent, and critics are mostly happy with Fukunaga’s direction and its bold, risk-taking finale.
In an interview with The AV Club, Fukunaga compared the Bond films to the pop-culture staple, The Simpsons. In particular, Fukunaga compared how the villains and plot lines of the 007 epics have often predicted and predated world events in a similar way to how The Simpsons has been known to. The director goes on to say that the franchise forms a timeline of happenings and themes that were reflected in the real world over time. Read what Fukunaga said below:
“It’s funny, if you go back and look at some of the the villains and their plots to see how they’ve played out differently over time, it’s almost like The Simpsons, when The Simpsons predicts things in the future. I feel like you can go back into some of the Bond films and kind of pinpoint things that we ended up seeing actually happening.”
In recent years, The Simpsons has become widely discussed for its eerie ability to predict real world events, be it predicting President Trump, foreseeing the global pandemic, or even supposedly emulating world disasters before they happened. Though the creators of The Simpsons play down and negate any accusations of supernatural abilities, The Simpsons has the power of longevity, with its 30 plus seasons of content constantly being watched and re-contextualized by new audiences. Disney+ has even created a category on its streaming platform for episodes of The Simpsons that apparently predicted the future. The Simpsons’ predictions have become an internet meme and phenomenon, with every single instance of possible foresight picked apart and analyzed, sometimes in extremely tentative ways.
It’s no stretch however, to imply that Bond has always remained relevant and sometimes ahead of its time. The James Bond films have spanned several decades and often found themselves mirroring the pop-culture and socio-political landscape of the time. The original Sean Connery films were straight adaptations of Ian Fleming’s novels, with a sprinkling of ’60s fun, and in recent years, those early films in particular have come under fire for their outdated attitudes, which only reflect the attitudes of the era. During the 1970s, Roger Moore’s Bond films were often reactionary; the most glaring example being 1979’s Moonraker, a film rushed into production to capitalize on the success of Star Wars and had very little to do with Fleming’s espionage stories. Later Moore films, as well as Timothy Dalton’s two Bond adventures, reflected the Cold War politics of Russian spies and Middle Eastern weapons deals.
Craig’s five-film run as the international super spy has taken more inspiration from the cinema than the political landscape outside, instead mirroring the gritty action of Jason Bourne and the dark, rebooted Batman films of Christopher Nolan. Fukunaga’s No Time To Die, is itself being compared to its surrounding world. Delayed for almost 2 years by the global pandemic of 2020, the film has some plot elements and villainous schemes that eerily mirror the anxieties and problems of the post-coronavirus world. The movie was made long before lockdowns and vaccines, yet as tends to be the case; James Bond has once again stayed relevant and true. For all audiences know, the secrets and warnings of the future ahead may already be hiding in recent Bond films, or recent Simpsons episodes.
No Time To Die is in theaters now.
Source: The AV Club
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