[imagesource:here]

Daniel Craig is about to wrap up his career as 007 with No Time to Die.

Following delay after delay after delay, the 25th film in the James Bond franchise is expected to hit theatres on October 8.

It’s Craig’s fifth time appearing as Bond, spanning all the way back to Casino Royale, which premiered in November 2006.

The franchise has spawned more iconic moments than we have time to discuss.

Some, though, wouldn’t stand a chance of making it past the cutting room, or even into the final script, if they were written today.

The Telegraph, which loves a good moan about ‘cancel culture’ and ‘wokeism’ and ‘snowflakes’, has picked seven that stand out.

To be fair, there’s solid reasoning behind the choices:

Thunderball (1965) – Sean Connery tells Nurse Patricia that keeping her job ‘has a price’. She cries, ‘Oh no.’ He advances lecherously, grinning, ‘Oh yes.’

You Only Live Twice (1967) – Connery paints his face and tapes his eyes into a squint to impersonate a Japanese villager.

Diamonds Are Forever (1971) – Connery meets Marie in a bikini, tears off her top and throttles her with it until she tells him Blofeld’s location.

Octopussy (1983) – Roger Moore is handed his casino winnings and tips a local, saying, ‘That should keep you in curry for a few weeks, eh?’

Imagine writing that line and thinking ‘yup, nailed it’?

Bond’s legacy has been the subject of debate for years, and critics might argue that seven moments is only scratching the surface.

Which reminds me, there are three more to cover:

Live and Let Die (1973) – In which all the villains are black, the complex doctrines of voodoo are portrayed as a death cult and women who lose their virginity are killed.

Goldfinger (1964) – Connery rapes a gay Pussy Galore in a hay barn and instantly persuades her to change sides. The scene is considered so alarming that it’s rated 18 on YouTube.

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) – In which Moore calls Hervé Villechaize’s Nick Nack a midget and stuffs him into a suitcase.

Digital Spy put this video together in 2018, highlighting those examples above:

They do not hold up.

A great deal has changed for the Bond franchise since Spectre came out in 2015.

In May, Amazon paid $8,45 billion to acquire the MGM studio, co-owners of the Bond franchise, and there’s been a huge cultural shift.

007 has really struggled to grab the attention of younger generations:

In 2018, when online men’s magazine LADbible showed Bond films to millennials and Generation Z viewers who weren’t familiar with the franchise, they were appalled by Bond passim, describing him as ‘a rapist who occasionally murders a Russian’, ‘extremely racist’ and taking particular offence at Skyfall’s Severine subplot, where Bond chats up a former sex slave, sneaks naked into her shower to seduce her, then abandons her to die…

Choosing the next actor to play 007, one which needs to satisfy both the incensed fanbase who initially rejected Daniel Craig because ‘Bond can’t be blond’ and the youngsters who find the character more than a little rapey, is not going to be easy.

There doesn’t appear to be a clear frontrunner to take over from Craig, although the bookies have the likes of Regé-Jean Page, Tom Holland, Tom Hardy, Robert Pattinson, John Boyega, Henry Cavill, and Idris Elba down as possible options.

I can’t say I’m much bothered, but there are millions around the world who will be watching very closely.

[source:telegraph]