Them: So, are you seeing the new Bond film?
Me: Nah. I have this thing.
Them: What is it?
Me: A vagina.
I kid, I kid. Although I refuse to infiltrate the sanctity of a midnight showing when I've never seen any of the previous installments. Like, there were Muggles that went to the premiere of Deathly Hallows Part II. Why? Gross.
Bond is a franchise that I'm ridiculously ignorant about. I know, this is what Google is for. But how about I make myself look like a pop cultureless dipwad instead?
Here is literally everything I have come to understand about the James Bond series (although most of this is probably not true):
- James Bond is a secret agent. Except not so secret because everyone on the entire planet seems to know who he is.
- He goes by 007. I don't know what that means, though. It's his code name or something.
(Fun fact: If you look in the mirror and say "double 0 seven" three times, James Bond will appear behind you covered with oil and wearing a towel.) - James Bond owns an impressive array of suits.
- James Bond's job is to save...the world. He just saves the crap out of it. All the time.
- James Bond owns a gun. And I'm assuming he knows martial arts of some kind.
- He probably has an arch nemesis or something, but I don't know who he is.
- In his spare time, James Bond is attempting to "bond" with every hot woman possible. And by "bond" I mean have sex with them. He probably has a lot of STDs, but this hasn't been confirmed.
- The woman James Bond has sex with the most is the Bond Girl. Halle Berry was a Bond Girl once.
- The requirements for being a Bond Girl are 1) hot 2) able to fire a gun 3) capable of witty banter so as to be mistaken for a strong female lead even though she's probably just an objectified female sidekick and 4) hot.
- He says "the name's Bond, James Bond" a lot.
This newest movie is called Skyfall. It's the "best Bond movie ever," but they say that about every Bond movie, so I don't know. I'm assuming the sky is actually falling, and James Bond has to...catch it? While shooting henchmen and having sex with women? Spoiler alert: He succeeds.
I don't love being ignorant, though, so here are some legitimate questions for people who are James Bond fans.
- Do you have to watch all of the movies to appreciate the series? I just Googled this, and there are 23 of them? Ain't nobody got time for that.
- How can multiple people play James Bond? To try to explain this to my nerdy self, I make Doctor Who parallels because a) there is a primary male lead the whole series revolves around b) multiple people have played the same character and c) he has a primary female companion. The difference is that I actually understand why the Doctor has been played by several different actors. For James Bond, I just picture it like this:
[after the first few Bond films were made]
Guy Playing Bond: I quit or something.
Guy That Created James Bond: Eh, whatever. Let's just cast this second guy to start playing him.
Everyone Else: But we made an entire series around this guy! Won't that throw people off?
Guy That Created James Bond: Nah! We'll just cast a new guy, say he's Bond, and he'll be Bond. Nobody will care.
And for some reason nobody did, so they just kept doing this for 23 more movies. - Is James Bond a cat person or a dog person?