In line with our new take on the 007 character—or, as we call him around here, Double-O-Prime—please be aware of certain minor changes to the franchise.
The emblematic line “The name is Bond, James Bond” will now be followed by “And I love my Kindle Fire!”
The villain, after ensnaring 007, will strap him to a table and, having placed him in this seemingly inescapable situation, slowly reduce his market capitalization while he squirms.
Instead of being equipped with a belt that fires pitons and a watch that fires darts, Bond will be able to order overnight delivery of toilet paper wherever he goes.
When making love to glamorous strangers, he will confine his conversation to two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.
Bond will refer to the successful completion of both his missions and his sexual activity as “fulfillment.”
Every credits sequence will start and end with Katy Perry in zero gravity.
Instead of spending money at the baccarat table, 007 will impulsively order lamps online at 1 a.m.
His confidant, the secretary Miss Moneypenny, will now be known as Miss Money One Hundred Billion Dollars Money Money Money. Or Alexa.
In a crucial chase sequence, Bond will have to deliver two hundred packages in a Honda Civic by 7 p.m. or risk unemployment.
He will occasionally drive a forklift through a factory wall—but only for the purpose of breaking picket lines and getting to work.
Rather than having his clothes made on Savile Row, Bond will order them based on five-star customer recommendations on Amazon. They will arrive from Croatia in parcels wound with packing tape, and will fit fine, except for being bizarrely pouchy at the hips. What body type are these for? he’ll wonder. They will make him look like a mime.
In a major twist, the M.I.6 headquarters has become a Whole Foods. When you scan your palm to enter, you buy tomatoes.
Bond will now request that his Martini be shaken “like a fragile package with two-day shipping.”
A lot of Bond’s espionage will be done over Signal, and will consist of his typing “Excellent.”
Bond’s cover employer, Universal Exports, will henceforth fly him in coach—it’s more economical and a better look for a company in growth mode. Still, he will frequently travel to outer space in Blue Origin rockets.
There will be no suggestion that technical devices (such as virtual assistants) are used to listen in on conversations, because of course they aren’t. Honestly, why worry about it?
A backstory will establish that Bond used to be a gangly bald man with an annoying laugh but is now feared and also muscular.
He will continue to encounter mysterious women in faraway lands, but from now on they will all be called Melania.
It will be made abundantly clear that the villain lives under a volcano on a fortified private island not because he is antisocial and out of touch but because he has nuanced and poorly understood views about corporate regulation.
In the villain’s lair, Bond’s drink will be drugged, and he will become unconscious. When he wakes, he will be watching “Call the Midwife,” which somehow started auto-playing, it’s not clear how.
Previously, Bond partnered in his exploits with such redoubtable figures as Honey Ryder and Pussy Galore. His latest co-adventurer and rescuer will be his trusted chief tax lawyer, Dickhead Vox.
The villain’s defeat will seem, maybe, a little unfair, given that he started his global empire out of a garage, worked really hard at it for years, and has an amazing sense of humor.
SPECTRE, after all, is just an anagram for RESPECT.
When you think about it, what’s actually so bad about a bald billionaire on a yacht who wants to take over the world? ♦
