Well, we were waiting for them to mess up with James Bond, and it looks like it is here.
After Amazon took on full control of James Bond from the Broccoli family, we all feared the worst. Then Amazon seemed to make strong and confident moves.
First of all came a memo from up high that made it clear that radically progressive elements in various internal teams were to get back in their box. The orders included instructions that he was to remain male and British.
Then they hired David Heyman as a producer, locked in Denis Villeneuve as director, hired Steven Knight as writer, and started to look for an unknown for the role of Bond.
They also indicated they were going to take their time to get this right. All this was highly promising.
It seems those radical elements aren’t quite fully back in their box at Amazon though, as they have done something so fundamentally stupid that it makes you wonder who the hell signed off on it.
It was James Bond Day yesterday, and the Bond movies all appeared again on Prime ready for a binge watch. To support this Amazon unveiled a set of digital posters, and all hell has broken loose online.
The streaming giant has, for reasons best known to itself, digitally altered every instance of Bond holding a gun to remove that firearm.
In quite a few cases they have adopted the original artwork, resulting in some very weird and awkward looking poses.
All this has done is restarted all the concerns that were raised back at the start of this journey. Online fan conversations are fairly blunt in their criticism of this, and what it could mean to the wider project, with a fear that US culture war nonsense could still makes itself felt.
