Following the adventures of Matt Damon’s titular amnesiac spy as he attempts to uncover his shady past, the Bourne movies are a more paranoid and less over-the-top brand of spy thriller than the Bond franchise's typical cinematic adventures. Where Bond has a band of helpful co-workers and a bevy of beautiful Bond girls, Bourne has no one he can trust and a string of powerful organizations out to kill him.
In recent outings, Craig’s darker iteration of Bond has owed his edgy, PTSD-afflicted realistic spy demeanor to the Jason Bourne character, and the Bond franchise’s more realistic and grounded action has also borrowed from the close-, shaky-cam sequences of the Bourne series. Bond learned krav maga and Parkour around the same time that Jason Bourne started to employ these pragmatic skills to evade capture by his handlers, and the once-suave super-spy also became more tortured by the moral weight of his work around the time that the Bourne series started to interrogate the psychological cost that a life of espionage would have on an agent. But the biggest draw of the Bourne franchise was its story of an international conspiracy against the main character, whereas Bond’s MI6 are still trustworthy allies. The element of the Bourne series that the Bond franchise needs most is the one it has not yet stolen, which is the story of the heroic spy going up against his unable colleagues and superiors.
Bond Has Never Gone Against MI6
While some rogue agents have double-crossed the crown, the organization of MI6 itself has never been the villain of a Bond movie in the way that the CIA is the most consistent and formidable baddies of Bourne. Make no mistake, Bond can’t completely trust his co-workers, as evidenced by Sean Bean’s rogue 006 going turncoat and becoming the primary villain of Pierce Brosnan's debut 007 outing Goldeneye. However, it’s never the organization of MI6 themselves who are at fault, always only a lone wolf former employee who has taken a step out of line and needs to be dealt with via lethal force.
It’s an edgier proposition to depict the entire organization of MI6 as the Bond franchise’s corrupt, dangerous villains (particularly when like the CIA, MI6 are a real-life institution with actual and agents, and one whose abilities have been variously questioned, limited, and expanded by different istrations). However, this twist on the typical spy movie formula is also an incredibly effective one, as it means that the hero can trust no one and is truly out on their own, a scarier and more thrilling setup than seeing Bond rely on his trusty gadget maker and secretary for another outing.
James Bond Has Never Had To Go It Alone
Part and parcel of Bond’s reliance on the ever-trustworthy M, Q, Miss Moneypenny, and MI6 is the character never being left truly alone on a mission, with 007 being monitored by his former employers even when he was theoretically retired in 2012’s Skyfall. ittedly, the small brood of co-workers who Bond consistently calls on for assistance has dwindled in recent outings as the movies strived for something resembling relative realism. As a result of this approach, Craig’s Bond was without Q for two movies and pulled off a franchise first by killing off an iteration of M and replacing her with Ralph Fiennes’ second-in-command.
However, reducing the number of colleagues Bond trusts only makes it a more appealing prospect for the franchise to pit him against his employers, co-workers, and MI6 itself. Bond has never been actively opposed to his former colleagues and being forced to work against the likes of his boss M, gadget-maker Q, and Miss Moneypenny would inject the character with life-or-death tension that the series often lacks thanks to his all-but-immortal status. After all, as his repeated recasting proves Bond can’t die himself - but there’s no reason he can’t take down the shadowy, unknowable organization that he’s been working for all these years.
The Bond Series Needs Better Villains
The Bond franchise was once blessed with some truly memorable bad guys, ranging from the iconic original Blofeld to the bizarre but undeniably unforgettable Max Zorin. However, as the series attempted to become more believable during Craig’s recent tenure in the role, these baddies gave way to some utter duds like Quantum of Solace’s weedy, forgettable Dominic Greene. The series is aware its outings have been wanting in this once-reliable arena, as Craig's darker Bond movies have gone to lengths to make their bad guys more personally resonant for Bond (with varying degrees of effectiveness). As the left-field Blofeld/brother reveal seen in Spectre and Javier Bardem’s unlikely connection to M in Skyfall both evidenced, the Bond series wants to make its villains more personally impactful for the series’ main character. This trend looks likely to continue with word that Rami Malek’s No Time To Die villain Safin will be a former SPECTRE assassin.
But these sort of connections, like 006’s double-crossing, are small fry compared to pitting Bond against the only organization he has ever placed his trust in. Nothing is more paranoia-inducing and intense in an espionage movie than pitting the spy against their employers, and no unseen group has wielded more international power in spy movie history than the Bond franchise’s M-led MI6. Making Bond’s employers a force of evil instead of good would re-contextualize the entire series so far, leading viewers to question how long they have been corrupt and how many of the super-spy’s missions have been in service of an untrustworthy organization who is beyond reproach. The move would give James Bond a villain who can challenge him, and make the franchise’s recent comparisons to the Bourne movies more well-earned in the process.
