What do James Bond and Godzilla have in common?
Aside from a penchant for indiscriminate destruction and a history of facing off against outlandish villains, both characters belong to two of the longest-running, most prolific movie series ever. Since 1962, James Bond has gone on 24 big-screen missions (26 if you count the “unofficial” Bond films released in 1967 and 1983), and Godzilla has suited up a whopping 30 times since 1954. Yes, I’m including the Matthew Broderick Godzilla debacle from 1998, purely on a technicality (it’s officially licensed blah blah blah). My apologies.
But while moviegoers must wait until 2018 to see Godzilla go head to heads with his old nemesis Ghidorah and until 2020 to see him to square off against everyone’s favorite extreme climber King Kong, they can watch MI6’s secret agent 007 (Daniel Craig) match wits with supervillain Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) as early as this Friday, when Bond’s latest adventure, Spectre, debuts on U.S. theater screens.
In the new film, Bond sets off to find out why he is referred to as a “secret” agent, when, in fact, he’s rather the worst, least-secret agent imaginable. If you were an undercover operative, would you go around spouting catchphrases? And if you did, would your primary catchphrase have your last name in it twice? Initiating a car chase in an Aston Martin at high noon down Main Street is not a great way to go unnoticed, either. 007 is lucky he doesn’t show up on YouTube every week. I guess there are no cell phone cameras in the Bond universe.
Surely Her Majesty is not amused by Bond’s antics or, for that matter, by MI6’s agent-screening process. How do they choose their spies anyway? It’s a dangerous job, so one would assume their applicants are probably risk takers by nature. At the same time, they have to be calm under pressure, with confidence, strategic thinking skills, and levelheadedness also being important qualities. But what about following international laws, showing discretion, and being empathetic toward native cultures? James Bond is abjectly terrible at those things.
Every employee is going to show a mix of strengths and developmental areas, but most foremen aren’t trying to fly fighter jets through the warehouse are they? And call-center service reps seldom conduct speedboat chases on the duck pond out back.
The British Intelligence Service wasn’t intelligent enough to use a validated pre-employment personality assessment before hiring James Bond, and now they’re stuck with him. The only way 007 can keep getting away with these hijinks is if an even deeper undercover agent runs interference by causing still greater havoc elsewhere. Let’s see, who is good at causing large-scale havoc?
Bingo! How about a James Bond/Godzilla crossover film (working title: Goldmonster). Make it happen, MGM and Warner Bros!
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