On Film: Rating the James Bond Movies

Let's start with the obvious: James Bond is a racist, sexist product of a racist, sexist society. Even the best Bond movies are deeply problematic, stereotyping nonwhite people, objectifying women (including scantily clad dancing girls in all the opening credits sequences), and killing lots and lots of people, and as a result they're not very good overall. But it turns out they’re great “dumb fun” movies to watch when I’m feeling down and just want something to complain about.

Having kvetched my way through most of the series with the Geek at my side, here are my thoughts about all the Bond movies I’ve seen, in order of release, and a couple for which I’ve only read the book.

• Dr. No: Haven’t seen it, but the novel does not lead me to expect great things, especially from the character of Honey Rider.
• From Russia With Love: Not awful, but pretty typical Bond. This is the first one with Q, and the gadgets aren’t particularly outrageous yet.
• Goldfinger: Between Oddjob and Pussy Galore, this one manages to be racist, sexist, and homophobic all at once. It does, however, establish all the important Bond tropes that Thunderball didn't get to, so watch this one if you like continuity and have a strong stomach.
• Thunderball: Not awful. Got some great nature shots; I think my favorite character was the stingray that hangs around while they’re disarming the nuclear warhead underwater.
• On Her Majesty’s Secret Service: Relatively decent; I barely had anything to complain about. It’s a mashup of a regular Bond movie with a romantic comedy, with a notable cameo from Blofeld's extremely fluffy cat and possibly the best skiing footage I've seen in a Bond movie. I actually started to sympathize with both Bond and his girlfriend of the moment. The ending is rather abrupt, though, and if you have started to sympathize with Bond&girlfriend, it will be painful to watch.
• Live and Let Die: AVOID. I started watching this one because I love the opening theme, and stopped about ten minutes later after seeing more racist caricature of black American and Caribbean culture than I thought could be packed into an entire movie.
• The Man With the Golden Gun: Not awful. One of the villains is a little person, and I am not qualified to determine how problematic that is.
• The Spy Who Loved Me: Not awful. The villain has a cool underwater base, so this movie has my favorite part of Bond Movies: awesome ocean nature shots.
• Moonraker: This one’s about space eugenics. It’s really dumb, except for the part where the space eugenicists are defeated by two secondary characters who aren’t conventionally attractive enough to survive space eugenics.
• Never Say Never Again: This is a remake of Thunderball with worse nature shots. Rowan Atkinson is in it though, as the Mr. Bean of diplomats, and there’s some cool-for-its-time video game stuff.
• Goldeneye: Relatively decent. Has the best female co-protagonist, a KGB programmer, and Dame Judi Dench plays M for the first time and gets to call Bond out on his antics. This is also the one with the hilarious tank chase.
• Tomorrow Never Dies: Not awful. The villain is Fake News, so this one hits a bit close to home. Michelle Yeoh plays a Chinese agent working with Bond, and she definitely makes it more watchable. It’s also got some nice underwater footage.
• Casino Royale: Haven’t seen it, but the book was powerful, both in good and bad ways. The book also taught me the rules of baccarat, which came in handy watching some of the other movies.

On the Stack 14: My Concerns About the Future of Paper Magic

I was not concerned about the future of paper Magic: the Gathering until I read a Daily MtG press release telling me not to be concerned.

In "The 'And' of Magic Arena," published at the beginning of February, Magic senior designer Aaron Forsythe and game director Chris Clay wax poetic about the innovations coming to Magic Arena, the new digital Magic platform (still in beta), and how they won't affect the paper game, and so we should definitely not be worried about Arena changing how Magic is played on paper.

The idea that changes to Arena will not affect paper Magic is incorrect, and the fact that Wizards insists on it is troubling.

While Wizards may not be making any official changes to paper Magic to follow digital Magic, the popularity of Arena will absolutely change how players think about the game. Not only will regular Arena players have different expectations of card availability and tournament structures (since Arena prioritizes best-of-one matches), but the fact that Arena makes tournament grinding accessible to a wider audience will make the Magic community as a whole more aggressively competitive and less friendly to new or casual players, and reduce interest in play formats that are not available on Arena, especially casual formats like Brawl, Commander, and Two-Headed Giant.

My core engagement with Magic is through face-to-face social interaction. That does not exist on Arena, and as a result, playing digital Magic turns a game I play to relax into a major source of stress. I am concerned that, in trying to keep the digital game from affecting the paper game, Wizards will continue to focus on digital innovation to the detriment of face-to-face social play, and that people like me will be prevented from participating in the innovation and get left behind.

***

I got a little more hope for the future of paper Magic from a more recent Daily MtG post, Gavin Verhey's State of Product Design. Gavin reminded me that, in addition to all the Arena excitement, 2018 was a big year for paper Magic products created for people like me. Last year, we got Battlebond, a set designed for Two-Headed Giant play; the return of Core Sets and Welcome decks; and self-contained products like Game Night, Archenemy: Nicol Bolas, and the Spellslinger Starter Kit.

Wizards still cares about people like me, and that's comforting to know. But I will be watching developments in Arena more closely now.

On the Needles 21

Make Nine Update

I have finished one of my Make Nine projects: my favorite sweater now has pockets large enough to hold my phone. I'm still plugging away at the sleeves on the sweater I'm knitting, and I'm about to start working on a pair of shorts I cast on last year, to go with the Quirky Monday Craftcast's Pisces craftalong.

Pokemon Art Challenge

I also finished my Pokemon art challenge this weekend. February 14 was the last one: Melmetal.



All of my sketches are posted on my Tumblr. I am now taking a long and well-earned break both from Tumblr and from sketching.

Writing

I've been doing some freelance writing for the Card Kingdom blog about characters in the recent Magic: the Gathering stories. Here's my most recent post, about Lavinia, Azorius Renegade.