James Bond holds a strange place in the British psyche. You wouldn’t think he was merely a fictional spy who, if he were real, would be more than a hundred years old, having been born in 1920. Although popularly portrayed as sex-mad, he was the only subject trusted to lay hands on the queen — even if they were both stunt doubles — when they both appeared in the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony to jump out of a helicopter using a Union Jack as a parachute, copying the opening credits from a 1977 Bond film. 

The late queen’s dresser recalled that Her Majesty immediately agreed on the condition that she could say, “Good evening, Mr Bond,” in the manner of a Bond villain, suggesting that she was something of a fan. Like many a Brit child growing up in the 1960s, millions find the release of a new James Bond film a thrilling event. My cohort were too young to know about sex proper, but the saucy suggestiveness of the Sean Connery films was the nearest we got to it.

Bond reached brows from high to low, so much so that when the doyenne of cinema critics, Pauline Kael, named a collection of her writings “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” the films were thought to be part of the inspiration. Yet given how Bonds have changed since then, “Kvetch Kvetch Angst Angst” might be a more accurate summing up if such a book were published today.

It started with the brooding Timothy Dalton, who often gave the distinct impression that he wished he’d chosen another career-path: “Stuff my orders! Tell M what you want — if he fires me, I’ll thank him for it,” he hisses to a colleague at one point. As Steven Jay Rubin wrote in “The Complete James Bond Movie Encyclopaedia”: “Dalton’s Bond sometimes looks like a candidate for the couch — a burned-out killer who may have just enough energy left for one final mission … his is the suffering Bond.”

There was no turning back for 007 with even the great Roger Ebert praising Dalton’s successor, Pierce Brosnan, as “sensitive … vulnerable.” Mr. Brosnan was in turn succeeded by Daniel Craig, who wore an expression of permanent distaste which one is never sure stems from having to go around killing people or not having yet given us his Lear. Women are no longer one-hour-stands, and a dressing down from Judi Dench is never far away. 

On the surface it’s been nothing but sex and success; the franchise has grossed more than $7 billion at the box office from 1962’s “Dr. No” to 2021’s “No Time To Die.” Thus the implication from the media is that a new Bond film on the horizon — the first for Amazon — should have a grateful population bringing out the bunting. Denis Villeneuve, Oscar-nominated director of “Dune,” said in a statement that he was a “die-hard James Bond fan” and intends to “honor the tradition” of the franchise.

But there are two Bond traditions now; the fun one which began the franchise, and the serious one which carries it on. The BBC reported ominously of Mr. Villeneuve: “His characters, who are frequently loners, emotionally isolated from others, often wrestle with difficult moral dilemmas and concepts of identity.” 

Mr. Villeneuve, the BBC added, “uses tension and emotion to build to impactful action sequences, which can be brutal and brief. That suggests his version of Bond is likely to have more in common with the gritty realism seen in Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale than the fantastical fun some fans miss from Roger Moore’s days as 007.”

One small mercy is that no date has yet been set for the filming of Godot-with-guns, let alone the release date. Encouragingly, Mr. Villeneuve is expected to start shooting the third film in the “Dune” franchise later this year, while also being attached to a bunch of other films, including the cheery-sounding “Nuclear War: A Scenario.” “I have too many things right now,” he humble-bragged to Vanity Fair last year.

This is a handy bit of luck, as the script and the Vision Thing need to be in place before the casting of the new Bond is even thought of, though three names have emerged from a leading British bookmaker this week; star Aaron Taylor-Johnson is the favorite, followed by Jack Lowden and Theo James.

It’s not inconceivable that, with the likes of the pretty young men already mentioned in connection with the role, there might well be pressure on Amazon to make the new Bond non-binary — well, it is a fantasy franchise, after all. What is certain is that Bond is a number, not a free man, and has been passed seamlessly from one master to another. He can check out, but he can never leave; now, he is a prisoner of Woke, a unit of the Blob. Over the years, Bond has mutated from an ice-cold killing machine to “a wounded animal”; now, even 007 wants a medal in the Victimhood Olympics.