Amazon's Prime Video Rolls Back Controversial 'Stylized' James Bond Thumbnails Without Guns (mi6-hq.com) 92
"When someone searches for 'James Bond' on Prime Video now, all of the classic films will show up..." notes Parade. But recently Amazon's streaming service had tried new thumbnails with "matching minimalist backgrounds," so every Bond actor — from Sean Connery to Daniel Craig — "had a stylish image with '007' emblazoned over a color background." But in most of those "stylized" images, James Bond's guns were edited out.
It looks like Amazon backed off. On my TV and on my tablet, selecting Dr. No now brings up a page where Bond is holding his gun. (Just like in the original publicity photo.) And there's also guns in the key art for The Spy Who Loved Me, A View to a Kill, and License to Kill.
"Perhaps feeling shame for the terrible botch job on the artwork, not to mention the idea in the first place, Amazon Prime has now reinstated the previous key art across its streaming service," notes the unofficial James Bond fan site MI6. (In most cases guns still aren't shown, but they seem to achieve this by showing a photo from the movie.)
That blog post includes a gallery preserving copies of Amazon's original "stylized" images. They'd written Thursday that Amazon didn't just use cropping. "In some cases the images have been digitally manipulated to varying levels of success."
It looks like Amazon backed off. On my TV and on my tablet, selecting Dr. No now brings up a page where Bond is holding his gun. (Just like in the original publicity photo.) And there's also guns in the key art for The Spy Who Loved Me, A View to a Kill, and License to Kill.
"Perhaps feeling shame for the terrible botch job on the artwork, not to mention the idea in the first place, Amazon Prime has now reinstated the previous key art across its streaming service," notes the unofficial James Bond fan site MI6. (In most cases guns still aren't shown, but they seem to achieve this by showing a photo from the movie.)
That blog post includes a gallery preserving copies of Amazon's original "stylized" images. They'd written Thursday that Amazon didn't just use cropping. "In some cases the images have been digitally manipulated to varying levels of success."
Re: Go woke, go broke. (Score:1)
Agree... F$#k this.
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So... you think that a), a megacorp busy sucking up to Trump is "woke", and that b) said company that made 60 billion profit off 600 billion income is "broke"?
What do you think "woke" and "broke" actually mean?
Re: Go woke, go broke. (Score:2)
Re:Go woke, go broke. (Score:5, Informative)
Ah yes Jeff Bezos, noted woke liberal. https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
So woke they had steaks with ketchup together at a tacky country club.
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Ah yes Jeff Bezos, noted woke liberal.
You don't need to be liberal to be "woke", just as you don't need to be conservative to pander to the religious right.
Sometimes it is all about posturing for money and power.
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Woke culture is about not being an arsehole to other people.
You expect people to take that statement seriously? Woke culture looks like all it does is antagonize anyone who doesn't bend the knee to their aggressive postures.
Re: Go woke, go broke. (Score:1)
You expect people to take that statement seriously? Woke culture looks like all it does is antagonize anyone who doesn't bend the knee to their aggressive postures.
Show us on the doll where the woke culture touched you, snowflake.
Re: Go woke, go broke. (Score:1)
Letâ(TM)s take a look at some woke stances then.
- Black Lives Matter - ah yes, very oppressive.
- Womenâ(TM)s rights - yup, still sounding oppressive.
- LGBTQ rights - yup, same theme.
â¦
Iâ(TM)m not seeing where the oppression comes in?
The right seems to think that it comes in when you get
- Cancel culture - meaning âoewhen we stop listening to you when you say horrible thingsâ
- Race based silencing - meaning âoewhen we put black peopleâ(TM)s view points on an equal
Trying to care... (Score:5, Insightful)
Still trying... Nope, can't care about Prime Video thumbnails.
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No kidding.
Talk about the most idiotic, dumbest, most stupid of shit to concern oneself with.
Holy Jesus!! I cannot imagine what it must be like to have the wherewithal to worry about something like this.
Re:Trying to care... (Score:5, Informative)
The reason it matters (to some people anyway - including myself) is that Amazon recently acquired creative control over the James Bond franchise.
Now if you're not a fan of Bond in the first place, then obviously you wouldn't care either way.
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The reason it matters (to some people anyway - including myself) is that Amazon recently acquired creative control over the James Bond franchise.
Now if you're not a fan of Bond in the first place, then obviously you wouldn't care either way.
And what exactly does that mean? How far does that creative license go? Are we going to start seeing edited versions of these movies? Bond holding a Nerf gun instead, to appease those broadcasting horrific violence daily? Is Pussy Galores name going to be changed nex, oh that’s right. No amount of sexual perversion is offensive now. I almost forgot. Gotta “protect” the kids by exposing them early.
Sad that Censorship needs a refresher course on the entire fucking point of censorship.
Re: Censor america's whores (Score:2)
censorship bad, less boobs more penis
Thank you for saying the quiet part out loud. If more conservatives would openly admit they were into the dong, so many problems would go away. Go get yourself some gay onlyfans and stop the hate, be brave buck-yar.
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And what exactly does that mean? How far does that creative license go?
All the way. They paid a billion dollars, they can do with it whatever they wish.
And that will be whatever they believe will make them money.
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How far does that creative license go?
Amazon owns the franchise so they can do many things including using new thumbnails if they wanted. Previously a distributer would have to agree with the manufacturer on changes like this. For example if these films were on Netflix, Netflix could not use any thumbnail they wanted.
Are we going to start seeing edited versions of these movies?
They could. Edited versions have always been around. For example the TV broadcast version could have been different than the cable broadcast version due to time constraints, nudity removal, letterboxing, etc.
No amount of sexual perversion is offensive now.
TV broadcast versions h
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I am aware, and I am a fan of the Bond franchise. I still could not care less about some stupid little icons.
Re: Trying to care... (Score:2)
So you're looking for hints about their creative direction for the franchise in the AI generated normalized thumbnails of the back catalog.
Are you fucking serious. Some snowflake blogger took offense to some change somewhere in the world and this is news. I'm beginning to understand why "woke" is everywhere. Because "woke" is "something changed and I'm upset". Oh my god, that's it.
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The reason it matters (to some people anyway - including myself) is that Amazon recently acquired creative control over the James Bond franchise.
Now if you're not a fan of Bond in the first place, then obviously you wouldn't care either way.
Meh,
It's not like they could do any more damage to the franchise after the last few movies. The Blond Bond and grittyfication sucked all the humour and gravitas out of the series. Now they're left with a withered husk so they might as well see what they can do with it.
And the thing is, I liked Daniel Craig in his previous roles. He wasn't even the wrong actor, it was the role that had changed into something worse.
Re:Trying to care... (Score:5, Insightful)
Prime Video thumbnails aren't the actual issue, they're just a symptom. What will you do when all of history is edited to be exactly how the people in power want it to have been?
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Prime Video thumbnails aren't the actual issue, they're just a symptom. What will you do when all of history is edited to be exactly how the people in power want it to have been?
It's not even a new issue. Remember edited re-releases like E.T. where the police / federal agents are holding walkie-talkies instead of guns, or Star Wars and Han doesn't shoot first. Back IRL Trump has people censoring The Smithsonian to remove things that make America look, or people feel, bad.
Re: Trying to care... (Score:2)
Re: Trying to care... (Score:2)
This is not the first time [pcworld.com] Amazon has done something similar. And we had [slashdot.org] a similar discussion back then. And went back to sleep.
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Great example! Orwell got censored! It's almost funny. Orwell's books which are about dystopian society, mass control and censorship, got censored. One would almost think it's Onion news, but it's real. And that in 2009! We absolutely have to pay attention to such nefarious attempts of censorship of art and history, and restricting freedom of expression in the name of... what exactly? Is it the "protect the children" again?
Re: Trying to care... (Score:2)
That's not even the real story here. What's the real story is that someone got tasked with making stylized thumbnails, made a really good job of it, then some middle manager got a bit jealous and decided that guns in a James Bond thumbnail was not Guideline Compliant, and put their mark on it by scissoring it out. Who do you think you are, coming here and making art on the job? Corporate dysfunction 101. News for nerds, unless you've all grown into jealous middle managers yourself.
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Prime Video thumbnails aren't the actual issue, they're just a symptom. What will you do when all of history is edited to be exactly how the people in power want it to have been?
"As long as it's edited the way that I want, it's fine!"
signed, idiots
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This one may just be consumer demand. People have been complaining about the home screens on streaming devices like Amazon's Fire TV sticks and Android TV boxes for years. They contain a random mix of children's cartoons and adult rated movies. Bluey the dog next to sexually suggestive photos and guns.
People have been asking for a child friendly mode for years. It's not just the exposure, it's that the kids see that stuff and then nag the parents to be allowed to watch it.
As for censorship, I'd be far more
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What will you do when all of history is edited to be exactly how the people in power want it to have been?
You mean the same thing that has been happening since civilization and record keeping started? I guess we could look back 3,000 years ago and see what they did... oh wait, no. Those records were altered too.
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Still trying... Nope, can't care about Prime Video thumbnails.
First they came for Prime Video Thumbnails, but I said nothing because I did not care about Prime Video Thumbnails. ...
Then they came for
Wait they didn't even come for Prime Video Thumbnails first. Revising historical art is the norm today. What do you like and care about? I'm sure we can find and example of some moron who thinks they need to gatekeep what the art looks like 20-100 years after the fact.
Do you read? I read. I also like James Bond. But this here isn't Amazon's fault in the current edition of
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Prime Video thumbnails aren't where I go to research history. Editing the actual movie would bother me more, but not nearly as much as the IRL censorship going on in actual places of learning this year.
Re: Trying to care... (Score:2)
Oh my god, they broke into your house and edited your books???
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Don't worry have the country will panic for you (Score:2)
Remember sexy m&ms? You can always count on the American people to ignore important kitchen table and pocketbook issues for a good old-fashioned moral panic.
Whether it's the old standby of the queers or violent video games or gun control or abortion or literally anything else you can always get Americans to sell themselves down the river in exchange for p
A gunless Bond is no Bond at all (Score:2)
James Bond is one of the coolest dudes in spy fiction. He's also a ruthless killer, doing it when necessary but with no compunction.
Sure, many stories had him cleverly arrange for a villain's devices or plans to backfire and cause their destruction, with no gun required. But his gun is his talisman. It's a focal point for the dangerous business he's in.
Recall that the Bond movies changed after the Indiana Jones franchise started: Bond faced many more perils per movie and became a bit more like an action-her
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Octopussy felt very much like an Indiana Jones movie
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Octopussy was also terrible.
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Octopussy was also terrible.
(Narrator) The whistle blew, but even the most rabid fans knew the call was good on the field.
Re: A gunless Bond is no Bond at all (Score:3)
The license to kill and his general attitude means even more in his home country where guns, especially handguns, are basically banned and self-defence is commonly not accepted as a justification or considered reasonable force for killing someone.
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The license to kill and his general attitude means even more in his home country where guns, especially handguns, are basically banned and self-defence is commonly not accepted as a justification or considered reasonable force for killing someone.
And yet violent-crime rates are much higher in the USA than in the UK, especially homicides driven by guns.
Re: A gunless Bond is no Bond at all (Score:2)
Thatâ(TM)s my point: 007 is so out of character for the UK, which is part of the entertainment factor. Maybe guns are so au fait in the US that their inclusion in the thumbnails isnâ(TM)t so significant and thus more easily disposed by Amazon.
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You made an interesting connection to IJ.
I too noticed that Bond became more of an action hero, but I didn't relate it to the appearance of IJ. I wonder, to what extent, IJ is the cause.
Personally, I don't like the action hero Bond. To me, it devalued the whole franchise, turning it into just another action hero franchise. I liked it a lot better when the crazy stunts were much fewer and far between, and Bond was more more intellectually-oriented than action-oriented..
Re: A gunless Bond is no Bond at all (Score:2)
(Just in case
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Random tangent: would a golden gun be any good? It would weigh twice as much for a start: steel is 8g/cm3 and gold is 17g/cm3. Is this like the "shiny fiddle made of gold" [wikipedia.org], which sounds good, but probably sounds bad?
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Not to mention that gold is quite malleable. I doubt a gun made of gold would stand up for long after repeated firings. (Then again, the character in that eponymous movie rarely fired his gun.)
I read "golden" as meaning "gold-plated" -- although the adjective may have been chosen for prosodic reasons. "The man with the gold gun" just doesn't ring as well.
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leave it to slashdotters to point out the logical fallacies of artistic license... but of course, you're both right, gold wouldn't be a good metal for a gun.
Here's a good one... there was some movie 20 years ago with George Clooney in it... a war/heist movie, don't recall the name. They found a bunker in Irag with gold in it. So they happily just loaded large suitcases with like, 50-20kg gold bars, then just grabbed the handle, one in each hand, and carried them several hundred y
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\o/ (Score:1)
They should use AI to edit every scene in each film to ensure *everyone* is smoking at all times as well as holding at least one visible gun so they match current films.
I'm sure I remember a push-back over a decade ago where it was deemed that advertising smoking via embedding within films might encourage smoking and then death so was bad then it all went quiet and now even babies are smoking in every scene (almost) in some films.
Edit the first amendment. (Score:3)
I am serious, this 1984 insanity should not be legal. Editing old photos and videos without some kind of disclaimer should not be allowed, and the original must always be available.
Revisionist In Chief (Score:2)
Re: Edit the first amendment. (Score:2)
The constitution doesn't work the way you think it does and your suggestion is profoundly stupid. Why does anything need to be made available to you in the first place, compelling someone else's free speech, and how does the constitution compel any individual to do anything?
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They own the franchise now (Score:2)
Mo-Money Penny. (Score:2)
It's theirs to drive into the ground. If you think some lame photo editing is the worse they can do, wait until they start shitting out a Bond "cinematic universe". Imagine some terrible Bond adjacent spinoffs and Amazon probably have them in development - Agents of SPECTRE, Leiter - Gone Rogue , Blofeld The Early Years, Young Bond, Old Bond, The Adventures of Moneypenny, Oddjobs etc.
Given the proclivity of modern feminism, you’ll likely be finding The Adventures of Moneypenny streaming on OnlyFans. Not Amazon.
Re: Mo-Money Penny. (Score:2)
Given the proclivity of modern feminism, youâ(TM)ll likely be finding The Adventures of Moneypenny streaming on OnlyFans. Not Amazon.
I'm going to be honest, anti-woke ideology is so fucking random and retarded I'm having trouble following this. Is onlyfans an example of feminism, or the presence of some moneypenny themed porno on a porn site and not Amazon evidence of... what exactly. Or is the rampant feminism on the Amazon side because an obvious porn title is now on a porn site? WTF are you trying to say.
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I think perhaps you shouldn't be learning all you know about feminism from angry men on the internet with a chip on their collective shoulders.
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This is a terrible eventuality I hadn't even considered. I'm not the hugest Bond fan, but I have enjoyed several of the movies and the N64 game. I know there's about a dozen movies in the back catalog that are mostly good I can dip into if I get bored.
Those will still be there, but a flood of low-effort "cinematic universe" would just be sad to behold, and probably preclude another couple good Bond films being produced in my lifetime.
Amazonian Hypocisy. (Score:3)
Anyone still wondering what the point of it all was? Blows me away how warped censorship has become. Full male frontal nudity is OK for Amazon to broadcast for breakfast, but we need to censor Bonds PP(K)? Amazon has one job. Did they really think THAT was going to sell more product in some way?
Talk about a childish interpretation of 007 marketing. And the hypocrisy? They never even stopped selling other Bond gun shit.
https://www.amazon.com/007-The... [amazon.com]
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They likely wanted more consistent marketing images for the franchise than busy movie posters.
After that it becomes hard to predict. Most likely they let someone with a hard on for gun banning write guidelines for the marketing. Would be hilarious if they used an overly safety trained AI model to edit the images and it just removed the guns because of training pressure though.
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They likely wanted more consistent marketing images for the franchise than busy movie posters.
If Amazon wants to call that respecting history and the original art, then Bezos should prepare himself to be utterly forgotten by Amazon within the next decade.
I’m talking wiped from existence like a Clinton drunk on bleachbit.
Re: Amazonian Hypocisy. (Score:2)
Or someone wanted to normalize them for a consistent look. All no guns, or all with guns, and went with the less fucked up looking one. The people fussing over this are being some real snowflakes.
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My guess, it was that they were worried some kid/teen would see Big, Bad-a#% Bond looking cool with a gun and want to look cool holding their parents handgun.
"We must protect t he children!
My God, think of the children!"
Then, kid goes to school and, well... you know the rest.
I blame Apple for this. (Score:3, Interesting)
They invented that stupid water pistol emoji. The beginning of the end of the real Internet.
Bond was lucky it took so long for Amazon to find his guns.
This really is peak stupid... (Score:2)
I mean, James Bond is an assassin. That was always clear. His primary tool is his gun. If you want to "sanitize" that, the only way is to not offer the movies in the forst place.
Meanwhile ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Meanwhile ... (Score:2)
are cheering on the actual shooting of people who they don't like.
Wow, projection much?
Re: Meanwhile ... (Score:2)
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And who cares if this is actually true! Feelings are more important than facts. If it sounds true to you, and you feel deeply in your heard that it's true, the it is true.
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And who cares if this is actually true! Feelings are more important than facts. If it sounds true to you, and you feel deeply in your heard that it's true, the it is true.
I'm watching the Left cheer it on. Your gaslighting doesn't work.
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I'm watching the Left cheer it on.
"I saw someone post something on Twitter"
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I'm watching the Left cheer it on.
No you aren't. You're watching the right all claim that, but it doesn't make it true.
I think the core tenet of the right wing is to yowl and screech really loudly blaming the left about something you're doing. The people who made hay out of that recent shooting were the right, not the left. All while screeching (like you) about how the left is doing it.
Breaking news! Water is wet. (Score:2)
The Bond character is an artifact of the middle Cold War period.
He's white, male, educated, articulate, accomplished CISHET, capable and indifferent to anyone that bothers.
Re: Breaking news! Water is wet. (Score:2)
At least... (Score:1)
Dont change my movies (Score:2)
This was really obviously designed (Score:2)
It's a little dangerous these days if you don't back down quickly because Trump is so unhinged that he will sometimes send the Department of Justice off on people.
But that's mostly a function of how long you want to let the controversy Go versus whether or not you want to take a risk of becoming the next Bud lite.
It's not a hard line to walk though and it's an easy way to
Bond's only arch enemies ... (Score:2)
*Actually, Looney Tunes have about-faced on the gun bans. [popculture.com] So the only loonies left are the hoplophobes.