TALKING TECH
Did James Bond’s gadgets shape today’s tech landscape? Not really, but I wish they had…
The name is Bell. Duncan Bell. And this month he’s talking
007 gadgets
Q could always start a crowdfunding project if he’s made redundant from MI6…
Like a lot of men my age, and probably no women, I’ve seen all the Bond films. I started at a young age, and despite now being a full-grown adult, I am still looking forward to the new one.
Bond has had a huge impact on how people (men) perceive things such as tailoring, luxury lifestyles and cars. Would Aston Martin even still exist were it not for Bond?
The other thing Bond has stamped his mark on in the popular imagination is tech. Really though, when I say ‘tech’ here, I am thinking of a less fashionable word: ‘gadgets’. Tech is sexy, serious and worthy. Gadgets are fun… and frequently ridiculous. Gadgets defined the early years of T3, when technology was a far more niche interest, and the tech was considerably more fun. Or crap, depending on your degree of rose-tinted hindsight.
Certainly, 007’s gadgets weren’t for mundane tasks such as setting a kitchen timer with your voice, or using Instagram. They were, on the whole, for killing people. Or at least saving 007 from certain death.
They set the pulse racing because they followed one of Duncan’s Laws of Tech: stuff that hasn’t come out yet is always way more exciting than things that actually exist. Right now, people cannot read enough about the Galaxy S20. They’re riveted by every leak, rumour and iffy render. As soon as it’s in shops, everyone will yawn and say, ‘Oh, it’s just another phone.’
Bond’s gadgets were the ultimate example of not being out yet, because not only were they not available to the public, they were generally impossible devices that would never be available to anyone.
Premium Bond
Consider the crazy gizmos Bond has deployed over the years. In Live and Let Die, Roger Moore uses a watch containing a powerful magnet, with a chainsaw in the bezel.
Can you imagine how dangerous that would be to wear? At the very least, Moore’s safari-influenced suits would have been cut to ribbons. Oh, and the magnet would have rendered the watch incapable of telling the time. Later, Pierce Brosnan had a watch with a bloody grappling hook in it. And an invisible car!
Little wonder, then, that when Bond was hard rebooted with the arrival of Daniel Craig, Bond’s tech arsenal was slimmed down to a very modestly souped-up Aston and… a Sony camera phone.
Even when Q was reintroduced in Skyfall, the young upstart openly mocked the idea of exploding pens and espoused using a Windows laptop instead.
You can’t keep a good gadget down, though. By the time Spectre rolled around, the ‘gritty’, ‘rebooted’ Bond was again using an exploding watch to take out a bad guy dressed in a Nehrucollar jacket. Is it possible to make a watch that can cause an explosion big enough to destroy an underground laboratory? No. But it’s still more plausible than Nehru jackets coming back into fashion.
This was all done with a knowing wink to the past, and no wonder. Bond is a has-been, and his gadgets are never-weres. The sad truth is that the serious, grown up tech world took all its cues from nerd staple Star Trek, not problematic old 007.
Still, some of that Bond spirit lives on, on crowdfunding sites. Q could always move there if he’s made redundant from MI6. The pages for his products would all start with enthusiastic and helpful comments such as, ‘An exploding pen, what a great idea! Could you make it have a laser in it as well?’
Then once all the pledges had poured in and the project was 500% funded (‘Early bird offer: buy exploding pen in colour of your choice and receive a FREE badge that fires tranquilliser darts!’) the comments would be full of punters saying, ‘My pen arrived and I immediately accidentally blew up my expensive jacket by mistake. I want a refund!’
Now that is how to give tech back its licence to thrill.