Comment by danpalmer

FWIW, I'm British. I won't disagree that there was a certain cringe to Bond, and the older films have aged quite poorly. But there's nostalgia there still, and it's also worth remembering that in many ways Bond defined the image of worldly/sexy. Bond's cultural impact on Men's fashion for example is huge. The films were influential at the time, even if in hindsight they're a bit simplistic or fantastical and more than a bit misogynistic.

I think the films are also worth more than the sum of their parts. Each one is typically an above average blockbuster style action film, but nothing particularly special. Taken together however, they are worth a lot more because of that continuing thread that has been done so well, and it's that which leads to the cultural significance.

The franchise certainly needs updating, but I think it has evolved over time and can likely continue to do so with that strong creative backing. It depends much less on sex now than it did even 20 years ago, they moved past the gadgets (as "gadgets" became less of a thing, it's hard to have a clever gadget when we all have smartphones in our pockets).