News: 0179659326

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Amazon's Prime Video Rolls Back Controversial 'Stylized' James Bond Thumbnails Without Guns (mi6-hq.com)

(Sunday October 05, 2025 @03:34AM (EditorDavid) from the never-say-never-again dept.)


"When someone searches for 'James Bond' on Prime Video now, all of the classic films will show up..." [1]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 [2]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 [3]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 [4]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 [5]Thursday that Amazon didn't just use cropping. "In some cases the images have been digitally manipulated to varying levels of success."



[1] https://parade.com/news/james-bond-amazon-bizarre-change-posters

[2] https://x.com/GelNerd/status/1973854556716228757

[3] https://007store.com/en-us/products/james-bond-dr-no-art-edition-publicity-portrait-signed-and-numbered-art-edition-by-taschen?variant=44102061555867

[4] https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/amazon-prime-2025-ditch-gunless-james-bond-key-art?id=5392

[5] https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/amazon-prime-2025-remove-guns-from-james-bond-key-art


Re: Go woke, go broke. (Score:1)

by zoid.com ( 311775 )

Agree... F$#k this.

Re: (Score:3)

by ArchieBunker ( 132337 )

Ah yes Jeff Bezos, noted woke liberal. [1]https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]

So woke they had steaks with ketchup together at a tacky country club.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-jeff-bezos-donald-trump-feud-relationship-history-2024-11

Trying to care... (Score:4, Insightful)

by sound+vision ( 884283 )

Still trying... Nope, can't care about Prime Video thumbnails.

Re: (Score:2)

by registrations_suck ( 1075251 )

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:4)

by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 )

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.

Re:Trying to care... (Score:4)

by Calydor ( 739835 )

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?

Re: (Score:1)

by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 )

> 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)

by getuid() ( 1305889 )

This is not the [1] first time [pcworld.com] Amazon has done something similar. And [2]we had [slashdot.org] a similar discussion back then. And went back to sleep.

[1] https://www.pcworld.com/article/524327/kindle_e_book.html

[2] https://m.slashdot.org/story/122035

Re: (Score:2)

by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

> 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

A gunless Bond is no Bond at all (Score:2)

by ClickOnThis ( 137803 )

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

Re: (Score:2)

by haruchai ( 17472 )

Octopussy felt very much like an Indiana Jones movie

Re: (Score:3)

by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 )

Octopussy was also terrible.

Re: A gunless Bond is no Bond at all (Score:2)

by Malc ( 1751 )

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.

\o/ (Score:1)

by easyTree ( 1042254 )

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)

by mosb1000 ( 710161 )

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.

They own the franchise now (Score:2)

by DrXym ( 126579 )

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.

Three actors, Tom, Fred, and Cec, wanted to do the jousting scene
from Don Quixote for a local TV show. "I'll play the title role," proposed
Tom. "Fred can portray Sancho Panza, and Cecil B. De Mille."