So, Where Are the Kara Milovy Spin-Off Movies?

I thought that "The Living Daylights" was interesting because, like "Octopussy", it exemplified a number of features of changing masculinity mentioned in Jefford's article, "The Big Switch." "The Living Daylights" is another late 80s film, and Dalton's Bond is strikingly different from the spy we've come to expect: while he's called in to perform his typical feats of espionage, we see that he is more likely to follow his gut and abide by his principles and ideas rather than follow orders. This fits with Jefford's explanation of the reformed male action figure; less stereotypically masculine, less physical, depicting a manliness more defined by one's choices than one's ability to run through a wall. But this new and improved Bond model means that when problematic features common to the James Bond films appear, they seem insidious: forcibly removing Puskin's girlfriend's clothes to distract the guard, the suddenly stereotypical portrayal of Afghanistan, etc. And yet, in spite of it, I'm tempted to call this film the least misogynistic so far because of the character of Kara Milovy.

Obviously, the film seems strange to us because, for once, Bond is involved with only one woman. Once again returning to the feminist timeline, 1987 was only about five years away from the rise of Third Wave feminism, which was less about burning bras and protesting beauty pageants and more about trying to incorporate varying perspectives of women into the philosophy. A "have it your way" type of feminism, if you'll forgive my Burger King reference. Women are part of the workforce, the home, and most assuredly the movie's audience: because of this, just as Moore and Dalton's Bonds had to change to fit altered societal standards, they needed women who could balance out this new power structure. I don't think the movies could have worked without Octopussy and Kara. But with the need to create more developed heroines, I feel like something interesting happened: I became more interested in Kara as an action hero than Bond. Sure, Kara starts out naively enough (once again, women can't use guns, guys), and of course she has her slip ups, which are supposed to reinforce Bond's control of the situation, but she miraculously changes from this innocent, stubborn girl to this women who drugs Bond, leads a hoard of Afghan rebels into combat, drives a truck onto a plane, and ends up playing her Stradivarius-made cello in concerts around Europe. I'm much more interested in her journey than Bond's, as he disregards orders and seems to survive on luck alone, but without Connery's charisma.  I'm confused about a number of things in this movie: how they ended up in Afghanistan, whether "ghetto blaster" was an acceptable term in the 80s, whether the bullet hole will increase or decrease the Stradivarius's worth, but I'm sure of one thing: I'd rather watch Kara Milovy battling KGB agents with 2 hours to spare before preforming a notoriously difficult Beethoven than listen to Dalton claim he didn't shoot the beautiful girl because of "his gut." Is it really too late for a spin-off?