George Lazenby
Roger Moore
Timothy Dalton
Pierce Brosnan
Daniel Craig
"When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man."
Craig 007 is the Bourne movies but in a tuxedo.Originally Posted by cheby
James Bond, Jason Bourne, and Jack Bauer are all pretty much the same humorless guy.
"When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man."
It really depends on what you think of as a "Bond movie" and what you think of as "Bond".
The first two movies, Dr. No and From Russia with Love; and Craig's first movie (Casino Royale) are the truest movies to their original books. Aside from updating Casino Royal to fit the modern era, that movie is almost the book verbatim.
It's also only those first two movies where Ian Fleming was alive to provide context and help with film production. He died before Goldfinger was completed.
For me the Craig films are the truest Bond films after the first two.
The remainders are campy fluff that are fun to watch, but are in many ways a distinct subset of Bond films.
Yea. They're supposed to be dull, cold, unfeeling, and unencumbered men, who put country and duty before all else. Humor, in as much as it is found, is a distraction from work. These characters are meant to be fundamentally flawed and broken humans who do the jobs they do, because it's the job that fits them. Fleming himself said in several interviews he conceptualized Bond to be a neutral party, at best.
Excerpted from an interview in Playboy in 1964:
I don't think that he is necessarily a good guy or a bad guy. Who is? He's got his vices and very few perceptible virtues except patriotism and courage, which are probably not virtues anyway ... But I didn't intend for him to be a particularly likeable person."
"James Bond is a healthy, violent, noncerebral man in his middle-thirties, and a creature of his era. I wouldn't say he's particularly typical of our times, but he's certainly of the times."
Interesting and provides insight into the Bond character. But it makes me think Fleming would annoy the shit out of me, as I consider patriotism and courage to be virtues indeed.
Pierce Brosnan.
-Looks like he was genetically engineered to play James Bond
-Effortless cool of Sean Connery
-Humor / puns / womanizing of Roger Moore
-Maintained and built upon the Ruthlessness shown by Dalton in License to Kill
-Wasn't a Brooding Bond like Craig; like the books, Pierce is a killer with no regrets or personal doubts
He really represented the Goldilocks zone of all of the Bond actors.
Tomorrow Never Dies is in my eye the perfect Bond film. Girls, Guns, Gadgets on a globe spanning set encompassing land sea and air, and paired with a plausible and wonderful Villain.
Last edited by spyderco monkey; 04-10-2021 at 04:33 AM.
No love for David Niven?
I doubt Pierce Brosnan would have endured a kindergarten fight in reality. Poor gun handling reinforces this suspicion. He was a womanizer, OK, but not a believable James Bond for me. Also the action scenes in Brosnan movies were so unrealistic, I could not take it seriously.
Daniel Craig is a believable Bond for me. In addition to typical Bond attributes, he has a "hard working man" dimension, "knows what he's doing" aura to him. In one episode somebody told him: "You wear this smoking but you despise it." This is what I mean. He has given the role heart and substance again, not only a superficial elegance.
Damn, this was open and honest, I hope it's OK. I suppose, Brosnan could stand my criticism with all his millions dollars as compensation.
Last edited by P30; 04-10-2021 at 06:26 AM.
Grew up watching Bond, Man from UNCLE, the Saint, Mission Impossible and the rest. It was all about the wayyyyy cool gadgets
IMO, Craig is an excellent Bond, gritty, and dark to a point.
Connery, well, he's just Connery, in a role that he portrayed well.
Roger Moore was just a boor....shittiest Bond ever, and the story lines just sucked.
Between Dalton and Brosnan, I choose Dalton, only for the way he portrayed the character as a bit darker and vengeful. Brosnan, too campy.
I don't think Lazenby ever got a fair shake in the series.
The thought of making the next 007 a woman, well, not being sexist, but that's just catering and cow-towing. The Bond character was created for a dude.
Wow, you hit my thoughts exactly.
I could never stand the Brosnan iteration.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
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