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Contemporary audiences have a skewed perception of normality due to social media etc. I for one loathe all of it. Perhaps I'm a conservative 37 year old.
But he has the physique of a 12 year old boy.
The summer of 89 I was 15 and rushed to see LTK…. I was heartbroken when Tim doffed the top.
Well Peter, my take is you know some weird looking twelve year olds.
*Relative to age *smirk*
It did cross my mind that one element of Bond as a "superhero" in a sense is that he does smoke, he does drink, he has a slim physique, and yet he can handle his own. You could call it almost superhuman, etc. through a certain lens, when the character is portrayed that way. It wasn't until Craig that his physical menace was personified by muscle. I clearly prefer the latter, for various reasons stretching into promotional materials and keeping a certain woman (and man!) interested in the franchise. Sex sells, you can have sex appeal without muscle but it's much harder to sell.
Age appropriate for a young lad whose body is about to change.
Not so for a grown man. And it does look strange.
On a man.
I jest, but, when I was a kid, Tim's face was so strong and his body language was energetic and fierce, I assumed he was athletic with lean muscles. I thought he'd be similar to a Bruce Willis build (but longer).
When he took his shirt off in LTK, I was very underwhelmed and disappointed. I'd rather they kept the shirt on so the illusion of his strength would be intact.
And I do love Tim..
Connery was someone who may've been long and lean, but you can't hide his athletic background; he may not have been ripped, but he had an over all fitness in his first four films that, man, you just knew he could kick ass. Like genuinely kick ass. That man could tussle (and I think some of the fight choreography of that era slowed down the natural force I imagined Connery would have in unarmed combat).
Dunno man, but it all sounds rather superficial. Even more so due to all the steroids all the 'Hollywood heroes' use to get those 'ripped bodies', including Craig. Bond functions fine without all the steroids/ show muscles.
@peter Connery is probably the epitome of a man, show muscles not needed.
I know many ppl who've used PEDs, and I know you don't like Craig, @JeremyBondon , but he didn't use them.
I can show you two pics of me. One was about two years ago and I was in heavy competition. I ate six to seven meals a day and trained two and half hours six days a week, with an active recovery day on my seventh day.
I shot up to 210 lbs on a 5'9 frame.
I looked like I did PEDs, but it was all natural. And I was 47.
My wife told me to cut and I'm now a lean 175. Also done naturally. I'm now 49.
Craig, and others, have access to the best kiniseologists and trainers, nutrition and they're put on strict schedules. It's clear who is doping and who is natural.
Send me your IG and I'll send you a before and after, and, I'm sure you'll be like others who called the 210lb me "Liver King before Liver King" (that guy was a complete fraud and walking pharmaceutical)
That's Hollywood. People go to the pictures to look at things.
Connery had a big frame, which is why he's so commanding on screen and in fight scenes. Lazenby is the same. I've met the man in person and he's still imposing today, just from the amount of air he takes up. Moore lacked it. Dalton lacks it. Brosnan was fine I think in GE for a "banker" spy.
Yeah, @LucknFate , you summed it up: it is Hollywood. We don't want to look at things we can see every day. We want to look at the fantastical, from starships, to cars that zip along streets at impossible speeds, to men and women who are untouchables.
Either way he should have had some class and shut up about it.
I can assure it isn't Elba that lacks class.
Assure all you want, I can just reference his post.
I don't know where some people are getting this idea. If the Bond franchise is dependent on a supposed part of the public that is only going to see Bond take his shirt off at the beach so they can see his huge muscles in order for the franchise to stay afloat, then honestly just kill the franchise now.
James Bond is this, people:
Not this:
Make Bond just fit enough to do his job. He doesn't seem like a man that spends hours at the gym every day pumping weights. Like JeremyBondon said earlier, it makes him look vain. Bond doesn't need to look like the Incredible Hulk. What is he doing, running around lifting cars off of people? Does he need it to get women? Of course not. Bond just isn't someone that spends hours a day lifting weights. The point is, he doesn't need to overcompensate like that.
And honestly I'm not even sure that's what the "mass audience" is clamoring for. Obviously some people like it. But even the few women and gay/bi men that we have here usually recommend thinner men for Bond. I can't remember her screen name, but one woman in this thread actually said she didn't find Henry Cavill attractive.
Also, Tom Cruise isn't exactly ripped and the MI franchise has been doing well for itself. And if they can get someone as skinny as Robert Pattinson to play Batman, I'm pretty sure the Bond franchise can get away with not casting a body builder as Bond...
Quite an exaggeration of what is being said by those who prefer a fit Bond. No one is suggesting that they cast a bodybuilder and the accusation of steroid use toward any actor who has any amount of muscle is ignorant and ludicrous.
No one is saying James Bond should be the Incredible Hulk. No one. In fact I said that in my last post. Craig didn’t look like the Hulk. He never looked like The Rock.
He looked like (to steal from @talos7 ) a functional man. Athletic. Someone who had the power, if needed, to break your neck, swiftly.
It’s ridiculous to think that a spy wouldn’t be in peak physical condition in 2023. And that doesn’t negate that in the evening, he can still drown his sorrows in x number of Vesper’s. But yes, if James Bond were living and breathing today, I’d gather he no longer smokes (jeez, even Gardner picked up on this in his first novel— and that was in ‘81 (wasn’t it?); Bond had cut down his habit).
By 2023 Bond would be training in a gym, working on functional strength, metabolic and explosive power training.; grappling, boxing, swimming.
He’d need to be in peak condition for his job.
It doesn’t mean he would like doing this. It’s just that he has to.
And I bet he’d savour the champagne, scotch, or Vesper much moreso because of his regiment.
And as far as gay and bi-men calling for a thinner Bond on this site, I’m not sure that’s accurate? I know my gay friends very much enjoyed Craig and one of the greatest times I I had was seeing CR with my wife and her colleagues (that were gay men); when Craig came out of the water, our row of guests threw a celebration (my wife and I included). Let’s say we all celebrated the wow factor of having this new James Bond looking as he did (after the dad bod years that preceded it).
Said the silly man 😏
What's silly is thinking Craig was built like The Rock, or a comicbook creation called The Incredible Hulk.
Throughout his tenure Craig was athletically built. In each film he adjusted the training to suit his age and where Bond was in life. In fact, for a guy who supposedly hated this role, he really dedicated time and effort and energy to making sure he looked the part....
If that's hatred for a job, I can only hope the next guy dislikes the role as much as Craig did!
As for in-universe Bond, I want them to do the LALD training montage on screen. I’ll stop smoking and swim once a day for two weeks. That should be enough to allow me to scuba dive for several hours at night. Sorted.
Quoted for truth.
We usually concur, like now. The argument made by the other camp is modern Bond would need to look ripped in this day and age. I disagree. Also, women don't care a whole lot about it either. If anything a classically handsome face is far more attractive to a female.
Pattinson in The Batman's a funny one though. I remember just after he got cast he did an interview where he claimed he wasn't going to work out for the role and his diet consisted of mostly tuna which he ate from the can. It really annoyed some fans.
It wasn't true, of course. We know he actually had a proper training routine for the movie and you can see the effects of it in the actual movie. It's just not as extreme as Bale's transformation was in Batman Begins, nor is Wayne's body focused upon quite as much as it was - or in quite the same way at least - in that film. There's only one obligatory shirtless scene, and another time when we see scars on his back briefly. Bale's Batman had more scenes of him training and the film/cinematography really highlighted his physique. Heck, his rapid transformation coming off of his previous film (where he played a character who was underweight) was arguably used to drum up publicity for the film in a way which Pattinson's claims subverted.
I suspect we might get a similar thing with the next Bond compared to Craig's. Bond needs to be in shape simply as a character, but that doesn't necessarily mean the next actor's sex appeal will be pushed by his physique the same way it was when Craig's Bond exits the water in CR.
I'd also say that there were more interesting things about the literary Bond's body than just his physique (odd thing to say but go with me). The character from the book actually had a number of scars and all kinds of odd ailments, some of which he didn't seem fully aware of until TB. It's the sort of stuff that makes Brosnan's dislocated shoulder or Craig's bullet wound look minor by comparison. There's a sense that the literary Bond's job had a physical toll on his body and often he would push himself to his limits. There would be moments when some of his opponents were clearly more muscular than him (Red Grant being an example) and he would be the underdog in a fight by comparison, often having to use his wits. I'd kinda like to see that latter idea in a future Bond film, regardless of the actor's physique.
You're hurting my feelings here, @peter! I was looking at that photo of Tim thinking: "Now if I put on a bit more weight…". :))