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Yes, its hard to stretch a spy thriller over 2 and a half hours and keep it engaging throughout. Bond films should really be 130 mins max.
Well, Dan's Bond was motivated to drink by his troubles with his work, it wasn't a statement of what he's always doing. Much like in QoS as well, where the grief over Vesper gets him to drink a few too many martinis that one time. I guess we can throw in the SP moment with the mouse, to play fair.
Either way, I wouldn't use those scenes to credibly argue a case for his alcoholism. Those moments were extremes for Dan's Bond, where trauma or troubles in his life at those intervals compelled him to drink more than he would otherwise. For that reason I find his drinking in SF and the little moment in QoS to be an outlier in what is certainly not a sober life, but not an alcoholic one with a heavy and consistent level of drinking occurring no matter the occasion. If we are to treat Dan's Bond as a drunk for having a few two many a couple of times, I guess about 95% of the living public are alcoholics too, and certainly most of the young people I know (I'm not proud of this, it just is what it is).
And realism wise? That doesn't matter. Yeah smoking has an effect on fitness, but Bond is fantasy. When Dalton did the landrover stunt in the TLD PTS, were any of us sat there watching him smoke later on and thinking "how stupid, he would have never been able to run fast enough to make the jump". The credibility comes from how well done the stuntwork is, not from his lifestyle shown on screen. That'd never work Bond is the epitome of unhealthy. He's a high functioning alcoholic for one thing.
Plus, it just looks cool. I'm not trying to glamorise it. I smoked for years and was a lot better off when I quit, but it looks cool. Connery's card table introduction. Lazenby's following Tracy in the DBS. Moore with the cigar while hang gliding. Dalton in the safehouse briefing. Is anyone going to argue they don't look cool smoking? I'm sure knocking back Vespers just before jumping into an Aston Martin for a car chase in the dark in a foreign country would be frowned upon in real life too, but he gets away with it because he's Bond. Same should apply to the fags.
He can't do it inside anymore but changing attitudes shouldn't stop Bond being Bond imo. He's a dinasour, they've made a big deal out of pointing that out from 1995 onwards and yet they've robbed him of one of the perfect character traits they could use to emphasise that. He's already depicted as a man out of time that manages to prove his relevance in this scary new world anyway. So let him smoke.
high viz jacket.
Sean certainly didn't resist the chance to chug down a drink, and was a frequent imbiber. Don't really think it's a matter of comparison, however.
The other Bonds outside of Lazenby also didn't have it as hard as Dan's Bond does, by which I mean, they are less justified in their drinking. ;) I still hold that it's ludicrous to make someone out to be an alcoholic when they had the nerve to get hammered when their true love died in front of them after betraying them, or when their entire purpose and career was questioned by their own people. Perhaps I would be drinking too if in the same position, despite being a lifelong teetotaler.
One can be rest assured that when Bond goes through hell, he'll abscond from his usual moderation to go numb with a bottle, much like his post-Tracy existence. If he was an alcoholic, however, he'd be getting hammered day and night and wouldn't have much of his wits about him to do his actual job. Like with food, Bond is a snob about the drinks but only goes overboard when he is at his lowest.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1078814/For-lungs-Superfit-Craig-stubs-Bonds-vice-refusing-light-up.html
And our forum had this:
https://www.mi6community.com/discussion/1300/craigs-constant-struggle-to-quit-smoking
Besides, he drove a bespoke bulletproof Aston Martin concept car with a flamethrower and an ejector seat in the last one, escaped by using a CGI komodo dragon as a stepping stone in the film before, went from very unfit and not being able to shoot properly to being back in super Bond mode without so much as a Rocky style training montage in SF, and managed to shrug off a drill to his brain that we were told was going to affect his motor functions just in time to effortlessly gun down some more goons in SP. But having Bond smoke is where he draws the line in terms of believeability in the action scenes?
In a way this is good news though because this means that it's just Craig who doesn't want him smoking, I assumed the filmmakers were on the same page too because Brosnan didn't either but I guess they're cool with it if him smoking made it into the QoS script. I hope for the next Bond we see him light one up in a really cool introduction scene, like Connery and Lazenby.
Even while reading the Fleming novels, my lungs hurt... and, yes, my modern sensibilities, plus the fact I do keep myself in shape, I am taken out of the books for a moment every time the character lights one.
Dan, and whomever else thinks smoking is unrealistic for the modern agent, is right; we know, definitively, Bond could not do anything he does do, whilst smoking (ten cigarettes, or seventy, it's all crap for the body)...
They're not called cancer sticks or coffin nails without reason.
If the modern Bond, DC, and whomever comes next, lights one up, I don't think it would move his character along in any way (other than he's got a disgusting habit and probably smells).
I like my Bond being a man with flaws. But, he does kill people for a living, and, if he wants to stay alive, he'll be in the best shape as he possibly can.
To let off steam does he still bed women (yes please!), have maybe one too many martinis (of course), but over all, he should be fit. Smoking is not what a fit man of action would do in the modern era!
Connery's age was different. How they portray it now should be different too.
It's all a question of how it's done, in the context of the world we live in today.
I disagree that smoking is not what a modern man of action would do. An athlete, yes of course. Not a military or naval man however. Several smoke. Just not 70 a day.
I really don't want Bond to become any more 'sanitized' than he has.
I know ex-military (I'm at the Adelaide Club in Toronto with a few of them; these men were high up on the scale (as Bond would be); most of them are now in "security" (one is in finance-- just as stressful, if you ask me!)...)
I'd expect modern Bond, @bondjames, to live quite similarly like these men: fit and strong.
Not one of them smokes.
Only one of them has a family.
One is married, with no children, and doesn't intend on having.
The other couple are "single".
I should ask them, how many of their men, specialized as protectors and also weapons, smoke... I'm guessing, and I'm always open to being incorrect, that it has to be a very minuscule percentage.
I expect Bond, in his specialized training, couldn't smoke-- as these men I know don't smoke either. It's not "sanitizing" them, nor the 007 character-- it's called staying alive and the survival of the fittest.
If modern Bond was a regular smoker, I would be taken out of the films (as I am briefly taken out of the novels), because, on a lesser scale, I've done complex obstacle courses, and there's no way a smoker could complete one lap, let alone run, jump, shoot, fight a megalomaniac and his army of henchmen!
This isn't sanitizing Bond in the least. And if we want all men to be like him, and all women to want him, I'd say a fit, strong man, (who may imbibe a little in the spirits in his spare time), and beds many women; I'd place modern Bond as a man who wouldn't think of touching a cancer-stick!
I may be wrong in my interpretation of what makes a modern-Bond, ex-military man, a man... But, from everything I know about physical fitness, and the ex-military I know, I would hope modern-Bond never smokes again (and makes up for the lack of smokes to be with even more beautiful women, drink a little harder (to drown out the "voices"), and drive even sexier vehicles, harder and faster than ever before).
as a quick edit add-on: an agent will be looking for any edge to be better and stronger than his enemy. Smoking is counter-intuitive to this thinking, and the more "realistic" Bond now is to his time (although SP may have cocked that up), the less likely the man is to smoke.
Once again @bondjames, I don't see this as sanitizing, but merely giving our man more of an edge (being an amoral killer and seducer of women, the more the better, for me).
I know some ex-military types who smoke and drink. They are disciplined about it however. It's never to excess.
Bottom line is that smoking is a part of Bond's life. Just like drinking. He is essentially a bit of an outcast and a rebel of sorts. I don't expect the behaviour to be showcased in a sexy manner in the film because we don't want it to be sold as such. I don't even want it to be in every film. Once every 3 films is fine with me. However, if it's properly placed in the context of the film (as that Night Manager scene was, believe me), I still don't have a problem with it.