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Well we saw Severine have one in the casino in SF. I get where you're coming from but I think there are still cases where they could make it work. If he's tailing someone and is standing/sitting across the street (or planning to kill someone, I'm picturing him by a window rifle set up smoking while waiting for his target to come outside), or waiting to meet a contact in an outdoor place, or if we get more scenes of him in his flat in the future, or even if he's just driving somewhere (I love Lazenby's intro).
It's not socially acceptable at all nowadays but smoking still looks cool and part of the appeal of Bond is that he gets to live dangerously and indulge in these vices imo. Don't want him asking the Bond girl to keep an eye on his martini while he nips out for a fag, but they keep pointing out that he's a dinasour with a short life expectancy so I don't see any problem with the occasional cool looking shot of him smoking when they have the opportunity for it.
Connery at the card table, Laz in the DBS, Moore on the hang glider, Dalton in the safehouse meeting. It just adds to his cool, dangerous living life on the edge mystique I think. It's not a deal breaker for me and I don't think it's an integral part of the character so long as he still has other vices, I just don't see any reason why he shouldn't smoke on occasion.
Well said @bondjames.
Let's not forget that even with a chip the size of Mars on his shoulder, he not only has a career in Naval Intelligence, but is also picked for the 00 section. So Bond smoking is unrealistic, but him being drafted into the 00 section, with such a problem with authority is believable? I must be losing my mind, because I just don't see how this works out. I am a non-smoker, but I think that Bond should smoke. Along with alcohol, it is his coping mechanism for his job, which is highly dangerous. So why would he live for next week, next month or next year?
The science of the body will not allow this to happen-- you will not build strength nor stamina if you're a frequent smoker. Just the opposite.
At least alcohol, for a time, can be filtered through your liver.
There's no filter for the carcinogens of cigarettes.
Sorry... I just wouldn't buy modern Bond as being even a moderate smoker.
True, if they ever went back to the 50's though. (Which is what I want them to do) He would have to be a smoker right?
But once he came back in the field?? No way.
But I'd defer to Daniel Craig. He actually gave up smoking for the role, to be able to do all the physical stuff. That's what makes sense today for Bond, and I would not ask Craig to do anything that would take away from his ability to perform.
But, just like today's athletes have the very finest training and eating and science and modern technology assisting themselves to push their bodies, I'd assume that the best would also be offered to Her Majesty's Secret Service. Anything to give them an edge over the opponent.
Fleming had Shrublands; we have the equivalent of modern excellence today found in private fitness facilities around the world.
The modern agent has access to all of this... Like I said, anything to give our boy James the edge of her his opponents.... I'd assume someone like a modern M would say no to the smokes...
I could buy that M had found this diamond in the rough; that she was willing to take the risk on him since he showed other "talents".
I could never buy DC Bond, or a man of action, like Bond, sucking carcinogens directly into his esophagus and lungs! He just wouldn't be able to function at a high level of physical performance.
Remember, Cyclists also used to drink and smoke heavily... when they saw their competitors stopped these habits, and got better for it, they also stopped.
Anything for an edge over the opponent... that's why I can't buy modern Bond (DC and his successors to be), as being a smoker. It would be unbelievable and take me out of the film...
Sorry, just my opinion!
@MajorDSmythe, don't really agree with that read of Dan's Bond. It's not so much a chip on his shoulder about authority, as much as he will stand up to authority he doesn't respect. M earns his respect when he sees what she's made of and his initial boldness is challenged by a strong and capable leader. When he stands out against other authority in later films, like the competing British and American government officials in QoS, for example, it's because he knows they're all dirty and are bought and paid for; why would he respect them? In these cases, Bond is well justified for acting as he does, and his suspicions are often right.
I think Bond has a natural suspicion of diplomatic/bureaucratic types, who he has seen too many of to trust outright because they do lie to get what they want and they act unelected for their people in selfish ways that don't serve the public interest. We see this with his initial doubt in Mallory, but when he sees what the man is made of, like Dench's M before him, he stands in line. I don't think Fleming's Bond would act any differently, really. He is willing to take orders when he respects and feels respected by those he is employed under (like his loyalty to M), but when it comes to other types of officers or officials that don't do their jobs, are corrupt or just downright lazy or incompetent, he just doesn't have the time for them. We can see this in Dr. No, where Bond ignores the authority of the colonial head in Jamaica after seeing how partial and sedentary he is, but goes on to respect the authority of Pleydell-Smith because he knows he's working with a man that is willing to do his damn job.
It's funny that you bring up this criticism of Dan's Bond when the same could be made for Dalton's Bond too. In LTK we find Bond spitting in the face of authority (and his own people) more than we do in any Craig films because Dan's Bond is always serving M's ultimatums and acting to his government's end, and not his own. In QoS when Quantum is revealed, Bond puts the personal issue with Vesper aside and does his job, whereas Tim's Bond goes after Sanchez to serve his personal desire to revenge himself on the man despite all attempts to be warned off by his friends. Not saying the latter is wrong either way, but let's not deny that Dan's Bond isn't the only one that could be argued to have authority issues.
With Craig:Bond, he is a recruit, so any good will he might be able to build up with M, won't have happened yet.
Wouldn't call the difference substantial, or a difference, really. Dalton was built as a very anti-authority Bond. In TLD he already makes it clear on the Czech mission when he shows up late with little care that he has no interest in working with Saunders and, at the end, his indifference to M's worries, orders or anything else is telling. He doesn't care, and has no worry for consequences; if they come, whatever.
It's foreshadowing for his actions in LTK, where he just says, "pi$$ on it" and is out. I don't entirely disagree with Bond, as Brown's M is horrid as a leader or as a comrade, but that doesn't disguise the fact that Dalton was even more anti-authority than Dan's Bond ever was. Dan's Bond was mission first, personal concerns last, but Dalton's Bond never seemed to be able to manage that difference well.
I love both, so I don't view it as a critical hit against Dalton's Bond. If anything it's realistic for him to act like that. If I had a ditzy boss who couldn't do his job I'd be reluctant to fall in line as well. But again, what it is is what it is.
When M suggests Bond be replaced, Bond snaps at M, but then quickly puts himself back in line. So he isn't thumbing his nose at M (authority), as Craig:Bond does. I don't know how different I would feel if the reboot Bond was played by a younger actor, as the script is tailored for. I guess his rebellious nature would be more believable.
As was being discussed over in the eras of Bond thread, this may simply indicate something of the 'Americanization' the franchise has undergone.
I'm not a big supporter of the Brosnan era, but I wouldn't call his Bond anti-authority either. But there is definitely something, maybe not quite animosity, between Bond and M in GE. Whatever it was, it went away before the end of the briefing. Which brings me to something that bugs me, and that is the whole "sexist, misogynist, dinosaur" nonsense. I really wish that hadn't made it into the film. He is sexist, yes, but not misogynist or a dinosaur.
People that think Bond is any of those things do need an education in how the character was written and presented from the very beginning.
It's a shame pop culture seems to lash on to terms they don't even know how to define.
Bond smoking cigars on occasion, as in DAD, would be fine. Cigars aren't an everyday, habit-forming thing (though they can be) and at least, unlike cigarettes, still possess some air of sophistication and cool. Cigarettes are what you find on the lips of overworked waitresses hanging out by the dumpsters on their break; not those of debonair secret agents.
If Bond were to light up now, it'd look lower class, something more fitting when he was in a depressed funk at the beginning of SF... any other time, and, no, just no...
I've got no problem with the drink and the womanizing, but if he wants an edge on his opponents (and for a man that not only needs strength, but endurance (ball busting scene; if he was a smoker during that torture, he would have had a heart attack)), smoking is the last vice you want to take part in.
The only time I can see where you're coming from @Major is SP. Bond should have trusted Mallory with what dead M told him instead of making smug quips about going on holiday then going off on one. That would have made more sense anyway than Bond being grounded (which doesn't impact the story at all) and still managing to get gadgets and help off Q and MP, travel freely, etc. Maybe that was a hangover from when Mallory was a Spectre member in one of the early drafts. That would've made sense, Bond would have been right not to trust him then.
Suspension of disbelief mate. Not sure Bond would have been able to manage a car chase with Le Chiffre's men after knocking back all those Vespers in reality but he does because it's a film.
It also intoxicates you but he was still able to sprint outside, jump into his sports car and speed off in the dark in a foreign country.
Besides, was all the great stuntwork Dalton did in the TLD PTS really undermined by shots of him smoking later on? Or was the obstacle course section in the DN novel or all the long tiring swims he does over the course of the books made unbelieveable by book Bond smoking 60 a day? And you mentioned SF, he goes from failing the physical back to being super Bond in the space of a couple of days, and still looks pretty toned despite apparently just sitting around in a beach drinking (including heineken, lot of empty calories in beer, not great for his fitness so they should cut that) for months on end. That's hardly believeable is it? But we go along with it. The credibility comes from the stuntwork not from how Bond's lifestyle is depicted imo. Because realistically even without smoking he's not a healthy man.
I do, as I stated earlier, find Fleming's sequences in DN, and other sequences to be COMPLETELY UNREALISTIC; a man who smokes that much would die of shock if ever put under the tortures that Bond undergoes;
So I dismiss the smoking, ignore it as best I can, because the rest of Fleming is like the perfectly grilled steak, red wine and avacado pear desert...
Alcohol, as a vice, although also not great, filters through our liver, my friend. Bond fails all of his tests in SF, but, as a metaphor for the character, it's showing that although he failed, his heart is like a lion (plus muscle memory; he was always a fit man and actually could get things back quicker-- same as a prize boxer who gets fat and out of shape in between bouts; but if you were an out of shape smoker? Sorry, you ain't getting anything back. In the modern era (DC and beyond), it's shown him as being fit and deadly))...
I should say, I hope, in the future, all Bonds will not smoke... plus it speeds up impotency men, speeds up impotency (screws up our blood flow into important areas like the heart, and the penis)