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Comments
The funny thing about Bond and sex is, they never really showed anything at all, not even in DAD of which Brosnan famously said 'yes let him smoke again and have steamy sex!'. With the added bonus of kids not having a clue of what sex really is about (other then beeing together in a bed).
I can appreciate the remarks about it being a bit unrealistic for a fit agent to be smoking heavily, but I don't agree with comments about it being nasty and what not. Why? Well, because James Bond does a lot of nasty things. He's not supposed to be a sanitized poster boy of virtue, even if this current regime of producers seems to be increasingly looking to superhero Dark Knight for inspiration.
Box office aspirations will rule unfortunately and given current views about the subject, we're unlikely to see it again.
You're not thinking of True Lies are you? That had a camera disguised as a pack of cigarettes and It helps Arnold avoid some would-be terrorist killers.
To be honest i can't say Bond not smoking bothers me. I've never been attracted to smoking and it doesn't make the character anymore interesting to me. As others have said, booze, sex and gambling would suffice enough as modern vices for Bond.
Thanks to you I'm now aware of places like Needwood, Newborough, Scropton, Foston, Hatton and of course Hanbury, Tutbury and Dalbury.
thank you!
I MIGHT be wrong myself. I do remember his voice strains slightly at one point in that scene so he was presumably not a natural smoker.
Ultimately, this is all about box office and casting as wide a net as possible to make money. Smoking is ostracized. EON wants to appeal to women and everyone under the sun. So no more smoking will be seen.
Let's just hope, for all our sakes, that changes in our PC driven society at large do not result in further sanitization of our favourite agent.
The funny thing is, we're not living in the sixties anymore. Hence smoking then was considered cool (and healthy by many!!), but nowedays it's a filthy habit. People are capable of taking this into account. So if the films were period pieces, it would work, but in a modern piece it would be seen as a weakness.
Connery was for his time a strong man, for modern times he's not that much fitter then your average joe (at least in Europe). We expect more of a fit Craig-Bond then of a fit Connery-Bond.
Times they are a-changin' ;-)
Nope, no reason to sugar coat whatsoever ;-)
Well Bond shoots an awful lot of people and given that getting hold of a gun is as easy as fags in the States where are all the kids emulating him by shooting people?
And swigging from a Heineken bottle is all the rage in high society these days I hear.
Quite. I'd be interested to see how far EON's morals to protect the little children would stretch if Marlboro slapped down a $20m cheque for him to spark up on screen.
How long before alcohol goes out of fashion as being too detrimental to health and the vodka martinis and Bolly are no more and the enzyme shake becomes the norm?
And let's not forget the nanny state's 'When the fun stops stop' campaign blitz on gambling which is another cancer in our society that Bond loves indulging in.
We're on a slippery slope that will end up a decade from now with a totally sanitised character bearing zero resemblance to Fleming's man who is a silhouette whose job was the dirty business of spying.
The sooner Netflix or someone is allowed to remake all the novels as period pieces and we can leave EON to chase the bland inoffensive Disneyfied mass market dollar the better.
Well to be fair he gets his bollocks smashed in CR for gambling so presume that acts as a deterrent to the impressionable youth.
Agree entirely. But one man's fags are another's Tattinger Blanc des Blancs or baccarat or driving fast or shagging loads of women.
The fact is though that Bond likes all of them so if you take one away it detracts, however insignificantly, from the character.
Well, there's a time and a place for Vodka Martini's and its not in tough Chilean bars, rough gambling joints or grubby hotel rooms...
Blending in with ones surroundings I suppose....
Slight overreaction there. If anything Craig's Bond is even more of a gambler, womaniser, boozer and straight up bastard than previous Bonds. So to suggest the character is slowly being sanitised just because he doesn't have a Rothmans in his gob is just absurd.
If there ever comes a time when a period adaptation of Fleming comes along I fully expect and want Bond to smoke like a chimney.
While it is difficult to imagine the James Bond of the books ordering a pint of beer in a pub, he certainly does drink beer in the books. Miller High Life, Red Stripe and Löwenbräu are all name checked and on his stag party in Munich in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service Bond downs four steins of beer with an ex-Luftwaffe pilot.
It is also notable that Bond often drinks whatever is local, something highlighted by the beer choices above. In Turkey he drinks Raki, which he finds identical with Greek Ouzo and Kavaklidere, “a rich course burgundy like any other Balkan wine”, while he drinks Chianti to accompany his pasta in Rome.
So smoking is too working class but drinking beer isn't?
'I'll have a pint of Newton & Ridley chuck, shaken not stirred.'
And I would've thought having a crafty fag in the above establishments would make you blend in even more (although why he needs to blend in in his own hotel room - where, incidentally, they are happy to portray him popping pills - is beyond me).
Im not saying it particularly bothers me at present but 'first they came for the socialists etc etc'.
As other members have pointed out, smoking was sophisticated and cool in the 60's (and to a certain extent the 70's) but in this day and age it's not. Drinking hasn't got the same demonization.
Besides, Craig's take on Bond's character isn't affected by him not having a sly puff every now and then.
I'll start worrying if he cuts down on the boozing.
I find these quite reasonable opinions, I must say. Make that very reasonable.
Actually that point was reached with Skyfall. Not that CR had much of Flemings Bond in it.
P.S.: I am talking about behavior and character, not story obviously.
Strange. I thought Craig in CR was the most 'Flemingesque' portrayal of Bond since Dalton in TLD......
I'm assuming some members on here would prefer the sixties Bond dumped in the 21st century, running around slapping womens arses and asking ethnic minorities to 'fetch his shoes...'
Like what exactly?
It's already happening mate:
Just look at how they almost go out of their way to prevent Bond drinking in SP: glass of champagne thrown on the floor, vodka martini denied in favour of enzyme drink, dirty martini barely sipped before Hinx interrupts, glass of champagne turned down point blank.
The only drinks he actually consumes are in L'Americain for product placement reasons.
Compare this with his necking of champagne, Vespers and Mccallan galore in the previous 3 films and it's clear that they are trying to rein in Bond's alcoholic excess to stop kids copying him.
But what does smoking do most of all in those films where he does smoke? It creates an artistic brake when he says his name (DN), and in other examples gives the character something to do in front of camera, other than just standing/sitting there. One would guess that this could be possible to achieve with something different than cigarettes – like him drinking for example.
Imagine this instead.
"Bond"
(Bond puts a pinch of snuff under his over lip)
"Jamesh Bond"
Hahah! Bond of course, would have his custom silver snuff/snus box to carry! :D
For those unfamiliar, this is snus:
Also comes in portion (pouches?), which Bond (the snob that he is) would prefer:
Could be worse than cigarettes and cigars!