It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
I will say CB was better than TR though.
Btw: Bond forgets his own advice about revenge 8 years later.
I don't hate JG like some do here (OP is one of my favourites) but he just doesn't have the punch of Young, Hunt or Campbell.
yeah, same here. I like the intimacy of the characters combined with slam bang stunts.
If I could only keep one decade of Bond films, despite their flaws, it would have to be the 80's.
Then we get Dalton, the best Bond ever, giving us the best two films in the entire series, TLD and LTK. Meanwhile outside Bond, we have films like Die Hard, Scarface and Terminator. The 80s was a great decade for films.
The 90s were ok too. GE was great, TND was a fun film but got let down by a crap villian, and TWINE was good.
I'm sorry but the 60's were quite obviously the golden age of Bond, Dalton was one of the worst Bonds of them all, and yes, the 80's were a great decade for films in general, but not for Bond films. They all got overshadowed by the other action movies of the day because by comparison the Bond movies were dull and lacking the essential Bond sparkle you find in the 60’s, 70’s, and the 90’s.
Dangerous words round here mate ;) Better buy an unbrella to protect yourself from the eggs people are going to throw at you.
@BAIN123 Damn right. @sirseanisbond how exactly is Dalton one of the worst??? He was dark, gritty, deadly and serious but still managed to crack one liners and use humour. He was the most badass out of all the Bonds, the only one to go rogue. He had this coolness with him that I don't feel with any of the others (as good as they are). When you watch Dalton, you really feel like he's this dangerous spy who could kill you in a second, capable of anything. To me, Dalton IS Bond. Nobody can top him, not even Brosnan or Connery.
Rant over.
I don't. I just think "oooh look there's Timothy Dalton". ;)
Dalton didn't even kill all that many people as Bond :p
Exactamondo. The 90s utterly, epicly sucked. It should have been a vintage decade for Bond with everything that was happening in design, music etc, but they totally missed the opportunities. The Brozza films are the dullest and most poorly scripted of the entire series.
You know what @Sirsean? That's something that's bothered me too in the past. Don't get me wrong Dalton is a good actor but I can kind of understand why some people say he's "too theatrical".
So Bond needs massive body count to impress you? Think you're watching the wrong series of movies...
No but for someone who is considered "so dark and deadly" he doesn't really kill that many people. I think Connery and Moore were just as capable at showing Bond's "darker" side when they wanted to.
Here's a thesis. Moore's car kick in FYEO was just as effective at showing Bond's dangerous streak as anything Dalton ever did.
So, you watch him impale a guy with a spear gun, or or stare coldly as a guys head explodes, or kill Sanchez with a lighter, you don't feel that he's dangerous???
And none of the actors have killed that many people as Bond. Brosnan has probably killed the most though because his films had more cool machine gun battles than any of the others.
Well not as dangerous as he's being made out to be. In fact even Laz had more of a genuinely nasty side to him - choking a guard to keep him quiet.
Damn, I'm bashing Dalton. I don't mean to. I just don't think he's as awesome as some people say he is. He's good but quite "actor-ly". Craig IMO has demonstrated a much more "primal" and dare I say it...scarier...ruthlessness about him. When he strangles De Bankole in the stairwell (the first time in a LONG time we have seen Bond kill anyone that way) I think "damn this bloke is hard". It actually feels much more brutal than anything Dalton did (to me anyway).
I think even Brosnan (at times) could show a "nastier" side. I love the scene between him and Dr Kaulfman in TND.
Dalton's probably more comfortable either on stage or in a highbrow TV drama. That's why he's never had the film career some say he should have. He's not a film star. Connery, Moore, Brosnan and Craig are. The audience finds them more engaging.
In fact that's why I LOVE Dalton in Hot Fuzz. He can play up his theatricality.
The Living Daylights is one of my favorite Bond films, and easily the best of the decade. FYEO, OP and LTK are all solid films also (the less said about AVTAK the better). It's not necessarily fair that the 80s decade is so forgotten, but competition from newer, fresher (and in some cases better) franchises really pushed Bond aside. Sure, FYEO was a good film, but compared to Raiders of the Lost Ark (both released in '81) its child's play.
And as the Dalton vs. Brosnan debate continues, I'll throw my two cents in and say that I prefer Dalton. Brosnan never had anything very unique about him. He got the look down, but as far as 'making the character his own', he failed. That's perhaps why I like Craig so much; Craig doesn't try to be Sean Connery or whoever. (Brosnan constantly seemed like he was trying to emanate Moore's one liners and Connery's macho-ness...but he came across second rate for both.) But let's give Brosnan some credit - as his films went on, his performances generally got better (TWINE outstanding). The only problem was that as his performances got better, his films got worse.
- Dalton as Bond.
- Sylvester McCoy as The 7th Doctor
- The Friday The 13th films
- 8 of my favourite actresses were born in the 1980's
- Alfa Romeo unveiled the 33, the 75, the 164 and the SZ
- And I was born in the 1980's
Frankly, I don't know why Dalton not being a film star should make any difference. So the public didn't take to him as much as the other Bonds, what do they know? They lap up so much of the junk on tv, if they don't take to something en masse, that could only be a sign of quality. Brosnan may have brought the money, but he failed to get a proper grasp on Bond and take the films in a new direction.
Well they do ultimately keep the series going. Yes they can be fickle as hell but without them there would be no Bond. Bond was/is and always has been made for the public - not us fans.
But isn't this what matters? I'm not sayng quality isn't important--obviously, it is but if people aren't going to the theatre (and apparently, the box office was lower on TD's second film than his first), then what good is it? The only way EON can contiue doing Bond films is if they bring in the money.
Dalton could've bought in the money for GE I think. Bond had been away for a while, so people would be excited about a new one, just like what's happening with SF. The box office was lower for LTK because it was released in the same year as films like Batman and Indiana Jones, and had terrible advertising. TLD outgrossed AVTAK and I think OP.
The big difference the series is continuing this 'darker' direction with SF when they didn't really with GE was because of one thing - money. Both Craig's films have taken a lot of cash at the box office. People liked Craig in a way that Dalton could only have dreamed of.
The marketing excuse is an old one. Yes the film was marketed badly and yes a lot of films were out that year but surely the fact it was a Bond should have been enough to sell it.
Look at TSWLM - a film that came out the same year as Star Wars and did extremely well.
I've often wished that the series had ended in 1989, preserving Bond as he was.
I agree the money is important. But I would put the content of the films above the cash. I think after Dalton, EON were too affraid to take the series fowards.
I'm possibly in the minority, but i'd rather a Bond with lower BO takings thar delivers a new style, rather than a Bond with greater BO takings but is nothing more than a greatest hits.
And he has got the critical and fan reaction that Brosnan could ever dream of.
@actonsteve. Yes. He did. I never said Brosnan was a better actor than Craig.