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It's this stuff I really don't agree with, not only because I don't see it, but also because I don't think it stands up to much scrutiny. When Bond becomes this robotic, no emotion superman we lose everything about him that makes him special. You can go to any other series for a gun-toting action man with a smirk on his face as the bullets come, but Bond is special and should strive to be far more.
Going right back to the books Fleming understood the value in his day of writing a hero who bled when he was hit and who was anything but unshakable. We see his Bond go through hell as he faints, sweats and bleeds as he faces his trials, cries at the relief of surviving his turmoil, and greets danger and death not with a smirk or tie straightening gesture, but with the genuine fear and defiant commitment to surviving as long as he can that a human would feel in the situation. In a word, he felt human. His relatable nature at the same time that he's an image to live up to is what makes him special because he never reaches an untouchable or unreachable level. One could take Bond's attitude into every aspect of life and improve their experience of it, even when Fleming is showing us his weaknesses. Of not being afraid to be scared, that it's not a weakness to feel, and the awareness that one is not invincible and must work to survive.
When Bond is in Le Chiffre's torture chair we see a man being crumbled mentality and physically with equal measures of self-doubt and crippling pain, an experience so shattering to him that it makes him rethink his entire life and moral standing in the hospital afterward. When the Moonraker is about to launch itself Bond is prepared to do what he must to ensure Drax's plan fails, leaning on the story of the burning boy on the deck to make himself okay with his sacrifice in the face of fear, regret and pain he feels. When he faced Dr. No's obstacle course we see Bond barely hanging on to consciousness as he gets covered in bruises, burns and scars, and yet he wills himself to go on against his failing system. Compare these moments to the superman Bond with no sign of weakness or harm and in comparison the picture is a sorry one. It's boring when we don't feel Bond feeling it, when he feels like just another action hero. It's his heart, his humanity and his weakness that ironically serves as his greatest strength.
Additionally, I can't in good conscious allow Sean's Bond to be compared to that boring and (for me) faulty version of Bond as rallied against above. It's about time the blueprint Bond actor was embraced as another actor who channeled Fleming's original creation to a high degree, and that includes how he reacted to threat and the danger and death around him. He had the ability to be honest with himself and others when he was scared (DN), was unafraid to let his anger and sadness in the face of his friends' deaths come out (Quarrel in DN, Kerim in FRWL, Jill in GF, etc). A man who bled when he was hit, sweat when he felt the strain and didn't come out of his work without some wounds and his suit ripped and torn. This is the Bond who gets brutalized by Dr. No's thugs in a moment that leaves him shaken and covered in marks, who nearly gets pummeled by Grant and who bleeds profusely after being shot in a cat and mouse game that nearly ends with his death inside a Bahamian club.
Connery's Bond felt human, like a real man in very dangerous situations, and Sean played those moments to show us what Bond was feeling in a way that can only be praised. His emotional outpouring of rage at Dr. No's dinner when he promises to avenge Quarrel and Strangeways, his seething and bitter anger as he holds Kerim's arm in a last friendly gesture, the absolute fear and loss for a plan he feels while being surrounded by Fiona and her goons in the Bahamas. He had it all, and like Fleming wrote Bond, he relayed the human side of Bond, the invulnerability that sets his apart from the superman heroes of what would come later.
People are welcome to the different interpretations of Bond out there, but I have never understood the appeal of watching a take on the character where there is no danger, consequence or worry to feel for him. Where he looks like nothing is scarring him or putting him in question of himself. The iconography of the character should never overcome his humanity, and that's an important balance to make. Sean did it, Tim did it and Dan is doing it, and I hope the trend continues in the future. Save the other approach for MI, Kingsman, etc. Bond's ability to be entertainment and a commentary on human survival at the same time is the magic mix.
I think people enjoy super Bond because of the power fantasy aspect. Bond became popular because "all men want to be him, all women want to be with him", which is why I think unfappable super Bond strikes a cord with so many people. We'd all love to be as cool and invincible as Moore and Brosnan. Plus, it's just fun to watch imo.
Personally I don't really care if he's flawed and human or invincible and effortlessly badass, so long as the take they're going for is done well and the film is good. My favourite is Dalton and a big part of that is how real he felt, but my second favourite would probably be Brosnan, who I enjoy almost as much even though he's very different.
In the same way you don't see the appeal of super Bond, I don't see the appeal of only liking certain versions of the character (e.g. only liking serious films, only liking OTT films, not liking the personal films). I think being a Bond fan is a lot more fun when you approach it with a very open mind when it comes to tone and character, because you end up with way more films to enjoy. But I guess people can't help their personal preferences to be fair.
I liked him in the film. Not his best performance, he does overact at times and his delivery of the "Bond, James Bond" line in the bunker is horrendous, but it has some of his best moments as Bond (the bankers office, killing Elektra). And he comes across as passionate and clearly giving it his all, which to me at least puts him above Connery's last couple of efforts where he clearly can't be arsed.
I gave up on the elimination games years ago because a few members kept telling me to let a film I liked (I think it was TWINE actually) get eliminated so they could move on. But in that case I don't see the point. Surely the "game" aspect comes from using your vote of the day wiseley, getting in at the last minute to save your favourites or wipe out one you hate? Otherwise it basically just becomes a long drawn out poll and the outcome can usually easily be predicted from the start.
@ClarkDevlin that's part of why I love Dalton. He does really badass stuff that on paper sounds very super Bond but he made it feel real because it really seemed like every dangerous situation he found himself in was life or death, he seems to really struggle and go through the ringer every time (while at the same time never coming across as being out of his depth or lacking in his abilities). He was perfect.
@thelivingroyale, I didn't mention SP because that wasn't really in the debate and Craig's catalogue of rough and tumble human moments are well founded. The Hinx fight of SP alone shows that even in that film the man is visibly taking hits and feeling it, and we've seldom seen this interpretation of the character that close to buying it. I have my issues with the torture scene but a drill to the head that seemingly misses the spot Blofeld wanted to hit wouldn't do much to stop Bond, just like I could throw a punch with the same velocity if someone gave me a shot at the doctor's office. A needle in the skin versus the massive billowing blows Bond takes in the fight with Hinx are not comparable, and we all know which would actually impede him.
And I mention George all the time for his physicality but as with the above Craig stuff, I wasn't making that part of my discussion/debate. I just thought it was going too far to say Sean's Bond didn't show emotion, an observation that had to be shot down, and that's what I set out to do.
As for the different Bonds for different people, it's not as much an issue of being open minded to me, as I don't think that's the issue people have and it implies that you are a narrow minded thinker for having favorites. There's just a lot of fans like me who prefer to see Bond as close in feeling to the character we know via Fleming than a random action man who could be anyone, that's all, and sometimes the films lose the identity of the spy for whatever reason. I can bring myself to be entertained by the vast majority of the films, but if I had to leave some to burn to save others, I'd go for the ones that give me that sense of Bond as a character and not just the entertaining fluff that don't carry that much weight. Bond films have Bond in the title, and I like seeing him on the screen in some recognizable way (not in a parodical sense, either).
It's all well and good to strive to like as many of the Bond films as possible (it's obvious that we all want to like as much as we can) but some movies don't make it easy whether you're a Fleming purist or not, so for many it's not so easy. I count myself content though, as I'd be happy if the Bond series was only restrained to the 60s and I enjoy Dalton's and Craig's to the full. Losing some of Moore and Brosnan is no skin off my back, though I actually find a lot to appreciate in the former movies at times. The latter films make it much, much harder to love, however, and that's largely down to the opportunity that was never seized after GE. And that's certainly not on Brosnan for the most part, but more the tone and material of the day.
I've read all the novels but I was a fan of the films long before the books so the cinematic Bond is more my reference point than Fleming's. As long as he does the bare minimum to be recogniseable (suave, sophisticated, badass, wears a suit, expensive tastes, Bond James Bond, etc) as 007, and as long as the film itself feels like a Bond film, then they can do what they like with the character imo. Hardened assassin, 58 year old playboy, cocky action hero, it's all good. Bond has lasted 55 years precisely because of how he's changed.
Don't get me wrong, it's always nice seeing that Flemingesque real, human side come out but at the end of the day when I'm watching Roger Moore effortlessly blow up his pursuers before driving his underwater car into the sea I'm really having too much fun to bring myself to care about how far from the books they've gone.
He's basically a good looking model spouting one-liners amongst well staged but rather poorly edited action.
But Laz at least had more of a physical edge to him.
Just the opposite.
Nevertheless physically Brosnan comes closest of all the actors that have played Bond if we take Flemmings Description auf Bond into Account.
Sorry, I have to disagree there. That's an excellent action sequence (if a little over the top in parts) from concept to execution and editing. You just don't get sequences like that anymore and it's only twenty years old.
All of the action in TND is pretty top notch as well, even if the story isn't.
Being a fan of all three of these Bonds I can't agree with half of that.
Lazenby and Dalton excelled at the human Bond, more so than the last fellow I'd say.
But Brosnan excelled at being the charming super spy.
All three were great.
Some of the action in TND is good if noisy (the opening, the car park chase), but the bike chase and the final feel like action for actions sake.
They brought that aspect back during Craig's run, even if I personally think they threw it down the drain with the last film. As an example, the SF PTS has an element of risk attached to it in comparison to the above clip. There's consequence (Bond is shot, bleeds and falls off the train; Ronson dies). When that sequence segues into Adele's title track, I normally let out an internal sigh of relief. I don't get that sense of fear above. It's action for the sake of action, which makes it less interesting no matter how well put together the scene is from a technical standpoint.
As with most improvements, I credit the impact of the Bourne series for compelling EON to bring back what they lost for a time.
Shame really as the film started off with a reasonably suspenseful set-up in the PTS.
People may knock Serra's GE score, but that did at least contain some of that "edge" you mention.
Another example of the kind of suspenseful tension I'm referring to can again be seen in SF during the Shanghai sequence. That whole section is dripping with atmosphere and 'spy tension' as Bond waits for Patrice at the airport, follows him to the office tower, patiently waits for him to kill the guard and go up and then tails him by making the sudden run for the elevator (who knew he would do that at first?). Nothing fancy, but lots of moody atmospheric tension in that whole section of the film, capped by the Vertigo inspired fall and staredown with Severine (such a classy scene). Newman surpassed himself there too.
A pity that the ensuing fight at the casino, capped by the awful 'circle of life' comment demonstrates exactly the opposite, with a total lack of tension.
Sure they can all be good, but that's not what I said. I think Dalton and Lazenby portrayed the Bond character well (well, mostly Dalton), but not Bond as an icon. In that regard, I think Brosnan was still more successful, but you could debate how much that has to do with the length of tenure as opposed to quality acting.
Good point, @bondjames! Brozza's age may require an easy operating system to employ in his use. :D
It wasn't stated in the press release what he was on to promote, but it will mostly likely be for 'The Foreigner'.