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And me!
But that's really all.
EON had been trying for years (FYEO, TLD, TWINE, LTK in particular) to inject some depth & vulnerability, with varying degrees of success. To a great extent, they were a victim of their own success, cliches and all. They did not know how far they could go without losing their US audience (LTK's relatively weak US box office probably scared them from properly trying again).
If anything, Bourne showed them how much violence was palatable, how Bond could show vulnerability without appearing weak, and how to make everything more realistic, while still being commercially viable in the US particularly.
EON took a lot of subtle cues from Bourne when executing CR/QoS in particular imo, which added to the credibility of the reboot, as follows:
-Bond being surprised by his own violence - and the aftermath mirror check/clean up (CR/QoS)
-Bond surprising/shocking the living crap out of his girl who can't understand how he can turn up the violence like that (Vesper in CR)
-the Marie/Bourne hair washing scene in Bourne Identity is tender after a violent moment without being sappy. Similarly the Vesper/Bond shower scene
-Bond trying to save his girl underwater
-Bond spending a movie trying to find out who killed his girl (in QoS) and why - and then not killing offending party
-Bond's female boss protecting him from the CIA (in QoS) who want him offed (Landy was not Bourne's boss like M but you get the idea) and other political higher ups who think he's off the rails
-Damon noticeably beefed up for Bourne, adding credibility to his portrayal. Craig did the same for Bond
On top of that we have the grittiness etc. of the action in those first two movies.
So if anything EON learned from Bourne how to execute properly and in a commercially viable way what they themselves had been trying to do for years. They also took cues from Batman Begins on how to execute a reboot cohesively and in an interesting way.
I remember I loved the third one coming out. With the other two I was entertained but not exactly buzzing.
My favourite is probably the first, but the Greengrass films are very good too.
having said this, the trilogy is one extended narrative and Bond works very differently.
From Brosnan to Craig i felt a huge shake up in tone and the portrayal pf the character
Timothy Dalton is really not that different from his predecessors, just a little harder but easy to get used to and so were his films.
Licence to kill was much more violent but still we had Q, some funny with him and James getting the girl at the end.
Bourne too spastic in style and too anti-American.
Timothy Dalton is the perfect Fleming Bond.
Tough, serious, relentless but suave, humorous and fun to watch.
While I realize not everyone agrees, some of us are extremely thankful for this.
I can see that, but imagine if your first Bond film was die another day and then your next one is Casino Royale it is a huge change, more loving Die Another Day and keeps you with the thought that Bond is that way.
Honestly for me the idea of Bond was: A sexy and charming agent who is great with ladies and always wins against the villians without sweating a second.
A guy who always manages to escape thanks to being smart or lucky but not by real fighting.
I thought Pierce was only following a great tradition and for me he was fantastic as that that.
Going from DAD to Casino Royale would have been like going from Moonraker to Licence to Kill
It was only after seeing it again that I realised that:
a. It wasn't THAT different really
b. It was one of the best films in the series
Fair point. As you've correctly noted elsewhere, it could create an inbred bias towards that film and that characterization (perfectly understandable given it's the first one you saw).
I agree, it was a dramatic change, and I can completely understand how it could be felt much more so by those who saw Pierce and his Bond films first, prior to all the classics from the 60s/70s.
As I mentioned in the thread you started, I started out thinking Roger Moore was the best, but have now grown to prefer Sean Connery's more rugged portrayal (although Moore still surpasses him in some areas imho), so changes can happen with time.
I agreed it was a great film Casino Royale it's just was a huge shock to see James Bond so much more human from one film to another.
I now like Craig and appreciate his take on this character but I still prefer the more traditional Bond portrayal
There were times in which I liked Dalton's portrayal. In particular, the scene with Pushkin in the hotel room, as well as his first meeting with Sanchez in the casino office. Maybe if he would have been able to do a third or fourth film and cement a legacy then he could have been one of the best.