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I don't think at all this is a defense reaction! Why would it? Craig was her personal choice, something she fought for, and looking back it's one of her best (if not the best) decisions so far.
The original article was published in the Evening Standard, we already talked about it in the news tidbits thread a couple of days ago. http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/barbara-broccoli-i-thought-james-bond-was-a-real-person-until-i-was-seven-8052861.html
There are more fans praising him then there are criticising him. He's popular with the public and on these forums it seems like he can do no wrong alot of the time. If she was defending Craig, she's about 6 years too late.
"One of the things about Daniel is he's let us into Bond's inner life," she explained. "In the books you get a look into his inner conflicts and fears and anxieties, but it's very hard to put that on the screen without making him look neurotic as a leading man
Like @boldfinger said, she seems to be forgetting past Bonds had done this before.
He [also] fell completely in love with Vesper and she betrayed him, so he realises, from that point, he can never be susceptible to a relationship again."
Again, boldfinger pointed this out, what about Tracy???
Don't get me wrong I think he was a great choice, I defended him when he was cast (and I'm a big Brosnan fan). But I wonder if she would've cast him if she didn't want to shag him?
Well I only hope they never reboot the Tracy relationship nor remake OHMSS (and I think it's unlikely).
One past Bond. Singular I would say.
I don't want them to either. But she was talking about the books, and Bond married Tracy after Vesper died.
Well, right of the bat there's Dalton. And then you could say Lazenby, especially when you think about the OHMSS finale, or some of the other scenes with Tracy. And then there's Brosnan, look at scenes like the graveyard scene in GE (even though I think it was written for Dalton), or him killing Elektra.
So yeah I think more than one.
I will give you Lazenby and Dalton. So, yes,more then one.
I agree with this.
Yes, spot on. I liked Brosnan's Bond very much and he did show a range of emotion, definitely human, and easy charm with the ladies. He's the picked on boy for sure these days, most of it unwarranted I think (even though I know we all have our favorites, it's our opinion, etc.).
Dalton didn't do too bad money wise with TLD and did better than Moore's last few films with the critics. LTK did bad at the box office but cmon, it was up against Indiana Jones and Batman. If QOS had opened against Crystal Skull or The Dark Knight that wouldn't have made as much money.
Anyway, then Brosnan becomes Bond, and suddenly Dalton is thrown in with Lazenby as sort of the two outsiders. Pretty much forgotten. While Brosnan was Bond, he was called the best since Connery lots of times, his films were popular with the public and his Bond was liked by most critics even if some of his films weren't.
Now we have Craig, and suddenly he's the best since Connery, not Brosnan. Craig has apparently saved the series, Brosnan couldn't act, etc.
I wonder if the same will happen with Craig when he retires or gets replaced.
She's hot alright ,maybe too hot, but she's a very good actress.
Well Craig already has his detractors and I think that any existing criticisms of Craig may escalate if the producers decide to cast the next actor who looks more in the vain of Craig's predecessors and if they change the direction slightly with the character's personality I.e. A bit more relaxed than Craig but not falling into Btosnan territory.
However, I suppose it's be easier to assess once Craig's tenure is up. We're supposed to believe that SF will promise to give us something special abd more of a classic Bond feel. We'll just have to wait and see if they deliver come October.
In the end, every Bond actor is bashed for one reason or the other but regarding Craig, I think it's fair to say that, although not everyone likes his portrayal if Bond it is however, hard to deny that he is an excellent actor and arguably the best actor to take on the role [note I didn't say best Bond].
Sure, but we've had that Bond before, many times. Roger Moore in particular played the part the way you describe, but the great thing about the 007 films is that each actor who plays Bond brings a new perspective on the character. Craig is clearly drawing something from the books, (he re-read them all in prep for Skyfall,) as Dalton did - and the books offer a far more complex character than the one you describe and seem to want to see.
There is nothing wrong with your personal preference at all, and I also love the Roger Moore Bond, or the coolness of Connery. However, I do think these performances reflected their time, and now in the 21st Century, in a world as twisted as ours is today, I think Bond needs to be a man who is relevant for our times, and so I believe Craig is absolutely perfect in the role.
Mendes' "bored Bond" is a comment about the character as he's often described by Fleming in the books - check the beginnings of Moonraker or FRWL or Thunderball - and so I'm personally delighted that they are finally exploring this side of Bond's character.
My point is that, for the Bond films to continue, they must evolve for the times (as they always have), and also, after so many films, the filmmakers and their lead actor are evidently returning to source material - particularly character detail - in the books which has not been fully explored before.
I think Dalton might be the best actor to take on the role, but I do agree with you, it'll be easier to judge him when he's finished, because for now we don't know what he'll do with the character in the future.
I think you've got the right idea in what I bolded. Granted, there are a few people who will never like him as Bond for whatever reason, and Craig has been getting that treatment himself from day one so Brosnan fans shouldn't feel singled out. I feel that way about Lazenby myself, love his movie, just not him.
I like Brosnan's first two fine enough, they are entertaining. I like a lot of his films outside of the series. It's not him as an overall actor. To me, being completely honest, he doesn't sound like Bond with the Americanized Irish accent. That's really important to me, even more than having a certain defined look. I have other reasons too why I don't care for him too much in the role, but I don't want to go off the track and there are lots of other discussions on that subject.
Craig hasn't really gotten the treatment Brosnan gets now since CR was released, now he has much more people that like him than people that don't.
The difference though between the Brosnan and Craig bashing, on these forums, is that whenever somebody does say a bad word about Craig it's as if half the site jumps in to defend him. When people say bad stuff about Craig, they're "being negative", etc, while bashing Brosnan seems to be fine alot of the time.
I am fed up bashing Brosnan so in the interests of balance I will say some nice things about him.
- he has nice hair
- he has his own teeth
- his shoes are nice
- if he was British he would vote Labour.
There you go....
I'm getting a different take on Craig vs Brosnan bashing than you are and don't see a double standard here. There are warranted and unwarranted criticisms of both.
Brosnan never had such site , solely intended to bash the actor. There are some here who bash him though.
That's a great point, well said. And maybe why Craig fans here are perceived as more sensitive and strongly rally to him when we have CNB types right here to remind us of that.
No I don't see you as one, because you fairly point out your problems with him even if I don't agree with them, without going overboard and just saying how crap he was all the time.
In retrospect although I really have no time for G.E I will acknowledge that the makers and even Pierce were trying something new with the character. They were trying to reposition the series for the 90's but by the time he returned 2 years later in 97 it was like Babs and Mike just said lets just make another Moore type adventure. They tried to add some drama with the relationship between Bond and Paris but neither Bros or Hatcher could sell this to me and just thought the sequence with Bond downing shots of vodka false and Pierce's acting utterly unconvincing.
We then get TWINE which is such an uneven film which isn't good for a start but Pierce doesn't help matters with his schizophrenic 007 who doesn't know whether he wants to be Moore Bond, Connery Bond or Dalton Bond, he never settled into his own Bond, yes you could blame it on scripts etc but nothing had changed by 2002 and he was just trawling out the same Bond tribute act he had since 97, I actually think he did strive for something different in 95 but despite in interviews claiming he wanted to take Bond somewhere different he just gave 3 entries where he was never sure what type of Bond he was playing.
Then was shift forward to 2006 and no I don't think Royale's script is gold dust it's quite flawed but Craig had no problem stamping his personality on the role within the first few minutes of the film, he appeared more confident in the role in those moments than Brosnan had done in his entire era, coincidently both their tenure's started in a bathroom but Craig's literally exploded onto the screen, Pierce's started with a lame joke.
The top and tail of it is that Daniel Craig is an infinitely better actor than Pierce Brosnan,
he doesn't fear the character he gets the job done, too much fan boy awe got in the way of Brozzer's interpretation, if this is bashing then so be it, I didn't jump on some bandwagon, I was most likely disliking him before some of the people on this forum were still in their nappies and I'm not blinded by anything.
This is where we see just how lucky we are to have an excellent actor in Craig. I'm not a big fan of QoS but it is slowly growing on me but in general I regard it as a lower tier Bond film, however, the difference is, Craig was still excellent as Bobd in such a disappointing Bond film. That, is the Mark of a top notch actor.
With Brosnan, most of his Bobd films bar GE were dissapointing and he himself was mediocre at best, not really doing anything wholly remarkable with the role. I think after the success of GE, everyone and everything became complacent and just half assed it because Bond is a cash cow, his BO takings are immune to adverse reviews abc to top it off, Brosnan was the people's choice for the role, so why bother putting in any real effort? The hardest job was to convince that Bond was still applicable in a post cold war setting, which IMO was a dumb debate to begin with but true to form Bond proved he did and that's basically it. Job done.
With Craig, he elevates the material he's given and that's because he's an excellent character actor and isn't overwhelmed or hindered by the formulaic tropes of the role. He treats the role of Bond like any other role, which is a discipline Brosnan never managed to accomplish.
His Bond is fine. But it doesnt take me by the lapels and shake me like Connery, Dalts and Craig.
True on all fronts. I am a fan of Craig. After Brosnan he was a breath of fresh air and not just this - he was really trying to mark out his own territory as Bond. For me he is not as good as Dalton, and I feel SF will be an important test of just where he is going to end up in my list of best Bonds. He is good as the angry blunt-instrament, but I would like to see more light and shade. I don't think the producer's comments probably mean that much, but I'd be surprised if he made more than two more films. That said, 4 or 5 films is not a bad innings.
Yeah I'm really looking forward to seeing how DC's Bond has evolved, the trailer has already teased that Bond here is more relaxed and confident, my anticipation of SF is a fever pitch already and I really hope we do get his fully fledged Bond.
I don't want the dramatic gritty feel we've seen in his era abandoned just balanced with a touch more fun, QOS was far too dour at time and although we did get some great moments it took itself a little seriously. This will be make or break for DC's 007.
I've said this before and I'll say it again, Craig's better than Dalton easily. He has the balance of "light" and "dark" pretty much spot on in CR (maybe not so much with QoS) and was FARRR more convincing with the lighter stuff than Dalts ever was.
Dalton has some great moments but he's just too "stagey". That's the main issue I have with him, he doesn't have the "swagger" that the other have and (at times) looks like he thinks he's at the theatre (the scene when he's reprimanded by M for not shooting Kara is a good example). I say this after re-watching TLD the other day.
Back to SF, it'll do well both financially and critically. Sam Mendes directed it (he's a big Bond fan), both the public and the critics like Craig and want to see more of him and it appears that the producers have learned from their mistakes with QoS.