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I think you're so blinded by inconsolable rage you can't tell your classic PTS from your average one. I am not saying the PTS for CR is bad, but simply that the PTS in TLD is one of the best in the entire series. If that doesn't leave you wanting more I don't know what would. The whole concept of a training exercise being infiltrated by a real killer is excellent. The entire sequence is shot, edited and scored to perfection.
Agreed but so is a man finding a mysterious stranger sitting in the shadows of his office.
I like the PTS in Daylights but I prefer the Royale one. Its mysterious, edgy but also humerous. I think even Timothy Dalton has been quoted as saying the first 20 minutes of CR were among the best in the series.
each to their own. bit meh IMo.it could have come from any thriller. nothing particularly bond about it.
(Side note: If you haven't seen the extended opening of CR, you should give it a watch. Shows Bond tracking Fisher, the entirety of the setting outside of the bathroom, and the fight scene is a bit more brutal.)
Here it is for anyone who has yet to see it, there can't be many, but in any event
If it was the first Friday afternoon of release, then we saw it at the same time!
Totally agree. Dalts was a truly brilliant Bond. A total tragedy he never made number 3. The brief interview with him in the recent issue of Empire is quite interesting. He actually implies that the whole change of tone with LTK was much less to do with him and actually more down to the producers. He says he didn't actually see the script until 10 days before shooting. Quite interesting I thought. And the article makes the point that Dalts was doing much of what
craig is now doing twenty five years ago - perhaps even better.
I am getting a bit tired of the whole debate to be honest. I feel more strongly than ever that Dalts was one of the best. Craig is fine but not at Dalton's level, and Brosnan was a total disaster, whose period in the role is just best forgotten.
Yes, it's an interesting indication of how the power relationship has changed since DC arrived.
Yes, she was.
That's the one thing I like about Craig, a no nonsense approach and serious etc, no poor humor, or silly Moore-like thespian antics etc, better than Lazenby, an improvement on Brosnan too, but as said before he still has a long way to go to get into the top two of James Bond actors
License to Kill worked as a serious, more mature teenager focused adventure because of Dalton, as did Casino Royale and Solace with Craig, it has been a welcome relief after some of the nonsense antics of his predecessors
Anyway, this will run and run and the time is upon us
Goodnight I-)
I'm old enough to have a slightly different perspective on this than some of the members here (I'm the same age as Craig) and I wonder if that changes things a bit. To see the older Bond films whenever you want on DVD (or, when I was younger, TV and VHS) makes you view them a bit differently than the current films. Or I guess it's more accurate to say that it changes how you view the current films - they're more "special"; more of an event.
When I was a kid I loved the Connery films and could never make it all the way through a Moore one - they were too juvenile for my tastes, even at 13 years old! But in addition to that this Moore guy made me angry - why did they cast this wimpy clown as Bond? Why couldn't they have gotten someone cool and manly like Connery? So even though all of my schoolmates would see all the current Bond films in the theatres I never would. The one exception is when I saw Octopussy; that was simply because my friend and I couldn't get in to see NSNA!
When Dalton was cast as Bond I thought, interesting, who is this guy? He certainly *looked* more like Bond should look and I was relieved that he got the part rather than Brosnan. I loved Remington Steele and loved Brosnan in it but I feared that as Bond Brosnan would continue down the path of Moore (it didn't help that my skinny 16 year old self probably could have beaten up 80s era Brosnan). As the release of TLD approached I read more interviews and stories about it and I got excited by how serious Dalton was taking the role. TLD was the first contemporary Bond film that I actually wanted to see in a theatre besides NSNA, and I was really getting excited about it.
So I saw TLD on the opening weekend and was blown away. My first thought was "At last! We have a real Bond again!". Dalton had won me over by the end of the PTS. He showed more physicality than Moore ever did and I loved the way that he threw away the "Bond, James Bond." line - this was an actor that didn't need a catch phrase to establish that he was Bond. The other thing that I loved was that you could always see the wheels turning in Bond's head - this was a man who was constantly thinking.
So I was one of the many who thought Dalton "best Bond since Connery" and if anyone would have told me that a future actor would eclipse Dalton in my esteem I wouldn't have believed them. When GE came out I was relieved that Brosnan wasn't as bad as I thought he would be; he was more believable in the fight scenes (at least in GE) and wasn't as much of a clown as Moore. But I still put Dalton ahead of him.
But a funny thing happened - with each Bond film Brosnan became more confident and comfortable in the role. By the time DAD came out I began to realize that Brosnan had a charisma that Dalton never had. I reluctantly moved Brosnan ahead of Dalton in my rankings. I rewatched LTK and realized that as much as I loved Dalton when the films were new there was something missing - not only did he not have the charisma but he seemed a little stiff and uncomfortable in the films.
Then when CR came out I was blown away. Craig had the seriousness of Dalton but also far more screen presence and charm. He was also far more believable in the physical scenes and showed an even greater range of acting skill than Dalton. About a year after CR came out my local rep theatre showed a bunch of old Bond films and TLD was one of them. The audience really liked it (they even cheered when Dalton first showed his face!) but to rewatch the film something about Dalton just didn't click. He was just a bit too theatrical for my tastes.
Having said that I do love Dalton and still have a soft spot for him. I still think he's a very good Bond, even a great one - it's just that since then we've had even better. I was probably influenced quite a bit by the fact that he wasn't Moore - like I said, context makes a difference. So my current ranking are:
1) Connery
2) Craig
3) Brosnan
4) Dalton
5) Lazenby
6) Moore
Prior to DAD my rankings were
1) Connery
2) Dalton
3) Brosnan
4) Lazenby
5) No one else matters
Interesting how things change...
Thought I'd bump because I found this. It's sort of intresting. I don't agree with all of it (I think Craig is a bit different to Dalton), but still worth a read.
On topic, Dalton FTW!
Very interesting, but have to say I find it difficult to understand how DAD convinced you that Brosnan was better than Bond. I'd have thought as someone who disliked Moore, DAD would not have been to your tastes.
In other words, just because the two actors offer something similar in the character doesn't mean they play the role the same way.
They are both troubled Bonds but Craig offers it in a more subtle, understated way. They are both playful (Dalton on the boat with Pam, Craig in the car with Vesper or in the hotel with Fields) but where Dalton is awkward in those scenes Craig is relaxed.
I just think Craig is a great film actor with an understanding about how to play the camera; Dalton isn't. Which is why he has never nailed a career as a top film actor ( unless I accept an explanation someone put on here along the lines of 'Dalton wasn't a big star because he didn't want to be'!! Erm, well that or the fact he never got offered the roles).
Anyways, I prefer DC ;-)
You found the right thread!
I've never really got that argument. If you don't want to be (or aren't prepared to be) a big star then you shouldn't really take on a role like James Bond.
That argument is total garbage. Dalton lives in LA and does bit parts in really dire TV series. As much as I love his Bond, he is total loser. It's nothing to do with him not wanting to be a star and everything to do with him being a bit pretentious and ultimately, a loser.
Harsh words @Getafix. I'd certainly agree that he's not really "star" material but even so...wow. The Dalton fanboys (excluding you) are going to go nuts.
Well, I'm not a fan boy (or may be I am - never sure what it means) so I don't care. It's entirely possible to have seperate views on an actor's performance and their off-screen personas. I think Brozza's Bond was a total catastrophe, but he seems like a thoroughly nice guy. Sean seems like a chippy Scot, but you can't fault his performance as Bond. Roger comes across as the most decent and likeable guy you could come across, and I happen to also love his take on Bond. Dalton for me was excellent in the role, but strikes me as a slightly deluded and pretentious has-been, who was perhaps ever so slightly snooty about the role and therefore never fully embraced his star status. As a consequence of this (and perhaps his lack of wider appeal) he ended up sinking without trace.
this is like grand prix driver jacques villeneuve.... completly has-been for the last 14 years (since he won the world title)... but this weekend he will join Sky F1's expert team for the canadian GP... so maybe the same thing will happen to Dalton, in a couple of years he may well play a big role in a major critical success, and his career will start again. after all, he is not even 70 yet, so he has atleast 10 years of acting infront of him.
Nonetheless Dalton seems like a nice enough guy to me and it would be very interesting to have a chat with him.
Did you notice that then ;-)
I was sure I was in the right thread, then before I knew it, I was posting stuff about Dalton and Craig in a thread about which Bond would win in a punch up! Can't figure what happened there 8-X