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I don't dismiss Dalton as being a fine actor; of the six Bonds, he was the one with the most classical training. And he was a great Bond. That said, I don't think he's as accomplished as Brosnan in terms of a post-Bond career. Of all the former Bonds, Brosnan has been the most commercially successful.
I was waiting for someone to pick up on that. "Sweet dreams Dr. Jones".
Peeps fixated on commerce (erroneously at that) just wast my time in a site dedicated to the art on film. ;)
With all due respect to @CrabKey his statement isn't even close to being accurate. Im not sure how anyone can possibly make an argument that Sean Connery didn't have by far the most successful post Bond career. For starters no other Bond actor has ever so much as been nominated for an Oscar, much less taken one home. On top of that from the late 80s to the late 90s box office smashes like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Hunt for Red October, Robin Hood: Prince of Theives, The Rock, and Entrapment all kept Connery as a full-fledged A-list attraction. Connery was both financially successful and critically doing very well too with The Untouchables and Finding Forester. Connery is the only Bond actor to reach "icon" status outside of Bond.
I'll admit that of the 5 retired Bonds, Brosnan has had the second best post Bond career but man oh man is that a distant second.
I won't. Aslong as no one mentions Remember Me, Salvation Boulevard, I Don't Know How She Does It, The Love Punch, A Long Way Down, or The November Man.
Wow. I'm not being sarcastic. I only just realized how much more miss it's been than hit for Brosnan in the last 5 years. I haven't looked at his full filmography in a while.
I saw A Long Way Down recently. VERY average...at best. I think Brozza's best two films lately were The Ghost Writer and Love is All You Need. He was probably at his most successful DURING his run as Bond.
Can you count Mamma Mia?
The 70s were such a misunderstood decade for Connery. Criminally underrated films and forgotten gems like The Offence, The Great Train Robbery, The Man Who Would Be King, Murder on the Orient Express, and A Bridge Too Far were all films Connery made during the 70s. For Connery's post Bond career the good very much outweighed the bad as opposed to vice versa for Brosnan.
And Mama Mia was an ensemble film. It didn't quite "star" Pierce Brosnan.
Connery, Broz and Moore (I suspect) are the only actors Mr. Joe Public would remember clearly when asked (Connery and Moore in particular).
Dalton understood the psychology of the character very well and played them very well, but it was rather supporting the story (LTK) instead of being the main theme. I'm longing for the days when M told Bond:
"This is not a personal vendetta 007. It's an assignment like any other. And if you can't handle is as such, coldly and objectively, then 008 can replace you."
and
"... if you come across Ouroumov, guilty or not, I don't want you running off on some personal vendetta."
I feel that under DC it's more like "Go ahead, make it personal", hence the line "It'd be a pretty cold bastard who didn't want revenge for the death of someone he loved."
But that's just my humble, and maybe unpopular opinion.
Brosnan has a major career as a leading man in film now. He rescued Bond whether the Daltonites admit it or not ;-). Yes his films don't stack up as well as some of the other Bond stars, but they made money and kept the franchise alive. I don't think Dalton could have taken Bond into the 21st Century - he didn't have enough big screen appeal.
Craig is a major star as well. Again forget box office takings, the fact he is offered major leading roles is testament to that. He is just more picky and less focused on being a big film star than Brosnan. But he is a major star.
In the 70s Moore was seriously one of the biggest box office stars in the world. He made Gold, Shout At The Devil, The Wild Geese, North Sea Hijack, The Sea Wolves and they all made money. Not just his Bonds.
Lazenby and Dalton will always be best known for playing Bond and little else. Dalton's career was heading towards TV mini series-ville. Maybe Penny Dreadful will give him something to build on. I do hope so.
;)
C&A was big enough to attract James Bond and Indiana Jones - can't knock it. Guilty pleasure of mine ;-)
:-O
Are you sure it was me? I don't recall writing that, LOL. Maybe I'd made the mistake of drinking and message board posting.
I tend to agree. I don't mind them bringing out more of Bond's character and back story , but I like it to be at the service of the story, not the story itself.
Bond's psychology (at least in the novels I've read) tended to be interwoven into events rather than taking centre stage.
I think you're probably right with most of this. Although I think the question of whether Dalton could have taken Bond successfully into the 21st century (or at least the 1990s) is just always going to remain a moot point.
As a fan, it seems obvious to me that Dalton could have gone on and made a very successful 3rd movie. I'd have loved a third (even fourth) Dalton film, with someone else (not Brosnan) then taking over. TLD is regularly ranked by fans amongst the best Bond movies. And LTK has a bit of a cult following. Had Dalton made GE, I think it would have been a better movie than the one we got, and I think it would have topped and tailed the Dalton era nicely. Two straight down the line Bond romps, sandwiching a nicely different movie in the middle. I don't think Dalton wanted his Bond to be overwhelmingly seen as this dour character, which is how he's sometimes stereotyped - he liked the romance, action and drama as much as any one. IMO the two Dalton movies have some of the best action sequences in the entire series.
However, Brosnan was a huge commercial success. I don't personally really enjoy any of his movies, but I have to give him some credit for keeping the show on the road. I just think that Bond is bigger than any one actor, and the idea that Bond was finished without Brosnan is labouring a point. Certainly the ship needed to be put back on an even keel after the US box office performance of LTK and the 6 year break, but I think Dalton (or someone else) could have also achieved that.
;)
Fair point. He was clearly the guy that a lot of people wanted to see in the role (particularly in the US) and it made commercial sense. Having said that, a great new and unexpected actor in the role (like DC) can also do the trick. But I accept timing is important, and that DC has built on Brosnan's commercial success, to inject some much-needed quality.
As I've said many times, I don't dislike Brosnan the man, and have enjoyed some of his non-Bond roles. It's just from my perspective he's the only actor who was actually miscast. As time passes though I find it easier to just ignore the Brosnan era and pretend it never happened. I think the thing that will always bug me though is that we didn't get a third Dalton movie. Just seems such a shame.
Definitely true of the never realised 1991 draft. But GE was originally written for Dalton, so his third would actually have been essentially what Brosnan got as his first film.