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My Friend Bond....
stag
In the thick of it!
I was just wondering which Bond actor MI6 members think they could forge a friendship with? Do you think you Lazenby or Brosnan (or any of the others) could become your buddy and why?
I'll kick off. I think if I had the opportunity I could get pally with George Lazenby. I see a lot of him in me - I don't mean the looks or anything, but his general attitude to life etc. I think we could get on well over a few beers.
I'll kick off. I think if I had the opportunity I could get pally with George Lazenby. I see a lot of him in me - I don't mean the looks or anything, but his general attitude to life etc. I think we could get on well over a few beers.
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Comments
I'd love to be Sean's friend, but would probably be too intimidated by him to get anywhere.
He was so natural that you forget who u are talking to.
You think Dalton is unstable? That's an interesting descriptor to me that doesn't seem to fit. He seems like a pretty solid guy, on all counts. He can snap like the best Bonds but if you look at how he treats his friends, including Kara, Felix and Sharkey, I think he'd be a solid pal. Nobody would mess with you while he was around, for starters.
"Hey, you hear about that Sanchez guy?"
"The one they say burnt to a crisp near that tanker?"
"Yeah. Well, he wasn't charred until he met that guy."
Yikes, I really disagree here. You're in danger of detracting from the image of Tim being Fleming's Bond with those sort of thoughts!
He doesn't seem any more unstable than Dan's would be, really. He's a tough man doing a tough job, but there's never had worry in my mind of him snapping or anything of the sort. He's so trained at it, so in control of that side of himself, that he doesn't let it seed into other areas of his life. There's nothing about him that makes me think he's suicidal or unstable, unless a man disliking parts of his job and being upset at people who are associated with those that harm his friends are signs of it.
He did snap though in LTK. Quitting your job and assaulting other agents to go off on a revenge mission rather than letting the authorities try to handle it isn't what a man in control of that side of him would do. That's why I often describe Dalton as taking Bond further than even Fleming did. I don't see him as 100% Fleming in the way that Lazenby is because he was a lot more ruthless than Fleming's Bond ever was (put it this way, instead of moping around depressed in YOLT he would have spent the time after Tracy's death travelling the world in search of Blofeld).
In TLD he's a world weary burnt out assassin, much moreso than Craig, because Craig has a sulk in SF and kind of briefly went rogue in QoS but overall seems to feel much more of a sense of duty than Dalton, who seems more disillusioned. He's on the verge of snapping. In LTK he actually snaps. He quits his job, assaulting government agents in the process, and goes off on a murder spree that gets innocent men killed, giving off the impression that he genuinely would have killed anyone who got in his way ("make a sound, and you're dead"). It isn't very Fleming esque and it's definitely the actions of a very unstable man. I mean LTK was basically a suicide mission anyway. It's hard to tell what his plan was if he was successful because he can't have anticipated M just deciding to give him his old
job back and sanctioning his actions up to that point. He must have been expecting a long prison sentence at the very least if by some miracle he managed to survive. Yeah he'd taken down Sanchez but he'd also defied the American police and British government and murdered several people (don't think vigilante justice would have held up as a defence in court). He got very very lucky and he would have known that. But he risked it anyway. Any capable of a vigilante killing spree is mentally unstable imo, it doesn't matter if it was morally justified or if he was trained for it. These aren't criticisms. What I love about Dalton is how realistic his Bond is and this side of him a big part of that, years as a spy/assassin would probably have that effect on you and make anyone a bit unstable.
We definitely have a much different read on the guy. I just don't view what he does as snapping. His boss doesn't give a damn about helping anyone involved in the tragedy at Felix and Della's and coldly rubs it all off (a reason I despise Brown's M) and Bond decides that maybe this man isn't worth working for anymore; pretty natural human reaction I'd say. This M is also the guy who expected Bond to kill Pushkin despite the spy telling him there was something more going on. If Dalton had a better boss, like Lee, I don't think he'd have been as susceptible to leaving and doing his own thing. But because he gets no capable leadership from Brown's M, what's he left with?
That being said, when Bond goes "rogue" he never really does. What he does when he leaves is no different than what he'd do if he stayed; he focuses on the same people he would target if ordered to do it, and acts in the same "licence to kill" fashion. What he does in LTK is no more immoral or unstable when he's doing what he always does anyway, taking action to get results that sometimes ends up with allies dying. As for innocents being killed, I'm struggling to find examples outside of the Chinese agents who knew the risks of the job they were signing up for and Sharkey. And like Quarrel or Kerim or Mathis and all the rest, these men supported Bond and trusted him despite the danger; they died but Bond doesn't force them into it. Dalton's Bond would surely prefer to go in alone, but the support is there and that's that.
I wish LTK was as wild and consequential as you make it out to be, but in the end it really isn't, nor is Bond's actions during it. I'd have loved to see a scene where Bond and M confront each other about the lines he crossed, or where Bond and Felix talk in the hospital and Bond tries to tell him that coming back from tragedy gets better in light of what he faced following Tracy's death. But we get a very light and cheeky ending that betrays what could've made it really special, and loses the chance to make Bond's choices in the film matter in the end. Sure enough he's back with M no questions asked, Felix is right as rain and the only issues he is left with is choosing between Pam and Lupe.
It's another area where Dalton is failed by the script in a big way, and why I find QoS a more interesting example of Bond doing what needs to be done in a sometimes dark and hard way; the script works with Dan and doesn't end in butterflies and rainbows; he's left just surviving at the end, finding what little piece he can. It's not a story of him going rogue like LTK is, but has actual consequence and gravity that is refreshing to me. He doesn't get Quantum and White has flown the coop. The only payoff he stands to get is the truth about Vesper I think he always knew but was afraid to admit, and off he goes.
I'd also point out that Fleming took Bond to some crazy places too. This is a guy who had his hero so tortured in mind and body that he became disillusioned with all the choices he'd made as an agent and man in a moral sense, and who finished a book with the guy seemingly dead. Literary Bond could be a hard bastard and would do and say things not even Dalton's would. Dalton's Bond wouldn't leave a woman to death with coldness even if she did him wrong (he wouldn't even shoot one on a mission), and he could be extremely ruthless in his end goals. This is a guy who starts a revenge mission that spans years with SMERSH just because they fooled him and hurt his ego. Anyway...
I wasn't arguing that LTK had severe consequences in the long run (although I do like to think that Bond's evaluation in GE was because the new M found out what happened and was appalled that no further action was taken). I was just saying that in theory, what Bond did should have done. He had no way of anticipting M giving him his job back and everything wrapping up nicely. He knew he'd either die, end up in prison or on the run. But he risked it anyway so he could brutally murder several people. At the end of the day quitting your job and going on a vigilante killing spree where there's no happy ending in sight is not very stable behaviour imo. He got lucky.
And I was talking about the chinese agents rather than Sharky. They shouldn't have got in his way but at the end of the day they were just men doing their jobs. They knew the risks sure but they still got killed because of Bond's personal vendetta. His lack of professionalism, taking the law into his own hands, got them killed. Their deaths are on him and them being well aware of the possibility of dying in action doesn't excuse that imo.
Dalton was more ruthless and damaged/unstable than any other Bond. That's one of the reasons he was so great. It's a perfect portrayal of a real assassin. Grizzled, badass, world weary and damaged. On the verge of snapping until he actually does. I'd have loved a third Dalton film more than anything but at least LTK took his character to its natural conclusion, and he got his perfect Bond film before bowing out.
I will say, we missed out on a Dalton era free from the trappings of cinematic Bond, as I think a lot of that extraneous stuff really bogged him down and distracted from the more interesting stuff they were doing with the character. The expectation of humor forced him into the bad comedy, just as the sloppy need for a happy ending made us miss out on a more interesting and introspective ending for LTK that wasn't so tonally at war with itself.
It's a shame that outside of a lot of CR and QoS, we don't have any other films in the series since DN and FRWL that were allowed to just be their own things not weighed down by formula or iconography. These movies can amount to so much when they are allowed to be what they need to be, but that often doesn't get to happen in cases like Dalton's era.