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What you have is no passion, but the annoying habit to throw your negative opinions into all our faces NON STOP! I would think, that by now absolutely EVERYBODY understood your point of view and some even agreed. Be happy with that...and relax, man.
Pot kettle black?
What exactly do you object to in any of the posts on this thread. Why are you waging a one woman war against dissent? Is it an unwritten rule of the forum that one must discard all critical faculties upon entry?
Is it out of place for me to point out that from where I'm standing you are the one who is exuding negativity and agression. Why exactly do you return again and again to this thread to hurl abuse? If you don't like the thread title you are welcome to express your views, but please don't throw your negative opinions into all our faces.
Meanwhile I will continue to try and avoid encroaching onto lotus eater territory.
But true - me attacking you is also negative and all is said.
So I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't. I thought by creating a seperate thread it might cause less offence to those who aren't interested, but instead it is a magnet to those who want a scrap. Such is the world of the web I suppose.
Not sure I any longer know what it is that you're annoyed about, other than being annoyed.
Yes, we try and stop the swearing but so much filters through. We shall be triumphant though...maybe...one day.
Anyway, the 'anorak' (which I spelt incorrectly I KNOW) bit is really me using a word to capture all of us on here. It may not fit everybody but it's intended as a tongue in cheek reference to all of us and our tendancy to break Bond down in to bite size peices in order to analyse it all. Wasn't meant offensively.
Now the last Fleming I read was many many (many) years ago and my interest in Bond is therefore the same as you..the films. However, the Fleming fans on these forums are very determined that Bond should adhere to Fleming's creation. But as @St_George said the film Bond and book Bond are different creatures and this simply isn't possible.
So I answered the question 'what defines the screen Bond' as his super human ability to be brilliant at everything. That's what is important in Bond films first and foremost. If he played a game of chess how disappointed would we be if he lost? Indiana Jones losing at chess would be right, lending itself to his character, but Bond losing? No way, Bond always wins.
And 'where did it all go wrong?'
IMHO it didn't, it simply evolved and moved with the times. As all things do if they need to survive.
are you serious? what kind of gain starring in Desperate Housewife?
Well that works 2 ways. I don't really agree with what the guy is saying, but in a way you're just as bad, throwing your opinion around about how much you like the newer films and how much you hate his opinion. Just sayin.
But on topic, to me what defines the screen bond isn't what he looks like, what he drives (well sort of, there's a limit), its what he does and what happens around him. Its fine to have dark versions of bond and I don't mind that (dalton is my favourite bond and LTK my favourite film), as long as its still a bond. LTK was dark, gritty and serious, but it still had Q, it still had a gunbarrel, bond still cracked the occasional one liner and still got laid, it was still a bond film. CR could pass because it was a reboot telling bonds origins, but QOS was plain and utter crap. If it was just a normal action film, then I'd be fine with it. But it isn't, its a bond film and it should act like one.
I hear you and yes, I like to put things down in a straight way, but I can take critisism, too, so its all good, but you are wrong in that I never bitch about any of the early films and said, that Moore is my fav Bond..
To say that one vision of Bond works better than another is like denying the truth which is as flexible as the franchise had to be in order to survive this long. It brought pleasure to quiet a lot of people before quite a few of visitors of these fora were even born, and lets hope that it continues doing that. The great thing about the franchise is that when you are not so happy with a chosen direction it is a certainty that there will be another along in a few years. A new face and a new "direction".
One thing is certain there are no BAD 007 performers only better ones in the eyes of the various beholders.
I completely accept that the films have to change with the times and they have usually 'borrowed' heavily from other movies around at the time. But there is an essence of Bondness that (in my humble opinion) the producers have lost sight of.
However, I completely disagree with you on LTK. This is probably the closest we have seen to Fleming's literary character on screen. Dalton completely nails it in this film, far more than he did in TLD.
Many dislike LTK for its 80's Miami Vice generic action feel, but they are missing the point. The underlying tone is Fleming through-and-through.
That film for me is as close to Fleming as OHMSS or FRWL.
LTK isn't. It's got the "Bond's mad and he's gonna get even" approach. A phrase associated with Steven Segal.
Also, at the start of YOLT Bond is recovering from a personal loss. He doesn't get angry and go rogue. He tries to get back to work but can't as he's too distracted.
What a lot of people seem to forget was that Bond was vengeful but only when the opportunity presented itself in the line of duty. In fact I'd argue that Loch's kill in FYEO or even Kaulfman's kill in TND have more of a squirt of Fleming than anything in LTK.
I don't mean to bash LTK or Dalton. I like them both but having read Fleming myself I thought OHMSS has more of the fleming sweep than Kill. I even confirmed this recently by watching the two back to back.
Heres how it would go in Fleming. Felix is injured, Bond is angry and annoyed but he tries to get on with his job. Perhaps through something already set up in the plot Bond is assigned to go undercover (maybe he was already undercover when they mamed Felix).
Bond takes this as an opportunity to destroy the drug dealers empire and carry out his personal revenge.
The rogue agent idea was a good one but it was done in a slightly generic manner in LTK - at least to me.
Here's an essay I found some time ago which pretty much backs up my own thoughts. A bit harsh perhaps but the author does make some valid points.
http://n007.thegoldeneye.com/ltk-review.html
As for that review, it is so obvious from reading it that the writer has never even picked up a Fleming novel. Not all the Bond books focused purely on espionage. Many times he was handling gangsters and mob crime. In DAF, Bond is nearly kicked to death by Kidd & Wint's football boots - hardly fun and OTT.
And the reviewer also fails to point out that Bond's motive for the mission in Japan changes when he finds out Blofeld is behind it. Then he is all out, hell-bent on revenge to kill Blofeld, and avenge the death of his wife. Funny how the reviewer forgot to mention that part.....because it doesn't tie in with what he was saying.
There was a nasty, dark edge to all the Fleming books, and it wasn't until LTK that this was finally brought to screen (and then later again in CR).
Having read said article I must disagree with you on your observation that the writer of this piece has never read a Fleming book. He clearly has as proven by the many observations from the books themselves. I would agree if you said that he was picky in order to bring his personal view across.
However I agree with his assessement that LTK was a not properly finished product that entered in a market where 007 was like any other actionhero of the times. So he lacked something that would make a difference Schwarzenegger, Willis, Stallone or even Seagal could have played the main character and nobody would have seen the difference.
More remarkable I found the quote from Timothy Dalton:"Strained nerves aside, something more austere loomed over the production, forcing Dalton to proclaim that the end of the series was near. “My feeling is this will be the last [Bond film],” he tells Richard Schenkman of Bondage magazine. “I don’t mean my last one, I mean the end of the whole lot. I don’t speak with any real authority, but it’s sort of a feeling I have”.
Furthermore the insight on the making of especially towards Glen was certainly an eye-opener.
I never knew Dalton said that about LTK. Interesting. Maybe he felt the series had ran out of steam because nearly all the Fleming tales had been exhausted.
I guess Dalton also knew that his take on 007 wasn't doing to well. Still makes me wonder if he did walk with knowing Goldeneye or if EON decided that the world wasn't ready for another Dalton and decided to go with the publics favorite Brosnan?
This goes back to my original point, which is that the divergence from the established screen Bond character began with LTK (which is not the same as saying I think LTK is a bad film). For those who want to see the screen Bond better reflect the character on the page, perhaps LTK and CR were a move in the right direction. My feeling is that the screen Bond rapidly evolved into something distinct from the character on the page from Dr. No onwards and that part of the problem with the recent films is a failure to respect the cinematic Bond tradition. I.e. the character in the books is quite different from the character we have come to know on the screen. By trying to 'return' to the more tormented and darker character in the books, the screen Bond no longer seems like the Bond we previously knew. Perhaps it doesn't matter much. I was a big fan of Dalton and like Craig's take on Bond too, but with Craig in particular I'd like to see him show a bit more lightness of touch. I actually think Dalts had that lightness (light and shade) in his performance and oodles of charm to go with it.
To quote a fan review of QoS for instance:
"It's interesting in the way that this new incarnation of Bond is mirroring a pattern created by one of his predecessors, Timothy Dalton, two decades ago. Like Daniel Craig, Dalton came onto a franchise that had become a punch line and in his very strong first effort, "The Living Daylights", delivered a serious and contemporary Bond that still kept many of the hallmarks which made it work (gadgets, naughty humor, exotic locales, elaborate villains, well-filmed action set pieces). His disappointing follow-up "Licence to Kill" however ditched that in favor of a more realistic and smaller-scope story of 007 going off the grid for revenge against a Central-American drug dealer. The end result was a rather generic 80's Joel Silver-style action film that almost sunk the franchise in spite of a few commendable qualities (such as Robert Davi's effective villain).
Just shy of twenty years on a similar situation has occurred, although this time the franchise is in no such economic jeopardy"
I can see where this fan is coming from
The lesson is to stop making Bond 'go rogue' and giving him melodramatic personal interest stories and just let him get on with his job!
One thing though. Bond and M need to be able to trust eachother freely again. I don't care about the "interesting dynamic". It's getting tedious.
Yet I loved the harder edge, the tough seriousness, the violence (I would have loved it if LTK had a 18 certificate). For me, the books had a very violent, bloody, gruesome edge to them, much more than Bond threatening Pushkin, or shooting a villain.
When I think of Bond in the novels, I think of him getting his balls whacked, getting kicked nearly to death, trying to commit suicide while waiting to get his balls sawn in half, being delirious in a hospital bed, passing out in pain - all fairly terrifying, traumatic stuff!
The only time the films have touched on this terrifying, nasty, sadistic world is in LTK and CR - no other films come remotely close.
Bond can't go '18', they have to remain entertainment for the masses. If the violence became excessive I for one would walk away. To some degree the violence is cartoon violence and it has to stay that way.
All the reasons you love LTK are the reasons I dislike it. ;)