Timothy Dalton or Daniel Craig?

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  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    edited December 2012 Posts: 17,804
    Moore's films are pretty naff now when you watch them.

    Depends on the film... MR is crap, FYEO is effectively killed by the Conti score, and AVTAK he's way too old in, other than those, Moore's movies are pretty good IMO.

    Can you outline a list of vulnerable moments in all the other actor's films to counteract the huge list I made on Craig's movies? No, the best you can come up with is Brozza's arm in a sling, or Dalton looking knackered at the end of LTK - which fails miserably in comparison to the moments I mentioned.
    No, I'm not gonna comb through scenes for hours, I'll just say I never saw Dalton perform like a long distance runner, a gymnast and a parkour enthusiast all in one scene. Or hang upside down by one leg in a fight after falling 30 feet, and still win & walk away. This is Bourne territory.
    But, de Nile can be very deep, nes pas?
  • Posts: 3,327
    chrisisall wrote:
    No, I'm not gonna comb through scenes for hours, I'll just say I never saw Dalton perform like a long distance runner, a gymnast and a parkour enthusiast all in one scene. Or hang upside down by one leg in a fight after falling 30 feet, and still win & walk away. This is Bourne territory.
    But, de Nile can be very deep, nes pas?
    The reason you cannot be bothered to comb through the scenes is because there are hardly any to choose from. I'll help you - Lazenby looking emotionally shattered at the end of OHMSS, Moore looking ill after the centrifuge scene, Dalton looking fed-up with his job in TLD, Brozza suffering a torture scene in DAD, only to show he was really ok after all when he fakes his heartbeat in hospital and springs to life to beat everyone up.

    None of these scenes add up to the HUGE, massive moments I mentioned earlier in Craig's movies.

    Craig looks physically like he could perform these action stunts, which makes him far more believable and human as Bond, even when he is performing like a long distance runner. For every supposed superhuman feat Craig pulls off, there are many, MANY more vulnerable scenes to counteract these supposedly OTT moments.

    I think it is you who is in denial mate..... ;)
  • acoppolaacoppola London Ealing not far from where Bob Simmons lived
    Posts: 1,243
    chrisisall wrote:
    Getafix wrote:
    I think Craig is good but the character has become almost the least human of them all. He is totally indestructable. You could nuke him and he'd still keep on coming.
    Yeah. At least Jones had to jump in a fridge. :))



    :)) That was a great scene too! I love Indiana!
  • Posts: 3,327
    acoppola wrote:
    chrisisall wrote:
    Getafix wrote:
    I think Craig is good but the character has become almost the least human of them all. He is totally indestructable. You could nuke him and he'd still keep on coming.
    Yeah. At least Jones had to jump in a fridge. :))



    :)) That was a great scene too! I love Indiana!

    That was a shocking scene - like a moment straight out of DAD. Indy 4 is also on my worst ever films list.
  • royale65royale65 Caustic misanthrope reporting for duty.
    Posts: 4,423
    @thelivingroyale - back to the Komodo Dragon fight; when you add in CGI it removes any danger.

    Casino Royale had brutal action, just like Dr No, FRWL, TB, OHMSS and the Dalton ones, but with Skyfall it's more stylised , like GF.

    Oh, @Getafix - prefect summing up of Sir Roger.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    edited December 2012 Posts: 17,804
    None of these scenes add up to the HUGE, massive moments I mentioned earlier in Craig's movies.
    The two moments I detailed were awesome, breathtaking & FORMIDABLE (I used better adjectives so I win here).
  • I agree totally, hence why he is No. 2 on my list, right after Craig. They are cut from the same cloth - it's just Craig had more moments than Dalton did, but both were equally great portraying the vulnerable side to Fleming's Bond.

    Agreed, but Daniel Craig had the advantage of starring in CR (which is my favourite Bond film, just shading it from FRWL and TLD).

    I hugely admire Craig's performance in it - chiefly because of the vulnerability, doubt and occassional bouts of self-loathing he brings to the table; but I still can't help thinking that if Dalton had had that sort of material to work with - i.e., a (fairly) faithful updating of one of Fleming's finest novels - then we would have seen THE definitive Bond film, by some margin.
  • Posts: 3,327
    chrisisall wrote:
    None of these scenes add up to the HUGE, massive moments I mentioned earlier in Craig's movies.
    The two moments I detailed were awesome, breathtaking & FORMIDABLE (I used better adjectives so I win here).

    How old are you?
  • Posts: 3,327
    I agree totally, hence why he is No. 2 on my list, right after Craig. They are cut from the same cloth - it's just Craig had more moments than Dalton did, but both were equally great portraying the vulnerable side to Fleming's Bond.

    Agreed, but Daniel Craig had the advantage of starring in CR (which is my favourite Bond film, just shading it from FRWL and TLD).

    I hugely admire Craig's performance in it - chiefly because of the vulnerability, doubt and occassional bouts of self-loathing he brings to the table; but I still can't help thinking that if Dalton had had that sort of material to work with - i.e., a (fairly) faithful updating of one of Fleming's finest novels - then we would have seen THE definitive Bond film, by some margin.
    I agree. I would have loved to have seen Dalton in CR, but I think Craig does an equally great job. I think Craig edges it over Dalton for me because he looks more of a badass killer, physically, and in his eyes. Dalton was great as Fleming's Bond, but I ocassionally got the impression of a very good thespian actor at work, whereas Craig I accept as actually being able to pull off the `superhuman' feats he does in his films. To me he lives the part, looks like a person who could kill.

  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,804
    How old are you?

    We're back to this? Dude, I'm not gonna counter an OTT statement like "None of these scenes add up to the HUGE, massive moments I mentioned earlier in Craig's movies" with anything very serious. I would apply the adjectives huge & massive to the sinking of the Titanic.... ;)
  • acoppolaacoppola London Ealing not far from where Bob Simmons lived
    Posts: 1,243
    I agree totally, hence why he is No. 2 on my list, right after Craig. They are cut from the same cloth - it's just Craig had more moments than Dalton did, but both were equally great portraying the vulnerable side to Fleming's Bond.

    Agreed, but Daniel Craig had the advantage of starring in CR (which is my favourite Bond film, just shading it from FRWL and TLD).

    I hugely admire Craig's performance in it - chiefly because of the vulnerability, doubt and occassional bouts of self-loathing he brings to the table; but I still can't help thinking that if Dalton had had that sort of material to work with - i.e., a (fairly) faithful updating of one of Fleming's finest novels - then we would have seen THE definitive Bond film, by some margin.

    I agree! A younger Dalton in CR was the perfect ticket. Dalton showed brutality so well in LTK and that he is a killer. Just the explosive laying scene in LTK shows that Bond is a dirty operator.

    Dalton was one of England's best actors because to do Shakespear you have to be damn skilled.

    And Dalton arrived back on a Sunday in '86 and went filming TLD the next day. That is brave with no preparation or rest. Many forget how quickly he was thrown into the part. With Craig there was a nice rest since DAD and some serious pre-production before a frame was filmed for CR.



  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,804
    Craig I accept as actually being able to pull off the `superhuman' feats he does in his films.

    What? Now you're saying he IS superhuman? @-)
    I'm speechless.
  • edited December 2012 Posts: 3,327
    chrisisall wrote:
    How old are you?

    We're back to this? Dude, I'm not gonna counter an OTT statement like "None of these scenes add up to the HUGE, massive moments I mentioned earlier in Craig's movies" with anything very serious. I would apply the adjectives huge & massive to the sinking of the Titanic.... ;)
    The reason I put massive moments is because they are - Bond screaming in pain at being tortured, looking frightened, passing out in pain, recovering in hospital, looking heartbroken - all this in just one movie. You'll be hard stretched to find hardly any of these kind of moments exist in the 20 films outside of Craig's movies - and you know it. I asked you to name a few, and you struggled. There are a few, I know (I mentioned them earlier) but they are nothing remotely as dramatic as these moments in CR.

    This is why it beggers belief you put Craig so far down on your list. He has appeared in the most vulnerable moments throughout the entire franchise, yet you put all actors except Moore in front of him.

    I asked you to back this up by stating moments which show a more vulnerable side to the character by other actors, and the best you could come up with is Brozza's arm in a sling.

    Its nothing short of embarassing.



  • edited December 2012 Posts: 3,327
    chrisisall wrote:
    Craig I accept as actually being able to pull off the `superhuman' feats he does in his films.

    What? Now you're saying he IS superhuman? @-)
    I'm speechless.
    I put " " around the word superhuman. I was being sarcastic, as I don't think he acts like a superman in his films, but continue to remain speechless if you didn't catch on.

  • acoppolaacoppola London Ealing not far from where Bob Simmons lived
    Posts: 1,243
    chrisisall wrote:
    How old are you?

    We're back to this? Dude, I'm not gonna counter an OTT statement like "None of these scenes add up to the HUGE, massive moments I mentioned earlier in Craig's movies" with anything very serious. I would apply the adjectives huge & massive to the sinking of the Titanic.... ;)
    The reason I put massive moments is because they are - Bond screaming in pain at being tortured, looking frightened, passing out in pain, recovering in hospital, looking heartbroken - all this in just one movie. You'll be hard stretched to find hardly any of these kind of moments exist in the 20 films outside of Craig's movies - and you know it. I asked you to name a few, and you struggled. There are a few, I know (I mentioned them earlier) but they are nothing remotely as dramatic as these moments in CR.

    I agree the Bond of CR suffers the most. Dalton's suffering was more in line with QOS.

    But I personally believe that Dalton having read all the novels played his Bond as a man who had been in that bottomless chair years ago. This is partly where his bitterness stems from as well as other tragic moments in his past.

  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,804
    I put " " around the word superhuman. I was being sarcastic

    Oh, okay, I missed that. My bad. :P
  • Posts: 3,327
    acoppola wrote:
    I agree the Bond of CR suffers the most. Dalton's suffering was more in line with QOS.

    But I personally believe that Dalton having read all the novels played his Bond as a man who had been in that bottomless chair years ago. This is partly where his bitterness stems from as well as other tragic moments in his past.
    I agree. I actually feel Dalton nails the Fleming aspects more than any other actor, including Craig (although he comes a close second). Craig's behaviour in SF after the PTS is very much in line with the hacked off Dalton Bond in TLD, closely portraying the Fleming character in the last few novels he wrote.

  • Posts: 3,327
    chrisisall wrote:
    I put " " around the word superhuman. I was being sarcastic

    Oh, okay, I missed that. My bad. :P

    Ok, no worries.... B-)
  • edited December 2012 Posts: 2,081
    Getafix wrote:
    I think Craig is good but the character has become almost the least human of them all. He is totally indestructable. You could nuke him and he'd still keep on coming.

    Really? I find him the most vulnerable out of all the Bonds. In CR he looks nervous and hesitates before jumping off the crane, needs to down a bourbon after the stairwell fight, he almost dies during the poisoning scene, passes out after the car crash, and passes out agan after the torture scene, looks very frightened before the torture scene, screams out in pain during the torture scene, recovers in hospital after the torture scene, gets heartbroken after seeing Vesper die.

    And all that in just one film. Moore and Brozza combined didn't have that much in all of their movies.

    QoS was were it all went wrong, because suddenly he became the superhuman Bond again, who didn't feel pain mostly during the action scenes, but even then we still see a few vulnerable moments - Mathis death, reflecting on Vesper during the drunken scene on the plane, his confrontation with Vesper's boyfriend at the end.

    In SF, he suffers depression after another near death, then finds his body is no longer what it was when attempting to pass his physical, looks on helplessly when Silva starts to make him feel uncomfortable, the we see a flicker of supressed emotion when M and Bond share a quiet moment talking about his parents in Scotland before going to SF Lodge, then breaking down in near-tears after M's death.

    Nothing indestructable about Craig's Bond whatsoever.

    I so agree. I'd add, for instance, the reaction to "Skyfall" in the word association test. He looked like someone stuck a knife into a wound. The first time I saw the movie I didn't know what the word was about at all, but seeing his reaction I immediately felt "ouch, that hurt."

    In QoS I actually think he's very vulnerable, deeply wounded emotionally after Vesper. He just looks to be in pain, even if not so much physically. He probably doesn't feel physical pain much from the pain inside. That scene in the car at the end with Camille is sort of heartbreaking to me.

    Craig's Bond looks believable physically. But he's not indestructible physically, either. It's not like he gets nearly tortured to death and is then up and running about soon after, he actually spends a long time recovering. And in Skyfall he struggles physically a lot, both with overall fitness after abusing his own body, and with consequences of having been shot. He doesn't just shrug it off. And so on. He's very human in his emotional and physical vulnerability, he does seem to get hurt quite badly on both areas. It surprises me that anyone would claim otherwise.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,804
    When I first saw The Bourne Identity, I was like, OH REALLY? We are going with a wounded guy doing Spider-man & Terminator at the same time... okayyyyyy. I never expected Bond movies to follow suite.
    I don't care how 'wounded' a character gets, once he goes beyond what is physically humanly possible, he moves from 'First Blood' to 'Rambo III' territory, and that's not interesting to me except in the mindless cartoon sense.
    Craig's films are entertaining, but suddenly, Moore crawling about the outside of a small plane seems... reasonable, LOL!!!
  • Posts: 17
    Tuulia you covered it all very well. Craig is no. 1.
  • Posts: 2,081
    Molly wrote:
    Tuulia you covered it all very well. Craig is no. 1.

    Thanks Molly. And yes, I agree, he is.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,804
    @ Molly & Tuulia, one of my favourite characters is Max Guevarra, from Dark Angel, but she is genetically enhanced, and SUPPOSED to be able to do what humans cannot. It's cool that you guys love Craig's Bond, but in many instances in his movies, he is fairly impervious to death, and many of us normal guys tend to die after 30 foot falls through scaffolding, or getting shot & submerged, and we wouldn't bounce back so nicely from having our nards beaten to a pulp.
    No one likes a fantasy element in their Bond movies more than I, but when the thin reality restraints are removed, I'd rather be watching Superman II.
    :-<
  • Good 'ol Tim will always be my favorite. He did Craig before Craig did Craig, and he did Craig better than Craig will ever do Craig.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    edited December 2012 Posts: 17,804
    Good 'ol Tim will always be my favorite. He did Craig before Craig did Craig, and he did Craig better than Craig will ever do Craig.
    Elliot, I love your headlines.
  • Posts: 161
    Good 'ol Tim will always be my favorite. He did Craig before Craig did Craig, and he did Craig better than Craig will ever do Craig.

    Cocaine is a helluva a Drug!!

    Craig does it better then Dalton. You know it but you jut won't admit it to youself
    :)

  • Well, to be fair, Tim and Dan are actually doing two very different Bond's. I just happen to like Tim's more. And no one can convince me otherwise.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,804
    I just happen to like Tim's more. And no one can convince me otherwise.
    Any fan of Fleming would say the same IMO. Craig is a fine Bond, but in a 21st Century fast-N-loose way.
  • chrisisall wrote:
    I just happen to like Tim's more. And no one can convince me otherwise.
    Any fan of Fleming would say the same IMO. Craig is a fine Bond, but in a 21st Century fast-N-loose way.

    Aaaand this is the part where I come and say that I actually haven't read any of the books. Yeah, I know. A disgrace.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    edited December 2012 Posts: 17,804
    Aaaand this is the part where I come and say that I actually haven't read any of the books. Yeah, I know. A disgrace.
    Not a bit of it! A fan is a fan, the only difference is in specific preferences. My favourite film before reading the novels was DAF, now it's TLD, and TB/TND are my perennial favourite happy mediums.
    I humbly recommend you read Moonraker if you read no other Fleming novel, just for a taste of the source.
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