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The ridiculous Scottish/Welsh/commoner accents for a properly educated English spy, an over-abundance of physical presence that rarely radiated how blend-in-able the character is supposed to be, the narcissism/theatricality/brutishness, the lack of focus in developing thier versions of Bond to appeal to the widest audience and box ticking through some of their tenures while blaming scripts, producers, and writer's strikes for their misfortunes are what makes the those three at best a partial success compared to the Broz!
Heh, sorry. A bit dubious, but I had to defend my man somehow. :)) \m/
Connery, Dalton, and Craig are much better representations of the character that Fleming created
Im sorry but Dalton is the only represntation of Fleming's Bond in the novels-
example: Bond is not Scottish, Bond is Not a blonde hair or blue eyed
Connery does however the style and sophistication and knowledge of wines something which Daniel Craig's Bond lacks
yeah, what they really needed was a little hairy potbelly and the ability to avoid the furniture while saying their lines.
To be fair, Brozzer only just managed the second one.
Of course, the whole returning home to beat his demons might not work then but not sure it did with Craig really. It's a bit Marnie, anyway.
Makes me quite nostalgic to see those pics, almost wish for an anniversary we could have had two Bond films, one with Craig and one with Brozzer, the latter being all exotic and Cary Grant like.
or a Multi-Bond Story....The Two Bonds
I do agree with some of your points though.
Dubious indeed. I'm with @doubleoego, Connery sounds more English to me than Brozzer ever did. If we went strictly by the English standard, Moore and Craig would be the only ones that qualified. Personally, I think they should stick to English, Scottish, or Welsh actors for the role, those who qualify to me are the best Bonds. Irish, Aussie, and American accents just don't sound right to me.
Bond has never been a character that blends in, at least cinematically. Women are always on the guy, so he can't exactly melt into the background. As to the box ticking, no one beats Brosnan for this. He's a walking cliche himself. You can only say so much in defense for a guy who by his own admission never "nailed the role".
Dalton might've been born in Wales but I think he spent the majority of his life in England (isn't he a Man City fan?), and he definitely didn't/doesn't have a Welsh accent.
Same with Lazenby. He might've been Australian but he didn't really sound it during OHMSS (although he must've had trouble doing the snooty posh accent as they dubbed him during the bit where he was undercover).
I don't think it's fair to limit where the actors should come from. As long as they can do an English accent I think nationality shouldn't be a problem.
Dalton grew up in Derbyshire, near Manchester. His accent is pretty RP but traces of Mancunian occasionally slip through. Most obvious example is in LTK when Bond tells Sanchez that "things were about turn nasteh."
Disagree about Lazenby though - his accent sounds quite Australian to me (albeit toned down from his natural accent which you can hear in interviews from the time)
There is no doubt nor might've been that Lazers is an Aussie, he is and I agree with you @SirJames, he sounds like one to me also and that doesn't sound right for Bond.
I don't care if it is a style of running, it didn't look convincing or good. I am sure no realistic hand to hand fight would look like the one between Bond and Grant, it still looks amazing.
That pretty much nails it for me. I will say it again, Brosnan was a commercial choice much more than a creative one.
Argument at popularity. It means nothing. I love GE, but it has not yet stand the test of time. It may be the best of Brosnan, it does not mean that Brosnan was as good as Connery, far from it. It means GE was a good Bond.
And don't get me wrong, I think Brosnan was the right choice to play Bond in 1995. I don't think Dalton returning would have worked at all. Brosnan did bring something to the franchise and contributed to make it popular and relevant again. But his tenure still disappointed and he also contributed to the disappointment.
(I would agree with you, actually)
The only Bond performance I found in which he is not dull or unconvincing is Tomorrow Never Dies. He seems to have gotten more of a grasp on the character in TND - he's having fun and the script, while kind of stupid, allows him to play it a little lighter.
In GoldenEye, Brosnan is acted off the screen by a number of his co-stars (Dench, Coltrane, Bean) and is upstaged in nearly every scene he is in (particularly the scenes with Sean Bean, even more specifically Bond's initial confrontation with Trevelyan at the statue park). It all worked out, however, because Brosnan happened to be surrounded by a pretty good film. No harm, I guess.
The World Is Not Enough gets pretty embarrassing for Brosnan. Just watch that Elektra confrontation. Not to say that it is a well written scene, but a decent actor could have made it stomach-able. Brosnan's delivery is just plain horrendous. I just don't buy his anger (same goes for the rest of the film, too.)
Die Another Day was wrong on so many levels, but I feel that Brosnan was one of them. It didn't help that the script portrayed Bond as some aging pervert who constantly punned about his boners, but once again, I am not convinced by Brosnan's motivation. (ex. "I'm going aftah him!") Die Another Day is just a terrible film, so perhaps the script is working against him just as much as anything else.
Brosnan was right when he said that he never "nailed" the role. He seems to be better in his non-Bond roles. I enjoyed The Matador and the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. Hell, he wasn't even that bad in flippin' Dante's Peak. But for James Bond - I just don't think he had the right outlook on the role.
I wouldn't necessarily call it an argument of popularity as it's an aggregation of the critical opinion of published film critics rather than just punters. Other than that agree with pretty much everything said here about Brosnan, Dalton, GE and the other films.
It means nothing about the intrinsic quality of the film no, regardless of what one thinks of Skyfall (and I loved it). It means it was popular and people accepted Craig as Bond. It's critical success, however, means something, although again it has not pass yet the test of time. People might not look back as positively in the future toward Craig's tenure, but I would put my head on the block and say that overall it is superior to Brosnan's one, critically and in popularity and it should pass the test of time. Brosnan's era, on the other hand, has not aged very well. Apart from GE, which one of his Bond movies is generally praised? I used to think TWINE was maybe his best, but that is a very controversial opinion, and I am not sure I agree with myself on it anymore.
Well, he did mention the Public, which does indicate, I think, an argument at popularity. That GE was a critical success and is still respected is unquestionable.
Ah, got you. We're in complete agreement then.
You, sir, are now among my favorite posters of all time! This is so 99.9% spot on, especially the bolded part, that I was stunned into speechlessness. And that hardly ever happens! You deserve a standing =D> ^:)^
I also appreciate Pierce a lot more outside of Bond than as Bond.
And I do enjoy Pierce's Bond - with his acting, his take on Bond. I appreciate Pierce very much as Bond, as well as his other roles.
Brosnan effigy dolls are available in the Merchandise section; great for sticking pins in or setting afire!
In years to come, when Justin Bieber is tapped to play Bond, I daresay Brosnan's run will be remembered a tiny bit more favourably... =D>
No surprise there my friend, none whatsoever. I'd be surprised if you said different. Except that you know better than to compare cordon bleu (that Scottish guy) to chicken droppings (that Aussie) ;). I agree that Pierce is better, he is an actor after all- just a disappointing Bond save his first 2 films where he seemed to be heading somewhere with it. George did do some things better if we're keeping it honest in here.
@chrisisall- I'll take two effigy dolls (one of Boober too while you're at it), a bottle of anything, and a glazed donut- to go! After all, the title of the thread is, is he really all that bad? :P
And here is my Bond paradox: Pierce is my second favourite Bond, and Tim is my first.
Strange, eh? Tim is so close to the Fleming Bond, yet Pierce is more a cinematic Bond with moments of Fleming... you'd think that if Dalton was my favourite, my second favourite should be Craig, or Connery-?
So why? What is the connection between liking two so seemingly different takes on Bond more than the rest??
Emotional content.
All the other Bonds were (& are) great in their own ways IMO, and I love 'em all, but Tim & Pierce rise to the top for ME because while they had very different takes on how to play the character, the one thing they shared was seeing Bond as an emotional being, not as entirely- not as successfully- detached from the events and relationships in his life as he tries or would like to be. Yes, able to drop it all like carry-on luggage in a moment when the action starts, but never absolutely free of it in the end.
For the record, I have enjoyed Craig's moments in manifesting this too. :-bd
Personally I think the person who upstages Brosnan in GE the most is...Coltrane.
NOT Sean Bean funnily enough IMO.
That is certainly a fair choice. Valentine is a great character and superb Bond ally. I just wish Brosnan's Bond had been able to keep up with him.
Haha you may just be more right than you know! Look, I'm not bashing on Brosnan just to take my anger out on the guy. I like to think that my slight dislike of his Bond isn't from something completely irrational like the way he pronounces his words or something - I just don't think he was the right actor for the job. He surely had the right looks, but for the most part Brosnan seemed to always be trying to 'play James Bond' rather than 'be James Bond' if you know what I mean.
Once again, however, his one Bond performance I would rate favorably would be in Tomorrow Never Dies. That was his best interpretation of the role by a fairly large margin for me. I even find TND to be a pretty decent Bond film, too.