Thought this could be an interesting discussion. I touched on this subject in another thread. I'm pretty sure the members in here range from all ages - and I'm pretty sure each one of us has "our" Bond.
Anyone in here who's familiar with my particular tastes knows that I firmly consider Pierce Brosnan to be my Bond.
I was 17 when Goldeneye came out. At the time of the release the movie was a very big deal. Now of course I was aware of James Bond movies before this and had seen many of them. To me however, they were sort of a bit like the Carry On films. Bank Holiday and Christmas television fare. I can safely say that I think I'd seen them at some point or other in my first 17 years. I owned a cassette tape with some of the songs on it but that was about as far as my fandom went. Although I do remember seeing Moonraker at a very young age. I can also remember The Living Daylights coming out when I was about 9 and wanting to see it - but for some reason or other my parents didn't end up taking me. I was 11 when Licence To Kill came out - so it's 15 rating automatically made it a no-no (and since that was the year Batman came out I wasn't really that concerned about it - although that is the Dalton one I saw first ironically)
When Goldeneye came out I have to admit I was a little bit skeptical. I remember thinking "wow, they've made another one of THOSE?!?!"
Yet it was a big deal in the media. It was all over the telly, Tina Turner's song was in the charts and Pierce Brosnan was appearing on all the chat shows. When I was 17 I was dating my first ever "real" girlfriend - she was spending saturday at my house. We went out Christmas shopping during the day and fancied a trip to the cinema that night. That was the big movie that was out - so we went to see it. I enjoyed it but didn't really think anything more of it. Two years later when Tomorrow Never Dies came out I went to see it with a female friend (NOT a girlfriend) and had an absolutely GREAT time with it, REALLY enjoyed it. I just remember walking out of that one thinking "Pierce Brosnan is COOL!"
A year after that when I was 20 my parents got me a Nintendo 64 for Christmas with the Goldeneye 007 videogame which I was just OBSESSED with. I think it was that game that pretty much did it. Before the next Christmas I bought the first 18 movies on VHS just in time for when The World Is Not Enough came out at cinemas. The year Die Another Day came out my parents got me the complete collection on DVD as a present.
It was Brosnan who made me interested in Bond and through him I decided to check out the others again and from there became a fan of ALL things Bond. I was very hurt and dissapointed when he (for whatever reason) stopped playing the role. I was even feeling that dissapointment when I was queing up to watch Casino Royale!
When I got that one on DVD we decided to upgrade our DVD collection so I bought the boxed set of the two disc editions and gave my old boxed set to my step-boy. I sort of lost interest in Bond a bit. Quantum Of Solace just came and went without much fanfare for me. Although with Skyfall I finally jumped on the Daniel Craig train - I thought it was wonderful.
Last year I got the blu-ray set of the movies, aswell as Skyfall and finally got round to reading Ian Fleming's original books.
2014 is about collecting and reading all the OTHER books (I've read the Robert Markham/Kingsley Amis) one, and all of the soundtrack albums (I've got about ten left to go). I want to put together an ULTIMATE Bond collection to have ready for if/when my kids take a bit more of an interest and to leave for them when I die.
I credit all this to the Pierce Brosnan movies. I know many love Daniel Craig (and he is awesome) but I was a bit disappointed to see a Brosnan backlash. People seem to forget that when he did Goldeneye people where unsure of whether these movies or this character could be relevent again in a post cold-war world. Also there had been a rather long hiatus between installments. Goldeneye was a pretty big risk but it came off. I think a lot of that had to do with the fact they had the right man for the job. I honestly think that we wouldn't be enjoying the Daniel Craig films today if it wasn't for Brosnan. It's HIM who made me a fan. He will always be my favourite. He will always be MY Bond.
So what about you?
Edited by ChickenStu, 19 February 2014 - 10:45 PM.