125 replies to this topic

[Jim]

I think those wishing to engage in the discussion of whatever it was have probably seen enough now to judge the participants; poll added.

Let the people decide.

[Santa]

We can only vote for one? How disappointing. I'm slightly disappointed not to find myself on that list.

[Jim]

We can only vote for one? How disappointing. I'm slightly disappointed not to find myself on that list.

I wondered about that but then I decided it would be unfair on the eventual top candidate because he/she/it may feel that he/she/it had to rely on others' charity rather than get the attention he/she/it deserves and be properly rewarded for being a real winner.

[coco1997]

Although I take no responsibility for derailing this thread, I apologize for letting my personal issues with one particular forum member here contribute to derailing it further.

[Righty007]

Believe me...I think I know who's the winning party here. And it ain't you.

I wins every time you respond to my comments. I wins every time you talks about me, gurl. I wins every time I get under yo skinz so badly with an opinion dat you don't like dat you have to resort to petty names-callin and unprovoked dattacks, revealing what a immature child you is. I wins every time I say sumpin' dat you can't intellectually process and have to resort to character ossassinations to defend yo "position".

It's all good baby. It's cheddar. It's butter. Keep 'em coming like dat, cool breeze; I can hang.

You're just retarded.

Using that word to describe others gives them permission to use it to describe you, FYI.

[elizabeth]

I realize that, Righty. I also realize that I am dealing with the weak.

[Jim]

Now now, once the polls are open, no more canvassing or policy statements, and a restrained respect for one's opponent; one wouldn't want to be deemed to be influencing the democratic process unduly. Naughty.

[Santa]

So, Daniel Craig apparently turned down the role of Bond. If indeed he was just playing hard to get, he'd have been gutted if they'd taken him at his word. He must have been fairly sure they really, really wanted him.

[Dustin]

So, Daniel Craig apparently turned down the role of Bond. If indeed he was just playing hard to get, he'd have been gutted if they'd taken him at his word. He must have been fairly sure they really, really wanted him.

I suppose he really was. Before he was offered the role I think nobody (well, hardly anybody) in their right mind would have called him a natural contender. I seem to remember reading 'Goran Visnjic' on these forums back then certainly a hundred times more often than 'Daniel Craig'. So when they actually knocked at Craig's door the natural conclusion had to be that they either were completely out of their minds, or really serious. Someone like Jackman would automatically have suspected they were talking to Clive Owen and Eric Bana at the same time. But Craig? If they were talking to him there was not really an obvious alternative. So I guess he could at least be sure they were serious about their offer.

[Germanlady]

So, Daniel Craig apparently turned down the role of Bond. If indeed he was just playing hard to get, he'd have been gutted if they'd taken him at his word. He must have been fairly sure they really, really wanted him.

Why can nobody take into consideration, that he MIGHT NOT have played games? Thnere was nothing there, he could base a decision upon apart from becoming Bond - a Bond, he didn't know. He has often said - he was quite happy with the way his career was going and a false move THIS big could have cost him everything he has worked for so hard. After seeing the script, he could have still lost out, but at least he knew, they had a CHANCE to do something worthwile, something that did fit into what he was interested in Bond becoming again...the character Flemming wrote.

[AMC Hornet]

I mean, it's not an opinion; it's an indisputable fact (just like the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1915).

That was meant to be a joke, right?

(No personal attack intended, I'm just feeling prickish again today)

[Santa]

So, Daniel Craig apparently turned down the role of Bond. If indeed he was just playing hard to get, he'd have been gutted if they'd taken him at his word. He must have been fairly sure they really, really wanted him.

Why can nobody take into consideration, that he MIGHT NOT have played games? Thnere was nothing there, he could base a decision upon apart from becoming Bond - a Bond, he didn't know. He has often said - he was quite happy with the way his career was going and a false move THIS big could have cost him everything he has worked for so hard. After seeing the script, he could have still lost out, but at least he knew, they had a CHANCE to do something worthwile, something that did fit into what he was interested in Bond becoming again...the character Flemming wrote.

If. That's why I used that little word. "If indeed he was blah blah blah".

[Major Tallon]

I mean, it's not an opinion; it's an indisputable fact (just like the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1915).

That was meant to be a joke, right?

I would never joke about the loss of thousands of innocent people, Hornet. That disaster forced Roosevelt to abandon America's stated position of neutrality and enter World War II and the rest, as they say, is history.

Ahem. Perhaps it's just the historian in me, but the Titanic sank in 1912, famously due to a collision with an iceberg. RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine in 1915, but the President at the time was Woodrow Wilson, and the conflict in question was World War One, which the United States entered in 1917 (due to many factors apart from the Lusitania).

I now return everyone to their previous discussion.

[AMC Hornet]

...But I suppose that's just our opinion, Major, and therefore disputable.

Edited by AMC Hornet, 12 August 2011 - 10:16 PM.

[AMC Hornet]

Dammit, now you have got me thinking about it - it sounds like a great plot for a spy movie.

I can even think of a suitable title for it:

The Death Collector!

[Major Tallon]

And the iceberg could have a hatch which, when opened, reveals the German flag, and there'd be a yummy blonde fraulein inside who could steer the thing and who'd have champagne on ice and . . . and . . .

Nah, nobody would ever believe it.

[honeyjes]

http://www.guardian....ov/17/jamesbond
http://www.interview...m/daniel-craig/

For those who still think Mr Craig is a revisionist and resent him a little insight for you

Edited by honeyjes, 13 August 2011 - 04:04 AM.

[Germanlady]

Here's the part she refers to:

Surely he needed Bond like a cigarette burn in his tux? Craig agrees: "When I got the call, it really was left-field. Honoured though I was, I wasn't deeply enthusiastic. I met Barbara and Michael [Broccoli and Wilson, the film's producers] who are lovely people and they were trying to take it in a different direction." The aim was to rebrand Bond: they wanted to create a new 007 with interesting psychological flaws to enable him to compete with troubled modern icons such as Jack Bauer and Jason Bourne.

Broccoli and Wilson wanted to start the Bond story from scratch with a new adaptation of Ian Fleming's first Bond novel, Casino Royale (1953). They would make him voguishly vulnerable, hint that he was an orphan and give him a proper love affair rather than the usual tropical rumpy-pumpy. Fingers crossed, the result (to be directed by Goldeneye's Martin Campbell) would obliterate the memory of the misfiring swinging 1960s comedy version.

Craig didn't bite. "For me, at that stage, it was promises, promises. Unfortunately, they didn't have a script and I can't say yes without a script." So he turned down the role: "I walked away from it because I thought this is taking up too much of my life. I was thinking about it too much." He went off to play an avenging killer in Spielberg's movie Munich. But he couldn't get Bond out of his head. "I said to Steven, 'Bond isn't this kind of film.' He said, 'If the script's right and if the deal's right, do the job.'"

Then last year, Craig received the final script. "Paul Haggis [writer of the Oscar-winning Crash and Million Dollar Baby] had sprinkled his magic dust on it. I was honestly wanting to dislike it. It would have been an easy decision. I could have said, 'That's very nice. Good luck with it.' But it was too much. I sweated when I read the script. I thought, this is a great story, probably because it adhered to the book quite closely, and I just thought, 'You've got to be really silly not to have a think about this.'

"I made pro and con lists. Every time the pros outdid the cons." What were the cons? "The cons were like: you're going to get typecast. Which is a high-class problem to have." Other cons? "You might not be able to do other stuff, to which I replied, 'Who says?'" Around this time, he happened to be sitting at the Baftas at the same table as Pierce Brosnan. "He said, 'Go for it. It's a ride.'" Brosnan was a good precedent: he had managed to star in some good non-007 films during his 007 tenure, notably The Tailor of Panama and the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair.

How did the script sucker you? "He makes mistakes. He's vulnerable and falls in love. He's everything Bond isn't supposed to be. It appealed to me - showing him screwing up, bleeding and getting hurt - because that's the kind of actor I am, but also it works dramatically. If he's just action, action, action, and then he falls in love, the reaction's gonna be, like, 'Ah, .' I wanted that progression and the script gave me that."

[Germanlady]

My last post regarding this:

He turned it down, because there was no script. Can't count, how often that was written. So - this implies, he never said, he wouldn't take the role AT ALL. It says, he couldn't say Yes to something, he knew nothing about.

This also implies, that he DID take the risk of never being asked again, as - at that time - he didn't know Babs or Michael very well and had no chanve to know, HOW serious they were or how badly they wanted him and this is actually, what this whole messy discussion was all about. He took the risk to loose out on it, because "I couldn't wrap my hands around it" Again, this is what I call "being true to yourself" and not selling out on a job, just because it pays well...

Without painting his veste whiter then it is, I see no reason to NOT give him credit for that.

Edited by Germanlady, 13 August 2011 - 01:13 PM.

[Dustin]

Frankly, after seeing DAD in 2002 I would never have expected the next film to be anything like CR. I've seen quite a few ups and downs of the series - restarts and back-to-the-roots entries as well as overripe silly self-parodies - but I would never have expected it to produce something as gripping and entertaining again as CR turned out to be. Who would have thought that? I think even with a pretty good script and director there was still a considerable chance to bungle this. What I wonder is why Eon approached him without having the script to fit their lead?

[SecretAgentFan]

Frankly, after seeing DAD in 2002 I would never have expected the next film to be anything like CR. I've seen quite a few ups and downs of the series - restarts and back-to-the-roots entries as well as overripe silly self-parodies - but I would never have expected it to produce something as gripping and entertaining again as CR turned out to be. Who would have thought that? I think even with a pretty good script and director there was still a considerable chance to bungle this. What I wonder is why Eon approached him without having the script to fit their lead?

Obviously, they thought he would be a great new Bond. I guess that´s what is the most important thing when casting this role - not the script (that can be tailored to the actor´s needs later) but the potential an actor brings. And after Brosnan EON wanted to reboot everything and therefore chose someone who would not have been considered a classical Bond type - but who actually would give a new impression.

And let´s face it: most serious actors would have turned down Bond after Brosnan because he was so popular and because Bond was... well, Bond. You could either be typecast forever, doing the same thing over and over, or be a gigantic failure, doing nothing anymore. So, for everyone, accepting this role is a huge gamble. Craig´s reaction was more than understandable.

[Dustin]

This begs the question if the general direction of Craig's tenure isn't more due to Craig himself than anything else. To me Eon approaching him without a script suggests we could have got a completely different CR and QOS if there had been a Jackman, Farrell, Bana or Owen cast (which of course never were contenders in the first place).

[SecretAgentFan]

This begs the question if the general direction of Craig's tenure isn't more due to Craig himself than anything else. To me Eon approaching him without a script suggests we could have got a completely different CR and QOS if there had been a Jackman, Farrell, Bana or Owen cast (which of course never were contenders in the first place).

I´d say it´s mainly EON wishing for a new direction and using Craig for it. I don´t think they would have gone for "just another Bond" - and why should they have done that?

Craig has proven to be a massive success and an injection of fresh blood into the series. I think EON will continue on this route even after Craig has finished his tenure.

Although I loved Brosnan as Bond I must admit that he was more of a stabilising force, not so much someone who brought new ideas. After Craig, however, I don´t think that EON will go with another guy like him. It must be someone totally different again.

[Dustin]

This begs the question if the general direction of Craig's tenure isn't more due to Craig himself than anything else. To me Eon approaching him without a script suggests we could have got a completely different CR and QOS if there had been a Jackman, Farrell, Bana or Owen cast (which of course never were contenders in the first place).

I´d say it´s mainly EON wishing for a new direction and using Craig for it. I don´t think they would have gone for "just another Bond" - and why should they have done that?

Craig has proven to be a massive success and an injection of fresh blood into the series. I think EON will continue on this route even after Craig has finished his tenure.

Although I loved Brosnan as Bond I must admit that he was more of a stabilising force, not so much someone who brought new ideas. After Craig, however, I don´t think that EON will go with another guy like him. It must be someone totally different again.

I agree that after DAD there was hardly much room for development in the traditional direction of 'bigger-faster-more stupid'. But I think the particular direction of CR and QOS could have well been a different one - had Cavill come out ahead of Craig. I don't think it's a given that the product had to be such a marvellous film as CR turned out to be (despite still having its own problems), and obviously Eon was not so sure about their own courage, or the tacked on action pieces wouldn't have been necessary and the QOS concept would have been developed during CR. I think CR with Henry Cavill would have been an entirely different film, despite the same director and a largely similar script and cast.

[SecretAgentFan]

This begs the question if the general direction of Craig's tenure isn't more due to Craig himself than anything else. To me Eon approaching him without a script suggests we could have got a completely different CR and QOS if there had been a Jackman, Farrell, Bana or Owen cast (which of course never were contenders in the first place).

I´d say it´s mainly EON wishing for a new direction and using Craig for it. I don´t think they would have gone for "just another Bond" - and why should they have done that?

Craig has proven to be a massive success and an injection of fresh blood into the series. I think EON will continue on this route even after Craig has finished his tenure.

Although I loved Brosnan as Bond I must admit that he was more of a stabilising force, not so much someone who brought new ideas. After Craig, however, I don´t think that EON will go with another guy like him. It must be someone totally different again.

I agree that after DAD there was hardly much room for development in the traditional direction of 'bigger-faster-more stupid'. But I think the particular direction of CR and QOS could have well been a different one - had Cavill come out ahead of Craig. I don't think it's a given that the product had to be such a marvellous film as CR turned out to be (despite still having its own problems), and obviously Eon was not so sure about their own courage, or the tacked on action pieces wouldn't have been necessary and the QOS concept would have been developed during CR. I think CR with Henry Cavill would have been an entirely different film, despite the same director and a largely similar script and cast.

Of course, every actor changes a movie simply be being in it. Cavill at the time just was too young - he would have been Jimmy Bond (no pun intended, Jimmy Bond). But I disagree about EON being not so sure about their own courage. A big action blockbuster needs big action set pieces. Not offering them would seriously have hurt CR at the box office.

[David Schofield]

But I think the particular direction of CR and QOS could have well been a different one - had Cavill come out ahead of Craig. I don't think it's a given that the product had to be such a marvellous film as CR turned out to be (despite still having its own problems), and obviously Eon was not so sure about their own courage, or the tacked on action pieces wouldn't have been necessary and the QOS concept would have been developed during CR. I think CR with Henry Cavill would have been an entirely different film, despite the same director and a largely similar script and cast.

Certainly, a Cavill film would have felt very different. With Craig at least you get a hybrid, compromise Bond; a world-weary looking man of the world behaving like an arrogant youth and talking the kind of rubbish - see particularly the Vesper train scene - only an youthful idiot would emote. None of this sits well with Craig, at his best when the "Bond before he was Bond" crap isn't around: the meeting with Mathis, the card games, the post-game meal with Vesper, etc

Clearly, EON had a script which really was intended for a young Bond, Cavill or someone else like him. Whether there wasn't time to remove these references when Craig was cast, who knows? But it makes you wonder how much of a dead cert Craig's casting was and whether the idea of going with a much younger actor wasn't what EON had in mind before chickening out at the last minute...

And yes, the more one watches CR, the more out of place and uneccessary the action pieces before Montenegro are. And, of course, both the Madagascar and Miami airport scenes do little to differentiate indesctructible Craig-Bond from the equally ludicrous Brosnan-Bond.

[Dustin]

This begs the question if the general direction of Craig's tenure isn't more due to Craig himself than anything else. To me Eon approaching him without a script suggests we could have got a completely different CR and QOS if there had been a Jackman, Farrell, Bana or Owen cast (which of course never were contenders in the first place).

I´d say it´s mainly EON wishing for a new direction and using Craig for it. I don´t think they would have gone for "just another Bond" - and why should they have done that? Craig has proven to be a massive success and an injection of fresh blood into the series. I think EON will continue on this route even after Craig has finished his tenure.Although I loved Brosnan as Bond I must admit that he was more of a stabilising force, not so much someone who brought new ideas. After Craig, however, I don´t think that EON will go with another guy like him. It must be someone totally different again.

I agree that after DAD there was hardly much room for development in the traditional direction of 'bigger-faster-more stupid'. But I think the particular direction of CR and QOS could have well been a different one - had Cavill come out ahead of Craig. I don't think it's a given that the product had to be such a marvellous film as CR turned out to be (despite still having its own problems), and obviously Eon was not so sure about their own courage, or the tacked on action pieces wouldn't have been necessary and the QOS concept would have been developed during CR. I think CR with Henry Cavill would have been an entirely different film, despite the same director and a largely similar script and cast.

Of course, every actor changes a movie simply be being in it. Cavill at the time just was too young - he would have been Jimmy Bond (no pun intended, Jimmy Bond). But I disagree about EON being not so sure about their own courage. A big action blockbuster needs big action set pieces. Not offering them would seriously have hurt CR at the box office.

I wonder if the 'action' designation was ever open to debate. At the core of CR there is a very neat and nasty little thriller story that you could have adapted even as an auteur film. Take away the more spectacular parts of the parcour chase, leave out the explosions of the embassy and airliner, drop the sinking house in Venice and you get an even better film IMO.

Certainly, a Cavill film would have felt very different. With Craig at least you get a hybrid, compromise Bond; a world-weary looking man of the world behaving like an arrogant youth and talking the kind of rubbish - see particularly the Vesper train scene - only an youthful idiot would emote. None of this sits well with Craig, at his best when the "Bond before he was Bond" crap isn't around: the meeting with Mathis, the card games, the post-game meal with Vesper, etcClearly, EON had a script which really was intended for a young Bond, Cavill or someone else like him. Whether there wasn't time to remove these references when Craig was cast, who knows? But it makes you wonder how much of a dead cert Craig's casting was and whether the idea of going with a much younger actor wasn't what EON had in mind before chickening out at the last minute...And yes, the more one watches CR, the more out of place and uneccessary the action pieces before Montenegro are. And, of course, both the Madagascar and Miami airport scenes do little to differentiate indesctructible Craig-Bond from the equally ludicrous Brosnan-Bond.

I don't think such allusions could not have been edited out, had they just desired so. No, Campbell, Craig and Eon clearly thought these few references fitting to Craig at the time. And I have to admit none of it bothers me a lot, not the way the Indiana Jones parts do.

[jaguar007]

I wonder if the 'action' designation was ever open to debate. At the core of CR there is a very neat and nasty little thriller story that you could have adapted even as an auteur film. Take away the more spectacular parts of the parcour chase, leave out the explosions of the embassy and airliner, drop the sinking house in Venice and you get an even better film IMO.

Perhaps, but the public at large expect action and big stunts from a Bond film and CR had significantly less action than the several Bond films that came before it.

[Dustin]

I wonder if the 'action' designation was ever open to debate. At the core of CR there is a very neat and nasty little thriller story that you could have adapted even as an auteur film. Take away the more spectacular parts of the parcour chase, leave out the explosions of the embassy and airliner, drop the sinking house in Venice and you get an even better film IMO.

Perhaps, but the public at large expect action and big stunts from a Bond film and CR had significantly less action than the several Bond films that came before it.

Sure, the can is opened now. But CR would have been an opportunity to show a ticking bomb that's not exploding for a change (and as a nod to GF). Or an explosion that comes completely unexpected and really as a shock - instead of telegraphing the twist miles ahead. I feel sure CR would have given room for a lot more change than the result shows. In the end it still is a relatively conventional Bond film with the action pieces often out of proportion, doubtlessly due to the expectations a modern Bond film has to meet today.

[Capsule in Space]

This thread is hilarious! I missed out on a lot of fun.