72 replies to this topic

[B5Erik]

While Craig will never quite be Fleming's Bond (a character from another time with outdated sensibilities), his is the most interesting and the most intriguing update of the character there has been so far. He embodies so much of what I love about the Fleming character AND the EON character that his interpretation interests me as much as the original. For my money, he's the best James Bond ever and I'm delighted that he has two more performances locked in.

This is a great point. I don't think we'll ever see "Fleming's Bond" on-screen as the various cinematic variations have added/emphasized various aspects that the public won't accept Bond without.

DC has highlighted aspects of Fleming's creation, literally taking the notion of blunt instrument to almost thuggish extremes - audiences have become so accustomed over the decades to Bond on-screen dispatching of villains effortlessly that DC's very physical interpretation of the brutality and untidyness of murder can be jarring for some.

Ever the diplomat, I do get the gist of B5's argument. Perhaps if DC had an opportunity to solve a situation purely on his smarts this might assuage things? Take LTK - TD is still the assassin trading in violence, but the whole concept of infiltrating Sanchez's organization is a cerebral exercise. Obviously at some moment he will be using his gun and his fists, but there is a sense that Bond succeeds because he's outsmarting the villain. (contrast with Sir Rog's portrayal, where the proportions are reversed).

DC has to the most part, punched his way through situations, not too dissimilar to Brozza's Bond for whom machine-gunning everyone was ultimately the defining tactic.

I do think that DC is capable of an TB-type Bond. Sure, the action part is taken care of, but some of the major plot points hang on Bond "using" Domino, playing off her love for her brother.

B5 - would that answer your "sophistication" request?

Absolutely. Craig has been too blunt of an instrument with too many inner demons making him an unhappy, un-fun character. Even Dalton's Bond in LTK showed a ton of wit. He DID use his brain to beat Sanchez. Bond is supposed to be a smart detective as well as a great trained killer. Balance. That's all I ask for. That's what I asked for when DAD came out. They swung the pendulum WAY past the middle in the other direction for the Craig era so far. The way they've written Craig's Bond makes him a bit unpleasant. He's got good moments, but overall he's not a happy, pleasant character. There needs to be a balance.

And no more Bond battling his inner demons. No more doubting his place in the world. When Bond shows up at M's house in Skyfall he clearly doesn't want to be there. He clearly doesn't want to help catch the bad guy - he's doing it out of obligation. This far into his career as a Double-0 that's not Bond. No more of that kind of stuff for the next movie. Let Bond actually use his brain as a detective and focus on the case at hand. He can still be a complex character, but having the same personal problems over and over again gets tiresome.

[Guy Haines]

I have some sympathy with what B5Erik is getting at, because I'd like to see the next film involve (1) a "pay up or else" plot with Bond working against the clock to stop a villain holding the rest of us to ransom, (2) a Bond leading lady, or two, actually having a fling with the man himself and surviving to the end of the final reel, (3) an mano a mano final scrap with the arch villain ending in Bond finishing said villain off rather than letting the villain's own side do it, stabbing him in the back, or leaving him a can of "Castrol" to consider drinking in a desert.

That said, I don't see how Daniel Craig's portrayal of Bond is at odds with any of the above.

I think it depends on what one means by "Bond being BOND". The exact physical resemblance isn't there, it never quite was with any of the ones who came before, but in terms of the Bond from the novels, Craig fits the bill for me. The "blunt instrument", the state sponsored assassin, who nevertheless has the odd moment of self doubt, and resentment of the people who send him into battle. It's not being "grumpy" or "angry" all the time - its is being human in a very difficult job.

Or is it let "Bond be the screen Bond" of the 1960s? Very much a favourite era of mine, but the screen Bond of then wasn't just Fleming's Bond, but Connery's and Terence Young's. In some ways a product of its time. I'd like to see Craig dispatch a villain in the same way Connery dealt with, say, Vargas in TB - quick flip, spear aimed, target hit, "I think he got the point". I'm sure Craig can do it. It would be a shame, though, if his Bond went from that to walking, talking tuxedoed cliche - as if we are all waiting for the moment when he orders the Martini and does "the line". One of the things I liked about CR was when the barman asks "Shaken or stirred" and Bond replies "Do I look like I give a damn?"

And I don't agree about Craig's Bond lacking "class". The scene in SF in the Macau casino, for example, was defintely Bond being Bond, and both it and the scene with Severine aboard the yacht afterwards could have taken place in a previous Bond film and featured any of his predecessors.

[B5Erik]

Guy, I get what you're saying, but I, for one, am NOT saying that Bond should go from the CR/QOS/SF Bond to the, "Walking, talking tuxedoed cliche." Why do so many people here have to discuss Bond only in extremes? Good grief, how about a little BALANCE. An evenhanded approach. What a novel concept! One that seems to be going over almost ALL the Craig fans' heads.

Yes, as I noted in a previous post, there ARE moments of Bond being the classic Bond in CR and SF, but they're just moments, not the bulk of the movie. Bond needs to be BOND more often to truly balance out the movie. They got it right with Dalton, and I know they can get it right with Craig.

But I'm just getting tired of the Craig followers acting like his version of Bond is above reproach, like he's above ANY criticism. Anything stated that questions the appropriate nature of how Bond has been portrayed in the recent movies is immediately shot down and belittled by the Craig followers. (It's almost like dealing with a cult...)

It really is just like how the DAD fans attacked any criticism of that movie, and in retrospect most of them have admitted that EON went way over the top with that one.

Edited by B5Erik, 24 November 2012 - 05:54 PM.

[seawolfnyy]

Personally, I don't have a problem with how Bond is portrayed in the Craig era. It's similar to how it was with Dalton, it's much closer to Fleming's Bond and I think it makes the film's more interesting. I also think it's part of the reason the last few films have attracted higher quality directors. I don't want Bond to go back to the bland agent he was during the Moore or Brosnan years. I mean do we really want more Michael Apteds and Lee Tamahoris directing? Or do we want more Marc Forsters and Sam Mendes'.

[B5Erik]

Why do so many people here have to discuss Bond only in extremes? Good grief, how about a little BALANCE. An evenhanded approach. What a novel concept! One that seems to be going over almost ALL the Craig fans' heads.

[Guy Haines]

Guy, I get what you're saying, but I, for one, am NOT saying that Bond should go from the CR/QOS/SF Bond to the, "Walking, talking tuxedoed cliche." Why do so many people here have to discuss Bond only in extremes? Good grief, how about a little BALANCE. An evenhanded approach. What a novel concept! One that seems to be going over almost ALL the Craig fans' heads.

Yes, as I noted in a previous post, there ARE moments of Bond being the classic Bond in CR and SF, but they're just moments, not the bulk of the movie. Bond needs to be BOND more often to truly balance out the movie. They got it right with Dalton, and I know they can get it right with Craig.

But I'm just getting tired of the Craig followers acting like his version of Bond is above reproach, like he's above ANY criticism. Anything stated that questions the appropriate nature of how Bond has been portrayed in the recent movies is immediately shot down and belittled by the Craig followers. (It's almost like dealing with a cult...)

It really is just like how the DAD fans attacked any criticism of that movie, and in retrospect most of them have admitted that EON went way over the top with that one.

It's interesting that Timothy Dalton is one of the Bonds you consider closest to Bond being Bond. For me, he's the closest to the Bond Daniel Craig portrays now. I was as bowled over when I first saw him in TLD in 1987 as I was when I first saw Craig in CR in 2006. In retrospect he, Dalton, was ahead of his time. Yet whereas Craig garners critical acclaim, Dalton now is dismissed by critics and some fans (but not me) as too dour and grumpy.

I'm still a bit puzzled though by what "Bond being Bond" means - and I say this not as a Craig fanatic (I like them all, but particularly Connery, Dalton and Craig) but as a fan of the Ian Fleming books. Without the books there would be no Bond. But the James Bond of the printed page is in some ways different from the one on the screen. He is conflicted, sometimes bored between missions, thinks he's going soft and "losing it" and by the time we get to the novel YOLT he really has no business being in the espionage business at all. He's certainly not enjoying life or the job. Is he "being Bond"?

My point is, I suppose, there's more to Bond than the "classic Bond" approach, and its all there in the Fleming books. And I can't see what is wrong in bringing some of Fleming's Bond on to the screen.

[B5Erik]

Guy, I get what you're saying, but I, for one, am NOT saying that Bond should go from the CR/QOS/SF Bond to the, "Walking, talking tuxedoed cliche." Why do so many people here have to discuss Bond only in extremes? Good grief, how about a little BALANCE. An evenhanded approach. What a novel concept! One that seems to be going over almost ALL the Craig fans' heads.

Yes, as I noted in a previous post, there ARE moments of Bond being the classic Bond in CR and SF, but they're just moments, not the bulk of the movie. Bond needs to be BOND more often to truly balance out the movie. They got it right with Dalton, and I know they can get it right with Craig.

But I'm just getting tired of the Craig followers acting like his version of Bond is above reproach, like he's above ANY criticism. Anything stated that questions the appropriate nature of how Bond has been portrayed in the recent movies is immediately shot down and belittled by the Craig followers. (It's almost like dealing with a cult...)

It really is just like how the DAD fans attacked any criticism of that movie, and in retrospect most of them have admitted that EON went way over the top with that one.

It's interesting that Timothy Dalton is one of the Bonds you consider closest to Bond being Bond. For me, he's the closest to the Bond Daniel Craig portrays now. I was as bowled over when I first saw him in TLD in 1987 as I was when I first saw Craig in CR in 2006. In retrospect he, Dalton, was ahead of his time. Yet whereas Craig garners critical acclaim, Dalton now is dismissed by critics and some fans (but not me) as too dour and grumpy.

I'm saying that Dalton got the balance right. He was charming, witty, and suave when he needed to be, but was also serious. He always came across as an assassin when he was on the job. He's got a licence to kill, and that's what he does. The job does wear on him, but not so much that he doubts his place in the world (unlike Craig's Bond, who does doubt his place in the world multiple times - and, again, it's mostly how his Bond was written in the script). Dalton balanced the literary bond with the cinematic Bond beautifully. Connery did a great job of creating the cinematic Bond, but it was Roger Moore who took that Bond and made him a bit of a caracature at times. Pierce Brosnan was right in between Moore and Dalton. I'd like to see more of the Connery Bond and the Dalton TLD and pre-Della's death LTK Bond in the next movie. Craig can easily handle that. They just need to write the character that way.

I'm still a bit puzzled though by what "Bond being Bond" means - and I say this not as a Craig fanatic (I like them all, but particularly Connery, Dalton and Craig) but as a fan of the Ian Fleming books. Without the books there would be no Bond. But the James Bond of the printed page is in some ways different from the one on the screen. He is conflicted, sometimes bored between missions, thinks he's going soft and "losing it" and by the time we get to the novel YOLT he really has no business being in the espionage business at all. He's certainly not enjoying life or the job. Is he "being Bond"?

We don't see Bond in between missions in the movies for the most part. So that comparison doesn't work. We only see the ON THE JOB Bond, and at that point he should be confident and free of self-doubt. He should know that his place IS in M16 as their best agent. And he should enjoy that part of his life to a degree.

My point is, I suppose, there's more to Bond than the "classic Bond" approach, and its all there in the Fleming books. And I can't see what is wrong in bringing some of Fleming's Bond on to the screen.

I don't have a problem bringing some of Fleming's Bond to the screen - I've endorsed that idea for over 20 years. It's the part where they sacrifice what Bond was known for with Connery and Dalton, and to a lesser degree Brosnan, that I've got an issue with.

There's both something missing and also something new with Craig's Bond that makes him a little harder for me to accept as the same person we've come to know for the last 50 years. I'm not saying Craig is bad (I think he's great), and I'm not saying the movies are bad (CR and Skyfall are great, and QOS is better than some make it out to be, flaws and all). I'm just saying that there's something off about the way they've written Craig's bond, and that something is something that he's jumped on as an actor because he is so good. He's playing the subtext as well as the text and his Bond just feels different (largely because of the way he's written).

[JimmyBond]

I'm not quite sure what you mean when you keep saying Craig's Bond is still trying to find his place in the world.

In Casino Royale he briefly flirted with a normal life, but realized that his place was with MI6. This was taken from the book, so I'm not sure where the criticism there lies.

Quantum of Solace saw Bond hunting down the people responsible for Vesper's suicide, while at the same time tracking down the orginization behind White. Coincidentally they were one in the same. Bond does appear a bit despondent over Vesper's suicide, but nowhere in the film do I get the senes he's "finding himself in the world." The only people who think he's not all together there is the CIA and MI6, but we see at the end of the film they were both wrong, Bond was being Bond, despite what everyone else assumed.

I could almost grant you Skyfall, except for the fact that it's not even new ground. Goldeneye had a similar theme with all the characters questioning Bond's place in the world, with him proving everyone wrong. Skyfall just takes this to the next level.

You hold Dalton to such a high degree (as you should, he was a great Bond), yet his Bond always seemed unsure of if he'd pull off the next stunt. In fact I could definitely imagine his Bond keeping himself going with booze and pills. I also recall one author of one of those retrospective books saying Dalton's Bond is the first Bond you could actually believe would need a Sir James Maloney.

Even Brosnan was pushing for a more realistic approach to being a hired killer. He approached Bond as someone who knew death was just around the corner. Sure his scripts were a bit at odds with this line of thinking, but this is what Brosnan was pushing for. In fact one of my favorite lines from Brosnan's Bond is "I take pleasure, in great beauty."

To get back to the topic at hand though, I don't necessarily see anything different in Craig's portrayal versus what Dalton and Brosnan were trying to bring to the role.

I think Bond's distaste for killing has always been a constant. And anyone who is in Bond's profession would most likely be questioning their place in the world, wouldn't you?

[tdalton]

To get back to the topic at hand though, I don't necessarily see anything different in Craig's portrayal versus what Dalton and Brosnan were trying to bring to the role.

The only real difference that I can see between Dalton and Craig is the concept of the "reboot". I've always looked at Dalton's Bond as one much closer to the end of his career than the beginning. He's world weary, has probably let himself go a bit in terms of the physicality that such a job would demand, and would prefer to handle things in a more cerebral manner rather than to go in guns blazing, kicking ass and taking names.

Craig's Bond is just the opposite, mainly because he doesn't have the years of experience that Dalton's Bond had. He shoots first, asks questions later and definitely prefers the head-on, direct confrontational approach rather than the more subtle approach that Dalton's Bond preferred, like what we saw with his infiltration of Sanchez's organization and his disrupting Koskov's plot by faking Pushkin's assassination.

I wouldn't have much trouble at all seeing Dalton as more of a Craig-type Bond were he playing Bond at the very beginning of his career. Being that kind of agent would no doubt take a lot out of a man, and we see that to a degree in both THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS and LICENCE TO KILL.

Aside from that, I don't see too many glaring differences between the two.

Edited by tdalton, 26 November 2012 - 07:40 AM.

[Guy Haines]

I still think we have to be careful about what "Bond being Bond" means. To me, it seems subjective. There are, I am certain, fans who grew up with the Bond of the 1970s for whom it means Roger Moore's lighter approach. There are others who regard Connery's Bond as the only true interpretation. If the old line about the best Bond being the first one you saw is true, then I ought to be championing George Lazenby. Timothy Dalton, quite wrongly, gets a lot of stick from critics these days who were falling over themselves to praise him years ago -many of them the same critics who laud Daniel Craig, even though in many ways you couldn't separate their approach to Bond - the "Ian Fleming's Bond" approach - with the thinnest of cigarette paper. Pierce Brosnan was a Bond I had initial doubts about, yet I enjoyed him in the role and all four of his films - yes, including DAD!

There are even a brave few - very few, most likely - for whom none of the above qualify because none of them are as good as the Bond of the printed page.

It's ironic that Daniel Craig - the serious "grumpy" Bond - has no bigger champion right now than Sir Roger Moore. Talk about "a thousand miles and poles apart", (to borrow a line from a well known popular song of the past few weeks!) in terms of playing the role, yet Sir Roger recognised that there is more than one approach to portraying Bond, just as there's more than one way of playing Hamlet.

I don't think Craig's Bond is beyond criticism, but neither do I think he is not quite James Bond. He has created a version of Bond every bit as credible and successful as his predecessors. If his three films dwelt on areas which to some don't seem to belong in a Bond film, well that is an issue for the writers. The actor only plays the part and repeats the lines he's given.

[The Gunner]

He isn't. Well, he could've fooled me!

[sharpshooter]

Good point, Guy Haines. Connery had the cool, Moore had the wit and Craig has the grit. Each actor has his strengths, the writing accommodates and each can be identified as ‘Bond’. The way Craig Bond ditches his empty PPK to the ground in cool disgust in the PTS, or hitting the glass in frustration after Patrice falls to his death, for example. Craig has a certain style and definitely has presence, which is important for a Bond actor. He’s believable as a killer and manages to bring humanity to the role.

[Iceskater101]

Yeah I think that's well said. Every Bond actor had their strengths and weaknesses.