29 replies to this topic

[Hockey Mask]

Fill in the blank.

Here is mine...

The best thing the Bond franchise ever did was reboot the franchise with Daniel Craig.

[Trevelyan 006]

The best thing the Bond franchise ever did was hire Connery, a virtually unknown actor, as the first 007.

[007jamesbond]

Hiring Daniel Craig who is true to Ian Fleming character and the end of parody fake Bond era 

[copperhead1]

Hire Daniel Craig Period.

[AMC Hornet]

Hire Terence Young to groom Connery and make him 007.

[SecretAgentFan]

Hire Terence Young to groom Connery and make him 007.

 

Yes!!!!

[delfloria]

Hire Terence Young to groom Connery and make him 007.

 

Yes!!!!

Very much a yes on that.

Edited by delfloria, 13 February 2013 - 06:09 AM.

[seawolfnyy]

The best thing the Bond franchise ever did was cast the talented and lovely Eva Green as Vesper Lynd.

[sharpshooter]

The best thing the Bond franchise ever did was hire Connery, a virtually unknown actor, as the first 007.

This is the number one of all number ones. And also to have John Barry involved. 

 

In the modern era, the hiring of Daniel Craig for sure. 

[Dustin]

... churn out a number of splendid films around some obscure medium-grade civil servant, a blunt instrument inside the machinations of cold war bureaucracy that nonetheless managed to shape our culture more than most other pop culture figures. Its influence can be seen everywhere from Playboy to Men's Health, from The New Yorker to The Sun. When in a few hundred years archaeologists dig out images of a man in dinner jacket with a gun from the ashes of our civilisation they most likely will term them idols with cultish meaning for our society.

 

They will be right. 

[mttvolcano]

Make Dr. No

[Turn]

The best thing the Bond franchise did was to be resilient in the face of changing trends, changing actors, 6- and 4-year gaps and keeping it all in the family.

[thecasinoroyale]

The best thing the Bond franchise ever did was to know that we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will.

 

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

[jaguar007]

I would have to say the casting of Sean Connery. I really think it was his macho charisma that made the early Bond films the success that they were. He ushered in a new type of hero.

[Odd Jobbies]

Hire Terence Young to groom Connery and make him 007.

 

Yes!!!!

Can't top that.

 

A close second is pursuing Craig and convincing him to sign up.

Finding, let alone hiring Campbell, who wasn't on anyone's radar at the time, to re-launch Bond with Brosnan. He was then an obvious choice for Craig's reboot.

I think hiring Mendes will in the very long term prove to be a massive right move for Bond as he's married old and new Bond in a way that i think most other filmmakers could've screwed up.

Landing Javier Bardem for Skyfall.

 

I guess this theard now needs it's nemesis thread: 

The Worst Thing the Bond Franchise Ever Did Was _______________.

 

Top of my list would be EON making product, instead of films far too often; with each of their actors (apart from Dalton) EON have a pattern of getting nervous about taking chances and trying repeat what they've already done - playing safe. Obviously prioritising sustained box office over challenging the format is an unfortunate part of the business in Hollywood, but it has dire results, as seen in the last film or two of many a Bond actor. Fleming always challenged his own way of telling Bond's story, from first to third person - from idealist to cynical drunk. And low and behold look what bringing such challenges into the films has done for the record breaking profits as well as their critically acclaimed quality! Thank you Daniel Craig

 

That would bring me to the treatment of Fleming's source material. I don't think that until now, in the Craig era, it was ever really appreciated just how very good the books are. Until now they've been raped and pillaged for bits and pieces to build the various scripts that mostly compare to the source material in name only.

Now we're left with little that hasn't been filmed already, but very few films that do any of the books any real justice - it's a mess and personally i'd like to see them made more faithfully. And no, i wouldn't call them remakes, since apart from OHMSS all of the books are yet to exist as films; they're not even adaptations, they're montages of certain exciting elements and moments, nothing more. I'd adapt and update the books, but follow the character insight and plot machinations closely, using new titles for the films so as to distance them a little from the existing movies that have those titles. It would be a challenging task, but i think Fleming would approve.

Sorry, really didn't mean to highjack this excellent thread, but coming up with the best does also tend to bring to mind the worst.

Edited by Odd Jobbies, 14 February 2013 - 11:36 AM.

[plankattack]

Going with SC, rather than some of the other more established names - whose starpower would have made them bigger than the character.

 

Likewise the casting of DC. It was definitely brave to go in a different direction after DAD - it would have been too easy to stay with the status quo (both cast and tone of films) considering how financially successful that was. The fact that CR was so successful and critically acclaimed, tends to overshadow the bravery of EON's decision.

[WhatMeWorry?]

In 1994, hire the man, the myth, the legend, The Broz...

[Baccarat]

Casting Connery is the obvious and perhaps best answer. But edging that for me would be the Craig era, which has completely reinvigorated the franchise and my interest in it, and given us the best Bond films since OHMSS.

Edited by Baccarat, 15 February 2013 - 01:13 AM.

[S K Y F A L L]

Keeping Roger Moore for 7 007 films.

[seawolfnyy]

Perfecting the Bond formula with The Spy Who Loved Me.

[Professor Pi]

I'm probably going to catch hell for this on this site, and I don't disagree with many of these posts--Terence Young put his stamp on Bond, Connery made the role his, Daniel Craig improved it immensely, Roger Moore sustained it through the 70s and early 80s, John Barry refined and set the mold for the music, but the Bond franchise dies without...

 

THE BEST THING THE BOND FRANCHISE EVER DID:  casting Pierce Brosnan to put butts in the seats after a six year long drought in GoldenEye.

 

People forget how much media were saying Bond was passe, couldn't compete with other movie franchises, political correctness, the end of the Cold War, etc.  While DC was an inspired casting choice, the Bond Juggernaut was huge after 2002.  But in the early 90s?  Without Brosnan, the franchise is no longer viable and hence, no Daniel Craig era, no CR or Skyfall.  He's not even my favorite Bond actor (TD is), but he salvaged the franchise from extinction in the nineties and was the only one who could.

[Dustin]

No reason why you should get hell for this, Pi. Brosnan did revive the series after all. Only I think that's just part of the truth. Yes, there was a sense of 'new world order' (a term coined I believe by some guy called Bush) after 89 and the end of the Cold War. But there was not a single day since then where espionage ever ran a risk of becoming obsolete; neither the reality version nor its counterpart in pop culture. And nobody I ever met actually thought it would, not even the commentators in the opinion and features columns, despite their own utopian visions.

Now - was Brosnan really the only actor able to get Bond back into the collective consciousness? I doubt he ever was fully forgotten, not by the majority of the audience. But it's true, that comeback probably had to be done with an actor appealing to the lowest common denominator, somebody whose looks made people vaguely think 'Bond' before he even uttered a single line. In hindsight Brosnan's casting seems inevitable. I suppose we forget how common that vague Bond-ness actually is with a certain type of actor, and how important a certain familiarity with audiences was at a time when the Eon-ship sailed difficult waters. Perhaps Brosnan and his mix of Moore/Lazenby - with the slightest trace of aspiring to Connery/Dalton - was the one to do this film, GOLDENEYE, maybe the first outright reboot without admitting it. Everything was new, Secret Service HQ (now called MI6), M, Moneypenny. Only Brosnan's face one felt one had seen just recently, somewhere, hum, perhaps in a Bond film.

But I don't agree Brosnan was the only way left for the series to go. I think sticking with Dalton would still have been the better choice. He would not have agreed with the shallower, more generic course post GE. And having somebody else instead - maybe Jason Isaacs? - would have invigorated the series more than Brosnan could.

[tdalton]

But I don't agree Brosnan was the only way left for the series to go. I think sticking with Dalton would still have been the better choice. He would not have agreed with the shallower, more generic course post GE. And having somebody else instead - maybe Jason Isaacs? - would have invigorated the series more than Brosnan could.

 

I would have liked to have seen Isaacs get a shot at the part as well, at least as a second choice to Dalton continuing on in the part.  Like you said, I think that they could have gone in numerous directions following LICENCE TO KILL and that what we ultimately got in GOLDENEYE wasn't the only way to rejuvenate the series.  

[Dustin]

The fact is - and I only realized this recently, after Jim's Dalton-007th-Minutes and taking a first few dips into doublenoughtspy's 'The Making of TLD' - that there was an enormous amount of daring and panache at work in the backstage area of Eon-house post Roger Moore. Serious work on a complete reboot - long before anybody used the word, let alone the concept - which for lack of a better word must be called revolutionary. A possibility for BOND BEGINS as early as 1987. Not that I'm a fan of the particular storyline as depicted in Charles Helfenstein's book, but if nothing else it certainly shows how different the future of Bond after his first incarnation (what I think of was the era Connery-Lazenby-Moore) could have been. In comparison the productions with Brosnan pale in terms of creativity, everything a bit samey and seen-before, done-that, got-the-t-shirt. Shiny and with lots of explosions and timepieces, but still weak on the newness/boldness/cojones(s)-scale. Sure, people liked what they saw on the screen. But the major difference between GE and TWINE was the different title and watch to go with the show, not so much the story and its characters. I firmly believe more could have been possible, with Brosnan and surely without him.  

[Hockey Mask]

I'll definitely give Brosnan credit (along with Campbell) for bringing Bond back from the abyss but it isn't like EON took a risk with him like they did with Craig.  Brosnan was by far the safest choice at the time.

[Orion]

Hard one this, but I'm going to go with casting Daniel Craig over casting Connery. Brave moves both, but Craig is really rewarding them with critical (and financial) success as well as respected film makers and actors now very keen to get involved.

[Walecs]

No reason why you should get hell for this, Pi. Brosnan did revive the series after all. Only I think that's just part of the truth. Yes, there was a sense of 'new world order' (a term coined I believe by some guy called Bush) after 89 and the end of the Cold War. But there was not a single day since then where espionage ever ran a risk of becoming obsolete; neither the reality version nor its counterpart in pop culture. And nobody I ever met actually thought it would, not even the commentators in the opinion and features columns, despite their own utopian visions.

Now - was Brosnan really the only actor able to get Bond back into the collective consciousness? I doubt he ever was fully forgotten, not by the majority of the audience. But it's true, that comeback probably had to be done with an actor appealing to the lowest common denominator, somebody whose looks made people vaguely think 'Bond' before he even uttered a single line. In hindsight Brosnan's casting seems inevitable. I suppose we forget how common that vague Bond-ness actually is with a certain type of actor, and how important a certain familiarity with audiences was at a time when the Eon-ship sailed difficult waters. Perhaps Brosnan and his mix of Moore/Lazenby - with the slightest trace of aspiring to Connery/Dalton - was the one to do this film, GOLDENEYE, maybe the first outright reboot without admitting it. Everything was new, Secret Service HQ (now called MI6), M, Moneypenny. Only Brosnan's face one felt one had seen just recently, somewhere, hum, perhaps in a Bond film.

But I don't agree Brosnan was the only way left for the series to go. I think sticking with Dalton would still have been the better choice. He would not have agreed with the shallower, more generic course post GE. And having somebody else instead - maybe Jason Isaacs? - would have invigorated the series more than Brosnan could.

 

"I've repeatedly heard how irrelevant my department has become. Why do we need agents, the 00 section? Isn't it all rather quaint? Well, I suppose I see a different world than you do."

[Professor Pi]

"I've repeatedly heard how irrelevant my department has become. Why do we need agents, the 00 section? Isn't it all rather quaint? Well, I suppose I see a different world than you do."

 

That was brilliant!

[Walecs]

The best thing the franchise did is the fact that - unofficial movies apart - the whole series of 23 movies is set in the same universe. I'm not talking about the continuity/timeline, I'm saying that the movies are all linked together, not story-wise, but movies-wise. Even when an actor leaves, the movie keeps the other actors (Q, M, Moneypenny), The James Bond Theme, or some references to the previous movies... for example Sherlock Holmes movies are made by different people, they don't have anything in common between them, they're not one universe, they are several different universes, every film works as an end to itself.

 

I hope I made it clear.

[Hockey Mask]

Yep. Either Desmond Llewelyn or Judi Dench have been in just about every movie. All but DN and LALD I believe.