71 replies to this topic

[seawolfnyy]

http://www.ign.com/a...james-bond-tame

 

I think he might be a tad bit harsh on himself, but I will admit that he didn't have a whole lot to work with.

[thecasinoroyale]

True words, but as you say, it wasn't his fault. He worked so well with the scripts and plots given to try and make 007 radical for the turn of the millennium, he did his upmost best. The Brosnan we saw in 1995 certainly did change and fade to what we saw in 2002, but his heart and passion was always there and I will always love his portrayal as Bond.

 

Especially as he was my first cinematic 007 in 1997.

 

And let's not forget, he did save 007 again from disappearing from the industry with his portrayal in 1995, so we always will owe him for that.

[Messervy]

Although I've never been that fond of his portrayal (too much "hey! look at me! I'm the new pretty-face Bond!"), one must admit he wasn't given any tremendous material to work with. With the only exception of GE, which was great, it's like he had to play in TMWTGG-like films over and over again. So one can imagine he had a hard time finding the correct tone.

[Hansen]

Maybe he did not have a lot to do but he did it extremely well.

IMO, he was at his best in TWINE.

We could see that he truly enjoyed playing Bond and it was quite communicative (remember the car chase in TND). This is a feeling that I have a little bit lost over the past years.

[Turn]

It's interesting he's commenting and could be the source of some serious conversation if he opens up more in the future.

 

I'm not sure if he's putting it on himself, the producers, the creative team or all. As far as "the brute force of the man was never palpable," that could be taken in several ways. Is he saying he miss the opportunity to strangle a foe to death or something along those lines? These aren't the type of films that focus on gratuitous violence.

e

Admittedly the Graves fight in DAD was goofy, but I was actually surprised to find Brosnan's Bond tougher than I anticipated. He had his moments as a tough Bond, but he was just never going to be the cold, calculating killer. You just naturally buy Connery doing a dirty killing more so and Craig doing the very physical fights and stunts.

 

Bros seems to be going down that self-deprecating route Roger Moore did by saying he couldn't act and wasn't very good. He should take the compliment he was successful but not dwell on not being Craig.

[SecretAgentFan]

I love Brosnan - but IMO, he tries very hard to do the revisionism-thing.  He knows how well Craig´s rougher Bond was received and that his own era is not that well regarded in hindsight.  So instead of saying: hey, at that time we did our best and people loved it, he wants to portray himself as let down by scripts, EON and now even himself.

 

More self-confidence, Sir!  

[Messervy]

It's interesting he's commenting and could be the source of some serious conversation if he opens up more in the future.

 

I'm not sure if he's putting it on himself, the producers, the creative team or all. As far as "the brute force of the man was never palpable," that could be taken in several ways. Is he saying he miss the opportunity to strangle a foe to death or something along those lines? These aren't the type of films that focus on gratuitous violence.

e

Admittedly the Graves fight in DAD was goofy, but I was actually surprised to find Brosnan's Bond tougher than I anticipated. He had his moments as a tough Bond, but he was just never going to be the cold, calculating killer. You just naturally buy Connery doing a dirty killing more so and Craig doing the very physical fights and stunts.

 

Bros seems to be going down that self-deprecating route Roger Moore did by saying he couldn't act and wasn't very good. He should take the compliment he was successful but not dwell on not being Craig.

Agree with your last sentence.

 

As for the "violence" and action, I quite agree with what he says: during his time, the films were very cartoonish, hence the action being almost self-caricature (the car chase in the parking in TND, for instance, is fun, but not more than that). Even his fights were, for the most part, toned down. Without comparing to Craig, suffice it to say that we would never picture Bros' preparing coldly for a sniper kill as Dalton did in LTK when he means to kill Sanchez in his Casino.  

[Jim]

http://www.theguardi...n-007-goldeneye

 

Hmm - seems (some) others agree.

[Colossus]

I disagree ! [said in the tone of Fleming in that BBC Biopic lol]

 

As SecretAgentFan put it this is just revisionist thinking. Why if you took a quote of Connery on Bond from 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, etc, you will find each one being whatever the heck he's thinking at the moment. "I'd like to kill that James Bond" to now being what was it in that video game behind the scenes "let'sh get back to the 1960sh!" 

Yeah this is just reactionary against the Craig zeitgeist, always the worst period for a Bond era is when the successor one is currently ongoing. No, brutality and grit are actually overrated. People get so harped up on it sometimes you'd think that is the only thing that mattered, actually no, the whole "Dark Knight" gritality trend of movies nowadays is definitely not my favorite. If i had to choose between the Dark Knight trilogy or Adam West's Batman show time equivalent i'd choose the latter. So what if the Grant/Train fight or Bourne/Desh fight is what they're trying to stretch out into full length movies, who cares about how great they are, they don't make entire movies, their greatness is subconsciously owed to them being very sparse that if you stretch those out it will uneventfully become tiresome; so the lionshare of a movie is made up of the regular action, talking, etc. A lot of movie is made up of just mundane things or the meat and potatoes, and while the Brosnan flicks lacked the zesty spice of grit, they still had a hearty heaping of the main course. So if Craig is a better Bond than Brosnan to many nowadays, the Brosnan era made up for it with having a more interesting cavalcade of characters surrounding him and the regular occurrences just had more joy. The Brosnan era is said to have had too much comedy nonsense and that is true, but when they managed something good like the Q lab scene in Goldeneye, has ANYTHING even approached the joy of that scene in this era? They better work something out for the next movie to compare.

[Hansen]

I tend to agree with Colossus.

Brosnan Bond showed a wider specter of Bond universe.

You definitely had the action, the humour, the tuxedo and the vodka martini, but you also had some good pieces of violence (the death in the newspaper factory in TND), cold blood killing (Kaufman in TND, Elektra in TWINE), a bit of self introspection (GoldenEye).

Maybe the era mixed to many elements to have a taste of its own. But when to compare to Craig's, the taste I enjoyed at the beginning is getting bitter.

[Odd Jobbies]

What a sweet, honest bloke he is!

 

Well he should rest easy, understandably frustrated, but knowing he couldn't have prevented the downhill slide that was inevitable with those  writers and the bargain basement directors.

 

But it must be a bitter pill to see Eon now getting oscar talent behind the cam and writing the scripts. He was very poorly served. 

I think the producers wanted a remedy to what was perceived as the dull dalton era (not entirely Dalton's fault either). Martin Campbell kept an even keel, but thereafter Eon obviously wanted less of Connery's machismo and more of Moore's humour and that became more problematic with each of Brosnan's films.

If you watch Brossa in The Matador, or The Tailer of Panama you'll see he really can act when given a good script and singular direction.

Take Brosnan when they first wanted him, circa his appearance as a cool efficient IRA hitman in The Long Good Friday and his chilling turn as a Russian Spy in The Fourth Protocol, put that together with the tough, intelligent direction Eon are taking with Craig and i think Brosnan could've been fantastic.

Either way, he was great in Goldeneye, which is one of the best Bond movies.

Edited by Odd Jobbies, 15 April 2014 - 09:53 AM.

[David_M]

Wow.


Well I never really enjoyed Brosnan's Bond films (ironically, given how much I wanted to see him in the role) , but I have to say that Guardian post is pretty unseemly n the way it piggy-piles on the guy, now that he's given them an opening.

Oddly enough, I have the opposite reaction; now that Brosnan's revealed his own (Frank and well-expressed) disappointment in his Bonds, I have to say I suddenly find him more appealing and sympathetic. Anyway there's no point dumping on him now, as it's all history. I don't agree with the sentiment that the Brosnan era is "under appreciated" and will some day be recognized for its greatness, but I do agree that it's far too easy to pick on the guy and his films now that he's gone. If you want to lambaste film makers for turning out poor product, the time to do it is when it can make a difference, and when it takes guts. That is to say, while it's still going on. The Guardian's criticisms might, in the 90s, have been constructive and helped the situation. Now it's just pointless.

[SecretAgentFan]

Oddly enough, I have the opposite reaction; now that Brosnan's revealed his own (Frank and well-expressed) disappointment in his Bonds, I have to say I suddenly find him more appealing and sympathetic. 

 

And that´s exactly what he wanted to achieve.

[Turn]

Though not my favorite Bond by far, Brosnan should embrace his work as Bond and be proud he was able to introduce the character and the series to a whole new generation of fans and reestablish it for long-time and casual fans. He was able to overcome the crushing disappointment to get the role after greedy TV executives took it away in '86. If anybody should be looking back wondering what if or be a bit disappointed at not having a more lasting legacy it should be Lazenby and Dalton for various reasons.

 

As far as eras go, different strokes for different folks. What I find interesting about Brosnan's era is there were four somewhat different types of films -- traditional Bond film with post Cold War feel (GE), avert WWIII all-out action film (TND), more thoughtful dramatic film down-to-earth action (TWINE), half-serious, half MR/TSWLM goofy action film where anything goes (DAD). His frequent comment he was just getting the role down or not being able to do what he wanted just baffles me.

 

In response to some of the above comments, it seems some are more comfortable with the established Bond universe, while I am more interested in taking new chances. Q branch scenes became predictable in the Moore era. I loved him too, but just to squeeze him in along with exchanging double entendres with Moneypenny were more forced than enjoyable. And there were so many scenes and items that became obligatory. I think to TWINE where they fit in the villain with the deformity, gadget-filled car, the worst ski chase in the series, a scene in a casino with tux and vodka martini, ending with the girl and the horrible double entendre, just to check off the expected things. I got more joy out of the final scene of CR than I did the entire Brosnan era.

 

I've said several times I am ready for the series to just have a mission and get away from the personal thing. Little nods to the past are fine. Spare the obligatory.  

[David_M]

Oddly enough, I have the opposite reaction; now that Brosnan's revealed his own (Frank and well-expressed) disappointment in his Bonds, I have to say I suddenly find him more appealing and sympathetic.

 
And that´s exactly what he wanted to achieve.

No doubt, but I should add it doesn't make me like his films any better.

Over and above my disappointment with his entries -- for which many met take the blame -- I was frequently disappointed in Brosnan as a personality (note I didn't say "person," as I don't know the guy. I always found his contemporary remarks pretentious ("peeling back the layers") and disingenuous (ditto). And once he got the boot, the "I was robbed" routine was tiresome and, IMHO, unprofessional.

In contrast, I find these latest remarks (at least the version I read in Vanity Fair) to be a fair and frank analysis. Sure, you could argue it still boils down to "I was robbed," but the more mature tone --and the hint of a confession of partial blame -- is a step forward, for me.

Still not enough to make me want to watch the films, mind you.
By the way, posting on this board with an iPad is extremely awkward. The text entry field is smaller than a fingernail, and I can't back up to review and edit, so please excuse any typos or style errors in this or the above.

[plankattack]

Once again, David M, we are of the same mind. 

 

I'm far more interested in what Brozza's had to say since he's left the role. And I found him both revealing and quite charming in Everything or Nothing, especially in his comments about DAD. In a strange way, if there was more of that guy in his portrayal I would have been far more charitable to his entries that I don't enjoy (DAD and TND, though to be fair I don't enjoy them as films, not because of Brozza).

 

I've consistently said that Brozza was at moments the best thing about the films in his series and that's not something that can be said about each actor and each film. YOLT works despite SC's disinterested ploddings, and unfortunately Sir Rog's age does hurt AVTAK. Brozza threw himself into Bond - in a very obvious way, no different from TD going the full "torn from the pages for Fleming" thespian route.

 

Looking back there is so much positive about EON 95-02 - the series showed it was still bankable, and regardless of what one thinks of the decisions that Babs and Mike have made, they proved the series could survive the turnover between generations, in the same way that TSWLM showed that the series could recover from the break-up of the original Harry-Cubby partnership.

 

I greatly enjoy the overall tone of the latest films - less jokey, aimed perhaps at a slightly older audience than say, mid-80s Bond, but regardless of whether one agrees with me or not, I don't think it can be disputed that Bond continues to be the juggernaut that it is because of the job done by everyone, including Brozza from 95-02.

 

On the flip side of that, it's a disingenuous argument (and not one strongly made by Brozza himself to be fair) that any of the negatives are purely laid at the feet of the writers and producers. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld - you go with the Bond you have, not the Bond you wish you had, and so the tone of those four films is reflective of the strengths of the lead to an extent.

 

I thought Brozza was great in GE, was left with little in TND, and was buried under the stupidity of DAD. I think it's TWINE that is the most fascinating of his entries. I do like that film, and the story and script and director, came about as a direct result of Brozza's desire to have Bond "do" more than just propel the plot. And yet, let's be honest, how many of us have put the boot into the film, and Brozza's performance on these boards over the years?

 

These films are collaborative efforts when they gross big money (as all as Brozza's did), but they're also collaborative when they fall short creatively. There is some wishful thinking that "if only Brozza got the scripts that DC does" yet how many of us say that SF is TWINE warmed over? As much as I like TWINE, the criticism of it ultimately makes the case that TND was the way to go with the strengths of the lead.

[Odd Jobbies]

 

Oddly enough, I have the opposite reaction; now that Brosnan's revealed his own (Frank and well-expressed) disappointment in his Bonds, I have to say I suddenly find him more appealing and sympathetic. 

 

And that´s exactly what he wanted to achieve.

 

You're never one to pull your punches - made me laugh

[S K Y F A L L]

Brosnan is old and senile, I don't take much out of this other then he's to nice to blame anyone else on the "failures" if that in his films. 

 

I'm still waiting for a Bond film as great as GE..........................................

 

 

 

EDIT;

 

 

 

While we are on the subject of Brosnan's films. Does anyone no why GE composer Eric Sierra did not return for TND? I know John Barry favored David Arnold I just don't understand why Arnold didn't' compose GE then?

Edited by S K Y F A L L, 15 April 2014 - 08:40 PM.

[Colossus]

I'm just glad people still commend GE and not fall into the "Goldfinger overrated" mindset which has been plaguing it for a bit in the past couple of years on these boards, which actually this film does not deserve and it earns every bit of cred it receives yes even with xenia/bond car chase porn music and all. Yes the score was a great one.

[Emma]

 

 

If you watch Brossa in The Matador, or The Tailer of Panama you'll see he really can act when given a good script and singular direction.
 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not going to pile on Pierce. I liked the films for what they were at the time. I've found that most Bond films are basically live action cartoons and/or hetero male wishfullfillment fantasies. The only ones I really like, re-watching them now are Casino Royal, Thunderball (which I enjoy mainly for the strong females) and Skyfall.  I think that the films have been tailored to suit the actor playing it. 

 

If Daniel Craig had tried to play Bond as a slick opperator like Brosnan, Moore and Connery he would have made an ass of himself. Converserly if Brosnan had tried to play the version of Bond in CR or QoS the film would have tanked. Despite the accolades I've seen here regarding GE, I am not surprised that the film makers switched tracks with TND. I didn't find Brosnan likeable as Bond in GE, and almost gave up on being a Bond fan altogether. I also did not find him to be likeable in the Matador (which I stopped watching half way through) or in the Tailor of Panama. I don't think that Brosnan should have any regrets. It was what it was and it was not his fault. Now if Daniel Craig might have been successful playing Bond as he was previously played. Then perhaps I might be able to give some credence to what Brosnan is saying. But honestly don't think that would have happened.

[sharpshooter]

Though not my favorite Bond by far, Brosnan should embrace his work as Bond and be proud he was able to introduce the character and the series to a whole new generation of fans and reestablish it for long-time and casual fans. He was able to overcome the crushing disappointment to get the role after greedy TV executives took it away in '86. If anybody should be looking back wondering what if or be a bit disappointed at not having a more lasting legacy it should be Lazenby and Dalton for various reasons.

 

As far as eras go, different strokes for different folks. What I find interesting about Brosnan's era is there were four somewhat different types of films -- traditional Bond film with post Cold War feel (GE), avert WWIII all-out action film (TND), more thoughtful dramatic film down-to-earth action (TWINE), half-serious, half MR/TSWLM goofy action film where anything goes (DAD). His frequent comment he was just getting the role down or not being able to do what he wanted just baffles me. 

Agreed. I like Brosnan, but wish he would give these self critique comments a rest. He doesn't have to feel ashamed or guilty. As said, different strokes for different folks. I like what he did overall, particularly during Die Another Day. I think he had his interpretation down pat there. 

[David_M]

Well, even if it's fairly novel for him to take on personal blame, this isn't the first time Brosnan has lamented that his films weren't more raw and hard-edged.  But I'd argue that if that's what Eon wanted, they never would have hired him in the first place.

 

The reason Brosnan got the role was that he was such a "natural" for it, in the minds of the public.  If you gave the average movie-goer a "do it yourself" kit in the early 90s and asked them to assemble their own Bond from the pieces, odds are 90% of them would've ended up with something that looked, moved and sounded like Brosnan.  He was just such a perfect fit for the established "Bond" image.  But having said that, going with the "safe" choice began a cascade of similar choices that naturally followed, until you end up with films that seem to have been assembled "by the numbers" with an eye to tossing in every time-tested trope and cliche and delivering exactly what's expected (only louder, 'cause it's the 90s).  For me, anyway, the Brosnan era just seems coldly calculated to sell tickets whatever it takes, and indeed even after the fact the chief defense of the actor and his era is always "Look how much money those films made."

 

The real contribution of the "play it safe" Brosnan era, ultimately, was to inflate the studio's coffers to such a point that they were in a much better position to take risks.  "Bold" as CR and the Craig era may be, it would have been infinitely bolder -- actually to the point of foolhardiness -- to introduce such a radical shift back in 1995, when the fate of the series was in serious doubt.

 

So in other words, if Brosnan wanted to be in "edgy," risk-taking Bond films, coming along at the wrong time was only half his problem.  The other half is that no one interested in "shaking things up" would have hired a guy who so epitomized the traditional "Bond image."  The same attributes that made him a shoe-in for the 90s version of Bond (the usual, 30-year-old formula, tweaked to more closely resemble a video game) pretty much rules him out for the version we have now ("Forget everything you thought you knew about Bond movies!").

[SecretAgentFan]

The reason why the Brosnan era wasn´t raw and hard-edged?

 

Because at that time nobody wanted that.  Audiences flocked to light entertaining action bonanzas.  That´s what the Bond films reacted to during that time.

 

EON did what they had to do to survive.  And Brosnan delivered big time.

[FlemingBond]

Brosnan played the Bond that the public was ready for at that time. Now I do think the producers, writers and directors could have done better. Goldeneye was a good one to get the series back on the ground. After that I think they started ramping up the action to keep up with the other film series at the time. The second half of TND of course is basically all action. TWINE , again there could have been a little more drama in there. Then of course DAD was just a mess. But I think at least in his first three , Brosnan was good as Bond. The filmmakers didn't seem to trust the public enough though.

[Turn]

David_M, great summary and along the lines of what I was thinking.

 

The thing I've long said about Brosnan was he was anointed in a lot of minds as the next Bond from the minute Remington Steele premiered in the U.S. After OP came out and the rumblings about Moore's retirement from the role led to numerous polls including the one in Us Magazine Brosnan easily won. And he was until the producers reactivated Remington Steele after its cancellation. And you ultimately got what you expected with his portrayal of Bond.

 

Was he thinking back in '86 of wanting to do all these things he talks of now? Had he have done an LTK would it have been rejected the way it was the U.S.?

 

I think back to the Bond-like Diet Coke commercials did after losing the role when he defined cool and wondered why we didn't get something closer to that when he did get the role. While he often surprised me with his tougher side, I think maybe he'd be more memorable, at least for me, playing it more like Moore than when he tried to be more brutal.

 

I really think TWINE was an attempt to try and do a more dramatic and harder-edged story and it feels like an experiment considering the current era. People had preconceived notions of Brosnan and it was favorable before and after he took the role. With Craig, the majority feared disaster before he had shot a frame of film.

 

I guess maybe in the case of fans and actors, it's a case of watch what you wish for.

[David_M]

I agree the Brosnan films delivered what people wanted at the time, just as every era has delivered what it needed to (to one degree or other).  I think Brosnan's issue is that when tastes change all that love and adulation from the fickle public turns to indifference or even disdain, but that's all part of the cycle.  Roger was hugely popular during his reign and dumped on once folks got a taste of Dalton.  Dalton was well-received initially but retro-actively declared a "failure" once Brosnan got going.  With due respect to folks who regard the Craig films as some kind of cinematic masterpieces and high art, there's no reason to assume he and his entries won't be criticized once the next guy comes along to fill whatever demand exists a few years down the road.  If you're lucky, each Bond era is hugely popular and "definitive" while it's in progress, but as soon as it's over, it's over.  Much as I enjoy the films, there's few if any I'd consider "immortal classics of the cinema."

 

The reality of the Bond films -- be they "serious" or light, pretentious twaddle or "bubblegum fun" -- is that they are ephemeral things made to meet audience demands. EON doesn't make the Craig films "hard-edged" because of any high-minded artistic aspirations, they do it because, right now, that's what sells tickets.  Brosnan's blessing and curse is that he came along when the demand was instead for mindless fun.  Even when he was in harness, he complained that things weren't edgy enough (I remember him campaigning for "R"-rated content) but as you say, that's not the Bond he was hired to play.  They did try, in dribs and drabs, mingling in bits of "psychological depth" and half-baked subplots of revenge and betrayal among all the Roadrunner cartoon stunts and CGI, so we ended up with films that were neither fish nor foul. Now that Craig is everyone's new darling, Brosnan's taking it as "See, I *knew* the tougher approach would work!" but the reality he needs to accept is that he was never the right guy for that approach, even assuming anyone had been ready to pay to see it.  

 

As others have said above, he should be happy that things went as well as they did for him and accept that the heights of glory and adulation are temporary by nature.  Again, based on the VF remarks, he seems to be getting there; he says the Bonds are "the gift that keeps on giving" and as long as the royalties keep rolling in, any lingering sense of disappointment will be quite manageable, thank you.

[S K Y F A L L]

I do think the audience would have excepted Brosnan in 86 and TLD but I wonder if he would have smoked like Dalton did...

 

Big mistake letting out that they were considering Brosnan in the first place which was why they renewed Steel anyway. Don't think they would release that type of news these days unless it was already official.

 

 

EDIT;

 

 

While we are on the subject of Brosnan's films and to quote myself from a previous post;

 

Does anyone no why GE composer Eric Sierra did not return for TND?

I know John Barry favored David Arnold I just don't understand why Arnold didn't' compose GE then?

 

I can't seem to find anything online... So help me God EON; I"ll create some thread on this, 'If Arnold did GE or Sierra TND?'

Oh how about, 'Eric Sierra VS David Arnold'?

Edited by S K Y F A L L, 16 April 2014 - 09:38 PM.

[Sir Roger Moore]

Brosnan's films were a product of their times, just as all the Bond's are in their own way, and Pierce has absolutely nothing to feel angry, upset or embittered about. He gave it his best shot and worked with what was in front of him and did a bloody good job of it. As has already been said if EON had wanted to make the style of Bond films they are making now with Craig back in the 90's it's highly unlikely they would have picked Brosnan to replace Dalton in the first place.

[FlemingBond]

Eric Serra's score was generally not received well.

[tdalton]

As much as I criticize Brosnan for his portrayal of Bond, and I think that a lot of the criticism of his take on it is very valid, I do think that Brosnan drew the short straw so to speak in terms of his tenure.  He was given absolutely nothing to work with in terms of the scripts and the overall direction that EON wanted to take the series.  If one didn't know better, you'd almost think that EON was spoofing their own series with some of the things that they put on the screen during the Brosnan Era. 

 

Brosnan's a decent actor (not the best to take on the role, but far from the worst), and we've seen what he can do when given good material to work with.  The material he was given in his tenure, GoldenEye excluded, was abysmal.  In fact, the other three films were very much like Raymond Benson's novels, in that they were filled with some good ideas but the execution of those ideas left so much to be desired.  Tomorrow Never Dies featured a rather good storyline, one that could have really been a critique of the modern news media and really could have been the foundation of a smart international espionage thriller.  Instead, the screenwriters thought it appropriate to turn it into a rather pointless run and gun film that featured Bond wielding machine guns at practically every turn.  The World Is Not Enough tried to be a smart, character-driven drama, but thanks to some horrifically bad writing, was turned into a laughably bad soap opera that was, at times, embarrassing to witness (i.e. the most cringe-worthy one-liner in the history of the franchise).  Die Another Day starts off with some excellent ideas, but squanders them all by surrounding Brosnan, in a reasonably good performance in the role, with a cast that is either terrible or hamming it up to the point that Jonathan Pryce looks like he's playing it straight as Elliot Carver. 

 

As much as I've criticized Brosnan over the years, it does sound as though he and I would probably enjoy the same type of Bond film.  All the things that he's said over the years about wanting to see in a Bond film are things that I'd like to see as well.  I'd almost be in favor of seeing him getting one last crack at it, with a director and screenwriter of his choice, as I do think that there was some wasted potential there that could have made for something special had EON decided to hire some decent writers for his films, plus I can sympathize with the fact that it's difficult to have spent one's entire life chasing something, finally get it, and then not be satisfied with the end result.