49 replies to this topic

[S K Y F A L L]

Now that Craig has done 4 and could be finished, how does it compare to you with Brosnan's 4?

 

I've warmed up to Craig's films over the years and I would like him to do a fifth film if possible.

 

Brosnan got me into Bond in the first place and because of that I'd pick his 4 over Craig's. 

 

Who would you pick and why?

 

 

Note to MODS - please move this if need be to a better section or combine it etc. THANKS YOU.

[tdalton]

Craig's tenure gets the nod.  He actually had some decent films to his credit, whereas most of the Brosnan films rest comfortably towards the bottom of a ranking of the films.

 

That's not to say that Craig's tenure has been the beacon of excellence that many hold it up as.  It's actually been probably the biggest missed opportunity in the franchise's history.

[Tarl_Cabot]

That's easy-Daniel Craig's tenure(total body of work) is the best since Connery's for me. But if you sandwich the Dalton films between  the 4 year hiatus of Quantum to Skyfall you might have have the best era. I just don't think the Brosnan movies were ever really good-they scratched an itch at best.. Goldeneye still has an inexplicable plot hole that kills it. TND is energetic and fun but doesn't have a great villain or original exotic locale(Thailand is not Vietnam). The latter two are just terrible.

 

Here's hoping we get Spectre act II very soon.

[S K Y F A L L]

.... Goldeneye still has an inexplicable plot hole that kills it.

 

 

 

Which plot whole?

[Ytadel]

I can figure this out mathematically. For me, right now, the films rank as such in my overall rankings:

 

Brosnan:

GoldenEye - #1/24 - 24 points

Tomorrow Never Dies - #11/24 - 14 points

The World Is Not Enough - #22/24 - 3 points

Die Another Day #20/24 - 5 points

 

Craig:

Casino Royale - #6/24 - 19 points

Quantum of Solace - #24/24 - 1 point

Skyfall - #9/24 - 16 points

Spectre - #17/24 - 8 points

 

Brosnan total - 46 points (per film average 11.5)

Craig total - 44 points (per film average 11)

 

Brosnan wins by a hair!

[DaveBond21]

I can figure this out mathematically. For me, right now, the films rank as such in my overall rankings:

 

Brosnan:

GoldenEye - #1/24 - 24 points

Tomorrow Never Dies - #11/24 - 14 points

The World Is Not Enough - #22/24 - 3 points

Die Another Day #20/24 - 5 points

 

Craig:

Casino Royale - #6/24 - 19 points

Quantum of Solace - #24/24 - 1 point

Skyfall - #9/24 - 16 points

Spectre - #17/24 - 8 points

 

Brosnan total - 46 points (per film average 11.5)

Craig total - 44 points (per film average 11)

 

Brosnan wins by a hair!

 

That's a good system to use!

 

For me, Craig wins because his latter two are better than Brosnan's. Both started with a very strong debut, coming after a lengthy break. TND beats QOS but Skyfall and SPECTRE were great. I still like TWINE (especially the PTS), but DAD was pretty awful.

 

________________________________________________________________________

[west]

Craig's tenure gets the nod.  He actually had some decent films to his credit, whereas most of the Brosnan films rest comfortably towards the bottom of a ranking of the films.

 

That's not to say that Craig's tenure has been the beacon of excellence that many hold it up as.  It's actually been probably the biggest missed opportunity in the franchise's history.

 

The highlighted part sums up Craig's run for me. Casino Royal promised so much for future installments, but they just didn't get it right in my opinion. I think the success and acclaim of Casino Royal went to Eon's head and instead of making good, entertaining Bond films, they focused too much on trying to re-capture that critical acclaim (or validation?) that the films actually suffered and each subsequent film for me contained too many distracting issues and irritants. Plot holes are forgivable to a greater extent when a film accepts itself as fantastical, but not when the film doesn't.

I found the Brosnan films entertaining and his era satisfying. The Craig films overall have left me with a degree of frustration due to too many questionable creative decisions. It's been a let-down.

[Mr. Arlington Beech]

 

Craig's tenure gets the nod.  He actually had some decent films to his credit, whereas most of the Brosnan films rest comfortably towards the bottom of a ranking of the films.

 

That's not to say that Craig's tenure has been the beacon of excellence that many hold it up as.  It's actually been probably the biggest missed opportunity in the franchise's history.

 

The highlighted part sums up Craig's run for me. Casino Royal promised so much for future installments, but they just didn't get it right in my opinion. I think the success and acclaim of Casino Royal went to Eon's head and instead of making good, entertaining Bond films, they focused too much on trying to re-capture that critical acclaim (or validation?) that the films actually suffered and each subsequent film for me contained too many distracting issues and irritants. Plot holes are forgivable to a greater extent when a film accepts itself as fantastical, but not when the film doesn't.

I found the Brosnan films entertaining and his era satisfying. The Craig films overall have left me with a degree of frustration due to too many questionable creative decisions. It's been a let-down.

 

I wouldn’t be highlighting this, if we weren’t in a Bond fan forum…… But the name of the movie is Casino Royale, not “Casino Royal”!!

[David_M]

I'm enough of a curmudgeon that I haven't had a *really* good time with Bond since the 80s, but having said that, the Craig era beats out Brosnan for me.

 

Craig's films have lots of problems, but they're all, to one degree or another, ambitious about trying something new and different.  Even when they fall on their face, it's always interesting to watch the attempt.  The Brosnan era, in contrast, had pretensions of innovation and "boundary breaking" but ultimately played it safe by sticking to formula and patching together stolen bits and pieces from earlier, superior entries.  And to make it worse, that patchwork quilt never even fit together, since half the pieces were OHMSS and the other half were MR. Even Brosnan himself was a sort of walking "amalgam," a cobbled-together Moore/Connery/Dalton Frankenstein, rather than a fully realized figure in his own right.

 

Ultimately, neither era is what I think of when I think of "Bond," but at least Craig is different enough from "Classic Bond" (and, let me be clear, Fleming) that comparisons become irrelevant.  So I can enjoy his entries (or not) with a liberating sense of detachment.

[SecretAgentFan]

I do like Brosnan as Bond.  But the Craig era definitely has the better movies.

[Tarl_Cabot]

In the pre-title, 006(with the help of the general) fakes his death and then ends up angry at Bond for setting off explosives which injure his face. totally Illogical that he would be mad at 007for doing what he needs to do to escape at this point. He also kills a half a dozen Russian comrades while pretending to be a loyal Mi6 operative. Just messy. But the movie has it's charms no doubt.

[sharpshooter]

I do like Brosnan as Bond.  But the Craig era definitely has the better movies.

Sums it up rather succinctly for me. 

[blueman]

I'm enough of a curmudgeon that I haven't had a *really* good time with Bond since the 80s, but having said that, the Craig era beats out Brosnan for me.

Craig's films have lots of problems, but they're all, to one degree or another, ambitious about trying something new and different. Even when they fall on their face, it's always interesting to watch the attempt. The Brosnan era, in contrast, had pretensions of innovation and "boundary breaking" but ultimately played it safe by sticking to formula and patching together stolen bits and pieces from earlier, superior entries. And to make it worse, that patchwork quilt never even fit together, since half the pieces were OHMSS and the other half were MR. Even Brosnan himself was a sort of walking "amalgam," a cobbled-together Moore/Connery/Dalton Frankenstein, rather than a fully realized figure in his own right.

Ultimately, neither era is what I think of when I think of "Bond," but at least Craig is different enough from "Classic Bond" (and, let me be clear, Fleming) that comparisons become irrelevant. So I can enjoy his entries (or not) with a liberating sense of detachment.

Then I'm even more of a curmudgeon since I haven't really enjoyed Bond since the 70s (TND = guilty pleasure). Agree Craig's films (apart from QOS, which I adore) miss a lot of the time, but they do have Craig, and he makes for a very welcome Bond, for reasons stated.

[DavidJones]

In the pre-title, 006(with the help of the general) fakes his death and then ends up angry at Bond for setting off explosives which injure his face. totally Illogical that he would be mad at 007for doing what he needs to do to escape at this point. He also kills a half a dozen Russian comrades while pretending to be a loyal Mi6 operative. Just messy. But the movie has it's charms no doubt.

 

If I may, I don't think this is a plot hole.

 

I think it likely that, after suffering such trauma as a severe facial injury, Alec wanted to apportion blame to someone - however irrationally - and considered the guy who set off the bomb as the most obvious candidate. I also suspect that he didn't like Bond in the first place. With the "for England, James?" tease, Alec is cynically mocking Bond's patriotism (an early hint, perhaps, that Alec and Bond don't quite share the same ideology). Later, he is obviously jealous that Natalya prefers Bond over him so perhaps that had happened several times before (I'm reading between the lines there, of course). On the train, when Alec rants off on him, he is clearly getting off his chest everything he has ever disliked about Bond - and everything he could not afford to say while pretending to be Bond's loyal colleague.

 

As for killing his Russian comrades: firstly, Alec is a bad guy who kills people. His plan would later take in the deaths of many others. He's out for himself. He's hardly going to get sentimental over the death of agents who, from way back, he was conditioned to believe were enemies. He might even genuinely hate Russians and be nonplussed about killing a bunch of them. More to the point, he's in deep cover. Killing their own agents is what those in deep cover do. It's the part they play. What would you suggest he do instead? Say he had forgotten to load up his machine gun? Suddenly become an appalling shot? That would be a bit suspicious, i would think.

 

But seriously, one of the conventions of spy fiction is that 'sleeper' agents always go that extra mile to convince. In one famous spy novel, for example, the traitor is the protagonist's wife. For another, there are a couple of times in 24 when Jack has to kill good guys to preserve his cover.  

 

I hope that helps you enjoy the film more in future.

Edited by DavidJones, 16 February 2016 - 03:32 PM.

[tdalton]

I think the potential plothole could also be explained away as 006 expecting to have six minutes to escape the facility instead of three.  He taunts Bond with that later when he has him captured on the train.  Since he didn't die in the explosion, it stands to reason he got far enough away in those three minutes to get away from the worst of the damage the explosion caused.  A full six minutes and he could have made a clean escape.

[TheREAL008]

 Someone here once famously said that once CR was released, Bronsan's stock declined. To an extent it's true. Having recently watched Bronsan's tenure regrettably Goldeneye through DAD hasn't aged well over time. Not to take anything away from Pierce, he was the right person for the time but throughout his tenure the plot from Goldeneye was either recycled or DAF was rehashed. 

Craig's era has been a relief. I can count three good movies and one fair to midland movie whereas Bronsan's Bond was 50/50. Two good movies and two bad. 

[RMc2]

The Craig Era is definitely the best all-round era since Connery, for me.

 

That said, it's pretty similar to the Brosnan era post-GE, in terms of being disappointing.

 

At least TND and DAD are committed to OTT fun, like the Moore era. (I like TWINE, but its schizophrenia spoils the enjoyment somewhat.) So I can switch off and enjoy Brosnan's films, even though they're not very good after GE. 

 

In contrast, I like QoS & SF, but they're deliberately dour and demand that I don't switch off. Consequently it's hard to overlook their problems. And SP is tonally weird; but more than that, it fails to deliver on the promise of it's story, set-pieces, villain and cast.

 

Craig needs one more, properly good thriller, instead of a noble-but-flawed artful blockbuster, to make his era satisfying for me.

[David_M]

 

 

At least TND and DAD are committed to OTT fun, like the Moore era. (I like TWINE, but its schizophrenia spoils the enjoyment somewhat.) So I can switch off and enjoy Brosnan's films, even though they're not very good after GE. 

 

 

I would classify DAD as schizophrenic as well, or maybe more accurately "bipolar."  At around the point where things move to the ice palace, or actually maybe the point where Bond shows up on the flight to England, it's like the filmmakers decided to just chuck everything they'd been doing up to that point and start over again with another film.

 

Some day I'm going to sit down and take another stab at the Brosnan era, in the hopes I can enjoy them more now that I'm not thinking, "Seriously?  THIS is where they're taking the series?"  Now that I know they're not "the future of the franchise," but just a brief aberration, maybe I can find more pleasure in them.

 

I'm in no hurry to test that theory, however.

[DaveBond21]

 

 

 

As for killing his Russian comrades: firstly, Alec is a bad guy who kills people. 

 

 

Also Ourumov kills one of them; and more years later at Severnya.

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

[Surrie]

Thought I'd chime in on this thread - Brosnan's era was my era so I grew up watching Brosnan, and then watching all the previous films once my love for Bond grew. It's because of Brosnan that my interest in this franchise started. I think if I were to look at Brosnan V. Craig films objectively I might say Craig just edges it, but it pains me to say this. Also, I think films are reflective of the trends at the time so can we really ever compare era's?!

 

Both era's started immensely strongly and had a hard task when beginning; Brosnan had to resurrect the franchise after the 6-year hiatus and Craig had to do the same with a complete re-birth of the franchise and showing us the character of Bond before he was a double-0. Interestingly, perhaps that's why Eon wanted Martin Campbell back to support CR after the success of GE. 

 

GE, TND, and TWINE, in my opinion, are all very worthy and strong Bond films, but as I said at the start I am nostalgic about these so probably bias. I still enjoy DAD, but can appreciate it's numerous flaws. CR, QoS and SP are my favorite Craig films. SF was an excellent film, but for me didn't feel 'Bondian' enough and unfortunately think SF will define Craig's era, which for me personally is a shame. 

 

So to summarise; personally, I will always favour Brosnan's era, but do have to admit that Craig's era is most likely responsible for the 're-birth' of Bond and a whole load of new-age fans. With that in mind, isn't every era responsible for that?

[RMc2]

Thought I'd chime in on this thread - Brosnan's era was my era so I grew up watching Brosnan, and then watching all the previous films once my love for Bond grew. It's because of Brosnan that my interest in this franchise started. I think if I were to look at Brosnan V. Craig films objectively I might say Craig just edges it, but it pains me to say this. Also, I think films are reflective of the trends at the time so can we really ever compare era's?!

 

Both era's started immensely strongly and had a hard task when beginning; Brosnan had to resurrect the franchise after the 6-year hiatus and Craig had to do the same with a complete re-birth of the franchise and showing us the character of Bond before he was a double-0. Interestingly, perhaps that's why Eon wanted Martin Campbell back to support CR after the success of GE. 

 

GE, TND, and TWINE, in my opinion, are all very worthy and strong Bond films, but as I said at the start I am nostalgic about these so probably bias. I still enjoy DAD, but can appreciate it's numerous flaws. CR, QoS and SP are my favorite Craig films. SF was an excellent film, but for me didn't feel 'Bondian' enough and unfortunately think SF will define Craig's era, which for me personally is a shame. 

 

So to summarise; personally, I will always favour Brosnan's era, but do have to admit that Craig's era is most likely responsible for the 're-birth' of Bond and a whole load of new-age fans. With that in mind, isn't every era responsible for that?

 

Well said!

 

You're right; comparing eras is hard, when each one is a product of its time and the needs of the franchise in that moment.

[Surrie]

 

Thought I'd chime in on this thread - Brosnan's era was my era so I grew up watching Brosnan, and then watching all the previous films once my love for Bond grew. It's because of Brosnan that my interest in this franchise started. I think if I were to look at Brosnan V. Craig films objectively I might say Craig just edges it, but it pains me to say this. Also, I think films are reflective of the trends at the time so can we really ever compare era's?!

 

Both era's started immensely strongly and had a hard task when beginning; Brosnan had to resurrect the franchise after the 6-year hiatus and Craig had to do the same with a complete re-birth of the franchise and showing us the character of Bond before he was a double-0. Interestingly, perhaps that's why Eon wanted Martin Campbell back to support CR after the success of GE. 

 

GE, TND, and TWINE, in my opinion, are all very worthy and strong Bond films, but as I said at the start I am nostalgic about these so probably bias. I still enjoy DAD, but can appreciate it's numerous flaws. CR, QoS and SP are my favorite Craig films. SF was an excellent film, but for me didn't feel 'Bondian' enough and unfortunately think SF will define Craig's era, which for me personally is a shame. 

 

So to summarise; personally, I will always favour Brosnan's era, but do have to admit that Craig's era is most likely responsible for the 're-birth' of Bond and a whole load of new-age fans. With that in mind, isn't every era responsible for that?

 

Well said!

 

You're right; comparing eras is hard, when each one is a product of its time and the needs of the franchise in that moment.

 

 

We, of course, all have our preferences but if we truly wanted to compare the two era's then we would have to devote many years of our lives investigating and assessing every aspect of the films and the social/economic climate at the time of release to achieve a scientific evaluation. Brosnan or Craig... after all that I don't think I'd care so much anymore! 

[Baccarat]

Brosnan films: Good; weak; weak; terrible.

 

Craig films: Great; good; great; good.

 

I actually like Brosnan as Bond but in three films he suffered from poor scripts, unimaginative directing, and - not insignificantly for me - some very average music from Arnold. I revisit GE every once in a while as it has some excellent scenes, and I really do like Serra's unique score. But as for the others, forget it.

[dtuba]

For me it's no contest (Craig all the way).

 

But if SP does indeed end up being his last film, then I see a definite similarity between the 2 eras:

 

GE/CR  - Bond is redefined for a new generation: great film

 

TND/QOS  - shorter, more action packed follow up: lacks narrative depth due to script problems

 

TWINE/SF - An attempt to inject some human drama into the series: M's relationship w/ villain is key plot point

 

DAD/SP  - Lots of callbacks to earlier films; suffers from uneasy mix of serious themes and OTT silliness.

 

Hmm......

Edited by dtuba, 05 March 2016 - 10:58 PM.

[Harmsway]

For me it's no contest (Craig all the

GE/CR - Bond is redefined for a new generation: great film

TND/QOS - shorter, more action packed follow up: lacks narrative depth due to script problems

TWINE/SF - An attempt to inject some human drama into the series: M's relationship w/ villain is key plot point

DAD/SP - Lots of callbacks to earlier films; suffers from uneasy mix of serious themes and OTT silliness.

Hmm......

This is a very good observation.

[Mr_Wint]

Where's the "OTT silliness" in Spectre?

[Dustin]

I'd say mainly in the car chase with that little Fiat (?), the end with the ejector seat and Bond not missing a stride as he unstraps. And Madeleine in a maze of wires on top of a whole mountain of explosives, wrapped up like a Christmas turkey was also more Tom & Jerry than anything else. Oh, and the Walther must have used the famous anti-tank projectiles to wreck the helicopter, but that just as an aside.

[Harmsway]

What both the Brosnan and Craig eras demonstrate is that EON has stumbled in using momentum from strong beginning to create a successful run. Both the Craig and Brosnan eras stumble right out of the gate because both were rushed to capitalize on the success of the predecessor, and were rushed into production before a cohesive vision was decided on, and subsequently derailed the trajectory of the actors' eras.

When the time does come to establish a new 007, they'd be smart to sign a director for a two-film deal, and have the first film written alongside a treatment for the second. Which isn't to say that Bond should do a two-parter (if anything, after Craig, they should keep things more episodic in nature), but that it would be good to have a team and direction already in place for the second film while the first is developed.

[SecretAgentFan]

Well said!

[dtuba]

Where's the "OTT silliness" in Spectre?

Bond getting holes drilled in his head with no visible after effects. Then blows up an entire base and shoots down a helicopter with just a well-placed shot by a small arms pistol.

Maybe not the same level of "OTT" as MR and DAD were, but pretty silly for Craig's Bond.

Edited by dtuba, 11 March 2016 - 03:27 AM.