Dear god Quantum of Solace is so boring

[Captain Craig]

I'm predicting that if reaction to the next Bond is down significantly, showing people's disinterest in proto-Bond that they might rethink the direction. Especially if the story continues in this very non-Bond fashion.

We are Bond fans, we'd like a Bond movie. When I want to see Bourne I'll page Mr.Damon.

Excuse me, but if you've read the Bond novels, you'll see that what happens in the last two movies is what makes Bond Bond. Fleming didn't write in poppycock like cars with ejector seats (the only gadgets in the Mercedes
V-5 that Bond drives in the Goldfinger novel is a set of changeable colour headlights and a gray paint job so as not to stand out, a homing receiver that picks up a homing bug, reinforced bumpers aft and rear, and extra cargo space-nothing else!), gun and grenade pens, universal locks with exploding keychain fobs, and all the other stuff that we've seen in the movie series.

What we need are adaptations of the most recent Bond novels:
1981 Licence Renewed
1982 For Special Services
1983 Icebreaker
1984 Role of Honour
1986 Nobody Lives For Ever
1987 No Deals, Mr. Bond
1988 Scorpius
1989 Win, Lose Or Die
1990 Brokenclaw
1991 The Man from Barbarossa
1992 Death Is Forever
1993 Never Send Flowers
1994 SeaFire
1996 COLD
1997 Zero Minus Ten
1998 The Facts of Death
1999 High Time to Kill
2000 Doubleshot
2001 Never Dream of Dying
2002 The Man with the Red Tattoo

All of these are great stories, and in most cases are a heck of a lot better than the last two Brosnan Bonds; they also fit the style of the Craig Bonds quite well.

Yes, I've read Fleming's Bond. Great Casino Royale was in the Fleming model however what has proven to be popular is the cinematic Bond. A lot of what you seem to dislike is sadly(to you/some others) what has made the character/franchise as enduring over the decades as it has been.

The thing here is that Fleming set a precedent for upgrades on a Bond car. This was extrapolated to gadgets and bigger car upgrades. Is it what Fleming would've done exactly, maybe not. It'd be like trying to play mystic and figure out if Roddenberry would've done Voyager and Enteprise.
Thru TNG he did episodes that went back in time and other quadrants so maybe he would've. Maybe, maybe not. So don't be crying foul so loud when its obvious even Fleming souped up Bonds advantage, even if it is minimal compared to what followed.

I've read every Bond book on that list from Seafire thru Man with Red Tattoo. The Higgins teen Bond I had no interest in reading. To me that was just silly and not needed. I'll be glad to have adult Bond lietrature again.

^ When did the campy Bond ever kill the franchise? Even the much hated Die Another Day (although it got good reviews) made a fortune.

The fluffy stuff I mentioned above is what almost killed it. The Craig movies have got Bond back on a track of realism; the novels also mentioned above have that realism in spades (the Gardener ones in particular.)

But the fluffy stuff never almost killed the franchise. People liked the fluffy stuff. Roger Moore is the campiest of the Bonds and he remains almost as popular as Connery. The only thing that came close to killing Bond was LtK and the end of the Cold War.

Kelthaz is right in insisting you realize that the fluffy gadgets et al have not cause the franchise to suffer. Every Brosnan Bond made more money than the prior one. They all were highly successful so your agrument is flawed.

Not only did LtK suffer poor box office but the rights to the film franchise got tied up in court soon after LtK was released. Hence the 6yr gap till Goldeneye. Despite the poor box of LtK I feel most likely one of two things would've still happened with the franchise.
1) A retooled Bond still with Dalton inside 4yrs
2) A retooled Bond with the part recast.
The franchise is just too popular for even the poor box of LtK to kill the franchise off.

 

[Broccoli]

With the poor marketing campaign, the over-crowded summer movie season, and the overspending on Moonraker finally catching up to TPTB, the stars just didn't align right for LtK to be as successful as the other films in the series.

What did Moonraker have to do with the underperformance of Licence To Kill? The two movies were a decade (and four intervening films) apart!

Wikipedia:

Producer Michael G. Wilson (in the DVD commentary) says the production was difficult because of budget control consequent to the over-spending for Moonraker, that did not account for inflation.

While I disagree that LtK was just Lethal Weapon with a name change, that isn't the reason for it's poor box office. Hell, QoS, you say, had the same problems and it was a box office smash.

The Higgins teen Bond I had no interest in reading. To me that was just silly and not needed. I'll be glad to have adult Bond lietrature again.

You, sir, are missing out.

Despite the poor box of LtK I feel most likely one of two things would've still happened with the franchise.
1) A retooled Bond still with Dalton inside 4yrs
2) A retooled Bond with the part recast.
The franchise is just too popular for even the poor box of LtK to kill the franchise off.

Doubtful that 2 would have happened as Dalton was already signed and ready to go for his third adventure (which I think was going to be titled "The Property of a Lady" although that might be more fandom than anything else).

Chances are, they would have scaled back the "gritty realism" into something more Living Daylights-ish. Even still, though. LtK was critically well received and it did retain all the hallmarks of a Bond movie.