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News Daniel Craig signs up for Bond 25, Christopher Nolan in talks to direct

The Realist said:
Dalton was my ideal Bond, and The Living Daylights would be my desert island Bond movie pick.
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It had its moments, and the sequence at the beginning with Bond and Saunders getting Koskov out of Czechoslovakia is damn near perfect, but overall the film felt too generic, like they weren't quite sure how they wanted to play Bond after Moore vacated the role. And the Afghanistan section has decidedly not aged well (though it doesn't reach the gung-ho bullshit level of Rambo III).
 
CorporalClegg said:
Dalton is the only one remotely close to Fleming's Bond.
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He's the closest to Fleming's books and the furthest from Fleming's Bond, possibly tied with Moore. Craig is probably closest.

cardinal biggles said:
It had its moments, and the sequence at the beginning with Bond and Saunders getting Koskov out of Czechoslovakia is damn near perfect, but overall the film felt too generic, like they weren't quite sure how they wanted to play Bond after Moore vacated the role. And the Afghanistan section has decidedly not aged well (though it doesn't reach the gung-ho bullshit level of Rambo III).
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My thoughts entirely. I revisited the books through the amazing audiobooks a few years ago, and when people told me TLD was close to them it got very excited to watch it. Those first few minutes are absolutely perfect. I was so pumped for a really tense Bond with a more realistic tone, but then it just becomes another Moore movie. Not that Moore is bad, but his movies fit his Bond. I actually liked Dalton's more grounded portrayal, but what's the point when he's going to end up sledding down the side of a mountain in a cello case?

That one ended up a huge disappointment. I'd probably go with Goldeneye for my top pick.
 
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I think what Dalton needed the most was a new director rather than John Glen, especially by LTK. I think all the filmmakers were eager to do something new and fresh for Bond because that was encouraged by Dalton, but I think they were perhaps too set in their old ways to successfully usher in a new era for Bond. That’s partially why GOLDENEYE felt a little fresher for the series because by then a lot of the old guard had either passed away (Richard Maibaum) or had retired (Cubby Broccoli), with newcomers like Martin Campbell. He was the first Bond director to be hired that had no history with EON since Lewis Gilbert’s first hiring in 1966. All Bond movies between OHMSS and LTK were by directors who already had a long history with EON. Bringing in an outsider after nearly 30 years was necessary. Ironically, Campbell would come back to do CASINO ROYALE and refresh the series again.
 
Licence To Kill was a good movie but it did bug me with the tricked out trucks, Q didn't provide them so where did they come from?
 
MakeshiftPython said:
John Logan wrote this op ed concerning the acquisition of MGM. Given his experience of writing NEMESIS, I can understand why he’d feel concerned.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/31/opinion/amazon-mgm-james-bond-bezos.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/31/opinion/amazon-mgm-james-bond-bezos.html
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The MI6 website's rebuttal of this is quite interesting.

I don't want an extended Bond universe, in the main because I just don't think there are the characters to fuel it. There's only so much you can do with Q, M and Moneypenny. Felix is a better option, but frankly people are just gonna want James to turn up. Period interpretations of Bond would be interesting, but when it comes down to it I just want a decent Bond film every couple of years(maybe every 2 years is no longer viable but no more than 3)
 
Gingerbread Demon said:
Some Very irregular things if you take that scene with the truck part rising up on its back wheels like a horse. I'm sure that's not a standard function.
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I'm not sure if it is some kind of normal function or not, but regular vehicles acting irregularly isn't unusual in Bond and for all intents and purposes Sanchez's trucks are just supposed to be ordinary tankers.
 
CorporalCaptain said:
:wtf: What does this even mean?!? :confused:
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Well, they're different things, right? There's the way the books are written and then there's the character of James Bond. The way Dalton chose to portray James Bond was much closer to the tone of the books than any other Bond, but I don't think that means he's closer to the character of James Bond himself.
 
HugeLobes said:
Well, they're different things, right? There's the way the books are written and then there's the character of James Bond. The way Dalton chose to portray James Bond was much closer to the tone of the books than any other Bond, but I don't think that means he's closer to the character of James Bond himself.
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Now you seem to be identifying what you formerly referred to as "Fleming's Bond" as "the character of James Bond." Those two aren't the same either, since the character of James Bond exists in adaptations that render the character beyond Fleming's conceptions of him.
 
HugeLobes said:
Well, they're different things, right? There's the way the books are written and then there's the character of James Bond. The way Dalton chose to portray James Bond was much closer to the tone of the books than any other Bond, but I don't think that means he's closer to the character of James Bond himself.
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See, this is where phrasing becomes important. Because Fleming's Bond is, by definition, the character as Ian Flemin envisioned him, meaning the closest we can come to know this vision is through Fleming's own writing of the character.
I guess what you mean isn't "Fleming's Bond", it's "Pop Culture Bond", the idea the broader audience has of the character of Bond, which was largely shaped by the movies.
Although you might mean your own idea of the character, which you are mistaking for the broader audience's idea of him, as you point to Roger Moore as being the farthest away from him. Yet, being the second most popular Bond actor, as well as the one with the most entries in the series, he is definitely part of the shaping of "Pop Culture Bond".
 
Kai "the spy" said:
I guess what you mean isn't "Fleming's Bond", it's "Pop Culture Bond", the idea the broader audience has of the character of Bond, which was largely shaped by the movies.
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No, this isn't what I mean.

Kai "the spy" said:
See, this is where phrasing becomes important. Because Fleming's Bond is, by definition, the character as Ian Flemin envisioned him, meaning the closest we can come to know this vision is through Fleming's own writing of the character.
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Yes, but Fleming's writing of the character isn't the same thing as his writing of the Bond novels. Not a perfect comparison, but you could say that Casino Royale was fairly close to the tone and plot of Fleming's novel, but you could also say the movie's version of Felix Leiter is very different from the character we get in the books. Dalton's Bond always felt like he could have jumped right out of Fleming's novels, but that's not the same as saying he feels like the novel's version of Bond. I actually always picture him as M's chief of staff.
 
I think you're conflating your perception of Bond with the actual thing. Fleming's Bond is very much a product of the books. They are one in the same. At the risk of hyperbole, Bond is the most blatant insert character of modern literature. He is a cold, ripe bastard who is analytical and methodical and probably a little obsessive compulsive. Just like Fleming himself. All of the actors' portrayals deviate from those characteristics. But Dalton was the one who did his best to emulate that. He even took pride in the fact he studied Fleming's books thoroughly in a way Connery and Moore never did.

HugeLobes said:
Casino Royale was fairly close to the tone and plot of Fleming's novel,
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No.

The only think the film took from the book were the characters and the greater plot points. But they are very different stories.

Casino Royale is a phycological tete-a-tete between two sociopaths. It's a suspense thriller in every sense of the label. Le Chiffre is very different. He's much more personable and finds utter glee in his deeds. The most obvious difference is the rug beater scene. In the book, it takes place in Le Chiffre's foyer - Bond seated near a window with his naked body exposed to the world. And Le Chiffre taunts him - prattles on and on - in this jovial but contentiously patronizing tone. He pours and almost full pot of scalding coffee over his head and burns him with a cigarette, and that's all before even getting to the rug beater. And Bond just sits there and kind of takes it. He does wheeze out a barb about the police tracing the money. But for most of Le Chiffre's inquiry he barley grunts out 'nos'. Which is exactly how I picture Dalton responding, not drooling out cheap chad jokes about having his balls scratched.
 
CorporalClegg said:
No.

The only think the film took from the book were the characters and the greater plot points. But they are very different stories.
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I'm just using this as an example. Plot, tone, and characterisation are all different things.

CorporalClegg said:
Fleming's Bond is very much a product of the books. They are one in the same.
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Well, yeah. Of course Bond is a product of the books. That doesn't mean his characterisation within those books and the books themselves are one and the same. Not sure what's failing to come across here. This is a very basic concept when talking about books...
 
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