Wow. I too liked Eric Serra's cold war score I thought it was better than the movie itself which was completely ridiculous but at times the score contradicts what was on screen. The tank sequence was probably the best moment where the score gelled but I later discovered Serra had nothing to do with that portion, it was ghost composed by John Altman which is still a memorable score THE best moment for me.
Taking GoldenEye score over everything David Arnold is quite insulting, but then again I prefer Serra's score than what Thomas Newman's two identical and very lazy scores for SkyFall and Spectre.
I'm kind of the opposite on Goldeneye. I liked the movie for the most part but not Serra's score. However, I did like the theme song by Tina Turner (Serra had no part in the theme song and for some reason licensing prevented them from using any part of the title song in the movie itself). However, I'll admit part of that might have been the anticipation. I had become a 007 fan after License to Kill had already come out on video, and their was a long 6 year gap between that movie and Goldeneye. So I had to wait a long time to see my first Bond film in the theater. And I was excited to see Pierce Brosnan in the role. He was originally supposed to take over for Roger Moore, but when that was announced his show, Remington Steele, saw an upsurge in popularity so they decided to renew it for another season and Brosnan was contractually required to do the show. Broccoli them said that Remington Steele was not James Bond and withdrew the offer and gave it to Dalton (which in term led to an immediate drop in Remington Steele's ratings and the show was cancelled partway through the last season--kind of feel bad for Brosnan in that case, he was the one that got the screwing by both sides). So I was glad he finally got to play Bond after Dalton decided not to do another after such a long hiatus. It's badly dated, yes, but then sometimes that's the charm
. The Spy Who Loved Me is a great Bond film and is pretty dated as well.
My favorite Bond composer, of course, is John Barry. His best music was probably his last Bond film, The Living Daylights. But he had a lot of great scores and captured the scenes perfectly. Moonraker was another great score by him. I loved the romanticism in his music as Bond travels around the globe, then in space.
I thought David Arnold was probably the second best. He was definitely a 'disciple' of Barry's and at times I could almost imagine Barry doing the score. The one-off composers varies. You gotta love the disco-fied Bond music in The Spy Who Loved me
. And you could tell George Martin and Bill Conti did their respective films as Martin's had a definite rock and roll vibe while Conti reminded me somewhat of his Rocky scores. The music for License to Kill was meh.
I do disagree a bit about Newman. I thought he was probably in 3rd or 4th place. He's the reliable everyman when it come to scores. He gets the job done, though he's not all that exciting. I loved the theme to Skyfall by Adele, but hated the theme for Spectre by Sam Smith (God, I used to think the worse was "The Man With the Golden Gun" by LuLu, but Smith's makes me halfway like Lulu's). A shame too because I loved the visuals of the title sequence. Smith's song totally ruins it. You swear he's building up to something big and.....nothing. It fizzles out. Ugh.
Favorite Bond them, BTW--"A View to a Kill" by Duran Duran. I love that theme. Everything about it screams 007.
Correction, the films were more physical because of Daniel Craig's decision to be part stunt man throughout his reign. Actors replacing the stuntman was never a requirement for playing James Bond, whatever the new actor decides will be his choice. Also the notion of Elba's age is a disqualifier is bullsh*t especially since the times of Star Trek we all have seen actors defying the logic of physical activity and it has transcended through ALL GENRES and FRANCHISES: Rocky, Rambo, Terminator, Die Hard, Star Wars, and even Indiana Jones are breaking the rules of the ages. INDIANA JONES is going to break the age barrier by having a near 80 years old Harrison Ford fighting Nazi's in 1969??? If that is not a problem in HollywoodLand than I see nothing wrong with a James Bond actor in his 50's who doesn't really look 50.
Nowadays I think that could work. If this were still 1975 or 1985, then it'd probably be a stretch. But I think an Elba could work these days. If they used a guy in their 50s it would have to be someone fit. Bond is no slouch, even if the actor didn't do his own stunt work. But there are possibilities I think.
Now that being said, they'll probably go with a guy in their 40s or maybe 30s. They usually would prefer to have an actor in the role for a couple of movies, and this isn't the 1960s or 70s when Bond films were coming out every year or so. There's now a 4 to 5 year gap between films so they'll probably try to find someone that could play the role for the next 15 to 20 years. But I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to find a Black actor to do the role next time, probably from somewhere in the UK.
