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Then you should know how the character of James Bond is depicted by Fleming and by EON.
It’s just absurd that when pointing out facts hurts someone because they think their opinion is more valid and should never be questioned, especially on a message board during a discussion.
Not at all - "TheAvenger" is right, "archly superior" is a great description for your comment:
Your opinion really is based on a total lack of knowledge about this character and on your personal preference of how that character should be depicted.
I'm not hurt by it, but it does needlessly shut down the conversation. "TheAvenger" hit the nail on the head because I have seen/read/listened/own all the movies, all the soundtracks, all the original Fleming books (except "The Spy Who Loved Me", I found it boring), a plethora of ancillary books like the James Bond trivia guide, Incredible World of 007, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a James Bond calendar... I even have a James Bond cloth I handpainted as a kid and a magazine cutout of Piz Gloria with a scribbled in explosion!
What I'm saying is precisely how the movies have depicted James Bond. The books do contain some of the depth, ruthlessness, and "devil-may-care" attitude that is depicted in the Craig movies, particularly "Casino Royale", "The Man With The Golden Gun", "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", "You Only Live Twice" where much of that attitude is portrayed in the books. And James Bond, (no need for me to check the quote because I remember it) in the "From Russia With Love" novel, falls seemingly dead "to the wine-red floor" after being stabbed by Klebb's poison-tipped shoe. Quite a non-film ending, and very Craig!
But the thing is, that is NOT the character of James Bond that was presented onscreen to millions of audiences around the world for nearly 4 decades. What the filmmakers chose to do is a different character, and is the one I described: a fantasy. And it is THAT character that created the whole Bond-mania. Throughout the series, they introduced some of the character developments, particularly Bond's wife "Tracy", and periodic flashes of brutality (that typically grated against audiences), like slapping women in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN or feeding newlyweds to sharks in LICENCE TO KILL (wow, these movies are really against marriage!)
But time and again, those were always marked as departures from who the character on-screen was. The novel "You Only Live Twice" takes place in an absolutely horrific setting where people go to commit suicide in absolutely horrific ways and Bond has amnesia throughout most of it. That's not what the films established, and it's not what audiences wanted. Audiences might like that kind of character now, but that's not at all the James Bond that has been established on film.
I am against the idea of franchises, particularly now, because I think their very existence represents the kind of narcissistic, unethical lack of accountability in a world where everything is finite and even art has a time and place that moves on with time. It's kind of like playing "God" in attempting to make something last forever, which carries a tremendous amount of hubris and undermines the point of storytelling. But it's also a function of addictive technology and the corresponding desire to make endless "content".
With the Bond films, I find it to be very hypocritical because a "serious" and "realistic" Bond is not what has kept the franchise afloat for all this time, and I doubt audiences would have had the patience if James Bond had been an interconnected story with "realism", for the past 50 years. (some reviews for NTTTD already note the fatigue with the "continuity" the Craig films attempted). But it also just grates against the incredulity and fantasy that has made James Bond so successful from the beginning. I also find it to be a bad-faith argument from think-pieces that demand the franchise "modernize" the character and frame older movies as misogynistic, sexist, womanizing - yet still want to build off of the capital those movies established and keep the franchise going forever.
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I just watched Daylights again last night. That to me is an almost perfect Bond movie. I wish they would return to that style. It walked the line of hard-edged action and the absurdity of the situations perfectly with a good balance of humor. The story is also really well laid out. Aside from Necros, the other villains weren’t too threatening - that might be my main critique.
I agree that THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS is one of the best films and is a really good example of keeping Bond current with the times, even the plot, while still having all of those fun elements that makes Bond enjoyable to watch. Dalton always seemed a bit uncomfortable with the humor, but his portrayal in that film is light enough to be very entertaining and oddly uplifting.
I do think "what the fans want" though has turned into a really unhealthy and unworthy goal to aspire to in this day and age, because technology/social media has turned fan service into a vicious, narcissistic circle of self-serving infantilized demands. Pre-social media, "what the fans want" was simply a general statement of making sure that a creative endeavor maintained the entertainment value it established. But that always stemmed from the creators and their creative impulses. James Bond with DR. NO presented the vision of creative artists, and that found an audience. It evolved a bit more with GOLDFINGER, which was also an artistic expression, and that further clicked with audiences. From there it was just fun for everyone to watch and make.
But where we're at now, it's literally like a data-engineered facsimile that is devoid of artistic or creative merit and operates under the pretense that audiences are children with tantrums who need to be given the exact candy or toy they want to be happy. If you talk to screenwriters now, one of the common critiques in the industry at-large is that things are "over-scripted", which means that stories have an excessively large amount of complex moving parts to please everybody while also completely piecing together into a perfectly-fitting puzzle that leaves no ambiguity. That completely drown out the space that allows stories to breathe naturally and make audiences work to fill in and participate with their imaginations rather than being spoon-fed everything. The simpler contours of older Bond films allow for that breathing room and consequently the audience's fun and imagination with a really keen balance of fun and exciting points of interest: gadgets, settings, stunts - while also creating elements of intrigue and suggestion to leave things open for the audiences to imagine.
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We all have ideas on what makes a good Bond movie, but I feel like audiences will roll with it as long as it's cast well and includes the regular characters. Since this era has concluded, no doubt the next film will go in a different direction. I would enjoy a return to something like the "GoldenEye" style, which was a nice mix of serious and funny, up to date yet still embracing the tropes.
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Well, the producers missed one more opportunity to connect to the 69 Bond. Five seconds before the missiles impacted he should have quipped 'This never happened to the other fellas!'
Daniel Craig had it written into his contract that his Bond wasn’t allowed to be humorous.
Except he was.
Bond: "This the latest from Q branch. It's called a radio."
Bond: "Not exactly Christmas. Is it?"
Bond: "I'm Mr. Arlington Beech, professional gambler, and you're Miss Stephanie Broadchest..."
Vesper Lynd: "I am not!"
Bond: "You're going to have to trust me on this."
Bond: "Now the whole world's gonna know that you died scratching my balls!"
He just wasn't "punny."
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Well, the producers missed one more opportunity to connect to the 69 Bond. Five seconds before the missiles impacted he should have quipped 'This never happened to the other fellas!'
Daniel Craig had it written into his contract that his Bond wasn’t allowed to be humorous.
You know that such a ridiculous assertion only further exposes you as someone disregarding facts and maintaining that your personal opinion should be the better guideline.
Or did you handle Craig‘s legal affairs?
But I leave you and Mr. Park alone now to „discuss“ your grievances about the Craig era while NTTD collects huge sums of money from interested and excited audiences.
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Don't feed the trolls.
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I find that both The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill were Bond movies that came before their time. After the Roger Moore era I think Dalton’s Bond was too edgy for fans to accept. I really like both films and think they are underrated. Licence to Kill is especially a really solid movie.
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A few mildly funny lines in each movie doesn’t make the character humorous. If I digged deep enough I’m sure I could fine the odd witty line in Dostoevsky but that still wouldn’t make The Brothers Karamazov a Russian version of Duck Soup.
There are more, I just didn't feel like digging through the entire 5 films to illustrate the point. The humor from Bond was more subtle. But he was humorous when needed. As he went on he relaxed more.
The problem for me is that the movie Bond has 40 years of being “punny”. To me, that’s an essential element of the character
Well, there it is: "for me." That's all we have in the end.
I rather felt the puns got to be too much. Brosnan's main failing, for my taste, was that most of the puns were over the top and obvious. Roger Moore's films were rotten with them. Dalton and Connery got them just right. Lazenby didn't know how to deliver them so they just sank like a stone.
I don't think removing the puns take as much away from the character as you do, but if you already don't like the interpretation, I can see it as being yet another thing.
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But I leave you and Mr. Park alone now to „discuss“ your grievances about the Craig era while NTTD collects huge sums of money from interested and excited audiences.
I’m not part of that portion of this conversation so please leave me out of that.
My points have not been about whether Craig’s films are good or not (some are), it has been about whether they’re really “James Bond” films, and whether the franchise even should be continuing on.
I’ve pretty clearly described how the Craig films differ from the screen portrayal that has been established for Bond, as well as echoed elements of the Craig films that professional critics/reviewers have had issues with. I have also pointed out the hypocrisy of thinkpiece writers who decry the older screen portrayals of Bond as sexist and racist but still want to claim ownership of Bond and build off of the successes of the reviled past of the franchise for their own benefit. I’ve concluded by indicating that the inherent lack of growth in the Bond character makes him obsolete, and that the successes of the new films are because it’s essentially a new franchise, just borrowing the “James Bond” name.
Other commenters have mentioned trolls and while I don’t take that to apply to me, I want to point out that people aren’t trolls for having a critical viewpoint of something. Trolls are people who solely act to annoy and harass others online. While my posts tend to be long, I’m putting a lot of thought into them to present coherent viewpoints, while also refraining from attacking others.
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Don't feed the trolls.
That statement ironically is trollish behavior, FYI.
Other than that, I don’t really see anyone else here doing much that would be considered trolling. There are a lot of fascinating opinions that are interesting to review and compare.
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I find that both The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill were Bond movies that came before their time. After the Roger Moore era I think Dalton’s Bond was too edgy for fans to accept. I really like both films and think they are underrated. Licence to Kill is especially a really solid movie.
I generally agree, but I think THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS was pitched pretty perfectly to the time, I just think Dalton had some flaws that made it difficult for audiences to accept him. I also think the ripped-from-the-headlines plot was a little too close to reality, as was LICENCE TO KILL (which I think also suffered from being overly-violent).
But THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS had a great balance of all the elements - Bond just needed to be a bit less serious in parts and the villain’s plot needed to be a bit bigger and more separated from real-life events.
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