Pierce Brosnan out as Bond? (UPDATE: Daniel Craig confirmed) - Page 23

does that mean he will inevitably be in some of the best films in the series
...or that the Us Weekly reading booboisie will ridicule him until they get another former harmless pretty boy to pose thru another half dozen vapidly reiterative/disposable entries?

I'll agree with you that "OHMSS" is one of the best films in the series but I think "The Living Daylights" and (especially) "License to Kill" are among the worst. I've said it before (perhaps in this very thread, it's been around a while) that I find the 5 consecutive films that John Glen directed (he directed all the Bond films of the 80's) to be the 5 worst in the series, with the possible exception of "Moonraker". I'd have to say that "TLD" is Glen's best but that's not saying much, his films seemed so cheap and bland that I'm amazed that the series had any life in the 90's. I think the combination of the crappiness of Glen and the harsh contrast between the approaches of Moore and Dalton pretty much sealed Dalton's fate. There were rumblings of Moore being the ideal replacement Bond before Lazenby and there were rumblings of Brosnan being the ideal replacement before Dalton. I wouldn't be all that surprised if Craig flopped and they aggressively went after Clive Owen. That scenario certainly has a historical precedent.

Bill, we'll just have to agree to disagree on the Dalton films. Both are among the high points of a frankly (fore and aft) moribund series for me.

i used to think Owen was the one but that was only going by his presence on a daytime talkshow. he projected the qualities i would have like to see again in the character- but then seeing him in Sin City i was soundly underwhelmed in his 'screen presence'.

like i said, don't have a good opinion of Craig and little awareness of him in general.
i love those qualities when an actor takes over an iconic character.
and for that reason- i'm looking forward to this

Well "License to Kill" is considered one of the best by many.

it is by me. i just watched it again recently and was fully enthralled (as much as i could be despite the aliasing and otherwise weak vid quality on the dvd).

i will be amazed and delighted if CR is 'as bad' as LTK

That is the EXACT thing I'm thinking every time people bash Craig. I mean, there's a whole series of these movies that takes themselves in different directions. I myself prefer the ones that take themselves more than a little serious, and there aren't that many of those in the series. Don't us fans of the serious ones get a turn for a new movie?

I think "License to Kill" was another unsuccessful attempt to alter the franchise to cash in on the fad of the day. Like "Moonraker" tried to ride the coattails of "Star Wars", "License to Kill" was an attempt to make Bond in the style of 80's action flicks like "Die Hard". Bond fighting a Mexican drug lord just isn't Bond. Glen was known for his inappropriate use of comedic devices in his Bond films and it is apparant to me that he tried to make a complete 180 from that with "LTK" and the end result comes off as very insincere and forced. I have no problem with Dalton in either of the two films he was in (nor do I have a problem with Lazenby) but he just had bad luck with the movies he was in. I'm pretty indifferent about Daniel Craig but I am concerned that they're admittedly trying to ape the "Bourne" series.


I think their only attempts at being serious that were truly successful were "From Russia With Love" and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". "For Your Eyes Only" and "The Living Daylights" could have been right up there if not for John Glen. I hope they do justice to "Casino Royale" but I have a bad feeling that the "Bourne" factor is going to be really obvious, which can only hurt the movie's credibility.

that sense seems to be shared by a lot of people and i just don't understand it. i honestly don't.
the fact that the main character is a drug lord may have been the equivilent of using a nazi as a villian in a 40s film- aka the convienent stock bad guy MO- and even i had that first reaction when i heard the general storyline back in '89.
i was more than sick of seeing drug dealers trotted out because they were the poltically correct bad guy du jour of the Reagen era.
but almost 20 yrs later- it doesn't matter. the film works splendidly for me because it is internally consistent, has a plot that is emotionally driven and is plausible, and well structured.
i get slack jawed and dizzy when i see people on these boards claim this 'isn't a Bond film' when the event that kicks the plot into motion is a direct reference to one of the most substantial events in the characters history.
any film character could be motivated to avenge a friend who suffers such a grotesque loss on his wedding night- but for this character it means something much more.
at least it should if you want to believe in the character as a real human being.
seeing Bond visit Tracys grave in the precredit sequence of FYEO is a nice nod, but it's a dispensible nod. here the blatant, but barely spoken of, references to Tracy are indispensible to the story (not to mention the main characters extreme motivation).
the scene where Bond 'resigns' (and the "this is not a country club" response) is one of the most kick ass scenes in any Bond film for me. there is conviction in that scene from all players and its a joy to watch.
i could sing off a litany of praises for this film well into early morning but i feel like i've been there already in this thread so i'll just cut out early.

obviously everyone has there own tastes and is entitled to them, i would just say Bill, maybe a few years down the road give the film another chance. i, and a few others, think it has substanative qualities to it that belie fad and fashion.
at least they are the qualities and values that i appreciate in a film like this.

i think as much as they mention Bourne, that Batman Begins is just as much of an impetus to this new direction.
i just watched BB again last night, and its another example of Bond-like material that is executed at such a higher level than Bond has been for a while, that you can see how empty (and in a sense, robotic and in-human) the JB franchise has become by comparision.

I have no problem with the drug lord story. In essence, certainly that was a key element to Live and Let Die. It also goes back to Goldfinger, with Bond destroying a drug plant in the opening scene.


To me there is a huge difference between a plot that is emotionally driven versus one that is emotionally contrived. Plot plausible? Please. Let's see. Sanchez is caught, the boys parachute down to the wedding. During the wedding reception, Sanchez escapes when he is transported away by some quickly devised plan involving a turned CIA operative, a transport vehicle crashing off a bridge into the water ... frogmen and underwater transport.

So, in a space of a few hours tops, CIA guy turns (oh yes, he still has time to show up at the wedding), transport schedule determined, escape plan created, frogmen enlisted and put into position and bad guy escapes. Wow! These guys are good! Meanwhile, cut back to dark of night (from brilliant sunshine) to see happy bride and groom (Felix Leiter) saying goodnight to their good friend Bond. Apparently, Bond nor Felix Leiter of the CIA need to be informed that the drug king has escaped. Party on dudes!

Oops bad idea.

No wedding night bliss here, cue a little Spanished themed accoustic guitar riff as we cut to Sanchez in his warehouse. Sanchez now with Leiter, cue sad Spanish styled accoustic guitar as the gratuitous shark torture scene unfolds.

Implied bride was gang raped: "We gave her a nice honeymooooooooooon" and masterful lines like "no, today is the first day of the rest of your life" as Felix Leiter lowered to his death.

While my guitar gently weeps, indeed ... for any viewer that had to sit through that dreck.

The music score? If you have the DVD just watch that one scene paying attention to the music. Just awful.

Worse, the scenes around the wedding and escape are put together like a bad TV action show without a budget. Did they have one day to film this? Also, Glen's jarring cuts from scene to scene have all the finesse of a sledge hammer.

Anyone that has spent time around Bond forums knows that what one person dislikes another person loves. Which is fine. One probably could make an argument for a special fondness for films that someone saw in their formative years as a film lover. Again, fine.

This movie? Not fine.

One gets the sense that some, not all, but some people overrate the Dalton films because they weren't so popular. They say they were great so they can proclaim themselves as intellectually superior to all the "Us Weekly reading booboisie" who ignored - or saw but didn't like - them.

Don't get me wrong, I like them and liked Dalton (even if he took the serious Bond schtick a little too far, almost constantly coming across as annoyed and irritable) and would've have loved to see him play Bond at least two more times and easily prefer them to any Moore Bond films (with the exception of Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only), the last two Brosnan films and even a couple Connery films that went overboard in silliness, like Diamond Are Forever and You Only Live Twice.

As for Craig, I'm not sure. I glad, out of all the candidates, they hired him and not some twentysomething, even though curiously they're still going with the "first mission" storyline. However, with his sunken eyes, he does look a little awkward in the role. Brosnan may be a "pretty boy", but Heaven forbid a character who beds dozen of women, often just minutes after meeting them, actually be really good looking. Chalk it up to the Us Weekly crowd, but the general audience might be turned off by that, especially since everyone knows Brosnan was still willing to be Bond. Him being dumped in favor of Craig might make the general audience resentful of Craig even before seeing the film. Brosnan only played Bond four times. For an Bond actor who has had an exceptional (box office-wise) run, that's not that many times.

As for Casino Royale:

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

And it's a shame that Q will be written out (okay, so he wasn't in the novel, but that never stopped them before) just so they can pretend to be gritty and edgy. See, no Q this time. And that's what I like about some of the early Bonds. They were gritty and edgy with out beating you over the head with how much they were trying to be. It felt like it came naturally. They didn't have to have Bond be tortured, or truly fall in love with someone, or cry, or have his best friend turn on him, or have characters constantly berate him for his vices (all stuff that they've done in the last Bond films to pretend they have depth, and seem to be carrying on the trend for the next one).

And with the changes they're making to Royale, that's a shame. A faithful, Cold War-era, period piece adaptation would've have been cool. Instead, we seem to be getting a "this time it's personal, oh so this is how come Bond likes this, or always acts like that origin-type story complete with ridiculous updating, like poker instead of baccarat because it's "cool" and "with it" (say what you want about the 67 version, it at least retained the baccarat game as it's focus) and some politically correct villians from a fictional country.

well, like with SW and some of its films, i see a clash of values in the various interpretations- and like any true believer i get a little ham fisted in trying to articulate these value differences as i see them.
(and yeah, i realize that sounds elitest and pretentious...)

But i do think part of Pierce's overwhelming appeal is over facile, superficial matters (hence the Us Weekly reference). i have little doubt if they got another already well liked celebrity who looked dashing in a tux (as Pierce admitedly does) while giving his 'blue steel' stare, and was a competent line reader- people would proclaim him a worthy successor as well.
if Craig stars in just a couple movies that are the caliber of the Brosnan films, forget it- he's done.
a good looking, popular celeb can obviously ride out that dreck. get someone in there who isn't coventional movie star pretty ( a superficial assessment of Craig is all many of us can make at the moment) and suddenly people will have little tolerence or enthusasim for it.

Pierce was a likeable personality before Bond and if he had been in TLD and LTK, there is a good chance i would have a different opinion of him. i really don't have a problem with LTK (and even that sequence alluded to previously).
it, and TLD are not perfect and i fully realize that. forced to choose though, i'll take them over any of the rest of the movies (especially over the sacred cow, Goldfinger).
the way i see it, you could easily rip most of these films a new one if you want to.

Yeah, but the "what if Pierce was in 'LTK'" question isn't really valid. "The Living Daylights" was originally written for Roger Moore and it was slightly tweaked for Dalton. "LTK" was written specifically for Dalton's take on the character and I'm sure EON would have taken a much different route for Brosnan's post-"TLD" film.

My roommate and I watched Layer Cake last night, and we both agreed that Craig should make a fine Bond.

Exactly what I came in to say, I just saw Layer Cake (didn't realise it was Daniel Craig) and think he will do just fine.

Well, all that stuff was in the novel. I take it you didnt like On Her Majesty's Secret Service?

My point was that with movies like OHMSS, those kinds of elements felt natural. Bond crying over his dead wife felt justified and natural to the story, and so did truly falling in love with someone like Diana Rigg. Bond crying over Teri Hatcher or Sophie Marceau (and falling in love with her despite how he should have known right from the beginning whose side she was on) felt desperate and forced and seemed to be a lame attempt at saying "see, Bond has feelings too! He's perfectly in line with the sensitive nineties male!"

Same with Bond being betrayed by his, heretofore, unintroduced best friend and partner. I liked Goldeneye, but that plot element never worked for me. Again, it has a desperate "this time it's personal" aura. It would've been better if the character didn't spend so much time making comments about Bond's character traits.

Bond getting caught and tortured at the beginning of Die Another Day had that desperate feel too. It felt too much like, "this time we're doing something different".

And Q was in OHMSS. I don't recollect that he was in the novel. They didn't drop his character just so they could do a "this time it's Bond with no gadgets!" gimmick. He's not in Casino Royale, but then again Bond never played poker in it or faced off against a fictional country, nor did it attempt to explain all of Bond's character traits, and despite being the first novel, didn't have a "Bond's first mission" feel.

Nor should it have a first mission feel as Bond was already a double O and a man with a reputation thus getting this assignment (being a good gambler helped too).

Bond's character/traits are fairly heavily dealt with in the book though as I remember it.

I agree. People seem to forget this is still largely the same people that were responsible for Die Another Day and The World Is Not Enough. I don't know why a change of actor and being fed the old "back to the books" concept should excite anyone.

The bottom line is that they were so thrilled with the success of Die Another Day, they wanted to pursue a film based on Halle Berry's character (because, obviously, Jinx was why people went to see the film).

And then Bourne came out and made a lot of money, so they realized they wanted to copy him instead. But then Batman Begins came along, so hey, how's this for a brainstorm...?!

Not only have they already mined most of the book's dramatic ideas for recent films, but the book was still written in the early 50's. Even if they hadn't used similar ideas, audiences would still see the big 'twist' coming from a mile away.

Craig will do a fine job for purists, but he is clearly not the actor most people want. It seems rather childish that they prematurely switched Bonds, over what appears to have been clashing egos. Brosnan could have easily done a fifth film, which would have given them ample time to find a successor who would please fans of both the cinematic Bond as well as the literary one.

I realize that Brosnan is older while Casino Royale was the first book...but they haven't done a faithful translation since On Her Majesty's Secret Service!

It would've been far more interesting to see an aging, disillusioned 007 sent to Casino Royale, rather than one who is just starting out. After all, he did just spend a year being tortured in Die Another Day, I'd say that would make for some interesting character development.

That's something that I'm worried about, since they've done a Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show) twice with the past 4 Bond films. In hindight they must feel stupid for putting that in DAD. I think it was fine doing it in GE since it's 4 films and 10 years ago, but it'll seem tired to audiences, I think, when they see CR. Hell, even the Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show) will be tired, even though I apperciated that part in DAD.

The first official production diary is up at MI6...

http://www.mi6.co.uk/sections/articl...ond21&s=bond21

A lot of news in there. I hope they stick with a simple written format like this as opposed to all those quicktime vids they did for Kong and Superman.

On a sad note, David Arnold will indeed be returning as composer.