I would think that his breeding and class would be of a lower order since, in CR, he is described as not coming from money (working class?) and therefore continually has to prove himself as "equal" to his monied classmates. If that is the case I wouldn't doubt that he would be rougher around the edges, regardless of his education and upbringing.
That's one thing that does tick me off about CR. Are we supposed to assume that Bond was never in the British Royal Navy now? Does that mean we'll never hear him referred to as 'Commander Bond' again.
I suppose it comes down to what you want to see in a Bond picture.
I want what you don't want, and vice versa. But you can probably rest comfortably. Casino Royale appears to have been a fluke -- one serious Bond film, and then it was back to the Roger Moore / Pierce Brosnan Bond-Light.
I, personally, don't take that conversation between Bond and Vesper literally. To me, that conversation came off as "contest of wills" in which Bond, unfortunately, comes out on the short side. I blame Broccoli and her feminist agenda for that. However, I do not consider any of the "observations" made by Vesper or Bond to necessarily be accurate guesses about each others backgrounds. Both characters were trying to irritate the other by being obnoxious.
I don't want an angst-ridden Bond either, nor I do want an ambivalent, callous bruiser who is just as happy to offer "do you want a clean kill or do you want me to send a message." What has changed is that James Bond no longer projects an inner decency and intelligence while performing his duty. Like it or not, this has as much to do with the actor as with the writing. Nor should Bond have to insist "I'm motivated by my duty." His boss back at the office should not be questioning his motives or teaching him how to be a better man. Bond is a good man, or he's not Bond. They should both know they're fighting the same war. There's been a total break-down in the writing of the James Bond films. The current group of writers / producers have no idea what they're doing, no idea how to write a James Bond adventure.
I wonder if the recent films are not the producer's reaction to the 1970s Bonds, which were shallow, artificial throwaways. Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace are about all the wrong things, but at least they're about something. James Bond is going to be taught respect and responsibility the hard way along with spycraft and how to dress. The women characters are finally free of him -- they don't need him, don't want him, don't respect him, nor do they particularly want to share the adventure with him, and he's fine with that. Insofar as the two films are about something, I suppose these scenes are solidly written and competently performed. Actually, they're not solidly written. They're full of dramatic problems. Externally they work, but internally they are not James Bond adventures because the characters have been subverted. Bond and Vesper in the novel Casino Royale are very different from the characters in the film, and I would much rather see the novel's characters explored than the so-called "update" they received.
Casino Royale's deconstruction of Bond isn't entertaining.
You're making two very good points here.
Dramatically, this conversation starts out playing the scene and then goes wrong when Fiona references Bond's sexual prowess as something he is famous for. Let's side aside the question of Fiona's exagerration about heavenly choirs and repentance. If Bond must be famous for his sexual prowess, he should be famous for it only in the publicity for the film, not in the film itself. When Fiona references his fame, the fourth wall is broken and we are reminded we're watching a movie. A stroke of the pen would have adjusted the dialog so that the fourth wall isn't broken and what needs to be said isn't sacrificed, but I understand from the commentaries that it was ad-libbed on the spot under the director's instructions. I wish Terence Young had given it more consideration. Again, James Bond should not be famous in the universe in which he operates. As for his sexual prowess, there's nothing I can say about that on HTF that won't get me into trouble.
I agree with you there. I'd add "The Spy Who Loved Me" to that list, even if it sometimes strays a little too far into fantasy/comedy territory. I think the best Bonds are the ones that walk the line between fantasy/plausibility and humour/thrills. When they become too grim and a too grounded in plausible reality, the spell is broken. I wanted to be Connery's Bond, Moore's Bond, even, at times, Brosnan's Bond. Craig's Bond, not so much.
The Bond-Vesper relationship is one of the big problems of "Casino Royale" for me. The love story in the last third of the film really comes out of the blue - and I've read the book and knew it was coming. By that point, the filmmakers haven't established enough of a connection between the characters to make the romance plausible. And the dialogue in those scenes - particularly that nonsense about "stripped armour" - has no business being in a Bond picture.
Judi Dench's M has functioned as the series' surrogate critic ever since that speech in "Goldeneye" where she called Bond a mysoginist dinosaur and relic of the cold war. That film, and all of the Bond pictures since, have bent over backwards to prove that Bond is still relevant in a post-Cold War, post-feminism, and eventually, post-9/11 world. I thought it was a novel approach in that film, but it's grown pretty tiresome since then. As has the "this time, it's personal" cliche storyline which we've now had in every film since "Licence to Kill".
They are certainly obnoxious and irritating. Since the characters continue the sparring that began in their first scene, and since the story builds on everything that is said between them on the train, and since the actors take thier dialog literally and play it literally, it is safe to assume that audiences may take the conversations literally. It's all pretty rank.
When I heard that Casino Royale would reboot the franchise with a young actor, I assumed that meant we'd see Fleming's Eton-educated James Bond join the Royal Navy and be roped into Naval Intelligence -- two privileges only bestowed on the slightly upper classes -- on his first mission and then re-assinged to MI.6. But no, the producer and writers threw out Bond's background and came up with a new one. The new one strips Bond of his upbringing as part of his overall deconstruction. Unless they come up with another reboot, or decide to ignore this one, we're not likely to hear another "Commander Bond" spoken in the franchise again.
