Spectre (film) - Bond 24

[bassman]

I don’t quite understand the fascination with Elba playing Bond, Elba is a phenomenal actor, but I just don’t see it. Regardless of the color of his skin, I just don’t see Bond when I look at him. And I agree, the Broccoli’s are going to want someone younger so that they can get as many films as possible out of them. My main hope is that they go back to dropping a new actor in and continuing the story. Now that Craig has done a fantastic job of reinventing the character while simultaneously bringing in a lot of the series’ classic attributes, they don’t need to start all over. Just keep going like the old days.

[EvilNed]

Elba is black tho. I'm all for promoting black characters, but if they want to push a black secret agent in the Bond universe as they should have Elba play Leiter and push for a solo film. I'd watch it. But to have Elba play Bond? Why? To placcate a PC audience? To show people that "anything is possible"? We know anything is possible, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.

[MinionZombie]

Yeah, I've never really seen Elba as a potential Bond, but then again I'm not really seeing anyone as a replacement for Craig at the moment. There's been a few names roaming around, at one point Ewan McGregor was looked at - but, likewise, I just didn't see him in the role. More recently Tom Hiddleston was talked about ... but again, can't quite see it. He'd have to bulk up, for one, but he seems too posh to be Bond (even a bit brittle). You need someone who can straddle the line of being a 'brute in a tuxedo' (which Craig pulls off very well). Naturally, it should really be a British actor (be they English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish) as it's a British franchise through-and-through. Few Americans can pull off the English accent for one, and the Americans simply have a different sensibility, for two. To get the finer details and vibe of it, you've gotta have a Brit in the role. We know anything is possible, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. Where's that Dr Ian Malcom meme when I need it? There's a contingent out there going on about having a female James Bond ... but I'd imagine those people are either: 1) Not Bond fans, or 2) Virtue Signalling. A female James Bond (i.e. "Jane Bond 007 in Casino Royale") would make as much sense as re-casting Wonder Woman as "Wonder Man" - it's just inherently not the character. The 'Jane Bond' thing is also a pretty shit idea because it disrespects everyone - create a new spy, who is female, from the ground-up and make it (this new franchise) worthy to stand alongside Bond and be judged on its own merits. It's a hard task, but it's the right path. But a hand-me-down franchise for the sake of virtue signalling Twitter twirps? That's not going to 'improve' anyone's lot. It'd disrespect the source material and it'd disrespect women as a whole (i.e. "you're not worthy of having your own character", not to mention plenty of women already watch the Bond movies because, shock horror, men and women are capable of watching and enjoying movies where the lead is a different gender to them - gasp!). There was a 'sort of' stab at it with "Salt", which was a solid flick, but it just didn't quite come together. Another 'sort of' came in the form of "Haywire" with Gina Carrano (who was awesome in F&F6 and Deadpool), but that too didn't quite stick the landing for whatever reason IIRC. I'd like to see "Haywire" again, come to think of it. That was probably a better stab at it as Soderberg was building a film from the ground-up around Carrano, playing to her strengths. Yeah, I quite fancy re-watching that some time now that I'm talking about it.

[bassman]

Slightly off topic, but MZ reminded me of a recent documentary while mentioning Bond should be British. “Becoming Bond” is a fantastic watch about George Lazenby going from being an Australian car salesman to tricking his way into the role of Bond. I highly recommend it.

[bassman]

Danny Boyle no longer directing Bond 25 Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli and Daniel Craig today announced that due to creative differences Danny Boyle has decided to no longer direct Bond 25. Shame, I was interested in what Boyle could bring to the franchise. Hopefully they can find a satisfying replacement...

[shootemindehead]

Always thought it was a strange fit meself. They probably tried to place too many constraints on him, and he just nope'd.

[MinionZombie]

Mmm ... I kinda wondered how he'd fit in with a juggernaut like the Bond franchise. It would have been interesting to see what his version would be like, but hopefully we get a solid replacement who can shepherd a really good final Bond for Craig to go out on.

[bassman]

If they’re in a bind to keep the announced production and release dates, my ideal choice would be bringing back Martin Campbell. He’s resuscitated the franchise twice now, including the phenomenal Casino Royale, so it would be a nice bookend for Craig’s string of films. On a recent episode of Screen Junkies, they pointed out that Craig has now been Bond as long as Roger Moore. There have been much larger gaps between films, so his film count is lower, but in terms of the time frame, Craig will now be the longest (continuously) running Bond....

[EvilNed]

If they’re in a bind to keep the announced production and release dates, my ideal choice would be bringing back Martin Campbell. He’s resuscitated the franchise twice now, including the phenomenal Casino Royale, so it would be a nice bookend for Craig’s string of films. On a recent episode of Screen Junkies, they pointed out that Craig has now been Bond as long as Roger Moore. There have been much larger gaps between films, so his film count is lower, but in terms of the time frame, Craig will now be the longest (continuously) running Bond.... Moore's films sucked ass.

[bassman]

Moore's films sucked ass. They’re definitely lighter, goofy, and reflective of their time, but I do enjoy a couple of them. Live and Let Die and The Spy Who Loved Me are among some of the classic Bonds, IMO. The rest of Moore’s run is pretty shakey, at best. It was smart of them to attempt taking it back to it’s roots with Timothy Dalton’s two film run, but unfortunately it just didn’t click with audiences like it later did with Craig.

[MinionZombie]

Moore's films sucked ass. They’re definitely lighter, goofy, and reflective of their time, but I do enjoy a couple of them. Live and Let Die and The Spy Who Loved Me are among some of the classic Bonds, IMO. The rest of Moore’s run is pretty shakey, at best. It was smart of them to attempt taking it back to it’s roots with Timothy Dalton’s two film run, but unfortunately it just didn’t click with audiences like it later did with Craig. Moore had three stone cold classics of the franchise in his era: Live & Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun, and The Spy Who Loved Me. He also had some really iffy ones, too, like Moonraker and the high camp of the time on occasion. I'm likewise a fan of Dalton's two flicks and agree on him being a precursor to Craig's era of Bond, what with the harder edge. Moore hung around too long and was looking a bit too old to really be Bond in those last couple of flicks. I recently went to the "Bond in Motion" exhibit at the London Film Museum, which was proper good. If it's still on and anyone's in that area it's well worth checking out for Bond fans.

[JDP]

Moore had three stone cold classics of the franchise in his era: Live & Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun, and The Spy Who Loved Me. He also had some really iffy ones, too, like Moonraker and the high camp of the time on occasion. I'm likewise a fan of Dalton's two flicks and agree on him being a precursor to Craig's era of Bond, what with the harder edge. Moore hung around too long and was looking a bit too old to really be Bond in those last couple of flicks. I recently went to the "Bond in Motion" exhibit at the London Film Museum, which was proper good. If it's still on and anyone's in that area it's well worth checking out for Bond fans. The first few Bond films with Moore were great, only second to those of Connery, and way better than the ones that came after Moore. Some of the later Moore Bond films got a bit too corny, campy and goofy, but they were still great entertainment and well-crafted movies. I enjoy them more than all the ones that came after Moore retired from the franchise. There always was a very obvious element of "campiness", "goofiness" and "corniness" to the Bond character and movies, even Connery's era Bond clearly had it (for example: obvious play-on-words like "Pussy Galore", or the hilarious way Bond kills the two assassins in Diamonds are Forever), so I don't see why some people get so riled up about Moore's Bond. The Bond movies he was in just took it to the next level.

[bassman]

I have the complete Bond Blu Ray collection and I’ll watch Moore’s worst films before watching Brosnan’s last few films. Aside from Goldeneye, which is one of my all time favorites of the series, Brosnan’s films just got progressively worse until Die Another Day is just insulting to the viewer. The over the top cheesiness felt earned with Moore’s run, but by the time they were making Brosnan wind surf a tsunami, it was just gut wrenching. I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much, because that was one of the factors leading to them reimagine the series, thus leading to the phenomenal Casino Royale. It’s a shame Brosnan didn’t have more than one good film, though. Even before being hired, the Bond series was seemingly bad luck to Brosnan because of his trouble with Remington Steele. He could’ve had a much longer tenure as bond, with more good films.

[MinionZombie]

Goldeneye is excellent. I went to see that with my Dad in the cinema, and it was my first Bond movie. I thought Tomorrow Never Dies was pretty good, although the 'evil Murdoch-alike' villain was a bit on-the-nose. I think it was with The World Is Not Enough when it started to soften up for Brosnan and things edged a bit too campy or plasticky and chintsy with some of the on-screen elements. Die Another Day is an interesting one ... I re-watched it a while ago (but I did see it in the cinema when it first came out) and the first half is pretty good and I was thinking "oh, this isn't as duff as I remember it being", but then the second half came along and it was as silly and campy as I remembered it being.

[bassman]

Goldeneye was also my first Bond movie in the cinema. I also remember reserving a VHS copy at my local rental store before the film was released on home video. Then waiting by the phone for the call that it came in. It may have been my first Bond film in theaters, but I was first turned onto the series through it being aired on TV. Back in the antenna TV days, there was a local Atlanta network that would run a marathon for one month out of the year. Something like “20 days of Bond”. I was lucky to catch the bulk of the series that way, but I vividly remember that seeing Goldfinger was the moment I was transformed into a life long fan. That film blew my mind and is one of those type of films that I can still watch whenever I choose and never get bored for a second. Probably the perfect Bond film...