NO TIME TO DIE (2021) - First Reactions vs. Current Reactions

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Comments

  • Don't agree with this. Some of Moore's films still reference Fleming characters and scenes (DAF and LALD has quite a few).

    You've made a mistake there. DAF was Lazenby, everyone knows that.

  • KenAustinKenAustin United States
    Posts: 226
    Lazenby was onlu in OHMSS, I'm confused by what you mean
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    FoxRox wrote: »
    Brosnan era is easily the least Fleming of any actor’s films.

    As much as I love Brosnan I can't disagree.
  • BirdlesonBirdleson Moderator
    Posts: 2,161
    KenAustin wrote: »
    Lazenby was onlu in OHMSS, I'm confused by what you mean

    Many on here like to create an alternate timeline, where Lazenby did a proper sequel to OHMSS.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,518
    Don't agree with this. Some of Moore's films still reference Fleming characters and scenes (DAF and LALD has quite a few).

    You've made a mistake there. DAF was Lazenby, everyone knows that.

    Those aren't the initials for "You Only Live Twice"... ;)
  • FeyadorFeyador Montreal, Canada
    Posts: 718
    But of course the "original sin" was the casting of Connery himself as Bond, in so far as "departures from Fleming" are concerned ... so the film adaptations were always going to be something very different from the start. Doesn't Fleming himself acknowledged this influence in his later work?
  • Posts: 12,242
    chrisisall wrote: »
    FoxRox wrote: »
    Brosnan era is easily the least Fleming of any actor’s films.

    As much as I love Brosnan I can't disagree.

    I love him too - more than his movies for the most part as well. Count me a fan of GE and TND, but not so much TWINE and DAD.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    FoxRox wrote: »
    chrisisall wrote: »
    FoxRox wrote: »
    Brosnan era is easily the least Fleming of any actor’s films.

    As much as I love Brosnan I can't disagree.

    I love him too - more than his movies for the most part as well. Count me a fan of GE and TND, but not so much TWINE and DAD.

    I actually like TWINE (not nearly as much as his first two though), but last time I watched DAD I was surprised how much it annoyed me. Halle Berry's Jinx was just terrible. Insufferable. She singlehandedly ruined an otherwise mostly watchable piece of junk.
  • LeonardPineLeonardPine The Bar on the Beach
    Posts: 3,985
    KenAustin wrote: »
    Will you still say that when they cast someone half your age?

    The more they drift away from the literary character the less likely I'll be willing to go to the theater to see the movie...and the more they corrupt the general theme or story surrounding the character or characters the less likely I'll be willing to see the film. I did the same thing with Star Wars. Once they killed off Han Solo in TFA and introduced characters that mastered the force in 5 minutes I lost total interest and didn't bother going to theaters to watch the two films following TFA, which went against my core character after being a fan since the 70s. Instead I'll wait until the film is either free or so cheap on streaming services that it won't bother me to fall asleep on my couch half way through the movie.

    Boy are we on the same page! 👍
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    KenAustin wrote: »
    Will you still say that when they cast someone half your age?

    The more they drift away from the literary character the less likely I'll be willing to go to the theater to see the movie...and the more they corrupt the general theme or story surrounding the character or characters the less likely I'll be willing to see the film. I did the same thing with Star Wars. Once they killed off Han Solo in TFA and introduced characters that mastered the force in 5 minutes I lost total interest and didn't bother going to theaters to watch the two films following TFA, which went against my core character after being a fan since the 70s. Instead I'll wait until the film is either free or so cheap on streaming services that it won't bother me to fall asleep on my couch half way through the movie.

    Boy are we on the same page! 👍

    Even the same paragraph. :)>-
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited January 2022 Posts: 2,895
    Well, the early kerfuffle over Craig's appearance shows that there used to be a popular awareness of what 'James Bond' was supposed to look like, even if it was little more than 'tall, dark and handsome'. It might've been derived from seeing Connery in the films, rather than directly from reading Fleming's own description of BookBond, but it was there. After 15 years away from that, does this perception still exist or has Craig totally redrawn it and it's no longer an issue?
    With the Brosnan films and Fleming, wasn't the race between Bond and Onatopp in GE drawn from that between Bond and Tracy in chapter two of OHMSS: 'passed at speed by a pretty girl', etc?
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    Venutius wrote: »
    With the Brosnan films and Fleming, wasn't the race between Bond and Onatopp in GE drawn from that between Bond and Tracy in chapter two of OHMSS: 'passed at speed by a pretty girl', etc?
    Good point. A Fleming moment.
    And yes, for younger folk & those who've never read the novels, anything at all goes for Bond's appearance now.
  • KenAustinKenAustin United States
    Posts: 226
    Venutius wrote: »
    Well, the early kerfuffle over Craig's appearance shows that there used to be a popular awareness of what 'James Bond' was supposed to look like, even if it was little more than 'tall, dark and handsome'. It might've been derived from seeing Connery in the films, rather than directly from reading Fleming's own description of BookBond, but it was there. After 15 years away from that, does this perception still exist or has Craig totally redrawn it and it's no longer an issue?
    With the Brosnan films and Fleming, wasn't the race between Bond and Onatopp in GE drawn from that between Bond and Tracy in chapter two of OHMSS: 'passed at speed by a pretty girl', etc?

    Nope it's an issue...if someone repainted their own version of the Mona Lisa with blonde hair is she now the Mona Lisa? Answer: Nope
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    KenAustin wrote: »
    if someone repainted their own version of the Mona Lisa with blonde hair is she now the Mona Lisa?
    Beach Party Mona Lisa.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,518
    Mona Lisa + Cosmetic DLC for $2.99
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 7,999
    KenAustin wrote: »
    Venutius wrote: »
    Well, the early kerfuffle over Craig's appearance shows that there used to be a popular awareness of what 'James Bond' was supposed to look like, even if it was little more than 'tall, dark and handsome'. It might've been derived from seeing Connery in the films, rather than directly from reading Fleming's own description of BookBond, but it was there. After 15 years away from that, does this perception still exist or has Craig totally redrawn it and it's no longer an issue?
    With the Brosnan films and Fleming, wasn't the race between Bond and Onatopp in GE drawn from that between Bond and Tracy in chapter two of OHMSS: 'passed at speed by a pretty girl', etc?

    Nope it's an issue...if someone repainted their own version of the Mona Lisa with blonde hair is she now the Mona Lisa? Answer: Nope

    That’s false equivalency.

    You’d have to CGI Connery’s hair blonde for that comparison to apply. ;)

    Thankfully, audiences weren’t all that concerned over Craig not having brown hair.
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,914
    KenAustin wrote: »
    Venutius wrote: »
    Well, the early kerfuffle over Craig's appearance shows that there used to be a popular awareness of what 'James Bond' was supposed to look like, even if it was little more than 'tall, dark and handsome'. It might've been derived from seeing Connery in the films, rather than directly from reading Fleming's own description of BookBond, but it was there. After 15 years away from that, does this perception still exist or has Craig totally redrawn it and it's no longer an issue?
    With the Brosnan films and Fleming, wasn't the race between Bond and Onatopp in GE drawn from that between Bond and Tracy in chapter two of OHMSS: 'passed at speed by a pretty girl', etc?

    Nope it's an issue...if someone repainted their own version of the Mona Lisa with blonde hair is she now the Mona Lisa? Answer: Nope

    That’s false equivalency.

    You’d have to CGI Connery’s hair blonde for that comparison to apply. ;)

    Thankfully, audiences weren’t all that concerned over Craig not having brown hair.

    Yup. And also uncanny.
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    17a20a6623c7774529f52e13f89a9174.jpg


  • Posts: 3,272
    Don't agree with this. Some of Moore's films still reference Fleming characters and scenes (DAF and LALD has quite a few).

    You've made a mistake there. DAF was Lazenby, everyone knows that.

    DAF was 70's...
  • Posts: 3,272
    Feyador wrote: »
    But of course the "original sin" was the casting of Connery himself as Bond, in so far as "departures from Fleming" are concerned ... so the film adaptations were always going to be something very different from the start. Doesn't Fleming himself acknowledged this influence in his later work?

    Watching the first 2 movies, other than the grey blue eyes, it's hard not to see Fleming's incarnation in Connery, in both performance and appearance.

    Not sure how you can say this was very different from the start.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,518
    Your post made it seem like you were lumping DAF as a Moore film, rather than a 70's film. We all know you know DAF isn't a Moore film ;) It was just worded that way.
  • Posts: 3,272
    Your post made it seem like you were lumping DAF as a Moore film, rather than a 70's film. We all know you know DAF isn't a Moore film ;) It was just worded that way.

    Ahhh...
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 7,999
    Feyador wrote: »
    But of course the "original sin" was the casting of Connery himself as Bond, in so far as "departures from Fleming" are concerned ... so the film adaptations were always going to be something very different from the start. Doesn't Fleming himself acknowledged this influence in his later work?

    Watching the first 2 movies, other than the grey blue eyes, it's hard not to see Fleming's incarnation in Connery, in both performance and appearance.

    Not sure how you can say this was very different from the start.

    I think he refers to how Fleming initially objected to Connery’s casting. At least before filming happened, Connery wasn’t the most obvious actor to play Bond. There’s nothing particularly Bondian about him in previous films like that Tarzan film where he’s playing a grunt/henchman, and a Disney film where he’s a song man.

    Of course, Connery proved himself after the film came out. So much so, that Fleming started to incorporate his early portrayal of Bond into the books.

    It’s the same with Daniel Craig. He wasn’t the most obvious actor to cast for Bond (and the internet made that known). Even my mom was not sold on him, and initially started watching CR with her arms folded. By the time Craig is walking around like he owns the place once we get to the Bahamas, my mom wasn’t just sold, he instantly became her favorite Bond ever.
  • I had a friend who hit the nail on the head with CR. She said "he looks nothing like James Bond, but he's that good an actor that you end up believing he is James Bond".
    That's how I felt about Casino Royale. By the end, when he's on those steps, you can't remember anyone else that played the roll.
    When it comes to NTTD, I felt quite the opposite, but even then I have to admit he bloody owned the screen whenever he was on.
  • Posts: 3,272
    I had a friend who hit the nail on the head with CR. She said "he looks nothing like James Bond, but he's that good an actor that you end up believing he is James Bond".
    That's how I felt about Casino Royale. By the end, when he's on those steps, you can't remember anyone else that played the roll.
    When it comes to NTTD, I felt quite the opposite, but even then I have to admit he bloody owned the screen whenever he was on.

    I doubt anyone questions Craig's ability as an actor. Even though I don't like NTTD, I cannot say his performance is bad. The only part that makes me cringe is the confrontation with Blofeld, which didn't feel like I was watching Bond anymore, but Craig being Daniel Craig instead. I felt he lost it here.

    This was really the only really bad scene I can think of throughout his tenure as an actor, which is not bad going considering its 5 films.
  • KenAustinKenAustin United States
    Posts: 226
    ^^^ I agree there
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited January 2022 Posts: 2,895
    I doubt anyone questions Craig's ability as an actor

    There was someone on another thread who insisted that Craig was a 'good but not great' actor and that all of his acting as Bond had not only been equalled or bettered by the previous actors but that they'd also played Bond more 'naturalistically' than Craig had! Have to say that picturing any of them playing the train scene from CR better or more 'naturalistically' than Craig gave me a damn good laugh. Several, actually.
  • KenAustinKenAustin United States
    Posts: 226
    Venutius wrote: »
    I doubt anyone questions Craig's ability as an actor

    There was someone on another thread who insisted that Craig was a 'good but not great' actor and that all of his acting as Bond had not only been equalled or bettered by the previous actors but that they'd also played Bond more 'naturalistically' than Craig had! Have to say that picturing any of them playing the train scene from CR better or more 'naturalistically' than Craig gave me a damn good laugh. Several, actually.

    I have nothing negative to say about Craig's acting, but I think Brosnan could have absolutely pulled off that scene...in fact I think he could have easily performed the role in the entire movie (although I understand they wanted someone a bit younger). I can imagine a pre Goldeneye Brosnan doing CR and it might possibly have taken in even more money.
  • FeyadorFeyador Montreal, Canada
    edited January 2022 Posts: 718
    Feyador wrote: »
    But of course the "original sin" was the casting of Connery himself as Bond, in so far as "departures from Fleming" are concerned ... so the film adaptations were always going to be something very different from the start. Doesn't Fleming himself acknowledged this influence in his later work?

    Watching the first 2 movies, other than the grey blue eyes, it's hard not to see Fleming's incarnation in Connery, in both performance and appearance.

    Not sure how you can say this was very different from the start.

    I think he refers to how Fleming initially objected to Connery’s casting. At least before filming happened, Connery wasn’t the most obvious actor to play Bond. There’s nothing particularly Bondian about him in previous films like that Tarzan film where he’s playing a grunt/henchman, and a Disney film where he’s a song man.

    Of course, Connery proved himself after the film came out. So much so, that Fleming started to incorporate his early portrayal of Bond into the books.

    It’s the same with Daniel Craig. He wasn’t the most obvious actor to cast for Bond (and the internet made that known). Even my mom was not sold on him, and initially started watching CR with her arms folded. By the time Craig is walking around like he owns the place once we get to the Bahamas, my mom wasn’t just sold, he instantly became her favorite Bond ever.

    Yes, exactly this ...

    We are so conditioned by those early movies that it is difficult to see that the selection of Connery as Bond was something of an almost radical choice for that period in British movie history.

    But social values were changing in the late '50s and the movies of the time were beginning to embrace working class themes and actors, too. And by the early '60s the Beatles, for example, could even unabashedly foreground their own northern, working-class backgrounds--whereas in an earlier generation popular entertainers would more likely have attempted to efface such things. Terrence Young did that with Connery, too, who had already taken elocution lessons, but only up to a point ... and not to remove the latent violence of a coiled panther, as some one memorably described the early Connery.

    So Connery's selection for the role of a fashionable, sophisticated English gentleman would probably have been seen as at least somewhat atypical by domestic contemporary audiences. A lot of this would have had to do with unspoken assumptions/prejudices about class and nationality. Something the American/Canadian producers did well to work against in order to broaden the character's universal appeal.

    Connery was a physically-imposing, even somewhat rough-hewn, working-class Scot, who on the face of it was a far cry from the standard English leading man of the era (and from the south, or acting as if from there), say, a David Niven or Dirk Borgarde, as examples. Even a Michael Caine or a non-RADA trained Roger Moore would have likely been impossible ten years earlier.

    If I recall correctly, Fleming was so won over by Connery's machismo, physicality & sexual dynamism, that he provided the Bond character with a Scottish past and began to re-position him as something almost akin to a Labour man of the era, too. And one shouldn't forget that like this repositioned Bond, Fleming wasn't strictly-speaking an upper-class Englishman either. He may have been born into a wealth created by his grandfather, but that grandfather had himself been a working-class Scot. And perhaps for this reason, Fleming was himself never quite the snob he is often assumed to have been ....

  • KenAustinKenAustin United States
    Posts: 226
    Feyador wrote: »
    Feyador wrote: »
    But of course the "original sin" was the casting of Connery himself as Bond, in so far as "departures from Fleming" are concerned ... so the film adaptations were always going to be something very different from the start. Doesn't Fleming himself acknowledged this influence in his later work?

    Watching the first 2 movies, other than the grey blue eyes, it's hard not to see Fleming's incarnation in Connery, in both performance and appearance.

    Not sure how you can say this was very different from the start.

    I think he refers to how Fleming initially objected to Connery’s casting. At least before filming happened, Connery wasn’t the most obvious actor to play Bond. There’s nothing particularly Bondian about him in previous films like that Tarzan film where he’s playing a grunt/henchman, and a Disney film where he’s a song man.

    Of course, Connery proved himself after the film came out. So much so, that Fleming started to incorporate his early portrayal of Bond into the books.

    It’s the same with Daniel Craig. He wasn’t the most obvious actor to cast for Bond (and the internet made that known). Even my mom was not sold on him, and initially started watching CR with her arms folded. By the time Craig is walking around like he owns the place once we get to the Bahamas, my mom wasn’t just sold, he instantly became her favorite Bond ever.

    Yes, exactly this ...

    We are so conditioned by those early movies that it is difficult to see that the selection of Connery as Bond was something of an almost radical choice for that period in British movie history.

    But social values were changing in the late '50s and the movies of the time were beginning to embrace working class themes and actors, too. And by the early '60s the Beatles, for example, could even unabashedly foreground their own northern, working-class backgrounds--whereas in an earlier generation popular entertainers would more likely have attempted to efface such things. Terrence Young did that with Connery, too, who had already taken elocution lessons, but only up to a point ... and not to remove the latent violence of a coiled panther, as some one memorably described the early Connery.

    So Connery's selection for the role of a fashionable, sophisticated English gentleman would probably have been seen as at least somewhat atypical by domestic contemporary audiences. A lot of this would have had to do with unspoken assumptions/prejudices about class and nationality. Something the American/Canadian producers did well to work against in order to broaden the character's universal appeal.

    Connery was a physically-imposing, even somewhat rough-hewn, working-class Scot, who on the face of it was a far cry from the standard English leading man of the era (and from the south, or acting as if from there), say, a David Niven or Dirk Borgarde, as examples. Even a Michael Caine or a non-RADA trained Roger Moore would have likely been impossible ten years earlier.

    If I recall correctly, Fleming was so won over by Connery's machismo, physicality & sexual dynamism, that he provided the Bond character with a Scottish past and began to re-position him as something almost akin to a Labour man of the era, too. And one shouldn't forget that like this repositioned Bond, Fleming wasn't strictly-speaking an upper-class Englishman either. He may have been born into a wealth created by his grandfather, but that grandfather had himself been a working-class Scot, as well. And perhaps for this reason, Fleming was himself never quite the snob he is often assumed to have been ....

    I'd say as long as the original author was the one that made the changes in the very beginning then it was his prerogative to do so...no one should be altering works of art without permission 60 years later after the artist has passed. I doubt you'd see someone painting over the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel because times have changed.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    edited January 2022 Posts: 7,999
    If we’re to be that strict, then they might as well stop making Bond films entirely. In fact we should dismiss the entire EON canon while we’re at it.
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