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I think on here Craig may be the favorite but if you scroll over to the James Bond Reddit page you’ll find a rather large number of users who are Pro Brosnan/Anti Craig - it’s unfortunate because while I may prefer Pierce I can still see the value of Craig’s portrayal and what he brought. On the Reddit forums however you’ll tend to see a lot of generalizations about the Craig era as a whole and his portrayal in general.
I don’t think Brosnan has gone down in estimation with casual fans as much as he has with the hardcore fandom. Yeah some will whine and moan about him here but he’s still held up in high regard in general - it’s not an uncommon take to think that he rivals or even surpasses Connery - if anything it just goes to show how different everyone’s opinions are. I’m happy Pierce is getting the recognition he deserves - he’s been thrown under the bus by fans for things out of his control for far too long now and now that Craig’s era is behind us it’s allowed some fans to go back and revisit the Brosnan era with a fresh set of eyes in the way that Dalton’s films have undergone a renaissance.
Interesting shout.
TLD, for me.
Oh, I see a lot of generalisations about the Craig era’s tone here too. No idea about Reddit (and I’m not going down that wormhole, haha) but as you implied it’s probably a minority of hardcore fans.
I think in general Brosnan’s films are looked on a bit more fondly than they perhaps used to. That generally happens when you get fans who grew up watching him as Bond. There’s also that element of nostalgia. For some who don’t like the darker elements of the Craig films they might gravitate towards some of Brosnan’s. To some extent it happens with all Bonds - we get fatigued with the current one at some point and look on past ones more fondly.
But on the whole, I suspect Craig’s Bond is probably viewed more favourably with the average viewer. I’ve often heard a spin on the phrase ‘Brosnan wasn’t a bad Bond but some of his films really test you’ when talking about Bond with people in real life. I think DAD still leaves a bad taste with a lot of them especially - rightly or wrongly.
I’m not really too sure about that - at least from what I’ve gathered seeing people compare the two of them. You raise a great point about a lot of this being driven largely by nostalgia for that era and yeah people will make the claims that some of Brosnan’s films weren’t up to par but in the same sentence they’ll still say that Brosnan did a damn fine job with the character. Yeah DAD was pretty poor - but that wasn’t enough to make Brosnan look bad in audiences eyes going by the extreme backlash to him leaving the role. With Craig you’ll tend to see very sweeping generalizations where they call him mopey, not fun enough, and that he’s more Jason Bourne than James Bond. I don’t agree with these takes - but I see them everywhere. In YouTube comments, Reddit, real life conversations, wherever. People will praise the quality of his films (or at least some of his films) but I think Craig’s portrayal is a bit more polarizing than what you may think. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve seen the take “Craig had the better films - Brosnan was the better Bond” when comparing the two actors.
That’s why I think a lot of the backlash to Brosnan and his era is really just confined to the hardcore fandom. His detractors will bring up the critical scores to his films - they’ll call him “greatest hits Bond”, criticize his acting or say that he wasn’t tough enough like Connery and Craig - but you won’t hear that elsewhere. I’ve never heard people outside this forum really nitpick at Brosnan’s portrayal like that. For many he was (and still is) the man they most identify as James Bond and that’s a huge testament to what Pierce was able to do with the character despite not having the best material to work with.
I think overly strong opinions about Bond in general are more a thing among fans/people writing here. Or indeed Reddit, or on YouTube comments. The sort of vocal minority who are actually bothered to take time out of their day and write about this. It depends on the person at the end of the day and their preference in Bond though. And ultimately every actor is someone's favourite Bond.
I suspect in most polls ranking Bonds on various film sites or outlets (not always Bond ones) it’s generally Connery and Craig at the top. Brosnan’s probably not far off incidentally. Probably third or fourth a lot of the time. I think he’d actually beat Moore for many nowadays. To be honest that’s the sense I get in real life generally speaking, but there are caveats too (I actually know people who’d say they find Connery’s Bond a bit creepy based on some of the stuff he does in his films…. yeah, I can see that. It might be a minority opinion but it’s not an uncommon one either. I believe the same people were more Craig fans FWIW).
But honestly, there are shades to all this, and everyone has their own opinions. But I think Craig’s impact on Bond and what he’s perceived to have brought to the role for the general moviegoing public shouldn’t be underestimated either. I understand more dedicated fans will point out that, say, Dalton first did the darker, even harder edged Bond prior to 2006, and even Brosnan had a bit of that in his films. Maybe, but it ignores the impact Craig's Bond movies - CR and SF especially - had on the franchise. For better or for worse the way they depicted the cinematic Bond felt different than what'd come before, and it left much more of an impact with Craig in the role/how he approached the part. Look at how many of the Craig era directors or actors specifically signed on because Craig was Bond and how high they perceived the quality of these films. That's a very significant impact on the franchise that not all the actors will have.
As good as Brosnan was he just doesn't have that same legacy of reinventing the character the same way Craig does. Or defining it as Connery did. In fact I think many would say his appeal as Bond was steadying the ship in order to bring Bond into the 90s (the mixture of Connery and Moore he pitched himself as. And as you said what his detractors often mention. I certainly don’t think it’s a bad thing and it's a major reason he was so good in the role - his confidence and ability to come across as James Bond. You needed someone like that I think, especially for GE. He's comparable to Roger Moore in that way).
Connery was the first, and for his time the films were violent (yes, really) and sexy. Just what the doctor ordered for a (Western) society still re-building from WW2. Flower power came along and (through Lazenby and then Connery) Moore made Bond the epitomy of cool in a more hopefull, positive world. Moore himself said you can't take Bond as a character too seriously. And for that time, he was right. But with the eighties came financial crisis, and austerity. Dalton was the one to pick up the baton exactly in that period, stearing back to a more gritty cinematic universe that fitted better with the outside world.
With Brosnan came more optimism, but 2002's DAD came on the heels of the dotcom bubble. It missed the right tone for a world suddenly far more serious.
Craig's tenures have walked with the times as well, albeit a bit.. .swervy. I feel that the plots became too chaotic, but perhaps that, as well, was a proper reflection of the times.
Now, in a world where democracy and freedom are again in the line of fire, litterally, I'd be very thankful for a straight mission without any complications. Just straight out good guy (Bond) - badguy (preferrably Putin, I'd even be happy if they made it VERY rrealistic).
but tat's just my personal preference.