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Re: Watchin' Dr. No last night

Posted by jamesgarvin (A) on August 10, 2005 at 09:00:50

In Reply to: Re: Watchin' Dr. No last night posted by Jim Campilongo on August 9, 2005 at 13:46:26:

I agree that Bond was more a product of his times in the 60's. Connery was certainly darker than Moore. Moore was the Bond I grew up on, Connery was the Bond my parents grew up on. At the time, I preferred Moore. But the more I watched Connery, the more I preferred him. Now I look at Moore as the weakest of the Bonds. I think that Moore basically left the set of The Saint, and moved into Bond. Moore probably changed the arc of Bond to more of a flippant, light, Bond.

I think that the producers agreed, and tried to return to Connery style Bond when they filled the tuxedo with Timothy Dalton. Dalton was similar to Connery in many ways, they were both highly regarded stage actors in England, he was darker, and more forboding than Moore. And like Connery, was not a household name before he assumed the role. The problem was, the films did not do great box office. The two films with Dalton had some great action scenes and stunts. But no special effects. But the numbers were not there.

I think that with Brosnan, they have an actor who can quip like Moore, maybe not as much, but is darker, more similar to Connery, again not as dark. But the special effects were heightened up. I rememember the producer's defending their use of the blue screen after the first film with Brosnan, because much was made of the fact that all the stunts and action scenes before were real people in real stunts. They claimed that they only used the blue screen for a scene or two. But then the ticket sales rose dramatically. Maybe due to Brosnan. Maybe due to special effects. And I suspect that the blue screen is cheaper. If someone screws up, you do not need to rebuild a set.

I personally would love for the producers to go back to the Bond of Connery. But I think they looked at that as a failed experiment when they tried to do that with Dalton. As a point of trivia, Dalton was offered the part of Bond before Moore, but he turned it down because he felt that Connery was the best possible Bond, he was not old enough, and he did not want to follow Connery, knowing he would be unfavorably compared with him. Perhaps that is why Moore played Bond so differently from Connery. I wonder how Bond would be today had Dalton played Bond rather than Moore. I realize Lazemby played Bond, but his tenure was so brief that Connery's ghost was still present.

These days, I think that the producers feel an ever increasing need to outdo the last Bond film, and to outdo the competition. Problem is, the box office seems to support them. Look at Brosnan's numbers. Pretty hard to argue. Brosnan's first Bond film hit 26 million it's opening weekend, reaching 106 million domestically. Dalton's first Bond film hit 11 million it's opening, and reached 51 million.

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