Here's a scene that would never be done today (explanation in comments)
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There's a second bit of context to this film:
This, The living daylights and Licence to Kill are the only two Bond films with Timothy Dalton. When he came in it was the tail end of the cold War so they didn't want to paint it as 'those evil Soviets' as the villains and they didn't have an evil organisation like Spectre to fall back on. So both of these films played more into the narrative of the war on drugs with this one being the opium trade and the film after being about South American cartels.
Timothy Dalton also gets a under-appreciated as he plays Bond more like an assassin like in the books and I do like his more cold take on bond which is why I rate him third in my list of Bonds.
He's my favorite bond actually. He's the coolest in my opinion. Pierce Brosnan plays a pretty good Bond, but I don't think his movies are very good.
For me it goes Dalton as number 1, Roger Moore as number 2, Pierce Brosnan and Sean Connery are pretty much tied for me as number 3
That guy who only had one movie, which I've only seen once and don't really remember is by default number 4
and Daniel Craig sucks, so number 5.
I really dislike Daniel Craig as "Bond". Think of a scene with Daniel Craig's Bond. Is he scowling or looking mopey....Gonna guess that when you thought of his Bond that's the image that conjured up.
About the one thing Bond should never be is mopey looking, and that's what they went with Daniel Craig's "Bond" and his default face throughout all his movies. There's nothing suave or cool about Daniel Craig's Bond.
I go Sean Connery number 1, just hit it running with Dr No onwards, then Pierce Brosnan THEN Timothy Dalton.
The reason I go that order is Pierce even though he started string with Goldeneye got shafted HARD with the writing. Timothy got shafted with the TIME his films were released.
If Pierce got more serious scripts like Timothy's run or even Daniel Craig's run, I think his charisma in how he played Bond just NARROWLY would put him ahead but it'd be a near tie 2nd place for them both. Then Rodger Moore as I just didn't like as much how he played the 'gentlemanly' Bond , then George Lazenby and finally Daniel Craig.
Same reasons here tbh. Connery is just, well, Bond. Both Brosnan and Dalton were ones I liked while similar to your reasons Moore just didn't really "fit" what I expected of the character. Lazenby is... probably best left forgotten. Craig was just too much action hero for what was meant to be a spy/assassin.
That's the downside of leaving your franchise hanging for a few years and letting Matt Damon release a series of movies that redefines your own genre for a new generation.
Because every spy movie since, including all the Bonds, seem to be downstream from Jason Bourne.
That and Austin Powers being seen as
peekpeak Bond spoof which led to the "dark and gritty" reboot of Craig's Bond in the first place.Fun trivia. Both Austin Powers and Bourne were both some of the lowest rated "Test screenings" for their respect companies and both were sent out to die in theaters quietly, only to flip and become massive trilogies that changed the industry to this day.
Proving as always that test audiences are some of the most retarded people in this country, and don't get called out nearly as much as they deserve for probably being a solid chunk of why all movies turn out as horseshit as they do.
Daniel Craig's Bond is like if Marvel's Ultimate line did a series on Bond.
Casino Royale I actually liked walking out of the theater I was like huh that's a cute modern "action writing" take on Bond.
And it was downhill from there. Actually fell asleep Spectre in theater (which admittedly I love doing) and never watched No Time to Cuck.
Same, haven't seen No time to cuck either. Anyone who went to that after even seeing the trailers, much less knowing all the background about the people involved, deserved whatever movie they got.
Were they your first Bond movies? The saying goes your first Bond is your favorite Bond. My first Bond I remember seeing is Rodger Moore so Moore is my favorite Bond.
Brosnan wasn't my first Bond but Goldeneye is still my favourite movie.
There's always some motherfucker trying to ice skate uphill.
https://giphy.com/amp/explore/blade-gif
My first Bond was Goldeneye, but my favourite is Connery (Goldfinger is probably my favourite Bond movie).
Brosnan is ranked pretty highly though.
Moore was my first Bond as well - but I still rate Connery Higher.
The thing I notice most now as an adult about Connery I missed as a kid is his Bond's apathy. Dude does just not give a shit about anything. He is kind of a dick. But I dig it about him.
No, so my history with Bond is like this. I was born in 92, and never saw a bond movie until Casino Royale, but Pierce Brosnan was sort of ubiquitously the Bond I knew through culture. At King's Island there was a James Bond ride, the video games I played featured Pierce Brosnan's likeness, you'd see him in trailers and TV spots and posters, etc.
I enjoyed Casino Royale, and at the time, didn't realize how much it was subverting the character and is an abomination haha.
I didn't like any of the other Bond films that Daniel Craig did.
About 6 or so years ago I decided to watch all the Bond films starting with Sean Connery. I liked all the Bonds, but I would have placed Roger Moore as my favorite back when I watched them, up until recently when I watched the Dalton movies again with my parents and appreciated them way more than I did the first time. I would say it was this second time watching them that I realized how good he was as Bond.
When I first marathoned the Bond movies, I was so used to Roger Moore as Bond because he has so many movies that I was watching back to back over a month or two that it didn't allow me to truly appreciate how cool Timothy Dalton's Bond was. On second glance, without missing Roger Moore's version, I came away thinking that Timothy Dalton is how Bond should be played and left me wishing he got a true shot with like 5 or 6 movies.
I'll tell you another thing in Dalton's favor "The Living Daylights" by Aha is an amazing song and the best theme of all the Bonds, fight me bros.
One of my favorite old memes from the early 2000s had a quote from that song, but deliberately misattributed.
"Set your hopes up way too high, living's in the way we die."
~ Lee Iacoca
Never since have I laughed so hard.
Dude; I love the theme! Very few people rate it all that highly and it's one of my favorites. It's another thing that I didn't appreciate on the first watch. The reason I didn't appreciate it is because the movie I watched right before it was "A view to a kill" and that theme is so poppy and upbeat. So Living Daylights sounds like a "downer" in comparison, but I now place it as one of the best.
License to Kill is also a great theme. The movie version of LtK is far superior to the studio released version. It's weird because Gladys Knight released the song as a single, but it differs than the movie, and not in a good way. When you knock it out of the park for the movie, why release a different version? Most people looking up "License to Kill Gladys Knight" are going to click on and listen to an inferior version not knowing it's not the movie version that is way better.
They should have brought him in earlier for the film For Your Eyes Only. That film begged to have someone like Dalton as the lead, as it was pretty gritty and Bond is depicted as the ruthless assassin as he is, which did not meld well with Moore's more lackadaisical approach to the character in the previous films.
The Living Daylights is easily a top 5 Bond film, for me. License to Kill, however, is easily bottom 5.
1st is sean connery, we agree.
2st is who, pierce brosnan?