Who's The Best Bond?
 

The latest choice, Mr Danny Craig, is so crap it got me thinking on the age-old question.

The stock answer for most is Connery. For me, however, it's Brosnan. Controversial, I know! Here's my thinking : When Connery stepped up to the plate he could make the character his own and didn't have the pressure of being one of the most iconic figures in cultural history. The problem all post-Connery Bonds have faced is having an audience know they're actors impersonating Bond - which means they're unconsciously less believable to us. Yes, yes, we knew Bruce Willis was an actor in Die Hard etc, but you are profoundly aware in the case of later Bonds. So new Bonds have the pressure of living up to an icon and the need to "get the character right" before an unforgiving fan-base who know they're impersonating a character. Connery had zero pressure and we'd never seen Bond before, so we believed he was the real bond (just like we believed Willis was his real character in Die Hard).

I think Connery had better movies which helped too but, on the whole, he became less believable as the years progressed, getting fat and out of shape. Brosnan had Bond down from the get-go and kept it up (pun intended) right to the very end.

What do you think?

Crap? How old are you? While I used to think Brosnan was the best, Craig was awesome and I look forward to the future movies.

I'm 31. Thanks for your contribution. :thumbsup

1. Sean Connery
2. Roger Moore

who's the others?? :winkwink:

Connery.

Daylight second.

Look at what he had to work with also, lack of special effects etc etc etc

He carried many a movie by himself.

2c

Connery also did one last Bond film in 1983, with "Never say never again"


My picks:

1. Connery
2. Moore
3. Brosnan


My vote for worst: Dalton (by far)

I loved Peirce Brosnan, that may be because of my age and that those were the movies playing when I was growing up, but I loved him.

I think Lazenby was the worst, but agree that Dalton was rather pathetic. Interesting read about him and bond on wiki : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Dalton

Oh crap ... does THAT make me feel old!

I grew up watching Moore :helpme

(so its amazing im still a bond fan)

This is what I mean about Connery being too out of shape at the end :

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086006/...ay-E14446-10-2

(I do love the porn movie sound track though)

Daniel Craig :thumbsup

Oh yeah, and because I haven't yet seen the newest Bond flick I do reserve the right to replace Brosnan with Craig at some point in the the future.

Thank you, and happy football day. :D

You mean Mr Potato Head?

1. Brosnan
2. Connery
3. Craig

:thumbsup

Brosnan is THE best ... he epitomised what Bond should be ... and he is a fucking good actor to boot...

I think Bronson was the best. I've seen all of the James Bond movies except for two of them, and most of them they seem so old. I can't see Roger Moore or Sean Connery being able to get it up.

Daniel Craig was good, but a bit dark and moody.

Seen Canary - the best by far

for whats its worth, i disagree with the "Sean Connery" was first so everyone else had to live upto him.

if connery came in after roger moore, he would still be the best. he was the best at mixing action with humour, and his wit and charisma is what makes him own the part

It's worth very little, but thank you for the contribution. :)

For it's time, probably Connery was Bond. Not sure if other actors at that time would have created the rolling success story. It's prob something that could not be planned - just a magic combination that works. Otherwise the first Bond movie (Dr No) could have fallen into a B movie status.

Brosnan made a good effort as well. (Can't say for Craig - never seen him).

Some odd, but amusing facts....

The budget for the first Bond movie, Dr No, was $800K and Connery's fees were $8000 for a 10 week shoot (at least with him present). That movie was a risk - serious one, and never intended to develop into a blockbuster roll on for decades. It was originally planned as a blockbuster with.. think Cary Grant in the role as Bond, but other commitments made that impossible. The scenario was rehashed, budget cut and an "unknown" engaged to play the role of Bond.

The second movie, From Russia With Love, was a little more daring on the budget, $1.2 mill and, can't remember, but Connery was paid around $16K. It was becoming clear there were good prospects for the production company, Eon, and they pulled in better support cast, including Robert Shaw to make up as Bond's adversary and worked on developing the Bond character.

I worked on "Russia" for a while between breaks at film school - interesting stuff. There is a lot of general footage shot as background for the editor and still see some of that footage being used by TV companies, mini series etc - you'd never know it was originally shot during a Bond movie production and sold as stock footage :winkwink:

Much of the success or otherwise of a character really depends on the team around him - closest being the director, but contributions from others as well. Prob the best Bond director was Terence Young and working with Peter Hunt as the editor. (Peter Hunt eventually directed other Bond movies - good director for action movies.) The rest of the princple crew were stable and experienced, Ted Moore as Dir of Photography and decent script from Richard Maibaum. It was a very experienced and close-knit team who generated the first Bond movies off the studio floor and that prob contributed to the overall success.

Pierce Brosnan is the best :thumbsup

You worked on From Russia With Love? Holy cow! What line of work are you in now and what was your involvement on Russia?

Brosnan had great attitude. My vote.

Connery and Brosnan, they had the charisma

AH.. I was just a kid at the time Kristian, knew nothing, - had just started college - National Film School.

Russia was the first feature film I knew anything about - and that was more accident than anything. My "involvement" on this was anything - literally *lol* Planting explosives at roadsides and covering em with cork, messing about with crashed copters and "arranging" em to look like they just fell from the sky - so they could then be blown up to add the final touch. Running around scrubland for days with kit behind the cameraman and ducking the undercarriage of a swooping copter as it supposed to be targetting Bond. (That was dangerous shit - Connery actually got his shoulder knocked out by that copter in reality - the undercarriage clipped him on the way by and we took a break from that crap. He was very lucky the copter never hit his head.)

There were a lot of "mechanical devices" on that movie - trains, boats, planes, copters blah and was effects-intensive, but generally more "real" than the hi-tech movies that followed. There were also a good few accidents, but not too serious - prob the main one that troubled the producers was when the leading lady (Daniela Bianchi) got two black eyes in an accident :1orglaugh

Dunno Kristian.. think Russia was prob a "cop out" for me - it was the first thing that came along, tho others were planned at that time. Was supposed to have gone on a documentary shoot to the Congo (Uganda) and into Edi Amin's territory where there was a war/killings going on at the time. The guy who ended up replacing me as one of the cameramen was eventually shot in the leg and still has a problem with that leg. Makes ya wonder about luck :)

My top 3 would be Connery, Brosnan, Craig. But that's because I haven't seen Moore, Lazenby or Dalton in the Bond role (well, I may have, but I was too young to remember).

I'm seriously blown away. I've been writing screenplays for years (hoping to establish an indie company when I retire in 4 years) and a huge Bond Fan since I was four. I never expected to bump into a guy like you on gfy of all places. The original movies are, by far, my favorites. To actually have been there, literally a part of movie history, must be a wonderful feeling. I dont think it matters what you did. It would just be cool to have been there, seen it, and then kind of watched the movies the way you might a documentary.

What I like most about the originals is the verisimilitude of the Bond universe. I watched Die Another Day again last night (enjoyed it, great movie) and it's a good example of the changing Bond universe. After watching the movie I realized I disliked only one scene : Bond surfing on a 40-foot tidal wave. It was a mixture of cg, live action and blue screens. It looked wonderful but the problem was that it was impossible in our universe (we need only see the making of the foreshadowing opening surf scene to see the life and death complexity). What used to work about Bond was that he operated in our universe and, yet, he had enough luck, skill and composure to carry off some amazing stunts that might actually be possible. The introduction of cg-intensive filmmaking and a more fantastical Bond universe serves, in my opinion, only to lessen the emotional impact.

Anyway, thats why I prefer the older movies. I should drink less coffee. :1orglaugh

Pierce Brosnan (1995–2002)

agreed.

connery first, brosnan second

Brosnan easily, He embodies what 007 is and everything so he got my vote.

Sean Connery got my vote.

Gotsta admit... Have huge straight-guy man-crush on Brosnan.

Hehe... small world!:) Have you been writing for specific projects or speculative? Used to quite like collaborating on scripting - character development and motivational stuff (it's also the cheapest and coolest part of any project process - ya can change the whole scenario and it costs only time - it's like therapy!! When shooting starts it's kinda costly :) )

Agree on the Bond movies - the original one's appear more dated, but if you analyise the storyline and see how they were made (for peanuts) - there was a "magic" that pulled them together. Hard to say what that magic was - at that time there were the usual old detective movies, but Bond hit a new angle on them. Hard to say how much Sean's image in the role contributed - he was not exactly an experienced actor and suspect it was just the clean-cut, sharp, possibly threatening, charming, suave image - when he got a suit on and cleaned up.

Whatever it was - it worked well. Tho they planned to shoot with Cary Grant in the role, I doubt that could be pulled off to be the same success and go on for decades. Sure as hell neither Harry Saltzman or Cubby Broccoli had a clue it would be so successful.

It may be the odd "icon moments" helped - stuff like images of Ursula Andress emerging from the sea in Dr No. The "signature scene" at the gaming tables which established the classic Bond introduction -

Bond: I admire your courage, Miss?
Sylvia: Trench, Sylvia Trench. I admire your luck, Mr ?
Bond (casually lighting his cigarette): Bond - James Bond

Shoot that with anyone else and it would be have just been an introduction - we remember Bond's line, who remembers Sylvia Trench? Doubt Terence Young actually contrived that scene to be as it turned out, but he sure milked it afterwards.

It is interesting watch the "cream" of a profession work - not that I'd rate Bond crew as cream, tho a number have a very strong track record. From a scripting angle, best I knew of was David Lean (now departed) - he worked for years on each script and would visually know exactly how his movie will appear on screen before it was even shot. If there was a small element missing on a scene - he'd do whatever to make sure it was introduced - (example... wanted a headscarf blowing in the wind as a girl in an open-top car drove thru a marketplace. That headscarf was *forced* to fucking blow correctly :pimp )

Was lucky to have the privilege of being lectured by David and a fair number of other experienced professionals at that time. Another was Don Siegel, (prob best known for Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the Dirty Harry movies tho started as a TV dir with Wagon Train etc), - Don's sole aim in life was to finish all projects on schedule. He claimed that was the only reason he ever got employed :winkwink: The dir of the National Film School was another classic case - tho totally pissed by noon and a total conman when it came to raising finance for his movies (he was in the diplomatic corp, so prob got well-trained). He put together another "icon classic" - the Third Man with Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton..

I'm not sure that caliber of people in the movie biz are around any longer - tho, there are some :) But they are very interesting from a writer's angle to listen to - a wealth of information.

Connery. Sean Connery. He's the only Bond.

Could have been Lazenby, if he chose to continue playing the role.

Interesting read........

Connery Hands down

in the early movies he is suave, debonair, confident, the way he walks...the smirks and the one-liners...very smooth

roger moore is next, craig david is #3, imo

the Brosnan movies were getting pretty unbeliveable, the action

i can compare it to moonraker, for instace, era being relative

i agree 100%, good post


webby, thats neat, thanks for sharing

Pierce Brosnan hands down.

Previously, Dalton had been offered the role of James Bond twice. In 1968, he was asked to play Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Sean Connery having decided that You Only Live Twice (1967) would be his last Bond film. Dalton turned the offer down, feeling he was too young for the role and because of what he felt was an imposing legacy left behind by Connery; the role finally went to George Lazenby. During the late 1970s, he was approached again, but he did not favour the direction the movies were taking. As he explained, his idea of Bond was different.[1]. Dalton was also asked to star in Octopussy (1983) in 1982, but again turned down the role.




how could you turn the role of bond down?

Hard to say the accuracy of that stuff corvette - there were major legal issues in the background (unconnected with Dalton) and it is possible one side of that legal issue offered Dalton the role a few times - then another load of legalities between distributors. Where there's money..... :winkwink:

I am all about old school

connery, moore, brosnen

Roger Moore :)!

Been Christmas shopping all day and just saw your post!

I've been writing screenplays for 17 years (since I was 14). I write almost exclusively in the horror genre. Pretty much all of it has been for pleasure and preparation for producing them myself in the future. I did have a deal collapse with a Birmingham (UK) studio that was promising. They wanted an asylum-based horror. At the time it was the vogue and, though I'm biased, I believe I approached it in a new way. Location fell through, however, and next came financing. I have a younger brother heading to film school next year (doing media at college right now) and a heap of ideas, work and enthusiasm, so as soon as I have finances in place I plan on making horror movies. More than likely whatever movie I make - irrespective of genre - will be horrific! :1orglaugh

On a different subject, you've had an amazing career so far! I was only telling my Dad about it an hour ago. He's a big Bond fan too (who isn't?). Would have been great to meet Lean, let alone be lectured by him! Being an Englishman (there are very few of us left ... what remains,on the whole, are creatures knows as Brits) I've been a huge fan ever since watching Oliver Twist as a kid every Christmas! You've got to admire his use of landscapes and almost compulsive precision (so much more to say, but not enough hours in the day)! Doctor Zhivago was one of many movies that almost convinced me to stop writing, it was just so infuriatingly perfect. Don Siegel ... I would have been a groupie in his class. :1orglaugh Invasion was one of 4 movies that had me scared as a kid; the others were Bride of Frankenstein, The Night of the Hunter and - of all movies - Wizard of Oz. Invasion was THE seminal sci-fi/ horror of the 50s. And the great thing about growing up in the 80s was getting to watch it and record it off TV before I'd even hit the big one-oh! As a kid the references to McCarthyism were lost on me, but I got the most frightening theme : shits going down, you know shits going down ... but no one believes you.

If we ever cross paths, you better let me buy you a drink or two (hundred)!

The coolest thing about this thread : Some sick bastard voted for George Lazenby! :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Fess up - who was it?

Connery
Moore
Brosnan

In that order.

My vote goes to Roger Moore mainly because I grew up watching his 007 movies.

50 Bonds.