TMD? DID? Die Inother Day? Oh dear oh dear.
*puts on huge glasses and crazy wig, pulls out pointing stick*
To fully understand this event one must look back onto the History of James Bond, 007, and take a look at the bigger picture.
In the beginning a Brit called Ian Flemming wrote a book called 'Casino Royale'. For the next few years nothing of any relevance to this topic happened, other than more books and 007 being praised by the world.
THen someone did a SPOOF, a parody of the first novel, 'Casino Royale', the film was not produced by EON and had nothing to do with the films that would follow, other than that the lead role had the same name.
Then a dude called Albert R. Brocolli and a slightly less dudey dude called Harry Salzman created the film, 'Dr No' with a little-known actor called Sean Connery.
Connery immediately defined the role of James Bond on the big screen, became incredibly famous in the role and in his fifth film in the role a set was constructed for his film that cost more to build than 'Dr No' (the big volcano base for 'You Only Live Twice').
Sean Connery created the legend that was Bond James Bond and went on to make 6 films with EON and a 7th with a competing company several years afterwards.
When (not for the last time) Sean Connery gave up the role EON found an actor on an advert by the name of George Lazenby who they called in to audition. Lazenby had in fact never acted before (not that he told them that) but this proved to be his key trait: in auditions he broke a stuntman's nose because he didn't know how to stage-punch properly. Oddly enough, this landed him the role.
Lazenby's approach to the role was notably less action-hero than Connery's, also he went a bit to far with the whole seduction of beautiful women. A slightly camper James Bond who only went on to make one film, however said film did produce what's been described as one of the greatest love songs of all time ('We Have All the Time in the World').
People generally thouht Lazenby was a bad choice and many critics claimed it to be THE DEATH OF DOUBLE-OH-SEVEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!OMGROFL!!!!
They ere shortly proved all wrong by the brief return of Connery to the role who did one film and then said he was done with James Bond (not for the last time).
Feeling rather worried, EON hunted for a new face of James Bond and found Roger Moore, a Bond that would go on to make 7 films all with EON and be in effect the joint most successful Bond of all time!!!
Plus Tom Jones neversung any of his theme songs which is always a bonus.
Many people didn't like Moore, why? Because he wasn't Connery! with Connery having defined James Bond it wold be a hard role to follow, the world in general considered Connery to be Bond, and many were unwilling to change their views to suit the more humourous but no less English figure of Roger Moore.
This was put to the test when, during the production of 'Octopussy' Sean Connery came back to make a remake of 'Thunderball' with a rival company. The film was named 'Never Say Never' by Connery's wife because Connery had previously announced that he would never make another Bond Film.
If EON was worried about this they had no reason to be, like all the Moore films 'Octopussy' became one of the most successful Bond films up to that point, possibly because the rival company had chosen to remake the film that Tom Jones had originally sung for (bad ideas all round). Connery announced that he would never make another Bond film again (so far he's actually held to it this time, but who knows what the next film will bring?)
When, in the early 80s, Moore stepped down from the role of 007 EON decided maybe it was time to REBOOT JAMES BOND and at last made the terrible mistake they'd been considering since 'Gold Finger': they Americanised Bond.
For this task they called on the skills of the actor Timothy Dalton, who surrendered the unshakable calm and outstanding sophistication of the previous Bonds and went for a more macho-hero, women falling at his feet for him to choose, exaggerating where previous Bond under-exaggerated approach, complete with short geeky, swooning Moneypenny and a total disregard for everyone English. America loved it. Everyone else wondered what went wrong. Arnold Schwarzenegger has stared in very similar films.
Dalton made two films, the second taking up a '15' certificate in England (the highest cert of any Bond Film) and bringing an end to James bond for EIGHT YEARS, leading people to believe that they had witnessed THE DEATH OF JAMES BOND DOUBLE-OH-SEVEN!!!!!!!!OMGROFL!!!!!
Since the times of Roger Moore EOn had had their eyes on an actor known as Pierce Brosnan, but who'd always been busy at the wrong time to fill the widely desired role.
However, Brosnan came into the picture at the right time to produce 'Goldeneye' and go on to rack up a current total of 4 films, reinstating the swathe unshakable sophistication that made James Bond so popular and unique world-wide.
So lets review:
Connery (6+1 films, highly successful)
Lazenby (1 film, oops)
Moore (7 films, highly succesful)
Dalton (2 films, oops)
Brosnan (4 films, successful)
Craig (plenty of potential for disaster, but Bond will survive, I think we can be sure of that)
As for 'Casino Royale', I was personally rather pleased that EON would be taking on that for the next film, it, in effect, gives them a chance to repair the damage that was done to Bond so early on. I doubt they'll be copying the previous film, rather taking it back to the book and working up from there. And hey, if it's another mess-up, well there'll always be another bad guy threatening global destruction and so on for a new Bond to flatten. Who knows, Connery might even take up the role once more for his next last film.
So no worries (as long as they don't have Tom Jones sing the theme tune).
Go optimism!
Last edited by Splat; 04-03-2006 at 03:28 AM..
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The Death of James Bond 007
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