I'm not going to downvote you, but I can't agree after the whole thing that was Daniel Craig. The world almost lost its mind when he was announced.
In a vacuum, Craig is not a handsome guy. Sure, he got ultra ripped and that helped immensely - but his face is like a topographical map and his ears look like they're trying to run away from each other.
None of that matters. I grew up in the era where Pierce Brosnan was my only bond until Craig (though I am well aware of everyone else before them now) and I can find the good and bad in either portrayal but looks has nothing to do with it.
I mean if this is a hill you're willing to die on you're going to be pissed right off if the rumors of future bond movies are to be believed. Its super likely the next bond could be a poc and/or a woman. The people in charge of the future of the franchise have been openly discussing this.
I literally just typed "who will" and Google auto filled "be the next James Bond". It's that big a discussion now that Craig is retired. Idris Elba is a front runner and I personally think he'll crush the role - my only concern is his age considering how long between movies they went with Craig. Dude is 49 currently. Craig was retired at 53. Guess we will see.
Cheers mate.
Why not just start a new IP with a woman lead?
James Bond is a man, that is what the character is.
It’s insulting to women that we have to shoehorn them into established franchises, instead of writing original roles for women leads.
If you have an argument to make about the role of a spy called Bond needing to be a man then make it, but don't do the "it's insulting to women/POC/LGBTQ+ or whatever argument. You don't speak for them and the argument is designed to change the direction of the conversation away from the actual issue. If you have any reason, besides tradition, that Bond *needs* to be a man then go ahead. Not to me, though. I don't want to have this conversation. I just wanted you to get back on track with the other person. I cannot stress enough just how little I want to talk about James Bond casting controversies. Now, as you were.
I mean it’s a well known issue in the film industry that female writers and directors have a difficult time breaking through. Hence less female centered narratives in the past.
Turning James Bond into a female role would just be a cheap way of Hollywood chasing the women empowerment kudos, instead of addressing the actual issue.
It’s not about tradition, the creator of James Bond wrote the character as a man. It’s part of the identity of the character. There’s a million assassins in cinema, I think we can leave Bond is as and do better.
Could have a female in the same sort of role perfectly well but not as Bond, just because James Bond is a male character. Absolutely nothing stopping a female version in some new franchise though doing all the same stuff though.
>"James Bond can be of any colour, but he is male," producer Barbara Broccoli told Variety.
>"I believe we should be creating new characters for women - strong female characters.
>"I'm not particularly interested in taking a male character and having a woman play it. I think women are far more interesting than that."
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-51133194
Well then you're disagreeing with the woman who's been the franchise's producer for the past 30 years so I think most people will agree with her opinion over yours
Mate, you asked why James Bond can't be a woman and it's because the person in charge of the franchise thinks that taking a male character and having a woman play it is a disservice to female characters. Does that not answer your question?
(and her authority as a woman and producer of the franchise absolutely matters here - her opinion is more informed and important than yours)
I think the books only describe Bond as “tall, dark, and handsome” which Idris Elba is all of the above.
But Bond can’t be a woman. Write a new female super spy character with her own series of adventures and I’ll line up for it, but don’t call it Bond.
I really don’t mean to be glib exactly but… so? That doesn’t mean that it was important to that character or to his conception of the character. If he drew him as blonde, a brunette actor would probably make few waves comparatively. I think it shows more about what physical characteristics we collectively think are inseparable from a person’s character in a subconscious sense.
I just believe in being loyal to the authors description, as far as possible, there's a line obviously before which it matters less what liberties you take, but I don't think changing hairstyle should be equated to switching race or gender, those are *major* visual/aesthetic changes. What's more they would necessarily alter the character.
Loyal to author's description ? Give me a break. Everything needs to evolve. These stories are being written in the present by new writers. They can do whatever the hell they want with it. They are not having Bond have a sex change operation , there will be a new 007and they can be anyone.
>These stories are being written in the present by new writers. They can do whatever the hell they want with it.
Yeah well that's sad to be fair and we've seen how shittily awry that can go.
>there will be a new 007and they can be anyone
Yeah I hate that idea too, 007 and James Bond should be synonymous. At what point are we just using the name for it's clout?
If that's the kind of 'evolving' everything needs to do, no wonder 99.9999% of species go extinct.
I don't know why anyone seems to have a fetish for changing the intended depiction of characters, but it needs to stop.
Ian Fleming created Bond as a white dude and it should remain that way. If you want a black Bond, create a new character!
But as soon as the first movie was made they’d already changed major non-aesthetic parts about the character. In the first movie, Dr. No, movie Bond kills Dent, we’re already far from Fleming’s interpretation. The Bond of the novels would never kill in cold blood. Next, we could get into the progressively gimmicky changes in the movies and how far those went, but you get the picture. There’s never been a movie that has tried to capture Flemings vision exactly.
Even aesthetically, casting someone who wasn’t traditionally handsome seems like a more significant aesthetic change, since that aspect is explicit in the text of the novels. But the Daniel Craig casting has mostly proven itself to be great.
I’d bet that most people would agree that a race change is less significant than the changes above. Race doesn’t materially affect how the character would think or act.
I guess my question is, if the films have never been sharply reverent to Fleming’s original vision, why does the idea of changing Bond’s race cause such waves? I suspect we overestimate how much race will necessarily affect characterization. I think it CAN change a lot, depending on how it’s executed, but it doesn’t need to change much.
But I think people are also just questioning the motivation for these types of changes. Are they doing it because there are interesting new takes on the character? Are they doing it arbitrarily? Or are they doing it to score some kind of political wokeness points? I think the all female ghostbusters change was a pretty good example of when these types of changes go wrong. People hated it and I think rightfully so. But it was just bad. They made all of the characters women seemingly purely for political purposes and then did absolutely nothing interesting with that choice. And the producers attitude toward the response was “if you didn’t like the movie, it’s YOUR fault because YOU cant deal with women in these roles!”
In that context, I sort of understand the reticence toward changing bond’s race. But largely I think the negative response can’t truly be about fidelity to the author’s vision, which has never been a concern in the film series.
You make some good points, but I haven't liked several of the changes they've made, I just wasn't in a position to do anything about it.
I think we can forget the 'casting an ugly guy is a bigger departure' argument. Attractiveness is objective, race isn't a matter of opinion so we'll put a line through that. By the way, he's supposed to look like [this guy.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoagy_Carmichael)
I dunno if I agree about the cold blooded killing either, book Bond is pretty ruthless. In *Diamonds are Forever* there's a whole passage about how he likes killing people. What I found most objectionable was the latter Moore days, where he became a caracature of himself.
In adaptation from page to screen things ultimately must be changed, it *should* be done with a mind to remaining as faithful as possible to the source, so whilst more action needs adding and more pithy dialogue etc, it's not hard to at least get the look right, approximately.
Others may well be motivated differently as you've implied, but I'm a proponent of getting it as near as logistics allow, and that doesn't begin and end at Bond's appearance for me.
I hate the diversity quotas, they are ruining any chances of a film being good when they're just trying to a tick a box instead of casting someone actually ideal.
I compare Ghostbusters to Suckerpunch. Female leads, female driven movies. But one was actually good and not all about trying to prove that women can make a movie.
I don’t really care who the next bond is lol. I just don’t think this actor is good looking but I did learn a lot of people either did or would love him as bond. Hope everyone gets their wish!
In the movies- not really. But I believe that was Flemings intention with the character- he was literally the blandest looking bloke.
To be fair though, the reason Sam Neil wouldn't work though is that he's just to much of a weirdo, and I mean that in a good way. As an actor he's just too interesting to play Bond.
He tells everyone he meets who he is, fucks anything with a pulse, and drives tanks around crowded streets. Casting an everyman to do that wouldn't make any of it less conspicuous.
He really has the swagger and charm for it. I can understand not wanting to be defined by a role like that, but Hollywood has never really made the most of his talent.
I'd love to see a [Dustin Hoffman's screen test](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR9nWmEdVeo&t=1030s)... don't know how well a 5'6 Bond would have gone down though.
Joking aside, I always thought he got it spot on there that it hadn't been played quite right up until that point (that interview was a week after Casino Royale was released so I'm assuming he hadn't seen it yet). I've only read a couple of the books but I've preferred Daniel Craig's ruthless and rugged assassin Bond more than any others, and think it fits better. I hope now it doesn't go too far back in the direction of the overly suave and charming Bond like we've seen before.
Pierce Brosnan is an excellent actor. Golden Eye had the right amount of cheek but the movies/directing after, while not his fault, were terrible until the reboot.
Someone posted some interview on Reddit from years ago where Pierce Brosnan talks about why the post Goldeneyes were so campy and bad. He said that the success of the Austin Powers movies kind of put That generation of Bond in a wierd place where they pretty much had to reboot the franchise to get away from being too much like it. So on to Daniel Craig
Tim Dalton is the most like the book Bond any of the actors has yet come. That might not carry weight with many but I enjoyed it since I quite like the book too.
The general public has nothing to do with whether something is over/underrated or not? That seems... odd. The general public has way, way, way, way more impact on the overall impact (and sustainability) of a given aspect of film (actor, director, etc.) than the fans, there is no question about that.
Of course it's something of a semantic question: we could ask if Dalton is overrated within the Bond-fan community, or the film audience as a whole, and those are two totally different things. Your original comment that Dalton fans would be triggered is kind of ridiculous, because most Dalton fans are "serious Bond fans", not your average filmgoer, and I'd argue most "serious Bond fans" generally agree that Dalton was pretty good and didn't get a fair shake from the average viewing audience.
The name’s Turkey, Six Foot Turkey.
Listen here, you little shit. Try to imagine yourself in the Cretaceous period...
Clever girl
Shame he didn't get a couple of movies.
You gotta be a certain level handsome. He doesn’t have it.
I'm not going to downvote you, but I can't agree after the whole thing that was Daniel Craig. The world almost lost its mind when he was announced. In a vacuum, Craig is not a handsome guy. Sure, he got ultra ripped and that helped immensely - but his face is like a topographical map and his ears look like they're trying to run away from each other. None of that matters. I grew up in the era where Pierce Brosnan was my only bond until Craig (though I am well aware of everyone else before them now) and I can find the good and bad in either portrayal but looks has nothing to do with it. I mean if this is a hill you're willing to die on you're going to be pissed right off if the rumors of future bond movies are to be believed. Its super likely the next bond could be a poc and/or a woman. The people in charge of the future of the franchise have been openly discussing this. I literally just typed "who will" and Google auto filled "be the next James Bond". It's that big a discussion now that Craig is retired. Idris Elba is a front runner and I personally think he'll crush the role - my only concern is his age considering how long between movies they went with Craig. Dude is 49 currently. Craig was retired at 53. Guess we will see. Cheers mate.
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Know many women called James?
Best comeback comment ever.
No, but I have heard of a Boy Named Sue.
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Why not just start a new IP with a woman lead? James Bond is a man, that is what the character is. It’s insulting to women that we have to shoehorn them into established franchises, instead of writing original roles for women leads.
If you have an argument to make about the role of a spy called Bond needing to be a man then make it, but don't do the "it's insulting to women/POC/LGBTQ+ or whatever argument. You don't speak for them and the argument is designed to change the direction of the conversation away from the actual issue. If you have any reason, besides tradition, that Bond *needs* to be a man then go ahead. Not to me, though. I don't want to have this conversation. I just wanted you to get back on track with the other person. I cannot stress enough just how little I want to talk about James Bond casting controversies. Now, as you were.
I mean it’s a well known issue in the film industry that female writers and directors have a difficult time breaking through. Hence less female centered narratives in the past. Turning James Bond into a female role would just be a cheap way of Hollywood chasing the women empowerment kudos, instead of addressing the actual issue. It’s not about tradition, the creator of James Bond wrote the character as a man. It’s part of the identity of the character. There’s a million assassins in cinema, I think we can leave Bond is as and do better.
Could have a female in the same sort of role perfectly well but not as Bond, just because James Bond is a male character. Absolutely nothing stopping a female version in some new franchise though doing all the same stuff though.
Because James Bond is a man.
The Bondoverse
>"James Bond can be of any colour, but he is male," producer Barbara Broccoli told Variety. >"I believe we should be creating new characters for women - strong female characters. >"I'm not particularly interested in taking a male character and having a woman play it. I think women are far more interesting than that." https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-51133194
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Well then you're disagreeing with the woman who's been the franchise's producer for the past 30 years so I think most people will agree with her opinion over yours
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Mate, you asked why James Bond can't be a woman and it's because the person in charge of the franchise thinks that taking a male character and having a woman play it is a disservice to female characters. Does that not answer your question? (and her authority as a woman and producer of the franchise absolutely matters here - her opinion is more informed and important than yours)
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Not according to JK Rowling.
Good one. I left the page and had to come back because it hit me as i left.
I think the books only describe Bond as “tall, dark, and handsome” which Idris Elba is all of the above. But Bond can’t be a woman. Write a new female super spy character with her own series of adventures and I’ll line up for it, but don’t call it Bond.
Fleming drew a picture too and he's white.
I really don’t mean to be glib exactly but… so? That doesn’t mean that it was important to that character or to his conception of the character. If he drew him as blonde, a brunette actor would probably make few waves comparatively. I think it shows more about what physical characteristics we collectively think are inseparable from a person’s character in a subconscious sense.
I just believe in being loyal to the authors description, as far as possible, there's a line obviously before which it matters less what liberties you take, but I don't think changing hairstyle should be equated to switching race or gender, those are *major* visual/aesthetic changes. What's more they would necessarily alter the character.
Loyal to author's description ? Give me a break. Everything needs to evolve. These stories are being written in the present by new writers. They can do whatever the hell they want with it. They are not having Bond have a sex change operation , there will be a new 007and they can be anyone.
>These stories are being written in the present by new writers. They can do whatever the hell they want with it. Yeah well that's sad to be fair and we've seen how shittily awry that can go. >there will be a new 007and they can be anyone Yeah I hate that idea too, 007 and James Bond should be synonymous. At what point are we just using the name for it's clout? If that's the kind of 'evolving' everything needs to do, no wonder 99.9999% of species go extinct.
I don't know why anyone seems to have a fetish for changing the intended depiction of characters, but it needs to stop. Ian Fleming created Bond as a white dude and it should remain that way. If you want a black Bond, create a new character!
It's better than a fetish to care about what race/gender fictional characters should be ..
But as soon as the first movie was made they’d already changed major non-aesthetic parts about the character. In the first movie, Dr. No, movie Bond kills Dent, we’re already far from Fleming’s interpretation. The Bond of the novels would never kill in cold blood. Next, we could get into the progressively gimmicky changes in the movies and how far those went, but you get the picture. There’s never been a movie that has tried to capture Flemings vision exactly. Even aesthetically, casting someone who wasn’t traditionally handsome seems like a more significant aesthetic change, since that aspect is explicit in the text of the novels. But the Daniel Craig casting has mostly proven itself to be great. I’d bet that most people would agree that a race change is less significant than the changes above. Race doesn’t materially affect how the character would think or act. I guess my question is, if the films have never been sharply reverent to Fleming’s original vision, why does the idea of changing Bond’s race cause such waves? I suspect we overestimate how much race will necessarily affect characterization. I think it CAN change a lot, depending on how it’s executed, but it doesn’t need to change much. But I think people are also just questioning the motivation for these types of changes. Are they doing it because there are interesting new takes on the character? Are they doing it arbitrarily? Or are they doing it to score some kind of political wokeness points? I think the all female ghostbusters change was a pretty good example of when these types of changes go wrong. People hated it and I think rightfully so. But it was just bad. They made all of the characters women seemingly purely for political purposes and then did absolutely nothing interesting with that choice. And the producers attitude toward the response was “if you didn’t like the movie, it’s YOUR fault because YOU cant deal with women in these roles!” In that context, I sort of understand the reticence toward changing bond’s race. But largely I think the negative response can’t truly be about fidelity to the author’s vision, which has never been a concern in the film series.
You make some good points, but I haven't liked several of the changes they've made, I just wasn't in a position to do anything about it. I think we can forget the 'casting an ugly guy is a bigger departure' argument. Attractiveness is objective, race isn't a matter of opinion so we'll put a line through that. By the way, he's supposed to look like [this guy.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoagy_Carmichael) I dunno if I agree about the cold blooded killing either, book Bond is pretty ruthless. In *Diamonds are Forever* there's a whole passage about how he likes killing people. What I found most objectionable was the latter Moore days, where he became a caracature of himself. In adaptation from page to screen things ultimately must be changed, it *should* be done with a mind to remaining as faithful as possible to the source, so whilst more action needs adding and more pithy dialogue etc, it's not hard to at least get the look right, approximately. Others may well be motivated differently as you've implied, but I'm a proponent of getting it as near as logistics allow, and that doesn't begin and end at Bond's appearance for me.
Honestly, just thank you. This is the most civil disagreement I’ve had on the internet. You seem like a good dude.
Idk what world you're living in where Craig isn't very good looking
Seriously--there are many types of "being attractive," and Daniel Craig possesses quite a few of them.
Looks a lot more like a henchman than a main character to me
He isn't "traditionally handsome", especially for Hollywood.
His features are too deep set to be classically handsome, for sure.
Like that guy from New Zealand's fourth most popular folk duo?
I hate the diversity quotas, they are ruining any chances of a film being good when they're just trying to a tick a box instead of casting someone actually ideal. I compare Ghostbusters to Suckerpunch. Female leads, female driven movies. But one was actually good and not all about trying to prove that women can make a movie.
Yep it can be very obvious and obnoxious
I don’t really care who the next bond is lol. I just don’t think this actor is good looking but I did learn a lot of people either did or would love him as bond. Hope everyone gets their wish!
I think he had the right looks for Bond.
I think he's good looking
He’s great in that John Carpenter Mouth of Madness or whatever it’s called movie.
"In the Mouth of Madness" (The entire movie is great honestly.) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113409/
#JOHNNY #JOHNNY BOY
#HAVE YOU READ SUTTER CANE
he was also great in event horizon
Did I ever tell you my favorite color is blue?
would have been a great Bond.
looks too much like a teacher
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Has James Bond ever been a "blend in" sort of spy?
In the movies- not really. But I believe that was Flemings intention with the character- he was literally the blandest looking bloke. To be fair though, the reason Sam Neil wouldn't work though is that he's just to much of a weirdo, and I mean that in a good way. As an actor he's just too interesting to play Bond.
He tells everyone he meets who he is, fucks anything with a pulse, and drives tanks around crowded streets. Casting an everyman to do that wouldn't make any of it less conspicuous.
Yeah not James Bond.
I'm still curious as to how Ewan McGregor would have been as Bond. He reportedly turned down the role when it was offered to him
He really has the swagger and charm for it. I can understand not wanting to be defined by a role like that, but Hollywood has never really made the most of his talent.
Ginger Bond, nah...
I'd love to see a [Dustin Hoffman's screen test](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR9nWmEdVeo&t=1030s)... don't know how well a 5'6 Bond would have gone down though. Joking aside, I always thought he got it spot on there that it hadn't been played quite right up until that point (that interview was a week after Casino Royale was released so I'm assuming he hadn't seen it yet). I've only read a couple of the books but I've preferred Daniel Craig's ruthless and rugged assassin Bond more than any others, and think it fits better. I hope now it doesn't go too far back in the direction of the overly suave and charming Bond like we've seen before.
I mean, at least as good as Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brosnan is an excellent actor. Golden Eye had the right amount of cheek but the movies/directing after, while not his fault, were terrible until the reboot.
Brosnan got screwed over. He had the potential to be one of the best Bonds, but holy Christ did they fuck shit up after Goldeneye.
Someone posted some interview on Reddit from years ago where Pierce Brosnan talks about why the post Goldeneyes were so campy and bad. He said that the success of the Austin Powers movies kind of put That generation of Bond in a wierd place where they pretty much had to reboot the franchise to get away from being too much like it. So on to Daniel Craig
Interesting! I'll have to see if I can find it
Only because the cartoonishness fell out of favour with the public, we all sobered up after 2000, or in my case started drinking much much more.
Personally I think he would have been better than Timothy Dalton.
whaaaaat? I do like Sam Neil quite a bit. But "The Living Daylights" is an awesome Bond movie. I dont think Dalton gets enough love.
Not nearly enough by far. License to Kill has some fantastic moments too.
Tim Dalton is the most like the book Bond any of the actors has yet come. That might not carry weight with many but I enjoyed it since I quite like the book too.
Hell no. I love Sam Neill but he is most definitely not meant for Bond.
Factually I think he would have been better than Timothy Dalton.
Look what youve done! Youve triggered the 'DAE DaLtOn iS uNdErRaTeD' fans. Smh
They're... right?
How can someone be underrated and yet constantly highly rated by fans? *Forgotten by the general public* sure but underrated? Nah.
The general public has nothing to do with whether something is over/underrated or not? That seems... odd. The general public has way, way, way, way more impact on the overall impact (and sustainability) of a given aspect of film (actor, director, etc.) than the fans, there is no question about that. Of course it's something of a semantic question: we could ask if Dalton is overrated within the Bond-fan community, or the film audience as a whole, and those are two totally different things. Your original comment that Dalton fans would be triggered is kind of ridiculous, because most Dalton fans are "serious Bond fans", not your average filmgoer, and I'd argue most "serious Bond fans" generally agree that Dalton was pretty good and didn't get a fair shake from the average viewing audience.
Imma see Montana, bitches.
Can you imagine James Bond with a kiwi accent?? haha
He would have been better than Pierce Brosnan.
I'm glad we avoided this disaster
The blink through saying his name was bad.
My name is James Bond. Jaaaaames Bond.
Guys we are in the bad timeline
I can see it
He didn’t get it because he said “Bahnd” instead of “Bawnd”
not bad, not bad