Dalton took over from a popular actor & did a damn good job, but he had the bad luck of being twenty years ahead of his time. As has been said many times, it's a crying shame Dalton couldn't have had a third shot with the shoulder-holster.
All true, no matter what Bondtoys says! )
P.S. You do realize, don't you, that the phrase "crying shame" will just ignite a "misty-eyes" rant? )
My only slight disappointment with the film is this.
I was 23 at the time it came out, Bond fan since '71, and though I loved the RM films, I wanted a tough Bond in the Connery mode. So when I heard TD had been picked to replace Sir Rog, I was excited by the possibility, as he certainly looked the part in the press conference photos.
So the film came around, I think I saw it just after Top Gun - the epitome of cool. And here was Bond, in all his glory, back on the big screen.
The PTS of TLD was fantastic. The way Bond was introduced was brilliant. But somewhere along the line I wasn't convinced by his toughness. The way he barges the soldier out of the way in the PTS looked, ummm, a bit weak almost (forgive me). And the fight in the jail cell, just didnt look realistic. Plus - minor point- the Bond of the novels and the previous incarnations of Bond imo all portrayed a man with exquisite tailoring and TD's suits looked a bit crumpled for some reason.
Of course the action sequences were - and still are- superb, the dialogue is good, and he looks like Bond. It's just that I wanted either the tough hand-to-hand combat Bond of Connery or Lazenby, or the suave panache and charismatic Bond of Moore, and felt I didn't quite get either.
Now I'm not Dalton-bashing, it's just a personal opinion, and having rewatched LTK recently I do agree it was ahead of its time. But it wasn't until I saw Brozzer as Bond in Goldeneye that I felt we had the Bond I had been waiting for.
If I was able to chose my favourite Bond Movie from each Actor then The Living Daylights would be my choice for Dalton - might be difficult for Lazenby though - .
From Gibraltar to the Afghan Desert scenes and the Concert scene at the end The Living Daylights is a great James Bond Cold War Thriller. Even has an Aston Martin which was a bonus.
He crazyness of the fanatic Timboys goes so far that they only realize the better part in their idol's movies.
Dalton said that his interpretation would be a hard - edged Bond but it was at the end more a wimpy schoolboy what came out with an at best a self-conflicted note which totally lacks Connerys or Moores self-confidence (admittedly the Fleming Bond was like that but not weepy )
If Moore for example would have brought the "salt corrosion line", the Dalton fanboys would go 8-) - Dalton in their opinion did it cool.
Realistic - down to eath? What happened then with the policemen's legs when the laser cut them in pieces?
What is simply laughable is that weaker parts of the Dalton movies " have been done with Moore still in mind" and the better parts have been invented by Dalton at least.
That I wanted to emphasize with my sarcastic note.
I confess I do not have as much vested emotional interest in the EON series as I do the novels - as much as I enjoy them. Though they do their best to keep Fleming's creation alive in spirit, they have to trade off the bits they feel might not fly at the box office, because the bottom line is all commercial film is a profit and not a not-for-profit business.
Though I do not consider myself a "fanboy" of any of the actors who have played Bond, I do have preferences in relation to how close physically they appear to the original. Dalton for me (since Lazenby) was the first to have the dark cruel looks I saw when reading the novels. I could never picture Connery, as much as I tried, because no amount of "dressing up" in clothes or manners by Terence Young disguised the fact he had been a bodybuilder/lorry driver. Moore was okay, but he didn't look anything like a pirate (the way Bond was described once in the novels). Brosnan had Bond's build and right height and weight and he was fine, but again he was a little to "model handsome" like Moore to convince me he could be cruel.
Now Craig. He's under six feet and has fair hair (though so did Rog in the last films) but his serious take on the role and his light middleweight to heavyweight boxer build (Bond did boxing and judo) and what I consider cruel - not model good looks have me in his corner as Bond.
I put all that out first to show my preferences in relation to the actors. Dalton my not be everyone's cup of tea in his take on the character and
some may nitpick at any of the actors particular look or acting in the films, but for me I felt a sense of relief when I first saw TLD after years of Moore and EON's schizophrenic writing with his films (parody?serious?parody?serious?).
The only moments I felt a little let down by Tim was when he was trying to be flippant with the bad one liner's (like the salt corrosion line), but I forgave him because the writer's were trying to keep that light irreverent tone they had done to the extreme in the Moore films and it just seemed glaringly out of place coming from Dalton and in relation to the seriousness of the plots.
When I mention the irreverent tone and bad puns in the Moore films I'm not blaming Moore for this. I enjoyed his performances and thought he did a fine job in his interpretation (and the writer's). No,I blame EON as a whole for taking the series too many times to the almost parody like take on Fleming's work since they were now just making up the plots in a template like fashion (cue the supercriminal/martini/Aston/Q/blowing up the lair, etc.).
When they decided to do a "light" reboot with Dalton, they went a little more real in terms of plot and character, but still were too afraid of losing box office by jettisoning the mediocre wit and scifi weapons from the previous films. That's why we still got the laser cutting the police car scene and the bad salt corrosion line and Q's "ghetto blaster". They would work in an entry like DAF or TSWLM but just seemed out of place with Dalton and the whole Soviet/Afghanistan plot (at least to me). At least they finally ditched the supercriminal remakes of GF and YOLT. That is why I would disagree that Dalton was "cool" with the puns. I don't think any of the actors come across as great or stylish or awesome by having to speak the bad puns the writers insist on putting in the dialogue. I can take it once or twice in the whole film if they're actually witty and done right ("I think they were on their way to a funeral" -DN or "no chocolate?" -CR). Actually, I prefer the humor to be just within the scene as opposed to a single line quoteable pun:
Bond: I read your obituary of me.
M: And?
Bond: Appalling.
M: Yeah, I knew you'd hate it. I did call you "an exemplar of British fortitude".
Comments
All true, no matter what Bondtoys says!
P.S. You do realize, don't you, that the phrase "crying shame" will just ignite a "misty-eyes" rant?
No, I am staying strong!
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
I was 23 at the time it came out, Bond fan since '71, and though I loved the RM films, I wanted a tough Bond in the Connery mode. So when I heard TD had been picked to replace Sir Rog, I was excited by the possibility, as he certainly looked the part in the press conference photos.
So the film came around, I think I saw it just after Top Gun - the epitome of cool. And here was Bond, in all his glory, back on the big screen.
The PTS of TLD was fantastic. The way Bond was introduced was brilliant. But somewhere along the line I wasn't convinced by his toughness. The way he barges the soldier out of the way in the PTS looked, ummm, a bit weak almost (forgive me). And the fight in the jail cell, just didnt look realistic. Plus - minor point- the Bond of the novels and the previous incarnations of Bond imo all portrayed a man with exquisite tailoring and TD's suits looked a bit crumpled for some reason.
Of course the action sequences were - and still are- superb, the dialogue is good, and he looks like Bond. It's just that I wanted either the tough hand-to-hand combat Bond of Connery or Lazenby, or the suave panache and charismatic Bond of Moore, and felt I didn't quite get either.
Now I'm not Dalton-bashing, it's just a personal opinion, and having rewatched LTK recently I do agree it was ahead of its time. But it wasn't until I saw Brozzer as Bond in Goldeneye that I felt we had the Bond I had been waiting for.
From Gibraltar to the Afghan Desert scenes and the Concert scene at the end The Living Daylights is a great James Bond Cold War Thriller. Even has an Aston Martin which was a bonus.
I would have liked to see Michael K. Williams (Omar from the Wire) as Tubbs and perhaps Bradley Cooper as Crocket.