The 80s (and beyond) Bond Rival: Jack Ryan
Barbel
ScotlandPosts: 38,077Chief of Staff
JACK RYAN
The creation of Tom Clancy (1947-2013), Jack Ryan first appeared in the novel The Hunt For Red October in 1984 and is still being written about today, albeit by other writers (the exact point at which Clancy began using ghostwriters is debatable).
Ryan isn’t much like James Bond, and deliberately so. He’s a happily married family man who rarely uses a gun and does much of his work in the corridors of power being actively involved in politics. Still, he can take care of himself in a fight and leap in and out of helicopters if necessary- at least in his younger years, for he ages in an approximation of real time which is another difference from Our Man. These days, his son Jack Jr does the secret agent stuff while Jack Sr sits in the White House.
The Ryan stories are far more overtly political in their plots and backgrounds than most of Bond’s adventures, often involving expies of real-life political figures (eg Osama bin Laden, Vladimir Putin). These plots are usually simplified or greatly altered for the films.
The first actor to play Ryan was Alec Baldwin in The Hunt For Red October in 1990 although arguably he was greatly overshadowed by his co-star, an Oscar-winning Scottish actor not unknown to anyone liable to be reading this. The film was a success and it looked likely that Baldwin would return for the next film in the series. At this point, stories differ as to how Baldwin lost the part (some say he asked for too much money*; some say he went off on another project at an awkward time) and Harrison Ford replaced him for the next two films Patriot Games (with Sean Bean as the villain) and Clear And Present Danger.
(The actor Ford is talking to is Samuel L. Jackson)
Again, both were financial successes but it took eight years to get around to the next The Sum Of All Fears. Ford declined to return and Ryan was played by Ben Affleck. Again this was a success, but it took a further twelve years (!) before the next film Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit starring Chris Pine as Ryan was made.
Eight years between film 3 and 4... twelve years between films 4 and 5... makes you glad to be a Bond fan!
* One story is that Baldwin asked for an outrageous fee to play Ryan again, and the producer Mace Neufeld said "For that kind of money I could get Harrison Ford!"- so he did.
The creation of Tom Clancy (1947-2013), Jack Ryan first appeared in the novel The Hunt For Red October in 1984 and is still being written about today, albeit by other writers (the exact point at which Clancy began using ghostwriters is debatable).
Ryan isn’t much like James Bond, and deliberately so. He’s a happily married family man who rarely uses a gun and does much of his work in the corridors of power being actively involved in politics. Still, he can take care of himself in a fight and leap in and out of helicopters if necessary- at least in his younger years, for he ages in an approximation of real time which is another difference from Our Man. These days, his son Jack Jr does the secret agent stuff while Jack Sr sits in the White House.
The Ryan stories are far more overtly political in their plots and backgrounds than most of Bond’s adventures, often involving expies of real-life political figures (eg Osama bin Laden, Vladimir Putin). These plots are usually simplified or greatly altered for the films.
The first actor to play Ryan was Alec Baldwin in The Hunt For Red October in 1990 although arguably he was greatly overshadowed by his co-star, an Oscar-winning Scottish actor not unknown to anyone liable to be reading this. The film was a success and it looked likely that Baldwin would return for the next film in the series. At this point, stories differ as to how Baldwin lost the part (some say he asked for too much money*; some say he went off on another project at an awkward time) and Harrison Ford replaced him for the next two films Patriot Games (with Sean Bean as the villain) and Clear And Present Danger.
(The actor Ford is talking to is Samuel L. Jackson)Again, both were financial successes but it took eight years to get around to the next The Sum Of All Fears. Ford declined to return and Ryan was played by Ben Affleck. Again this was a success, but it took a further twelve years (!) before the next film Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit starring Chris Pine as Ryan was made.
Eight years between film 3 and 4... twelve years between films 4 and 5... makes you glad to be a Bond fan!
* One story is that Baldwin asked for an outrageous fee to play Ryan again, and the producer Mace Neufeld said "For that kind of money I could get Harrison Ford!"- so he did.
Comments
Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger were my favorites, not necessarily because Harrison Ford played Ryan, but because I read the novels before the films came out and wanted to see what Holly Would do with them. I enjoyed them both.
I didn't pay much attention to The Sum of All Fears. I watched it once, read the book and promptly forgot about it. I read some commentary about the sensitivity of Americans at the time delayed the release of Sum of All Fears due to the terrorist bombings in the opening scenes but that would have only meant months.
Also, I must have been living under a rock, but I enjoyed Shadow Recruit and never knew it was a Clancy book.
Ah, I didn't make that clear: it isn't. It's an original story based on Clancy's characters.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
and Wasn't available for the next film ?
Apart from one
a very absorbing story. I have seen all the films loved the hunt for red October
( although oddly enough the October revolution, took place in November)
Along with the Harrison Ford's, Ben Affleck's film was OK but the last movie with
Chris Pine was a bit of a disappointment.
Not Indy, no...I read most of them before the films so didn't visualize anybody really...
I've appreciated Affleck as Ryan but his movies could not excite me anymore.
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
superb cast they got for each film. Apart from Ben Affleck
Obviously.
Agreed, the Ryan films have been filled with top stars/excellent actors (Connery, Ford, Morgan Freeman, Willem Dafoe, Samuel L. Jackson, Sam Neill, Kevin Costner... the list goes on) and of course Ben Affleck as well, as you say.
In this they're similar to the Batman movies, which are also star-heavy, and differ from the Bonds. I can't recall the exact quote, but Broccoli or Wilson said that they prefer things their way- ie, only occasional use of established stars outside of their Bond actor (who has usually become a top star through playing Bond anyway).
I really enjoyed the Hunt for red October although like yourself mainly because of the Connery connection.
Peter Firth one of my favourite British actors (and who went on to star in the TV series Spooks as head of SIS) played a Russian Officer, only a small role as I think Connery kills him early on in the plot.
I like the Jack Ryan films and novels although they get really deep in detail. In Patriot games there's what seems to be a whole chapter on why Concorde was smaller crossing the Atlantic one way as against the return journey, very technical.
"Do you expect me to talk? "No Mister Bond I expect you to die"
I could easily name at least 10 other rivals for Bond from the 1960s. Perhaps Barbel will get around to them.
Sum of all Fears ,crap, changing the middle eastern terrorists to Nazis, come on
Shadow recruit , I watched it but can't remember a thing about it.
I'm not doing these in any particular order, just as the fancy takes me, and only on those characters I know a bit about and wouldn't have to research.
I read somewhere that Kevin Costner was the original choice to play Ryan in The Hunt For Red October but he turned it down to do Dances With Wolves. Costner would have been perfect for Ryan as Ryan is basically an all American overgrown boy scout.
Baldwin did a good job in THFRO and if he got blown away by Connery what actor wouldn't. What chance would any actor have against someone playing a Russian submarine captain with a great wig and a Scottish Accent.
Harrison Ford was great as Ryan. No-one does integrity like Harrison Ford. Ford got Ryan just right. An everyman who is basically an analysis pushed against his will by circumstances into situations where he has to be an action man.
Ben Affleck and Chris Pine never managed to convey this. They looked to comfortable with the fact they were getting into fights and carrying out missions.
TSOAF suffered from the fact it was a reboot. It didn't need to be. They should have had a new actor continueing the part and stuck closer to the novel.
Its hard to say what went wrong with Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit. It was a decent enough movie but it just didn't quite do it. I read an interview with Chris Pine where he admitted that they didn't get it right and it wasn't good enough to re-start the franchise.
No doubt there will be another Jack Ryan reboot sometime in the future with a different leading man.
I've seen most of the Jack Ryan films, so I have some background to the characters and the stories. One of the main things that has caused me to put off reading a Clancy novel for a long time is the length of his books. Typically I read books in 80,000-100,000 words range, such as the Bonds and tend not to stray far beyond this comfort zone. Most of Clancy's books are more than double that length. Nonetheless, I decided to give Patriot Games a try, and I found it to be a gripping read and I read it quite quickly. It certainly has given me the enthusiasm to pursue the Jack Ryan series further, and in a recent tour of second-hand bookshops in the Cape Town area, I have found copies of everything from The Hunt For Red October to Executive Orders.
I've just started The Hunt For Red October, which I am very excited about. I hope I will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Patriot Games.
However, looking at the film's alone, they're no competition to Bond. There nowhere near iconic, I'm sure of you asked an average person "Who has played Bond?", they'd go Connery, Moore, Brosnan and Craig. Ask that same person about Jack Ryan, and you'd be lucky if they said Harrison Ford.
It just seems like to me every film (except for CAPD) is a reboot. Patriot Games is like a soft reboot, then Sum of All Fears is a soft reboot, and then Shadow Recruit is of course a full on reboot.
My random thoughts: Having read Debt of Honor, 9/11 shocked me. When I first read Hunt for the Red October, I couldn't help but think how perfect Alec Baldwin was for the role, in terms of appearance and age, particularly the level of innocence he had at that age of Jack Ryan, which was 31, I believe. I know that Tom Clancy wasn't happy with the casting of Harrison Ford and I agree though I thought his installments were very entertaining.
I found it interesting how Tom Clancy imbued on his main character a kind of wish fulfillment, with a working class background though one who was upwardly mobile, whose inroad was military service and graduation from Annapolis, a stint on Wall Street (to explain for his comfortable, residual income), a doctorate (to match his physician wife) and scholarly career in history that would lead him to becoming an analyst in the CIA; a similar character is Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne, who was also from the intelligentsia class (like Jack Ryan) a professor and "connected" in the American intelligence hierarchy before he volunteered to become a lowly assassin. Though becoming President was the book series jumping the shark (not realizing that Teeth of the Tiger would come along!), it was cool and it's interesting how Kiefer Sutherland's new TV series, Designated Survivor, was practically ripped off from Tom Clancy.
Ahh, the other fictional agent with the initials, "JB" and not Jason Bourne!