Should Brosnan have done a 5th?
DieAnotherDay
Glasgow, ScotlandPosts: 460MI6 Agent
Let's face it, we are all in agreement that it wasn't really Pierce's fault that his last few scripts went completely off the rails and his performances were pretty damn consistent throughout his tenure.
IMO Spectre was a far less enjoyable outing than DAD in many regards, yet Craig is nailed on to play the famous agent in Bond 25. With Pierce being the only actor who was basically fired from the role completely against his will, do you lot feel he should have been given one last shot to redeem his status as 007?
Ive always believed that if the scripts were toned down and tightened up then it would surely all have been uphill for his 5th outing.
IMO Spectre was a far less enjoyable outing than DAD in many regards, yet Craig is nailed on to play the famous agent in Bond 25. With Pierce being the only actor who was basically fired from the role completely against his will, do you lot feel he should have been given one last shot to redeem his status as 007?
Ive always believed that if the scripts were toned down and tightened up then it would surely all have been uphill for his 5th outing.
....and the best he ever managed was a sermon on the mount.
Comments
It would have been really cool to see Bond back in New Orleans, like in that game ... especially that immense bike/tanker chase haha
I agree that rebooting the series was necessary, but what about a soft reboot like Moore got for FYEO? Brosnan could have stayed on, since MR and DAD are easily comparable. Both are over the top and both are the actors' fourth films. Brosnan was a bit younger than Moore in his 4th film, and he was not too old to make another couple of Bond films. Brosnan could have gotten his FYEO, and he would have been great if they filmed the CR story with Brosnan. If they wrote a script that stayed closer to the original novel, Brosnan would have been perfect for it.
Totally agree. CR is one of my favorites, but I do believe that Brozza did a bang up job as Bond. He ticked all the boxes as what to expect of a Bond actor. But he deserved a much better ending to his Bond tenure. GE is somewhat of a classic and TWINE is underrated. But he never got a chance to really have a great Bond story, with a classic villain and a great Bond girl.
Craig was definitely great in CR, but like you said, Brozza could have done it too. I was always kind of curious how Tarantino would have done CR with Brosnan as Bond. Could have been a totally 'different animal' but would have loved to have seen it.
1. Connery 2. Craig 3. Brosnan 4. Dalton 5. Lazenby 6. Moore
Yes.
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but could you tell us more about this Everything or Nothing, and how you figure it adds up to a fifth Brosnan adventure? are the characters actors who've been filmed, rather than 3d graphics? is there a plot substantial enough to have worked as a 2 hour film, if they'd chosen the more traditional medium?
do I need to break my no-video-games vow to complete my Bond-knowledge?
Yes, but it would have to have been in 2004 or so. It might even have been his best film of the lot if lessons had been learned from DAD and a return to a serious Bond plot and characterisation relying on a Fleming source.
Casino Royale would presumably be a completely different film with Brosnan, as it wouldn't have been a origin/prequel
I'd have preferred a soft reboot than what we got. Perhaps no reboot at all and just a shifting of tone. A Brosnan CR might have done that beautifully, and I certainly agree could have been done closer to the novel.
11 years on and the '06 CR is one of the Bonds I feel isn't quite holding up. The origin story/reboot concept is really gimmicky and dated. Had it not followed a current trend, and CR been done as another Bond assignment, the film could have been as timeless and re-watchable as FRWL or OHMSS. In fact it really should have been. I feel the deliberate placing of Craig in a separate timeline/universe/story arc has limited the series to such a degree, it's no wonder we've been discussing the possible EON sale of Bond post B25. I have never before felt that the next film in the series would most likely be the last as I do about B25, and although time will tell, if that proves true I believe the approach taken during the Craig era is to blame.
Brosnan most certainly should have had a 5th outing IMO, as his era embodied a sense of security in the franchise. The future of Bond felt in good hands with Brosnan. Although DAD was my least favorite, had he done a 5th I have no doubt there would have been the appropriate change in tone to accommodate the 21st century and Brosnan's contemporary Bond.
I agree that the reboot in CR feels gimmicky and is not so re-watchable, but I think we're in the minority. The character development in the film is incredibly fake and just feels tedious as part of the story. The whole movie feels and looks very dated to me. The colour scheme of the film (which was also used in the title sequence) is part of the problem, though since I'm a designer I'm probably bothered by that more than other people are. The only thing that holds up perfectly is David Arnold's score. His last two Brosnan scores really feel dated in comparison, but the music is still superb. A more normal mission up to the part of Bond's torture would have been a better way to pace the movie.
What was it about the color scheme did you not like? I preferred the color in the trailers to what was present in the final film actually. Almost more like the early Connery films. When I read the novel I envisioned FRWL like colors. Having seen decent 35mm prints of all the films (except TMWTGG) in the cinema, I'm also particular about the colors. Some Blu-ray and DVD transfers looking better than others.
It's rather yellow, but not as bad as Spectre's yellow tint. Spectre's yellow takes over all of the colours while CR's yellow is just a little emphasised, and in CR it's mostly the inside scenes that have this look. It looks like all of the scenes were filmed with my bedroom lamps. I think it's meant to give the film more of an old-world look without looking like an old film. The yellow is also over the black-and-white PTS, which I can't stand. I wish it were a true black-and-white. The title sequence has a lot of yellows and browns. With all of the playing cards in the title, I think something that more purely takes from the black, red and white from the cards would have given it a better, more timeless look.
Definitely! -{
I forgot to mention that I agree that the trailer looks better than the film does.
As for Brosnan in a 5th, physically he could've carried on but what we got instead was far better imo. A four-year gap to Casino Royale was well worth it. Casino Royale was a breath of fresh air and felt like a serious Bond film again, the tone we'd not felt since Dalton's days. Daniel Craig brought incredible intensity to the role, like Dalton but simply set in a modern era '2006'. I feel like things have really pushed on during Craig's reign. Brosnan wouldn't have been able to achieve this, he was the right Bond for the 90's, very good but not able to portray the dark, truly gritty side of Bobd we see in Craig and Dalton too.
If you take the most serious films in each actor's tenure:- From Russia with love, OHMSS, For Your Eyes Only, Goldeneye, Licence to kill & Casino Royale (although any of Craig's movies qualify for being most serious) I think Brosnan probably couldn't have done much more, but doesn't quite hit the depths and edge of the others.
He did a great job with the scripts he had, but I don't think his persona would ever pull off anything more than Goldeneye let him. There were glimpses in TND and Die Another Day got off to a good start with a dark storyline but it fails in the 2nd half. Even Moore's tone in A View to a kill is generally as dark as what we see from Brosnan. A 5th film wasn't needed by Brosnan and the truth is he wouldn't have justified it going by DAD's reviews. There had to be consequences to it. It's not that Brosnan got a rough deal and was treated harshly. It's that Bond needed a new direction and Pierce wouldn't have delivered that. Craig showed exactly why he was cast, magnificent job he's done in his tenure so far.
I'm in the minority with you and I'm sure fans are sick of me saying it - but I find the films gets worse with every watch.
"Better make that two."
QOS is the only Craig film that I think gets better with every watch. One of the biggest problems with the films is the too-fast cuts. But after you've watched it a few times, it slows down in your mind because you've already seen it before. If you've watched it 5 times, a 1-second shot effectively has become a 5-second shot.
Good point.
"Better make that two."
Still looking ok in 2006! (here with Jamie Lee Curtis at an awards ceremony)
As far as the original question, it was never going to happen.
Yes, certainly, though I was trying to fit the Craig reboot era in for 2006 or so! Anyway, it's all academic as it didn't happen.
1 - Moore, 2 - Dalton, 3 - Craig, 4 - Connery, 5 - Brosnan, 6 - Lazenby
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"Better make that two."