Would Skyfall had been the perfect last film for Brosnan?
Number24
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I just read a good article on JBR about screenwriters Purvis and Wade. In that piece it's suggested Skyfall would have fit better as Brosnan's last Bond. I think it's an interesting idea. While it's a very good film, SF seemed a bit strange because Craig played a new 00 agent in CR and only two movies later he was the old agent. QoS was even a direct sequel to CR, happening only half an hour or so after the end of CR!
Brosnan on the other hand had four Bond films under his belt when he quit. One wonders if SF should have been his last Bond after DAD or instead of DAD. He would have been in the right stage of his career to play the aging agent regardless. Brosnan expressed a desire to play Bond with more acting scenes and drama and less quips, gadgets and wall-to-wall action, so Skyfall would have been perfect for that. What's your opinion?
Brosnan on the other hand had four Bond films under his belt when he quit. One wonders if SF should have been his last Bond after DAD or instead of DAD. He would have been in the right stage of his career to play the aging agent regardless. Brosnan expressed a desire to play Bond with more acting scenes and drama and less quips, gadgets and wall-to-wall action, so Skyfall would have been perfect for that. What's your opinion?
Comments
They would have had to lighten things up in the script to fit Brosnans era mood wise - its a bit dark for his tenure
Though I get your point - they did the whole "over the hill" thing with Daniel Craig at least a film too early
Would the end product still be the kind of Skyfall we know today? No, no resemblance.
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It would have worked as a followup to the The World Is Not Enough, if that film had been more consistently focussed on the tragedy and not introduced a silly secondary Bondgirl in its final scenes.
(years later, Brosnan did play a worldweary secret agent coming out of retirement in November Man)
it is essential, on a thematic level, because it parallels M's forced retirement, the cabinet ministers insistence on dragging MI6 "out of the shadows", all the action in Churchill's WWII bunkers (the shadows) and that statue of the British Bulldog on M's desk. When I last watched this film I was impressed by how much is going on thematically (the poetry reading was a bit much though).
Narratively, it does matter that Bond is over the hill. He makes a lot of mistakes over the course of this mission, and everything that could go wrong ultimately does. I'm surprised he kept his job after getting his own boss killed!
I am speaking specifically about Bond here. You're absolutely right that everything else is thematically linked, but what those elements of decline are mostly connected to is the end of Judi Dench's character arc as M. "Skyfall" is the conclusion of her story. She's the one played out. And everything you mention echoes that essential thread.
The writers, however, made a decision to include Bond in this theme when it wasn't necessary IMO to do so. As I said, why can't he be feeling some world weariness or obsolete as a 00 (and of course bitter at M for what she did to him in the PTS) but not old as a man? They really committed to playing up Craig as a greybeard — literally!
And of course, it works nicely in the context of "Skyfall." The film made a billion bucks and was much lauded. But it hamstrung the franchise is what I'm saying. Now, given how slowly EON makes movies, it probably didn't matter. They were never going to make that mid-career "Bond on a mission" film many of us wanted for Craig.
I think Craig just specialised in playing the more extreme ends of Bonds double oh career (beginning and end), which I guess has more dramatic potential. Especially when the stories are all about him as a person, and his childhood house and long-lost foster brother etc.
The mid-career standard issue missions may not have had enough personal dramatic potential for his approach?
Craig was too old to play a rookie in Casino Royale. By trying to make every moment of Bond's life more dramatic than the next, these moments lose impact. Bond's life continues to be shaken up, but what exactly is getting shook up?
Skyfall's kind of story with Brosnan would have have more impact because we would know why he's over the hill. It would have been a better follow-up to The World Is Not Enough.
QOS didn't need to be so much about revenge. It was justified, but unnecessary. Fleming didn't write LALD as a personal story. He wrote an adventure story to succeed his first story. I thought that's what CR set up by the end to come after it, with Mr White captured. It seemed to be settled at that point.
Yup - guess they were just hell bent on having another SPECTRE so moulded things quickly with Quantum.
Im still annoyed they didn't carry on with Quantum and chucked SPECTRE into the mix with no proper explanation. Would of been better to have shown SPECTRE overthrow Quantum in the past film or show it as a "department" then just focus with the Step-Bro thing.
Wonder if Quantum will be mentioned in NTTD to explain things and what actually happened. Im guessing it will just be ignored and another loose end that we have to live with. Hopefully im wrong
QoS didn't have a solid script, instead it had a director and editor who'd seen Bourne too many times. I think the audience were ready for a Bond revenge film at the time.
Yes, I hated (and still hate) the editing.
A stand alone mission movie in Craig's tenure would have been great and very refreshing.
I think with NTTD they will rack up the personal issues from SPECTRE another notch. DC's influence on production over the last few films has been too much in places IMHO. Rightly or wrongly, Cubby would never have allowed his lead actor as much influence over affairs as BB and MGW have. At the end of the day though, the films are still entertaining and continue to make a packet at the box office so objectives are being met.
Brosnan indeed showed he can play dark as per November Man - however he is such a charming guy I think EON got his Bond character balance correct just maybe not the whacky parts in the scripts. I guess they wanted something lighter after Dalton so I presume we will get something slightly lighter then DCs Bond for the next one
Its just the PTS car chase editing that I dont like.
I wasn't a fan of the PTS editing when I first saw it in the cinema as I felt it was just too jumpy and high-octane, but I absolutely love it now.
I may be unpopular with this opinion but... I don't think Brosnan would have worked in Skyfall as written. It's a harder edged Bond, more world weary which I never got from Brosnan's Bond. I think that if you rewrite Skyfall to suit the Brosnan style (more jokes, more gadgets) you don't have what makes Skyfall work so well. There's something deeply macho and militaristic about Bond in Skyfall that I never got from the Brosnan era films.
May I suggest Dalton in Skyfall? Not just because he was a darker, serious Bond but mainly because he's a damn fine actor.
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For EON, they even had a genuine cast with of course PB, Judi Dench and John Cleese, but also Willem Dafoe, Heidi Klum, Shannon Elizabeth and Mya (although I'm not a big fan of the title song she recorded). They could have produced something great to make Brosnan leave on a high note.
I completely agree. I think Daniel Craig is a magnificent Bond, especially in Casino Royale, but it's a little bit unfair Brosnan got all the bad scripts for his last three movies. I think he's a terrific actor and he should have played the character one more time. He was the modern Bond of Post-Cold War era.
The script of DAD should have been Skyfall's one. It would have been the greatest tribute for the 40th anniversary of the franchise. But what is done is done...