I should probably try watching them ordered GE, TWINE, and TND. Haven't done it.
TPOAL? I've never heard of that.
The Property of a Lady. It was supposed to be Dalton's third film, but then came the Kevin McClory lawsuit. Some evidence shows they may have canned it in favor of a total rewrite (which was GE's first draft; it's interesting to see when they wrote it, the Soviet Union was still in existence but barely or had just broken up; you can download it off some thread here), but they only did the rewrite after they'd been stuck in legal limbo for a while, so maybe TPOAL would have been canned, maybe it wouldn't have.
I should probably try watching them ordered GE, TWINE, and TND. Haven't done it.
TPOAL? I've never heard of that.
The Property of a Lady. It was supposed to be Dalton's third film, but then came the Kevin McClory lawsuit. Some evidence shows they may have canned it in favor of a total rewrite (which was GE's first draft; it's interesting to see when they wrote it, the Soviet Union was still in existence but barely or had just broken up; you can download it off some thread here), but they only did the rewrite after they'd been stuck in legal limbo for a while, so maybe TPOAL would have been canned, maybe it wouldn't have.
Ah, I know that Dalton's stated in an interview that he read the Goldeneye script before turning it down.
In terms of ratings, I'd have to go Connery, then Craig, then Moore, then Brosnan (not rating Dalton).
As far as TND goes, TND was a disappointment to me, but not in the conventional sense. As I type this, calling the movie a disappointment would be harsh, though calling its timing a disappointment would be fair. After GE (great start to Brosnan's tenure), we were promised over and over again that we'd get Bond's character examined. GE was leading in that direction, but what immediately followed it had to follow up on the hints that were dropped. Yet, TND was a traditional, formulaic Bond. Was it a good one? Yes. But was it a good follow-up to GE in particular? No.
To be a good follow-up to GE, TND would have had to have essentially been a character development film, which we sorta got with TWINE. But the problem was that TWINE was (I know I've used this a million times to describe it and should probably come up with a new phrase) a stunted hybrid of what clearly began as a character development film with a bunch of action sequences shoehorned in and plenty of character development taken out.
Had TWINE followed up GE, it probably would not have needed so many cues to remind us it's trying to focus on Bond's backstory. Bond is still in the former Soviet Union, Bond still maintains contact with Zukovsky, Bond is still fighting the remnants of the Cold War, etc. It actually dovetails in a bit nicer, timeline-wise, and you can safely omit some of the overly long stuff to focus on the character development aspect. THEN you release your formulaic with Bond transitioning into a new age with a then-infant superpower with an uncertain future ahead of it in China.
Really, I think they could have made TND any time. What they did do was release the intro film, then a formulaic, then the obligatory "expand on the character" film. With the obvious exception of Lazenby, everyone else has looked like this...
-Connery: DN (Intro), FRWL (Further Explores Character), GF (Formulaic)
-Moore: LALD (Intro to Moore), TMWTGG (Further expands on Moore's character), TSWLM (Big-Budget Formulaic)
-Dalton: TLD (Intro to Dalton), LTK (Further expands on Dalton's character), and we know that had TPOAL been made, not only would it have been a formulaic, Bond would have been fighting robots (say the words "Bond fighting robots" aloud with a straight face as you imagine Timothy Dalton death-grappling with something that looks like it's been stolen from Robocop...just try it...and I'm a fan of Dalton's Bond!).
-Brosnan: GE (Intro to Brosnan's Bond), TND (Formulaic), TWINE (Further expands on the character...huh?)
-Craig: Although all three films focus intensely on character development, we again get what amounts to the intro (CR), the expansion of the character (QoS, but then, Bond had been developed so well in CR that it didn't quite have the same impact the previous films did), and the near-formulaic (SF isn't a formulaic, but it's the closest of any of the Craig films to a formulaic/traditional, classic Bond film).
I admit I'm driving the point home a little hard, but "which one of these things does not resemble the rest?"
Thanks! I wonder though, if it would help to follow chrisisall's suggestion and to flip the order of watching TND and TWINE...after all, like it or hate it (I don't like it that much, but I can at least watch it), DAD starts out in and revolved around North Korea. Logically, wouldn't Bond be sent on a mission to North Korea after being sent to China since he was in the area?
Still, that obviously didn't help TND at the time it was released. The film did nothing to explore Brosnan Bond's character other than maybe exploring a failed relationship with Paris Carver, which was in stark contrast to every man to play James Bond before him regarding their second film (obviously save for Lazenby). Having watched every Bond film prior to TND when I went to see it, I was surprised and underwhelmed. Not because of its merits as a film (which have aged well), but simply its timing.
Some might argue that Dalton's Bond was explored in-depth as a character in TLD simply due to the focus on character development in that film and that LTK was just a shoot-'em-up, but I'd say we more or less got an introduction to him and that LTK explored aspects of his character/went deeper. The entire point of LTK was that Dalton's Bond was a blunt instrument much in the way Fleming's Bond was whose base emotions were extremely primal (hinted at in TLD, but not fully explored). Still, I think the moment he'd have started tangling with a ROBOT in TPOAL would have ended any credibility he had, and not because of him, either. In that way, I think McClory inadvertantently HELPED the Bond franchise (because otherwise, they may not have rewritten it to get GE). Granted, scripts do change, but I'd be surprised if they wrote out the robot totally, given they actually placed an order for some animatronic robot gizmo that they had to cancel.
Comments
The Property of a Lady. It was supposed to be Dalton's third film, but then came the Kevin McClory lawsuit. Some evidence shows they may have canned it in favor of a total rewrite (which was GE's first draft; it's interesting to see when they wrote it, the Soviet Union was still in existence but barely or had just broken up; you can download it off some thread here), but they only did the rewrite after they'd been stuck in legal limbo for a while, so maybe TPOAL would have been canned, maybe it wouldn't have.
Really good points and summation!
Still, that obviously didn't help TND at the time it was released. The film did nothing to explore Brosnan Bond's character other than maybe exploring a failed relationship with Paris Carver, which was in stark contrast to every man to play James Bond before him regarding their second film (obviously save for Lazenby). Having watched every Bond film prior to TND when I went to see it, I was surprised and underwhelmed. Not because of its merits as a film (which have aged well), but simply its timing.
Some might argue that Dalton's Bond was explored in-depth as a character in TLD simply due to the focus on character development in that film and that LTK was just a shoot-'em-up, but I'd say we more or less got an introduction to him and that LTK explored aspects of his character/went deeper. The entire point of LTK was that Dalton's Bond was a blunt instrument much in the way Fleming's Bond was whose base emotions were extremely primal (hinted at in TLD, but not fully explored). Still, I think the moment he'd have started tangling with a ROBOT in TPOAL would have ended any credibility he had, and not because of him, either. In that way, I think McClory inadvertantently HELPED the Bond franchise (because otherwise, they may not have rewritten it to get GE). Granted, scripts do change, but I'd be surprised if they wrote out the robot totally, given they actually placed an order for some animatronic robot gizmo that they had to cancel.