Would Skyfall had been the perfect last film for Brosnan? (Page 1 of 2)

Well maybe if it replaced DAD - hard to imagine a more serious film like Skyfall following Brosnans Kite surfing, invisible car and John Cleese

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

I agree. Brosnan's Skyfall would need some more humour.

One of the things I've always found curious about "Skyfall" is that the over-the-hill theme isn't essential to the overall story. You could take that part out, or tone it down so it's more about Bond being world weary than "played out," and the film still holds together. It was an unnecessary creative choice in my opinion that put EON into an awkward place with Craig's character arc as Bond. We essentially miss his entire active career as a 00.

good What If!!
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 your right and he has also stated that in interviews.   He clearly wants more depth / background to his Bond and its been stated on the record.    Im a huge DC fan but I think there are only so many films you can do this personal journey thing and NTTD is prob a good time to bow out (and hopefully forget the step brother crap)

Pierce Brosnan's Bond films had their weaknesses, but in some ways they did a better job shaking up the formula. They did things like making a fellow 00-agent or a former flame of Bond's the villains. Sometimes Craig's Bonds went too far. CR was Fleming and justified in making it personal, so CR needed a revenge sequel, something we didn't get in DAF after OHMSS, so making QoS personal was also justified. That's when the scriptwriters should have made a couple of mission centred Bonds. Instead the filmmakers believed the recipe was to continue making the plots about personal stuff. As good as SF was, that was a mistake IMO. Brosnan on the other hand had earned a Bond-centered and personal film after his first three.

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

I don't think the revenge angle was the problem with QoS. Other tings like a rushed script and mad editing were the real problems. There are two revenge Bond films - LTK and QoS. LTK has some problems, but the structure of the plot is very good, so it worked.
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.

I think the editing in the Bourne films was well done and fit the films. In QoS it was badly done, but even if it had worked it wouldn't have fit the Bond films.

Skyfall was really the one which should of been his standalone, I wonder if EON will ever acknowledge the fans dismay of SPECTRE-gate in interviews down the line.

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

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.