Excellent Mr Bond.
From Dr No to Skyfall: The Reg's one month of Bond
It’s 1962 and John F Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev are facing off over nuclear missiles in Cuba while Telstar bounces the first satellite transmission through space. Meanwhile, James Bond is making his cinematic debut in Dr No in London, with Sean Connery bringing Ian Fleming’s naval officer turned secret agent from book to …
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Thursday 4th October 2012 10:32 GMT NogginTheNog
Re: Surely that should be...
Well if you're going to be THAT picky then how come he ALWAYS uses his real name?!
I was going to quote "You expect me to talk??" from Goldfinger, but hey EVERYONE knows that! So I'll kick off the debate as to who's the best Bond: for me it's:
1. Daniel Craig
2. Sean Connery
3. Timothy Dalton
4. Roger Moore
5. All the others...
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Thursday 4th October 2012 10:38 GMT Stacy
Re: Surely that should be...
Have you tasted the difference :) As a lover of Vodka Martini I can say it's not picky if it's your drink :P
Favorite Bonds...
1) Pierce Brosnan
2) Roger Moore (I grew up with him as Bond...)
3) Tough one. It's a choice between Sean Connery, Daniel Craig or Timothy
4) George Lazenby
Though that doesn't mean I don't like the Australian - the ending to OHMSS makes him a very human bond...
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Thursday 4th October 2012 11:48 GMT DF118
Re: Surely that should be...
Dalton > Brosnan? Gimme a brek!
Goldeneye opens with Bond bungee jumping off a dam hundreds of feet above a munitions factory, grappling on to the roof of said factory and breaking in with a laser torch. The first ever close up of Brosnan's Bond is as he knocks out a henchman with the line "sorry - forgot to knock".
Dalton's first close up? Getting a fright. From a monkey.
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Saturday 6th October 2012 08:16 GMT DF118
@Stacy Re: Surely that should be...
Sure, you can gauge how good any particular actor's Bond is/was by trying to discern which one gave gave the closest representation of Fleming's character, but that's like trying to decide what type of cheese to eat by asking which is closest in character to a house brick.
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Thursday 4th October 2012 17:21 GMT Graham Bartlett
Re: Surely that should be...
+1, except I'd put Moore in the "All the others" category.
Bond is a killer. Moore wasn't, and nor was Brosnan. Both of them were all gadgets and not much else, because they had nothing else going for them. The key thing about Bond as acted by Craig, Connery and Dalton is that although they have some cool gadgets, they're equally able to belt the crap out of someone with their bare hands. The only fight Moore's Bond ever properly won was with two girls, which says everything you need to know.
Also those guys were/are happy to be doing it themselves instead of relying on stand-ins. In "The Living Daylights", there's a fight on a Jeep. That's actually Dalton hanging off the roof by his fingers at 50mph on a mountain road, not some stuntman.
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Friday 5th October 2012 09:36 GMT Thomas 4
@Graham
I can see what you're saying about Brosnan, especially in the very sub par The World Is Not Enough. At the beginning of Goldeneye though, the scene with the power plant, he does have a fair amount of his old ruthlessness, given that he was willing to blow up his fellow agent in order to complete the mission, not to mention the scene where they're beating the crap out of each other on the radio transmitter.
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Thursday 4th October 2012 10:39 GMT Matt_payne666
Re: MIssing article
Well the invisible car is in existence - sort of... an LCD cloth panel if I remember, using cameras to capture the image behind it - Mercedes used it the other week on one of their electric or hybrid things at some vauge motor show I skimmed over....
Id say the most impossible gadget would be the whole of moonraker, although Musk is doing a pretty good job of playing Drax at the moment... if only he'd bought a volcano instead of Texas!
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Thursday 4th October 2012 12:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: MIssing article
Exactly.
Cloaking such that it vaguely camoflagues the car, LEDs on the bodywork can show the light obtained from the other side of the car, fine and doable with technology.
But invisible as in the invisible man, such that transparent windows are not visible, car tyres and inside wheelarches / grilles are not visible, the snow on the car is not visible, the whole fully transparent thing ruined Die Another Day.
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Thursday 4th October 2012 17:31 GMT Graham Bartlett
Re: MIssing article
The invisible Aston Martin has to be top place, no question. I'm glad they stopped for a while after that, because they'd totally jumped the shark there.
But I'd say second place would be the magic pen that let Roger Moore breathe underwater. Sure it's possible to engineer artificial gills to pull dissolved air out of seawater, but it'd be the size of a house.
You could make a strong case for the laser rifles in Moonraker though, I guess, but that's pretty much narrative imperative when the film went all space opera.
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Thursday 4th October 2012 10:49 GMT Martin
But what about the books?
I think there should be at least a nod to the books on which the films were based. (Only the Ian Fleming ones, though - all the others - at least the two or three that I've read - are pale imitations of the real thing).
This is how Bond orders a martini in the first book, Casino Royale:-
“A dry martini," he said. "One. In a deep champagne goblet." ...
"Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?”
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Thursday 4th October 2012 11:33 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: But what about the books?
This is how Bond orders a martini in the first book, Casino Royale:-
“A dry martini," he said. "One. In a deep champagne goblet." ...
"Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?”
And you should hear it read by Toby Stephens.
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Thursday 4th October 2012 11:38 GMT ColonelClaw
Re: But what about the books?
That's an amazing Martini, and it is still served in the very bar where Fleming invented it - the cocktail bar at Dukes Hotel in St James. It's called the Vesper (after the character) and I would urge anyone who enjoys a real Martini to make a pilgrimage there to try for themselves. It is without question the finest, most delicious cocktail I have ever drank, and is made with loving care at your table by the expert staff. If you ask they will explain to you why they use specific ingredients and why Fleming designed it, an interesting story all in itself.
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Friday 5th October 2012 10:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: You must mean Physics of Heineken advertising?
Once upon a time, Aston Martin was more or less part of the narrative. An uncredited cast member.
When the Brosnan era came to start in the 90s, bmw paid for product placement with an Aston DB5 more or less having a cameo role.
Towards the end of the 90s, they were part of Ford group, so in the likes of Die Another Day everyone had a Range Rover / Jag / Ford (Halle Berrys Thunderbird!)
Craig was even spotted in a Mondeo and Fiesta.
Quantum of Solace, the Aston was more or less cameo again as he took on baddies in surprisingly good looking Alfa Romeos.
They're owned by Tata now, who may or may not be able to pay for full product placement.
The thing is, Aston is like Vodka Martini. It is Bond (yes yes, he had a Bentley in the books, but they were rehased Rolls Royces and now expensive Phaetons and soon a blinged up vw Toerag). It is not obvious product placement, whereas the bmws and fords were/are.
Driving around in a Ford, tapping at a Sony Vaiaaiaoaiaoaio, drinking Heineken in his boxers.
He might as well be some junior clerk.
Aston, Martini, Monaco. The Bond trilogy.
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Thursday 4th October 2012 12:51 GMT Kubla Cant
Re: You must mean Physics of Heineken advertising?
According to last night's Standard, the latest film includes a scene where Bond is drinking Heineken, from the bottle, in bed.
Short of having him watching daytime TV in his pants while eating cold takeaway from the carton, I can't think of anything less cool.
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Thursday 4th October 2012 12:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
From Dr No to Austin Powers ..
> It’s 1962 and John F Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev are facing off over nuclear missiles in Cuba while Telstar bounces the first satellite transmission through space.
At the time there was a real British film industry, with such films as `The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' which depicted the spy world as it really was. With the Bond franchise what they did was feed a totally bogus fantasy to the American market. See also U-571 where Harvey Keitel captures an Enigma machine from a nazi submarine. And The Bridge on the River Kwai where William Holden helps Colonel Nicholson to blow up the bridge ...
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Thursday 4th October 2012 12:49 GMT Gerhard den Hollander
bond bike
Ok, so it's not james, but mario,
but it's a nice piece of cinematic, and everyone who wants to make a bike commercial should watch this.
It's got bond, babes, a villain with an accent to match the french taunter, product placement galore, millionaires, gadgets and a bike
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lKRxk7uq8U
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Thursday 4th October 2012 17:03 GMT Dave 126
Re: bond bike
the above Bond Bike film is reminiscent of those BMW adverts, each about ten minutes long and directed by the likes of Ang Lee, Guy Ritchie and Tony Scott, presented as a short story. The Tony Scott one with Gary Oldman and James Brown is a cracker.
The Guy Ritchie one features Clive Owen in a very Bond-like role, humiliating a version of Mr Ritchie's ex wife, played by herself.
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Thursday 4th October 2012 13:04 GMT Why Not?
In the novel Moonraker, it is noted in the card club Blades, Bond adds a single pinch of black pepper to his glass of vodka, much to M's consternation; he claims it sinks all the poisons to the bottom.
actually very good, improves ropey vodka.
Craig & Lazenby seem the most human Bonds, Dalton made a good stab at it but he always strikes me as smug not sure why.
But Connery & Roger Moore's eyebrow always stole the show.
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Thursday 4th October 2012 13:51 GMT Lone Gunman
Fantastic! This will definitely make my month
Reg - any chance of doing an article on Fleming and his ties to Bletchley Park? There's some fascinating stories there that outstrip anything that Bond gets up to.
Favourite bonds .... hmmmm .....
Connery
Craig
Bosnon
Moore
Dalton
Shocked no one has mentioned Moneypenny yet or any of the Bond girls. Pussy Galore anyone?
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Thursday 4th October 2012 23:19 GMT Ian 55
Best films
Diamonds Are Forever - best Blofeld
Goldfinger - everyone at their best
From Russia With Love - before the gadgets
Live and Let Die - Moore's only really good one
Casino Royale (21st Century version) - how to do a remake
You Only Live Twice - I want a gyrocopter, please
OHMSS - if only Connery had done it...
Never Say Never Again - a better Thunderball than Thunderball
Casino Royale (1960s version) - bits of it
.. all the rest.
The worst? I stopped watching the Moores after The Spy Who Loved Me. The comparison with the same year's Raiders of the Lost Ark was just embarrassing.
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Friday 5th October 2012 08:37 GMT Roger Kynaston
Cool
Never been able to bond (Coat please!) with David Craig. Grew up with Roger Moore and liked Pierce Brosnan the most. Silly films should have humour and I think he brought good humour to it.
Tried a vodka martini once but prefer the traditional gin one. However, we do shake rather than stir them - I like the way the broken ice dilutes it slightly and in a very unscientific way I reckon the air being mixed in improves the flavour. I await the downvotes from purists
When are we likely to get a Jane Bond though? Might be interesting.
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