Shock movie upset - Daniel Craig still James Bond 007

Daniel Craig is back as James Bond 007, blond-haired ball-busting hero of new film Skyfall that will start filming today. As Craig brings his sculptured abs and sea-blue eyes back to the role, fans of the Bond franchise can look forward to the introduction of amber-eyed French beauty Bérénice Marlohe who will play a "glamorous …

[Simbu]

No mention of Q?!

This concerns me!

[Anonymous Coward]

Harry Hill?

Now I like the the exploding umbrella, but I also like the bazooka pen, but which one is best? ...

FIGHT!!

[Robert E A Harvey]

Please NO!

No John sodding Cleese, no Harry fucking Hill, and preferably not Russel shitbrains Brand either.

Why not a female Q? Someone like Joanna Lumley? or Zoë Wanamaker?

[n4blue]

female Q

...or Maggie Philbin?

[Robert E A Harvey]

@n4blue

Genius!

I'd watch that!

[cloudgazer]

Oh dear - whenever the Bond franchise wanders away from Fleming's books things go badly awry. Hopefully this time will be an exception, but I'll believe it when I see it.

[theModge]

It's never been anywhere near the books.

I've read a fair number of the books, and what they are mostly is "of there time", i.e. misogynistic, racist and reliant on central characters (inc. bond) being mind bending dumb. Also no gadgets in the books. There'll still fun to read, but we're talking out of date Chris Ryan here, rather than high art.

So. Drifting away from the books is holy an improvement.

[Woodgar]

Are any of the modern ones based on the books, other than just ripping off the title?

[Mondo the Magnificent]

Bond...

Daniel Craig isn't too bad as the current JB actor to be honest

Admittedly he does remind me of the Jason Bourne character quite a bit with his new, 'say what only needs to be said' approach and in regards to the fight scenes too, which are also a lot more realistic

In a way I do miss the suave Roger Moore "knock them out and straighten my tie" era punch ups a little.

The fact it's not based on a Flemming book is no biggie, otherwise we may be seeing remakes of the Bond classics we've come to love, or in some cases, hate..

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: Bond...

I liked Roger Moore but my favourite Bond was Sean Connery :)

[John Sturdy]

The name's Bond, Vlad Bond

Last time out, it looked like he was trying to look more like Vladimir Putin.

[Anonymous Coward]

Putin?

Not a bad role- model, given his KGB background.

Both Bond and Putin are a bit dubious too....

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Classic Bond

Local TV has been running through all the Bond movies lately. I enjoyed them in my youth, but much like Garfield they have not aged well.

[AbortRetryFail]

@cloudgazer

You do realise that the only connection that "Quantum of Solace" had to anything Fleming wrote was the name of a short story that had no common elements to the film apart from a chap called 'James Bond', don't you?

[DJ 2]

that's how they usually go.

Octopussy, only had the tattoo in common.

[Anonymous Coward]

*cough* it's the purple button *cough*

must contain letters, eh? uoy kcuf - there's some for ya.

[Gary Heard]

Which makes the point, it may have had the name but nothing else and was bit of a dog's dinner

[MarkB]

@AbortRetryFail

"the only connection that "Quantum of Solace" had to anything Fleming wrote was the name of a short story"

That surely supports rather than refutes cloudgazer's position..

[TRT]

Bérénice Marlohe

in shiny boots of leather. On bended knee and with a whip? I'll drink to that!

[Eponymous Cowherd]

Sod the shooting and babes............

I want to see some gadgets...............

[Voland's right hand]

She is a Bond girl allright

She is not Carole Bouquet which IMO puts the golden standard of a Bond girl of French origin :)

None the less, she is definitely more Bond material than some of the recent ones. Give her a gun and a swimsuit and she will not be out of place on the set :)

[Knowledge]

Now we know the cast....

we can get to work imagining the plot. They needn't bother making it really.

[Tatsky]

Whats the beef with Daniel Craig?

Can someone explain to me why some people have such an issue with Daniel Craig?

I think what he has done with Bond is awesome. He is the only actor who has come close to portraying the British spy so tormented by the screams of the people he has killed, who drowns them out with booze and women.

The only time I can remember this being mentioned previously is Tomorrow Never Dies, when Terri Hatcher mentions something to bond about "do you still sleep with a gun under your pillow" and about him drinking vodka to drown out the screams.

All other bonds previously have been the pomped up versions that we all know and love, but don't do the weight of the character justice.

Imagine spending your days risking your life, being tortured and killing people by the bucket load. You would be a pretty heartless bastard is it didn't get to you, and you just romped your way through life adjusting your tie and throwing our pithy one liners.

I think Craig is closer to Flemmings bond than most people realise. He isn't Roger Moore, but then that sort of character wouldn't fit today.

Next you will be telling me that Christian Bale should be running around in purple spandex, with a cod piece shoved down his Y-fronts, because that's how batman was when you were a kid.

[El Andy]

Daniel Craig was a great Bond and I'd agree he was a lot closer to Flemming's original than anyone else. He was rather let down by the unintelligable plot of Solace though. I still have absolutely no idea what was supposed to be going on in that film, except that (a) it had something to do with water (b) I really didn't care

Let's hope the next one is a bit more Casino Royale than the last.

[Mark 65]

Not a shock to me considering people were touting Jackman as a candidate.

"G'day, the naaaaaaames Bond, Jaaaaaames Bond"

Christ almighty.

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely

I had all but given up on Bond after that piece of crap 'Die another Day'. Then along came Casino Royale, suddenly Bond was convincing and worth watching again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Trousers that turn to jam

I'm just glad the era of ridiculous gadgets has gone - I don't mind the odd knife hidden in a briefcase, or even an ejector seat in a DB5 but an invisible car - come on, that's just silly.

Q was great, but Cleese as R just isn't the same. Glad they've moved on.

[IsJustabloke]

I CHOOSE to enoble a simple forum post!

I agree.... the whole "Q" character was a conceit introduced by the movies anyway.. as was all the gadge..

As for "R" that was just stupid, given that "Q" was shorthand for Quartermaster.

I think Craig is an excellent bond and that the last 2 movies were superb.

[RichyS]

And R was short for "R bugger, what have we gone and done..."

[Richard Wharram]

Bond ?

The whole premise of James Bond is a little old-hat nowadays so it works best with its tongue firmly in-cheek. The new films are altogether too serious for me. If I wanted a proper action flick I'd choose something else. Bring back Roger Moore :)

[me n u]

Daniel Craig sux as Bond.

"Bring back Roger Moore "

I agree. With RM, it was lighthearted action. The stupid stories had nothing to do with RM. I liked his portrayal of JB the best. Worst, IMO, is DC and then TD. Second best is SC and third is the Irishman-PB.

Daniel Craig is far too cold hearted and serious. He needs to lighten up!

[HFoster]

@me n u

You've never read any of the books, have you? Dalton and Craig hit closer to the spot with the brutal, heartless and sometimes vengeful aspects of the character. I grew up with Moore, and enjoyed those films, but they aged terribly and marked Bond as high camp. I like that this incarnation of the franchise tends more towards story and character development than the old, "we're-stuck-for-an-idea-so-we'll-change-location-to-Jamaica-for-no-good-reason," approach.

[Shakje]

The best RM imo is Live and Let Die

And I think it's because it's darker, although it's highly spoiled by the slide-whistle in the car chases. It's like they just couldn't resist making it stupid.

DC is probably my favourite Bond these days (purely for Casino Royale), followed by SC and GL. After that it gets a bit fuzzy because I still have a lot of love for Goldeneye. I think RM is remembered in a better light than he actually was, do you actually remember The Man With the Golden Gun???

[James Micallef]

it's a style thing

SC and RM were the suave, witty and charming secret agents, killing enemies for them was a sort of throwaway. While for me these films were highly entertaining, in the end the Bond character comes across as extremely one-dimensional.

I love DC and TD's Bonds because on the one side they are more ruthless and cynical killers, while on the other hand their characters are warped by the nastiness that goes with the job. For me it's a far more in-depth and realistic portrayal, but really that's just an opinion. the 2 styles of film are completely different, just the name of the central character is the same. Trying to compare the 2 is apples vs oranges.

My personal recipe for a successful Bond cocktail -

- simple plot. doesn't have to be a super-villain out to conquer the world, just as long as I understand what the villain is trying to do and how Bond is trying to stop him. That's why Casino Royale was great and QofS was WTF is going on there?

- minimal and effective use of gadgets. preferably physical artifacts that go BANG or ZAP rather than electronic mobile phone geekery. And NO INVISIBLE CARS

- realistic effects. better to have less supposedly spectacular effects as long as the end result is credible. The car-jumping-across-a-river-with-barrel-roll (golden gun?) was amazing because it must have been really executed by a stuntman. The para-surfing-a-giant-wave-that's-clearly-digitally-generated-and-poorly-executed-at-that was plain crap.

- hot, skimpily dressed women in both villain and sidekick roles. Obvious really

- villain with a clear violent and nasty streak. hint - a media mogul does NOT work as a Bond villain. A marginal psychopathic Colombian drug lord who feeds his enemies to sharks works a treat

[Cameron Colley]

I'd like to steal this as a reply to Tatsky's question.

I also think that Daniel Craig looks far too physically capable so rather than looking like a vulnerable man living on his wits he looks like an intelligent cage fighter.

I don't actually dislike the new Bonds as much as the above may suggest but would prefer a return to a more genteel and wimpy looking bond. Perhaps they should get Daniel Craig to film Bravo Two Zero instead?

[Saucerhead Tharpe]

And Goldeneye was the name of Fleming's house, and a duck

I wonder if this Skyfall is in ay way vaguely related to the Harry Harrison power satellite story of years ago

[br0die]

I wish they would make Zero Minus Ten http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Minus_Ten into a movie.

Written by the same guy who wrote Tomorrow Never Dies (arguably one of the better non-Fleming Bond films).

[pctechxp]

@ Simbu

Desmond Llewellyn aka Q died shortly after The World is Not Enough was realeased in 1999.

Spookily he introduced his replacement, R played by John Cleese in that film.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cod piece?

...that was rather specific, wasn't it? Hmm.

[Matthew 25]

I agree! It could very well have been haddock!

[Havin_it]

Uncannily...

...the word "Skyfall" was in the teaser-line on the cover of 2000AD's latest prog out yesterday. WHAT DID THEY KNOW?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bit overdue release

THe last film came out around this time of year in 2006, and from all the stories this film has been in production for how long! Realy long time. Now added delays about there studio liquidity at one stage but a bit over delayed in releases - 3 years would of been more than enough delay between films. But 6 years, I suspect that the film is probably nearly ready, but as it wont be ready for this christmas it is going for the next one.

Now personly I think they should release it at the same time as the Olympics as I believe they will be amazed at the number of people who would happily go to the local cinima to avoid the event. I certainly would even though I have been paying for it with extra council tax for many ayear now and have no priority over tickets like all the other people inside the m25 who are getting mugged off by this and will only get disadvantaged by the event unlike business's. But I digress.

Basicly what I can forsee is that as this film has such a long gestation period that it will be ready early summer for a october release and end up getting leaked on the internet before it even gets released and then they will wonder why and how a film already made and ready months and months before release could end up in such a situation!

ANON - because Boris is paranoid today

[Robert E A Harvey]

Delay

Surely most of the delay has been raising the money, cos Question of Sport was rubbish.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've given up on bond films. They've been getting progressively worse for quite a while and casino royale was the last straw.

After watching Daniel Craig leap 100ft off a giant crane , get up and then run through a wall without even a scratch. I came to the conclusion that Bond has completed the transistion from British gentleman Spy, through Seagal-esque special forces guy, and finally become Superman with special magic powers. No need to worry about him getting shot at because he's probably bulletproof as well.

[Dan 55]

The name's Bourne, James Bourne

I'm rather hoping that they'll return to something more like Casino Royale instead of Quantum of Solace which was a copy and paste of Bourne and only watchable if you watched Casino Royale before to find out why they were beating the crap out of each other for an hour and a half straight and ignored the computers down at MI6 which looked like they were borrowed from CSI.

Unfortunately it's got Albert Finney in it so maybe it means they haven't learnt their lesson.

[Anonymous Coward]

First five minutes

But the first five minutes of Solace had a great car chase.

[IR]

Can we start complaining about the theme song yet? Mentions of how it isn't a proper Bond theme because it doesn't feature Shirley Bassey, and ignoring every other theme song from the last 20 Bond films.

[Robert E A Harvey]

ooh, how about whotisface [1] orf the X factor? [2]

[1] I don't actually know any of their names, I've only seen it once.

[2] I'm only stirring, here.

[FozzyBear]

Certainly not

The Bond bashing has at least another 2-3 pages worth of comments before we need to resort to the theme song to continue the "discussion"

[kellerr13]

Theme Song

We can complain if the theme song is not actually in the soundtrack. Did anybody buy the soundtrack to Casino Royale? "You know my name" is not even on it.

And the RIAA wonders why people pirate music.

[My Opinion]

Casino great, Solace awful, Skyfall ???

I really enjoyed Craig as the new Bond in Casino Royale - to me it was Bond Reborn, in much the way Christian Bales first Batman was an excellent restart of that franchise. But was I the only one that struggled to work out what the heck was going on in Solace?

I saw it at the Odeon, Leicester Square, the day after the Premier and have to say the sound was awful. I couldn't decide whether the difficulty of hearing what was being said was the problem to grasping the plot, or whether it was just all pretty random in the first place.

Here's hoping the next one gets back to the promise seen in the first Craig Bond.

Skyfall or Sky-FAIL ?

[kellerr13]

Music

Do you think they will actually include the title theme on the soundtrack? The soundtrack for "Casino Royale" did not even have "You know my name" on the disk.

And the R1AA wonders why everybody p1rates everything.

[Anonymous Coward]

Goldenyawn!

Bond jumped the shark years ago, despite Brosnan and pals making a reasonable go of it in the 90s. The whole thing has become just another way of milking British punters by appealing to their nostalgia and "patriotic duty" to see a sort-of-British film about British people fighting foreign baddies.

[JDX]

"it works best with its tongue firmly in-cheek"

So go watch Johnny English...

[Anonymous Coward]

New Bond

New director? Not based on flemmings? I got a bad feeling they are going back towards the old formula where it was to the point of silly and outlandish. Casino Royale was to bond as "Batman Begins" was to the Batman series of movies. It gave it a fresh start and was much more gritty and realistic than the previous ones.

[I Like Heckling]

I loved the last 2 films... I think they've brought the character bang into the modern era and given the character a more human and darker edge.

I pretty much love all of the Bond films, each one was fitting for it's time and each one doesn't hold up today.

I would prefer to see some remakes, but only if they were to put them back in chronological order so to speak. In the books On Her Majesty's Secret Service comes before you only live twice and deals with the events of OHMSS, giving a much harder and darker version of JB... Personally I'd love to see Daniel Craig given the opportunity to make those two... although they did touch upon the subjects in CR and QoS.

I was also under the impression that there was going to be a 'trilogy' story with the 3rd taking the underlying story to it's conclusion... no idea if this is still the case or not.

[Oninoshiko]

Daniel Craig

I think Daniel Craig did a vary good job with what he was given.

Quantum of Solace really can't be considered on it's own, as it is really the missing half of Casino Royale. Putting the films together would have been just too long, so it did have to be split. It's also worth noting that when Casino Royale starts, he's not even 007 yet, (he earns 00 status in the pre-credits opening).

He's not the veteran, detached agent who can sleep with someone one day and shoot them the next. This is the story of a raw newly recruited agent, who isn't completely ready to deal with lies, intrigue, and manipulations of his profession. Every hero has a the elements that formed them, made them who we know. That is what this is.

I think Daniel Craig pulled that off, and most of the complaints about him isn't him, as much as that he played a younger, more naive James Bond. That's not Daniel Craig's fault, that's just the role he's playing.

[Kharkov]

I demand that The Ministry of Silly Names gets to work here!

One thing that has been sadly lacking from the recent Bond movies is...

Silly Names!

Up until nearly the final draft of Die Another Day, Halle Berry was going to be called Cinnamon Buns (!). Bond needs names like Moana Lovesitt, Pussy Galore etc.

After all, it's a tradition and if it isn't, it should be!

[TRT]

Minty Chalice?

Oh...

[TRT]

Of course Bond would have been very different if he met someone called Gina Talwurtz.

[MJI]

Bonds

Grew up with Moore, favourite was Brosnan, Connery was good, the 1 film wonder - OK, Dalton fine.

But it all depends on the quality of the film.

[Risky]

Missed the obvious casting

Why notI wanted Julian Assange™ as the villian.

He'd look great in a leather chair stroking a cat.

[Youngdog]

Michael Fassbender

There I said it. After seeing him in the last X-men film I was convinced - he has the thin-lipped cruelty thing down to a tee.

Having read all the books as a pup I thought Dalton came pretty close - he just needed to grease the hair back and he would have been perfect!

After that for years I was convinced it would take someone like Rupert Everett - he's just got one of those faces they don't seem to make any more! Unfortunately he seems to have alienated so many people in the Film industry it will never happen...

[The Infamous Grouse]

The last nail in the QoS coffin

I loved Casino Royale but was crushingly disappointed in the mess that was Quantum Of Solace. Its only redeeming hope was that it might serve as an introduction to a new generation of shady bad guys who would become the ongoing threat for a couple more movies. But if Skyfall (dodgy title, not an auspicious start) is to have no connection to the previous films it reduces QoS to nothing more than a sad waste of everyone's time.

[bugalugs]

Bond fans

should read Jeffery Deaver's Carte Blanche. It is as up-to-date as 2 a.m. tomorrow, with as many plot twists. Craig could do it justice, too.