Sinking Ship

This is a public face of our private discussions.
We’re a collaboration fans and movie goers who strung a few thoughts together.
Currently our calm has been upset by the New James Bond shenanigans.

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And if the poles swap polarity then everything will be topsy turvy...

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Love the website. For the most part I find the arguments cogent,
provocative, and well thought out. As a lifelong Bond fan, I must register my
dismay at the casting of Daniel Craig as 007. Everything mentioned in
the innumerable critiques is on target so I won't repeat a lot here. As
an English professor, pop culture scholar, and writer, however, I would
like to address the connection that exists between a fan and his
favorite fictional characters.

As readers we visualize how characters should look. Sometimes we have
help, from book covers, Dickensian descriptions, movies or other graphic
representations. (Because of Judy Garland, we see Dorothy as being
taller and having darker hair than the Dorothy in the W.W. Denslow
illustrations for the Oz books. Likewise, Raymond Burr so marked Erle Stanley
Garner's "granite-jawed" Perry Mason that no other actor has played him
successfully since the 50s TV show; Monty Markham's attempted series
failed.)

Sometimes it is solely our imaginations which form our visions of
characters. Once the image is formed, we tend to cling to it, especially if
it is further reinforced by certain linchpins. Imagine Godzilla without
his signature trumpeting or a Superman of average height or Scrooge
without his snarl. Picture Sherlock Holmes in non-Victorian clothing,
standing 5'7", and completely lacking the imperiousness we've come to
love.

Because we feel such a connection to the fictional characters we love,
we have certain expectations. Superman will be tall and have both dark
hair and a guileless intensity. All the actors who have played Superman
have, to varying degrees, fit the part, right down to the curl. (Color
me relieved Tim Burton never got to do Superman with Nicholas Cage.
Yes, he made Batman work with a non-funny Michael Keaton, but Keaton wore
a mask. Superman's face has to be seen, and Cage's just doesn't fit.
Neither did Robert Redford's, when he was being discussed for the film
that eventually went to Christopher Reeve.)

Spenser once boxed as a heavyweight, so 6'2" Robert Urich was a good
bet to bring the detective to television. Professor Xavier is bald, so
Patrick Stewart fits the bill for the X-Men movies.

You get the idea.

Sometimes a character can become so iconic that ANYONE can play him,
which is why the list of actors who've played Philip Marlowe includes
Dick Powell, Humphrey Bogart, James Garner, Robert Mitchum, Elliot Gould,
and Danny Glover. But that usually happens only when a character has
attained a status that borders on lapsing into the public domain. (Think
Olivier doing Othello, James Earl Jones doing Lear, and Roger Moore
doing Holmes.) James Bond is indeed iconic but not yet so much of the
people that he has become a regular guy who can be played by just about
anyone. (Don Cheadle does a solid British accent but, much as I like him,
he's not right for Bond.)

Which brings us to Daniel Craig. He is neither Fleming's Bond (6', dark
hair, scar on his cheek, blue-gray eyes) nor Broccoli's Bond (taller
than 6', with dark hair, good looks, and a cool demeanor). When Fleming
wrote Bond, average height was probably 5'9", which made the 6' Bond
taller than average. Now average height is 5'10' or 11", which means the
previous Bonds, from 6'1" to 6'3" were taller than average. Bond is also darkly handsome, on book covers, in comic strips, and, finally, in the movies.
Taller than average height and dark good looks are two of Bond's
linchpins. At 5'11", the blond, pinched-faced Craig does not stand out
as Bond stands out. He is the equivalent of Danny Devito doing Sherlock
Holmes or Mickey Rooney doing Batman or Dave Chappelle doing Hamlet.
He's just not a good fit.

EON ought to consider the lessons learned by those who tampered not
with the formula but with the linchpins. The Independence Day people
ruined Godzilla's noise and the film flopped. Ever hear of Dolph Lundgren as
the Punisher? Take away that death's head shirt and you've got just
another vigilante movie. Perhaps it's best we not speak of Albert Molina's
game but pathetic attempt to modernize and make hip Agatha Christie's
Hercule Poirot in that dreadful remake of Murder on the Orient Express.
A dashing Poirot with a love interest? Dame Agatha must have spun in
her grave at that one.

I have a feeling that, come November, Ian Fleming will join her in a
ghastly pas de deux of the offended deceased.

EON, what were you thinking?

Gary Earl Ross is a professor at the University at Buffalo and
president-elect of the Mid-Atlantic Popular American Culture
Association.
He is the author of Shimmerville, Tales Macabre and
Curious, and won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his play Matter of Intent.

I recently saw a re-run of Aussie actor Anthony LaPaglia (of Without A Trace fame) interviewed on Denton's Enough Rope. Aside from being engrossed by his story of growing up the son of a migrant mechanic in Adelaide, and making it big in Hollywood despite the odds, he gave a very pointed critique of what is wrong with big budget films. In an effort to draw big at the box offices, producers will land big stars, pay them big dollars, and then revolve the script around them to maximize the time their faces appears on screen. Naturally, this is at the expense of the story telling and character development.

Which led me to think of what I disliked about the last Bond film, Die Another Day. While no man in his right mind, regardless of sexual persuasion, should complain about Halle Berry being on-screen, the character she played was obviously written into the script for particular reasons, none of which are relevant to the plot. The script could have done without the character she played, and the story would not have suffered in the least. She was written in for her curves and box-office appeal. Furthermore, her character seemed to be designed to appeal to the younger hip-hop audience, given the lingo used and her obvious appeal to young men. The result was a superficial tone to the whole movie, even though her presence arguably was a big determinant in yielding unprecedented commercial success for a Bond film.

Which leads me to the current state of the Bond franchise. Immensely popular with the public, critics and Bond aficionados alike, Pierce Brosnan completed his contract for four movies and in a shock turn of events was not renewed to continue playing the role. Brosnan's last Bond film grossed nearly half-a-billion dollars (with production costs totalling $142 million), and the previous three films around $1 billion in sum, resulting in Brosnan being labelled the "Billion-dollar-Bond".

Enter Daniel Craig. Little-known British actor Craig was offered the role after reports of several higher profile actors not being interested. The choice of Craig has triggered a furor amongst the Bond community. Two separate websites are devoted to cause of boycotting the 21st Bond film, dubbed Casino Royale after Bond creator Ian Fleming's novel, although little other than the name is shared. Both fansites protest the choice of Craig. It is hard to disagree that Craig looks the part of a Bond villain rather than the leading man himself. Reports that he cannot drive a car with manual transmission, has an anti-gun stance, and has been described as a gay icon for his role in the film "The Trench", all fly in the face of the 007 image that has been honed and crafted in Ian Fleming's novels and on the big screen for over three generations. Jung's collective conscious is definetly making things hard for poor old Craig (and yes, he does look much older and weathered than his late 30's age would suggest).

Both sites also object to the producers decision to "reboot" the series. No longer is Bond a patriotic ex-naval commander, who relies on wit and charm more than brawn. Instead the new 007 is a former SAS, and no longer begins his career during the cold war, but acquires his "00" status in the world of today (the "Bourne Identity" was the chosen template). Craig is on record as saying he wants to "dumb down" Bond. The anti-Craig and "reboot" sentiments expressed on the two fansites have been echoed in the press the world over, from Manilla to Montreal.

Past Bond's Connery and Moore have defended Craig as a "fine actor", but as noted in one of the anti-craig fansites, if fine acting skills are all that is required to be 007, then technically the likes of Tom Hanks would be suitable. Clearly strong acting credentials, while necessary, are not sufficient for the role.

Considering the commercial success of the last four films with Brosnan playing the role, such a drastic change in the direction of the franchise can only be seen as supremely risky. The motive? I suspect that Brosnan's demands for a cut of the profits (i.e., pay consistent with other actors whose films gross similar amounts of money), and his desire to have a considerable amount of creative control (he has long been critical of the lack of artistic integrity of the 007 films he has appeared in), did not sit well with the wallets or egos of EON, the production company who along with Sony Pictures hold the rights to the Bond film franchise. Furthermore, replacing a popular Bond has proven to be tough, both in terms of fan reaction and box office results. The choice of an unknown Aussie model, George Lazenby to replace Connery was deemed a failure at the time. More pointedly, the change from the retiring Roger Moore to Timothy Dalton almost sent the franchise to the grave.

It appears that the current producers decided that re-booting the series to be more in-line with common action films (i.e., unsophisticated stereotypical action man that can be played by just about any decent actor) would solve any future issues of finding a replacement for the role of 007, as well as potentially capturing a new fan base, one more attention span challenged than past generations. Not to mention having to avoid paying Brosnan loads of cash and future profits, and surrendering much of the control of the film making process to his capable hands (Brosnan owns his own production company and knows a few things about making good films).

Adopting a less cynical point of view, the decision to freshen the Bond franchise and save itself from inevitable staleness can be considered bold. However, the signs for Casino Royale are not good. EON's inability to land a big name actor as a replacement to Brosnan (apparently Hugh Jackman's request to see the script before deciding on the role was rejected) has been well-reported. Similarly, the reluctance of any of Hollywood’s leading lady's to sign on shows a lack of confidence in an unproven commoditty in Craig and the attempted "re-booting" of the series (whatever happened to the Bond tradition of plucking rare beauty from obscurity?). Furthermore, EA games decided to scrap the development of a tie-in video game, again raising questions as to a lack of confidence in the new Bond.

Judging from the trailer, the sophisticated and witty 007 I grew up watching will be no more. Despite this, the new film may still be worthwhile and enjoyable. Or the whole idea, along with the choice of Craig may backfire immensley. If the latter, one can only hope that the crafting of the 22nd Bond film, with its script, choice of cast, and historical context will be motivated by matters other than just greed.

Ron Grounds is a doctoral candidate in Cognitive Neuropsychology at La Trobe University, Melbourne Australia. For fun he consults in the audio visual industry, and despite access to some of the world's best home theatre equipment, he much prefers spinning an old record rather than watching what hollywood is currently offerring.

Gary Earl Ross

“After the last film, we spent eight months trying to come up with a story, but just couldn’t... There was nothing new left to do. So we decided to start all over with the story we’ve always wanted to tell how Bond became Bond in the first place.”
Michael G. Wilson to Entertainment Weekly on why EON
dumped Pierce Brosnan and rebooted 007.

Pierce Brosnan himself lamented the inertia that set in among 007 producers after Die Another Day, and now Michael Wilson has confirmed it. The problem, then, was lack of imagination on the part of creative staff. Instead of firing the writers who dreamed up invisible cars and preposterous science fiction motifs and spent eight months coming up dry, producers elected to fire the actor who spoke their lines.
Eight months?
As a writer, I have to wonder at the lack of ideas. At a Harlan Ellison reading I once attended, a would-be writer announced that he wanted to write but had no ideas. How did Ellison get his? “Then you’re not a writer,” Ellison said. “Writers have ideas.” Purvis and Wade, who penned the last three 007 films, had a remarkably new idea for the start of Die Another Day by having Bond spend time in a North Korean prison. Unfortunately, they abandoned the idea fairly quickly and reverted to formula before the film reached the first quarter mark. Much of the rest of the film mined material from previous Bond films for set pieces and twists masked as homage. Wilson’s admission that they were out of ideas for Bond should have come as no surprise to anyone.
But as Ellison said, writers have ideas, so I’m going to attempt to generate seven 007 ideas in this piece. Each will be character-driven. Each will be tough and gritty. Each will be something EON could have done to refresh the franchise without replacing a beloved lead with a craggy near-unknown, without replacing baccarat with Texas Hold ‘Em, and without featuring a control room with a ticking bomb or space-based weapon.

001. Bond goes rogue and is hunted by the world’s best government assassins. The pursuit is global and Bond must go underground to survive. He resorts to disguises, blends in with various populations, visits old lovers for temporary sanctuary, and retreats into the wilderness when necessary. While underground, he pursues his nemesis by tapping into phone lines and computer systems until he uncovers a far-reaching plot to overthrow the government of Great Britain. Yes, Bond has gone rogue before, briefly, in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, License to Kill, and Die Another Day. The catch this time would be that at the end of the film, Bond has a secret meeting with M and she refuses to cancel the sanction. At the end, in the arms of the “Bond girl,” 007 says, “You’re not safe with me,” to which she replies, “You’re not safe with me either.” Bond says, “Then let’s make the most of the time I have,” and she unloads the gun she would have used to kill him.

002. A major supporting character (M, Moneypenny, Q, Tanner, Robinson, Leiter, Wade) is assassinated or murdered, and Bond must investigate. If the victim is a fellow agent, he must follow the agent’s footsteps to the killer, who is part of a plot to a)destabilize world currency, b)place a world-class double identity terrorist at the head of the UN or a major western government, or c)use biological or chemical warfare to wipe out the West’s ten major cities simultaneously. The first half of the film would involve Bond’s pursuit of revenge. The second half would focus on his stopping the plot. He would take special pleasure in killing the killer but would revert to his usual efficiency for others in the plot. We’ve seen those glimmers of pleasure in a specific kill in Dr. No, Diamonds Are Forever, For Your Eyes Only, License to Kill, and Goldeneye. If M is the victim, Bond can meet the new M at the end, which offers a nice segue to the next film. If Moneypenny is the victim, he can meet M’s new secretary. In a touching earlier scene, Bond can kiss Moneypenny’s casket. At the end, he can drink a toast to her picture: “Moneypenny, what will I ever do without you?”

003. Bond is on the trail of the world’s leading assassin, someone who is the mirror image of himself, who anticipates his moves and has countermeasures in place at every turn. The twist is that each is assigned by his government to take out the same Central American or Middle Eastern dictator. There will be no cooperation, however, for the other assassin wants to complete the mission and take out the legendary 007, forcing Bond into the same posture. If the other assassin is a female, Bond will have bedded her but will have to kill her at the end. He can be alone at the end of the film, contemplating his life over a drink at his club in London. A woman sits opposite him and he says, “009, what are you doing here?” “The same as you,” she says. “Trying to find comfort because I have a shite job.” He suggests they try to find comfort together, but she balks because of the service’s rules against agent involvement with each other. “If we’ve been colleagues enough to work together and walk away the next day . . .” he says. “They’ll never know.” They leave the club. The waiter then phones M, who says, “Good” and orders Robinson or Tanner to make sure they’re kept under surveillance but left undisturbed. “After what they’ve been through separately, a night together might be just what I need to keep my top people in top form.”.

004. On special assignment to train U.S. operatives, Bond uncovers a plot to awaken sleeper assassins in major U.S. cities for a coordinated attack on key government officials. Trying to work through the problem, Bond gets caught up with the bureaucracy of Homeland Security and wonders aloud how anything gets done. He strikes out on his own, first taking down the hidden assassins who have been activated and then finding the puppet master behind the plot. It is apparent that at least some of the sleepers are involuntary, so Bond must face the dilemma of whether to kill an innocent person unaware he or she has been programmed to kill. If the sleepers have some kind of implant that will explode if removal is attempted or the remote control device is destroyed, Bond’s choice will be harder. In fact, the explosion is the method the puppet master will use to carry out his assassinations. If the Bond girl is a sleeper, he must save her or kill her but he turns to Q, who encases the control device in a block of acrylic that is locked in a vault.

005. Bond goes to Africa. As an African-American I have long been disturbed by the lack of attention the West pays to Africa. If Shaft can go to Africa and The Constant Gardener can uncover a murder plot there, so can Bond. His mission will be to take down a genocidal dictator who has financial ties to a Russian oligarch who wants to return his own brand of communism to Russia. The plot permits the return of several Bond characters from previous films and books: Leiter, Wade, Draco, Anya Amasova. Roger Moore has said the poverty he witnessed in India while filming Octopussy helped inspire him to his active role in UNICEF. Exposure of wretched conditions in a Bond movie may go well beyond Tears of the Sun and can become a socially meaningful 007 flick if handled like The Constant Gardener and Hotel Rwanda.

006. While on assignment in South America, Bond gets involved in a plot to overthrow a government supported by drug cartels. Wounded by government agents, Bond goes into hiding in a village and becomes the village protector. Leading the villagers in an uprising against the drug lords who have enslaved them, Bond assassinates the corrupt president and M must scramble to keep his identity secret. Later, in London, he is visited by the woman who nursed him back to health. You may recognize Witness and The Magnificent Seven here but all plots come from somewhere.

007. Casino Royale. Bond is ordered to undermine a terrorist financial network run through a casino in Monaco. The catch is that this assignment is similar to one he received soon after he earned his 00, though this time he is not to gamble government money. He is there masquerading as an investment banker interested in infiltrating the finance mechanisms. His chief problem is that he keeps having flashbacks to his previous assignment, his torture at the hands of LeChiffre, and his betrayal by Vesper Lynd. The flashbacks impair his ability to complete his mission and he must face up to his demons to succeed. In lens-filtered flashbacks Bond is portrayed by a young actor who closely resembles Pierce Brosnan and who can assume the role when Brosnan retires. I must confess, however, that this idea is not wholly original. Both Quentin Tarantino and Pierce Brosnan suggested Casino Royale be the next 007 film, but I doubt seriously you’ll see either one get a story credit.

There you have it, seven quick ideas, dashed off between last night while my teens and their friends were on the other side of the living room watching Crash and this morning before I get on the ladder to repair my roof. Each is a rough idea that could be developed. Each is character-driven. None has a super villain with a scraggly cat, a media empire, or a DNA transplant. None has a control room or a space-based weapon involving diamonds, lasers, or EMP. None involves a set-up for a very bad pun at the end (see The World Is Not Enough and Moonraker).

Writers, you see, have ideas. If Purvis and Wade couldn’t come up with something, Michael and Barbara should have called me, or some of the thousands of other writers available. We’d all leap at the chance to do 007. But they’ve chosen to sink their ship.

Guess I’ll hold out hope for a call from whoever wants to make The Man from UNCLE.

_________________

Gary Earl Ross is the author of The Wheel of Desire and Shimmerville. His play Matter of Intent won the 2005 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

As an actor, I have no opinion of Daniel Craig. I’ve never seen any of the movies he’s appeared in nor do I have any interest to. However, I do not envy him his position. Of all the actors that have ever played Bond, he has the most to lose. If “Casino Royale” is a flop, there is a great possibility that it will negatively impact his career. Unlike “Superman”, “Batman”, or “Star Wars”, which have a built-in fan base wherein the characters are the driving force, the “James Bond” series is unique in that the actor can make or break the character and, by extension, the franchise. If the audience does not buy an actor as James Bond, the film suffers. Timothy Dalton, both superlative as an actor and as Bond, did not have the same appeal as Sean Connery and Roger Moore before him. Whatever the politics behind the scenes during the six year hiatus notwithstanding, his tenure lasted only two films. George Lazenby, with his one effort, is considered the worst of the Bonds in many circles.

From all reports, Pierce Brosnan was touted as the second coming of Bond. This view is further cemented by the fact that he has been credited with being the savior of the franchise and also being credited with being the “Billion Dollar Bond”; i.e. his movies have grossed more than any of his predecessors. To replace Brosnan while he is still viable for one, maybe two, more Bond films makes no fiscal nor logical sense. To much of the viewing public, Brosnan is James Bond. His likeness purportedly appeared on the jacket covers of various John Gardner Bond novels, a likeness so striking that EON tried to suppress its use after the publication of “Brokenclaw”. During the Dalton years, he appeared as a faux Bond in many overseas commercials. What makes ever less sense is, after years of positive work in the name of the fictional majesty’s secret service, Brosnan was unceremoniously dumped. In all fairness, EON’s and Brosnan’s contractual obligations were met. However, the public was lead to believe during the press junket of “Die Another Day” that Brosnan would be invited back for a fifth. In the years that followed, a back and forth ensued regarding Brosnan’s viability as Bond. In the midst of contract discussions, EON abruptly ceased negotiations and advised Brosnan his services were no longer required. The reasons proffered were either a) Brosnan wanted more money (which he was arguably entitled to, given Hollywood pay structures); b) Brosnan’s advancing age; or c) that “Casino Royale” is Bond’s first mission, and Brosnan is inappropriate for that story (This is a fallacy. In the novel on which this movie is very-loosely based, Bond is a seasoned operative who is tired of the service and in fact contemplates resignation near the story’s end). This is strictly conjecture on my part, but it may simply come down to a case of bad blood between producer and actor. Rumors and statements abound about the creative differences between Barbara Broccoli and Brosnan. If this is the case, then this bit of sour grapes is not only unprofessional, but short sighted.

After such an apex, any one following Brosnan under normal circumstances would be facing a very steep nadir. Daniel Craig is not my first, middle, or last choice for Bond. As many have stated, he looks more like a Bond villain than Bond and in interviews has vacillated between showing reverence and outright disdain for the franchise in general and the character in particular. Can he act as Bond? I don’t know and I will never find out, for I will be boycotting “Casino Royale”. Due to their shoddy treatment and ostracizing of Pierce Brosnan and the casting of a completely unsuitable actor, to pay to see this movie would be rewarding the producers’ efforts. Cubby Broccoli had once shot down the “Bond Begins” idea in the mid-80s, reasoning that people pay to see Bond as he is, not as he was. This will be a very expensive lesson for the producers to learn should “Casino Royale” become the flop many expect it will be.

The Producers Have a Plan

Prologue: It was always a mystery, how come an unknown, unattractive man, known as Daniel Craig could ever be cast as a replacement to handsome, charming and incredibly popular (arguably MOST popular of them all) actor Pierce Brosnan in the role of James Bond. It always seemed so absurd that at first no one really believed it. "They're digging their own grave" we thought, but it all was a quick first impression. Producers behind
this idea have a plan.

Being a huge Pierce Brosnan's James Bond fan myself, I've spend alot of time
in the last year, as unfortunately have all TRUE James Bond fans, thinking about what
could have ever made them make such a terrible decision. "If it ain't broken --
don't fix it" they say. Nothing is broken in James Bond franchise, is there? There is now. Pierce was greatly successful in his role, loved by most common moviegoers, accepted as the second-best Bond after Sean Connery and even considered as simply the best James Bond performer ever among many fans (myself included). Brosnan’s Bond was the most commercially successful, and like, what ELSE could the producers ever wish for?

Part one: Producers.
First of all, what do you guys know about producers? They're greedy bastards that is, and they don't give a damn about anything as long as it works and brings more money into their pockets. Nasty people, never mess with anyone like them, but honestly... It's in every human nature. Money changes people. All of them. Even the best. For example... You have a pal. Not a best friend of yours, just a PAL. Nice guy/gal, really sweet person. You work in the same company, but in different areas. You see each other every day, you
chat, you laugh, maybe even you spend some time together after work. There was never
a misunderstanding between the two of you. But one day, you come to be your friend's boss. Your payment, your money depends on how good this man/woman does their work and maybe even at first the two of you are excited about working together, later you see that nothing is as good as it seemed to be in the beginning. Your pal is lazy. He/she just will not work as much as he/she can, sometimes they even spoil something and you start loosing money. YOU. MONEY. YOUR MONEY. Imagined that? Now, what's about your attitude towards this person now? Is it still good? NO. Did he/she ever do something PERSONALLY to you? Offended you? Your family? NO. But you know that you are losing money because of that person, YOUR hard-earned money and you start disliking this person! Why? No personal reason, it's all the job. Only the job. Maybe you even end up being enemies for the rest of your days. Pity, it all started so good!
So, the point is: producers look at a franchise as at a WORKER who gets them money. They DON'T give a damn about the franchise (you don't give a damn if your subordinate stays on after hours, or if he/she works in holidays, you just need the job done, because if isn’t done, you'll lose money). They're NOT fans of this franchise. They DON'T care about who's playing Bond as long as they get their money.

So, what was wrong with Pierce? Nothing. He brought alot of money to them. The most money of all the Bonds. But at some point, maybe even before filming "Die another day", they understood that along with getting more and more popular, Pierce is getting OLDER. And even I understand how hard is it to replace a favorite... People would want more, people would judge anyone who replaces their idol based on how much the new actor LOOKS and ACTS like the much beloved (by them) predecessor and if they don’t
like it (and they most likely wouldn't) they'll just won't go to that movie. BANG, producers lose money, especially since JB is a huge franchise and it involves alot of money. It's hard times for the producers. They're very limited in creativity, people want special effects -- it costs money, but people want good actors and scenario as well....... You can't use too much of violence and sex in your movie, 'cause this'll give it an "R" rating and teens won't be able to go on that movie and BANG! ...You lose your money... Quite hard to make a good movie without violence and sexual themes...... That is a problem. So producers of James Bond start thinkin' of a new plan...... HOW.

How not to lose money if the movie does well, but the budget is so big, that they lose money anyway.
First of all -- people are NOT stupid, ok? Every single time when you think that people ARE stupid and that you can do something like "Superman returns", "Van Helsing"...... I dunno....... "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" and get away with this, just STOP... And think again. We WON'T buy a freak in blue-red-yellow outfit, with stupid curl who thinks he can fly. Fly away kiddo, we prefer Batman now. You may still be popular in USA, but it'll be a huge mistake to forget about that the WORLD doesn’t
end with US frontier. We WON'T buy a bullshit like Van Helsing just because there's Hugh Jackman in it and sexy vampires. Should you forget about PG-13 and add more blood, gore and naked boobs, maybe it'll work, but not the way it is. I won't even say a word about "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", it's just complete nonsense...
Point in OUR situation: it is too risky making a movie without Pierce Brosnan, but
with a high budget. Pierce and Pierce alone saved last Bond outing from an inevitable flop. If it had been some other actor, they would never have even gotten half of what it cost back. It's just stupid to deny that. Not even Sean Connery could have saved Die Another Day, only Brosnan. Maybe producers knew that this movie would make Pierce even more popular and they were ESPECIALLY thinkin' about making it as bad as possible (I personally don't think that Die Another Day is bad. It's quite good actually, but a race-changing villain, a henchman with diamonds in his face, and, most of all, Halle Berry -- that'll turn off any man), but surprise!! People love Brosnan so much, they just didn't give a damn! It was the most commercially successful movie of them all, what'd you do about it! Why would the producers want this movie to be bad? They planned it for a long time and they wanted people to be disappointed in Brosnan and move easily onto next actor, whoever he is. Well, it's just my guess. Maybe they REALLY thought it'd be cool to put diamonds in a man's face and think that he'll look like a badass... Maybe. Dunno.
Anyway, next stop is a look at other franchises that ARE doing good. Like Batman, which Begins. Forget about all that was before, start everything anew and try not to mess up the last chance you've got. Bond producers definitely loved this idea. I think that this movie exactly is responsible for an unfortunate decision to start everything anew in the James Bond universe. Another story is Jason Bourne. Another spy, pretty down-to-earth guy. Not a high-budget movie, doesn't have a famous actor, but quite popular and makes money. We have a base! We need a middle-budget movie. Like... $70,000,000 should work. Not a big money really. Now for...

Part two: Actors.
Oh, yeah, that's where the fun begins. Now I'm about to give you an answer
on your question 'WHY CASTING SOMEONE AS UGLY AS DAN CRAIG??!!" .....'Cause
he's very easy to REPLACE. You can't just replace Pierce Brosnan. Of course, if
they weren't gonna cast Craig from the beginning, then they definitely were trying to lure someone more fitting the role. Like, Hugh Jackman... Jackman himself said they've offered him a role, but wouldn't let him read the script, so, naturally, he refused. Clive Owen said some bullshit (at least I think it's a bullshit and I wonder if Clive himself even knows he ever said that?) "No one can replace Connery". .....Riiiiiiiight......... Next: Ewan
McGregor was too short... Like....... Craig is tall, is he? Ever heard about some movie tricks? So, there's Craig. Sometimes I think they've decided it long ago. They've just created this shit so we could see them "trying". "Oh, no, poor us, we've done what we could in bringing your favorite “Jackmans, McGregors, Owens, put-name-here, but they all, oh the bastards, refused! Can you imagine! We were giving them a whole 1.5 million dollars and they refused!! ...So, naturally we had to move with someone very talented, but lesser known. Danny, come here!”. Poor-man's Bond....... True....... This guy runs completely out of dignity... Anyway, producers now say we're gonna love him. Uh-huh... Sure. For dinner. With right sauce. This guy is stupid enough to say "They've scared all the shit outta me" after his boat ride with Royal Marines. The guy who is stupid enough to say that he hates LA... The guy, who's "talented performance" in, say, "Tomb Raider" I can't even remember. So much for the talent...... But at least this guy won't ask much and he's very easy to replace. Nobody's gonna miss him. He's cheapness is the only reason they cast him. And it the part where it turns out he's an idiot...... Well......... That's a
letdown...

Part three: Reboot.
Now. Alongside with Craig people often hate the whole "reboot" idea. Why do they need a reboot. See........... The thing is, the James Bond we’re used to know is no more. For now, or forever, but it's just like that. Alongside with casting Craig, they've created completely different Bond image. He's no longer charming, handsome, clever, he's nothing more than a hitman with good reflexes. Yep. Again, no charm, even EASIER to replace. I wouldn’t be surprised if they release the book called "how to learn to play James Bond in 3 minutes" and they'll post a few pics, demonstrating simple basic facial
impressions and tone of the voice for any of them.
Besides, they saw "Batman Begins" and they've decided: brilliant idea, let's
do that too!! The only problem is........ Batman WAS broken. Bond wasn't.
Then again, they were looking into the future and they did all they could to
create this "flopproof" wall around James Bond. Well......... I think they'll get what they want. The New Bond movies will never be considered a flop, they'll just make some little profit, but big enough to satisfy the producers.

So, in short... The plan is:
1. Fire Pierce Brosnan, before he gets even more popular (check)
2. Cast an unknown, unattractive, easy to replace actor (check)
3. Start everything anew, like there was never something before (it'll give
some advantage for the new kind of Bond. And besides Brosnan brought James
Bond back to the Zenith of popularity, now's the right time to do something
like this. They'd never do it if Bond wasn't as popular as he is now)
(check)
4. Before anything happens, don't let the moviegoers to decide if they like
him or not, work with "Roger Moore method" -- if they won't like him for the
first time, try, try and try again! ........Someday they'll just get used to
him... Like..:
- Wanna go to the new James Bond movie?
- Who's playing?
- The same. Craig.
- Oh..... Crap......... I dunno....... Well ok... Let's go...

Brilliant plan! Dangerous, but brilliant! They know that people are mostly a crowd, they can be convinced in ANYTHING, but still....... Not all of them are.......

New Bond Critique

Nothing irks a fan more than having a favorite character redone. It didn’t go over that well for the restart of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, a second movie featuring the renewed Ryan still has yet to be made.

When the announcement was made in 2003 there would be a 5^th Pierce Brosnan film, people were eagerly awaiting the release date. Rumors surfaced that Pierce would not return were unconfirmed and largely dismissed, otherwise the fan fervor would have started years earlier. I for one was looking forward to the next installment, wondering if Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane) had survived the World is not Enough (this was purposely left ambiguous), and what would happen with Bill Tanner (Michael Kitchen) described by Ian Fleming as “Bond’s only friend in the service”, also how the death of the original “Q” would affect James.

Its about expectations, the audience had expectations of another classic James Bond story, featuring the same tried and true formula that has somehow worked for all these years. Not an entire rework of the series, ruining the continuity and the feel fans had for the stories and the characters. For example, it is well known that Bond tragically lost his wife, now erasing that history to retell it is one thing, but having Vesper Lynd ,a traitor in the book, taking the place of Tracy Bond is just plain wrong.

The heavy handed tact currently being used by EON, I would have expected from a rival production company starting its own independent James Bond movie line.

“New Coke/New Bond, you love it, you just don’t know it yet.”

When every actor from the production past or present has to come out to defend your new choice as leading role, chastising those who dared to criticize, then you either have a very large public relations problem, hugely miscast the role, or production problems that even the Ford Pinto couldn’t have imagined.

Come to think of it I have never heard an actor say anything pertaining to another actor other than “fine actor they’ll do well in the role” or similar meaningless platitude.

Will actors even publicly criticize each other?

Somehow I doubt Sir Sean Connery made time to obtain a copy of Layer Cake let alone watch it.

I never before gave consideration to an independent production James Bond. I know Sony and a few others had wanted to start one. One idea had been to remake Thunderball for the umpteenth time, as was done in Never Say Never Again.

Alas Never Say Never Again only has merit because of Sean Connery’s return to a role that he alone defined, the other independent attempts don’t even seem worth mentioning.

We all have sat through our of favorite actor’s leaves turning, becoming a little too old to get away with playing Bond and talked amongst our selves about who could possibly be the next James Bond eventually agreeing there is nobody who stands out. (Ironically that’s exactly what EON went with.)

Pierce had at least one maybe two more Bond movies in him, before the general conscious would have been “Hey! That could be your granddaughter, back off a little!”

I almost wish there had been a movie line independent of EON set up, you can bet that Pierce Brosnan would have been snapped up to continue on as James Bond once he was released from EONs maniacal grasp.. Sadly we all now look to Sony for some common sense and common ground.

Perhaps the monopoly EON fought to maintain was a bad thing after all. One need only look as far as George Lucas to see how a good thing can be ruined, and how a new thing created by the same people is not always better, nor as good.

The New Bond is Crass not Class

All of fandom went wild with the release of the new Bond movie trailer and purported movie poster. EON threw gas on the fire that is the civil war they ignited with their fan base.

I showed the preview clip to over a dozen people, one of the ladies viewing the trailer thought the guy at the card table in the end of the trailer was the bad guy. In fairness without English it was hard to tell.

The rest felt assaulted by the opening black and white scenes.

Conjure images of a Transporter or Bourne movie not what we know of as Bond. Some of the younger guys thought it looked pretty cool, they were more Transporter, Fast & Furious fans, and like to be assaulted. Those of us that are Bond fans were hugely disappointed. This is not Bond, so much of it felt wrong, If it wasn’t for the iconic music, (which sounded great by the way), the fleeting glimpse of the car and a few of the other past series standards, it really wasn’t distinguishable as a James Bond preview. The beat down/ assault in the bathroom and the guy doing a Tigger, bouncing down the side of the building screamed Jason Bourne movie. What is with the bathroom scene turning into the legendary gun barrel motif? It comes off as lame or worse.

Aside from the fact movie poster more resembles Dr House (Hugh Laurie) at the card table than the star, Casino Royale does not have a lot in its favor so far. Only the hard core fans will be moved by the title, because we are only ones aware that Casio Royale was the first Bond story. But this isn’t a story made for the fans or nostalgia, its made for the producers to “reinvigorate” themselves. (the same reason George W Bush takes the month of August off.)

Producers complained that they couldn’t do much with the Bond they had, that Pierce Brosnan couldn’t make this movie. There is probably a good reason for that, none of the other Bonds in their prime could make this movie.

EON for decades had two actors as Bond, Dalton and Brosnan, who wanted to do something, anything more with the character. Brosnan is quoted on more than one occasion as saying that he wanted to bring more to the stories, more emotion, more depth. Instead they wrote the scripts they wrote and made the movies they made.

It is as if they put a teenage girl in charge of this production, flights of fancy and whims driven by the newest craze or fad to come into her sphere of influence.

Barbra Broccoli’s statement that she is making this movie for her father come off as disingenuous. While Cubby Broccoli didn’t have the rights to Casino Royale he had every chance to do a prequel story or to restart the series and never did. In fact he spoke out against it.

The film makers forgot what made a Bond movie a Bond movie, oddly the lampooning Austin Powers and Johnny English know the formula by heart.

The first rule is a likeable leading man, someone you can respect and admire. Wrongly or rightly Sean Connery defined who and what James Bond is. Whenever you search for an actor to play Bond your are looking for that generations Sean Connery. A claim that Daniel Craig can fully refute.

This is not the big screen Casino Royale movie that could have been made. This is not the experience of watching a legend be born, rather a desecration and degradation of a much beloved cultural icon. This is not recreating or careful retelling of the series in a thoughtful, provoking way, but a birth of a pierced, tattooed, surly in your face “I didn’t ask to be born” ingrate of a Bond.

After over 40 years of entrenched dogma what did EON expect the reaction would be.

In the books and movies James Bond wanted to do exactly what he was doing and was always motivated as a patriot (ok, sometimes revenge as well).

EON instead picked a man who “Never not wanted to be James Bond” and choose to make a movie where Bond never wanted to be 007. Lack of option drives his decisions rather than desire.

They say that there is no such thing as bad publicity, tell that to Michael Jackson.

If the fans are this upset, the general public is more likely to be disinterested than intrigued. Put off by the fan bickering. Like Star Trek fans (geeks) arguing, most people don’t care, don’t want to be involved and wouldn’t lift a finger to decide the issue.

If EON and Sony had been inclined to make two James Bond movie lines, (Bond Classic and Vanilla Bond if you will), then the fans wouldn’t have felt as slighted or left out in the cold. Come’on guys how about Bond classic revival for 2007. A year with 007 in you can’t lose.

In the end I feel sorry for Sony and yes even the craggy faced Daniel Craig, after all he’s just in it for the payday. Both parties signed up for the James Bond franchise based on the past success and popularity. Neither of whom could have possibly imagined the direction EON would take the series or the fervor of a fan base civil war.

Both are likely to be blamed if the current project fails, instead of EON on who’s shoulders the current fiasco clearly falls.

Casino Royale a 007 sized gamble for the franchise?

With Barbra Broccoli sudden emergence to the forefront as spokesperson for the 007 franchise, also brigs up a lot of questions.

Barbra Broccoli is the champion of the new craggy faced Bond, indeed she fights all of his battles for him. Maybe she is actually fighting for herself, maybe this is a James Bond esque gamble for the franchise. Once Casino Royale bombs out royally in the Box Office, perhaps Sony and the other investors have a chance to wrestle control of the franchise away from EON or even take over EON outright.

We have to wonder after the fans, well not just fans but the public in general had such a lukewarm reaction to the appointment of Craig as James Bond. Why go forward with production at all. Why not do a little market research first. A lot of fans believed that this was akin to a joke and would soon be corrected by the investors. Barbra has a history of bad Bond ideas, no really she does. There was a lot she fancied for the 007 series that her father wouldn't indulge.

The casting of Craig can only makes sense if:

1.) the investors really truly believe in EON can do no wrong.

or 2.) the investors cynically see a chance to gain control.

The current bad Box Office where even a sure thing loses, suggests this is power play. A chance for the studio to steal away the franchise, why else up the anti, why else would Barbra Broccoli be out there doing the Texas two step trying to gin up support for her man, when she has a history of staying far off in the background.

She is dancing publicly now, probably after dancing privately for the investors, because Craig is her choice, hers alone. She “badgered” him until he took the role. Most actors talk about being right for or wanting the role, not being hounded by some insane admirer till they took a role. Craig admits not wanting to be 007 and looking for the big payday, he also says he felt he had to do the movie. Did Barbra have anything to with it?

If she wanted to hire him so badly, why not, she has the money, he can be her personal pool boy or something. But not James Bond. Hell, start a spin off series based on James Bond about another cruder 00 agent.

006 anybody?

Bad English

It just doesn't make sense. Watching the new trailer was offensive, in English more so.

Sony quickly pull the trailer and prototype Casino Royale poster and release a statement that it was a big misunderstanding and a mistake on the part of those who released it. Sounds like trial balloon was shot down in flames after barely a day. Those of us who were on the fence waiting to see what would come of the new Bond, toppled off.

The comments from the various people shown the French and later English trailer to were not positive.

Most of the women, who have been not following the Craig/007 saga were shocked that the guy at the end of the trailer was Bond!!! “He's ugly!" “ Whats wrong with his face...” “That can not be the guy!” ”He's not 007!”

Old time Bond fans, who most have seen the of the original movies in the theater, some starting with Dr. No, thought the he would have been one of the henchmen in the good 'ol days, killed off quickly and quietly in the opening minutes.

The answer is simple give us back our suave sophisticated James Bond. Cancel this self-indulgent crap fest, and give us back the Bond we love, like and admire.

Flemish

The rallying cry to defend the new James Bond is that he is the Bond Fleming wrote.

We are told to accept this ugly reject of a man, if anyone quibbles about casting against type by choosing a man that would cause you to lock your car doors if he came too close. Those claming to be uber Fleming-nauts come out of the woodwork spouting he’s what Fleming wrote. Well he’s not.

The fact is the movie being made is not what Fleming wrote and Daniel Craig is not James Bond as Fleming described him. I could go on here, but others have made these points far better.

Just as an example of what Fleming thought:

At the time of casting Sean Connery Fleming thought Sean Connery was too "unrefined", not enough of a gentleman to be Bond. His choices were more along the lines of David Niven and Cary Grant.

If Fleming thought Sean Connery uncouth what would he make of Daniel Craig?

Books are a great medium that can honestly be credited with changing our world.

Books convey thoughts and ideas that can’t otherwise be captured. They also allow for a wide range of interpretation and imagination.

What one person takes away from reading a book another does not.

I own all of Ian Fleming’s James Bond books in hardcover, they are prominent part of my personal library, I have read and re-read them time and again.

I would welcome an accurate adaptation of all Fleming’s books (including the short stories and Chitty-chitty Bang-bang), portrayed in the age they were written for, starting with Casino Royale.

I’m not saying a true adaptation can’t be done, it hasn’t been done yet and is not being done here..

James Bond 007 has long out lived his creator, and has never been precisely depicted as he was written. Novels change as the are scripted for the screen, that’s just the way it is.

The movies are only an interpretation of what was written.

EON’s talk of retuning Bond to his root is disingenuous, there is nothing to go back to. You can’t miss a place you’ve never been.

The Interpretation they have offered as James Bond for over 40 years, is not the James Bond of the books. Of course in some instances the movies and actors came closer than others.

What would Ian Fleming want? The fact that this is even a debate tells us a lot.

The chosen literate few demand the stop of the movies series as it had been and endorse a restart of the James Bond story according to their strict interpretation. That’s fine, it’s their right to voice what they have found wrong with Bond and what they would like to see. I think in the past their voices have tethered Bond and helped to pull the stories back down to earth after too much time in the stratosphere.

What Ian Fleming wrote or didn’t write is no longer relevant. It doesn’t even come in to the scope of mattering.

What is relevant and what the debate is about is the movies. There was a past standard, quality and story telling to the Bond movies. A formula was developed that people liked.

Everybody who liked the what now must be considered the “old series” have a right if not a duty to demand the return of the James Bond they liked. The movie business is about “giving them what they want”, not us having to want what’s given.

Consider for a moment that the “what Fleming wrote” argument can work against the new production of Casino Royale. They (EON) are not being true to what Fleming wrote, adding elements that were never part of the original Casino Royale story. Screwing up the storyline with plot elements that were never there. Making it untenable to the rest of the movie series.

Yes, I know that my argument about what Fleming wrote not mattering can be used to defend the Casino Royal and Daniel Craig. But that’s my point!!!

My point was never they can’t make this movie, rather that they shouldn’t.

EON and Sony should listen to the concerns of the fans who have cared enough to publicly state them and bring attention to what they consider wrong.

Not respond by lecturing the fans, telling us you will like what is given, and if you chose not to then you don’t understand what Ian Fleming would have wanted. What Ian Fleming wrote is an ideal, and should be strived for, but the ideal hasn’t been met before so why start now. Save the Bond that Fleming wrote argument for the writers that continue the book series, where Fleming’s vision can actually be realized.

I’ve offer a middle ground to appease, put the release of Casino Royale on hold, get Brosnan back make a traditional Bond flick (for arguments sake call it Casino Royale as well), release them both in the year of 007, 2007.

One in May, one in November so they’re not in direct competition.

The reaction is little too much like that of King Solomon offering to divide the baby.

(No shared custody in his court.)

Ian Fleming never could have imagined what his creation would become, how popular he would be, or how much he would mean to people.

If Fleming were here to guide us now, would he care?

Are there any actors alive now that he would approve of?

Somewhere there is a séance going on right now to determine the answer.

Until we have the definitive answer I’ll leave you with one final thought.

Ian Fleming wanted to do a cross over story with contemporary author Rex Stout.

His James Bond 007 working with Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.

I imagine the title would have been something like:

Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin meet James Bond

007 at Wolfe’s Door

The Poor Man’s James Bond

They hid their star’s face whenever they put up a poster of him. His craggy face is air brushed until it no longer resembles him, cover all but an eyebrow in darkness, anything to make his aspect a more pleasing one.

The trailer for the new movie inspired more people against CR. The script reviews have poisoned the waters. Some of the reviewers themselves are, in some cases positive (some aren’t positive that the character in the script is James Bond).

The more the average guys & gals learn about the changes to James Bond the more unhappy they are about it.

There area actually three camps of fan opposition:

Those who hate the casting of Daniel Craig, see him as completely inappropriate as James Bond.

Those who are accepting Daniel Craig, but not the reboot and the changed formula.

Those who vehemently oppose both the reboot and Daniel Craig.

You have to wonder, why they would take such a risk on a virtual unknown. Simple answer is money, they don’t want to part with it.

If Craig can be Bond then the standards are gone. Manny, Moe, and Jack ( or Larry, Moe, and Curly for that matter) can be Bond now. The guy washing windshields at the intersection for spare change, is now over qualified to be James Bond.

The casting of Craig not only shatters all previous expectations, but also breaks the ties to the old series. The impetus for this is greater future earnings, aka greed.

EON is planning ahead, they want to provide a generic substitute packaged as a name brand. They can cut production cost by providing lesser stories with less special effects and now they can hire the cheapest undiscovered, untalented, uncharismatic actor that can be found, put them together and its James Bond. But only because they say so. That’s the dangerous precedence they want so badly to establish.

Craig is a dull, henchman like, uncharismatic actor. Looks more along the lines of a traditional Bond villain. While undoubtedly he is making more than he ever has in his life, I suspect that his actor fees are bottom basement. Bond by the lowest bidder.

EON is trying so hard to break the molds and change the expectations, so that they can define the brand as what ever they want. They are scrapping the old series because it has too many memories, too many standards to meet. Deciding to cut their overhead cost by cutting the class, sophistication, and story telling. You get 40% less in a narrower package with more additives and filler. (there is a lot of money to be save without gadgets)

It used to be said of James Bond that every man wanted to be him and every woman wanted to be with him. Can that even be said now? Maybe after a lot of plastic surgery and 10 face lifts.

In a way I feel sorry for Daniel Craig. He thinks this is his big break, this could be the break that makes him undesirable for any role in anything else. He doesn’t realize it yet but his savior, Barbra Broccoli, is a poisonous cockatrice. There will be nothing left of him when she is finished with him and if she needs to cut him loose so she can survive, she will, without hesitation. He may never even get the full 3 picture deal.

Craig is not only being used, but he is also expected to be the first to fall on his sword if this fails. That’s a lot of hassle for a job he never really wanted anyway.

Right now EON is struggling to slay the James Bond that we all know and love, and disperse his supporters while muttering their distain of them. “bloody peasants”.

Well the real James Bond does not die that easy and his friends and supporters do not run away from megalomaniacs.

Whatever happens EON will never be able to escape the classic iconic image that will always overshadow any project they commit to.

The Maidment letters

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtmlxml=/news/2006/05/21/nbond21.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/21/ixuknews.html

We are just now learning how bad a shape the Bond series was in the early ninety’s, and how much life Pierce Brosnan breathed in to the series, bringing it back from the edge of the abyss and taking it to soaring heights.

One could say his discourteous dismissal shows the ingrate nature of EON that Sean Connery has complained of for years. Before the current debacle I would have never assumed it of them.

For brief moment I would like to take a closer look at the letters that show the behind the scenes accounting of the series. I am always a little bit suspicious of suddenly handy information. I wonder who “leaked” this, before the current debate, irrelevant information.

Several possibility present themselves.

It’s an innocent coincidence, the poor guy died and the family or executor found the information and then a Bond collector published information.

The powers that be, for whatever purpose decide to let the public in a what was an in house secret, that had only been speculated about before.

Could be “they” are showing the first signs of a white flag. Yes we hear you, there is more going on behind the scenes than you know and we share your concerns, but not publicly. Craig may never be invited to complete his full 3 picture contract, look what happened to poor Dalton.

Could be a warning a shot across the bow of the dissenters (us), look how close it came to ruin, don’t rock the boat too hard.

(Rather hard to read a warning out of it, but I tried anyway.)

Or could be it’s all innocent, nothing to read behind the reason of the revelation. Dumb luck that it appeared when most relevant.

I don’t believe in dumb luck, but it does happen.

Fun to speculate as to why, be here is what we do know.

To say that the series was on life-support is being too polite, the coffin lid had already been nailed shut. The paramedics decide for one last try at a pulse, the backers agree if Pierce Brosnan is brought on board as fresh blood.

From they way it reads, Goldeneye if it had failed could have been the final Bond adventure. As it happened it was a spectacular success, and the series was taken of life-support and started breathing on its own, started walking, then running. Back at its prime after years of decline. Healthy for the first time in years. Thanks to Pierce Brosnan.

It also shows that fan opinion does matter. It matters more than we have been lead to believe, and the companies keep a close track of it.

Timothy Dalton had a lot more going for him than Daniel Craig, but he and his portrayal of Bond were not readily accepted by the public and was being credited for the eventual decline of the series over all.

Now I don’t have a big problem with Timothy Dalton, the Living Daylights his first outing did comparably to the last movie by his predecessor. A good start, didn’t lose any ground, wasn’t shunned as Bond. But two movies in a row (his and Moore’s) didn’t make money right away. His next movie did worse, we can argue about the how to and where for’s. Personally I would blame the producers for taking a bad direction.

His last movie did have all of hype, pomp and circumstance to make it a success, it just didn’t come off that way.

With three loser movies waiting for future earnings to break even, understandably the backers shied away from taking a greater risk. For a variety of reasons, some that were publicized now appear to by flummery, a hold was put on the movies.

The series waited 6 years for right man to come around and resurrect it, breathing vitality into a tired collection of what had been a healthy collaboration.

There is no parallel to be drawn from Craig usurping the role from Pierce, to what Pierce did for the series. Pierce had to start with a flat line and work up to a pulse. Craig has a healthy and fully funded enterprise behind him, he can only tie for first or more likely go downwards from his starting point.

How do you breath vitality, as they claim they are doing, into an already vital organism?

Well it’s not going to supercharge it or give it super powers. More likely to become a mutant (the bad kind without powers) or stroke out.

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Coincidence

Personally I don’t think that people make a peep out of Hollywood that the studios haven’t OK’ed. A bit conspiratorial I know, but look how then news works there, it’s mostly gossip, which is a shame. When the news is released it is like a big company (like Exxon or Wal-Mart) rolling out a product, which is what they are doing. A media blitz to trying to create favorable opinion. Nobody talks out of school. The only things you hear otherwise are from the critics and gossip mongers.

Two people, a director and an actor come out of the background with the news that Pierce Brosnan cost me a job (Pierce’s job at the time) or tried to hire me. The timing is suspicious, two stories one after the other. If they would have been released at different times in the last 2 years, that would have seemed more normal.

These people could see a chance to toot their own horn. Grab a little bit of attention. Say look what could of happened if I had been involved. Maybe they are auditioning in their own way.

The studios could be trying to suppress the pro Brosnan sentiment (look what he did, look what he tried to do) or they are fishing for better responses to a director and leading man than what they already have.

The problem EON had with Pierce Brosnan is that he has his own production company. He knows how both sides of the business works. He knows how to: hire actors, directors, scriptwriters, support staff, music, marketing, distribution. He also knows how much producers can make. In short he knows too much. The other actors took what was given without knowing any better.

The poor guy who created the gun barrel motif never got paid but for one job, it has been used in every Bond movie since Dr. No.
To be fair it was his decision when they asked him how he would like to be paid. Either he didn’t believe that there would be more movies or that they would ever use his design again, so he didn’t risk it and was paid for the one movie. If he had known more, who knows.

1.)Actor Dougray Scott says that Pierce Brosnan did “U-turn”, and returned to his role as 007. He says that EON was in talks with him before that.

I don’t know much about Dougray, I can remember him from the movies he was in, so he does have screen presence, unlike some. Whether he would be right for Bond, even he wasn’t sure.

I don’t doubt his truthfulness, but I doubt how truthful EON was being with him. Brosnan was signed for a four-film deal. If Pierce was playing hard to get for Die Another Day (his fourth film), then EON sounding out a replacement makes good sense. But its doubtful. Pierce has been the one actor to play Bond that the fans could count on.
With the number of young men coming forth saying EON offered or talked to them about being Bond, its more likely Barbra Broccoli just likes auditioning young men who will do anything to please her.

2.)Director Brett Ratner says that Pierce Brosnan approached him to direct the next Bond Film.
Kind of odd that Pierce would be the one shopping for directors. Might have been part of his contract if it was renewed. They may have told him to shop around for a director he liked, may have encourage him to be more involved.
Ratner’s revelation shows that Pierce was involved and wanted to make the next movie happen, he was enthused about it. We go from a actor who wants to make the movie, to a guy who only wants a big payday with the wishful realization of his big break finally happening.

If X-men 3 is a box-office smash EON is going to wish they had signed Ratner.

Fans have never missed Cubby Broccoli more than now.
If Cubby Broccoli were around, he would have known not to mess with a winning combination.

His children are having a very hard time filling his shoes.

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For Bond’s Sake

The reason fans are upset is not because they hate Daniel Craig or the concept of the reboot. It is because they love James Bond. They can clearly foresee his imminent demise.

Think of them as the people who tried to stop the release of New Coke, the heroes.
I’m sure there were people phoning, writing and trying to get attention anyway they could to stop the formula change of a product they loved and knew in their heart wouldn’t work. Coca-Cola lost customers during that experiment that still have not come back.

Those willing to go along with whatever EON produces are upset that anyone dares to utter a dissenting voice, often accusing them of possibly harming the franchise. Well the franchise is already harmed, 40 years of goodwill spent in a matter of moments. If you can’t see that then you haven’t looked objectively.

Every day business lose customers, most don’t know it. Nobody bothers to tell them why they have lost their business. Bond fans have cared enough to gather on their own and try to save a beloved icon.
Trying to work out our differences, trying to help people understand what’s wrong.
If production hadn’t been rushed, this movie and likely Craig would have been stopped by early fan sentiment alone.

Usually what happens is a split, people disaffected walk away with out much notice. That has happened, a lot have left already and will not be returning.
Underestimating fan commitment is a mistake, it is a vein that runs deep.
Some of us didn’t know how much it mattered to us until now, we will not support this travesty in the theaters or on DVD.

Appropriate that Craig came ashore wearing a lifejacket, he is on a sinking ship. (pun intended)
His appearance and appointment marked a huge shift, the beginning of the end. A cleft.
People were not prepared for his appearance, it was a shock to the system. For years EON continued misleading people that Pierce Brosnan would return to the role, then suddenly they yank the rug out from under them. Not only is Pierce fired but you are told all of the old movies you like so much are rubbish.

Craig has yet to get really good press. Some people are excited for him that’s true. But more and more people from hard core fans to people on the street, and now movie critics are starting to question what the hell EON was thinking. George Lazenby is getting apologies and flowers sent to him. (not that he would want the flowers)
More has been done to pump Craig up, trying to persuade people that is good looking and appropriately cast in the role of Bond. That it is even necessary tells you that he is not.

Ignored in the shadows are the people sitting at home right now who aren’t going to get off their couches to go see Casino Royale, you’ll never hear from them, they just won’t show. They are the people more likely to be unmoved by the rebooted Bond, disaffected as the rest of us, but never bothering to say it.

Fans have never supported the movies alone, hundreds of thousands of people went to see the movies as well. This new formula and leading man assumes that they would have gone anyway and will continue to. It discounts the theory that they actually liked what a Bond movie was. Worldwide there is a cultural subconscious image of who James Bond is, what a Bond movie looks like. This new formula will not meet those expectations.

The real danger is the people who blindly follow EON. With their support they encourage the movie and harass all dissenters. The dissenters are right to voice their concerns, not just for what they like or don’t, but mostly out of concern that the restart/recast will not be well received and the series will die a lingering painful death. The new direction amputates all the success previous Bond movies have stood on. (only the name ,the music and producers are the same)

If the supporters are wrong and this movie, this Bond fails miserably at the theaters then they will be partially responsible the death of James Bond.

The responsibility for the demise of the franchise can only rest with the people who run it.

Jar-Jar

Somebody probably has already made the comparison.

I was going to compare the unveiling of Daniel Craig to the nomination of Herriet Miers for the supreme court.
The parallel is exact.
Both were pulled from relative obscurity, nominated for one of the most coveted jobs in their fields.
Both the greeted by the general public with, ”huh? Who are you again?” “What are you doing here?” “Oh!! It’s a joke! Ok, where’s the real nominee?”.
Both handled the questions from the critics the same way.
Both never wanted the job.
The only difference is Herriet realized she was out of her league and asked to have her nomination withdrawn, Craig has yet to notice the water has been getting increasingly hotter.

But I realized that most people living outside of the United Sates, Canada, and Mexico would not know of this wonderfully fitting parallel.

Who could I nominate next?... Jar-Jar Binks – until I find better.

The infamous Jar-Jar Binks of the Star Wars prequels, in a tuxedo as 007. The parallel is not exact, only absurd.
Thou Jar-Jar in a tux would ooze more charm than Craig has been capable of so far.
Both Craig and Binks are much beloved by their creators.
Both Craig and Binks are annoying.
Both Craig and Binks were greeted by lukewarm fan reaction.

Binks has the digital help for his face Craig so desperately needs.
Craig has one advantage over Jar-Jar, he can’t be construed as a racist stereotype. (or can he?)
Lucas against his desire eventually had to scale back the Binks character, bowing to pressures from fans and critics.

I haven’t posted it here, but George Lucas recently surrendered.
The original Star Wars Trilogy (New Hope, Empire Strikes, the Jedi Return) will be released in September on dvd without the special edition cuts and additions Lucas has been adding since the 90’s, something Lucas vowed he’d never do. Yes it’s a gimmick, and he’ll make more money re-releasing the same movies again for the umpteenth time. But it is a victory.
Greedo will not shoot first! Fans have demanded this DVD release for years!
Fans can prevail even in the face of official opposition.

James Bond has never been bigger than the star who plays him. This is recognized by the Maidment letters. “without a star big enough to take the leading role…”
They knew they needed a star capable of carrying the series, not the other way around.

Bond movies to not have the same fanaticism the Star Wars movies have behind them. Bond fans do not wait in line for up to 3 months before the movie is released, and will not go to see just any movie with a 007 sticker slapped on it. This was proven when License to Kill was still in theaters.

Not since the heady days of Sean Connery, has an unknown risen to stardom propelling the series. Huge difference between now and then, is that when Connery took the mantel, Bond was unknown, undefined. The precedence has never been repeated, everyone else to successfully take up the mantle has had a career, been widely known, known for similar roles and eventually accepted as Bond before their first outing, they also made more than one movie. (Sorry George, you can’t be counted as a successful. Cheer up! People are starting to see you in different light, you are not the Daniel Craig of James Bond.)

Craig does not have his this in his favor, he can’t match any of the previous Bonds, so they scrapped it. Start from scratch, cobbling together the kind of Bond Craig can play, borrowing heavily from Jason Bourne. Which is more disastrous than if Craig had tried to play James Bond the same as his predecessors did.

Now there is the talk of rushing into production a second Daniel Craig movie, that is even more insane. Talk about pompous, aside from their absolute belief, nobody has any idea if Craig’s first movie will succeed. But they don’t want to miss the opportunity to release a Bond movie in 2007 the year of 007,(where have I heard that before?).
It’s comparable to yelling at the captain of the Titanic, “Hey! There is an iceberg ahead!” and getting the reply “More Speed! We shall break the speed record on our first crossing!”

Wouldn’t it make more sense to release the CR a month and a half later?
EON is forgetting that some parts of the world won’t see it in the theaters until 2007 anyway. They are manically scrambling their way head first into a dark dead-end alley.
If they force out a sequel I guess they can count on Craig being there if the doors are open, its not like he has got better things to do.

Arrogance alone will wreck the series, there were reasons for spacing the movies out. Looks like that lesson is going to have to be relearned.
Compounding the problems is their attitude, asked in an interview about the fans concerns Daniel Craig said “When it comes out, if they still feel the same way then, you know, screw them!”

EON’s actions demonstrate that it wasn’t just the opinion of the star, but the opinion the entire production company has been operating under.

Die Another Day

Over the Memorial Day weekend the “crew” got together and decided we had to re-watch the travesty that destroyed Bond, a movie so horrible that there must never be another made like it again.

Die Another Day was not typical of Brosnan’s Bond stories, some consider it over the top with the special effects and story elements. Like insomniac Asians who go through extensive genetic manipulation and plastic surgery.

If you recall all of those topics were in the news, from the genetic manipulation to a professor claiming the invisible car could work, because he has the designs for the invisible trench coat. The (now) old joke about President Bush being upset with Die Another Day for giving the North Koreans “Ideas”.

Lets call it what it was a 20^th movie extravaganza, a 40th anniversary celebration of all the pervious movies, showing off what could be done now compared to the humble beginnings. Impossible, yes. Fantastic, yes. Enjoyable, absolutely!

It took James Bond (of the movies) to new grounds of being captured and held for 14 months while the world changed, then returning to be out of step with it.

Think back to the scene between “M” and 007 on the boat after the prisoner exchange, two strong actors their characters hammering each other back and forth, no give, no take. Now think of the clip with Craig and “M”, not even in the same category. More like den mother dressing down some young pup.

There was a lot of powerful stuff there that Brosnan brought out in Bond that hadn’t been discovered by another actor before. Watch it again and see. We’ll wait.

Back?

Good.

Many detractors are easily distract by the glitz and shiny new gimmicks, missing the depth Pierce brought to the role.

It was a difficult balance to achieve, capturing 007 and returning him as a traitor (yes there is precedence in the books), there was a more desperate feral element brought in that still balanced perfectly with the suave. Putting all of that on the big screen was risky, if done wrong it was likely to fall short alienating the audience. It took big talent to pull it off. There was a lot more to work with and work from, if Pierce Brosnan had been allowed to return there would have been a good starting point for a legitimate successor to continue the movie series.

When I first saw Die Another Day in the theater I wasn’t as impressed with it as I am now, it took the second viewing in the theater to start to like it. This was about the 9^th or 10^th viewing of the dvd. Odd, I own the Bourne dvds too but have only watched them once or twice.

Things liked:

Pierce’s gun barrel walk perfectly epitomizes all the James Bond had been, classy. Bond looks like man about town, a gentleman, who suddenly turns and shoots you. He didn’t look dangerous, but he was. That has always been a part of Bond, being deceptively civil. Very British.

Also, Pierce holds that position after everything goes red, I always thought it was freeze frame, if you look can see Pierce’s left hand move.

A shame that we will now have to think of the gun barrel scene as Craig’s blundering, brutal attempt to murder someone.

Surfs up big kahuna!! Bond surfs twice in this movie.

The surfing scene works well for the first attempt, the second attempt doesn’t work as well, looks overly CGIed. There had to be a better way to write his escape from the jet sled.

Pierce taking the sun glasses (taking his glasses back according to the commentary) epitomizes Bond, a bit of punk. Bond with a lot on his mind, still has time to consider stealing some guy’s glasses. No room for sun glasses in the surf board? “Q” didn’t think of everything.

Betrayed, Captured, mission accomplished, a classic beginning.

Now for the torture set to the music of Madonna, what did the audience do to deserve this. Actually, I don’t really care much for Madonna but this wasn’t that bad, but it was over done later in the movie with several scenes set to a distorted and remixed theme song.

Ah, fiery women in the sparks, same thing I see when welding.

Fake execution/exchange is well done. There is a lot Pierce is doing in these scenes, a very stoic Bond looking towards his death with certainty, seeing no way out. About to die for his country.

The “M” /007 exchange on the boat brilliant. She trust him enough to open the door and be in the same room, but she does believe he “hemorrhaged” information and was embarrassed by the Americans because of him. Aunty “M” is mad.

Bam! That scene there, when Pierce puts head against the glass closing his eyes, when he opens them again that is where you see a new Bond, a new determination that carries till the end of the movie.

Escape, well done. Thanking the nurse for the kiss of life. They way she watches him when he leaves. Hello nurse!

The hotel check in: I’ve checked in looking like that.

After he has a shave, a haircut and is back to looking like Bond again he still has the determination, a feral nature about him. He can’t allow himself to be stopped, even more dangerous to be in his way than before.

Cuba, so it does exist. A lot of things in Cuba pay homage to Fleming and the early years. Including Ursula Andress. Hello Halle Berry!!!

The Scene with Miranda Frost and “M” discussing Bond. The blunt instrument comment used the way it was always intended. That’s a blunt instrument, not dull. Special forces are special, not ‘special’ in a dull way.

Things not liked:

The genetic manipulation.

The increase use of special effects.

When Icarus was first revealed it looked like jiffy pop popcorn. While Icarus is theoretically possible it just didn’t work well for me on screen.

The invisible car was a little bit much, but it was used sparingly and in the end worked well.

A lot of “Matrix” like camera work. A lot of odd camera work in general.

The thing most disliked was the blatant lie at the end of the credits,

“James Bond will return.” No, no he won’t.

Without Brosnan’s strong acting as Bond, Die Another Day would have fallen to the wayside. A new actor as James Bond, as some suggest was considered, would have bungled it, taken it too far to the extreme.

Pierce’s well balanced performance not only saves the movie, it gives the story more heart than had been written on paper. Brosnan takes 007 to a new place, a place they had tried to reach with License to Kill. Where Brosnan could have taken Bond next would have amazed us all.

As far as being a bit over the top, I would agree with that. There was a pattern to Bond movies, when they would go to far out ,like Moonraker, the next movie brought them back to basics. The next Brosnan movie after Die Another Day would have been an instant classic blowing Goldeneye away.

If they had made 20 more movies in the Die Another Day mold they all would have been successful. The public liked the last movie, to the tune of millions and they all were hungry for more. More classic Bond action with the one actor you can trust, as the one number you can trust.

Barbra Broccoli, EON and poor naive Sony need chalk up her reboot idea and the Daniel Craig fiasco to faulty intelligence.

Tell us what you think take our “Die Another Day” survey.

Die Another Day

We have heard from a handful of people recently who are not for Craig but they say give him a chance.
I don’t think they realizes how much a of a long shot he is or how permanently he can cripple the series.

Craig has a 40% chance of failure on his own, actually it a 50/50 chance when you consider that there are 6 previous Bonds counting the original Casino Royale (1950’s), half the actors cast as Bond have failed.
None of them had a public outcry, a protest, or a boycott specifically against them.
Give the opposition Craig only has a 28% chance of success. Only 28% because the studios are still behind him for the time being.

What would we all have done if a second James Bond movie series had been started by, oh, lets say Sony? (Sony had wanted its own Bond franchise). If the star and script were the same we would have still criticized the casting and direction of the story, but we would have sat back secure in the knowledge that Pierce Brosnan was on set working on Bond 21 or 22 for EON. Reassured that our beloved series was still in safe hands. The series became ours when it was made public.

This is exactly what we could have expected with a rival James Bond movie series. A fresh start telling the story from the beginning with none of the hallmarks previously associated with the previous series, with an unknown actor. I suspect that an outsider making their first Bond film would have been a thousand times more considerate of the successful history and eager to win over the fans.
What needs to be recognized is with all of the history gone this is not a continuation of a successful series. This is a new and separate film series that has to prove itself, the old fan base can not be counted on for support. The fans still have to be won over.

If this were a outsider making another Bond remake like Never Say Never Again we all could have relaxed. We know from experience that if this movie is 1/8 as bad we think it is that the market forces will smash the balsa wood boat against the rocks. But this isn’t an outside EON movie series, they have tied our much beloved Bond series to the fragile hull, betting all on this reboot.

After the first movie trailer was released the other shoe started to drop. This in not the Bond we know. The trailer tries to come off as cool, cutting edge, but it left a lot feeling indifferent. There was nothing special about Craig to draw you in. Those who wanted to like him, liked him. Those who were waiting to be impressed are still waiting.

Give Craig a chance? Well the trailer was enough of a chance for some people, and I won’t argue with that. They came they saw they didn’t like. If you liked Craig from the trailer I won’t ask you to change your mind either. But I will ask you to recognize that he is not a sure thing.

By now millions of people have seen the trailers, but it has only appealed to small percentage of them. Craig does not come off well, more and more critics are publishing their take on him saying things like “he will assassinate James Bond.”
There has yet to be a positive opinion poll for Craig...

If EON wants people to make up their minds for Craig, then release the screen tests, release the first 10 minutes of the movie, release the last 10 minutes where he becomes “the man we love to hate”. (I thought that was the villain)
Release the shooting script. Let us see the story and judge it for ourselves.
Show us there is more to this man, than the semi tough looks and uncomfortable in his own skin glances.

If they want us to like him then:
Don’t be indifferent to concerns.
Don’t expect divorcing yourself from the past will be accepted easily.
Don’t expect casting a man out of his depth won’t be noticed
Don’t try to buffalo your way past criticism.
Don’t make a young Bond movie and forget the young Bond.
Don’t make people feel panicked, this is as uncomfortable to people as James Bond undercover at a skateboard competition sporting a Mohawk. (imagine Roger Moore here)

Don’t make it a choice between take it or leave it, it is easier to leave it.

Every actor has had his own interpretation of Bond, but this is without a safety net. There is no margin for error. It remains to be seen if Craig can even find an audience. James Bond brings to mind images he is not compatible with and a past that Casino Royale is divorced from. This is an uphill battle that assumes uphill battles are easy.

If Nov 17 comes and Craig is still not accepted (and he won’t be), expect a media maelstrom. If this movie does not meet the expectations of a James Bond movie, expect every movie critic to pile on the Craig destroyed Bond bandwagon. All publicity is not good. Bad news travels faster than good, and it is more interesting to read a critical review than one full of accolades.
This movie can fail on bad word of mouth alone.
Also don’t think the “screw them” comment about the fans will be forgotten either. That has got to be good for at least one more story on CNN.

Layer Cake

People that think Daniel Craig has the chops, has the charisma to pull off a role as big a Bond say “Watch “Layer Cake”. You’ll see he’s Bond.”
Are You NUTZ!!???!!
People need to be careful recommending Layer Cake, this is a pro-drug movie where the “hero” is a cocaine dealer who sees himself as a simple businessman. There are a lot of Bond fans that could be offended by the movie’s premise alone. It’s definitely not for the overly young or overly sensitive, it has a “R” rating for a reason.
This is not a movie I would recommend to anyone unless they are fans of the British gangster movies. If you love “Snatch” then you might be entertained by this movie, but after the movie ends you think about how unlike Snatch it really was. None of the characters are engaging. None of the “stars” sparkle.
The character I liked the most out of it was “Morty”, and he was only a secondary character in a production full of them.

This movie has got to be more critically evaluated if you want to base the next James bond on it, not just the actor but the premise of the new series is very Cakeish.
Being under a more critical evaluation means that things that passed OK for a small niche film are lost because it moves up to the big leagues where the little garden walls that subdivided things are gone. What plays well with a small audience does not necessarily work well with a big one, more flaws are going to be found.

Layer Cake is a tired unimaginative movie because there have been so many movies like it, it fails to distinguish itself in the crowd. It is not a “bad” movie, in that it is entertaining. The movies short comings include a first time director, honestly this is not a bad effort for a first time director. Although this may be why he didn’t get X3.
On the second viewing Layer Cake becomes boring. If you bought the dvd, then you know it’s good for one or two viewing and then you might as well have rented it. This movie would have still be in boxes in the warehouse if it wasn’t for the 007 fracas. If you want to see a conspiracy then you’ll find one with the studios trying hock this dvd to make their money back.

In every scene Craig illustrates how inappropriate he is for Bond. His manner and demeanor are obviously wrong.
Craig’s voice is boring, the monologue drags on. 5 minutes of dense narrative. I guess they couldn’t do it like the Star Wars/ Flash Gordon stories scrolling the needed text across the screen imparting everything we need to know. What am I thinking people don’t read at the movies any more!! (A long, long time ago, in the 70’s.)
**editors note~ some of the people I previewed the movie to didn’t find his voice as dismal as I did (and still do), but they would never want a book on CD read by him**

The scene where he is in pain after the freeze incident was slightly wrong somehow, he plays the other pain scenes better.

A few Bond like scenes that fizzle before they start, you begin to see what some want to consider 007 like and it stops abruptly because it doesn’t work with him. He’s too lost. Craig does not come off any better than he did in “Tomb Raider”.

The “I f**king hate guns!!” scene where he then goes on to find one he likes, is a genuinely funny scene and he did well playing with the gun. Not James Bond well, but well. He’s like a little boy who is going to accidentally shoot his best friend, so I guess he comes off tragically well..(?) is there such a thing?

If it wasn’t for every character in this story saying it I would have never guessed that Craig’s character was supposed to be smart. They tell him he is a clever boy and he looks up like he just finished explaining the dog ate his home work.
Half of the criminals in his posse guessed what was going on long before he did. All of them read the danger signs, while he reassures them nothing is wrong. The only reason they seem to turn to him for guidance is to make him a better target. (side note why use an accountant recommended to by the crime boss, the city had to be full of qualified accountants, why use the one you know can be gotten to.)
The two final twists with the drug shipment were obvious. Though how they actually works out isn’t. If you’ve seen Oceans 11 you already have a clue.

Craig and Sienna Miller had no connection on screen. This is Sienna Miller here! How can he not have a connection? Half the people in the theater felt a connection to her.
Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) and Natalie Imbruglia have a better on screen connection.
Sienna Miller had better on screen chemistry with the dog on Keen Eddie. I would have said that this was the directors fault except for Craig’s performance in Tomb Raider. He didn’t have any connection with Angelina Jolie, come on half of Africa has a connection to her!
The scenes that were really supposed to cement their relationship didn’t work, once or twice you do feel that he might be watching her and she him, but otherwise he looks as if he realized he left the iron on in his flat. There was nothing in the movie to tell you why she was sitting by her phone waiting for him to call. The way the story flows she should have been waiting to betray him in the last act.

You may have notice that none of his supporters have pointed to Tomb Raider as reaffirmation of Craig’s acting chops. Whenever Craig shares the screen with a really big star he is so dull he isn’t noticed. He is not a diamond in the rough, he is just rough. He sucks the life out of the room. If you’ve seen Tomb Raider then you already have a good base for assessing what Craig is capable of. How can one actor have so many bad outings? How can this be his only good one?

Many of the people who are recommending this movie as Craig’s defense are probably hoping that you’ll be desensitize to Craig’s awkward looks.
At least we see expressions other than that “lemon sucking” look (as it has been so rightly been dubbed) that he demonstrates in Casino Royale. That not tough, that’s not intense, that’s sullen. All of the toughness people are trying to attribute to Craig is crap. A distant, aloof, cold portrayal is twisted around to be the new Steve McQueen. Gawky stares, how does that become intense? That’s just creepy. This is a man that knows how to do creepy well. More people will be put off by his looks than reassured by them. He has a look that does not and will not work for Bond.

The Director may have been marred by Crag’s dull performance in a role that could have sparkled, not the other way round.
Consider what a performer the caliber of Johnny Depp could have done with this role. This movie would have been totally different, transformed from being a mediocre story full of stale leftovers into a fresh invigorating romp.
It is a shame that this movie has to come under such scrutiny because in it’s own niche it was fine, well received, but not brilliant. Neither the movie nor the star can bear the scrutiny brought by supporting Craig’s quantum leap to Bond.

An example of what a strong lead can do for a weak story I think of “The Limey”.
Terence Stamp not just walks away with his role, he steals the whole movie. Collaborating with a lot of good actors Stamp still controls every scene and carries the movie.
The Limey is a very niche British gangster movie, a hard movie for some to get into because of the disjointed non-linear story telling technique the director uses.
This story is an old one, hundreds of movies have been made like it, but this one stands out and works extremely well for what it is.
We know what’s going to happen, we know why it’s going to happen, but damn it's a good journey!
When the movie begins it takes 10-15 minutes to start to under stand what is going on and how you feel about the lead. 30 minutes in you care about the character and why he is doing what he is doing, he controls the picture and we follow.
Flash backs, flash forwards, and the present Stamp's performance burns with intensity and energy. I compare that expectation with what Craig provided in Layer Cake, the best he has ever done, and it is nothing. Mediocre at best.

When Casino Royale fails EON should bring back him as the next Bond bad guy, he would have had more to work from there.
What the producers should have been looking for in an unknown is something along the lines of what Liev Schreiber did in the role of John Clark in the Sum of all Fears.
If you know who John Kelly, I mean Clark is then you know he would be the one guy James would go to, not Felix, not Wade.. Someone of his own caliber. 7.65 (if both Bond & Clark existed that is)

In Layer Cake I thought I would find a role that redefines Craig, instead it reinforced the opinions I already held.
This was not a redefining role like “Die Hard” that transformed comedian originally born in Germany into an action hero. Even if it were what sense would there have been in Bruce Willis 007?
Layer Cake may have earned Craig the chance for the lead in a “XXX” sequel (XXX 3 ‘God Save the Queen’) but not 007!

Yes, Craig carries the movie, simply because there is no choice. If one other actor would have been on screen they could have stolen the whole thing. Also Craig’s character does not pull you into the story. The movie revolves around the audience connecting with him, which is hard to do anyway, Craig’s no name character does not come off as that likable.
Layer Cake is a dull gray flag on a still, overcast day, nothing to make it standout. But not so god awful to make you say it was complete crap. Just mostly crap.
If this movie proves Craig’s credentials, then where do we fit Jonny English in our Bond dvd collections? Before or after Never Say Never Again?
The Craig apologists are trying to say that “Craig saved the movie”, “Craig is the one good thing out of it”. Craig does do better here than in any other role he has had.
He may have even had the beginnings of a career, though in a few years he probably would have faded as quietly away as he came. Now he will be forever known of the man who ruined James Bond.
Ironic how prophetic the movie has been for his real life.

****BONUS****

We researched some of the negative reviews Craig got to better illustrate how he will be received in Casino Royale. There are plenty more where they came from but we only chose a few that illustrated the point concisely.

“A dense ninny..”
“instead they cast mumbly Craig..”
“too flawed and too human…”
“naive and a fool”
“Semi engaging..”
“sexy does not come easy to him..”
“all arrogance no charm..”
“he makes it intensely easy to not like his character..”
“no attraction between him and his female co-star..”
“hapless..”
“a B list actor..”

Precarious

Part of the purpose of the poll, think of who the poll is targeted at, is to find out from fans who don’t like Daniel what exactly it is they don’t like. As for only negative response in the first question there is always the none of the above option for Daniel’s supporters. None of the above has to be considered a positive vote in this context.
The rest of the polls questions are very fair, covering a wide spectrum of responses from positive, to negative, to neutral.
Don’t forget the liberal sprinkling of humor.

Obviously you are in Daniels corner and you profess to never having liked Pierce in the role. But please don’t belittle the opinions of people who absolutely loved Pierce in the role. For my part I have never insulted people who support Daniel. Yes, I question anything and everything about him, the producers and the reboot, and will continue to do so. However I have always treated the people who support him better then they have treated those who have disagreed with them. Don’t hate the gadfly, hate what the gadfly brings your attention to. Remember that we (the anti-Craig and anti-reboot coalition) did not start the criticism of Craig. That was the press core.

Aside from the fact that Pierce unquestionably saved the franchise and was treated shamefully for all his efforts, he is still James Bond to millions of people around the world. Daniel has an uphill battle to win these people over, he (and this movie) are a marked difference from what we have known and what has been acceptable as James Bond. Daniel is only a fraction of the change, but the most noticeable.
Daniel is handicapped because of the treatment of fans (Pierce’s and the series). EON misled people for years about Pierce returning to the role, why do you think they did that?

As for your assertion that you have received positive feedback from the trailer, I’m certain you have. As I have received many, many comments myself and found many more on the web outside of “fan” venues that talk about the trailer in a negative light. Can you accept that there are people who legitimately do not like the trailer and/or Daniel?
There is no reason that everyone can not be treated with respect.
Daniel and the reboot are repugnant to me (as they to others), but I treat the situation with humor and have handled their supporters with respect and common decency. Something that is lacking sorely from EON and the pro Daniel Craig crowd. Condescending answers/attitude or debasing the previous Bonds (the movies and the actors), is offensive and alienates the people who loved this series.

We the fans (you and me) have never wholly supported the franchise, the public by the millions has joined us every so many years to celebrate James Bond at the movies. Making or breaking the movies.
Right now that same public are asleep to the changes in Bond, they will become aware only after the promotion for Casino Royale is ramped up. Many will be shocked by the changes. Some may like it better. But there is a greater chance of a bad reaction to huge changes in the casting and direction of the “new” series. This movie hangs by a thread, not even MGM or Sony wanted to make it. Everything now rest on the public acceptance and good box-office returns. James Bond has never been in a more precarious spot.

License to drive?

Is Craig a driving fool?
To begin with you need to understand what we mean by ability to “drive”.
First there is ability to operate a vehicle, all this entails is very basic skills. Forward, backwards, right turn, left turn all covered in the basic Drivers ED course. Most of the world’s population will never evolve beyond this level.

Then there is the ability to “drive”. This goes beyond the basics. But it is not about high speed driving or hugging the curves of the road, although they often go hand in hand.
It is more about knowing the vehicle and being able to control it. To compensate for the constantly changing road/driving conditions and driver error from fellow motorist. Also it is not about the type or size of a vehicle, sports cars are best associated with driving, however owning one does not necessarily give you what it takes to drive. If you can’t handled a 2 door economy car (yugo, golf, geo, or the like) well, then a sports car isn’t going to transform you into a driver. In fact a sports car is more likely to get an inexperienced driver (and others) hurt.
Some of the best drivers I’ve seen have been truckers (lorry drivers), they can handled their rigs like nobodies business, with proficiency and skill.

Best I can gather is Daniel Craig can’t “drive”. This is based on two things.
1.) the embarrassing exposé when the producers were shocked by Craig’s revelation "Er... I don't do gears.". Reportedly they had change over the transmission making the classic DB5 somehow an automatic. (do people really say “er”?)
2.) In a Layer Cake interview Craig says "I never got to drive the Audi, but I was able to take it out for a bit and I almost totaled it because it's terribly fast."
Holy crap he had trouble with an Audi, god only knows what fear he felt when he saw the Aston Martin DB5.

The answers to these questions would help our inquiry:
Does he have driving permit?
If so with what restrictions?
Does he own a car?
If so what kind of car(s)? (including all relevant information about engine, transmission)
Where does he park it in the winter?
Has he named his car(s)?
Has he ever seen a stick shift car involved in an accident?
If so did it traumatize him? ~(nod of acknowledgment to talesofthestupid)~

Do I know for sure that he can’t drive a stick shift, no I don’t. He should know after this movie finishes. It is embarrassing if he can’t, most cars in the world are “standard” shift. James Bond running around till he can find an automatic before chasing the bad guy is not a good thing. Or worse, stalling the bad guys chasing him until he finds a car he is “comfortable” with.

Barbra Broccoli defended her choice by saying "That story about the stick shift was ludicrous, Everybody drives a stick in England." (Yeah, but does Craig?)
Not true, there are plenty of automatic cars in the UK, not as many as standard shift cars, but there are a lot more automatic cars than we have been lead to believe.
As I understand it you can test for your license in either, if you test in an automatic you get a license with a restriction to vehicles with automatic transmission and a provisional license for a car with a manual gearbox.

The defense of Craig is really kind of lame. EON has said so many contradictory things in the last few years that they lack credibility. If Craig does have a license for manual “standard” transmission Broccoli should have shown a copy to the press.
What I would have done is made available a video showing Craig’s reaction to first seeing the car. There could be one, you know how many people have personal cameras and cell phone cameras on movie sets now a days. That’s where all of those behind the scenes and making of specials come from.
For instance if it had been someone like me, moments after being given the keys there would have been a blur of motion as the car tears out of there. A few hours later (after a few tanks of gas) it would have been time for a new set of tires and quite possibly a new DB5 as the old one wrapped itself around a tree. How was I supposed to control it, the tires were bald!!! And what was with the steering wheel being on the wrong side? Thank god it was, because if it hadn’t been that tree would have got me.

Not everyone in England has a car. If Craig lives in big enough a city it is conceivable that he has never had need of a car. I know people from the U.K. who never even drove a car before they came to the States. So Craig not knowing how to operate a standard shift car is very possible, there also could have been something strange about the DB5’s transmission. (like the clutch peddle)
Some have said that the story, even though its from an apparently reputable source, is flummery because isn’t possible to changer over the DB5 to automatic. Well it is.
There are a thousand ways to fabricate anything with the right parts, equipment, and the right people doing the work. It doesn’t even have to take long to do the conversion. It could be done to fit a movie’s shooting schedule. If you doubt this just watch one of the car pimping or monster garaging or junk yard warring type shows.

From Craig’s own comments we have to conclude that he can’t “Drive”. He may be able to operate a vehicle, standard or automatic, but not “drive” them.
I don’t expect him to be a Paul Newman or a Nicolas Cage, it’s probably a good thing that he’s not. I don’t say that I am or even that Pierce Brosnan is the worlds greatest driver. But at least you felt Pierce was doing the driving.
As far as Craig’s ability to operate a vehicle goes, with the movie magic we’ll never know the difference. On screen that is, although we all will be thinking about the guy who is really driving that car.

There are reasons behind the casting of Daniel Craig and this new spin off series we will never know. The most basic one is greed, they want to cut the production cost. All they thought when they looked at the record breaking Die Another Day totals is, “hey lets cut the cost and look at how much profit we'll make.”
Craig is the bottom of the barrel as far as actors go, listen to his interviews he was absolutely desperate to get a big break. For 22 years he has tried to make it as an actor and had really gotten nowhere. Yes, he made small inroads and had some small acclaim, but his voice drips of the desperation he feels.
He saw a chance at some big bucks and took it, I can’t blame him for taking a chance. But he really doesn’t care about James Bond. He does want his movie to succeed. But as far as the history of the movies go that really isn’t his concern. If it were he would have pushed for a different story other than the one written for Casino Royale.

Daniel may genuinely believe himself an actor capable of any role, but he’s not, he has huge limitations. The fact that he doesn’t seem to know it is going to be his down fall. This guy reportedly started checking in hotels as Jimmy Bond after he got the role.

I do not see Casino Royale as a continuation of our much beloved Bond series, it is not. At best it is a spin off. We had 20 movies and we can argue about the best and the worst of them, but the fact remain that the “old” series has been bludgeoned to death by Daniel Craig and EON. This isn’t Bond 21, yes it’s the 21st bond movie produced by EON, however it does not continue the “old” series. What it actually is the 1st Bond movie of a new series. As that it is untested. If he can’t connect with people as Bond, then their only hope is to attract a Non Bond audience. That may work for 1 movie but people expect a lot from Bond and this guy will never meet those standards.
The fact that fans are still so divided prove this is a risky venture.

To me this movie is no different than the original Casino Royale Movies (both of them), Daniel Craig is as much James Bond as Woody Alan. It is a shame that Casino Royal is being remade for the 3rd time and is still going to be a farce.
Why is it that every time somebody makes a movie based on Casino Royale do they decide to change it up and do something different?
Is Casino Royale cursed?

Seems like Sony does not have much faith in the siblings running EON and is hedging its bets by hiring people from the Sony family, keeping the money in the family so to speak.

EON is repeating its own recent history with the fervor following the yet to be announced performer of the Casino Royale theme. EON is behaving exactly as they did when they announced Craig. The fans have been left out in the cold.
Rumors are flying around, two strong ones at the time (seemingly confirmed) have already been debunked.
One was debunked by Tina Turner’s own fan club, saying “are you kidding! she ain’t had work in a year! Please do hire her!!!”
One ,the Goldfrapp rumor, was debunked by Bond composer David Arnold, he said was working with the “real” performer on the theme but he wouldn’t reveal who it was. David be a mensch, throw us a bone here. Unless, of course there is no performer and your are writing and performing the theme yourself. You sly boots!

Our guess is that the choice will be a Sony Friendly performer. Someone with close ties to Sony.
It stands to reason, (keeping in mind that this is only pure unadulterated speculation on our part), that the Performer who is working with David Arnold is most likely in the Sony family. Yes, Sony does have quite a large family. They keep on buying other families, more and more of them it seems, and bring them under the Sony banner welcoming them into the Sony tent as a new, proud part of the Sony family. (The son I never had, no wonder I didn’t recognize you.)

Regardless of whoever is going to be the chosen for the Casino Royale theme, the fans are still being treated like dirt. There are many popular franchises out there, and many many fan clubs. All of them, ok, well most of them are treating the fans like what they are, a commodity. An asset.
So many of fans clubs and sites are treated with a modicum of respect, treating the fans better giving them special announcements, news, and offers first. Oh, don’t forget the stickers.
Some of their bulletin boards are occasionally graced by the stars, writers, and producers, people in the know.
Why are Bond fans always the last to know what happening?
Guess we are all going to have to wait for somebody’s mother to break the news.
**editors note~ Part of this Sony friendly assessment is based on the both the Casino Royale Director and lead Actor being Sony Friendly.
The director’s most recent movie was a Sony Picture, the much lamented Zorro 2, the legend of Zorro, or as we like to call it Zorro 2 the Quickening. Proving once and for all that lightning does not always strike twice.
Daniel Craig’s money losing self collapsing Layer Cake was a Sony Picture as well. Layer Cake preformed dismally at the Box Office it is only as a DVD release that it has shown any potential for profit. Most of the interest in that movie is driven by the James Bond publicity.

Did anyone here see the 20 minute Casino Royal preview?

The news so far seems to come from only one source (maybe two?), and it reads like a EON press release, which it probably is.

Here is our take on the story.
When was the last time a studio released 20 minutes of a movie to preview it?
When was the last time any studio released a 20 minute preview for a movie that they weren’t worried about?
I would have thought a new trailer would have been in order. It surely would have been easier to compile and make ready.

A twenty minute preview is what we have asked for on our web site (we asked for “the first ten minutes” “the last ten minutes” and “the screen test”), and it may be that the studios are confident in Casino Royale and are only trying to win over the alienated fans. If that is so then why not a online release of the 20 minutes. Maybe that’s next.

Seems like this is a fishing expedition, Sony is concerned that Casino Royale will Bomb and is testing the waters, gauging the reaction.
Sony Pictures Entertainment vice chairman Jeff Blake and SPE Motion Picture Group chair Amy Pascal visited London , apparently calling on the Bond producers. How often does that happen? Was it a “Hi, we were in the neighborhood.” or was it a “we were sent to ascertain.” type of deal?
Sounds like they went to London on orders to find out what’s happening with Casino Royale, two big wigs like that paying a visit in person seems unusual and they may have been the ones to force the release. Bond producers gave permission to release the footage, but was that after Sony applied pressure and demanded it?

People new to Bond is one thing, but they do not want a bunch of sour reviews from critics who have watched every Bond for the last decade or two.
A few nationally syndicated reviews of “Not a Bond Movie” , “Daniel Craig is unconvincing as James Bond” and “the Blond Bond Bombs!!!” will kill the movie regardless of whether the story is any good or not.

Releasing a 20 minute preview is exactly what I would expect to happen if Sony were trying to sound out how Casino Royale will be received by the general public and by critics.
Remember that Craig made a pitiful performance in front of the head of Sony during Sean Connery’s lifetime achievement celebration and this may have prompted a renewed interest on Sony’s part.

If they are not acting out of concern (and they should be) and were only promoting the movie, they are doing it too early. Grabbing 20 minutes of (unfinished?) film as a last minute addition at an expo seems very odd, unless they are trying to judge the reaction of an unprepared crowd.
If the crowd was peppered with pro Craig supporters then look towards someone like EON leaking the word and encouraging their participation.
Our opinion on what happened in Amsterdam and what it means depends on the audience, what kind of people were there? Reporters, general public, movie industry, theater owners?
If this was more than a publicity stunt then we will start hearing other reports and descriptions of the event in the coming days and weeks.

In an recent rambling interview Screenwriter Paul Haggis (yes the guy named after the Scottish delicacy) made this statement about his rewrite of Casino Royale “It's about how Bond becomes an assassin, and how he becomes a misogynist. I think I've probably ruined the Bond series for everyone forever.”
At first glance it is a lame attempt at self-deprecating humor and not meant to be taken seriously.
But what else can we make of it?
Well this isn’t the first time he has said it, in fact he has said it several times at very public events and in other interviews, which makes it odd. If he means it as a joke one would think he would get better at telling it. You would also think somebody would phone him and tell him to cut that joke out. Maybe they did and he wouldn’t stop.
Did he have bad experience working with EON and is protesting in his own way?

First off to understand what is going on we must understand this isn’t Haggis’s script, he didn’t write it from beginning to end. He re-wrote it. EON only called him in to clean up a script they had but didn’t feel “worked”. He may be unhappy with the whole situation. EON may have tied his hand in what he could write, how he could write it and what could be done with the characters. They may have held him to the old stories arc, not granting the freedom to work with the story he needed.

Could be he’s a classic Bond fan unhappy with the kind of story they had him write.
Before Casino Royale so many of us would have been happy to be involved ourselves or have actively encouraged our favorite actors, producers, and writers to be involved with a Bond movie, no questions asked. Could be he came in to the project with those sort of expectations, stars in his eyes if you will and was crushed by the expectations and limitations placed upon him.

Anther possibly is Haggis was cajoled by EON’s partner Sony into doing the job.
He is still fresh from an academy award winning high. Haggis is the name to get if you want to add gravitas to an otherwise lack luster compilation. Could be hiring him was a stipulation of the investors upon Craig’s casting. If he was persuaded by the juggernaut that is Sony, look for more Sony projects in his immediate future.

Also could be he is distancing himself from the blame if/when Casino Royale fails. He just a hired gun after all called in to do a very specific job. EON is using his name for all it’s worth to shill their movie and to infer quality to the story line. May be he resents this, so he goes around inferring that he ruined Bond.

Could be he is very worried about what being associated with a script that has soured the feelings with so many fans could do to his career.

Or it simply could be he feels he did a lousy job and knows this isn’t his best work. Truth may be that if/when Casino Royale fails it really will be his fault. Perhaps he did ruin Bond forever for everyone and just wants to get the blame out of the way.

Or what this could be is a brilliant piece of marketing. So brilliant that it seems stupid

If it is meant as a joke it comes off as bad as Daniel Craig appearing uninvited (with guests) at a tennis match. It is still safest to go with the explanation that this was an lame attempt at humor and means nothing, however prophetic it may turn out to be.

It is not unusual for a film to while not entirely enjoy success in the United States to go on to enjoy success in the worldwide market. This is becoming less and less likely for Casino Royale. The buzz by which the movie industry judge audience interest has died out. The studios are positioning to go after a worldwide market and write off the American market.
The theory that people will travel to the theater to check out and unknown newcomer to a classic genre is wearing thin. It was a pipe dream anyway. Why would people pay to see a man totally wrong for the role, an experimental monstrosity. That’s not solid marketing plan unless you’re a carnival barker, “Come see the dog face boy, he walks, he talks, he’s almost human!!!”

Craig’s uncomfortable ‘fly in the face of conventional wisdom look’ is suppressing the interest in this movie. 007 is a personal thing to even the most casual viewer, for some of us he is an acquaintance made when we are very young and stays with us throughout our life. Sometimes a rock in a world of tumult. Because of this fracas I have talked to people from literally around the world.
We all have an attachment to Bond whether we know it or not. Most of us who have grown up in a western culture have been hearing the music, the dialogue from the movies, the sights and the sounds from an early age. We have reenacted scenes on the school playgrounds. We are indoctrinated with the presence of the fictional character who is larger than life, James Bond is part of our social consciousness. However Craig as Bond for many of us is like Bozo the clown as Uncle Sam… um.. that might work, hold on… Bozo the Clown as the dignified statesmen and founding father Benjamin Franklin for us Americans, Pauly Shore as King Arthur or Winston Churchill for those in the UK, and Jerry Louis as Napoleon, we could go on and on, but we won’t.

This atrocity of Craig as Bond and EON’s call tag that ‘we will love him’ smacks of more than arrogance or condescension. It reeks of disdain. Craig supporters have been bandying about for months now the assertion ‘we all will go to see this movie anyway because of the controversy’ or ‘we will see it because it’s like watching a train wreck’. Well that is flat wrong. That smacks more of ignorance than anything else. This probably comes from wishful thinking and their genuine exuberance.
From day one Eon and therefore Sony have mishandled the situation. They covertly went about replacing Pierce Brosnan at the height of his popularity. Rumors abounded, none could be confirmed. The best news reports of the time have the studios hesitant to replace Brosnan with EON forcing the point and fighting with studio executives. If they had been honest about their intentions held a press conference announcing the dismissal of Brosnan and the on going search for his replacement, everything would have evolved differently.

About all of those to whom we have talked, to say they are passionate is like saying the Pope is Catholic. It is a little too obvious and understates how they truly feel.
The people we have talked with truly care about 007, to some he has been the one constant steady aspect of their lives that could be counted on.

A few have lost family and Bond took a place of comfortable familiarity that helped remind of pleasant times and happy memories.
A few have lived through trying times that I think most of us could not begin to imagine.
We have heard from people from Central & South America, Europe, Russia, The Middle East, Africa, and Asia and what they have told me 007 means to them is awe inspiring. They know James Bond isn’t real, they even know, well they suspect that there is no 00 branch of MI6. But what the idea of Bond means to them is better than anything Ian Fleming ever could have written.
The overwhelming sentiment is one of outrage and disappointment at the selection of Daniel Craig. Craig does not embody the attributes they know 007 must have.
It is personally offensive to them to have a person they care about (real or fictional) treated this way.

Let me clarify the nature of their interest in James Bond. First off some but by no means all are Pierce Brosnan fans and supporters. Most are James Bond fans first and Brosnan fans second. Almost all have enjoyed the last four movies immensely. And Brosnan is their Bond because 1.) They grew up with him as 007 2.) they have enjoyed his movies and he embodied what they know Bond to be.
Quite a few when asked their favorite Bond movie respond not with a Brosnan movie but a classic movie from Roger Moore or Sean Connery. So to say they are Brosnan only fans is clearly erroneous.

The worldwide sentiment has shifted and an ill feeling has taken the place of the unquestioning devotion to the pleasurable pass time James Bond movies provided. Quite a few feel brayed by the powers that be. This kind of animosity is not something easily rectified. For most of the world the concept of betrayal is a darker more sinister sin than it is thought of in the west. These people will not forgive and they can not forget. When Casino Royale finally opens to full worldwide audience the producers may find their favor returned to them by unquestionably bad box-office returns.

Do we hate Daniel Craig, well we hate him as Bond. And the rest of the world just may agree with us.

EON announced that they are so pleased with Daniel Craig they have invited him back for Bond 22.
Craig supporters and those who blindly follow EON are smug, sure that his is sign of confidence in Craig. It’s not. EON has just ceded half of the battlefield to the opposition.
Before you chime out take a moment to listen to what we have to say.
Before the official press release EON had publicly talked about a 2007 release for the next Bond movie. Which would have required going into production before Casino Royale had even hit the theaters. As we pointed out earlier this could prove disastrous if as we contend Casino Royale is going to be a flop and Daniel Craig will never be accepted as Bond. Under such conditions a second movie would/will have laid waste to the franchise, which some would argue Barbra Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson are doing single handedly without involving Daniel Craig or a reboot.

EON by moving the release date back to 2008 has in effect conceded that if Craig is not accepted he will be gone, their confidence about him is nowhere near a great as they pretend. In fact right about now they probably wish they had never heard of Daniel Craig.
It has been tougher slog than EON ever imagined. To put it simply all that has happened wasn’t supposed to happen we were supposed to accept their choice and be grateful.

Sony must have put their corporate foot down and said “you can have a second movie only after the Craig’s first one does well enough to merit it.” In other words Sony is not going to accept the proof before tasting the pudding.
If Craig fails he’ll be gone in short order, along with anyone else deemed necessary.
You might say, “Wait, they already announced they’ve invited Craig back, they will look bad going back on their word.”
EON will look no worse than they look already today. They promised a 2004 release for Brosnan's 5th film and went back on that as quickly as you please. Then they continuously dragged out the process for 3 years misleading people Pierce would indeed return.

What is likely to happen if Casino Royal fails is a press conference announcing Daniel Craig’s retirement from the role. It would be framed along the lines of having Daniel say “do to conflict of interest (filming the Layer Cake prequel or some such) It is with deep sorrow and regret that I announce I am standing aside as Bond. A role I have come to love and have redefined.”
And of course EON’s response would be along the lines of “We thank Daniel for his tireless efforts. And for redefining and reinvigorating the franchise as only he could, truly making a James Bond for the 21st century. We regret he has chosen to leave, however we wish him luck in all of his future endeavors.
We now will look toward the future as we must.“
Here is where they announce 1 of 3 things
1.)the new search for the next Bond considering all of the actors they presumptuously passed over before.

2.)The announcement of the new Bond, an actor presumptuously passed over before.

3.) The triumphant return of Pierce Brosnan. They could even justify it as Pierce would be playing an older more experienced Bond that we have never seen before. We see what the world has done to him and how he lives his life. Or the use of a filter so that Pierce will look younger than he did in Goldeneye.

Or a combination of the choices somewhere in between.

If you think this is impossible, remember the Star Jones flap. Remember the still on going Pierce Brosnan Flap.
Nothing is impossible, I would have told any who asked before last October that naming Daniel Craig as Bond was impossible.

The rolling back of the announced release date for Bond 22 is extraordinary good news for those of us boycotting the Casino Royale and Daniel Craig. It makes clear there is no presumption of Casino Royale’s success or Craig’s acceptance in the role.

In truth EON can do nothing else. If they show weakness, or even publicly qualify what will be considered a success, they lose face. If it seems they have fired Craig prematurely they loose any ground they think they hold now.
If Craig does well at the box-office sure they’ll keep him on as Bond. However nobody is going to take a chance on a second movie staring him if there is even a 50% chance of it failing.
EON looks bad because they underestimated their public and overestimated their ability to handle the Press manipulating public sentiment. This is following years of inept leadership and floundering. The movie business has changed and evolved and so should they.

The movie business is a vicious one, you can believe there is somebody breathing down EON’s neck. Somebody waiting for them to fail, poised to usurp whatever can be gained. EON can hear the voice calling to them from behind, they can feel the hot dank stank of the breath on their neck, and the can imagine the sharp carnivorous teeth ready to dispatch them quickly, quietly without thought or emotion waiting only for the word from their master to begin their work.
This is what is behind them, this is why they only face forward.
EON has miscalculated terribly. It means nothing to Sony if they appear incompetent, in fact that may be Sony’s goal.

EON has behaved like a petulant children crying, whining, throwing a tantrum til they get their way. Well they got their way, Daniel Craig was hired. They promised he wouldn’t be any trouble, they would look after him. Clean up his messes. Everyone would love him instantly. After all everyone loves James Bond and he’ll be James Bond ergo he will be loved.
Now they can’t go back any more than child can admit the pet they bargained and pleaded for might have been too much for them to handle and a bad idea after all. Luckily Sony is the adult in this situation; they will have to role of parent of making the tough choices for everyone’s good.

I’m not saying that they will have Daniel Craig put to sleep, only that they will find him a better home where he can belong and be loved. A place where he will fit in and work unobtrusively with the rest of the industry’s dynamics.

James Bond must be loved by all, the Movies must be blockbusters, halfway ain’t going to cut it. Sony is going to want a full-throttle money maker. Guarantee if they knew how much time and effort Daniel Craig was going to cost him they would never have allowed him in their home.
James Bond to Sony is a more than a business proposition, it is the future record-breaking franchise where every movie release makes the last one’s box-office look insignificant. They want another Spiderman franchise, they desire the record breaking earnings of the Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises.

Lets face it EON has been run by children, small fish in a small pond, now they must step up into the big leagues with big league players. If they can’t perform they will be cut. Changes to the team will be worked and reworked until the Bond franchise's performance meets expectations. Sony will give EON a chance to prove itself, but if they falter they will not be given a second chance. Sony is run by serious people in a serious business; EON’s best won’t be good enough. There is real money to be made out there and Sony intends to use the Bond Franchise as the vehicle to retrieve it.

The Crying Game

The constant complaining, griping, whining, and general whinging being displayed by Craig is most unbecoming of James Bond, another one of his facets that has proven incompatible with the iconic role. None of current Bond’s predecessors ever had to stoop to such lows.

Now as for the contents of his complaints, they are completely spurious and I dismiss them. Tho not without merit nor reasons. And I never do anything without due thought or consideration.
As for reserving judgment, Craig’s judgment has waited too long as it is. We have watched his films, read his biography, studied his photos, watched the teaser trailer and read every press clipping published. We know Craig better than he knows himself. We have witnessed at a distance the desecration of our beloved hero at the hands of those who were supposed to know him best, with protecting him and his image supposedly in their hearts.

I’m amazed at the audacity to demand people see his movie. This is a blatant attempt, not to win fans, but to con chumps. No different for a circus barker promising you wonders and amazement beyond you wildest dreams, only to find a jar of putrid jelly that was supposed to be the 8th wonder of the world. They will not offer your money back after being duped, only sneer with distain.
That is what Craig is asking us to do, pony up the exorbitant ticket price adding to the coffers of EON. I am thinking now of all those people who will give Craig a chance but only find disappointment walking out of the theater before the movies ends shaking their heads in disbelief. There will be no recourse for them.
It would be different if EON was offering a money back guarantee or free preview showings to win over those disaffected. But they are not, instead they offer more contempt and an audacious demand for compliance.

Craig has been talking out of both sides of his mouth, promising one group certain things and another other things. To those of us who doubt him, he promises the same Bond we have loved, we know this is not true because they have changed the fundamental nature of Bond. Changing him from a hero to a man who is almost indistinguishable from the villain. The charm and the wit has been cut out, the sophistication has been bludgeoned. This new Bond is not the same character known from the movies nor even from the depths of the darkest folds of Ian Fleming’s imagination.

For those who tentatively are supportive of him he boasts of the fundamental changes in Bond to brutal, bloody, clumsy, ogre. Gritty and realism are his keywords for ugly and unabashedly violent. The bloody pummeling of mans head into a urinal for instance.
He has turned Bond from seasoned professional to inept amateur. Besmirching the reputations of our men and women in the Special Forces. No wonder the Royal Marines gave Craig a boat ride he would never forget.

Craig asserts in Casino Royale we get to watch Bond “becoming the man we love to hate.” Who among us actually feels that way about Bond and can sill be considered a Bond fan?
Daniel also asserts “We're discovering him and he's got rough edges,” There is always room for growth in a character especially when you go from younger to older incarnation, however the metamorphosis we are expected to buy, from a complete cretin to distinguished man is too incredible for words.

Craig braggadociously goes on “Certain things he does should be questionable. I think you should go, 'F**k, that's not nice,” Here again Craig shows his complete incomprehension of the character. Yes, Bond does have some darker moments, especially in the books, but he was never indistinguishable from the bad guys and he was never a malicious person or acted maliciously without want.

If the rumors are true they have also changed Bond from a Navy man to an Army man. Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly what Commander Ian Fleming of the Royal Navy had in mind when he penned Casino Royale.

The evidence is in; there are plenty of reasons to reject this man and this interpretation of a remedial Bond.
The Public should have been settling down, resigning themselves to a mediocre cinematic foray. They have not, every time Daniel Craig appears in a public venue more people join the number of those of us calling for a boycott. People care too much about Bond to let this happen quietly. A mockery is being made of one of the most recognizable figures of the modern age. And the world is lucky enough to have a plethora of people who will speak out against Craig’s abysmal interpretation in order to save the memory of a much cherished ideal, so future generations might also have the chance to come to appreciate this uniquely engrossing phenomenon.

Daniel Craig claims to have watched every Bond movie 3-4 times, then he says he threw it all out. Guess what, we can tell the difference.
Too bad he didn’t hold on to those past movies a little longer, absorbing their essence; he would have noticed something different about them, the heart. All of the old movies had heart, and so did all of the Bonds for that matter. This new Bond and this ill-conceived reboot are an abomination.

Daniel Craig, you have been judged and found wanting, lacking, and utterly unsuitable. Please submit your resignation now and apologies to the fans for your selfish, myopic view of things and your contribution to the horrendous desecration of a worldwide treasure.

What Craig offered us in this trailer is exactly what we have seen before. He does not portray James Bond, instead he submits a reused dry performance lacking in life as well as charm.
If you watch the trailer carefully the man behind the curtain becomes painfully obvious. The reality of how scripted, how re-rehearsed every scene is right down to every look and every sigh comes crashing down around us. As an audience we shouldn’t be aware of the man behind the curtain pulling the strings, the fact Craig is a puppet is made crystal clear. Sad to say a puppet rendition of Casino Royale done in the style of the lambasting “Team America ” would have been a greater achievement in emotional and character development.

Craig is in for the disappointment of his career, the Bond movie he wants is not the same Bond the public demands or has come to expect. Even now people are talking about this being a good place to end the series for good. The character created for Craig is no relation to James Bond. It is fraudulent attempt to use the name and image that came before, like a title if you will, to demand the recognition and respect the forebearers managed to earn. This James Bond lite, is a mockery the rich history of 007. The literary Bond is used as excuse to make the deviation, while adhering to none of the books charm and story. Choosing instead to embody an amalgamation of generic action movie characters and motivations.

The second trailer demonstrates Casino Royale is a formulaic effort and it shows. Even the spontaneity has been stripped away. Sony has already hedged its bets by granting unto themselves $250 million worth of free advertising, they are covered win or lose. At least on “the books” it will look good during a studio audit.

The worst omen for the new movie is the Bond theme song being sung, infusing human voices with the instrumental theme. Harkening back to another heady, pompous movie prequel/restart, The Phantom Menace.

Daniel Craig just a few short weeks ago was crying about needing everyone to give him a chance. We called that smoke screen for what it was. Craig has forgotten all about his tenuous standing as Bond in name only, Bond because Barbara Broccoli fancies him.
She, he and EON have acted like bullies. Forcing their way upon the rest of us. Forgetting the fundamental nature of their chosen professions, they are in the service industry, they serve at our pleasure. Hopefully Sony is waiting for the chance to remind them of who the big dog in this pack is.

Craig’s attitude now has changed 180 degrees from where he was a scant 2 weeks ago. Now he is arrogantly bragging about the tidy sum he was paid. The press are getting tired of this charade. They are waiting to go for the jugular when it matters the most. The man’s arrogance knows no bounds, he has demonstrated his pleading words and tears were disingenuous. He doesn’t care what the fans or anyone else for that matter thinks, his only concern was the box-office receipts. He doesn’t want you not giving him a chance before we pay his salary. It seems he and Barbara think anyone will pay them whatever they ask to see a “Bond” movie, no matter what they do. Forgotten is the strong sense the public has of ownership. Yes, EON and the Broccoli family has “ownership” in the very legal sense of the word, but the public owns the image, the thought, the ideals that comprise the very essence of Bond, James Bond. It is in our hearts and minds, something EON is not even bothering to try and win. Therefore they have already lost.

The prevailing attitude that this is Bond now and you will like it, would have fallen short of it’s desired effect in Stalinist Russia. Nobody is going to march bus loads of people into the theaters forcing people to watch it.
As it is now the choices in the box-office this fall are a paltry offering. Underwhelming is the word. Some of the less than substantive, pseudo news magazines have touted Casino Royale as the #1 film this fall. If that is the case then it shows you what a lackluster underwhelming fall movie season we have coming up. It is the lack a of a true event that shows what is missing, if there was Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, a Narnian Chronicle, or a Shrek movie in the offering the hoopla and excitement would be palpable. No one can get their hearts into being exited about this fall line up of movies. Nobody except for Barbara Broccoli, who hopes to set us all up as marks, rubes, chumps .

As Daniel sits there counting on his fingers how much money he will have after two more movies, thinking and talking about all he plans to buy with his ill gotten gains. He reminds me very much of the old adage ‘never count your chickens before they hatch.’ Also ‘mad as a wet hen’…

Like many of you out there we watched the new trailer, to our disappointment they did exactly what they shouldn’t do. The Focus was on Craig’s odd looks and what we can only postulate is supposed to be the trappings of a love story. The placement and bombastic nature of the action sequences seems as if they were meant to distract from the lack of a real story. This is doomed to be a fruitless effort because of the lack of a likable leading man. With a likeable man as the focus the rest of the events would have fallen in to place without an exaggerated effort.

For several reasons this is not a good trailer. There were so many options to market this. Instead they played up to the differences that fans have been complaining about since the start of this fiasco. The Casino Royale trailers are indiscernible from any other run of the mill action movie trailer, save for the mention of 00 and the theme music blaring away trying convince the audience this is indeed a Bond movie, although all of your other instincts are telling you differently.

One of the first reasons has to be the disturbing bathroom beat down is still very wrong for the series.
The second kill comes off very badly as well. In the first few seconds it is made blatantly clear Casino Royale is not a Bond film. In particular the second killing is completely out of nature for James Bond, even considering the darkest moments in Fleming’s tomes. Part of the colossal mistakes is the second target/victim is unquestionably a more likeable character than Craig’s. Surely they didn’t have to kill him, how about a nice cup of tea and ‘we’ll discuss where you went wrong’. You know, keep it very British.
Both these brutal, thuggish killings are a fundamental departure in the wrong direction. Especially considering Craig’s droll comments, he portrays a sociopath not a patriotic servant of Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
The only success of this trailer is Craig’s portrayal a callous bum, which might have been ok for Mafia hitman or the opening introduction of villain James Bond must hunt down, however is totally inappropriate for the embodiment James Bond.

Finally we get past the dreary black and white film, where even in the shadows Craig looks unfortunate.

The next barrage of images is meant to convey one thing- ACTION!
Well, action was never considered the problem by the detractors. I don’t think there were many complaints voiced “Oh, Daniel Craig… He’s a character actor. He doesn’t know how to do action.” or “Oh!! Eon killed off the action.”
We all know if Bond were portrayed by beagle there would be action on the screen.
No, action was never a primary concern. The primary concern has always been more along the lines of Craig’s inappropriateness for the role, the disregard of the history of the character and the possibility of the ruination of everything 007 had been.

Although there was a build up from the action sequences, the rest of the movie trailer never followed through on it.
A hook was bated for the movie going publics, however the bait used was a more than a little past its prime. This trailer really didn’t seem to know where it wanted to go. What it portrayed is a mystery as well.

Craig does not deliver Bond in this trailer. (as we hear it neither does he deliver Bond in Casino Royale) Don’t know who he was playing, but it sure as hell wasn’t Bond. Craig achieves a complete and total failure to embody any aspect of Bond. His dreary speaking voice sucked the life the action tried desperately to pump in to the scenes. Also he never came off as suave or charming, quite the opposite actually.

The scene with Vesper and the ‘arse’ comment, is a good example. It faltered, then fell flat. Craig’s monotone response and lack of expression killed what should have been a line that brought the house down. Eva Green, if you’ll excuse the expression, was acting her ass off, Craig did absolutely nothing to return the favor. She did everything any Bond girl could be expected to do. It just didn’t work.
Now, imagine the same scene with Pierce Brosnan, it would have been a classic memorable moment, a hit with the audience regardless of race, sex, or creed.
A (young?) Sean Connery in that scene would have brought the house down. The theater would have to be rebuilt before the movie premier, because the audience would have been so raucous the mortar and stone would have fallen apart.
With either Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan it would have been a scene talked about from the moment the trailer was shown until day the movie is released, probably passed down into the lore of the movies history.
Of the people we showed the trailer to, the arse scene was the biggest disappointment, the responses ranged from groans to a cynical snicker. (Ok, the cynical snicker was me.)
The point is the scene missed the mark by miles.

Among the imagery shown are scenes that demonstrate an unremarkable, diminutive Craig in various situations, particularly in the casino where he looked out of place and out classed by the people hired to be in the background. The car crash at the end was not creditable, something just looked wrong about it. Aside from the fact the trailer did not impart the reason for the chase or why the super cars brakes were faulty or why Vesper couldn’t roll out of the way. Come on, why did the new car have to die?

Unfortunately the trailers primary intent was to sell us on the Vesper and Craig relationship (we say Vesper/Craig because call the character portrayed by Daniel Craig can not be considered “Bond” by any stretch of the imagination).
To people unfamiliar with this story it was an uncomfortable exchange as well as inexplicable. The trailer does nothing to explain the why of it, it is lost in wash of action sequences and blaring theme music.

One of EON’s talking points for Casino Royale is this is the one girl bond cared about, well that is only true if you forget about Tracy
Tracy, the woman Bond married (noticed I said Woman, not girl), was as close to a whole person as Bond ever got for a love interest. And when she was murdered, her death shook Bond to his core.

Vesper on the other hand, while Bond did want to marry her, she was never a complete person or character and never completely Bond’s. He never had nearly the relationship and companionship he found with Tracy. Nor the assurance marriage to her was the right thing.

Once Bond found out Vesper was a traitor, she was dead to him (literal and figuratively), he could not think of her in the same way, not even to remember the good. Vesper betrayal was the impetus Bond needed to stay on the job after being racked with self-doubt while recovering from a nearly permanent life changing injury. He last words about Vesper were “The bitch is dead now.” A stinging rebuke.

After considerable consideration we believe the story for Casino Royale is going to be a let down. In short it’s tripe. The story EON wants to tell has already be told in ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’. And according to the spoilers leaking over the web, Craig blubbering like baby at the end is going to be the death knell. Note to Craig if you hadn’t discarded the history of Bond you would have know instinctively the right way to handle that scene. In short you would have known Bond, you are at a huge disadvantage coming in to this, the people you intend to have as your audience have a lifetime of reading and watching James Bond. They know James Bond intimately, a half performance ain’t going to cut it.

Biggest myth perpetuated by the powers that be is this is the story where Bond becomes Bond, or the very apt Bond Begins, which simply isn’t true.
As for James Bond going from rough, inept rider to smooth operator, that is a story that will not work. Not for James Bond anyway.
Getting the 00 did not transform Bond, who he is/was into a new creation through some sort of elaborate metamorphosis. Bond was who Bond was. He had a lifetime of practice moving through the right circles, savoring the finer things in life, including the women.
Bond also had lifetime in suites, which is why he should look as if he was born in them.
The evolution from Cro-Magnon to suave is to great too ignore and will be one of the most notable detractors when Casino Royal is fully revealed.

Unfortunately for this movie, the bottom line is Casino Royale it is not going to be a Bond Movie and the story they want to tell has already been told.

The Sony advertising scheme is a curiosity. Their relationship with the new Bond movies raises many questions. If you don’t know it already, Sony bought out MGM and what ever other holdings were necessary to become EON’s partner. This was a coup for Sony because they coveted the Bond franchise for years. Now that they finally had their hands on it there was internal trouble with EON.

EON was floundering and directionless, by their own account they didn’t know what to do after Die Another Day, which is a shame because any number of talented writers (as has been demonstrated here) could have provided Bond with a new direction and imaginative stories with out upsetting or even changing the status quo. The Bond movie franchise was unique for so many reasons; one of them being its ability to change with the times and their featuring the newest most imaginative gadgets was always a draw as well. EON settling on the new direction they have is a conundrum; their idea to restart the series comes years too late. They are following a fad that has already become passé.

The early 00’s of this new century has had a plethora of rebooted and restarted images in everything from TV to books and movies. Some of them have been successful, which perhaps is why EON found the idea so seductive, however many of these rebooted ideas have fallen by the wayside rather then hitting their mark, causing them to be deemed unsustainable by the market.

Sony stepped into a position with the Bond franchise they had wanted for years only to find an entropic mess. That is to say EON had succumbed to the cruel mistress that is entropy.
Many would say, and there is indeed some evidence to support it, that after Cubby Broccoli died the franchise was without leadership and the children who inherited the responsibility of production were ill prepared and ill equipped to take charge such a as they did.
What Sony saw on the first day of taking stock of EON, was that EON had sadly become a mess. The lofty franchise they had so many hopes of was mired in a quagmire, clueless and quibbling. Strangely enough the star of the franchise, Pierce Brosnan, was doing more in the way of finding direction and laying the ground work for the next production than the people employed as producers.

The direction the producers finally settled on is a lazy feckless one. The reboot of the series is a half hearted enterprise. The decision to purge the only things that had made the series successful is a mistake as well.
EON’s impression that they could wipe the slate clean and start from scratch producing whatever they chose to is woefully incorrect. James Bond is too well known, no matter how hard they try to wash away the marks, the producers find the inscriptions they struggle to erase are indelible and will never go away.

Sony’s tact or lack there of is especially notable. Watching how Sony has handled this film also gives rise to speculation that they are not entirely on board with EON’s decisions.
Sony is huge corporation, they have produced many successful movies. Spider-Man springs instantly to mind. Never before have they handled the advertising in such a manner. The attitude one gets from the current situation is that they know they are whoring out a commodity. It feels like the trade off for Barbara getting her way is Sony getting a safety-net, one that guarantees Sony will lose no money however it turns out. Hardly a vote of confidence on Sony’s part.

The release of their own Casino Royal trailer that goes to great pains to feature Sony products speaks the strongest. This shows contempt. Contempt for the few remaining Bond fans that planed to stick this disaster out. Contempt for the movie going public and movie buffs who they will try to snooker into watching a nothing more that a Sony commercial.
It is unimaginable such and attitude would prevail with Spider-Man. Perhaps this attitude being so prevalent here shows more than Sony intended us to see.

All of this coupled with the fact that it has been Sony executives who have been out there every step of the way forcing the availability of previews and making announcements of the delay in production for Bond 22. Means that how this all is going to play out in the next few months should be very interesting to watch.

We’ve struggled to answer the question of ‘why would Sony OK Daniel Craig’s hiring let alone this ill-conceived reboot’. Well the first answer to be spouted out by those who will blather such, is that Sony was convinced by Craig’s previous performances and wholeheartedly supports the refreshing idea of the reboot.
If you picked up a press report today, sure enough it will have the conforming and confirming diatribe that Sony executives are fully in support of said changes.
However if you look closer and do a little research you will find a completely different story.
When Sony took over they inherited a situation where MGM and EON productions were publicly fighting over the franchise, EON production, more accurately reportedly as Barbra Broccoli was insisting on changes (which have now occurred). Where as MGM wanted at least one more Bond film with Pierce Brosnan in the lead, after all the movies were unprecedented money makers, also do not discount the Bond DVD market which has paid off handsomely for the studio.
As far as MGM was concerned the next Brosnan Bond was sure thing and you never sneer at a sure thing, you do your best to make sure it happens.

Perhaps the success Brosnan brought to the franchise gave the EON producers the wrong impression that somehow they were the ones responsible for it.
It has been shown before that the production values can be considered secondary on a Bond movie, where as the leading man makes or breaks the movies. Someone wrote to us explaining that a successful James Bond is an actor you can enjoy watching regardless of whether the movie is any good. That is the indefinable part of the equation Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan so successfully harnessed, they connected with the audience, the audience wanted to like them and was more than willing to pay to watch them.

When Sony took charge first thing they had to do was straighten this mess out, apparently the decision was made to have no more public fighting, then to push ahead with the production of the next Bond movie.
Now this is where it gets tricky, Sony (from reliable reports wanted Pierce Brosnan back for the next movie) reportedly talking to Brosnan about it as late as September 2005. They wanted Brosnan back probably for the same reasons MGM did. When EON balked at this idea, Sony’s alternative was NOT Daniel Craig, of whom his sole supporter was Barbara Broccoli. Sony instead wanted to consider other actors they considered more suitable for the role and therefore more bankable. Each one was rejected in turn by Barbara for various reasons, some of which are completely cockamamie in retrospect. The standards which Barbara held the other contenders to were somehow irrelevant where Daniel Craig was considered.

Why did Sony let Craig happen if he was not their choice?
Why all of these decisions happened we believe comes down to contractual clause invoked by Barbra Broccoli.
The purported clause is they (EON) have the right to make all creative decisions, including casting and script. If this is true it could have forced Sony into a position of support with no other option aside from not making the movie at their disposal.

Would EON have forced the issue in such a way?
It seems very likely they did just that.

Sony is a big company why would they let them get away with it, won’t there be consequences?
Yes there will be consequences. IF Casino Royale fails to meet studio expectations it is reasonable to expect that there will be dire consequences quickly implemented.

Unfortunately for Daniel Craig all of the consequences are going to come down on his head, he is already being positioned for it. His next role is likely one of scapegoat. It is now unavoidable; the advertising campaign is centered on him. The decisions for the direction are being clearly laid at Craig’s doorstep. Right now there are enough breadcrumbs out there that when followed they will point an accusatory finger at Daniel Craig.
Daniel’s head is in the noose, however rightly or wrongly, the box-office for the next Bond movie will be a referendum on Craig. This is not completely fair, EON is the party that should be called to account more than Craig. Just as when some people try to blame Pierce Brosnan or Timothy Dalton for perceived failures in their movies when the real culprits are behind the cameras. The real culprit for every short coming is not the hired help rather the people who consider themselves as a permanent part of the landscape.

If/When Casino Royale fails we should take it upon ourselves to condemn the rightful party. Condemn the people behind the decisions that led to the bludgeoning of a beloved icon.

To Russia With Lies.

To Russia With Lies.
We have heard a lot recently about EON’s attitude real or imagined towards minorities. A far more egregious transgression is transpiring as we speak. Through friends of the site from around the world we have been made aware of the deliberate misrepresentation of Daniel Craig in the foreign ad campaigns. One striking example is the Russian GQ magazine where headline of the article inside the magazine announces to the potential Russian audience that Daniel Craig has “always wanted to be Bond since he was a little boy”, an out right lie. We know that it is a lie because Daniel’s Mother admitted that Daniel was not interested in Bond as a little boy, although she remember most of his friends being obsessed with the phenomena. It also should be remembered that Daniel Craig couldn’t be bothered to attend a Bond movie in the theater since 1973.
The deliberate misrepresentation of Craig to a foreign audience is a heinous crime.
This second class treatment of a people because it is assumed they are undereducated, unable to comprehend the language, and are oblivious to the happenings in the English world outside their boarders. This is upsetting no matter who the actor is that they are attempting shill.

Also of grave concern is the 500 prints of the film being foist on the population of India. One report remarked it was a risky venture to do so, however they did not elaborate as to why it was a risk. It is completely conceivable that this is an attempt to buffalo and undermine the rich movie market in India. Apparently with very stiff competition from a popular Indian movie the weekend after Casino Royale opens, the goal of the producers is to loot the box-office opening weekend. Truly the people of India should be offended by this affront there their sovereignty. It is a despicable attitude that has prevailed in dealing with our fellow fans in foreign countries. If it were not for the already clear reasons of the abomination to the Bond legacy we would have boycotted this movie on these moral grounds alone.

After an unseasonably early flood of supposedly positive film reviews, we were made to wonder about that nature of said releases. First off, though abundant in their praise for Daniel Craig’s performance there credibility is a lacking in these reports since several newspapers have made it public that they are not able to reveal their reviews until after the film is released. Making these early reviews of questionable lineage. We also have been made aware of a small snippet of a report that claims bias on the part of those leaking their reviews. Whether this is true of not, we don’t know. Although it does seems likely.

After reading the early reviews there is a disturbing trend of heaping gratuitous praise on Craig. However when you read their description of the movie and it’s scenes, it becomes evident that Casino Royale is lacking all the hallmarks that make up the composition of a Bond movie. The very physical interpretation these reviewers as an audience received from Craig is not that of James Bond.

Many of the reviews harp on just one of Fleming’s descriptions of Bond as cruel. They Expound upon how much like a killer Craig looks, which is a mistake. Though Bond was a killer he was not obviously so, nor was he a cad. More likely is that Fleming bequeathed Bond an attribute that he had probably personally seen in the faces of actual agents of His Majesty’s Secret Service.
If you have ever known people of this caliber, then you know they are multi faceted, intelligent, smart, witty, and quick on their feet as well as their mind. And if you have never been privileged to meet people of such quality (the odds are you have met them but never knew it) then the closest to which such capable, patriotic citizens can be described is akin to the ‘big guy’ with a heart of gold; we all have met someone like this at one time or another.
They are generally a sweet person, easy to get along with and a pleasure to know but once or twice you may find them at a bad moment at catch a glimpse of something deeper, a face beneath the face. The presence of malevolence, a cruelty we all are capable of when push comes to shove.
Yes, it is shocking to see someone’s face change perceptibly and know that there is something they will not hesitate to use force to protect. Normally it is on account of their children, I have seen many faces of the meekest parents become a mask of death where their children’s well being is concerned.

Without question we have already seen the cruelty Fleming had wanted in his alter ego, the determination and grit suddenly present in previously serene features. Surely we all can recall at least one moment that lingers in our memory from the tenure of Pierce Brosnan, Sean Connery, and Roger Moore (Timothy Dalton and George Lazenby as well, although they have a lesser body of work from which to chose); you can remember the exact moment where their expression changed just enough to let us, the audience, know there was nothing that could stop what was about to happen.

Ian Fleming had many more facets to his creation than that of a cruel ogre and bargain basement thug as Craig has solely chosen to interpret him. There isn’t one member of the lamest Campus or Mall security team (no offence to all members of good Campus and Mall security details) who wouldn’t mark Daniel Craig’s Bond as a problem and have him secured before his mission could be accomplished.

If we expound further, most of the people doing the reviewing admit to, in some fashion or other, not liking previous Bond movies and applaud the drastic departure undertaken. Many of these good reviews oddly enough completely ignore the deficits in the movie that even the most fervent Pro-Craig propagandist openly admits to. In truth these overly congratulatory pieces of pulp fiction are probably in a direct response to the initial negative media coupled with publicity of the Craig Not Bond website.

It could indicate a greater concern over dissatisfaction to the casting of Craig. It may also prove to be a part of the publicity campaign blitzing the media in hopes of cajoling an audience into attendance. From current direction of the marketing, it seems certain that the studio is convinced it is the opening weekend or nothing as far as the box-office is concerned. We as discrimination consumers should not give way to such false seeding of the ethers, we should stand firm on our ground. Every report agrees that Craig is not Bond, rather a poorly conceived and executed Bourne clone masquerading under a false pretenses as James Bond 007.
Sure, some have already complimented Craig’s performance, however keep in mind that no matter how well he may or may not performs they always qualify the compliment with a “for this new type of Bond” or similar sentiment.

The desecration of the legacy that we suspect to be occurring has happened, it is now a fact. Do not forget these same people lauding Craig, lauded Pierce a few short years ago. What has changed you may ask, nothing aside from the actor currently in favor with the producers. James Bond is a special character who found an unexpected home in all of our hearts. No matter who your favorite Bond is you know the essence of the character, this new direction has abandoned this essence and mocks all that came before.

If any of us have momentary laps of judgment and do see Casino Royale at the theater, I ask you to remember Craig words, “Just go see it.” and hold him accountable. If for any reason you are not happy with Daniel Craig or Casino Royale demand a refund, complain to the theater owners, call and write your newspapers to let them know there are Bond fans greatly distressed over this abomination.

The writing on the wall is plain to see, Daniel Craig is not Bond and Casino Royale is not a Bond film. In the end if there is enough public outcry and rejection of this amalgamated, generic Bond the exit strategy will be for Craig to bow gracefully out leaving him these platitudes to point to as declaring himself a success. Regardless if he chooses to avail himself of this parachute, he is still being damned by faint praise. The same people who now praise him, condemned Timothy Dalton’s portrayal for the same humorless “gritty” elements being condoned now.

000 This guy (Craig) is not a bedable Bond. Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan are hot, sexy, and charming. Easily imagine wanting to be seduced by them. Or deciding to seduce them yourself.

Enough changes in the world for a new movie premise, with the basic concepts of Bond, without screwing around with the past.

R.I.P. James Bond

We need to buy a full page ad in the paper, (can't cost much can it?), on the day, god forbid, this movie is released. A full page obituary, it reads RIP James Bond 007, killed by some bitch.1963-2003 Dead too soon...

The Money is not on the Screen.

EON boasts that their motto, from Cubby Broccoli, has always been the fans fist, put the money on the big screen where it shows. Well not anymore, they chinced out on us with the new casting and script.

Taking a dump on the history of Bond then poking us in the eyes with this eye sore actor.

Roots

Going back to Bonds roots isn’t a bad idea in itself, but the idea has been tried and done before.

But going back to those roots and bleaching them…..

The first sign of trouble is Dame Judy Dench dressing down (young?) 007.

The Blunt Instrument comment is too much. Who is she addressing? Certainly not the James Bond of the Ian Fleming’s books.

Craig then goes on to whine about the life expectancy of a 00 agent. Sorry the career counselor made such a mistake sending you here, I’m sure you’ll be happier as a car rental clerk.

Perhaps a blunt instrument is all this actor is capable of portraying.

The half monk, half hit-man remark completely misses the mark. Who thought this up?

Why would Bond ever compare anything in his life to the life of a monk? As far as killing goes Bond doesn’t like it and considers it an ugly part of his job, but his duty as a patriot.

If reading is too much, remember Goldeneye: “for England James”,
“007's loyalty was always to the mission, never to his friend”, “Her Majesty’s loyal terrier.”

Director Martin Campbell is famous for having repeatedly said to Pierce Brosnan on his first outing as Bond in Goldeneye… “Don’t f**k this up..”

Can hardly imagine what he has been saying to Craig, a wonder that the boy(?) hasn’t broken out in hives.

License Denied

Pierce is Bond. He has been and will continue to be. Nothing to do with the movie franchise at all. If he was never offered the role we would still think of him as Bond or as what Bond should be.

That's not a mantel the can take from him and give to another, certainly not to a much lesser man. Your in deep on this one Craig my boy, too deep. Swim back now before this thing sinks and swallows you whole dragging you down with it to the blackest pit of oblivion.

Like Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan is James Bond. The very essence he captures is James Bond. we chose him, the fans, and if they are too damned stupid to realize it, then they deserve whats coming.

Craig’s fan club?

Don’t know Daniel Craig from Adam. Never seen a Daniel Craig movie, but I am willing to give him a chance. His introduction with a lifepreserver was lame, not quite MacArthur coming ashore there.

Is Daniel Craig is good looking? Can’t say he’s a bloke to me. As such lacks the attributes to make him good looking.

If he has a fan club they should be raising all hell, this is a bad movie to introduce him as James Bond. It is as if he’s being set up to fail.

I think the Casino Royale movie script is a bad idea. Why start from scratch?

Everything about James Bond has been changed and it is going to fall on its face.

Daniel's fan club should be fighting for him.

H.T ~Washington

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Nobody HAS to go

Anyone who's followed the responses from EON & the producers regarding the movie - should be able to see there's very little truth going around. Such as that Daniel Craig was their only choice for the role. Quite simply, the producers come across as being both false and insincere. One thing's for sure, if Cubby was still around there would be none of this reboot nonsense. Staying true to Ian Fleming's vision, yet replacing key elements of the novel, such as poker instead of Baccarat... for this movie Bond is dumbed down and quite obviously manufactured for the US market.

While I personally think Daniel Craig is incredibly miscast, at the end of the day any resentment should be instead directed at the producers. The way they dumped Pierce Brosnan from the role was terribly handled. Obviously they think that after the huge success of the previous movie they can put almost anything on the screen and it will be successful with a 007 logo slapped on it.

Yet the producers seem to be making a huge mistake. A loyal fan base only formed because the producers gave the public what they wanted. Brosnan enjoyed the role, and unlike Connery, didn't need to be persuaded to continue. The public liked Brosnan - that the last movie was the most successful 007 film ever is evidence of that. By firing a successful actor, and replacing him with a virtual unknown, one who seems very unsuited to the role, and watering down or removing many of the key elements of a Bond movie (Glamour, style, wit) - the producers seem intent on alienating any existing Bond fans. It's hard to believe after 40 years they seem to have no idea what the public wants. They don't know what they're doing.

While I've been a Bond fan for as long as I can remember, frankly I hope Casino Royale bombs at the box office. Why? Because almost everything that's been said by Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson regarding Casino Royale has been pretty condescending to the fans. Openly stating you don't care what fans think? Who do you think buys the movie tickets/DVDs that make you rich??

Nobody HAS to go to see a movie. After such a long wait after Die Another Day I think it's appalling that the next Bond movie looks so... disappointing.

As for Craig doing more than one movie? Bah! You must be kidding. Dalton was a good actor, and looked the part, and even he only managed to get a second chance to be in the role, because he wasn't particularly well received by US audiences. In the final frames of the trailer it's just so obvious that Craig is so, so WRONG for the role. I saw Tomb Raider when it came out, and I can't even remember him in it. That's not charisma! No offense to him, but I don't care if he is indeed a 'good actor'. He's just the wrong choice for Bond. What a waste.

Sure the movies needed to become less Moonraker and more For Your Eyes Only - but a 'reboot', poker instead of Baccarat, a frankly unphotogenic lead actor - is nothing less than a complete disaster waiting to happen. Maybe a box office failure after 40 years might do the producers some good. Maybe then they'll start listening to fans instead of following fickle Hollywood trends and doing a "Bond Begins". Bomb begins more like it. What a waste.

20 May 2006 08:46:01

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Cynical thought

just had a cynical thought... the domain casinoroyalesucks.com is actually available! (Obviously the PR dept at EON is as inept as Barbara Broccoli when it comes to promoting movies) Maybe someone should do a parody of the official site... replace the casino table scene with a version of the classic painting showing dogs playing cards :) I think they're even playing poker in it!!! Full house? I think in November it's more likely to be mostly empty movie theaters...

And... bondbegins.com is available also! What an opportunity to poke fun at a franchise that's imploding from the weight of the producers egos :) Regards, Blofeld

20 May 2006 09:13:19

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Bring back Pierce!!

I can only hope that right people (people in charge of making Bond movies) will see this site and HEAR what we're trying to tell them. Craig is NO Bond, he's nowhere NEAR as Bond and will never be. I'm offended by this kind of casting when the real James Bond actor, loved by most fans is thrown out the role, to spite that he could make 2-3 more movies!!! It's an insult... Definitely me and my friends will boycott the movie. Bring back Pierce!!

19 May 2006 04:20:00

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The Female Vote

My girlfriend thinks Craig looks terrible. Columnist Carole Malone said he looks like a craggy arsed builder. Honour Blackman said he's not handsome enough to be Bond. Lois Maxwell said he needs a wig. Female editor of the erotic review Rowan Pelling once wrote a column explaining why women think Clive Owen is the sexiest actor out there.

I could go on but you get the general idea. It is wishful thinking to think Craig has the female vote.

20 May 2006 10:35:34

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To Barbara Broccoli

To Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson: you brought this petition upon yourselves.

One by firing Pierce Brosnan and choosing Daniel Craig. You have nobody to blame but yourselves. If you would have followed in your fathers footsteps, there would be no petition at all.

Your father was a good man and still is. Your father probably told his production crew. Lets give the fans what they want, they are paying our salary. That is why all of the James Bond movies are so successful.

Craig has no class or character or talent. Pierce Brosnan has all of those qualities. Also he is the real James Bond. You can fix this by profusely apologizing to Pierce Brosnan and giving him what ever he wants. Preferably a large salary. If you don't do this, my family and me and all of my fellow fans at www.craignotbond.com will boycott all James Bond movies with Daniel Craig. I am not joking.

I have been a James Bond fan since I was three years old. And Daniel Craig is not and never will be James Bond ever period. He doesn't have the look or charisma and he is not handsome at all. So do the right thing and get Pierce Brosnan back as James Bond or you will feel the boycott of Casino Royale and know what it means to lose millions of dollars and fans at the box office.

Please give the fans what they want. Because without the fans, you have nothing at all. Because your father "Cubby" would not want a reboot of Casino Royale at all. He would have wanted it exactly like the book and the way Ian Fleming wrote it.

Ian Fleming is turning over in his grave right now. Because of his creation of ,James Bond, is being portrayed by an unknown actor like Daniel Craig. He would not have accepted Daniel Craig at all, period.

I for one will not see this movie because he is crass and unappealing to me. Two of my sisters feel the same way as I do. I know my mother and father would not see this farce of a movie either, because they are deceased and they would not have seen it if they were alive.

I was really looking forward to seeing the next movie with Pierce Brosnan in the role of James Bond, and I will not see this movie with Daniel Craig in it and thats a real shame. Unless you bring back Pierce Brosnan.

You have to admit that you made the wrong decision with Daniel Craig playing James Bond. It will be your fault when "Casino Royale" flops at the box office and that you have lost millions of fans. That will be a real pity. A terrible decision was made casting Daniel Craig in the role of James Bond. If you continue with this decision it will haunt you for the rest of your lives.

I love James Bond and I always will. Because I have such great admiration and respect for James Bond I will not betray him by seeing this movie. I promise you if you follow in your fathers footsteps and bring back Pierce Brosnan as James Bond you will make millions of dollars and fans in the process. That is all I can say.

20 May 2006 20:24:39

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Non-obvious Choice

I've always thought the casting of Bond would be interesting if they went for a non-obvious choice. My non-obvious choice was Christian Bale. Of course when I say non-obvious I don't include Daniel Craig because he would have to fall in the certifiable choice category. The insane choice category. The let's piss the franchise up against the wall category...

21 May 2006 10:47:52

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Stubborn and Bizarre

Anyone who has actually read the books will know that Craig looks as much like Fleming's Bond as Dennis Franz does.

If Craig is such a great actor how come he is nearly forty and yet was practically unknown six months ago? This willfully stubborn and bizarre choice by the producers was bound to rub part of the fanbase up the wrong way and, in my opinion, was completely unnecessary and very stupid. Does anyone really think Daniel wants to do many of these films with all the stick he is getting? Do you really think he'll make enough of a connection with the general public to make a second or third film viable? I don't.

17 May 2006 10:42:51

Flop

Daniel Craig was the worst possible choice for James Bond.

This movie will flop and I refuse to spend my money to go and see it! Orlando Bloom would have been a better choice for a young James Bond in Casino Royale. They will need to bring back Pierce Brosnan after this movie bombs in order to revive the 007 series!

Nasty Reaction

What is bizarre is the nasty reaction of Craig, Broccoli and the franchise to the fans' rejection of them. Craig and the others show no 007 sophistication or humor what so ever. The best thing that Sony could do is to turn the film into a parody - make it really funny, then they could go back to making a classic Bond film with another actor.

I am appalled at how Pierce Brosnan was treated and let go from the role of James Bond. He saved the franchise and was the highest grossing Bond of all time. And how did they repay him? They left him hang for over a year and then fired him. Replacing him with Daniel Craig is an insult.

Pierce always was and always will be the very best James Bond.

I hope when Casino Royale flops at the box office they beg Pierce to come back.
What a horrible mistake B. Broccoli has made....and I hope she pays dearly for it!

Our petition has over 19,000 signatures on it....I would say that is a lot of unhappy fans. And I assure you...we will indeed follow through with the boycott.

Apparently the powers that be were heavily intoxicated when such a horrible choice as Daniel Craig was made.
James Bond will NEVER be the same!
And the fans will NEVER forget what was done to Pierce!
Sincerely,
DeAnna (Kitn) Brayton

After watching the trailer, several times, this episode has "sucks with a capital S" written all over it and for four undeniable reasons:

1.) A "reboot" implies there was something wrong with the Bond films that came before and messes with an established history, 40 years strong. Because I have come to know Bond as classy, sophisticated and lethal, I don't have any particular curiosity how he got his "00" status. He's always been 007 to me. This seems more like Bond does Bourne. To my way of thinking, Judi Dench should have bowed out of this movie after having stood up for Pierce Brosnan returning. Her return as M from the beginning makes no sense to the story line and seems disloyal to mistreated fellow actors. I would include John Cleese, Q, and Samantha Bond, Moneypenny, among the mistreated by EON. At least Samantha Bond had the grace to bow out when it became clear that EON was screen testing every actor on the face of the earth to recast the Bond role.

2.) Daniel Craig may fit the literary description of James Bond, but he is certainly not, physically, what we have come to expect of a cinematic James Bond. While I don't think he particularly fits the visual image of Bond, I will refrain from making my criticism of his looks personal. I understand fan frustration, however, instead of going after Daniel Craig, I would target the EON team instead. Daniel Craig is an actor who got a shot at the role and took it. Even though I don't think he's ultimately right for it, I understand how he had to take his chance.

3.) Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson ignore both history and the fans at their own peril. Roger Moore (who I first saw in the theater as Bond) and Pierce Brosnan (who my son and daughter first saw in the theater as Bond) both enjoyed a familiarity with the American audience due to their television exposure from The Saint and Remington Steele. Timothy Dalton, fine actor that he is, didn't connect with the American audience because they didn't know him...and so, it was over for him after two episodes. The American audience knows Daniel Craig from what?

4.) Broccoli and Wilson should be ashamed of the shabby way in which they displaced Pierce Brosnan from the role of James Bond. Pierce Brosnan saved James Bond the way James Bond has saved the world so many times. He was willing to negotiate pay and even if the producers don't want to give up their compensation in the form of gross points on box office receipts, they could have paid him $25 million and he would have done it (and he deserves it). They owed him a fifth outing.

Being that I am approaching the tender age of 50 myself, I am particularly sensitive to EON's age-ist attitude. I suspect much of the middle age fan base is as put out as I am, particularly, since many of the changes in Casino Royale appear to be aimed at attracting a younger audience.

While I believe Pierce Brosnan would be open to reprising the role of James Bond, I wouldn't blame him for never come back after that treatment.

It's sad, but here is my prediction, for what it's worth. Many, like me and my kids, will stay away from Casino Royale. Many other fans will go out of curiosity and get turned off. They rollout Bond 22, with Craig, again, in 2007. Both films won't be close to economically viable and James Bond goes on hiatus for three years. The role is re-cast and this time it is either James Purfoy, Dougray Scott or Christian Bale. Sorry, I don't see a return of Pierce. Bond 23 coming soon to a theater near you in 2010

Best Bond

I'm trying to be helpful in our common problem -- Craggy boy.
There's a lot of people on CommanderBond, who thinks that Craig is
great, he's like Connery, some assholes even say he's gonna be better
than Connery, blah-blah-blah.... And they call themselves Bond-fans, huh?
I, personally, am not a Connery fan. I'm a Brosnan fan. But for these
guys, who think that Craig is, like producers say, is the closest
actor to Fleming's true Bond, here's something to change their mind
(if it's still possible... heh...)

"Christopher Lee has hailed Irishman Pierce Brosnan as the best actor to ever play suave superspy JAMES BOND.

Lee, who played Bond villain SCARAMANGA in 1973 installment THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN and recently defended the casting of new 007 DANIEL CRAIG, insists Brosnan depicted Bond exactly as author IAN FLAMING intended.

He says, "In my opinion - and I think I know as much, if not more about Bond than anyone, particularly about the characters on whom Ian told me Bond was based, Pierce Brosnan was by far the best and closest to the character."

To Sony

Pshaw! This guy isn't James Bond. Brosnan was far better. This guy
is sick on the boats and hates the guns, then what kind of Bond is
he?!
T.Z ~Czech Republic

Chasm

When Daniel Craig plays James Bond, I am able to say that Lazenby and
Dalton draw up Pierce, Roger and Sean... There will be a big chasm
between the first five and Daniel Craig...

In that role I would like to see Clooney, if he were younger.

R.S ~Czech Republic

Adolescent

I have to confess that in the first few days after Craig was elected as the new James Bond, I didn't see what kind of guy he really was and thought all the rush against him was to me adolescent bullshit. But when I looked at his photos today, I have to admit that the petition and the site has something about it. Because this kind of Bond, I would expect only from some kind of low budget television station...

but this... oh God, where did that smooth gentleman with the tux, that hides the power
and dynamics of the wonderful body disappear to.

Whiff

Can you smell what the Rock is cooking!?! No but we caught a whiff of what Daniel Craig is up to and joined the boycott.
BOYCOTT CASINO ROYALE!! BRING BACK PIERCE!!!

Seen the trailer

Seen the trailer on the internet didn’t like it not going to do anything about it. Saw the trailer at the movies on the big screen it became clear how bad Craig is.

I signed the petition tonight.

No Blondie

My comment is short: No blondie!

Appalling

This is only my opinion. I can't understand how someone could ever
choose this guy as the legendary James Bond. I don't say Daniel Craig is a bad actor, as a main baddy he would be perfect. But he really doesn't look like James Bond, it is appalling.
In all the photos I have seen he looks so terrible that if he is
James Bond for another movie, I think he'll completely ruins the series,
which really makes me sad. All the actors, who played Bond till today,
were fine, they looked good enough for the role, but this is shocking.
Craig has a hard task to persuade me I was wrong.

But as I say - Craig as 007 is appalling!!!"

Idiot

I think Daniel Craig is a blonde idiot. I am sorry, but I cannot say it in a different way.

I worked with Sir Sean in a photo shoot and also interviewed him. I met Pierce Brosnan twice in interviews.( when I asked his birthdate he answered May 16,1952. There has been a discrepancy about it lately.) I have not been fortunate to meet my favorite, George Lazenby as yet. Sir Sean being number two. I loved Sean in the role but to me George was James Bond and not an actor playing a role. After five gorgeous looking men we now have the "ugly Bond". The current situation is analogous to casting Don Knotts as Tarzan. I still find it hard to believe. I suffered through the Roger Moore years but will end my Bond fandom with Daniel Craig and the average $2,000. I spent on related material for each film. Eon should either have kept Pierce on or went with Julian McMahon (gorgeous) who reminds me in body and mannerism of a young Sir Sean or Eric Bana who reminds me in looks of a young George Lazenby. When I attended a public screening of "Munich" at Christmas the three teenage girls behind me asked the father of two of them what other films Eric was in. They were ecstatic over Eric and were surprised when the father told them he was the Hulk. They are correct Bond choices that Eon should have made

Not Anymore

No one on the Bond forums suggested Craig as a future Bond in 2004 or early 2005.The handful of people who knew who he was, like me, never considered him either because the idea was absurd. Like casting Kathy Bates as Lara Croft or Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Superman. Casino Royale is almost finished now and I have yet to see a still where Craig doesn't look glum, grim and like a piece of crap. One doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. There were dozens of actors who could have done Casino Royale. Gerard Butler for one. Butler probably looks more like James Bond buying cornflakes in a wooly hat than Craig does in a tuxedo. still I'm sure Barbara is having a whale of time. Dining with her darling Danny each day. That's all that matters isn't it? Screw the fans, after all, we're only the idiots who bought all the videos, books and DVDs...not anymore...

Screw Who? While I'm not a fan of Daniel Craig being cast as James Bond, everyone can certainly admit that he has taken a pounding from fans and the media since the announcement of him as James Bond, so I'll allow him a moment of frustration and pissiness when he made his "screw them" comment. However, Mr. Craig would be well advised to watch his own back as to who gets screwed after the movie comes out. If it disappoints at the box office (as I suspect it will), he will find himself screwed by both EON and Sony (so much for that 3 picture deal and playing Bond until 2012). You don't expect them to assign any blame for failure to themselves....do you? They screwed Pierce Brosnan, big time, and they won't hesitate to do it to Daniel Craig too. The clock is ticking, November will soon be here.

I heard the hubbub about Daniel Craig and thought he could be a bad Bond. After the trailer I know he's not. He is a disgraceful Bond!!!

Give Craig a chance **(listed twice)

Geat site. I agree, Craig doesn't appear to be a good choice for Bond; however, I think a lot of people are being too critical. Before we place him with the Lazenby fiasco, lets at least see the film (he deserves that much).

Why does Craig deserve a chance?

Why does Craig deserve a chance? Did he mow your lawn or something? What's wrong with holding back our support for a film if they don't give us an actor that fits the bill?

Bond is not a charity

Bond is not a charity. Craig deserves a screen test. That is all.

Contemptuous Nitwit

Craig...you contemptuous nitwit. You have no love or respect for Bond. That's is why you fail and the people hate you. Pierce loved and still loves Bond. He always tells that Goldfinger was the first movie he ever saw and wanted to be Bond ever since. But you, you stink. You are in it for the money. Phony....What loser are you anyway? Getting seasick doing action scenes, losing your front teeth is a fight scene, not able to drive a car with manual gears. You are a sorry bag of shite, Loser

I can't believe Sony let Barbara Broccoli cast her close friend Daniel Craig as James Bond. Is the Bond franchise a charity? I'm sure Barbara has had a lovely time in Prague, the Bahamas etc going to nightclubs and expensive restaurants with Craig; but, surely, a Bond film with someone with Craig's odd looks and lack of charm will be a huge failure, especially with US audiences. I just hope that Barbara does not get another Craig Bond made and then has a tantrum and fails to make another Bond film for six years after she is forced to sack "Danny".

08 Jun 2006 17:37:17

Speechless

i am speechless about the new j bond ...why had it come that far ...i am sad that they ruined a great movie franchise with such a monkey face . :-(

Optimistic?

What I take from these documents (the Maidment letters) is that we have a chance. We have more than chance. We now have insight into what is going on behind closed doors. Publicly they say Craig is our man and reboots is the way. Privately they are checking and rechecking. Concerned that EON shot itself in the head.
These documents put wind in our sails! They show that we can win! We are on the right path already.

Every argument that has been made against Daniel Craig and restarting the series is correct, the studio knows it! Sony already knows what happens when you settle for an actor instead of getting the one you know is right. They know how people react to a Bond they can’t embrace and this makes them more willing to listen.

The radical departure that EON has chosen is even more risky than has been let on. EON is off balance vulnerable to being toppled. They counted on all of us staying silent. Movies have been boycotted before but not by the die hard fans. The boycott caught them by surprise.

What we are doing is making a difference. We have demonstrated how much we care and that matters to the people with the real power. Maybe that is why EON and Craig are the way they are to the fans. They are losing their voice and are close to having no choice.

What we need now is to increase our numbers and our visibility. Tell your friends. Tell friends of friends. Have them send Emails. Sign the petition. Join the boycott.

EON may still not be willing to listen but those around them are. We have shown that there is a market for "classic" Bond. We have brought attention to their past failings when they assumed they knew what the audience wanted. They got it wrong then and they are getting it wrong now.

Investors invest to make money, everybody wants a sure thing. We are showing the how shaky the reboot and Craig together are.
The high ground is ours. This has been a bad year for the box office the trend looks to continue.
Even if they do make a first picture with Craig we can make sure that there isn’t a second or a third.
Do not give up!
They are listening, we can win!

SONY Profits Down

Dear Mr. Stringer,

I have always purchased Sony products until last October.

With sincerity, I wrote Amy Pascal and asked her to please consider the faithful Sony customers when making a final decision on whether Pierce Brosnan should be fired and replaced as James Bond 007. I explained that Sony should be more willing to listen to the viewpoints of loyal consumers since many of us are learning to live without movie theater presentations due to the lack of quality entertainment coming from Hollywood. Many Bond fans had been waiting patiently for the next Brosnan 007 film.

She never replied to the two e-mails that I sent her.

After her poor decision to fire Brosnan, I sent one last e-mail explaining how my family was about to purchase a new VideoCamera and that due to her decision we decided against a Sony camera. I also explained that while I love the "Partridge Family" and other popular Sony-owned television series, I would not purchase them on DVD either. In fact, I purchased two RCA clock radios as gifts for Christmas last year, the first time I have bypassed Sony in that category.

Maybe you should re-examine some of the terrible and offensive decisions that some in your corporation are making and their total disregard for consumers who keep your company profitable. It was clear to me that she did not care what this consumer was asking, not demanding. She could not find a moment to respond to a very nicely written e-mail that simply expressed a viewpoint with respect.

That cost you this customer in every conceivable Sony category. Maybe that is something you should have explained to the Sony stockholders.

Sincerely,
M. ~Florida, USA

An Eastern Type of Guy

Daniel Craig is an eastern type of guy, just like Ukrainian or Russian
and he is unfit to make a Bond movie, he doesn't look like James Bond!!!! Is this not the way a western style white knight and breaker of women's hearts looks! Amen

Doesn't Fit the Role

"No, he doesn't fit the role, not a bit, he is inexpressive and
blond. This destroys Bond's image."
Z.F ~Czech republic
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Blonde Deviant

"I think that the best James Bond was Sean Connery. The last movie, Die Another Day, wasn't one of the best, but it wasn't Pierce Brosnan’s mistake. If there was any mistake then it was that the movie was stigmatized by Hollywood (but what these days isn't?). But this blonde deviant is James Bond? When I heard it for the first time, I though it was a bad joke."
M.K ~Czech republic
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Carrion

"When I saw Remington Steele long time ago, I thought to myself that
P. Brosnan, who played the main character there, would be a perfect
James Bond. And it happened, Pierce was one of the best Bonds, maybe
even the best. That he's getting older but he looks still good enough to make one or two more movies. But to choose such a carrion without nobleness is a mockery. That's why I have signed the petition too."

I've been a James Bond fan for a long while but I'm afraid Eon will not receive a penny of my money when Casino Royale opens. I'm not a fan of the reboot, even though I suspect this was a ruse to attempt to explain the unexplainable: the casting of Craig. The so-called reboot has been drastically overplayed. A Jet Li style fight on a crane, Alpine car chase, explosions, micro-chip in the arm. None of this would be out of place in a Brosnan film and yet the man who saved the series is now derided by Eon and the dozen or so Eon sheep who post on CBn. It's all smoke and mirrors. The lack of press conferences, shadowy teasers. All to hide the indisputable fact they've cast a very weird looking and very dour James Bond. Half the fans can't stand him and the film hasn't even opened yet. Good work Barbara...

New Kind of James Bond

They picked a dude that doesn’t look like Bond who has never ever acted like Bond, we are told this is ok because he will fit the new kind of James Bond. Who said we wanted a new kind of James Bond? Everyone loved Bond, DAD broke records. You say it could have been done better but whatever was wrong with it wasn’t Pierce Brosnan’s doing. It was those chuckle heads at eon that bitched things up. The same writers & directors with the same people producing and now we’re suppose to trust them? Hell no!! I’m going to fight for the Bond I like!!

**editors note~ We actually like Die Another Day a lot. We only pointed out some of the short comings, which were under EON’s control. Pierce’s performance in Die Another Day was stellar in our opinion.

Well done Barbara Broccoli for casting a man who looks like an Albanian plumber as the world's most iconic film character. You absolute rocket scientist. What did you do when your Dad ran things? Make the tea?

Mess Kit

to Sony, EON and MGM: who's idea was it to replace Pierce Brosnan with a unknown actor like Daniel Craig? You cannot replace someone like Pierce Brosnan with a younger actor like Daniel Craig. It doesn't work out that way. James Bond only gets better with age. Get it through your thick skulls that Daniel Craig is not James Bond and never will be ever. Pierce Brosnan is Ian Fleming's James Bond. I know this for a fact because Ian Fleming is my relative. Me and my fellow fans completely disagree with you and your decision. The fans and I agree that Daniel Craig is not James Bond. He looks old. The teaser trailer is a complete joke and laugh out loud hilarious. There is no way my family and me are going to this gay and stupid movie. You dumped in your mess kit. pbjb007fevr

Actors are not hired to play Bond. They are hired to be Bond. Craig can not be Bond.

Thanks a lot EON. Top choice hiring Daniel Craig. For the first ever, my wife thinks that I'm better looking than James Bond !

I'd rather eat my own underpants than watch Casino Royale. I have no idea how they managed to get Craig cast. My guess is that Barbara Broccoli kidknapped several Sony executives and threatened to shoot them unless the shortarse object of her affections was given the part.

Craig will never have the all-important “look” of Bond, not his fault. No matter how well he cleans up he doesn't have the “it” factor and he'll be a joke. Casino Royale may turn out to be a decent action thriller, but it will not be a James Bond film. Nice going EON. They can't turn Craig into something he's not.

Forgettable

I don't think anyone really knows who David Craig is. He has played numerous, forgettable bit parts in films where he had made about as much impression as an invisible orangutan.

Enjoyable Nonsense

Why are there some people wanting a serious Bond film. James Bond is not high art - it is enjoyable nonsense. It is meant to be tongue in cheek. There seems to be a bunch of idiots who have read the original Fleming pulp potboilers and set themselves up as Fleming experts. They are not. They are deluded ponces spouting nonsense.

Is it just me or does Craig have an incredibly boring voice? Why does he always look like he's sucking on a lemon? Even Roger Moore had more expression.

Scant Evidence

Craig is a great actor? His curriculum vitae offers scant evidence for that opinion. Some Voices. Tomb Raider. Archangel. Love Is The Devil. He was shite in all of them.

Is Casino Royale a comedy? They can't be serious with this Craig thing can they...?

Pierce Brosnan is James Bond and always will be in my eyes. Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson are destroying the franchise and everything there father worked so hard for. I will not see Casino Royale because it is a travesty and a mockery of James Bond

Unholy Love Child

Craig is the ugliest actor since Richard Boone; the unholy love child of Lee Marvin and Hugh Laurie. He's ugly. Everyone hates him. Nobody wants to see this film except the fairy fanboys. Deal with it. Accept it. Get used to it.

Sony is Throwing Money Away

Casino Royale is already a joke. If Sony throw money into the promotion it will be a repeat of Hitler throwing divisions into the Battle Of The Bulge. Completely pointless. Needless to say Craig looks like an East German bus mechanic.

02 Jul 2006 16:56:00

How's He Gonna Act Handsome?

Craig has set a record as the Bond actor who has been called ugly on record by fans and the press alike. You want to know why? Cause he is an ugly duffer! Get it through your impenetrable skull. No one wants to see an ugly man play Bond. How's he gonna act handsome.

Collection Stops

Daniel Craig was a poor choice for Bond! This guy does not even look like James Bond. I will never watch any Bond movie with Craig in it. My bond collection stops with Die Another Day until Pierce or somebody other than Craig is James Bond!

Colin Baker

Daniel Craig is the Colin Baker of Bond. Abrasive and offensive to the senses. Completely the wrong actor for the role. Pierce is gone now and that’s fine. But to replace him with Colin Baker, I mean Daniel Craig, is an expensive mistake.

I, like any other James Bond fan with taste, wanted EON productions to keep Pierce Brosnan. And I definitely did NOT want them to go with the worst possible choice, Daniel Craig!!!

Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I came across a great on-line article about Pierce Brosnan's Bond-to-be days before he actually did become Bond.

It talks about how polls that had been asking who the next James Bond should be back in the 1980's always had Pierce Brosnan #1 by a landslide.
Pierce Brosnan's Long and Winding Road To Bond. http://www.klast.net/bond/pb_road.html

About the polls

“After the release of Octopussy in 1983, Moore was once again making noises about not returning to the role of Bond. US Magazine asked readers in October of that year to vote on who should be the next Bond. 14 contenders were nominated, such as Tom Selleck, Jeremy Irons, Mel Gibson, and former TV Saint Ian Oglivy. Pierce Brosnan won the poll in a landslide victory, with 46% of the vote. The next runner up, British actor Lewis Collins from The Professionals, received 11%.”

“In April and May 1994 the search for a new James Bond was put to a public vote. A poll was taken on the tabloid TV show Hard Copy, with viewers calling in to a 900 number, at 95 cents a call. Pierce Brosnan won handily with 85% of the vote, Mel Gibson a very distant second with 7%. Entertainment Tonight polled under the same conditions, and concluded with Brosnan the favorite as Bond, with 73% (over 10,000 votes), and Gibson again second at 16%.”

I’m wondering what the point of the reboot was. Ok, Casino Royale is the first James Bond story. But it is not where “Bond becomes Bond”. He was Bond before it and he was Bond after it. Now talk of the next movie. EON says they will not remake Bond movies already made. They know it would completely piss off everyone of the fans if it happened. Without Bond’s story following some of the original one what the point of any of it? That is what Fleming wrote after all.

Makes No Sense To me!

A Drearier Actor You Could Not Hope To Find

To quote Barbara Broccoli: "Fans are going to love him (Craig) they just don't know him yet." Er, DUH Barbara! I've been aware of Craig for years. A drearier actor you could not hope to find. He looks as much like James Bond as Phillip Seymour Hoffman does Batman. Good luck rebuilding your shattered fanbase in a few years. Or perhaps you should just sell-up and not concern yourself with things you don't understand...like making good films and casting.

Craig = Death of Franchise

I must thank you for being a voice for the sane and rational James Bond
fans. I'm not speaking of arrogant condescending fanboys on the major
Bond sites, but the true fans of the films.
After many months have past since the revelation that Daniel Craig is the new James Bond I am still stunned and saddened by the news. Though the later Brosnan films lacked
the scripts I really desired he was always a joy to watch as Bond. I've never witnessed such enthusiasm for Bond since Goldeneye premiered. Sadly, I may never witness that again.

There is no support for Craig anywhere but on the fanboy message boards. Literally everybody I know without exception who has seen Daniel Craig thinks he's a dreadful choice for the role of James Bond. I've never been less enthused about a new 007
film. I've gone to the theater to see every Bond movie since A View To A
Kill, and watched all the others on tv my entire life but Casino Royale
will never have a seat filled by this ex-fan. And don't even get me started on the idiotic and blasphemously insulting reboot plot of Casino Royale. What the hell is Barbara Broccoli smoking?

R.I.P. Mr. Bond.
We're about to witness a catastrophic drop in ticket sales that will make the days of License to Kill look like Thunderball in comparison. I could just cry, or perhaps vomit. I think I'll do both.

Daniel Craig is to James Bond what Jar Jar Binks is to Star Wars..

Put Pierce Brosnan's 007 Movies in Theaters Nov 17th

Dear National Association of Theater Owners,

There are many loyal movie goers who would love to see Pierce Brosnan return as James Bond 007. Thanks to EON and Sony Pictures, that does not appear to be a realistic request any longer.

Would theater owners throughout the country consider putting one of Pierce Brosnan's 007 movies in theaters during the same opening weekend as Casino Royale?

That way, those of us who have no interest in watching Casino Royale and paying our hard-earned money to movie executives who do not care about the viewing public can not only watch our favorite James Bond, can also let the corporate executives see which actor we are willing to support with our money.

I hope that you will take my suggestion into consideration. My wife and I have patiently waited four years for Pierce Brosnan to wear the tuxedo and it would be wonderful to be able to see him back on the silver screen once again. Regardless, we have no intention to either buy tickets or DVD's of Casino Royale after the shabby treatment that he received from EON and Sony.

Thank you for your consideration.

**editors note~ This is copy of a letter sent to National Association of Theater Owners
Great idea. A win win for the theater owners.

nato@natodc.com and infocusmagazine@mindspring.com

This Craig character isn't a soggy cigaette butt on Sean Connerys shoe.
Flop.
Short ,blond and none too attractive so the polls say.
But BB will keep him for another one otherwise she'd look a right idiot if she did a Lazenby on him.
Goodbye Mr Bond your time is up.

Exclusive Geek Clubs

I strongly believe that the Bond fan forums are no different than many
other forums on the net in that they sometimes become exclusive geek clubs in
which you must tow the hip party line or be ostracized. It has been hip
to always say Dalton was closest to Fleming's vision and Brosnan is a wimp.
It's all total nonsense but the geek emperor has no clothes so hush hush with any disagreement.
I recall having to defend Brosnan as long as eight years ago on a fan forum because so many geeks unfairly criticized him constantly. As I mentioned before, there is a strong parallel between today's Bond fandom and the Star Wars fans in that they both take the
Eon's/Lucas' every decision as breathed from above and infallible. If you dare question then you're "negative" or not a "real fan".

Why is the world of Bond fandom awash in Dalton worshipping, Brosnan bashing fools? It's just like the Jar Jar Binks loving Star Wars geeks who praise the new films and attack fans like me who grew up on the originals. It just wrecks it for the fans like me. It's
impossible to even express an opinion on www.mi6.co.uk or www.commanderbond.net without being ganged up on by the rabid fanboys.
They hated Brosnan from the get go. Now both sites have a "what if" retrospective on Dalton's never to be third outing. Umm, what if NOBODY CARES??? He is a great actor, and the Living Daylights is solid, but the man lacked the charm and the box office reflected it. If Dalton starred in Goldeneye I seriously doubt the franchise would have survived it.

Brosnan clearly did save the franchise back in 1995, and held it aloft in spite of lamer and lamer scripts. It's a crying shame he didn't get a proper swan song and now all we have is Daniel Craggy to look forward to. I'm actually selling off my Bond collection bit by bit now. I feel betrayed. It all has a bad taste in my mouth. I really will be boycotting Casino
Royale, and that means a lot coming from a guy who has gone to every premiere (sometimes even special advance screenings) since Goldeneye.

I am seriously considering putting myself up for the role. I have dark hair - OK, so it's disappearing on the top, but that never stopped Connery. Fair enough, I'm only 5' 6", but that can be explained (or ex-planed) by an opening scene involving Bond (me) jumping from a nose-diving plane with a faulty parachute that deploys only seconds from the ground. I think Daniel Craig is great. So many of us can now actually say that we look more like James Bond than the guy acting him!

I just saw the new trailer. I'm even more certain of my opinion of Craig and the reboot. A disaster. This is not Bond no matter how loudly they blast the theme song. I couldn't buy it, not for a second.

James Bond isn't a thuggish killing machine.
James Bond isn't a German swimsuit model who waxes his body hair.
James Bond doesn't look like Solomon Grundy and Steve McQueen's love child sucking lemons and glaring constantly.
James Bond doesn't get his hair cut at Dolph Lundgren's barbershop.

Goodbye class, charm and sophistication, hello Gen-Y Bond. He's kickin' ass and takin' names baby. Pathetic.

Craig is a completely un-charming ape in a tux spouting wooden lines. There were several close-ups of Craig in the new trailer that literally made me cringe.
Bleary eyed. Pouting with that irritating lemon suck expression. His steroid-pumped biceps on his short stubby arms. That dreary depressing voice lacking all charm and charisma. It isn't possible to cast anyone less appropriate than Craig.

So many people trashed poor Lazenby, but he's ten thousand times superior to Craig. I was never too fond of Moore's interpretation of Bond either but he too will rank far above Craig in my mind. This isn't about freaking blonde hair any more than Carrot Top as
Bond would be about orange hair. Craig is wrong from the tip of his head to the soles of his feet, wrong inside and out. WRONG.
I will not be paying one thin dime of my hard earned money or wasting two hours of my life on Casino Royale, this I assure you. It's a dark time to be a Bond fan.

Only way Craig can be Bond is if he’s doing a Andy Serkis and will be removed digitally replacing his image with Sean Connery’s

He was a tough, leathery man in his early fifties. He looked hard and fit, and the faded blue jeans, military-cut shirt and wide leather belt suggested that he made a fetish of doing so – looking tough. The pale brown eyes in the weather-beaten face were slightly hooded and their gaze was sleepy and contemptuous. The mouth had a downward twist that might be humorous or disdainful – probably the latter - ………. ….this man likes to be thought a Hemingway hero. I’m not going to get on with him. Ian Fleming describing Milton Krest. If Fleming had wanted a weather beaten leathery face for his alter ego why didn’t he write him that way?

Craig Radiates "Oafishness"

The moment you saw the other Bonds you knew they would be good at the part, there was something in them that radiated "Bondiness"; Craig radiates "oafishness". In my opinion there is only one actor today, who is handsome enough and looks the part his name is Zen Gesner; go and look for his pictures in the internet, and see for yourselves that he is handsome enough (I would even go and say he's more handsome then Pitt) and macho enough.
06 Sep 2006 14:32:19

Boring and Hobo-like

I think Craig looks like crap. I've always found him boring and hobo-like, now he's James Bond. You couldn't make it up. Those pretentious hacks at Eon have killed Bond for me with Craig and the hysterical comments they've made lauding this film. Screw them. They won't get another penny off me. I used to like being a Bond fan but with places like CBn ruined by aggressive pro-Craig oddballs it all leaves a sour taste in the mouth. If Barbara Broccoli ever sold up I might be interested again but right now I'm through with James Bond. They know exactly where they can stick it.
06 Sep 2006 17:08:26

Clearly NOT Going to be a Bond Movie

I daresay CR is going to be a clever and well-made movie, but it is clearly NOT going to be a Bond movie. Don't we have enough earthy, gritty, violent action on TV and the big screen as it is? Isn't there room for a bit of escapism, tongue-in-cheek humour, heroism, suavity; something that's family-friendly with references to sex going over most kids' heads anyway? I have seen all the Bond movies in the cinema since the age of 10 with TSWLM, and, though I had my doubts about LTK, I think now is the time to end this tradition.
08 Sep 2006 01:56:09

The Ultimate Inanimate Actor?

Daniel Craig - the ultimate inanimate actor? Watch the scene in the full trailer where Craig says "you noticed." His face barely moves. He's almost inanimate. Watch the bit where Craig is sipping the wine and says "well I wouldn't be good at my job if I did." Again, he's inanimate. He has no expression on his face. He's stiff and lifeless. Is this how he's going to act the role? He's utter crap. Seriously, watch the two clips and look at his face. It's awful acting. Totally lifeless. Appalling. He should go back to drama school and learn how to act with facial expression. It might help him look less stiff. Three Bond films of Mr Stiff - no thank you.
09 Sep 2006 20:09:30

I too am disappointed and by Craig’s casting in the role. And I am glad to see that others feel the same way. I am also pleased to see that the Craig backlash has not subsided. And I don’t think that it ever will.

Despite my misgivings I was willing to give Craig a chance. That was until this morning when I was able to view the most recent and full length trailer. To say that I was shocked would be a complete understatement. Craig looks more like he’s imitating Connery playing Bond than playing Bond himself! I also was completely unaware of
Craig’s ‘Screw You’ comment with regard to potential fan reaction to the film.
What an arrogant man! I find it highly unlikely that this film will go over well with the general public never mind Bond fans. The sooner he is gone the better.

I just watched the trailer for Casino Royale and boy was it lame.
It looked like another standard shotem up thriller with an unremarkable blond guy of average build running and shooting people aka Bourne Identity style.

Where is the suave cool sophisticated Bond we all know?
He's been replaced by some thuggish oaf.

Mr Craig looks so uncomfortable I actually felt sorry for him. He clearly did not believe he was Bond and looked what he was ....an actor trying to play Bond but not being Bond.
He looked wooden and out of his depth. As for the interaction between Bond and Vespa or whatever her name is....unconvincing again. Stilted dry and forced.
I found myself not caring about them or their relationship.
I've never been a Brosnon fan myself so where does it go from here?
There's a finite life span for all things. Maybe best just to call it quits and let Mr Bond hang up his 00 badge and retire to the bar for a martini

We read you little complaint about the dvds. Sorry but you don’t stand much of a chance. Me and the wife feel for your plight. We got the attaché case 2 weeks back. Let me tell ya its bloody brilliant. Better than the picture looks.

You might want to buy the case and sell the dvds on ebay then put the R1 dvds in the case.

For a yank you seem alright. Take my advice buy the dvd when they come out, you will feel a great burden lifted from ya. We are done with Bond damn does it feel good. Bond is dead forget about him. Sorry to say it is true. Once you get the dvds and believe me they are worth it for restoration on the first 9 movies. Once you have em you will feel better.Now is the perfect time to get out of Bond.

Its not just the poofter friendly Craig who put it in the crapper the idiot children running the show don’t know shite. We would have sat down to any Bond movie before this.

Barbara Broccoli Has Really Spit In Her Dads Face.

Pierce Brosnan is still the best James Bond ever next to Sean Connery that is. Barbara Broccoli has really spit in her dads face for choosing Daniel Craig. and saying that Daniel Craig is the best James Bond of all time. I saw a preview of casino royale day before yesterday and I thought this movie is stupid and boring. Pierce was promised to do a fifth James Bond. But instead he was lied to and betrayed by sony,mgm,eon productions and Daniel Craig. I really hope this movie bombs at the boxoffice big time. Also I hope Barbara Broccoli has a real serious wake up call and that nobody wants to see this gay movie and bring back the real James Bond [Pierce Brosnan] Daniel Craig wouldn’t know how to play James bond if his life depended on it. I really hope they bring back Pierce Brosnan back. He loves playing him and he was born for the role of James Bond. 26 Oct 2006 03:00:19

Bond: The New Adventures

The reviews appear to be falling into two categories: 'Bland' or 'Overly Positive'. It's surprisingly similar to the fan reaction, only in this case, the insiders that are calling it 'average' are generally known for being frank. I think I've been more alienated by the "pro-Craig" nonsense than his actual casting. The implication is that you can only be a fan of something if you continue to support 'new product'. But I consider myself a pretty big Star Trek fan, despite the fact that I only enjoy the adventures of the original crew. And though I'm somewhat obsessive about the Indiana Jones trilogy, I know virtually nothing about the Young Indy series. Ironically, both the filmmakers and fans have asked that this film be regarded as the start of a new series. Fine. Yet when you try to indulge them, and admit you probably won't go see "Bond: The New Adventures", they get upset. 06 Nov 2006 15:28:15

"Wow...did the Times really say Craig is "brutishly ugly"? And this is supposed to be one of the positive reviews? LOL" Yes, it shows you how much the Bond franchise had declined when the actor playing Bond is described as "brutishly ugly." All very depressing. The film is released next week so let's hope people don't accept this new brutishly ugly Bond. 07 Nov 2006 09:09:11

Average and Disappointing.

Another negative review has surfaced. It not only calls the film a "mess", but again repeats the mantra that this is "not James Bond". You really have to question the validity of those early reviews which did nothing but praise the film to excess. I wouldn't be surprised if they were either studio shills, or simply fans at heart that don't want the film to flop. The telling thing about the 'negative' reviews is that they are not bashing the film. They simply find it average and disappointing. http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/archives/2006/11/bond_in_paris.php
07 Nov 2006 16:47:12

The First 'Joe Shmoe' Bond.

Check out this clip from CR: http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/media/player.php?id=3896 The final clip - the one with Bond and Vesper in the car - shows how unlike Bond Craig really is. He's acting like a normal person - I get no sense he's ACTING like Bond. Seriously. Has no alpha male or stylish vibe. Remove any mention of the name 'Bond' from that clip and Craig could be playing anyone. There's no sense he IS James Bond. Craig is the first 'Joe Shmoe' Bond. And I won't mention his 'look' in that clip! 08 Nov 2006 10:16:26

"Best reviews of the year"? The critics appear to be as polarized as the fans. This is clearly a love/hate film, which doesn't bode well for mainstream audiences. 09 Nov 2006 17:26:50

I See It As The Death Of The Bond Film Franchise I Love!

It looks as if this film will apppeal to those who dislike the Bond films. What about the rest of us? I'm still not sure that I want to see some ugly 40 year old psychopath "young" Bond portrayed by Daniel Craig. Many obviously do. I'm sure these people are just seeing it as a great action film. I see it as the death of the Bond film franchise I love! 10 Nov 2006 10:31:44

It Just Seems Ridiculous Once You Strip Away The Surrounding Fantasy.

I just don't care to see Bond portrayed as a dark character. It somehow makes him seem irrelevant, considering it's no longer the 1950's. If we're supposed to take the film seriously, why is this assassin taking time to play poker with the villain? It just seem ridiculous once you strip away the surrounding fantasy. 10 Nov 2006 13:06:15

Mass Hysteria Greeted GoldenEye In 95.

Don't take the 'luvvie' metropolitan British critcis too seriously. They love Daniel Craig and hate James Bond films. None of them displayed the vaguest Bond knowlege in their reviews. One dizzy bint wrote that Craig was a more plausable Bond because he had a good body. Surely a plausable Bond would have a plausable body and not look like a steroid casualty. This mass hysteria greeted GoldenEye in 95 although don't expect anyone to be too quick to point that out. I watched a Bond special last night with old and new clips. I got zero Bond 'vibe' from Craig. Absolutely nothing. Looks like we're in the wilderness now for a few films. 10 Nov 2006 17:19:06

Bond Is Not Just Another Generic Action Hero.

It has nothing to do with Brosnan- despite the movement to turn it into a "Brosnan vs. Craig" debate. We simply prefer the character of James Bond that led to the longest running film franchise of all time. Even Craig's staunchest supporters have admitted that he is not playing that character in this film. Instead, it's nothing more than Purvis and Wade's interpretation of what Ian Fleming had in mind. But it takes far more than brooding and a serious approach to fill 007's shoes. Bond is not just another generic action hero. 13 Nov 2006 17:00:33

Being Blonde Isn’t A Problem For Me, Being Ugly Is.

I couldn’t believe it when I heard Craig was Bond. But assumed Barbara Broccoli knew what she was doing. Then I heard about these sites & am pleased I’m not in the minority. They say he's 6 feet, but he looks smaller. He's beefed up for the role but still looks small. Being blonde isn’t a problem for me, being ugly is. Men are supposed to want to be Bond. Well not me anymore. I've seen clips on T.V. , his voice seems soft & lifeless. His expressions limited. He's wearing expensive suits, tight swimming trunks, just about anything that will make him look good, but he doesn’t. Where is the humour, the screen presence of a Moore or Brosnan. The action looks no better than dozens of other U.S. action films. The British press will try to write good reviews. After all Bond is British, we don't want the Americans laughing at us. But i don't think there will be anything new or exciting in the film. So I’ll be boycotting it. 13 Nov 2006 18:11:42

I Am Not For Brosnan As Such..

I am not for Brosnan as such, what I would like to say is this looks like another action flick running on the Bond name, to me this is not Bond! Craig will never be a Bond no matter how many martinis and astons he gets behind, this is XXX with Bond music, terrific but not what I expect from a Bond movie and not one that will be joining my collection of Bond movies. 13 Nov 2006 19:13:28

Keep the Campaign Going

The clips I've seen of the new Bond movie look awful. Craig's voice is weak, dull and barely audible. His expressions and acting limited. Bond is supposed to be charismatic but Craig is not. Everyone knows he is ugly. Men and women agree with this. His body is all wrong, 5.11 is at least two inches too short. His bulked up body & it makes him look like a mini Stallone. He must work out 5 days a week to maintain that body. How is he going to save the world ? He's big and beefy when he should be lean and athletic like previous Bonds.

The producers appointed Craig shortly before filming began. He may have been a panic signing after other people turned down the role. Not one pole had Craig as a potential Bond. Craig himself said he did'nt want the part until he read the script. So maybe his weak performance is due to lack of motivation. Or maybe he's just not up to the job. He was never known as a dashing leading man before. Unlike Moore, Brosnan and even Dalton (remember 'Wuthering Heights').

The English media are trying to write good reviews. They do for every Bond film. Bond is a British institution & a well received Bond movie creates a feel good factor in the country. But the action looks average and everyone says the film is too long. It will make money, it's a Bond film after all. The massive publicity campaign will pay dividends. But millions of people are turned off by Craig.

The producers have made mistakes before. Appointing the inexperienced and average looking Lazenby & letting Moore make one film too many. They quickly corrected their mistakes. However this time it looks like they are refusing to bow to public opinion and sack Craig. This will result in the death of Bond. So fans need to keep the campaign going.

I do have to update some of my other criticisms.

I’ve posted here before with my severe doubts about the direction the Bond franchise was taking and the casting of Daniel Craig. While I will stick to my guns on how shabbily the producers treated Pierce Brosnan, Samantha Bond and John Cleese, in all fairness, I do have to update some of my other criticisms. After waiting beyond the opening weekend, I went to see Casino Royale for myself. I’m still no big fan of the re-boot or the origins approach, however, I do have take back my criticism of Daniel Craig. He still looks like a punk boxer to me and won’t win any beauty contests among the Bond actors, but he does display a sense of humor, in the film, that was sadly lacking in any of the trailers/previews. I will credit him with being a “tough as nails” Bond too. It’s clear to see he threw himself into it and the sheer physicality is impressive. His acting skill is evident too, particularly, in the shower scene comforting Vesper after she helped him dispatch two nasty bad guys. It was an unusually tender moment for a Bond film that worked well. Also, for the record, I didn’t think the poker game scenes were boring or too much to sit through. They captured the essence of the original Casino Royale novel.

So, my opinion, is he can work as tougher, darker sense of humor Bond and, yes, dare I say it, I am looking forward to his return in 2008. With the origins story out of the way, I hope they can put back Moneypenny, Q and some gadgets.

Brickhouse.

George Lazenby the world owes you an apology. You were brilliant and charismatic. I had always thought your performance wasn’t quite there, not that you didn’t do a good job. Compared to Daniel Craig you sir are a master.

Daniel Craig is the worst possible Bond imaginable. Every scene was wrong.
The opening black and white was crap, the gun barrel was wrong as well. Opening titles left a lot to be desired, the theme song instantly forgettable.
The first color part was OK, the helper Craig keep telling to pull his finger away from his ear wasn’t creditable. In the age of Bluetooth the writers blew a chance to do something creative instead pulling and old cliché of an inept sidekick.

The construction chase was unbelievably stupid. Why he stole the Bulldozer was never made clear. The guy he was chasing was amazing. I wish he had a bigger part.

The embassy was disturbing. Why did Bond chase after this guy? Why not wait for him to come out? And then why kill him? Sitting there I thought of a thousand different ways to do it better.

The product placement became very annoying and obvious. The movie would stop on a product. Most of the plot elements revolved around products placement.

Breaking in to M’s house and hacking her computer was out of place. Fleming’s Bond always had respect for his superior. From the way she responded M should have had him killed for knowing her name. Alluding to her name beginning with the letter M was a little too MIB.

The Bahamas lack an engrossing quality. His Ford Focus, what the hell!!??!! Everyone rents a better car than that when they travel on holiday.

Impersonating a valet and smashing the cars was a junk scene that provided no purpose. Supposedly he used it as a diversion to sneak in. It would have made them more alert and they would have been checking the video surveillance.
When he found the DVD with the surveillance he was looking for why didn’t he take it with him?
Also why did he assume the cell phone call would be caught on video?
If their surveillance was that good they would have caught him before he entered the room.

What is with the steering wheels on the wrong side of the cars?

The Miami air port scene was weak. Chasing a guy around the way he did would have got him nabbed. Standing in front of a security door would have earned him attention as well.

Cell phones were used as cheap elements in the plot to progress the story. Every meaningful answer came from a cell phone.

The big action sequence was directly ripped off from Indianan Jones movies and die hard 2. The terrorist blowing himself up was a nice touch but not very satisfying. Craig’s demented look after words was sickening.

The casino scene felt cheap as well. Anyway we have already seen Casino Royale before in On Her majesty Secret service. According to the book it was where Bond went every year as a sort of pilgrimage. -Vesper is given a passing mention as a tombstone-
The Casino Royale in OHMSS was much more posh and felt alive with action. This one felt rushed, like they made it over from a convention center.

Craig getting his first custom tux was awful, the film makers must have thought this scene would prove he was Bond, but he looked even more awkward standing in front of the mirror pretending he had never scene himself before. Someone described it as a superhero dawning their costume for the first time. It should be an exciting climax because we know who they are and who they are going to be. It didn’t work here because he looked so out of place in the tux. On the floor of the casino he looked like he should be parking cars or serving drinks.

The reasoning behind replacing Baccarat with poker is still lost on me.
From the book the bad guy with a gun to Bond back was gripping, as well as his escape. Much more so than the poisoning.
In the book Felix’s introduction was a meaningful moment, as was his surprising Bond with the funds to continue playing. It is lost in the movie .

The people threatening Le Chiffre were menacing but inexplicable. If they knew where he was, then they knew why he was doing it as well. And why would they even care if Bond had an earwig. If they took him for security, what could he do, he wasn’t moving to stop them. Also Vesper's reaction to them being killed in the shower was stupid. I know some have said it was touching moment. I was annoyed with her.

Craig misses every scene where he was required to connect with a woman. When he tired to act like he charmed the receptionist out of information the audience winced. Sean Connery would have made it work.

The girl -sorry I don’t remember her name- killed in the hammock could have been great, but she couldn’t connect with Craig either.

When Craig met Vesper on the train it went from bad to worse. No chemistry at all. Psychoanalyzing each other just didn’t feel genuine. Eva Green’s accent was odd.
The cheap shots at the older series with failed attempts at humor like Moneypenny’s name and the name Craig gives Green in the car after the train, should have been fun for the audience, it wasn’t.

This wasn’t Fleming’s Bond. Not Fleming’s Vesper. Not Fleming’s Mathis. Not Fleming’s Felix......

Brosnan's last Bond

Brosnan's last Bond was slightly over the top. Invisible cars etc. However it did have some gritty moments. Remember Bond having a beard & being tortured for several months ?.

If the producers wanted to make the next film grittier all they had to do was make it with Brosnan still in the role. He easily had another film in him. That's what they did after Moore's Moonraker. Made a grittier film with the same actor. The producers have made mistakes before with casting. Getting an experienced and average looking George Lazenby in 1969. Then allowing Roger Moore to make one Bond too many in 1985. However the producers quickly & wisely corrected things.

Appointing Craig could be their biggest mistake, simply because it seems Barbara Brocali does'nt want to admit she made a mistake and sack Craig. Reviews say Craig is serious, broody and tough. That's simply because that's all he can do. He has'nt got the charm and sexiness of Connery, the wit and aplomb of Moore or the good looks and confidence of Brosnan. His voice is weak and delivery lacks conviction. He runs around a lot & does some of his own stunts, so what ? The action looks like stuff we've seen before, fist fights, chasers etc. There is not that extra something we expect from a Bond film & the leading man is Mr Average. We can foget about Brosnan returning. He will be in his mid 50's when the next Bond comes out. But Bond fans must unite to ensure the next film has the right actor. ie. not Craig.

"The best Bond since Connery."

By my count, Craig is now the fifth actor to be dubbed, "The best Bond since Connery." (I think only David Niven has been denied the honor.)

If James Brolin had gotten the role in the 80's, you can bet he would've also been the 'best'. I think what people respond to most is the back to basics approach. There was similar hype and critical response prior to Goldeneye, The Living Daylights, and even For Your Eyes Only (to an extent). Each time there has been an unspoken hope that all subsequent Bond films will get things right. Unfortunately, I have seen Casino Royale, and do not share the optimism of critics. It doesn't really work as a Bond film, and what is left is an average spy film.

The two things most everyone has agreed on is that Craig does not come across as a 007, and the film is far too long. If the movie does not connect with general audiences, it will likely be because of those two reasons. Overall, I think this film actually works better if you adopt the "code name" theory which was suggested in 1967's Casino Royale. Then it makes sense for Dench to be M, and for Craig to be such an unconventional Bond. Otherwise, the film is simply not any fun- unless you're simply tired of Bond the superspy. (And I doubt the people that are shelling out for those new dvds are tired of the fantasy Bond.)

Proto-Bond

My biggest problem with Craig is, I just can't see the agent he portrays ever evolving into "James Bond". I think he works fine in the context of a "proto-Bond" story where he isn't supposed to be a suave, fully-fledged 007, but where do you take it from there? There has to be a point where the gadgets, flirting, humour, and fantasy return, and I don't see Craig fitting into that at all.

It has to be done

Bond movies have been going since 1962. The producers have made mistakes with casting before. Lazenby was too average looking & inexperienced while Moore carried on too long. But hey we all make mistakes. These mistakes were quickly and wisely rectified. But this time it seems Barbara Brocoli is not listening to huge public opinion & admitting she made a mistake. The film is out now. I'm boycotting it but have seen clips & read reviews. Craig seems to be trying to be mean, tough and moody. Probably because he can't do charm, wit and aplomb. His voice is soft and undistinctive, unlike a Connery or Moore. His face is dead pan and shows no emotion. A leading man playing Bond should have more screen presence. He seems to run around a lot. So what, even Moore did that & he was in his 50's. Brosnan could have starred in a gritty Bond, he is a very good actor & still in good shape. Everyone would have been happy if he had stayed. If he wanted more money, so what, he'd given nearly 10 years of his life to Bond. Everyone wants the same actor to play Bond for at least 10 years & we don't like changing Bond actors too frequently. But in this case it has to be done.

The real reason he is winning over critics.

I have nothing bad to say against Daniel Craig, but I think everyone has failed to mention the real reason he is winning over critics. This is basically the first time an actor has been given the freedom to work outside of the typical Bond formula. Craig is not being forced to toss out one-liners in every other scene, or go through the same motions that the previous actors were required to perform. Dalton or Brosnan could've been twice as good if they had been granted the same type of creative freedom. I do think it's unfortunate that the producers were unwilling to take similar chances with Brosnan's Bond. Even though I like Craig as an actor, I still don't think he was the best choice for the role. As someone mentioned, he is easier to accept as a raw agent than a polished 007.

When Bond #7 arrives

The break from tradition has obviously struck a chord with critics, who usually prefer to simply roll their eyes at each new Bond film. And it does make you wonder why EON played it so safe with Brosnan. His popularity in the role should have given them enormous freedom to reinvent the series as early as Tomorrow Never Dies. Instead, they acted as though they could only go in one direction with him, which is utter nonsense. For nearly 10 years, everyone referred to Brosnan as an ideal Bond- a perfect balance between Connery and Dalton. It's funny how quickly the fans like to turn on whoever filled the role last. It also happened with Lazenby, Moore, and Dalton. When Bond #7 arrives, I'm sure Craig will receive the same treatment.

"CR comes at the expense of the previous 20 films" This sums up my feelings exactly. I have nothing against Craig. I have nothing against Brosnan. If Craig had been picking up directly from the last film (as all the previous actors did), I would've gone to see it. But it bothers me that this film seems aimed at critics, non-fans, or kids who don't really like the previous 20 films. I don't like reading things like "thank God they did away with the fantasy, gadgets, over-the-top stunts, womanizing, one-liners, etc." Sorry, but that's what the series has always been and will eventually return to. Why should we reboot the entire thing just to appease people that don't even like Bond movies?

This continues to be an interesting topic/debate- moreso than the actual film, imo. All of my friends over 30 went to Casino Royale expecting the next Goldfinger or Goldeneye. They were shocked to find it dull and lacking the kind of trademark fun of the series.

However, teens seem to think it's the greatest Bond movie ever made, and far better than the jokey movies of the past. In a way, it reminds me of Superman Returns. Kids thought it was epic and powerful, while adults seemed to ask, "What's fun about this?"

Bond is basically a comic book character, so it's not surprising to see him finally subjected to the modern day hero treatment. Kids today like for their heroes to be portrayed realistically and taken serious, even if it comes at the expense of sheer entertainment. I have no idea why that is, but it's interesting nonetheless. I'm sure the internet is a big factor, though. If you sit around for a year discussing the same film, you obviously need it to be taken seriously by those around you. Otherwise, you've just wasted a year of life on something you should've already outgrown. (And personally, I also blame George Lucas for starting this stupid prequel trend. LOL )

Everyone knows CR was a duff Bond movie and Craig is all wrong for the part. Even BB & MJW know it. The only good news for them is that it's made money. There trying to rush release the next Bond movie for 2008 to try the public to accept Craig. It's supposed to a continuation of CR, which means it will be even more confusing. It will probably be even
worse than CR.

I know it's hard to comment on a film without seeing it. Therefore I would suggest we just read the reviews and watch the clips on TV. Rather than waste out money.

I decided to skip Bond 21 as far back as 2003, when I first heard they were thinking of replacing Brosnan. Now, I'm no Brosnan fanatic, but I didn't want to see another actor change so soon. I didn't visit any websites about it, and this was long before anyone decided to boycott. It was a personal choice, and it was my own. Now, maybe I'm just being stubborn at this point, but that's my choice too. I don't want to see an entirely new Bond series. I want to see the same one I grew up with continue. The point is, no one else has had any influence in my decision to skip Bond 21. If I allowed them to, I would probably listen to the reviews and just go see it! :) I agree with you that I can't accurately review a film I have not seen. But I have no interest in reviewing this film. I simply decided not to go.

I should also add that when I decided to skip Bond 21, I never dreamed that anyone else would feel the same way. I had no idea that it would become such a topic of debate among fans. But when people are going to the trouble of creating alternate 007 websites, there is obviously a portion of the fanbase that feels strongly about the decisions that have been made.

Links

Wonderful site intelligent and provocative, a rare combination.
If you are a James Bond fan, regardless of your views, you should find something interesting.

Paul & Stephen Hone
James Bond Fans from the early days, who are not happy about the new Guy.
The link is to their song from a few years ago about James bond, ‘James Bond in the Shadows’.
Their songs are not limited and vary in range from Doctor Who to Nikola Tesla.

Contact Us

if you'd like to contact us you can do so by the link above or writing to johntowers007@yahoo.com

Table of Contents * Indicates new content

000 This guy (Craig) is not a bedable Bond. Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan are hot, sexy, and charming. Easily imagine wanting to be seduced by them. Or deciding to seduce them yourself.

Daniel Craig was the worst possible choice for James Bond.

This movie will flop and I refuse to spend my money to go and see it! Orlando Bloom would have been a better choice for a young James Bond in Casino Royale. They will need to bring back Pierce Brosnan after this movie bombs in order to revive the 007 series!

When Daniel Craig plays James Bond, I am able to say that Lazenby and Dalton draw up Pierce, Roger and Sean... There will be a big chasm between the first five and Daniel Craig...

In that role I would like to see Clooney, if he were younger.

R.S ~Czech Republic

but this... oh God, where did that smooth gentleman with the tux, that hides the power and dynamics of the wonderful body disappear to.

Can you smell what the Rock is cooking!?! No but we caught a whiff of what Daniel Craig is up to and joined the boycott. BOYCOTT CASINO ROYALE!! BRING BACK PIERCE!!!

Seen the trailer on the internet didn’t like it not going to do anything about it. Saw the trailer at the movies on the big screen it became clear how bad Craig is.

I signed the petition tonight.

My comment is short: No blondie!

But as I say - Craig as 007 is appalling!!!"

Give Craig a chance **(listed twice)

Why does Craig deserve a chance? Did he mow your lawn or something? What's wrong with holding back our support for a film if they don't give us an actor that fits the bill?

Bond is not a charity. Craig deserves a screen test. That is all.

08 Jun 2006 17:37:17

i am speechless about the new j bond ...why had it come that far ...i am sad that they ruined a great movie franchise with such a monkey face . :-(

Craig is the ugliest actor since Richard Boone; the unholy love child of Lee Marvin and Hugh Laurie. He's ugly. Everyone hates him. Nobody wants to see this film except the fairy fanboys. Deal with it. Accept it. Get used to it.

Casino Royale is already a joke. If Sony throw money into the promotion it will be a repeat of Hitler throwing divisions into the Battle Of The Bulge. Completely pointless. Needless to say Craig looks like an East German bus mechanic.

02 Jul 2006 16:56:00

Daniel Craig was a poor choice for Bond! This guy does not even look like James Bond. I will never watch any Bond movie with Craig in it. My bond collection stops with Die Another Day until Pierce or somebody other than Craig is James Bond!

Daniel Craig is the Colin Baker of Bond. Abrasive and offensive to the senses. Completely the wrong actor for the role. Pierce is gone now and that’s fine. But to replace him with Colin Baker, I mean Daniel Craig, is an expensive mistake.

Brosnan's last Bond was slightly over the top. Invisible cars etc. However it did have some gritty moments. Remember Bond having a beard & being tortured for several months ?.

By my count, Craig is now the fifth actor to be dubbed, "The best Bond since Connery." (I think only David Niven has been denied the honor.)

johntowers007@yahoo.com Copyright © 2006 The Sinking Ship. All rights reserved. Revised: 08/05/07.

When Daniel Craig plays James Bond, I am able to say that Lazenby and
Dalton draw up Pierce, Roger and Sean... There will be a big chasm
between the first five and Daniel Craig...

but this... oh God, where did that smooth gentleman with the tux, that hides the power
and dynamics of the wonderful body disappear to.

Can you smell what the Rock is cooking!?! No but we caught a whiff of what Daniel Craig is up to and joined the boycott.
BOYCOTT CASINO ROYALE!! BRING BACK PIERCE!!!

johntowers007@yahoo.com
Copyright © 2006 The Sinking Ship. All rights reserved.
Revised: 08/05/07.