[JLS]

Sean Connery and Peirce Brosnan (a close second)

Sean Connery for his presence on the screen and speech
Peirce Brosnan for his grace and style

Great thread, came across today !

Regards,

JLS

[AbdulRahmanM]

I liked Pierce brosnan, he looked very smart and he was the first bond i ever saw, later after seeing others, i had to adjust to the fact that there were other Bonds too

[MaserQ]

I had put this question to a few women. Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore, in that order. The adjectives used to describe them ranged from charming and mysterious to cheeky and playful.

Daniel Craig has not caught the imagination of the fairer sex it seems. Dead pan expression and dour were the words used to describe him.

[recshenoy]

its Pierce Brosnan any day! For me, only he can bring justice to the charming, sophisticated secret agent 007 character

infact me and my couins are huge huge fan of him. we dont know how many times we have watched Brosnan's Bond movies. we just talk with his dialgues of movie like "shall we", "boys with the toys", "what is your standard operation procedure", "naturally" etc.

[iceman7]

My choice is a close call between Brosnan and Craig. I think I'd pick Daniel Craig. I think his ice cold blue eyes get half the job done.

IMO he played the revengeful, unrelenting and cold hearted Bond to the hilt in Quantum of Solace.

[shankar.balan]

Glad to find this thread on one of my absolute favourite fictional book and movie characters.

My order of priority...

Sean Connery - 1st - Elegant, Rugged good looks, brilliant sense of timing, always will be evergreen. (A big dream is to go to Marbella and visit the Golf course there and hopefully see him while there - I would dearly love to get Sean Connery's autograph!)

His only avoidable venture as Bond was Never Say Never Again - the re-made 'come-back' Thunderball which wasn't really quite up there.

Pierce Brosnan - 2nd - Ideal Bond - Suave, Quizzical expression, Sophisticated, Stylish as well as a handsome chap.- His 1980's role as the private detective Remington Steele in a sense was a clear precursor to his later role as Bond.(Another chap whose autograph I would like very much to have). Brilliant one-liner in Die Another Day, while describing the villain Gustav Graves - "from nothing to everything in no time at all!"

Roger Moore - 3rd - Stylish - great sense of humour. For him, his 1960's role as The Saint in the British TV Series (the superbly smart, piratical, irreverent character who also has a keen sense of justice, from Leslie Charteris's excellent books), sort of paved the way to his playing Bond. (I didnt like the Val Kilmer re-hashed Saint half as much as the one from the original TV Series)

Daniel Craig - 4th - He's an intense fellow. A sort of underlying aggression which can manifest itself in an explosion of violence. In a sense, almost football hooligan-ish in his physicality. But he somehow fits the persona well - when clad in a Tux and sitting in a Casino, somehow he fits the bill - i dont know why!

George Lazenby did quite a decent job in OHMSS according to me. And they pretty much stuck to the original plot too.

Timothy Dalton was just ok though he was a pretty well known Stage Actor who did a lot of Shakespearean theatre earlier. I think it was the extreme mucking around with the plots in all the Timothy Dalton movies that causes this impression for me anyway.

Even the original Casino Royale with David Niven playing Bond was a total mess - it was a poor show. Thank god they redeemed that by making the new version with Daniel Craig.

I ve enjoyed the books a great deal and in a different way, the movies as well - indeed I ve inherited all the original books from my folks who are also huge fans - all the Ian Fleming novels. I ve collected all the movies on DVD too. Earlier had the whole lot on VCD but gave those away!

Its a lot to do with the licensing arrangement that turned Ian Fleming's beautifully descriptive books into movies which relied to a large extent on gadgetry to stimulate the general public!

Ian Fleming said quite clearly in one of his interviews that he wrote only to entertain.

He believed in the mix of handsome protagonist, beautiful girls (several of them if possible), beautiful fast cars (the 1933 31/2 Litre Supercharged Bentley with Marchal headlamps which Bond drives aggressively while chasing Hugo Drax in the book Moonraker) and the best style icons of the time - faultless dress and bespoke accessories (Mentions of Rolex/ Patek Philippe watches, Ronson gold lighters, Special custom blended cigarettes from Morlands, cosmetics from Floris, Sea Island Cotton shirts, Tropical worsted suits, leather loafers), first class locales, glamourous locations and other cues signifying the champagne and caviar high life in terms of the best liquor, food, high gambling etc. Bond's knowledge and expertise in the best that each part of the world that he visits has to offer is a testimony to his ease in the jet-set in which he moves!

Ian Fleming's Bond has a streak of the puritanical - the English Public School boy who is instinctively wary of fellows who havent quite made the cut - Hugo Drax for example, who anyway turns out to be a complete villain. All the villains have some sort of oddball trait which gives the game away, something "not quite right" about them - Oddjob in Goldfinger, Goldfinger himself, who even while wearing his "too-correct" golfing attire, cheats at Golf, Drax who comes from nowhere and takes the country by storm with his moonraker project.

There was no stigma associated with smoking, drinking and hard-living at the time the books were written - none of this nonsense about being politically correct and "sanitizing" everything for fear of offending somebody or other!

One can clearly see a parallel with the life of the fictional Bond, in Fleming's own life. But Bond was that anomaly, the well-known secret agent - when in fact spies/secret agents etc are normally dull, grey, nondescript sort of chaps - they have to be if they are to survive!

The James Bond books spawned a whole genre of similar works of fiction by numerous and varied authors - frankly none of these even came close to Ian Fleming's unique writing style!

But the stance and interpretation that the movies took in the '70's and early 80's and in fact, even in Quantum of Solace, are quite far-fetched - there's a little too much room in the original licensing arrangement, for the producer and director to do pretty much what they want, without adhering to the original storyline at all!

Still, these books and movies will always remain amongst my favourite things in the world and this is like paying a small tribute to something I ve enjoyed greatly since I was a kid!

[GordonGekko]

gotta love him

YouTube - Alpha Man Behavior and Attitude - Balcony Scene

[Archish]

Pierce Brosnan - Sophisticated, Perfect Bond according to me, maybe because I grew up looking up to him as James Bond.

[hillram]

Sean Connery was the best James Bond undoubtedly.I would say Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore and my next favourites.
Daniel Craig is very cold and lacks humour.

[mobike008]

I liked the following Bond's in sequential order

1. Sean Connery
2. Roger Moore
3. Daniel Craig
4. Pierce Brosnan

[am1m]

<Reviving a few old threads today, slow day in Bangalore...>

Co-incidentally, have been re-reading all the Bond novels and am up to number 12, You Only Live Twice.

As someone has already pointed out, the novel Bond and the movie(s) Bond are a bit different. Before reading the novels, my favourite was Brosnan. Chalk that up a fair bit to nostalgia, the first Bond my generation actually got to see as soon as the movie was made. (The same reason the F40 is THE Ferrari for so many of my generation, because of that ubiquitous poster on all our walls growing up!)

Now, I think Craig is the closest to the Fleming novels. Allow me to explain. The core of the novel Bond is his ability to take a TON of punishment and keep going against all odds till the mission is complete. The main reason M keeps giving him all those impossible missions.

Connery was too smooth, he never seemed to suffer, always in control even when he was at the villain's mercy, you knew he was going to escape and he always made it look too easy. Fleming's Bond suffered a lot, often escaping bad situations at great personal cost. Lazenby, well too short a time in the role to qualify. Moore played it waaay too funny, each mission was a joke. Dalton was closer to the novel Bond than any of the others till Craig. But again, too short a time in the role and in movies that tried to become like the famous action flicks of that era. Brosnan was good but lacked the physicality to be a convincing Bond in my opinion. Bond is certainly a tough guy and Brosnan was not convincing in that aspect. His toughness is more the 'executive ruthlessness' than of the 'ruthless street-fighter' type. Craig comes closest- tough, gritty, flawed, in control most of the time, but very often what carries him through to the end of a mission is sheer determination and bloody-mindedness.

[Sebring]

Daniel Craig - For starters, he is gritty, intense, handsome and carries himself well. Craig’s come up against the meanest baddies of them all – most notably, Javier Bardem’s terrifying but electric Silva in Skyfall, and most recently Christoph Waltz’ eerie Blofeld in Spectre.

[srikanthns]

Originally Posted by am1m

Now, I think Craig is the closest to the Fleming novels. Allow me to explain. The core of the novel Bond is his ability to take a TON of punishment and keep going against all odds till the mission is complete. The main reason M keeps giving him all those impossible missions.

Craig comes closest- tough, gritty, flawed, in control most of the time, but very often what carries him through to the end of a mission is sheer determination and bloody-mindedness.

The above are exactly the same reasons why Craig is my favourite Bond!
Really intense! Those blue eyes!

[Red Liner]

Its nice to know how generations have changed watching james bond movies through the ages.

I am from the sean connery generation, and he epitomizes james bond the best.

My dad has the ian fleming unabridged book on james bond.. And when i read that book, its only sean connery in my vivid imagination.

The other one i love from that generation is ofcourse indiana jones, and star wars.

[pratyush6]

Among the few ones who seem to like Daniel Craig. He is intense, cold and has style! He seems to have a great choice in cars, drives rather well (can you forget the Spectre chase sequence with Bautista?) I'd pick Sean Connery, just because of his humor as the 2nd.