Which (canonical) Bond is the best?

[Quatermass]

Discussing the Bond films in another thread here got me to thinking: in this BBS, who is considered the best of the Bond actors (canonical, in other words, the first two Casino Royale films don't count)?

I've done a poll. And, if you feel so inclined, post a post justifying your choice. I haven't made my choice quite yet, so go ahead and do it.

[Quatermass]

Actually, looking at the line-up, it's almost like we have the cast of a joke about British 'ethnicities', so to speak. We have a Sctosman, an Aussie, an Englishman, a Welshman, an Irishman, and...does Chester count as 'up north'?

Great, all we need is a Scouser and a West Counties person to round it out.

[DaveC]

Growing up, Live and Let Die and Living Daylights were ones that I watched the most. Pierce was great, Daniel Craig and Timothy Dalton are both so intense.

I voted for Timothy because is he's so no-nonsense.

I respect Sean Connery but I've watched his films the least.

[Quatermass]

They say that Dalton is perhaps closer to the Bond of the novels.

[ChristianBecker]

I liked Dalton best.

Even though in some German TV magazine they once said he had "the charm of a drowned corpse".

[meerkat]

Roger Moore. It was the eybrow thing that I liked.

[Quatermass]

I chose Timothy Dalton too, with Daniel Craig a close second and Pierce Brosnan third.

[ChristianBecker]

Yeah, I'd second that.
Even though I didn't quite like Casino Royal (mainly because it was confusing. I've watched the Bonds since I was 7 or so - so seeing the "first" all of a sudden but set in modern times was quite irritating.
But as a character the Craig Bond was good, too.

[Pearwood]

I like Moore best. He was the most fun. Though I like pretty much all of them apart from Lazenby and Craig (I don't think Craig's bad as such, but he's just not what I think of as Bond. Dalton was a hard-ass too but at least he still had the gentlemanly charm)

[Tiffany]

I'm with Meer on that, Roger Moore.

[Quatermass]

So, we have 3 votes for Rassilon- sorry, Timothy Dalton, 3 votes for the man who could rival Vetinari in an expressive eyebrow contest, Roger Moore, and 2 votesh for the Shcotshman with the shpeech impediment, Shean Connery.

[Jan Van Quirm]

I think this is another 'character you grew up with' situation, except that I bust that theory wide open because I chose Sean and in fact Roger Moore was the first Bond I saw. Typical me.

I liked the Moore Bond, I really did, but then I've read some the books as well and well, it's the eyebrow thing for one - it's played too much for cheap laughs at times. I love Timothy Dalton - he looks good and he's the best actor in there by far (Mr. Rochester! ), but no, it's Connery who's closest to Fleming's 'literary' model.

Sean's Bond has that underlying bite - you really could imagine him killing someone without too much compunction and let's face it, if you have a licence to kill then you have to have a well developed mean (as in moody) streak and the 1960s was the time when that was still PC and acceptable in a way that the later 'realistic' Bonds (really all of them except Moore) weren't and were moulded to their era. The Brosnan Bond was virtually neutered in the 1st half hour of Goldeneye by Judi Dench as the new M for instance

I have to admit to being a Titles groupie (Maurice Binder was an utter graphics god) too - now those really are synonymous with canon, even if the films aren't! My favourite title isn't actually a Binder one though - The World Is Not Enough. The film itself is pants despite having the excellent Robert Carlyle but those lovely oily titles are just gorgeous!

[Pearwood]

My favourite title isn't actually a Binder one though - The World Is Not Enough. The film itself is pants

I've always considered it one of the better ones Although Denise Richards nearly kills it.

[Quatermass]

I think this is another 'character you grew up with' situation, except that I bust that theory wide open because I chose Sean and in fact Roger Moore was the first Bond I saw. Typical me.

I grew up with the Brosnan films being done (I think the first Bond film I saw in the cinemas was either Tomorrow Never Dies or, more likely, The World is Not Enough).

I liked the Moore Bond, I really did, but then I've read some the books as well and well, it's the eyebrow thing for one - it's played too much for cheap laughs at times. I love Timothy Dalton - he looks good and he's the best actor in there by far (Mr. Rochester! ), but no, it's Connery who's closest to Fleming's 'literary' model.

My mother has watched that version of Jane Eyre, as well as the one with Toby Stephens (Gustave Graves in Die Another Day) in it.

Moore...has the English gentleman image about him, but he lacks, most of the time, the harder edge that Bond needs that virtually every other actor who plays him does. He has a harder edge, though, in For Your Eyes Only, at least...

Sean's Bond has that underlying bite - you really could imagine him killing someone without too much compunction and let's face it, if you have a licence to kill then you have to have a well developed mean (as in moody) streak and the 1960s was the time when that was still PC and acceptable in a way that the later 'realistic' Bonds (really all of them except Moore) weren't and were moulded to their era. The Brosnan Bond was virtually neutered in the 1st half hour of Goldeneye by Judi Dench as the new M for instance

Connery was a more thuggish Bond, I felt, not at all self-reflective (which the Bond of the books was).

As for your assertion of him being neutered by M, I'd say he was keeping the gelding knife away with both hands.

I have to admit to being a Titles groupie (Maurice Binder was an utter graphics god) too - now those really are synonymous with canon, even if the films aren't! My favourite title isn't actually a Binder one though - The World Is Not Enough. The film itself is pants despite having the excellent Robert Carlyle but those lovely oily titles are just gorgeous!

I'm not that much of a fan of Binder's work (in fact, I'd go so far as to say that, after For Your Eyes Only, none of his titles impress me), though I am impressed with what he did with the techniques available at the time (my personal favourites of his titles is On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Live and Let Die, and The Man with the Golden Gun). My personal favourite Bond title sequence, ironically, has no silhouettes of naked women. It's Casino Royale. The combination of the song You Know My Name and the imagery just, well, wow.

[Jan Van Quirm]

As for your assertion of him being neutered by M, I'd say he was keeping the gelding knife away with both hands.

I actually said 'virtually' neutered which is not quite the same thing is it? And yes of course Bond wards off the knife - he wouldn't be Bond otherwise and for the rest of the film both he and M have to reassess their new working relationship so it still functions to their mutual benefit. An option that would have been almost unthinkable in Ian Fleming's time and the high-handed and reactionary political climate of the day.

Connery was a more thuggish Bond, I felt, not at all self-reflective (which the Bond of the books was).

I think there's a bit of gender perspective creeping in here perhaps? The whole thing about Bond is the XYY thing - he's irredeemably and instinctively masculine. He's intelligent yes, and has the ability to stand outside of himself to analyse but in the end it's all depending on his nature and lightning reactions and 'nose' for getting himself out of a tight situation where violence is always something of an automatic option. He really is the danger man in every way and that gives him the necessary 'edge' where he will revert to bare thuggery if it's necessary. The veneer of urbanity and sophistication is a superficial one in other words and what gives him his almost hypnotic attraction for women.