Quote:
Originally Posted by Sailor Steve
And that's what ruins most of the movies for me. The books are nothing like that. Craig's 'thugishness' is more like the bond of the books than all those sophomorish jokes.
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Exactly.
In the books, JB was not this suave wise-cracking superhero.
He was a hired thug. It is not surprising that in the early books the baddies ended up dead. Only when Flemming decided to introduce Blofeld, did the books have a repeating baddie. He was a spy only in the context of using illegal means to an end. In Moonraker, Bond laments being assigned to a normal intelligence duty self-confessing that he really has no aptitude for that sort of work. This was confirmed rather humorously by Gala Brand, a character in the same book. BTW, Moonraker is one of the instances where Bond did NOT get the girl in the end.
There is a telling passage in "Goldfinger" where Bond, in an internal monologue, laments that he does not prefer really beautiful woman as they tend to be harder to get. He prefers women with flaws because they were easier.
It is only in the movies that the "Bond Women" were these striking beauties. Well there were some exceptions but they tended to be enemy agents.
Most of the "Bond women" in the books were attractive but not stunning and they usually had either a physical, mental, or emotional "flaw".
Even Bond's snobbishness concerning "labels" was explained in the first book as being a result of Bond being a man who spends most of his time alone (but not lonely). He has time to take great pains on what he buys and by caring about the brand label helps with being alone.
I much prefer the Bond books to the movies. About every six months I get the yen and break out the series and re-read them. They are awesome reads. But if you have only seen the movies, you will be in for a surprise.
Bond was an anti-hero. He made mistakes. He does things in a rather crude and awkward manner. If you have any knowledge of Intelligence or Investigations, you will spend most of the books facepalming at the mistakes Bond makes.
Subtle he was not.
But they are fun books. I really stopped watching the movies during the Dalton Bronslin period. I watched them when they came on TV, but was not impressed with them.
Too much gadgetry. One of the nice things about the books is that Bond used very little gadgetry and the gadgets he did use were pretty basic stuff.
So that's why I feel that Craig's persona more accurately portrays the Bond from the books. Craig looks a bit thuggish. You can dress Craig up in a tux, but he still looks like he could rip your head off. This "dressed up animal" aspect is what Bond was in the books.
That being said, I find the Craig movies are crap. I actually paid money to watch Quantum in a theater.
Never again.
So there is a big difference between
1. What actor portrays the character Bond best
2. Which actor played Bond in your favorite Bond movie.
I might just bust out my Bond books. Its been about six months.