You're such a fuck-ass!

You can go suck a fuck!

Back when ER was on TV it occurred to me that Eriq La Salle would've been a good casting choice for a black James Bond...




It's quite interesting to browse the Wikipedia list of actors considered for the role of James Bond...

It includes Sam Neill (The Piano, Jurassic Park, etc.), Mel Gibson ( ), Ewan McGregor... and even Sean Bean!
With that last one taking the role, we might finally have got to see James Bond being killed!*

* (for real, as opposed to the faked death scene in You Only Live Twice)

Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds were each offered the role back in 1970. Both declined... because they felt that "Bond should be British".

Liam Neeson declined the role in 1994 because he "wasn't interested in making action movies". He's now onto his third outing as the star of the action-packed Taken movies.

Spinozasgalt wrote:I don't like James Bond. I hope that the franchise dies. Let the Bond death hold illimitable dominion over all.

Good luck with that. The last one was the highest grossing ever.

And the good news is Sam Mendes is back to direct the next one. And Christoph Waltz is in it too.

That's not good news, IMHO!

Skyfall has to be one of the most overrated Bond movies of them all!

Along with the numerous absurdities and gaping plot holes, we also have a preposterous finale that appears to have been lifted from the Home Alone movies... Bond, M and some dithery old man taking on the baddies with silly booby-traps... and there's a cartoonish CG helicopter crash pasted in.
Almost as crap as Quantum of Solace.

Nicko wrote:

Precambrian Rabbi wrote:

Nicko wrote:As British conceptions of class and ethnicity change into the future, a black Bond will almost certainly become feasible. It just would not work today.

Why not?

Because black British people do not yet have the history in Britain to play someone descended from old money/minor nobility, which is who Bond is. You can't put a black person in the role without changing the entire background of the character, at which point he's not the same character: more importantly he doesn't represent the same things.

Conversely, a reboot of the "Harry Palmer" movies could have the lead - originally played by Michael Caine - convincingly played by a black actor.

Film Bond does not need an old money/minor lord background, that is the history of the book Bond. But as we have seen multiple actors over multiple generations playing Bond on film it is easy enough to explain that James Bond is not a person, it is a code name given to all the agents who get assigned the 007 number. Who Bond is is his present, his charisma and his reckless abandon at times. He has been played as more light hearted by some actors, as a comic one liner by others, as a dark grim individual by at least one and as what amounts to Bourne recently. James Bond changes with the times, he changes with the trends of other action movies and he will keep on changing as time goes on.

I'm With Stupid wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:I don't like James Bond. I hope that the franchise dies. Let the Bond death hold illimitable dominion over all.

Good luck with that. The last one was the highest grossing ever.

And the good news is Sam Mendes is back to direct the next one. And Christoph Waltz is in it too.

Oh, that's just a superstition.

DarthHelmet86 wrote:Film Bond does not need an old money/minor lord background, that is the history of the book Bond. But as we have seen multiple actors over multiple generations playing Bond on film it is easy enough to explain that James Bond is not a person, it is a code name given to all the agents who get assigned the 007 number. Who Bond is is his present, his charisma and his reckless abandon at times. He has been played as more light hearted by some actors, as a comic one liner by others, as a dark grim individual by at least one and as what amounts to Bourne recently.

I think you'll find that all portrayals of Bond have the same class/ethnicity though. It's just part of the character.

The whole point of Bond is as an analogy of post-WWII Britain. He's fallen from the "greatness" of his ancestors - and he wouldn't have really had much patience for their bullshit anyway - but, when the situation demands it, he can rise to the occasion and match the best and stand up for Britain and blah, blah, blah. He's the figurehead for a particular national mythos. A very complex blend of tradition/establishment and rebellion/modernity.

I've heard the "Codename: Bond" idea before. It's crap.

Reason being, many of Bond's defining characteristics are actually flaws. Womanising, alcoholism, pride, risk-taking.

DarthHelmet86 wrote:James Bond changes with the times, he changes with the trends of other action movies and he will keep on changing as time goes on.

As I've said, I think the day may very well come when a black actor could play Bond. It's just a matter of time. There are already many iconic British fictional characters that could be played by a black actor without altering the fundamentals of the character.

But I disagree that Bond has changed with the times; what has changed is what the fantasy behind Bond entails.

The awesome Alan Johnson (no, the other one) "dressed up" as Bond for a New Years Eve party: