"The BBC had this series
Quiller that was picking up a lot of attention. It was tougher and more realistic than the Bond films at the time and some of the critics were saying that
Quiller was doing what the Bond films should be doing.
"United Artists were happy with the money my Bond films were making, but understandably Cubby was looking at the creative direction, as was his right. Eventually, there was so much talk about Quiller, about how way-out
Moonraker was, about how Bond had to be reinvented for the 80s that I started to feel a little bit unloved. I felt like I was seen very much as 'The Bond of the 70s' and six years was a good run. I decided to quit while I was ahead."
- Roger Moore, The Making of For Your Eyes Only
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"I'd been asked before and turned it down and I would have turned it down again after what I'd seen of
Moonraker, but there'd been a lot of talk about how the producers were looking for a change of direction. Not to do down Cubby Broccoli or Roger Moore, I respect their work enormously. But those films, very successful films, weren't the kind of thing I wanted to do. I wanted to bring the character back to Ian Fleming's novels and in those, Bond is a more grounded and troubled figure. From what I'd heard in the industry, EON were ready to go in that direction. Maybe we went too far in the other direction, but I'm proud of the work I've done."
- Timothy Dalton, The Making of For Your Eyes Only
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"It isn't any more violent than any of the previous Bond films, but the attitude towards violence is different. They set out their stall in the pre-credits sequence. I mean, we open on Tracy Bond's grave, so we're already harking back to Bond's darkest days. On paper, the killing off of this 'not-Blofeld' character was a little bit humorous. EON was taking a shot at Kevin McClory, all very cheeky. But Dalton comes across as extremely vengeful, no quips. I think that got the audience in the wrong mood. [1]
"It's worth noting that McClory was getting close to making his own feature film based on
Thunderball, with Sean Connery showing interest in writing and maybe even returning to role of Bond. Connery and potential distributors reconsidered at the prospect of going up against a new, young Bond.
"EON stuck quite closely to the original story of
For Your Eyes Only. They had to expand it, naturally, but like he short story Bond's mission is 'off the books' and it's simply an assassination to 'send out a message'. It's like
Callan!
"That said, I get angry when people call Dalton 'the depressing one'.
For Your Eyes Only is dark compared to
Moonraker, but Dalton's Bond still enjoys the good things in life and is still on the side of right.
"It's like Don Henderson on
Doctor Who. He might be dour compared to his more jovial predecessor, but he's clearly playing the same character. Like Henderson, I think the early reaction soured the experience enough for the lead actor that it pretty much guaranteed he was going to leave as soon as his contract expired.
"Reagan's America was feeling gung-ho. Callaghan and then Owen's Britain would prove to be cautiously optimistic, but that wasn't a given at the time. EON took a gamble and went left, but the way things were going went right. It was a great direction, but out of its time."
- Gordon Weythe, The Best Of Bond, ITV 2005
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Vindicated by History
Timothy Dalton's more downbeat, violent portrayal of Bond fits perfectly next to Paul McGann's less morally certain, tougher Bond of the 90s and 2000s. At the time, most viewers had grown comfortable with Roger Moore's lighthearted Bond.
- TVTropes
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Casting Nicholas Clay as Bond put the films back in step with the zeitgeist. Britain, appearing more egalitarian and economically strong, started to feel a safe nostalgia for its class system and it became a good time to be posh. Lord Peter Wimsey was filling cinemas and
Dan Dare had replaced
Doctor Who in the affections of space-mad children (oh, the irony of Paul McGann being prized for being posh).
Clay is sometimes spoken of as the "Boy's Own" Bond. With his dashing good looks, less promiscuous nature, this being the age of "safe sex" and more amiable manner compared to his predecessor: Clay's Bond almost comes across as a clean-living chap from the boy's papers of the early 20th Century.
His Bond was no wimp and was willing to engage in violence if necessary, but he wasn't a cold-blooded killer either. One strand continuing from Dalton's time was Bond's guilt after killing. Some villains were dispatched without too much concern, but Clay's Bond was another who didn't quip after every killing and occasionally let regret play across his face when he killed someone who didn't see it coming.
The underlying irony is that Clay wanted to play the part closer to the Dalton style (he's the only screen Bond to have a facial scar like his literary equivalent). The films undoubtedly benefit from the creative tension between Clay and EON.
- James Bond Souvenir Special Magazine, 2001
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AHC Derail The James Bond Franchise In The 90s
Tuesday 8:37pm
BeatleBlades
OK, here's a crazy idea, but bear with me. Have
The Deer Hunter be a bigger hit. Off the moderate success of that film, Michael Cimino got the greenlight from UA on
The Johnson County War, started overspending, got fired and replaced with David Lean. The film did mediocre box office, but UA had a brand new James Bond to show the world and that more than saved the studio, even if it did get renamed UA-Transamerica.
But if
The Deer Hunter had been a bigger hit, Cimino be able to ride out the last few waves of "New Hollywood" auterism [2], then maybe UA are less inclined to fire him and
The Johnson County War is an expensive bomb. Then UA are more vulnerable and maybe likely to make missteps.
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Tuesday 9:01pm
Stingaree
You really need a POD in 1978 to derail Bond in the 90s? How about Nicholas Clay turning it down and EON going with Pierce Brosnan instead?
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Tuesday 9:10pm
BeatleBlades
Yes. I think with huge corporations getting your POD in early enough leads to the most plausible scenario. Those old dinosaurs don't move that fast.
I don't think Brosnan could have derailed Bond, though he might have been a little bit by-the-numbers. Bond doesn't have the character quirks that Simon Templar has and that Brosnan was able to exploit to such great effect on the
Saint series. [2]
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Tuesday 9:14pm
Stingaree
The Deer Hunter is hardly the stuff of blockbusters. It's pretty grim, I don't know how you'd make it bigger.
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Tuesday 9:27pm
BeatleBlades
It actually suffered from
Death On The Nile being as huge as it was. EMI Films started throwing more publicity and resources at
Nile once it became clear they had a hit on their hands. If Albert Finney had stayed on as Poirot, he probably wouldn't have hit the publicity rounds quite as enthusiastically as Roger Delgado.
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Tuesday 9:37pm
Swinker
If you derail Bond in the 90s, you don't have the WTFness of Freddie Mercury and Kylie Minogue's duet on the driven, doomy theme to
Better Off Dead. Who wants to live in a world where that didn't happen?
- Excerpts from alternatehistory.com board thread
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"Clay's time perfectly straddles the 80s and 90s. His first film, 1987's
Octopussy, is a romp. A big action film with great lines and the status quo properly restored at the end. But by the time of
Better Off Dead, he's firmly a 90s Bond. That last film starts to pick up threads left in the other films to form the end of a character arc. Bond's nemesis is a bratty hacker, played by 25-year-old David Wilson. [3] A cyber-thriller showing that the internet spread across the world in places even SPECTRE in the 60s couldn't have reached.
"They'd could have gone wrong with the Bond girl. I think there were a lot of female leads at that time who were written as 'feisty' and they just came across as unpleasant. I like how both Bond and Dr Rose are trying to back off from forming a relationship. We didn't want a replay of the previous film
From A View To A Kill, where Scarlet Silk [4] is constantly insulting Bond and mocking him for being old, before falling for him in the most unconvincing way possible. Amanda Donohoe deserved an Oscar. No such problems with Kelly Hu in
Better Off Dead.
"
Better Off Dead is about Bond getting older and whether he can keep living the life of a Double-0 agent. Because we knew it was going to be the last Nicholas Clay Bond film there was always that possibility that they might, just might kill Bond off. They didn't, off course, but that tying together of storylines, interrogation of the very idea of James Bond and the doomladen atmosphere, it's the perfect alignment of Bond for a new era."
- Gordon Weythe, The Best Of Bond, ITV 2005
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"Yes, I got passionate about the subject on that
Best Of Bond show. I could tell they wanted to follow the usual narrative. Dalton is too dark. Clay is too frothy. Bond didn't get good again until Paul McGann. It's nonsense. There haven't been any bad James Bonds. Dalton was ahead of his time, but Clay was perfect for his time. Here's a way of seeing how well they capture the character. When you have your beginning to end Bond watches. c'mon we all do it, switch Dalton and Clay. Go Moore, Clay, Dalton, McGann etc. The films play better that way. Nicholas Clay's Bond has a lot of Roger Moore's qualities, but dialed down and as the films head into the 90s, the shades of grey start to creep in."
- Gordon Weythe, Laser Cult-tacular Convention, 2007
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But McGann scotches the idea that he'll be a working-class Bond. "James Bond will always love the high-life, he'll still be drinking vodka martinis. But I want to show a certain toughness. Bond didn't just become a spy out of nowhere, he was a naval commander. I want to bring that military quality to the character. He'll be cultured but tough, with a down to earth quality that's a holdover from his having to lead men as Commander Bond. Bond went to Eton, but he got expelled. That's my Bond."
- GQ Magazine, November 1995
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1996 looks likely to be a year of surprises. In the reverse of all expectations, the next James Bond film
Mightier Than The Sword is going to imply that it's a fresh start showing Bond early in his career, whereas the
Doctor Who pilot is going to continue where the BBC series left off, including an appearance by Tony Haygarth.
- Laser Magazine Quarterly, Winter 95/96
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[1] I recall reading that this intro was decided on even when IOTL it was thought there'd be a new Bond
[2] I'm thinking a TV series, not film series if you're wondering
[3] The son of Brian Wilson from the T2580 storyline. Both this thread and that are part of the same timeline.
[4] They can only be so faithful to Fleming. Even though the girl in the story is called Mary Anne Russell, that isn't going to fly as a Bond girl name in a movie.
[PS] I'm thinking both M and Moneypenny are recast for the first Dalton film. Donald Houston and Diana Weston, in case you were wondering.