Dalton's Prime Issue Was His Tenure Started Off Weak, Not Succeeding Roger Moore
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — James Bond
Booniedog85 — 2 years ago(April 02, 2024 10:08 PM)
I will state flatout Dalton is my favorite Bond. Not only because I already have a bias before getting into 007 thanks to his superb acting in older films like Cromwell and Lion In the Winter (man his role as Philip puts the Beejeezles in me)…… But for the same reason everyone here states that he's the most faithful interpretation of Fleming's original protagonist so far on film.
In fact if you watched his 60s and 70s stuff you will understand why Dalton was an strong choice to follow up on Connery and they even tried to approach him a second time before Moore was selected after Lazenby called quits. I will save that for another topic but I really recommend people watch his performance in Wuthering Heights, Cromwell, and Lion In the Winter (3 of his earliest roles) to see just how PERFECT he was as an obvious choice as replacing Sean Connery as James Bond.
The answer is much simpler. TLD and LTK were weak franchise entries. They're by no means terrible but at best they are average films and I honestly would rate them as mediocre.
Even with how dark his Bond became, this is the real problem. If TLD had the same quality say GoldenEye, From Russia With Love, and most specific Casino Royale (esp since that film successfully convinced the public the change in Bond formula so easily because of its excellence), I think audiences would have accepted Dalton more smoothly and thus more at least a trilogy in his era rather than the incomplete duology we got.
In fact watching the films was pretty hard because of just how often subpar everything else is from cinematography to fight choreography and often underwhelming cast choices (esp the chosen Bond girls) and most of all boring slow mediocre writing.
The only real reason we ultimately find a way to enjoy his films is because Dalton is really a top tier actor. Dalton himself is the saving graces of these otherwise mediocre films.
Basically you can get Brosnan or Connery to act in TLD and it'd still come of as very weak because the whole film was mediocre. LTK without the 007 licensing and Dalton's outstanding acting would have come off as a generic action movie.
So basically Dalton suffered the same problems Brosnan did except he lacked a GoldenEye quality movie to kick off his tenure as Bond.
Anyone agree or not? I mean Craig started in the same similar rough place Dalton did and even had more attacks from the start for even other reasons that %%%$ed off long time fans such as being blonde instead of the traditional dark haired Bond and not seeming like the ideal first choice for the Bond archetype (as many others including George Clooney and my man Julian McMahon from Charmed, a show I'm also a fan of, were considered)……… But Casino Royale was so damn excellent in everyway (including Craig's acting in the film even if it wasn't what hardcore fans consider James Bondesque) that it gave Craig the sparkle needed to be accepted as the newest Bond esp by the mainstream.
What Dalton needed was to start off with a bang, a GoldenEye or Casino Royale equivalent thats just as good. Honestly if Craig was put back in time and done The Living Daylights and esp License to Kill they would have been heavily bashed (though Craig's performance would have been praised like Dalton is today). Though in Brosnan's case likely would have been different because of his existing fanbase thanks to Remington Steele and the hype behind him becoming Bond was pretty visible at the time (in fact thats why Remington Steele suddenly had one more season out of the blue because they expected the Bond hype to continue the show further). Thats the issue. The Living Daylights is really just average. Not a bad thing by itself but Dalton had the gigantic secondary issue of lacking star power outside the UK esp in the USA. If it was a critic-adoring movie the same way GoldenEye and CAsino Royale was, fans would have completely ignored the change in tone from Moore and welcomed Dalton wholeheartedly. License to Kill would still be a major blow to Brosnan's hypothetical earlier career if it was released exactly as it was (but with an alternate TLD, LIcense to Kill would have been a major different film if not even scrapped altogether for a more traditional Bond film).
You can even still have a Bond that has plenty of campy camp comedy in it but it would fail because the studio people during Dalton's tenure were just plain out mediocre filmmakers and not just the script but so much from the costumes to the fight scenes were pretty underwhelming for the franchise esp as it purpots to try to follow the books during Timothy's time.. GoldenEyes actually is the middle-ground most traditional Bond film as far as keeping the common genre tropes and sticking to a middle ground between camp + flash and dark serious storytelling (in the same way Brosnan gets the hack for being the most generic Bond from hardcore fans nowadays) but it was so good it kicked off Brosnan's career as Bond and its a big help the immediate foll -
Booniedog85 — 9 months ago(June 28, 2025 03:45 PM)
Which is a symptom of how weak his films were. Go see Dalton in other performances esp before James Bond where he wowed critics with his onscreen acting and you'll see why he was the original choice to replace Connery before Moore (which he rejected because he felt he was too young at the time). Not to mention all he was one of the leading men in live theatre in the UK during the 70s esp in Shakespearian.