re: #16 The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge

What Moore was doing was Simon Templar, which is fine, but it’s not James Bond. I often wonder what it would have been like if they’d listened to Ian Fleming and cast his cousin Christopher Lee as the first Bond.

It’d be like how he portrayed Scaramanga. A mirror image of Bond, just working as an assassin.

I grew up with Moore as Bond, and only later started watching the early stuff with Connery. Different vibe/themes, with Connery’s Bond using more wits than gadgets, while Moore’s Bond was written with more gadgets and camp humor - in an attempt to keep up with the times I guess.

Was never a fan of the Timothy Dalton Bond, and quite liked Brosnan, though I thought he’d have been even better had he been able to extricate himself from the Remington Steele contract.

I had trepidations about Craig, but the opening scene of Casino Royale put that all to rest - this was a grittier and more “realistic” Bond, even as it borrowed from the Bourne flicks. More physicality and less reliance on gadgets.

Sure, every Bond has its set-pieces - the opening, the song, the women, the breathtaking stuntwork (that for the most part is practical and not CGI), but moving towards realism works in this day and age.

As for Idris Elba taking on the role, I think he’d be awesome. Looming presence, and if you’ve seen Luthor, you’d know he’s got the chops to make it work.

While Dr. Who came up with regenerations to explain new actors in the lead role, how we get from Craig to his successor in the current imagining will be interesting. It could be that Bond was originally Craig’s iteration, and 007 is his persona - and M makes the decision to carry on the name as an honor to work done and becomes his successor’s identity.

In that way, it avoids some of the issues the Bourne movies had trying to get away from Matt Damon.