How close did Dalton come to doing Goldeneye?

I think it was the 80s rather than Dalton.

They well and truly remedied that with Sanchez and Dario for LTK. Although I do enjoy Necros.

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LTK is a movie I have totally flipped on. For a very long time it was among my favourites, if not my favourite. While I now don’t see it as the worst Bond movie, it was a failed attempt IMHO. That said, I love Dalton’s portrayal of Bond in the movie (other than the hair cut which I am sure was somebody else’s idea) and there are some fantastic scenes (e.g., “We’re not a country club 007”.) I really do wish we would have gotten 2-3 more Dalton films but I also think the break was probably needed for the audience build up an appetite for more Bond.

Oh that hair was horrendous, but I love Tim’s Bond.

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As were the costumes but he was very good

The flashes of brilliance are numerous - the chat with saunders in the car - “if he fires me ill thank him for it”, “you want it you keep it” etc… i think he was let down by a Bond team that werent willing to have the ambition to go the whole way of allowing him to live in a Fleming Bond world - while Dalton Bond was great - he was let down by vestiges of Bond past and hammy stuff like “well why dont you ask me” and “dont think just let it happen” - so it was a halfhearted attempt to reinvent Bond when it could/should have been a real new Bond like Brosnan in GE and Craig

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I’ve gone completely in the opposite direction. I used to see LTK as middle of the pack and now it’s, IMO, maybe the best film in the whole series. Dalton is perfect in the role (terrible haircut not withstanding). The villains are excellent as are the leading ladies. Pam happily subverts the damsel in distress by never needing saving and in fact saves Bond at least twice. Sanchez is likable and scary. Conversely, I’m not big on TLD. The story is convoluted and confusing. I’ve seen the film many times over the years and I’m still not clear what Koskov’s and Whitaker’s plan was or even which was supposed to be the main villain. Watching Bond allying with the mujahideen is strange in today’s time as Kamran Shah could very easily be a stand in for Osama bin Laden who was a western ally prior to the Gulf War.

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yeah I love TLD for Dalton and Necros, the great PTS, the great pipeline smuggle sequence, the Aston Martin ice chase and the sniper sequence etc… but it has its problems for sure. Also, John Rhys Davies has become somewhat offputting over the years

The problem with John Rhys Davies is that the role was supposed to be for Gotell’s Gogol, but that was rewritten to accomodate Gotell’s health. I also can’t see Rhys Davies as anything other than Sallah and it’s weird to not see him riding around the desert with his more famous pal looking for their bits of junk.

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Haha oh i meant more him as a person - It would have been much better with Gogol for sure. Speaking of offputting, it reminds me of the weird ending of LTK where Felix seems to give close to zero shits his wife was murdered and likely raped and is ready to go fishing haha

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Yea, I’ve always been confused by that. He does sound very chipper for a guy who’s just lost several appendages and whose wife was raped and murdered.

Yeah it reminded me of the ending to Terrence Young’s Wait Until Dark, where the husband who brought a murderous psychopath into his blind wive’s life who almost killed her, seems entirely uninterested like hes wondering when shes about to cook dinner

Siskel & Ebert didn’t think much. Didn’t they call him ‘a mouse’?

Not in this one: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-living-daylights-1987

Ebert notes the absence of the proper brand of humour. But no mouses, at least not here.

Can Siskel or Ebert be considered common, I wonder?

That aside, both were also not beyond being spectacularly wrong at times, like everybody else.

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The other one said it in their TV review at the time of release. It just shows he wasn’t universally regarded as a hit.
Can you say the audience at the premiere is ‘common’? Films always get applause at their premieres: it’s only polite.

GoldenEye would have been a far superior film had Dalton returned as Bond. It was a story that really, IMO, necessitated a returning actor, and Dalton is the best thing the series had going for it as it limped towards the end of the 80s. But, at the same time, it would have also been the end of the franchise. Dalton, after a six-year hiatus, wasn’t in a position to make the kind of box office splash that the franchise needed to justify continuing forward after six years of legal wrangling. It pains me to say it, but it’s the truth.

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I think Dalton just showed up at the wrong time. Bond fatigue was rampant and MGM was beginning its maddening financial and production issues. Goldeneye is good, but not great. It would likely have been a fundamentally different film with Dalton in the lead role than Brosnan. Though I think Brosnan worked in his time period (mid-90s-early 2000s). With Dalton in Goldeneye, the script would have to be heavily altered to accomodate his take on Bond. Though, maybe it would’ve fixed some of the script issues the film has especially in the opening 40 or so minutes.

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Living Daylights is probably my favourite Bond film, but I can’t help but think that GoldenEye with Dalton in the lead would have been a lot poorer. He just would have disappeared in the middle of it because he wasn’t a movie star. I don’t think Brosnan is the greatest actor the world has ever seen, and he wouldn’t be my pick as best Bond, but like Roger he had charisma enough to hold the screen and be the star of these movies. Dalton just didn’t quite have that.

Did I claim that? Don’t think so, no.

But let’s not be argumentative for the sake of it, only terrible bores are.

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Where’s the need for that? Calm down; we’re only chatting.

Your meaning was that he was commonly thought of as not being a bad thing for the franchise- if I have portrayed your words incorrectly please show me where. Your proof was that at the premiere, attended by movies stars and members of the Royal family, the film got some applause. My reply to that was that one of the most famous and influential movie reviewers of the time was not impressed by his performance, which I said shows he wasn’t universally regarded as a hit. Your reply to that was to imply that I’m a bore.
If you want to see what argumentative means, examine your own behaviour in these posts. I’m not interested in talking to you any more after that ridiculous reply. Go away.

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