Just one more film would be nice.
And end it with a poignant scene, signposting that this is the end for Craig in some way. A speech or something.
I
really, really hate weighing in on any movie/series TV that a huge fan of the book series is involved in.... I don't want or like to step on toes and/or dance around how I really feel. Penny Dreadful was, for the first two seasons, my favorite show on TV and much of the board at IMDb devolved into a war between those who had read all the novels and insisted they should be used as canon (Frankenstein, Dracula and so on) and those who were willing and wanted to address only the ways in which the show itself was using them.
This is a no-win situation for everyone involved. Although that's not necessarily what I'm seeing here.... I
can see how easy it would be to become that way as a direct result of the passion involved. I personally believe that we should address what is actually being presented. I understand and support the desire to
wish that the source material was being used more literally but the sad truth is that's seldom the case where Hollywood is concerned. As I see it, PJ's LOTR & H series along with JR's HP were the first time we'd seen real and successful attempts to honor not only the spirit of the novels but the characters, dialogue and events as well. This is the exception and not the rule as has been proven by Marvel itself as they rewrite the history of countless stories from Jack (who died penniless by the way) & Stan who now inserts himself into the films a la Hitchcock, a man he is most certainly not.
So I go with what has actually been put on the screen. I do it because it would never have occurred to me (in grade school) when the first movies were released that there even
were books on the series to be read... which is actually odd now that I think of it because the books I was reading under my covers with a flashlight were mostly written by Leon Uris so it's not as if I was completely clueless about what was out there in the adult world of books. With JB, what was out there was Sean Connery playing a character that many believe will
always be the only true Bond ever. And if I'm honest, I would have to say that I agree with that; up until DC came up out of the water in CR and I thought to myself "holy crap"... could this guy
really make Bond "real" to me again? As it turned out, he did. In a way that was not the "campy" style of Roger Moore, not the rather flat performance (as I saw it) that failed so utterly to convince and compel me that Dalton gave. Although I will say that in PD the man gave a G-force vortex of a performance that sucked you into it completely and the show wouldn't have been the same without him... and now back to Bond and the total flop of everything that P. Brosnan was and became in connection with the time he spent "being Bond". So yes, for me and only in my opinion, DC brought Bond back to life. He had gravitas. He had steel in his spine and unlike all the rest of them he was also a man who understood that sometimes, saying nothing at all is far more powerful than any pointed sentence or two. Unfortunately, the film in which they sent him back to his childhood home fell flat for me (clearly there's a reason they say "you can never go home again") and when they killed Judi Dench as "M", they also pretty much killed what was left of the franchise I loved. As good as Ralph Fiennes may be.... I just can't get past the notion that "Voldemort" is now running MI-6. So I guess, in the end, I'd like DC to do one more movie so that both of us can have our own ending and move onto other things from there.
Although I will say this... as I see it, character is not really about color. It's about the person themselves. So if, and I say "if" for a variety of reasons, Idris Elba were by some strange twist of fate to get the role of Bond, I might go back one more time to see
his take on it. Because no matter how you slice or dice it, that man's got acting chops
that last for weeks and he could bring something to the role that would reinvent it all over again for me.... But that's just me and I am genuinely sorry to be stepping all over AM's love of the Bond books and his fervent desire that they be honored on screen for what they were on the page. Unfortunately, it's a series that goes back so far that it may not even be relevant to today's viewing public. Much the way in which Marvel has "cherry-picked" most of what actually took place in J & S's Marvelverse... or at the very least, the order in which it all happened. I know this because I've read most of the major stories from "book 1" and they've gotten a lot of it wrong and probably done it on purpose given that Stan himself is clearly enjoying the ride.
So I vote yes for DC. One more and done.....
..... and I can't come up with any pic, emoji, meme or mime that could even begin to define how I feel about all of this.
