Timothy Dalton by Paul Gilbert
Tenure as Bond: 2 movies
Essential Adventure: License to Kill (1989)
Timothy Dalton wasn’t supposed to be Bond. It was Pierce Brosnan who was going to star in The Living Daylights and License to Kill. Once Dalton took over, those films became another beast. Dalton wanted to return to Bond from the books. During the Roger Moore years the character had become a kind of joke. Dalton made Bond into the sadistic, misogynistic bastard that he was always meant to be.
After Roger Moore left the role, Pierce Brosnan, then staring in the TV series Remington Steele, was poised to take over the mantle. The show had been cancelled, but NBC had 60 days in which to renew or sell the series. On day 60 when Brosnan was ready to be announced as the new Bond, Brosnan received a call informing him that Remington Steele was back on air. Drat. Fortunately, the producers found Welsh Shakespearian actor Timothy Dalton. Dalton was convinced that Bond had become a cartoon and set out to drastically course correct the series. His James Bond was not the one for puns. He was a brutal killing machine. This is most evident in License to Kill a cocaine filled movie with sadism and man eating sharks.
The Living Daylights is more palatable with some quirky remnants of the Roger Moore years. Audiences believed the two films to be too violent and not suitable for their children. Bond was never meant for children. This was what Dalton was fighting against. Do the movies go too far? This writer doesn’t think so. Bond is a sadistic fiend and will do anything and everything to accomplish his mission, even if that means mincing up a young Benicio del Toro in a coke grinder. Like Lazenby before him, audiences were not ready for Dalton. It took audiences until a post Jason Bourne Casino Royale for them to accept a Bond of that caliber of ruthlessness.
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