is Goldeneye your favorite 007 movie as well? and why?
It is! Here are a few reasons;
1) The themes - the way the film treats Bond, exploring his character and setting him on course for the 21st century still holds up today, I believe, and is a bit more subtle yet thorough than the Daniel Craig films; I think they started out strong but have increasingly little to say about Bond that wasn’t already said in the first one. But with Goldeneye, we see Bond’s MO and lifestyle critiqued, prodded, played with by the women and villains around him, but he still comes out of it showing the necessity for someone like him, that emotional compromise won’t slow him down and that above all else he’s loyal.
2) The characters. Naturally there’s Xenia whom we all love, but when you look at Goldeneye every character has a purpose and slots in thematically opposite Bond. M, Moneypenny, Natalya and Xenia are all there to challenge him, Wade and Zukovsky are opposite numbers and help display how the times have changed, Ouromov himself is struggling against the changes wrought in the early 90′s, just like Bond, and Trevelyan is - like Onatopp - a good dark mirror for Bond, a version of him who graduated to become the Bond Villain, and their interactions are solid with them being evenly matched. Every character serves a purpose and Goldeneye has good enough pacing to ensure they aren’t superfluous and each get a moment or something to do.
3) The set-pieces. Every Bond film has them, but Goldeneye just keeps going at such a clip and the action/stunt sequences are infinitely better than a lot of the things we saw in the franchise previously - a sign things had gotten too pedestrian under John Glen - and a sign the fresh blood in the form of Martin Campbell really worked. But the film just has so much and isn’t afraid to let female characters in on the action either, with both Natalya and Xenia getting solid action/fight sequences, which felt like something of a rarity up to this point.
4) The credits; every Bond film has these two, but under Maurice Binder they always seemed a bit rubbish, with a few exceptions like Goldfinger; Goldeneye really changed up the game with a credit sequence that employed some really fantastic imagery with top of the line technology behind it, and it also told a story at the same time. That we see the fall of Communism via these women tearing it down, mixed in with the imagery of Janus and the actual Goldeneye device, is a smart way to cover the nine years between the PTS and 1995.
All in all, I think while you can accuse it of being ‘Bond’s greatest hits’, there’s something to be said for what it does and just how well it does it.
Its interesting how different the film is to Brosnan’s later ones in terms of social commentary. Bruce Feirstein stayed on for Tomorrow Never Dies which then received a rewrite. Perhaps Jeffrey Caine was the driving force behind the development of the themes? Despite the box office success of the Craig era I think the Bond franchise needs that fresh blood you mention now. Henry Cavill was Martin Campbell’s first choice for Casino Royale but he was overruled. Now that Daniel Craig will be out of the way I would love if they put them both in the hotseats for the next James Bond and film. It would almost be similar to what happened with Brosnan in the 80s and 90s albeit not related to a contractual issue. With the Covid19 situation surely a virus as a biological weapon is a surefire thing at some stage for one of the next few Bond films and if the screenwriters have the balls to address the huge societal changes of recent years rather than tip-toeing around them as the Craig films did, the series has great potential ahead.
I think Goldeneye perhaps works because of the amount of people who refined it, and the goal they were aiming for of almost a ‘chimera’ Bond, where Brosnan is easily a mix of all his predecessors. There were three writers on Goldeneye, after all; Michael France did the original draft - where Xenia wasn’t ‘Onatopp’ and killed differently, and Feirstein’s later take on Goldeneye for Craig stripped the character’s outlandishness back considerably, so I believe we have Caine and Martin Campbell - in addition to his cast - to thank for Goldeneye and understanding the classic elements of Bond while being willing to push forward.
As for Cavill, I’d like to see him display more of a sense of humour before I consider him as Bond - I want something a little less dry and cold than Craig; but he’s a good choice visually, easily on par - or better, depending on your preferences - than Brosnan in terms of looks.
Question, @xeniaonatopp80, if Cavill is your new Bond, who would you choose as a remake!Xenia?
I don’t watch as much films as I used to so I would have to look further into potential choices. One aspect of casting that I imagine is difficult to gauge in advance is chemistry. I think with Goldeneye the casting director hit a home run, pretty much every character is perfectly cast and the bond women both have different yet great chemistry with Bond. I wonder if it is a case of just getting the correct actors for the characters and the rest writes itself? I think the quality of Goldeneye’s casting is so evident in comparison to Tomorrow Never Dies. Michelle Yeoh’s casting is a prime example of this aspect being ignored. She is a decent actress and believable as a Chinese spy but the chemistry is non-existent with Bond. Given that she was the biggest female action star in Asia in the 90s it feels like the producers were more focused on her casting in terms of box office. In terms of casting a modern Xenia to pair with Cavill’s Bond I wonder if everything would fall into place if her character was just cast brilliantly before even considering what Bond she would be paired with? Cavill’s level of comedic skill, as you mention, would definitely be crucial if the weakest element of the Craig era is to be successfully addressed in the future, that being the lack of that almost tongue-in-cheek, winking at the audience vibe that the Bond series was famous for in the past.