As New 007 Rumors Surface, We Ask: Is Daniel Craig Irreplaceable as James Bond?

Looking back over the pantheon of James Bond films since the original Dr. No in 1962, it doesn’t take long to recognize which actors have held the franchise high upon their shoulders, and which were merely going through the motions.
Sean Connery will, perhaps, always be most closely associated with the character. After playing 007 six times over more than two decades in Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twiceand Diamonds are Forever (we won’t count 1983′s Never Say Never Again), Connery epitomized what readers had always loved about the character, even if author Ian Fleming was unconvinced about producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman’s choice of a Scotsman in the beginning.
Suave? Check. Debonair? Check. Requisite attitude and physicality? Check. Cheeky? Oh, yeah. Connery’s 007 was a man’s man, a wise-cracking chauvinist in an era of Cold War politics and innovative villains.
Then there was the incomparable Shirley Bassey singing the themes for Goldfinger and Diamonds Are Forever; the former still voted as the best Bond theme of all time.
To really get a sense of the influence of Connery’s Bond, and what made his original rendition of the character so memorable, listen to what Steven Spielberg had to say at the AFI’s Salue to Sean Connery a few years ago, using the embedded player directly below.
Meanwhile, the gentlemanly Roger Moore — while a fine actor who was wonderful as Simon Templar in the original ITV series The Saint — simply lacked the edge and physicality that had come to define Connery. It’s easy to see why the Bond producers saw him as the logical choice, but that didn’t necessarily make him the correct choice. The contrast in styles was too jarring after Connery had so completely defined the role.
Pierce Brosnan as James Bond. The right actor at the wrong time.Other actors from George Lazenby to Timothy Dalton tried to put their stamp on 007 (Dalton actually doing a reasonable job in 1987′s The Living Daylights), but something was always missing.
Meanwhile, the world was changing around Bond. No longer a product of post-WWII and Cold War espionage, 007 was quickly turning into an anachronism, even as he was on a far more perilous road to full self-parody. As geopolitics changed, so too did the direction from which threats came. By the time Pierce Brosnan arrived, it all necessitated more complicated story plotting, but, sadly, with that also came an over-reliance on unlikely gadgets and too-often silly circumstances. As good as Brosnan was (and he was good), his sort of Bond would have excelled better in the 1970s, where Moore’s was left far too flaccid.
Few believed Daniel Craig could possibly be a good choice when he was announced to play James Bond back in late 2004. He wasn’t particularly tall. He wasn’t particularly dark (quite the opposite, in fact, with his blonde hair). He didn’t seem to particularly exude stature or presence. Yet producers Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson and director Martin Campbell saw something in the then 37 year-old actor…something we would all come to see when Casino Royale opened in theaters November 17, 2006: a tough, gritty, no-nonsense 007 ready to defend Queen and country, albeit without the usual double-entendres or invisible cars. The road to self-parody had been abandoned; the franchise given a new lease on life.
Daniel Craig as James Bond, 007. Certainly the best Bond since Sean Connery, and perhaps the best Bond ever.Craig took everything that worked so well for Connery, but humanized the character more…while at the same turning him into a gritty, Bourne-crushing “blunt instrument