Right Bond, Wrong Time: The Spy Who Was Overlooked

Felix doesn’t die in License to Kill, meant to have said ‘left for dead’. Apologies. Thanks for watching and commenting!😊

Dude, Timothy Dalton is the best Bond. Way, way ahead of his time.

He was the only man that clearly read the books. What a shame he only made two. As a 21 year old kid I had Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes and Timothy Dalton as James Bond! It was a brief period of Heaven. I don’t think I’ll ever see it again.

“A gentleman with a killer instinct.” Best description of Dalton’s Bond I’ve heard.

The first hour of The Living Daylights is probably the best a Bond movie has been.

Closest incarnation of Fleming's Bond. The public by and large didn't go for it but proper Bond fans know just how good Tim was.

Dalton is definitely my favorite bond

It’s not that Moore was approaching 60 years of age. There’s nothing wrong with an older Bond. But the filmmakers kept writing the movies as if Bond were younger. That’s why Moore looked out of place in his latter films.

He is the greatest Bond ever - no one did it better than Timothy - his are also the greatest Bond movies ever.

"You're a hell of a field operative" finding all of those clips, articles and other documentation. I have been defending Timothy's portrayal of Bond for close to 30 years now, and find it very heartwarming to see the growing appreciation for the outstanding job he did. He added so many layers to the big screen version of Bond, communicating so much with just his eyes alone (eg when he doesn't buy Koskov's bs story), and then we have those scenes in which he truly brought Fleming's vision to life - the "Sniper is a woman", Bond being torn between anger and sadness when Saunder's was killed, when Bond confronts Pushkin in the hotel room ... I could go on. I like and appreciate all of the different interpretations of Bond, but there's no doubt in my mind who's the best, and that is Timothy Dalton for putting a lot more meat on the bones, and being the most faithful to the source.

License to kill is one of my favorite Bond films. And living daylights had one of the best of Barry's soundtracks.

Bless you for making this video. My respect and love for Dalton’s portrayal has only grown over the years. He was trying so hard to break Bond free from “the formula” and yet was unfortunately impossibly chained to it. It also didn’t help that he was following Roger Moore who, in the 7 films he had done, had ingrained his lighter, more funny, more relaxed Bond into the psyche of the film going public. What I absolutely love about Dalton’s Bond is that he had all these subtleties to his performance. He wasn’t trying to play Bond as a one liner superhero stereotype. He was a man. An imperfect man who at times, let his emotions show through when things got the better of him. For the first time in a LONG time, you FELT what it was like to be Bond and much of the time, it was NOT pleasant. Dalton made Bond once again a man you could genuinely believe was who he said he was. As far as I’m concerned, Dalton walked so Craig could run.

Dalton to me seemed closest to the Bond character as written in the novels. I really liked the work he did as Bond. He had a bit of Connery, but he cared more but wouldn't show it except in controlled bursts. More of a soldier Bond. It's a dirty job but someone has to do it, but he didn't necessarily take pleasure in everything he did.

License to Kill was the first Bond movie I watched in its entirety. So Dalton my favourite Bond. Opening scenes of Living Daylights are awesome.😊

Always loved Dalton and his contribution to the Bond franchise. He did a great job.

Dalton and Craig are really the only Bond actors who could simply swap and the movies would not suffer. The Craig films would fit Dalton a bit better than the other way around as the grittier surrounding story and characters would have worked great for Dalton. Craig would have suffered as Dalton did by some of the leftover camp that remained in those two films. Agree completely on your take. I loved the Dalton films and TLD is one of my favorites.

Dalton was amazing, it was just a weird time for Bond films. Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Predator - people wanted gunplay. Hard for Bond to find a spot

I always think of Daltz. He was great. Fleming's Bond. There is a misconception nowadays that Dalton was unsuccessful in the role. He wasn't as both The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill made a lot of money worldwide (yes LTK underperformed in the US for various reasons but did well elsewhere). It was just unfortunate that the MGM/Eon legal issues scuppered his tenure. Loved him.

I did like Dalton’s bond he had a good balance of menace and charm. Wonderful actor.

In regard to the Lotus scene in The Spy Who Loved Me: I always thought it was so funny how Barbara Bach's character was so scared when Bond drove off the pier into the water....and then a few minutes later she claimed to have 'seen the blueprints years ago'.