Daniel Craig's First Three James Bond Films (VIDEO SCRIPT)

Casino Royale

In case you didn’t know Casino Royale is intended to be the first James Bond story when you saw that “based on the novel by Ian Fleming” bit in the movie’s opening credits, the movie definitely relays that information to you the longer you’re engrossed in the story.

/Daniel Craig pretty much brings all of the energy, charisma and drive you’d expect him to bring playing a James Bond that’s been newly promoted to 00 status./

He may not follow protocol, but he gets results every time because of how he analyzes situations and reads people - even against the orders of M and the bureaucracy of MI6.

/All during the first half of the movie, we witness how untouchable he thinks he is as he utilizes his situational awareness, analytical reading of personalities and resources to foil Le Chiffre’s plan to blow up an airliner./

But while I appreciate seeing how resourceful Bond is without the likes of Moneypenny and the gadgetry of Q (which isn’t to say I wasn’t glad to see either of them when they were reintroduced to the franchise in Skyfall), I found the second half of Casino Royale to be my favorite portion of the movie despite it’s slow burn.

/While the first half establishes his arrogance and ego when it comes to how he gets things done on his own accord, the overall poker tournament checks him on it and puts things into perspective./

Meeting his analytical equal in Vesper and having to cope with the fact that he’s no longer the smartest person in the room...

Being supportive of Vesper during her panic attack after Bond’s fight with the Ugandan warlords being a stepping stone in caring for someone..

And seeing how he handles both rejection and not being in immediate control of a situation he’s involved in after Vesper denies him a buy-in when said ego causes him to lose his entire pot two rounds before the finals.

/Casino Royale does such a good job at giving you an in-depth look at both the awesome and the fragile portions of Bond’s character in both slow and action-oriented settings, and Craig’s performance over the course of it helps drive it home all the more./

Which is why it was a bit disappointing upon my rewatch that the believability of him finally falling for Vesper near the end of the movie wasn’t as expectant to me as nostalgia originally told me it was.

Personally, I think a few things factored in regarding why that wasn’t the case when it came to both Daniel Craig and Eva Green.

As stated before, Bond meeting Lynd was him meeting his match; someone that could read him just as well as he was able to read her and anyone else as we’ve gathered from his reputation throughout the movie.

/That’s why the scene of them picking each others outfits during the first night of the poker tournament was so important/ (it’s tailored).

/That’s why Vesper not following Bond’s instructions to a T in order to distract the other players that same night was so important/ (weren’t you supposed to enter so the others could see you?).

/Vesper’s relationship with Bond over the course of Casino Royale presented more as if he was the business partner that she was trying to suffer through the group project with, that she only allowed herself to truly befriend once he proved he was capable of getting the job done, as opposed to someone she allowed to let her guard down and expose her heart to over the course of the film until the end, when the absolute hardest 180 in a character personality turn was made to try and convince us that she had feelings for him. Which, to be honest, should’ve been the first thing Bond noticed was different about her the next time they met after being rescued from Le Chiffre’s torture bunker./

Then again, considering how everything went down in the movie once Vesper was introduced, there’s a chance Craig played that moment to resemble more along the lines of /“Yeah, I still got it. She’s all over me now” that resembled a lot of his original thinking presented in the movie over the course of its first half./

/Especially since the moments in the movie that COULD’VE shown off that there was a bit of interest in her on Bond’s end were done just as a way to get away with Bond kissing her in public under the guise of it either being part of the act or trying to avoid being noticed by dangerous outside forces./ (This is me roleplaying that I’m angry at you for losing our money)

Nevertheless, we see how much romantic attraction Bond TRULY has toward Vesper during the tournament when she stands her ground and refuses to give him the money to buy back in after losing his initial pot.

/So much so that not even the act of comforting her during her previous panic attack was enough to cause him to act differently/ (I can beat this man, you know that. Get your hand off my arm).

If anything, the way the movie carries out the relationship between Bond and Lynd up until her betrayal makes him seem a bit incompitent and undoes a lot of what’s established about his character earlier on in the movie.

Not to say there weren’t possibilities for things to lean in that direction by the time Vesper WAS approached by Quantum to steal the money after he won it from Le Chiffre.

/If there was proper setup, more moments between the two of them that allowed them to be more along the lines of friends than work colleagues, and a smoother transition for the two of them to actually explore a romantic relationship by the time she WAS approached, Bond’s inevitable heartbreak at Vesper’s betrayal would be as real as the movie initially intended for it to be, so that he can properly have the development in a way that doesn’t sacrifice his intelligence upon doing so./

Quantum of Solace

I have no problem admitting that I didn’t “get” Quantum of Solace when it was first released in 2008. If anything, I walked into it more with curiosity than anything else.

/This is, after all, the first Bond film in its cinematic history that was meant to be a direct follow-up to another story; a continuation of the narrative left open at the end of Casino Royale. James Bond was about to join a club that was founded by and where the only member at the time for the past 5 years was the Final Fantasy X series./

And while I still think Dominic Greene is the worst Craig era Bond villain upon my rewatch, there were a lot of things 19 year old La’Ron didn’t really appreciate when he first watched Quantum of Solace.

/He expected Quantum to be more diabolical with their operations and for Dominic to have more of a presence as its focused representative. He expected there to be more romantic chemistry between Bond and Camile considering that she was a Bond Girl. Like Casino Royale before it, young La’Ron didn’t put together the big picture regarding the connections that were established in all of the layers of storytelling present in the movie, and thus considered it the lesser of the at-the-time two films in Daniel Craig’s career./

Even though it’s still pretty mid in comparison to Casino Royale, what I do like about Quantum of Solace is how it continues on with exploring what happens when Bond’s sense of control is constantly challenged by forces outside of his control and learning how to react to them in order to become better.

In trying to get an understanding of Quantum, stop the plans of their leading member Dominic from controlling the water supply in Bolivia, and also seeking revenge for what they forced Vesper to do to him, Quantum of Solace made the decision to take the scene from Casino Royale where he considered shanking Le Chiffre with a butterknife and asked, “what would happen if Bond went through with delivering this rage in order to gain a sense of control, but it caused the beating of the butterfly’s wings to traject his life path in a way that only made him face reality sooner than expected?”

/And you can tell that by his actions over the course of the movie. He clearly still cares about Vesper despite trying to return to a cold uncaring demeanor after her betrayal. Uncovering the mysteries of Quantum, Mr. White and Dominic are now his distraction from the pain, and he thinks he can just swoop back into his spy life with the expectancy he’s used to in order to properly bury the pain in his work./

/But because of this organization that’s so overt that not even MI6 knows about them and that multiple nations are still willing to lay in bed with them out of necessity, Bond is in a situation that thanks to Dominic and Quantum planting the seeds of doubt throughout the people he can trust, not even this usual forms of escapism that he’s used to handling thanks to how we’ve seen him handle things in Casino Royale, or his carnal distractions that he lures certain women in to give him a false assurance of control is enough. Especially when the latter ends up suffering the consequences for his actions/ (Look how well your charm works, James. They’ll do anything for you, won’t they?)

That’s why upon my rewatch of Quantum of Solace, I’m kinda thankful for how Camile Montes was used as a Bond Girl.

/There wasn’t really a romance, but there really didn’t need to be. Casino Royale showed that Bond has his strongest connections to people when he’s able to relate and empathize with them./

Outside of M, the only two people he was able to reach that point with in Quantum of Solace were Mathis and Montes.

/She and Bond were in such strong states of vulnerability and trust with each other in the second half of the movie that even their ways of showing affection for each other by the end of the movie were ways of displaying intimate gratefulness despite knowing it would take a while if they decided to turn it into something more; something that Bond didn’t really believably have with Vesper in Casino Royale/ (I wish I could set you free, but your prison is in here)

Skyfall

I always loved Skyfall.

How it introduces the characters we know and love from the older iterations of the franchise in ways that fits this being a new iteration of Bond like Q and Moneypenny, from the way the story is orchestrated for this to be Dame Judy Dench’s swan song of the franchise I always thought was well done./

This was also the installment of Craig’s tenure as Bond that immediately helped me piece together the overall theme of his take on the character’s early years once I realized they were using this film to play around with the throwaway line from Quantum of Solace regarding Judi’s M being looked at as Bond’s mother.

/While this is a more seasoned Bond who has clearly worked more cases between this one and getting to the bottom of Quantum, he’s willing to take advantage of situations that allow him to escape his current life and the realities surrounding it. Like when Eve had to take the shot and as a result he (Adele). But what drives him back to MI6 isn’t the fact that he’s motivated by his duty like he says in the earlier films. It’s his worry for M’s safety, the only parental figure he has left./

In a way, she’s the Bond Girl of this film.

His want to protect her from Silva despite experiencing a form of betrayal by her hand that he has in the film’s prologue when he’s (Adele) pretty much matches that of his need to save Vesper from La Chiffre and the Kindred urge to be there for Camile during the final battle between Dominic and her abuser.

/And while he’s forced to relive M’s words regarding how his womanizing ways in order to have a sense of control over his life get them killed as a result in order to get there, he does everything he can in order to keep her safe and remove the threat of Silva efficiently. Including returning to the sources of old unresolved traumas./ (I always hated this house)

And while M does die in this movie, it’s a necessary death for Bond to experience and is another necessary step in Bond’s journey and development regarding his life as a 00 agent mirroring the harsh truth of life one experiences upon their journey through adulthood.

/If Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace mirror one’s sudden wake-up call to the harsh and cold realities of the real world upon first experiencing it, Skyfall reflect that those we look up to and have protected us -- regardless if they are blood or found familial individuals -- are just as fallible as we are. And to accept both their faults and their passing is a natural step in us becoming older, wiser and stronger./

No, I’m not saying you HAVE to forgive someone who wronged you, even if they are family.

/But Bond’s emotional notion in addressing the problem he had with M from the prologue when she gave the order resulting in him getting (Adele), wanting her to be as forward as possible regarding why she was being targeted by Silva in the first place, and still ending up going to the lengths he did to protect her from him while being as emotional over her death as he ended up being was proof that there was a deep and true unconditional love for her; one that’s usually associated with the relationship one has with a parental figure. Otherwise, he would’ve never returned to MI6 after learning Silva attacked headquarters in the first place. And it’s only thanks to the combination of respecting her final wishes and the newfound respect he gains for Gareth Mallory when he takes up the mantle of M that helps him to continue forward./