Do you think Bond should have fought Frost instead of Graves?

I feel that the final battle should have had Bond fight Frost instead of Graves, cause they said that Miranda Frost, was the more skilled swordfighter, which would have made her the more challenging opponent for Bond in that sense. Plus Bond got to do some swordfighting earlier, and it would have been an opportunity to pay off that skill, by putting him against Frost.

Then Jinx can fight Graves instead, and I think that would have been better. What do you think?

It certainly would have depicted Jinx as more of Bond's equal by permitting her to dispatch the main villain of the film. 

As much as I like the idea of Bond infiltrating and sneaking around the plane prior to the final confrontation, I think the entire act could have been improved upon. We could have returned to North Korea and had Bond replay (in a sense) the opening mission of the film where he succeeds this time. 

Or we could have stuck with Purvis and Wade's original, low key storyline where Jinx was the henchwoman and Frost was Gala and helped Bond find the mole within MI6 - in which case I imagine the final act of DAD would have played out differently, and probably for the better.

It was always strange to me how Bond came up to her corpse and acted as if he was mourning her (cue Brosnan dramatically placing his hand on his mouth), when 30 mins earlier he didn't even hesitate trying to shoot her once he realized she was the mole.

So yeah, this movie is all over the place. I think the only way this could have been fixed is if they went back to square one on the script using the mole concept, with Bond working "on the outside". I'd drop the MR concept altogether, because Brosnan essentially already had that with GOLDENEYE. I'd have saved a more faithful MR adaptation for a later actor.

Oh okay. Who was the original MI6 mole in the original script then?

Also, one review I read on DAD said that the reason why they didn't have Bond fight Frost is because fans do not want to see Bond have to fight a woman villain... but he did it Goldeneye, so do you think that the social culture has really changed that much since then?

He doesn't really have a "fight" with Xenia in the same manner that Jinx has with Frost, so I doubt it's a social culture thing.

Well what would be the difference in the fight then? That with Frost, the fight would be on more equal footing? Is there something wrong with that?

Eon probably always thought audiences wouldn't want to see Bond having an actual brawl out with a woman on the same level as Red Grant or Alec Trevelyan, so it's not really a case of social culture changes. The closest it came to that were Xenia and May Day, but they're shown to outmatch Bond by insane strength so it was never a fair fight.

I guess but it seems like Eon is being prudish about it therefore.

Maybe it was thought that having him cold-bloodedly kill a female villain for the second movie in a row was too repetitive or something?

It wouldn't be the second time in the row, as his killing of Elektra was as hot blooded as it gets, since he was anything but calm in that moment.

Fair enough, maybe just the killing of another female villain in consecutive movies then.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Maybe it was thought that having him cold-bloodedly kill a female villain for the second movie in a row was too repetitive or something?

Maybe, but he's killed so many male villains throughout the series, that I find it even more repetitive that they went in that direction.

In the original draft of the screenplay, Dr No was a monkey. That would've been innovative, but would the franchise still be a going concern 56 years on if they'd went with it? I have my doubts.

ironpony wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Maybe it was thought that having him cold-bloodedly kill a female villain for the second movie in a row was too repetitive or something?

Maybe, but he's killed so many male villains throughout the series, that I find it even more repetitive that they went in that direction.

To be fair, most films rarely have a heroic male character killing women. When that happens it's typically done for shock effect, because again that rarely ever happens. Even having Bond hit a woman was done for shock.

Yeah that's true, but I felt that in DAD particular, since you have a female friend, they could have gone for a little shock value.  I guess I just see so many girl on girl fights, and guy on guy fights in action movies, that I felt it was a bit of a cop out.

DAD pretty much is just a recycling anyway. Whatever they did that was groundbreaking at the start was flushed away pretty early on in favor of doing yet another MOONRAKER adaptation, with Brosnan Bond yet again fighting another version of himself.

Which is why I like the moment when Bond tries firing at Frost before realizing his gun was emptied by her. There's no hesitation, he just goes for the kill, showing he had no compunction over killing a woman.

Oh okay. I thought Bond had some compunction over killing her since he covers his mouth and looks sad at her death later on, after Jinx killed her.

I thought that Bond had compunction but still even with the compunction, didn't hesitate cause he knew he had to escape.

ironpony wrote:

Oh okay. I thought Bond had some compunction over killing her since he covers his mouth and looks sad at her death later on, after Jinx killed her.

Jinx gets a cut on her abdomen and a few minutes later she no longer has it when lying with diamonds.

Basic consistency is not DAD's strong point.

ironpony wrote:

Oh okay. I thought Bond had some compunction over killing her since he covers his mouth and looks sad at her death later on, after Jinx killed her.

I always thought it was more disappointment than grief in a Connery-esque "can't win them all" sort of way.

Wait...is this original DAD outline available anywhere? I have got to see it!

The conclusion of DAD is by far the weakest aspect and only held together by some of the performances with the atrocious dialogue. It is such a terrible, lazy and pointless rehashing of GF that it ultimately serves no purpose and you wish the plane would just blow up on the runway before ever taking off.

Bond taking them by himself is the only way it would work as Jinx vs. the main villain would never do in a film climax and would only be resolved as another "heroic capable female Bond suddenly captured at the end to give Bond a personal crisis as well" moment.

hegottheboot wrote:

Wait...is this original DAD outline available anywhere? I have got to see it!

Unfortunately not. It's based on the little information available regarding the original draft through interviews and articles. Though, a page or two from the script of Wai Lin's intended cameo in DAD surfaced in a Making Of DVD and found its way on the web somewhere.

I think Jinx defeating Graves could have worked, why not?

ironpony wrote:

I think Jinx defeating Graves could have worked, why not?

In a completely different film, sure.

In the film we actually do have, the only interaction we have between Graves and Jinx is when he zaps her with his power glove. So having them fight in the climax wouldn't feel all that compelling since they've never even exchanged words.

But that's just it though, why is there this rule that in order for two people to fight in a climax, there has to be an exchange of words. I don't think that rule has to follow every time.

For example, in Casino Royale, Bond fights the villain at the end, with the eye patch sunglasses, and they literally just met, and this is the climax. So I am not bothered by that.

In light of another thread, what if Brosnan fought Frost in this age of Metoo? Bullet dodged.