3. Action Scenes: Continuity and Believability
Before you laugh off this tanker truck photo performing an unbelievable feat from License to Kill, realize what I'm getting at with my next point: We got to see Dalton's iteration of 007 be immersed in many epic action stunt pieces over the course of just two films. So whether it was Bond driving the Aston Martin over an iced over lake, preventing a cargo jet aircraft from crashing prematurely over Afghanistan, jet-skiing while evading drug cartel members, or yes, jumping onto tanker trucks at full speed going down mountainous terrain and then performing the above feat with the truck he stole, we pretty much got to see Timothy Dalton do it all as Bond before GoldenEye was released. My point? It would have allowed for some great continuity and carry over from his previous two films into what could have been his third with GoldenEye. The opening scene alone, where Bond has to escape from the chemical weapons facility with 006, leaping off the cliff and jumping into the plane before it crashed into the mountains would have been much more familiar and fun seeing Dalton's 007 in such a death defying moment after a six year absence from the role. Why? Because we saw his version of Bond escape death many times before! Later on, with the Russian tank that Bond countermands to escape death would have given me flashbacks to Bond performing the unthinkable as he did in those tanker trucks from License to Kill. And last but not least, when Bond slips aboard that yacht in Monte Carlo, and has to kick that random dude's ass he see's a faint reflection of, would that not have been more convincing with Dalton or the man that wasn't even a year removed from playing Stuart Dunmeyer in Mrs. Doubtfire? Hmm. Overall, I feel it would have been great to see the guy we bared witness to being caught up in such high stakes life and death moments do it all one final time. There was plenty of fun for Dalton to have in this film and I think audiences would have thoroughly enjoyed getting reintroduced to his style, particularly his strong screen presence in action scenes. My next reason deals with the consistency of the character that had been established by Dalton at the end of the 80s...