Monday 5 January 2015

Trevelyan's Mainframe - FILE: Bond, James / Twenty Years Removed


I might have guessed… This transmission shall start you off, then? So be it. Your codes are in order and you may proceed. This is what we have for our subject, twenty years removed from his GOLDENEYE appearance...

According to the data compiled on this mainframe, our James Bond has been quite the busy man since stomping around the Cuban jungle exactly twenty years ago. After the second GOLDENEYE satellite was destroyed (complements of Double-0 Seven himself), Mr. Pierce Brosnan has reached many more career heights, still meeting and surpassing the expectations of his fans to this day. Now then, let’s get into this, shall we? Of course, three more Bond escapades would unfold following GOLDENEYE including, TOMORROW NEVER DIES, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, and DIE ANOTHER DAY. After a solid performance in all four Bond films, James Bond would be recast and the series would see a reboot, leaving Pierce Brosnan somewhere out in the cold by 2003. Due to Pierce’s climbing age, he would be removed from the role and James Bond would once again dawn a new identity without him. With a brief sour taste in his mouth, Brosnan would move on from James Bond, continuing to grow and grace the silver screen in fresh and new directions.

Now, what should precede the report on Brosnan’s Bond tenure? I suppose we should start where Pierce Brosnan would become Julian Noble, the main character of the motion picture THE MATADOR in 2005. This lead role would earn our Bond a handful of award nominations, spanning from the Golden Globe Awards to the Irish Film & Television Awards, among others. The film would garner a fan-base of its own and rightfully so, or so I’ve been told. Next, our files seem to suggest that his next large outing would arrive in 2008, with MAMMA MIA! hitting theatres in mid-July of that year. Adapted from a West-End/Broadway Musical of the same name, MAMMA MIA! showed fans a different side of Pierce Brosnan and his performing skill. With his familiar charm he did quite well, playing the possible-father role of Sam Carmichael. Though Pierce Brosnan was questioned (and slightly teased) for his acceptance of this musical role early on, he gave a memorable performance just the same. Again, so I have heard.

Data entries then pick back up with THE GHOST WRITER, dropping in February of 2010. As Adam Lang, Brosnan would again rack up the award nominations that year and give yet another gripping, on-screen performance. Now, call me fickle, but let’s skim ahead. Bits and pieces here and there… Ah, now we come to the most recent collection of our intelligence. Surely, no mainframe has been compiled even remotely as efficiently, but I digress! By 2014, Pierce would embark on crafting a character within an action film that would nearly mirror the days of the Double-0 Section of MI6. As retired agent Peter Devereaux, Piece Brosnan would channel his inner agent from years passed. THE NOVEMBER MAN would serve as a platform for Pierce Brosnan to give his most notable performance to date, since his first outing as James Bond. Boy, it just warmed my heart seeing good ‘ole ‘PB’ shooting, punching, and blowing stuff up (all the while looking damned cool doing it)! This section ends with a note of, “See that movie, GOLDENEYE fans”.

There seems to be a healthy bunch of side notes collected in this file that perhaps I should relay, as they pertain to the subject quite heavily. From 1997 to 2000, Pierce Brosnan worked with organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) for several join ecological causes. Also noted is the fact that Brosnan has been an ambassador for UNICEF Ireland since the launch of the "Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS" Campaign in 2001. Several links to Greenpeace are also listed. Skills honed since GOLDENEYE include painting, public service, and advisement all in the name of charity and the earth’s health. 

In short, your hunch is right. Our Bond has spied, shot, and even sung his way rather far from the world of Bond. Despite great adversities (poverty, losing his late wife and daughter to ovarian cancer, etc), it seems James Bond has become quite the role-model human being. Bond’s path has grown and changed quite rapidly in his twenty years away. Since GOLDENEYE, Pierce Brosnan has become a film producer, decorated actor, television star, entrepreneur, charitable donor, environmentalist, humanitarian, icon, and (most importantly) a devoted husband and father. However, no matter the lengths he has travelled in the passed twenty years, Peirce Brosnan will always be our James Bond, Agent 007. 

That’s about the long of it, old boy. No gratitude necessary. 
It was the least I could do for a “friend”…

- End transmission, Trevelyan.

No comments:

Post a Comment