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James Bond is dead.

That may be an overstatement, but the way I see it, he is at least on life-support. I don't see any actor in Hollywood being able to play the role the right way. Not the way Sean Connery did it. Roger Moore was OK, but since he retired in 1985 after his romp with Tanya Roberts in "A View to a Kill", we've been stuck with a nobody (Timothy Dalton) and a lightweight (Pierce Brosnan). Yes I intentionally skipped over the "George Lazenby Era." Maybe the character itself is outdated, but I still believe that if Sean was still The Man Behind The Martini, 007 would still be the coolest guy around.

Every time someone talks about the next 007, you hear the same boring names: Colin Farrel, Jude Law, etc - I'm sorry, but guys like that just won't get it done. Oh, and forget about Vin Diesel and Marky Mark -- those guys are even bigger jokes. Now, don't get me wrong: all of those actors are talented - but none of them are Bond-worthy.

The more I think about it, the more I believe Connery is the only guy that ever got this role right and the only one who ever will. He was suave, cool, smart and tough. He made it believable that a guy could go from charming socialites at a party to fighting to the death with someone who outweighed him by 200 pounds. (I mean really, can you imagine Pierce Brosnan in a fight to the death? Neither can I.)

This Connery-Bond Dynamic is the single-greatest argument ever for cloning. We should have cloned Connery in 1962, frozen the clone, then in the 1980's when the world really needed him, President Reagan could have ordered the clone thawed (Austin Powers style) and the clone could have made "For Your Eyes Only", "Octopussy" and all of the other Bond movies for the next 15 years. At which point, Clone #2 would take over. Plus, we never would have been subjected to "Never Say Never Again" which, sadly is the single-greatest argument for forced retirement.

See this is the kind of stuff our government should be working on.