I guess its different if you've read the books. I haven't read them. To me, the early movies, had spawned a different Bond. That is the Bond I like. The suave sophisticated spy. I never got this idea of Bond as a killer(of course, he kills when he has to) or needing a dark side. I don't mind the campy stuff that much. I didn't take the movies that seriously. The older classic Bond movies were different, unique. To me, the attempt to turn Bond darker and to show him as a killer, has turned the Bond movies into generic action flicks. They don't feel like Bond movies.

Of course, it doesn't help that the makers have gone out of their way to piss off the classic Bond fans. For no real reason, they took away the traditional Bond beginning, where the music plays and he fires the bullet. Why do that? You have to know its would piss some fans off. Adding it wouldn't have taken away from the rest of the film. Also, they had to add in the scene in Casino Royal where they ask him if he wants his martini shaken or stirred, and he says "do I look like I giver a crap?!?" What was the point of that? To say to the classic Bond fans "See, you're stupid from wanting him to have a Vodka Martini, shaken not stirred. You morons!"? Finally, I still don't like the fact that they had to politically correct Bond, by turning M into a woman(no offense to Judi Dench intended). As far as I'm concerned, Bond died in Licensed To Kill.