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James Bond 007 | OT | The name's Bond, James Bond

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Just finished The Spy Who Loved Me. It is the best Bond that Roger Moore have made of those I have seen so far. Mind you, I haven't seen For Your Eyes Only.

You should really watch For Your Eyes Only. It's a really great film, and my personal favourite Roger Moore Bond flick. While The Spy Who Loved Me is probably the quintessential Bond film in how it uses its tropes, For Your Eyes Only is a great spy movie, and is the quintessential "gritty Bond" film in my opinion. It's lack of gadgets, personal story with lower stakes, twists and turns, and great outdoor stunts put it as one of the best of the older (and sometimes newer) Bond films that did away with the formula like From Russia With Love, Casino Royale, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and The Living Daylights.

I highly suggest you watch it. It has probably the best ski chase since OHMSS, and some really great performances, and one of my favourite locations for a finale ever, as well as containing Moore's Bond at his darkest.
 

Cafeman

Member
I watched Spectre tonight, and I enjoyed it. Great cast. I was pleasantly surprised at seeing Andrew "Moriarty" Scott in there, as well as Q and Moneypenney and M getting some screentime.

There was a young (20?) lady yapping on the phone after the film, to her friend. I heard "it was the WORST James Bond film I have ever seen!". I was confused. Maybe she only saw 2? Because Spectre is far from the worst. I was particularly disappointed by Tomorrow never dies, The World is not Enough, and earlier film License to Kill, for example.

Don't go be talkin' bad about Moonraker or the awesome Live & Let Die. Maybe View to a Kill is the worst ...
 
Put my in whatever column that saw Spectre as a step up from Skyfall, but disappointingly not in the same league as CR/QoS.

It was pretty fun, pretty dumb, but a huge waste of potential.

I don't think we need a reboot, but I do think the next one better be more gritty and less nonsensical.

Now all the chatter has got me wanting to watch The Spy Who Loved Me, so maybe I'll do that.
 
op doesn't work well with light theme

4e106dd405.png
 
Spectre is my second favourite Cgraig film after CR, but still in the bottom few of overall Bond Films.

What I really liked about this film was the many references to other Bond films, FRWL, OHMSS, YOLT, FYEO.
 

Pachimari

Member
His contract specifically says that he CAN return for one more, but that he also can just decline if he doesn't want to return.
There is no contract. Michael Wilson recently confirmed, that they have no contract with Daniel Craig.

op doesn't work well with light theme

4e106dd405.png
I'll look into this.


You should really watch For Your Eyes Only. It's a really great film, and my personal favourite Roger Moore Bond flick. While The Spy Who Loved Me is probably the quintessential Bond film in how it uses its tropes, For Your Eyes Only is a great spy movie, and is the quintessential "gritty Bond" film in my opinion. It's lack of gadgets, personal story with lower stakes, twists and turns, and great outdoor stunts put it as one of the best of the older (and sometimes newer) Bond films that did away with the formula like From Russia With Love, Casino Royale, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and The Living Daylights.

I highly suggest you watch it. It has probably the best ski chase since OHMSS, and some really great performances, and one of my favourite locations for a finale ever, as well as containing Moore's Bond at his darkest.
I might watch it today. I think there's only 4-5 Bond moves I still haven't seen.
 
By the way, this is THE LIST. There are other lists, featuring variations on this order, and while they might have their merits, they are not THE LIST, and therefore fundamentally incorrect.

BEHOLD!


The Best Five:

1) Casino Royale
2) From Russia With Love
3) Goldfinger
4) Skyfall
5) On Her Majesty's Secret Service

The following are still very good:

6) Goldeneye
7) The Spy Who Loved Me
8) The Living Daylights

Everything below this point is okay.

9) Dr. No
10) Licence to Kill
11) Spectre
12) Quantum of Solace
13) For Your Eyes Only

These two are mediocre at best.

14) You Only Live Twice
15) Thunderball

The following are straight-up bad movies:

16) Tomorrow Never Dies
17) Live and Let Die
18) The World is Not Enough
19) Moonraker

These are just shit:

20) The Man with the Golden Gun
21) Octopussy
22) Diamonds are Forever
23) A View to a Kill
24) Die Another Day
 
I've started to get into Bond now. Of the Brosnan ones I've seen:

Tomorrow never dies > The world is not enough (although Christmas Jones almost kills it for me) > Goldeneye

Kinda also doing it cuz I've enjoyed the James Bonding podcasts.

After Brosnan I guess I'll start from the beginning.
 

Pachimari

Member
I actually thought if we should make a separate thread, or something, so that GAF have a definite list in the OT. But we should also be careful that the thread doesn't turn into lists only. But I'm very interested to see what people feel about each Bond flick.
 
I actually thought if we should make a separate thread, or something, so that GAF have a definite list in the OT.

They do! I just posted it!

It's INFALLIBLE.

I'd also recommend that any Bond fan who hasn't yet, go and read Fleming's books. They're not great, really - a lot of them are pretty fucking gross so far as colonialism/sexism/racism goes. But there are some pretty fucking nice spy stories in there as well, and the Bond in those books is pretty damned fascinating, for good and for ill.

The best book AS a book is probably Moonraker.
 

kinoki

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
I've always felt that the Gold-movies are the best of the respective Bond:

  • Goldfinger
  • GoldenEye
  • The Man with the Golden Gun

It's just a shame that a majority of the Bonds haven't had any gold in their titles. Skyfall is still the best of the Craig-era but hopefully we can get an even better send-off to the character.
 

Pachimari

Member
If I had to choose the best Bond from each era, it would be:

Sean Connery: From Russia With Love
George Lazenby: On Her Majesty's Secret Sevice
Roger Moore: The Spy Who Loved Me
Timothy Dalton: License to Kill
Pierce Brosnan: Goldeneye
Daniel Craig: Casino Royale

It have to be said, that I like Tomorrow Never Dies and Quantum of Solace a lot.
 

Peru

Member
Moonraker is one of hte most hilarious action movies made. Constantly silly in a really fun and charming way. I think Bond fans hating on it have misunderstood some central charms of the Moore era. The Moore Bonds are truly bad when they're jumbled, messy, bores, not when they're super silly cheese.
 

EZIOLINK

Neo Member
Moonraker is one of hte most hilarious action movies made. Constantly silly in a really fun and charming way. I think Bond fans hating on it have misunderstood some central charms of the Moore era. The Moore Bonds are truly bad when they're jumbled, messy, bores, not when they're super silly cheese.

His name's Jaws, he kills people.

tumblr_mjv47tZ2tP1s4rha3o1_500.gif
 

Pachimari

Member
I started watching For Your Eyes Only, and is surprised to see Blofeld in the intro, unless that was just a pretender. He did have the cat though. And I don't like Blofeld. I'll continue my watch later when I got time. I only have 5 more Bond movies to go, and I can make my own list, even though Bobby Roberts got the definitive one I must admit. ;)

PS: Updated the OT, hope the text can be read on both themes now. Added a header image, made by Quick as well.
 
There is no contract. Michael Wilson recently confirmed, that they have no contract with Daniel Craig.

I stand corrected.

I started watching For Your Eyes Only, and is surprised to see Blofeld in the intro, unless that was just a pretender. He did have the cat though. And I don't like Blofeld.

It's Blofeld, but they didn't name him because of a legal dispute over the copyrights for him and SPECTRE.
 
It's Blofeld, but they didn't name him because of a legal dispute over the copyrights for him and SPECTRE.

Anything to do with SPECTRE in the Bond universe was tied up in legal woes for years.

So way back in the 50s, Ian Fleming gets a few Bond novels published and decides he wants to get a film made, so he collaborates with two writers, Jack Whittingham and Kevin McClory to write a film script but that falls apart. Ian Fleming rather cheekily takes the story and turns it into the book of Thunderball. McClory sues Fleming and the former gets some film rights to Thunderball. When its time to make Thunderball, Bond producers Saltzman and Broccoli made a deal with McClory to produce the film. After that, McClory moved ahead with plans to remake Thunderball and rather than deal with more legal issues, Broccoli and EON leave Blofeld and SPECTRE off the table, which is why he's not named in For Your Eyes Only, but appears in McClory's 1983 remake of Thunderball, Never Say Never Again. Eventually, the rights to Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again are procured by EON or United Artists so that those rights issues were dead and buried. Which is how we got Casino Royale in 2006 and no more competing Bond films from rival studios.
 
By the way, this is THE LIST. There are other lists, featuring variations on this order, and while they might have their merits, they are not THE LIST, and therefore fundamentally incorrect.

BEHOLD!


The Best Five:

1) Casino Royale
2) From Russia With Love
3) Goldfinger
4) Skyfall
5) On Her Majesty's Secret Service

The following are still very good:

6) Goldeneye
7) The Spy Who Loved Me
8) The Living Daylights

Everything below this point is okay.

9) Dr. No
10) Licence to Kill
11) Spectre
12) Quantum of Solace
13) For Your Eyes Only

These two are mediocre at best.

14) You Only Live Twice
15) Thunderball

The following are straight-up bad movies:

16) Tomorrow Never Dies
17) Live and Let Die
18) The World is Not Enough
19) Moonraker

These are just shit:

20) The Man with the Golden Gun
21) Octopussy
22) Diamonds are Forever
23) A View to a Kill
24) Die Another Day

Very good List...

I am one of those Skyfall haters though, so I'd put something like Goldeneye or License to Kill in the top5, and let Skyfall drop down into bad movies territory.

Other than that, you nailed it, imo...
 

Solo

Member
Hard not to be depressed about the current state of the series.

Time to hit the reset button again, I'm afraid.

Yup. Crazy how in a span of 10 years we've come full circle from a franchise reinvigorating entry like Casino Royale to a slog of a film riddled with poor writing and fanservice in Spectre and are once again in need of a fresh take.
 
I saw some talk in here about The Living Daylights. Great Bond film, easily in the top 5, but even more than all that, it features John Barry's very last score and the very best Bond score of all 24 films. It's majestic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrHRFGi6ULQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erdibleoZf8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjz3XIsIODM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARR51SFcm5Y

And an awesome outro song by the Pretenders:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SKXcw5FAqY
 
Frankly, the producers don't care why Casino Royale is so critically revered because SkyFall made the most bank, so they brought in the same hokey direction and plotting as SkyFall. They want to repeat SkyFall, not Casino Royale sadly

Well Skyfall was the better movie... so I agree with more.
 

Pachimari

Member
Currently visiting my father and we're gonna rewatch The Living Daylights. I have seen it once before and didn't find it that incredible, and it is also out of my top 10 but maybe I weren't in the right mood back then. Gonna give it another chance.

[edit]
I'm one hour in and it is confusing me at times. With places, where we are located and who works for who. But I understand it now any way. I remember that skiing flee in Austria, that was so awesome. And the car is all kinds of cool.
 

Blader

Member
I started watching For Your Eyes Only, and is surprised to see Blofeld in the intro, unless that was just a pretender. He did have the cat though. And I don't like Blofeld.

Nope, that was really him, and that was really how they wrapped up the 20-year long Blofeld/SPECTRE story in the original series.
 

Ithil

Member
I've always felt that the Gold-movies are the best of the respective Bond:

  • Goldfinger
  • GoldenEye
  • The Man with the Golden Gun

It's just a shame that a majority of the Bonds haven't had any gold in their titles. Skyfall is still the best of the Craig-era but hopefully we can get an even better send-off to the character.

The Man With The Golden Gun is awful.
 

Pachinko

Member
The defacto list posted in this thread couldn't be more disagreeable for me but that's what's great about bond films in a way , there are so many of them that I don't think any 2 people would rank them all that similar. About the only consensus that can be agreed upon is which entries are truly awful - Diamonds are forever is the worst bond film. Live and Let Die is also pretty terrible and Octopussy is the most boring entry. Many like to dig on Moonraker because for most , it was the worst entry they sat through. It's stupid , especially near the end end but it's actually kind of in the middle of the pack. I'm going to follow Bobby Roberts lead though and make a similar list just to show how opinions can vary on the bulk of the films -

The hands down, best bond film
Casino Royale (the 2006 Daniel Craig version)
The great entries in order
Dr.No
Thunderball
Goldeneye
The good entries in order
Spectre
The Spy who loved me
License to kill
From Russia with Love
The above average entries in order
OHMSS
Goldfinger
Quantum of Solace
Skyfall
Living Daylights
The mediocre entries in order
You Only Live Twice
For Your Eyes Only
Tommorow Never Dies
The Man With The Golden Gun
Die Another Day
Barely Watchable entries in order
Moonraker
A View to a Kill
World is Not Enough
Blofields shark tank
Octopussy
Live and Let Die
Diamonds are Forever


What I've determined for my own particular taste in bond films is that I like smaller scale stories that are still big on action and set pieces but as soon as you move the stakes beyond a single city being at risk or spend too much time doing boring pointless "bond trapped in a harem of girls" sequences I begin to lose interest. It also needs to be mentioned that if I think I'm watching an Austin Powers movie instead of bond , that particular film loses a lot of points- Diamonds are Forever is particularly guilty of this. For the record here , may ranking of the actors playing bond would go Craig/Connery (tie), then Dalton, Lazenby, Brosnan and finally Moore at the bottom. Roger Moore is basically Adam West batman in his films.
 

Solo

Member
Nope, that was really him, and that was really how they wrapped up the 20-year long Blofeld/SPECTRE story in the original series.

They did this because they'd lost the rights to Blofeld/SPECTRE (which is why his name is never mentioned in the film) and they knew they had a competing Bond film coming in NSNA featuring Blofeld AND Connery, so this was EON's way of "killing him off".
 
Yeah one of the worst.

I wouldn't put it in the bottom 5. It's chief sin is that it's boring.

It's as if, following DAF and LALD, they wanted to do a more grounded Bond, tried, found it lacking, and said "fuck it, let's throw in a flying car."


I've been considering doing another list, but my heart's not in it. But I do feel like listing the Worst Bond Movies!

#1 Diamonds are Forever

Sins:
Wasted follow-up to one of the best Bonds and certainly one of the best Bond story turns
Boring as fuck
Worst henchmen ever in Bond? I think so.
Connery clearly does not give a fuck about anything
Worst Bond Girl until Dr Christmas Jones comes along
Painful moments including referencing James Bond as a publicly known celebrity

Mitigating factors:
Charles Grey isn't half bad as Blofeld, even if the script is horrible.
Decent theme

#2 Moonraker

Sins:
Bond in SPAAAAAAAAAAAACE!
First half is really dull
Spandex-wearing Master Race

Mitigating factors:
Jaws may be corny as all get out, but he's fun at least.

#3 Die Another Day

Sins:
Invisible Car, Ice Hotel, Space Laser (again)
Parody-level villain with diamonds embedded in his face
Wasted potential of opening sequence

Mitigating factors:
The movie is almost good until halfway in.
It's not Moonraker or Diamonds are Forever. (I'm actually surprised this isn't the worst, I used to think so. The I tried to rewatch a lot of Bond and those other two really are worse)

#4 Octopussy

Sins:
Moore looks far too old for this.
Forgettable overall
Bond in Clown getup
Clumsy attempt to make Bond relevant as cold war dies down

Mitigating factors:
Maud Adams

#5 You Only Live Twice

Sins:
Ruined the flawless run of Bond movies that proceeded this.
Bond as a Japanese Man
Blofeld is just silly here, after being so meanacing as a man behind the scenes previously
Overall plays like a parody movie
Ruins the chance to adapt one of the more offbeat novels (not that it was without issues, but it would have been a hell of a thing, done right)

Mitigating factors:
Great theme


Honorable mentions

A View to a Kill could be here, but I have a soft spot for it as essentially a remake of Goldfinger, one of my favorites. And Christopher Walken and Grace Jones are great. But is almost in the bottom five.

Man with the Golden Gun escapes the bottom five for being primarily unoffensive. But it's boring, and that's bad.

Live and Let Die is pretty offensive in parts and ridiculous in others, but this is my Guilty Pleasure Bond. Yaphet Kotto and Geoffrey Holder are great, Jane Seymour is hot, and the theme song is fantastic. I could never regulate this to the bottom of the pile, but it has aged more poorly than any other Bond movie.
 

Pachimari

Member
Just finished The Living Daylights and I got to say I enjoyed it way more on my second watch. It was much more interesting and entertaining, even though it can be confusing at times. I love the score and soundtrack too but the true genius of this movie is the plot. I gotta say, The Living Daylights were outside my top 10 until today. Now it is probably in my top 5.
 

Peru

Member
Moonraker is great, sorry. Not only the cheesy space stuff but everything to do with Hugo "may I press you to a cucumber sandwich" Drax. Diamonds Are Forever at least has the best (worst) car chase of all time with the moon buggy.
 
I just looked up my old list, and indeed I did have MWTGG nearer the bottom. Perhaps time has dulled my memory of it, favorably!

I also ranked LALD a lot higher, for the personal love I have for it, not for objective qualities.
 

Solo

Member
This was my list from the other thread:

1. Casino Royale
2. From Russia With Love
3. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
4. The Living Daylights
5. Thunderball
6. Quantum of Solace
7. Goldfinger
8. Dr, No
9. GoldenEye
10. Licence To Kill
11. For Your Eyes Only
12. Skyfall
13. Live And Let Die
14. Spectre
15. The World Is Not Enough
16. The Spy Who Loved Me
17. Tomorrow Never Dies
18. You Only Live Twice
19. The Man With The Golden Gun
20. Octapussy
21. A View To A Kill
22. Diamonds Are Forever
23. Die Another Day
24. Moonraker
 
big Bond fan here. read and own all the original Ian Fleming books and saw all the films (have the blu-ray collection). not a big fan Spectre. felt too long and a bit boring. MExico was awesome though. not enough Waltz if you ask me.
 

liquidtmd

Banned
I always think View To A Kill perhaps had the worst shoehorning in of a title by a character in a movie ever

Zorin says it when he's in the airship. It makes no fucking sense, it's amazing
 

Spider from Mars

tap that thorax
Big Jimbo fan, I watch all the movies once a year and have since I was a kid. Now, time for my entry into the list war.

Casino Royale
From Russia With Love
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Thunderball
Quantum of Solace

The Living Daylights
For Your Eyes Only
The Spy Who Loved Me
Goldfinger
Dr. No

Goldeneye
License to Kill
Live and Let Die
Tomorrow Never Dies
Skyfall

Spectre
The World is Not Enough
Octopussy
Diamonds are Forever
You Only Live Twice

The Man With the Golden Gun
Moonraker
A View to a Kill
Die Another Day
 
I always think View To A Kill perhaps had the worst shoehorning in of a title by a character in a movie ever

Zorin says it when he's in the airship. It makes no fucking sense, it's amazing

My high school Bond loving friends and I made such fun of that at the time. We would imitate Christopher Walken saying "Tile... flooring" as that made just as much sense as a title.
 
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