The James Bond Film Discussion Thread (With Bonus Lazenby!)

[Henoch]

Took a while, but here are my results:

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
2. From Russia with Love
3. You Only Live Twice
4. Live and Let Die
5. Thunderball
6. Goldfinger
7. For Your Eyes Only
8. Dr. No
9. Casino Royale
10. Skyfall
11. Quantum of Solace
12. Diamonds Are Forever
13. Tomorrow Never Dies
14. Spectre
15. The Man with the Golden Gun
16. The Spy Who Loved Me
17. Octopussy
18. The World Is Not Enough
19. A View to a Kill
20. GoldenEye
21. Die Another Day
22. Moonraker
23. The Living Daylights
24. Licence to Kill

Generally, I'm a big Connery fan, followed by Moore and Craig. I hated Dalton. Brosnan's films just blended together so I had a hard time making distinctions between them. The best written story is OHMSS with supporting cast like Rigg, etc. Who doesn't love a bobsled chase?

 

[The Realist]

I hated Dalton.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Dalton was everything people think Craig is.

 

[cooleddie74]

Only better in many ways.

I like Craig...but you know I have a point.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Craig is the better actor, heck he might be the best actor of the bunch. It's just that the character is so conceptually weak.

And there's this ongoing internet "truth" that he's the closest thing to literary Bond. But that's not true at all. Dalton was.

Bond was very much Fleming's masturbatory power-fantasy catharsis. You know that thing where you always think of the great comeback 20 minutes after the argument? Bond was his outlet for that. As such he was a cold-hearted, calculating and manipulative bastard. Craig is just a brutish thug douchenozzle with big arms.

 

[cooleddie74]

Perpetually edgy and dark Bond gets old after a while. Even when Connery's Bond was being a misogynist dick he had a twinkle in his eye and a lighter tone than Craig's.

 

[The Realist]

Craig is the better actor, heck he might be the best actor of the bunch.

He sure doesn't show it as Bond. It's just scowl-scowl-smirk-scowl.

He's fun and funny in Knives Out, however. Why he decided to play Bond so one-note (maybe two if you count the smirk) is unclear, but it was the wrong call.

Dalton brought dash and romance to his Bond (especially in The Living Daylights), in addition to flinty intensity. Craig thinks he's giving humanity to the character by making him perpetually sullen and miserable, but Dalton's Bond was a much more rounded performance.

 

[cooleddie74]

Lazenby wasn't a talented actor but he could combine seriousness with lighthearted humor and somehow made it work despite his lack of acting experience. His final scene with Tracy's dead body is still one of the most emotionally-wrought moments in the franchise.

 

[CorporalClegg]

If I had to pick a best performance as the character, I'd have to go with Brosnan. As I've always found him to possess that Sir Patrickesque quality of being able to cultivate something out of less than nothing.

He's fun and funny in Knives Out, however. Why he decided to play Bond so one-note (maybe two if you count the smirk) is unclear, but it was the wrong call.

My guess is that was more of the Chopping Broccolis decision. I think they were trying to find their Bourne/Bale Batman.

but Dalton's Bond was a much more rounded performance.

That's sort of what I was trying to imply.

Lazenby wasn't a talented actor but he could combine seriousness with lighthearted humor and somehow made it work despite his lack of acting experience.

I gotta disagree with you here. As brilliant of a film as it is, Lazenby is very much the weak-link. His lack of experience is made painfully obvious with him constantly missing his marks and beats. If anything, the credit should go to Glen as there are several scenes where it's clear there were a few takes spliced together.

 

[cooleddie74]

To me his weakest performances are when he's playing Sir Hilary Bray and has to pretend he's another person, which Connery and even Moore could have done and still endow their alter ego with the feeling that you're looking at Bond undercover. As an online reviewer has pointed out Lazenby just comes off as pretending to be Bray, not Bond in disguise. He really doesn't pull that off until he's inside his locked quarters at Piz Gloria and drops his persona to begin his investigation.

Lazenby is neither terrible nor a great actor but he was more than serviceable enough given that this movie required Bond to be more raw brawn and physicality than extensive and multilayered dialogue. And in Lazenby's defense he pulls off most of his scenes with Diana Rigg pretty well, such as the proposal scene in the barn.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Can I just say now that we're back on the subject, the whole thing with blaring the Bond theme at then bothered me way more this time than it ever has before.

I know it's been a thing for a long time and most people think the should have used a soft instrumental of piano melody
of All the Time. But I was thinking they shouldn't have used any music at all.

Just have one single live long shot where all you here is Lazenby's muffled weeping underneath the wind and the police officer calling-in a homicide. Maybe some sirens in the far distant background.

The only difficulty would the shot would have to be long enough to fit all the credits in. And Di would have had to remain perfectly still the whole time - if not holding her breath. But damn it would have been powerful.

 

[cooleddie74]

The soft instrumental version of "We Have All the Time in the World" would also have worked being played over the bullet-marked windshield and the closing credits. One of OHMSS's small handful of annoying flaws is the choice of end credits music after such a heartbreaking scene.

Bond just lost the only woman he ever loved enough to want to spend his life with. The James Bond Theme blaring over Lazenby's grief just seems out of place even with that cool Moog synthesizer.

 

[Captaindemotion]

So it’s given me

• On Her Majesty's Secret Service

• Casino Royale

• Goldfinger

• Skyfall

• GoldenEye

• The Spy Who Loved Me

• From Russia with Love

• Dr. No

• The World Is Not Enough

• The Living Daylights

• Thunderball

• You Only Live Twice

• Spectre

• Tomorrow Never Dies

• Live and Let Die

• Die Another Day

• Licence to Kill

• Quantum of Solace

• For Your Eyes Only

• Diamonds Are Forever

• The Man with the Golden Gun

• Octopussy

• Moonraker

• A View to a Kill

• 
  Top 10 isn’t too far off the mark nor is the bottom 4 but it’s a bit mixed up around the middle. Still, more accurate than I’d have expected.

 

[cardinal biggles]

My results:

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
2. For Your Eyes Only
3. Casino Royale
4. The Spy Who Loved Me
5. Tomorrow Never Dies
6. Licence to Kill
7. The Living Daylights
8. From Russia with Love
9. Skyfall
10. The World Is Not Enough
11. GoldenEye
12. Goldfinger
13. Moonraker
14. You Only Live Twice
15. Spectre
16. Dr. No
17. Octopussy
18. Diamonds Are Forever
19. The Man with the Golden Gun
20. Quantum of Solace
21. Live and Let Die
22. Thunderball
23. Die Another Day
24. A View to a Kill

I definitely agree with 1-9, those are my "go-to" Bond films if I'm just looking to watch one randomly rather than as part of a rewatch. And the bottom six certainly fit with a "well, since I'm being a completist..." kind of mood.

 

[CorporalClegg]

It's interesting that we all seem to have the same number one. Odd given the thread premise and all.

 

[cooleddie74]

And DAF, DAD and QOS are all pretty much in the bottom half or one-quarter of our lists.

 

[cooleddie74]

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[cardinal biggles]

Before I even watched the video, I had a sneaking suspicion where he was going to go with that, and I was right. Tracy is the one thing that truly links the first five Bonds together, though it becomes sort of a sliding timeline by the time you get to Dalton and Brosnan, since Dalton would have been in his early 20s and Brosnan still a teenager in 1969.

I also agree that Craig is on a different timeline (the presence of Judi Dench's M notwithstanding); it'll be interesting to see how they treat it when picking the next Bond, whether it'll be another reboot, or if that Bond will be working in Craig's timeline.

 

[cooleddie74]

Yeah, I accepted that Craig's Bond was a rebooted timeline in 2006 and never even gave it a second thought how his films fit into the original Bond movie timeline - because they don't. Sure, Judi Dench coming back as M was confusing at first but once you got used to the fact that they kept her in the role(albeit a different M) because they loved and respected her performance so much you could get on with the Craig Era and not let the glaring differences with the 1962-2002 films bother you.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Yeah, I accepted that Craig's Bond was a rebooted timeline in 2006 and never even gave it a second thought how his films fit into the original Bond movie timeline - because they don't. Sure, Judi Dench coming back as M was confusing at first but once you got used to the fact that they kept her in the role(albeit a different M) because they loved and respected her performance so much you could get on with the Craig Era and not let the glaring differences with the 1962-2002 films bother you.

Plus Skyfall made it clear she’s a different M than the one from the Brosnan years, as it says (IIRC) that she was MI5’s station chief in the Far East during the 1990s.

And the great thing about her return was that

Spoiler: Spoiler for Spider-man: Far From Home

it a precedent for actors returning as the same character in a different continuity & allowed JK Simmons to return as J. Jonah Jameson.

.