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

[XCV330]

For reasons I am not entirely sure of, Swatch is offering an On Her Majesty's Secret Service Watch that doesn't really remind anyone at all of the movie, along with slightly less baffling watches for Moonraker, Dr. No, License to Kill, The World is Not Enough, and Casino Royale.
https://007.swatch.com/

 

[cooleddie74]

It may be almost sacreligious to post this in this thread given that I and other Bond fans consider DAF a serious decline in quality from the previous movie but I've always loved the opening gunbarrel music and pre-credits sequence score to the 1971 film and the fact that it's about the only thing in the movie that even indirectly references OHMSS.

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[CorporalClegg]

So I just finished watching this and I picked up on something I never noticed before:

When the Bond theme plays during the Piz fight at the end, the entire first verse plays almost exclusively for Tracy while she's kicking the one guy's ass with the champagne bottle. And the final chord dings just as she slams the other guy against the spikes on the wall. I don't know why that's never 'clicked' with me before, but it's fucking awesome.

 

[cooleddie74]

Yeah, Yuri gets impaled on the wall spikes just as the last note plays. If Diana Rigg wasn't badass in this movie by the time of that fight she was never going to be. The entire end sequence on Piz Gloria is a lot of fun right down to the bobsled chase. Peter Hunt really knew how to direct an action film with an editor's eye.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Yeah. It's too bad Hunt never got another go. The let Hamilton do three in a row, all of which rank pretty low for me. And I've always felt Goldfinger was kind of overrated. While it's still a fun film, I think it's the weakest of the original pentalogy.

 

[cooleddie74]

Live and Let Die is the only one of the "Trilogy" that I think is worthy of any kind of a high rating. Christopher Lee was amazing in TMWTGG but that story is just ever inconsequential and plodding and the slide whistle during the car jump is almost unforgivable.

 

[CorporalClegg]

See I like the slide whistle. Golden Gun might have had a ridiculous plot, but it really set the standard for the goofiness that I've come to love about the Moore era. Double-take pigeons and all.

 

[Starkers]

It's interesting, the last time I rewatched OHMSS and blogged about it, I noticed the same thing about Bond theme playing during Rigg's fight, and that it ends just as she spikes Gunther. But as I also says, she drives, skies, and fights as well as Bond, she has agency yet she doesn't detract from Bond's role as the hero. It's exceptionally well done and I still maintain that Rigg is so far beyond other Bond girls (for the most part) that it's ridiculous they haven't come close to doing this again.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

^ There have been multiple Bond women who have been Bond's equal or near equal in a scrap. Pick any of those who have been secret agents trained to kill.

Anya Amasova
Wai Lin
Jinx
Holly Goodhead

Not saying that's a complete list.

 

[cooleddie74]

Melina Havelock was quite the fighter as well. Her fierce quest for vengeance makes her even more danger-seeking and assertive than Bond in the mission to defeat Kristatos and recover the ATAC.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Melina's probably my favorite of Moore's Bond girls because she's tough, smart, and even though Bond does save her life a couple times, she's never the damsel in distress — as much fuss as they made over women's lib coming to Bond movies, Anya still ends up tied to a chair waiting for 007 to save her from impending doom.

Ultimately, Bond saves Melina from doing something she might regret later, which IMO makes for a better story & character arc.

 

[cooleddie74]

And the alleged villain of the story ends up saving both of their lives when Colombo throws the knife into Kristatos and kills him before the latter can kill Bond and Melina. Topol is a joy to watch in For Your Eyes Only, not quite as good as Kerim Bey or Marc-Ange Draco in the '60s but another one of the jovial, slightly flamboyant allies that Bond has to rely on to get the information he needs to defeat the actual villain.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Just finished Spy who Loved Me. Still a great film. I would argue it is the 'quintessential Bond,' as it pretty much defined the character within the zeitgeist for nearly three decades (if it doesn't still.) They had been tweaking the formula with each film up 'till then, but here, with the Broccolis in full control, they found the template they liked and stuck with it. The 'new world order' thing became the defacto goto-when-all-else-fails plot moving forward. That said, what @cardinal biggles said about Major Amasova is valid and certainly adds credence to the things Bach has said over the years. (Not that they didn't have merit, anyway.) Especially when you consider it came out the same year that one lady with the funny hair was saving skins and shoving dudes into the trash bin.

And I had to break-up Golden Gun into five parts over several nights to get through because it's such a slog. The part where Bond stuffs Ekland into the closet to shag Maud made me really uncomfortable and was almost a breaking point.

Am excited for Moonraker though. It's a terrible, terrible film to be sure. But it was the first Bond I ever saw and I still adore it.

 

[cooleddie74]

Moonraker is campy for sure but it's fun. It's reliable and goofy entertainment and I'll gladly rewatch it over, say, almost any Brosnan film or even half the Craig ones. Heck, it's a much more fun (and better) film than Diamonds Are Forever! Roger Moore is having fun in that one even if he later admitted he didn't like wearing the astronaut headgear.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Moore's middle three films — The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, and For Your Eyes Only — are his best. The first two they didn't let Roger be Roger, and the last two he was too old.

 

[cooleddie74]

Take the Bond film preference quiz.

Here's my results from "favorite" to "least favorite" based on the algorithm:

• On Her Majesty's Secret Service

• Moonraker

• For Your Eyes Only

• Octopussy

• Dr. No

• The Spy Who Loved Me

• Licence to Kill

• Goldfinger

• A View to a Kill

• Live and Let Die

• Thunderball

• The Man with the Golden Gun

• GoldenEye

• Skyfall

• You Only Live Twice

• From Russia with Love

• The Living Daylights

• The World Is Not Enough

• Tomorrow Never Dies

• Diamonds Are Forever

• Casino Royale

• Die Another Day

• Spectre

• Quantum of Solace
  
  Well this was a surprise. Mind you the quiz is based on which film would you rather watch right now compared to another James Bond film selected by the algorithm but still, for Moonraker to jump that high and From Russia With Love and Casino Royale to drop so low were big surprises. I really like FRWL and Casino Royale and find them both to be superior to the other film in story and execution and in my own personal rankings list they sit nowhere close to where they do in these results.
  
  I guess this just goes to show a lot of Bond films are popular because they're fun and goofy escapism and not necessarily because they're great films.

 

[Gary Mitchell]

Here are mine. I would switch 1 and 2 but other than that it's pretty close. I've been surprised the last few years. I didn't used to like Dr. No all that much but lately I've been rewatching it more and more.

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

 

[cooleddie74]

Poor DAD and DAF. They usually wind up in the middle or bottom of lists.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

James Bond Films - Result

On Her Majesty's Secret Service
GoldenEye
From Russia with Love
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
Goldfinger
For Your Eyes Only
Dr. No
Casino Royale
The Living Daylights
The Spy Who Loved Me
Diamonds Are Forever
Skyfall
A View to a Kill
Octopussy
Moonraker
Licence to Kill
Quantum of Solace
The Man with the Golden Gun
Live and Let Die
Tomorrow Never Dies
The World Is Not Enough
Spectre
Die Another Day

 

[CorporalClegg]

On Her Majesty's Secret Service
GoldenEye
From Russia with Love
Moonraker
The Spy Who Loved Me
The Living Daylights
Licence to Kill
The World Is Not Enough
Thunderball
Tomorrow Never Dies
For Your Eyes Only
Goldfinger
Dr. No
Die Another Day
Casino Royale
Skyfall
Quantum of Solace
Spectre
Diamonds Are Forever
You Only Live Twice
Octopussy
A View to a Kill
Live and Let Die
The Man with the Golden Gun

I'm actually surprised how accurate that is. Going strictly on the concept of "What would you rather?", the top ten and bottom five are pretty much spot on. And all the Craig stuff is perfectly clumped together in the middle in that, while I can appreciate them for their achievements, I don't derive a lot of entertainment from them. They just take themselves way too seriously. You can't wrap yourself in the pretense of hyper-realism and then handwave away your stupid plot under the guise of "It's okay because it's fridge logic." Plus they present a regression in their treatment of women that makes me uncomfortable in a way the old stuff doesn't because I can't disconnect from them like I do the old stuff.

Are the later Brosnan films worse? Certainly. They're possibly even objectively worse. But I still get a lot more enjoyment out of invisible cars and Michelle Yeoh kicking ass then I do watching Bond play poker paying endless lip-service to "beating the man not the hand" only to win with a royal flush or sneaking up on a woman in the shower who just told him about her history in the sex trade only to see her completely disposed of five minutes later.