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

[Starkers]

Yeah that's just wrong on so many levels.

May Day as inspiration for Xenia? Try Fiona Volpe or even Janet Leigh in The Spy in the Green Hat who's basically a 60s Xenia, even down to the orgasmic glee she derives from violence.

Last decent 007 one sheet poster? The Living Daylights would like a word.

Controversial I know but I'm not a huge fan of Walken in this, he's dialed up too high, even for him, and the age disparity is too great, and that's a problem overall. It's a weird thing to somehow counterbalance Moore's age by surrounding him with beautiful and virile young people. It just makes Moore, Macnee, Maxwell, Brown and Llewelyn look even older than they are!

I hadn't really noted before that AVTAK has Bond's highest body count...ahem...you know, that kind of body count! Although you could argue he probably sleeps with four women in both From Russia with Love (Sylvia, Tatiana, two Gypsy ladies!) and You Only Live Twice (Aki, Kissy, Helga and Ling).

Does make an important point about Bond's presence ruining weddings (not always his fault)

OHMSS - bride dies
LALD - Ceremony ruined, cake destroyed
AVTAK - cake destroyed
LTK - Bride raped and murdered, groom has leg eaten by shark!

I guess the only wedding that doesn't end in disaster is YOLT (although it isn't a legitimate wedding)

 

[Tallguy]

Can’t say I agree but a valiant defender of the film all the same https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...aem_yXDyvatq5mwd0NJKUkT-cw#Echobox=1747805280

OK I haven't even finished my coffee yet and you hit me with "A View to a Kill is 40"?!?

Last decent 007 one sheet poster? The Living Daylights would like a word.

As would the Goldeneye teaser poster.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Outside of the song, I barely remember A View To A Kill.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Outside of the song, I barely remember A View To A Kill.

I remember seeing it in the theater with my brother and next door neighbor.
The only thing I can remember is the blimp and the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

[cooleddie74]

I remember the whole movie. It was a pop culture event for me when I was 10 and 11 years old.

 

[Turtletrekker]

My only real issue with A View to a Kill is that Roger Moore is clearly too old to be playing the character. But it's also been literally decades since I've seen it so, maybe my attitude would change on a rewatch.

 

[Captaindemotion]

My only real issue with A View to a Kill is that Roger Moore is clearly too old to be playing the character. But it's also been literally decades since I've seen it so, maybe my attitude would change on a rewatch.

As the linked story points out, he was younger then than eg Denzel in the Equaliser, than Tom Cruise in his new and more recent MI films, and probably not significantly older than Craig in NTTD or Liam Neeson in Taken. But, frankly, people looked older back then. I saw online after the sad death of George Wendt that most of the Cheers cast were only in their 30s in the first few seasons. Even Coach was only 58 in S1 and died at the age of 61 but he looked like a modern-day 80-something,

 

[cooleddie74]

The initial shift from Moore to Dalton is visually very jarring (for me, the most jarring of all the actor changes in the franchise) but since The Living Daylights has at least some Moore-type humor in the script and Dalton has a couple of witty if dry Bond one-liners in his first film it makes the transition from Roger's campy tongue-in-cheek take to Timothy's far more stone-faced and serious interpretation a little easier to process.

 

[Tallguy]

and probably not significantly older than Craig in NTTD

Well, Craig was the same age as Rog in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME.

Was Rog the oldest Bond? By a LOT? He was 58 when A View to a Kill came out. (I'm just going by years, if someone had a birthday sooner or later, it's close enough.)

If we count Sir Sean in Never Say Never Again he was 53. Otherwise he was a mature looking 40 in Diamonds. Pierce got booted at 50. Craig was 51 when NTTD wrapped. (And it was released how many years later?)

That's quite the gap!

 

[Captaindemotion]

The initial shift from Moore to Dalton is visually very jarring (for me, the most jarring of all the actor changes in the franchise) but since The Living Daylights has at least some Moore-type humor in the script and Dalton has a couple of witty if dry Bond one-liners in his first film it makes the transition from Roger's campy tongue-in-cheek take to Timothy's far more stone-faced and serious interpretation a little easier to process.

I always think of the line “he got the boot” in TLD as being written for Roger, though I’ve a feeling I read an interview somewhere with one of the writers who said that they wrote it long after Dalton had been cast (don’t quote me on this, I could be entirely wrong). Either way, Tim looks very uncomfortable delivering it, IMHO.

 

[cooleddie74]

"Salt corrosion" is both goofy enough I can picture Roger Moore saying it but not so over-the-top that Timothy Dalton can't be believable uttering it.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

I think the only time the producers really addressed Moore's advanced age was in FYEO, where he rebuffed the advances of Lynn Holly Johnson when he found her in his bed and he told her to get dressed and he would buy her an ice cream.
Octopussy had Maud Adams, but she was a more mature woman.
Then we get A View to a Kill and Tayna Roberts who was 22 years younger than Moore, and it showed.​

 

[Starkers]

I know she was playing young, but it always amuses me that there's less than 18 months in age between Carole Bouquet and Lynn-Holly Johnson!

re Dalton, I think much like Craig he can be funny as hell, but it's a much drier humour. They wrote for Craig whereas they sometimes expected Tim to just say the kind of lines Rog would have.

 

[TiberiusKirk]

OHMSS is my favorite Bond film!

 

[Tallguy]

OHMSS is my favorite Bond film!

To your planet, welcome!

 

[cooleddie74]

Today marks 40 years since A View to a Kill premiered in San Francisco on invitation from Mayor Dianne Feinstein.

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[XCV330]

I don't dislike A View To a Kill but I liked it better when I was younger. It borrows too much from other Bond movies.

Good stuff: Tibbett! Duran Duran is awesome. Walken and Grace Jones make an oddly compelling duo. It has a blimp. We discover Bond can make a quiche out of anything with minutes, his true superpower. The Penelope Smallbone nonsense is over.

Bad stuff: borrowing from previous, better films. The car chase downtown is meh. Infiltrating the dig site.. more meh. The diving bits just remind you that there are earlier Bond films with better diving bits. The bond car.. a Rolls or a Renault Fuego? Hang in there.. the Aston is coming back in one more movie..

 

[cooleddie74]

The fire truck chase is just basement level Bond street chase antics. The only saving graces are Moore's facial expressions and the San Francisco cop with all the dialogue. AVTAK seems to be the entry drug for a generation of Bond fans, or the second biggest after Moonraker. AVTAK was released and then put on home video and pay cable at the right moment in history for millions of kids and young adults to discover James Bond.

It's not the best 007 film, but damn, is it the right one with which to introduce Bond to a lot of people.

 

[XCV330]

I remember as a kid being super embarrassed to even say I'd been to Octopussy. (why couldn't they have just went with "Property of a Lady" if they needed a Flemming title), but yeah, A View To A Kill is approachable. I never really understood the issue of Moore's age. It never bothered me then or now. Paring him with partners that are way younger than him was problematic, but its not uncommon in Hollywood, then or now, unfortunately.

 

[cooleddie74]

58-year-old Roger Moore just looks way older because he's from the Silent Generation. The man was born in 1927, and just about everybody born in 1927 looked older than a 58-year-old in 2025.

I cut him a lot of slack, and Bond films in the 1980s just had different dramatic and casting expectations than any that are made in the 21st century. It's a little jarring sometimes seeing Roger running around Zorin's warehouse, but even Roger knew this was his last outing and took it tongue-in-cheek.