James Bond Franchise (1962-∞)

[therewillbeblus]

On Her Majesty's Secret Service is probably my favourite one

I like both of Dalton's a lot.

These are good recs if you're going to skip around after the first three Connerys. I recall Dalton's two being no-nonsense actioners, and he may wind up being your favorite, if only because he's relatively taciturn and breaks the mold of smug that Connery and Moore fortified into the image of Bond. On Her Majesty's Secret Service is its own thing entirely- I never thought it was the best but it is good, and it does have a surging fanbase as the oddball favorite amongst those loyal and apathetic to the franchise

I agree with Chris, but give it to Goldfinger. It doesn't hold back on that off-putting behavior but it's probably the most structurally entertaining entry in the canon, in addition to introducing a slew of gadgets and other playful Bond-staples. If that does absolutely nothing for you, gift your set to a boomer for Christmas

[hearthesilence]

I remember a friend of mine telling me about the border-crossing joke in The Living Daylights - I thought it was hilarious, but when I finally saw it, the execution didn't quite live up to what I had envisioned. It's still one of my favorite Bond jokes though.

[beamish14]

You Only Live Twice is probably the perfect Bond film. Wildly un-PC moments (Connery getting waxed in Japan is a howler), the most ridiculous means of conveyance (the adorable mini helicopter), the best sets designed by the great Ken Adam (Blofeld’s lair inside of a volcano), and the glorious theme song from Leslie Bricusse and John Barry. It exemplifies, for better or for worse, all of the elements that has made the franchise a success over six decades. Cracking dialogue from Roald Dahl, and one of the best pre-credits sequences as well.

[knives]

The only reason I will not heed some of the good advice here to quit while I'm ahead is because since these aren't streaming, I bought the box set LIKE AN IDIOT. So I'll pretend sunk cost fallacy isn't real and at least watch a couple more. Between this and those terrible Charlie Bowers shorts, my already scant recent non-existent blind buying has only resulted in me being reminded why I no longer blind buy things

Goldeneye and whatever one has Jonathan Pryce in it are the Bonds I've already seen as a lad, and I remember being bored out of my mind by the latter. I did get in trouble in high school for very loudly and without thought saying "Oh fuck me" upon being relayed by a classmate one of the stupid sexual quips for whichever one has Denise Richards in it as Dr Holly Jolly Christmas or whatever the hell her stupid name is

Hate to make you slap your head, but they’re all on Prime.

[Maltic]

The Brosnan's are what they are, but I at least appreciated the attempt at capturing the Moore spirit in Tomorrow Never Dies. I like Goldeneye but I have to admit I never really understood the love many seem to throw at it.

Much of that could be due to the Nintendo 64 game

For years, Alien was a graphic novel(-ization) to me btw. Terminator 2 - an arcade game.

[tenia]

I do think Goldeneye is quite a good movie. It might be a tad overlong but it always felt to me like a good balance between jokes (who often aren't too heavy), action sequences (competently made and edited) and storylines.
Tomorrow Never Dies on the other hand is the one movie from the boxset I had to pause and never bothered resuming.
I can't bear most of the Moore movies anymore. I quickly grew bored of them, but while I realised, rewatching them, how The Spy Who Loved Me actually is a very good Bond movie, I still went through Live and Let Die, Octopussy and A View to a Kill thinking "my god they're really absolutely awful".
The 2 Daltons are very good, IMO.
I like the Lazenby but don't find it to be that good.
I very much like Casino Royale, though it's way too long. Quantum is awful. Skyfall is beautiful but otherwise not that good to me. Spectre is meh. No Time to Die felt like 1hr too long. Even the climax is so long it gets boring.

[beamish14]

I do think Goldeneye is quite a good movie. It might be a tad overlong but it always felt to me like a good balance between jokes (who often aren't too heavy), action sequences (competently made and edited) and storylines.
Tomorrow Never Dies on the other hand is the one movie from the boxset I had to pause and never bothered resuming.
I can't bear most of the Moore movies anymore. I quickly grew bored of them, but while I realised, rewatching them, how The Spy Who Loved Me actually is a very good Bond movie, I still went through Live and Let Die, Octopussy and A View to a Kill thinking "my god they're really absolutely awful".
The 2 Daltons are very good, IMO.
I like the Lazenby but don't find it to be that good.
I very much like Casino Royale, though it's way too long. Quantum is awful. Skyfall is beautiful but otherwise not that good to me. Spectre is meh. No Time to Die felt like 1hr too long. Even the climax is so long it gets boring.

I’m pretty much 100% with you on all of these points save for what you write about On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which I enjoy a bit. It’s easy to see why Christopher Nolan lifted so much of it for Inception. Quantum is an absolute debacle, and Marc Foster never should have been selected to helm one of these. The last third of it is the most nonsensical the series has ever been, with the editing making the action impossible to follow in many scenes.

Goldeneye and Casino Royale are the highlights from each actor’s respective turn. The World is Not Enough has a great pre-credit sequence but it unredeemable otherwise, and even Garbage’s theme song was a major let-down

Dalton is pretty much the ideal Bond, and I wish we’d gotten a third film with him. He had an edge, but was more magnetic than Craig. The chase in the snow on a cello in The Living Daylights is a highlight from the franchise

[J Wilson]

I started reading the Fleming novels maybe a decade or so ago, pulled in by attractive looking reprints, and I was mildly surprised, aside from the even more in your face racism and misogyny, that there was more actual threat to Bond in the books; he even gets brainwashed in one. Sadly, the film version of Dr No doesn't end with the titular character dying like he does in the book: Bond buries him in a flood of guano. You can see the books as somewhat classier predecessors of stuff like Mack Bolan and its ilk, minus the veneer of cultured living. Filmwise, I do enjoy You Only Live Twice, if primarily for the absurdity of Bond in Japan, and that theme song. The Living Daylights is enjoyable as Bond in the age of AIDS is not bed-hopping in the film, so we get just one relationship with a woman, which isn't even consummated onscreen by the end. Dalton is very likeable in the role, and Joe Don Baker is a suitably goofy villain.

[Finch]

The only Bond I like enough to own and rewatch regularly is Casino Royale. It's a bit too long but it strikes the best balance of meeting the series' requirements and being a suspenseful movie with some really excellent action scenes in it. I really need to check out You Only Live Twice.

I do like the Daltons. Never got into the Moore films.

[colinr0380]

They do but I'm pretty sure you're not going to like them. I'm an unapologetic Bond fan but will say Dr. No is one of my least favorites. I still wouldn't call it the worst: I'm really stuck between Spectre and Die Another Day for that spot.

I don't mind Die Another Day too much outside of the egregious CGI and surfboard windsurfing, which were really pushing things further than the breaking point that had already been broken in the 'remote controlling my luxury car through a name-branded mobile phone' sequence in Tomorrow Never Dies. But I really did cringe at the more obvious attempts to pay homage to Dr No by giving Halle Berry the iconic 'appearing out of the surf' Ursula Andress introduction (but unfortunately in how fast she explodes out of the water gasping for breath makes it look much more undignified!) and then the multiplication of the laser table scene at the end with lasers going everywhere. I can understand why those moments were in there for the 40th anniversary of the film series, but they also unfortunately smacked of being too shoehorned in.

I have no issues with Madonna's theme song or cameo though (its even rather edgy, having the title sequence take the form of a long term torture scene in the age of the War on Terror, with the seductively sexy silhouette women turning threatening). And it was the film that introduced me to Rosamund Pike, who was the standout figure of that film even though she was trapped in that 'first beautiful woman is either a disposable first victim or turns out to have been an evil villain before we get to the actual damsel in distress' paradigm that got solidified with the iconic Shirley Eaton scene all the way back as early as Goldfinger.

That's either the pleasure or the problem with Bond, depending on how you see it. Lots of things introduced in the earliest films become fixed tropes, and really just increase in scale until the weight of absurdity forces a recalibration and/or reset: i.e. The Spy Who Loved Me kind of defines the grandiosity of Bond and the structure, but then 1979s space-set Moonraker took things too far and just couldn't compete with Star Wars. So that forced things to be pulled back a little on For Your Eyes Only, before Octopussy went goofy again, etc. Similarly Die Another Day forced a break and the change from Pierce Brosnan, who I really think fared the worst out of all the Bonds so far in terms of tone. At least George Lazenby had a serious film to compliment his serious outing! But because of how 'loved' the nudge-nudge cartoony Roger Moore films were, that cemented their own tropes into the franchise, the Brosnan films were trapped still trying to straddle the serious-goofy line. The Timothy Dalton films are great as an extra serious take on the franchise, but The Living Daylights still has a few eye-rolling moments (the aforementioned cello scene) and the much more tonally consistent Licence To Kill is really good but by abandoning the silly stuff for actual pain and suffering that was lingered on more than being a quick punchline also ran the risk of abandoning everything that made a film Bond to just become a standard American action film (and even worse got a restrictive age rating due to its violence).

Although ironically domino the first film doesn't feature the opening set piece going into the big musical number under the title sequence of frisky shadow ladies that would become a thing after Dr No's circle titles. And beware that the gypsy camp stuff in From Russia With Love brings the film to a similarly screeching halt for a long stretch.

The most important thing about Bond is that it became a kind of comfort film for generations, where when you went to an entry you pretty much knew what you would be getting: exotic locations (especially important in an age where international travel was only just becoming a thing for the masses, and so the main way to experience the world was still through a screen. In that way the Bond films have a fair amount in common with the Cinerama travelogues or mondo films, just with action and romance in them. And they set a template that many, many films through the decade followed, even Jess Franco!), beautiful women, outlandish gadgets and a big setpiece finale set in a volcano or an evil villain's undersea lair or space station or something equally as grandiose that then involves Bond saving the girl and the day and making everything explode at the end, with a suggestion that the heroine of this film is finally the one that has managed to permanently bed Bond... until it all resets and the slate is wiped clean for the next entry. The perfect Christmas or Bank Holiday film in fact, where the whole family can watch it on in the background, but not have to follow its plot too closely or worry that anything too graphic (or sexy!) will occur in front of the more impressionable youngsters.

[colinr0380]

I started reading the Fleming novels maybe a decade or so ago, pulled in by attractive looking reprints, and I was mildly surprised, aside from the even more in your face racism and misogyny, that there was more actual threat to Bond in the books; he even gets brainwashed in one.

In the UK in particular the Michael Caine starring Harry Palmer series is often seen as the slightly harder-edged version of Bond, though of course that tipped into a bit of overblown adbsurdity too a few entries in.

[Toland's Mitchell]

I watched 80-90% of the series back in 2010-2011 when they were all on Netflix, so it's been a minute since I've seen them. But I recall enjoying the first three Connery Bonds, before they went downhill. My fondness for Dr. No probably comes from the fact it was the first one, but my guess is it doesn't hold up? We'll see whenever I revisit. I thought From Russia With Love and Goldfinger were the strongest of Connery Era, for different reasons though. I liked Russia for its darker tone, Robert Shaw's villain character, and a very good suspense scene on the train. Goldfinger was straightforward fun. I'm not a fan of the remaining Connery films. Overall, I agree his version was an asshole, and with the misogynistic elements others have brought up (which were an unfortunate product of the era), but I found him somewhat charming and liked his overall balance of spy skills and fighting skills. I also appreciated these films touching upon contemporary Cold War themes.

The Roger Moore Era was the worst. He was too old for the character and he lacked the acting chops in my opinion. He was older than Connery in real life, and the fight scenes in his movies suffer from it, especially by the 1980s, when Moore himself was in his 50s. He looked silly fighting hand-to-hand two or more guys at a time who were larger and half his age. He also looked silly when charming the young women. The scripts and the action sequences were cartoon-ish as well for the most part. They lost some the stakes that felt relevant at the height of the Cold War, while the action scenes too often went over-the-top. I liked the stories of Man with the Golden Gun and Spy Who Loved Me, the only Moore films I would consider re-watching. The rest of them sucked.

The Dalton Era was the exact opposite of Moore. The films/character went from comical and cartoonish to dark and serious. However audiences were fatigued by the late-80s, who were tired of Moore, but not ready to embrace the anti-Moore so soon. It's unfortunate because the Dalton movies are two of the better ones, while his character was more likeable than Connery and Moore.

Pierce Brosnan benefited from the 6-year hiatus. I think audiences liked him because he had some of the smugness of Connery and Moore, but it was toned down. And sometimes, he gave more depth to the character. The problems with the Brosnan Era were the screenplays and the direction. GoldenEye was the only good one.

I don't care much for Daniel Craig's somewhat cool brooding portrayal of Bond. Even though I liked two his first four films, it was always the story-lines, direction, technical aspects, side characters, and villains I much preferred to him. But No Time to Die brought reason and meaning to Craig's style, and the movie greatly benefited. It's the most nontraditional Bond film, and arguably one of the three best of the series.

[RIP Film]

That's either the pleasure or the problem with Bond, depending on how you see it. Lots of things introduced in the earliest films become fixed tropes, and really just increase in scale until the weight of absurdity forces a recalibration and/or reset…

I wonder if it’s not due another big reset, but rather now, finally, from the whole thing being such obvious male escapism of its time. Even the recent films have been kind of embarrassing with whiz kid Q hacking into anything imaginable, or the attempts to put women on equal ground by making them sexy but “tough”, like having Ana de Armas do John Woo moves in her low cut dress. I’d like to see a more naturalistic approach, ironically Tenet felt like it had the stylings of a modern Bond, minus the time travel contrivances. And Mr. Robot showed that the reality of information conflict, which this franchise has been shy to embrace, can be a lot more (interesting) than the nerd stereotype sitting at a Jumbotron computer pushing up his glasses. But I wager instead of a new approach they’ll just pivot, shake up the casting with a non-traditional lead, while somehow retaining all of the baggage.

[zedz]

After being over-aware of every facet of them yet only actually having seen a couple as a kid (and seeing no evidence that I'd enjoy more than that), I decided to give the franchise a fair shake and MY GOD is Dr No a bad film, and an unexpectedly boring one too. I cannot overstate how much I hate James Bond in this film and especially Connery's performance of him. This might be the most I've ever been flabbergasted at the common man's opinion on anything. How can anyone defend this little shit after he sleeps with that girl before turning her in, or shoots the unarmed professor? The whole movie was just me marinating in my hatred of this smug fuck. Richard--W, if you're still hate browsing, I fully understand why you love Bond now.

Please tell me these get better

We worked through the whole series a few years ago (before the latest one, which I still haven't seen), and they mostly suck, except for the occasional action sequence. Goldfinger is probably the best representation of the Connery years, but it still ain't great. On Her Majesty's Secret Service is interesting in that it's a reboot that attempts to try something different, so it's possibly the most interesting Bond film from the classic era. The Moores have camp value and not much more. The Dalton films are a grittier reaction to that, which makes them interesting on a meta-Bond level if kind of routine as spy films. Brosnan is a better version of the Moore Bond, but the films get real bad real fast. Casino Royale is probably the best of the bunch, but the rest of the Daniel Craig series is uneven and paints itself into a corner by making everything about Bond and his tedious back story.

[thirtyframesasecond]

I've probably only seen around half of the Bonds - very light on my Connery viewing despite them being in constant rotation on UK TV - but The Living Daylights is probably my favourite Bond of what I've seen (more so than any of the Craigs, for sure).

And the Brosnan's aren't great films but they spawned one of the classic theme songs - The World is Not Enough (and Tomorrow Never Dies is a serviceable effort). The Living Daylights is actually the best Bond theme song as well.

[lacritfan]

I did get in trouble in high school for very loudly and without thought saying "Oh fuck me" upon being relayed by a classmate one of the stupid sexual quips for whichever one has Denise Richards in it as Dr Holly Jolly Christmas or whatever the hell her stupid name is

I remember Denise Richards was on the Tonight Show and Drew Carey was the other guest. Leno asked who she played and when she said "I play nuclear scientist Dr. Christmas Jones" Drew Carey just started laughing. I think he was laughing more about the name but she asked "You don't think I can play a scientist?" and he just fumbled "wha, hey, I....you...totally can play one."

I was a teenager when the Moore ones came out so I have a nostalgic connection to them. My friend always liked them because "Roger Moore actually got his assed kicked" in them. For pure absurdity I would recommend Moonraker. There's a laser battle in space, Jaws returns and finds love and the romantic interest is Dr. Holly Goodhead.

[therewillbeblus]

And the Brosnan's aren't great films but they spawned one of the classic theme songs - The World is Not Enough (and Tomorrow Never Dies is a serviceable effort). The Living Daylights is actually the best Bond theme song as well.

I know it’s not exactly cool to pick the popular answer but it’s also the correct one in this case

[thirtyframesasecond]

And the Brosnan's aren't great films but they spawned one of the classic theme songs - The World is Not Enough (and Tomorrow Never Dies is a serviceable effort). The Living Daylights is actually the best Bond theme song as well.

I know it’s not exactly cool to pick the popular answer but it’s also the correct one in this case

That too is one of the best Bond themes, and a perfectly enjoyable film.

[beamish14]

And the Brosnan's aren't great films but they spawned one of the classic theme songs - The World is Not Enough (and Tomorrow Never Dies is a serviceable effort). The Living Daylights is actually the best Bond theme song as well.

I know it’s not exactly cool to pick the popular answer but it’s also the correct one in this case

Of the themes from the last 40 years, “A View to a Kill” is the pinnacle IMO. It also led to one of the most infamous moments from Live Aid

[J Wilson]

The best unused Bond theme is kd lang's "Surrender," which would have been the Tomorrow Never Dies opener, and my favorite other Bond song is Scott Walker's "Only Myself to Blame," which was written for the end credits of The World is Not Enough, but obviously didn't fit after the profound awfulness of the final scene, so it only appeared on the soundtrack.

[therewillbeblus]

I wish Radiohead came through with their rumored song for Spectre. I’ve always assumed they took what they had and transformed it into ”Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief” because both the title and sound of it seem like a Bond theme, and the timing of that record’s release would make sense

[colinr0380]

The most interesting thing with such a long running series is how it has reflected the changing times. The 60s Connery is very much a man's man (which gets somewhat subverted when Woody Allen plays him in the 60s Casino Royale film) where the most sexual tension occurs from the boss's secretary's unrequited love for him. Its all about international travel and the cutting edge of technology mingling with the staunchy traditional: unassuming gadgets containing lasers and classic cars with ejector seats, etc. Lots of stereotypes abound: the Asians are inscrutable; the Russians are gruff (even the women!) and the Americans are loud and bombastic. That makes On Her Majesty's Secret Service quite a break by giving us a 'Bond with feelings' and, like the later 2006 version of Casino Royale (which is probably why that is so highly regarded as well) showing a Bond finding out there is something beyond carrying out his missions and the very 1960s casual sex paradigm, but who pays the price for having his feelings awakened which might end up turning him into even more of an unfeeling monster.

The 70s Bonds are brash and gaudy, and unashamedly broadly comic. Even before we get to Roger Moore, we have the return of Connery in Diamonds Are Forever which manages to feature a couple of unappealing fey gay stereotypes, as were quite in fashion at the time. From that level, the Roger Moore Bonds continue in much the same vein and sort of end up appropriating current cultural touchstones from the zeitgeist and re-interpeting them 'safely' for mainstream audiences who would never have gone direct to the source (much as Doctor Who does today), most obviously Blacksploitation in Live and Let Die; Bruce Lee and kung fu action in The Man With The Golden Gun; and Star Wars in Moonraker (which is probably why Moonraker did not work, since mass audiences had gone to the source for that one!). The unfortunate appearance of the sterotypical Southern sheriff in Live and Let Die, which is somewhat understandable in the context of that film, due to its acclaim(?) gets to appear again for a cameo in the Far East in The Man With The Golden Gun - compared to that Jaws turning up again in Moonraker after The Spy Who Loved Me is not quite so bad, and actually kind of sweet in how he gets redeemed! (That's the main aspect that makes Moonraker worthwhile!). The best Roger Moore Bonds are probably the ones where he fades into the background and it becomes about the spectacular sets (always the most important feature of the series from the Ken Adam volcano base days), so The Spy Who Loved Me stands up the best. I also like the final Moore Bond with 1985's A View To A Kill, but mostly for the wildly vividly extreme villains in Christopher Walken and Grace Jones (a sign of things to come!), and that was the entry where critics were quite scathing about Roger Moore showing his age.

There's also a lot of Thatcher digs in the 80s Moore Bonds too, where it goes from commentary to just blunt presentation of the real thing: this was long before Daniel Craig met the Queen at the 2012 Olympics too, although of course the Queen was treated with a bit more respect than the Thatcher stand-in was in the Moore films!

The Timothy Dalton Bonds are po-faced in character though still undermined by some of the set pieces (I think one of the most problematic things that the Bond films did was splitting up 'drama' and 'action sequences' into separate units, which probably contributes to how sometimes the action runs away from the drama, and vice versa. That did make the early Daniel Craig Bonds like Casino Royale and Skyfall seem a refreshing change of pace, though of course Quantum of Solace fell in between, and then the second unit overwhelmed again in the post-Skyfall films). The Living Daylights is surprisingly the only real Cold War-centric entry in the series, with its checkpoints, double-crossing defections and border crossings in cellos played for laughs. And whilst I like it a lot, Licence To Kill is kind of the one that is trying to more obviously pander to an American audience with its drug cartel premise and violent action that makes it strangely fit in with the company of the Stallone films of the time like Cobra or Tango & Cash!

The Brosnan films are post-Soviet Union, in the middle of Perestroika and the rise of the oligarchs films (hence the Robbie Coltrane character turning up for his two films in succession), and they are all about the 'enemy within' too, with the 'good agent turned bad' plots and MI5 being attacked (I seem to remember there being a big deal made at the time about the actual location of MI5 being allowed to be shown for the first time on film!), which also includes Jonathan Pryce chewing the scenery as the ultimate Rupert Murdoch-styled megalomaniac. All of which seems a little hypocritical as this is where the product placement starts ramping up to shocking levels too.

Plus of course with Brosnan Judi Dench turns up as a new female boss (amusingly with her "As Time Goes By" gentle BBC sitcom co-star Geoffrey Palmer in Tomorrow Never Dies!) to berate Bond as a 'sexy, misogynist dinosaur', before she has to rely on him to save the day all of the time, which only gets worse when she is for some inexplicable reason ported over to the Daniel Craig alternate Bond universe to do much the same before being neutralised. After the Dalton Bond was taciturn turning to an angry vigilante, the Brosnan Bond is back to being quippy and unflappable even in the most dire situations, usually having to do a 'calm down, dear' to his female sidekicks (most egregiously even to Michelle Yeoh's character!) by pulling out the latest deus ex machina gadget that is perfectly suited to escaping from one highly specific situation. And then the Daniel Craig Bonds are the ones for the modern interconnected age of torture and a building a hard shell, just doing what has to be done to achieve the necessary ends in the face of random acts of terrorism with no room for wisecracking, unless its cracking the ribs of wise guys. 24 meets the Bourne films.
___

As mentioned in the last few posts, the big consistent element (at least until the Daniel Craig films, where I have trouble recalling a single tune. But perhaps that reflects the past couple of decades in its own way) was how strong the theme tunes for each film were, always extremely well supported by the iconic Maurice Binder title sequences. You could probably trace a history of popular music from the 1960s to the present just by listening to every opening credit song (and probably be entertained as much or more as by watching the films themselves by doing so), which I presume is something that is taken very seriously by the filmmakers, or at least was until the recent films.

[RIP Film]

I wish Radiohead came through with their rumored song for Spectre. I’ve always assumed they took what they had and transformed it into ”Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief” because both the title and sound of it seem like a Bond theme, and the timing of that record’s release would make sense

You didn’t know? They released it.

https://youtu.be/COP0XlYHvto

I can’t even remember the Sam Smith song they went with.

[therewillbeblus]

[FrauBlucher]

Of the themes from the last 40 years, “A View to a Kill” is the pinnacle IMO. It also led to one of the most infamous moments from Live Aid

I was there. It was pretty bad. It was definitely an uh-oh moment.

As for Bond. I may ruffle feathers. Give me the 60's Bond, sprinkle in a few 70s Bonds. I watch for entertainment. I don't really care about its reflection on society that reveal warts from those eras or whether there is depth in the characters. For me it was the epitome of cool. Just plain fun and escapism. The modern Bond films are too much like other action films of our time, and throw in some of todays limitations on what may be considered bad taste compared to the original Bonds. I know that plays better to younger audiences so I get it.

I'll always have Connery and a few Moores to go back to