Special Movie Debate: James Bond

[Reed Rothchild | 9,549]

[Scrobins | 1,727]

You left out the 1954 TV special of Casino Royale with Barry Nelson as CIA agent “Card Sense” Jimmy Bond!

[Gloves | 11,794]

I've seen them all many times, and it's difficult to pick an actual top film for me. Top film per actor would be easy, but across the whole collection it's near impossible since they all bring such variation to the table. The youngest me would have said Goldeneye cuz N64, a slightly older me would have said The World is Not Enough. A bit older, having seen them all, I think my initial feeling was probably The Living Daylights - Dalton is my favourite Bond. The joker in me wants to say Moonraker cuz lol space.

Today me, I chose Skyfall. It has it's flaws for sure, but I love Javier Bardem in it and Craig performed really well. It's very rewatchable despite being relatively new (11 years old now...) Ask me again in a year after I've binged them all for the billionth time and I'll change my mind again. 

[Tulpa | 3,517]

I went with Goldfinger. I think it's just about perfect. I'm also fond of Dr. No and From Russia, With Love, but not so much You Only Live Twice or Diamonds are Forever. Never Say Never Again is also kind of blah. I mean, it's literally a remake of Thunderball, which to me was a middle of the road Bond movie.

I always felt On Her Majesty's Secret Service, if you ignore Lazenby's giant redwood acting, was one of the best ones.

As a kid I loved the Moore Bonds, but they're kind of hokey watching them as an adult. When a pigeon does a doubletake and they use a slide whistle for music during a stunt, you know they've started to lose the thread. And Moonraker always felt like "Let's remake The Spy Who Loved Me, only set it in space."

Dalton was really underrated. His two aren't as flashy as Moore or Brosnan, but they're really good.

Brosnan wasn't terrible, but I felt his films got too much of that 90s-00s ACTION/ADVENTURE! style shoved in them. They start to blend together to me.

I liked 2006 Casino Royale and Craig, and getting back to down and dirty spywork again, though I think it did peak with Skyfall. But I liked that they were trying something a little different.

 

1967 Casino Royale is bonkers upon bonkers. The backstory of that film is pretty interesting in and of itself, and what they had to do when Peter Sellers walked off the set.

 

 

[Scrobins | 1,727]

I've seen and loved them all! Connery is probably my favorite Bond, but Dalton is the one I always wanted more of. My tradition is generally to watch The Living Daylights on my birthday, both because it's my favorite (which I voted for here) and it is the Bond of my birth year.

[doner24 | 1,197]

I’ve only seen a handful, a few early ones with Connery, a couple Brosnans, and a few Craig’s. I’ve also seen parts of many others including some of Moores. I’m a big Connery fan, but Casino Royale was my favorite. 

[JamesRobot | 5,807]

Huge fan.  Likely the franchise with the most 10s on the Reed scale.  I'll go with Never Say Never Again as my all-time favorite.  Pretty much a remake of my other favorite, Thunderball, but it has that sweet Domination video game that I always wished I could play.

 

The Connery movie are pretty much all perfect except for You Only Live Twice.

Moore era is great too.  I particularly like Live and Let Die, For Your Eyes Only, and View to a Kill.  (Christopher Walken is such a great villain!)

I became a fan with the Dalton movies.  He didn't get enough credit in the day, but I many people have come to appreciate his efforts as a kind of primer for the grittier Craig flicks.  I watch them both fairly frequently.

Pierce was pretty great.  Particularly Goldeneye, of course.  Also really dig Die Another Day.  They're all pretty over the top 90s, but still has a lot of that tongue-in-cheek camp appeal that Moore had.  I don't come back to those as often but they're still great.

Craig was a great reboot to the series.  He had that diamond in the rough quality that Connery had.  Less slick than the other Bonds.  Casino Royale is a masterpiece but Quantum of Solace is my sleeper pick of the franchise.  Great pacing; down and dirty revenge at its best.  Love the ending.  

Don't really care for OG Casino Royale but it's not part of the franchise.  And I personally throw Lazenby in the lot and pretty much ignore them both.

 

I was looking at watching some Nightmare on Elm Street 6 tonight but I guess I'll settle in with some Moonraker having been inspired. 

[Dr. Morbis | 2,090]

41 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

I went with Goldfinger. I think it's just about perfect.

Maybe if they took out the third of the movie where Bond is Goldfinger's captive pet and has no agency at all, then it might be in the running.

I'll go for Golden Gun just based on having wanted to rewatch it the most times.

[JamesRobot | 5,807]

44 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

Never Say Never Again is also kind of blah. I mean, it's literally a remake of Thunderball, which to me was a middle of the road Bond movie.

[Tulpa | 3,517]

3 minutes ago, JamesRobot said:

but Quantum of Solace is my sleeper pick of the franchis

A lot of people rag on it, but I thought it wasn't that bad. And had one of the better Bond girls.

2 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

I'll go for Golden Gun just based on having wanted to rewatch it the most times.

The JW Pepper scenes ruins that one for me. And Britt Ekland is probably the most vapid Bond girl. And that's saying something, since Denise Richards was one, too.

[Tulpa | 3,517]

1 minute ago, JamesRobot said:

They're not bad, just not top of the heap for me.

[JamesRobot | 5,807]

8 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

The JW Pepper scenes ruins that one for me.

I get that for sure, but I think it works for the Moore era.  I have a bit of nostalgia for the inept good-ole-boy sheriff trope that was ubiquitous in the 70s and 80s.  Reminds me of Dukes of Hazzard's Boss Hog and Roscoe P Coltrane.

[Tulpa | 3,517]

I always felt he was a proto-Buford T. Justice.

I felt the Moore films got better as they went along. Eyes and View are my favorites.

[Sumez | 2,968]

Bond is one of those things that never even seemed slightly appealing to me.

I have seen Goldeneye, Casino Royale (the Daniel Craig one), and another of the later Brosnan movies. I think it was The World is Not Enough, based on John Cleese's appearance in it (but maybe I just saw that as an individual scene in a different context)

I don't remember anything from any of the movies, not even Casino Royale which I think I saw within the last couple of years, so it's hard for me to say which I like "the most". I'm gonna assume Goldeneye though.

Edited September 21, 2023 by Sumez

[TDIRunner | 2,744]

Skyfall is the only Bond movie I've seen all the way through, although I feel like I know most of the Goldeneye plot since I've been told the N64 game follows the storyline fairly well.  I've seen a few parts of other movies.  For example, I specifically remember watching scenes with Jaws in one of the older films, but I couldn't tell you anything else about whichever movie that was.  I always liked the Jaws character since Richard Kiel played basically the exact same villain in Silver Streak which is one of my favorite movies of all time.  

[Tulpa | 3,517]

8 minutes ago, TDIRunner said:

 For example, I specifically remember watching scenes with Jaws in one of the older films, but I couldn't tell you anything else about whichever movie that was. 

He was in two, The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker (though as I mentioned, they might as well be the same movie.)

Kiel actually made the most out of what would have otherwise been a generic Bond super-henchman. Some of his expressions and mannerisms (like adjusting his tie after falling out of the train) really elevated that character.

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

Ive never seen any of them, probably never will. 

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

I've only seen a few of them, but I went with Goldfinger over Goldeneye for the best one.

[RH | 4,923]

I don't care if this is 100% a fanboi move, but GoldenEye is, and always will be, my favorite but I think Craig is my favorite Bond, which is sad because I feel like other than Casino Royale, all of his films were kind of bland.  I mean, it was modern action fun but I just feel like it didn't add much to the series.  However, I did enjoy his silent, stoic portrayal of Bond and I thought it was a fresh shift from much of the schticky behavior Bond has always been known for.

But with that said, I feel like the Bond series is diverse in it's purpose.  Some of them are simply excellent old action films while others are so "bad" they are awesome and it feels like the Broccoli's were in on the joke the whole time.  I mean, I always felt that Moonraker was a truly fun romp, but never, ever suppose to be taken seriously.

And I think that's kind of the general beauty of the Bond series.  As you discover any given movie in the series history, especially if you don't watch them in order, you never know what you're going to get, but it's almost certainly going to be a "good time"!

Oh, and the best title track is, IMHO, Live and Let Die but dang there have been a lot of good songs made for Bond movies, that's for dang sure.

[Deadeye | 1,596]

Seen them all except for 1967 Casino Royale.  Picking a favorite was hard.  I was between Dr No, From Russia with Love, and On Her Majesty's Secret Service and went with the one I watch the most, Dr. no. 

I agree with @Scrobins, I wanted more films with Timothy Dalton.

[G-type | 2,483]

I might have seen more of these when I was little, but I don't remember them so I won't count those.

The first one that really made an impression on me was License to Kill... just because it was SO violent!! Bond locks a guy in a compartment full of maggots, guys get killed by sharks and eels. a dude gets his head burst in a decompression chamber, a guy gets pulled into a cocaine crusher, not to mention all the guys getting shot or blown up.

[DefaultGen | 5,414]

Damn, everyone's seen a lot more than me. I've only seen maybe a third of them. I remember watching Goldfinger, Dr. No, and Moonraker with my dad the best. Goldeneye 007 follows the movie so weirdly well that it kind of unavoidably worms itself into being my favorite.

[Kguillemette | 1,545]

Only seen a few of them with Goldeneye being my favorite among them. Strange Goldeneye seems to be running away with it. Was there a related pop culture of phenomenon of the same name we all have in common that we were more than likely all deeply invested in at some point?

[MegaMan52 | 2,451]

I've seen all of them up to Casino Royale (2006), and have the 24 movie collection on Blu-ray that came out a few years ago. I also have GoldenEye and The World is Not Enough on VHS.

As for which is my favorite, that was kind of a tough decision.

Goldfinger is memorable for some of its famous lines, like "Do you expect me to talk?" followed by "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!".

I remember Thunderball being longer than most of the others, running at about two and a half hours. It wasn't a bad movie, but kind of dragged on.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service stood out to me because it was the first movie Sean Connery didn't play Bond, the only time George Lazenby played Bond, and Bond gets married only to lose his wife at the end of the movie.

I enjoyed You Only Live Twice mostly for the fact that Donald Pleasence (Dr. Loomis from Halloween) played Biofeld.

The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker were fun to watch because they have Jaws, who is probably my favorite of the Bond villains. Jaws also appears in Everything or Nothing for GameCube (which also includes both Brosnan's likeness AND voice).

And then we get to the Brosnan era, with movies like GoldenEye and The World is Not Enough. Tough call, but I guess I'll pick GoldenEye as my favorite. It's a good mix of humor ("Beg your pardon, I forgot to knock!" WHAM!), action, and is long enough without being overly long like Thunderball. This was the era, in my opinion, where the Bond movies went from good to really good.

Edited September 21, 2023 by MegaMan52

[Reed Rothchild | 9,549]

18 minutes ago, Kguillemette said:

Only seen a few of them with Goldeneye being my favorite among them. Strange Goldeneye seems to be running away with it. Was there a related pop culture of phenomenon of the same name we all have in common that we were more than likely all deeply invested in at some point?

Our general demographic + the N64 game.

It didn't hurt that there had been a pretty long layoff since the Dalton films too.  So Goldeneye was pretty hyped at the time.