@movie_nazi said:

@bratface said:

@movie_nazi said:

@bratface said:

I much preferred Craig. Grew up with the Connery ones, didn't like any of the Bond movies until Dalton. They were too cheesy/campy for me.

Although I really have no opinion here nor there I have to say Craig at least physically looks the part. The dude is pretty diesel and looks like he can kick some ass. The absolutely worst in this department was either Pierce Brosnan who looked like a stiff wind could knock him over or Roger Moore who started off looking rather old for the part. For the record I grew up during the Roger Moore era.

I've always thought Brosnan was too prissy.

I see that as well but the dude had no muscle tone whatsoever.

And you do? He wasn't fat and was in shape and looked healthy enough.

@DRDMovieMusings said:

I like the witty smarm and charm of an agent who knows a) he's got a licence to kill b) he's essentially dead anyway, so who GAF? c) balances the tension of the intelligence community, creative action, and being a playboy. It's serious and not serious all in one.

As such, to me:

• Craig/Dalton are too serious, look utterly miserable, weary, hopeless...never seemed to have any fun. There are plenty of other brooding action heroes, nothing to see here.
• Moore is too campy, not serious enough, and the 70s was just an ugly decade
• Brosnan was slick and seemed to have transitioned to his post-Bond years almost as elegantly as
• Connery, who remains iconic cool in an early 60s uncertain cold war milieu before everything changed

And, hey, my ranking could change if I actually sat down to watch through the Moore years again (though I'm not hopeful: when I was a kid in the mid-late 70s, Bond movies had seemed to descend to the level of made-for-tv movies, I don't remember anyone ever saying they were going to a movie theatre to watch a Bond movie in the time of Jaws and Rocky and Star Wars and Close Encounters, and Kramer vs. Kramer...)

Moonraker and the spy who loved weren't made for TV and didn't look like it and I have a confession... I always found Jaws with the cast fighting a giant plastic toy shark in the water cringeworthy to watch. A prop boat being lifted and the cast sliding into an open mouth prop was hilarious. Also, I don't remember Kramer vs Kramer to have been watched in cinemas.

@mechajutaro said:

@DRDMovieMusings said:

I like the witty smarm and charm of an agent who knows a) he's got a licence to kill b) he's essentially dead anyway, so who GAF? c) balances the tension of the intelligence community, creative action, and being a playboy. It's serious and not serious all in one.

As such, to me:

• Craig/Dalton are too serious, look utterly miserable, weary, hopeless...never seemed to have any fun. There are plenty of other brooding action heroes, nothing to see here.
• Moore is too campy, not serious enough, and the 70s was just an ugly decade
• Brosnan was slick and seemed to have transitioned to his post-Bond years almost as elegantly as
• Connery, who remains iconic cool in an early 60s uncertain cold war milieu before everything changed

And, hey, my ranking could change if I actually sat down to watch through the Moore years again (though I'm not hopeful: when I was a kid in the mid-late 70s, Bond movies had seemed to descend to the level of made-for-tv movies, I don't remember anyone ever saying they were going to a movie theatre to watch a Bond movie in the time of Jaws and Rocky and Star Wars and Close Encounters, and Kramer vs. Kramer...)

Dunno about The Moore Era having descended to made for tv depths, Mus.... Entries like The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker were costly productions, which also raked in billions at the box office. Otherwise, yeah; all of these Bonds fit into the historical context in which they were produced. Connery was pretty much a chunkier Don Draper, who sometimes shot people and made s-it explode. That would've been outmoded by time the sensitive 70s rolled around. The comparison and contrasts could go on

What you mention about The Dalton/Craig Bond's actually highlights a challenge the franchise has had since The 80s..... In a sense, James Bond as a character was THE FIRST brooding action hero, starting with Ian Fleming's source novels. The character and franchise have been victims of their own success, in many respects. Bruce Willis, Stallone, and Arnie all took this basic formula and turned it up to 11, before Dalton had a shot at bringing 007 back to his roots. By then, it appeared to most viewers who that Bond was trying imitate the folks who had actually imitated HIM

This is something the franchise has never quite outmaneuvered

Billions? That's a bit exaggerated don't you think?

Billions? That's a bit exaggerated don't you think?

Maybe not as much of an exaggeration as you may think. Have a look at my inflation and world population adjusted box office figures here:-
https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/660-thunderball/discuss/58e7d8bbc3a36872af04e385

You'll see that both Moonraker and TSWLM topped a billion going on that comparitive basis.

@Midi-chlorian_Count said:

Billions? That's a bit exaggerated don't you think?

Maybe not as much of an exaggeration as you may think. Have a look at my inflation and world population adjusted box office figures here:-
https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/660-thunderball/discuss/58e7d8bbc3a36872af04e385

You'll see that both Moonraker and TSWLM topped a billion going on that comparitive basis.

Which position would "No Time To Die (2021)" be on that list?

No Time To BO to date = $774,153,007

2015 Spectre Population = 7,379,797,139 Current Population ~ 7,900,000,000.

I think when I made that list I used available inflation adjusted figures. I'm not sure on the difference between now and 2015 but we could say it's going to have marginally increased. So just quickly, excluding that and going with

774153007* (7379797139/7900000000) = $723,176,221 would put it down in 15th place just below Casino Royale and probably with a bit to spare before Goldeneye even excluding that 2015->2022 inflation drop which hasn't been factored in.

@mechajutaro said:

@Midi-chlorian_Count said:

No Time To BO to date = $774,153,007

2015 Spectre Population = 7,379,797,139 Current Population ~ 7,900,000,000.

I think when I made that list I used available inflation adjusted figures. I'm not sure on the difference between now and 2015 but we could say it's going to have marginally increased. So just quickly, excluding that and going with

774153007* (7379797139/7900000000) = $723,176,221 would put it down in 15th place just below Casino Royale and probably with a bit to spare before Goldeneye even excluding that 2015->2022 inflation drop which hasn't been factored in.

For once, I'm actually having second thoughts about what I wrote on these boards. i didn't anticipate anyone taking my use of the phrase "made billions" this literally. Kinda starting to remind me of my brief stint as yeshiva soccer coach; who would've guessed that saying the words "hit the showers" after practice had ended to a gaggle of 21st century kids would've triggered the fallout that it did?

There was once a time (many refer to that time as "the good ol' days") when a total stranger could just call someone n * * * * r right out on the street and no one would bat an eyelash. When I was a high schooler back in the 80s, we'd call each other f * g or f * * * * t with NO connection to what we really though of each others' sexual orientation or identity, it was just a thoughtless derogatory term. Those days are over, times change.

And, even if times don't change, it's always good practice to

a) accept that words do have meaning and, more importantly, can be received differently by the hearer/reader than how they were issued by the speaker/writer; and

b) be prepared to walk back language that is inerrant, inadvertent, or otherwise carries no real weight to your point. Conceding language that wasn't burdened or baggaged much for the speaker but is more heavily so to the hearer isn't the end of the world.

I get that you probably wrote "billions" flippantly, as if to say "a crapton" of money, and weren't expecting someone to actually think you were making a literal statement about the actual amount. Is whether the movie made $1Bn or made $700M critical to your argument? Given you weren't being surgically exacting, it probably doesn't.

And, yes, you and I both know there are certainly times when language used is deliberate in intention to make someone else uncomfortable - those are times when we "stand by every word we said" and others will just have to deal with. You and I have argued different views on that, and I've had that discussion with others, too. I'm no stranger to saying things that I know will make others uncomfortable, which was the point and therefore cannot be retracted. It happens.

@wonder2wonder said:

News article:

... Daniel Craig Is the Best James Bond — It’s Not Even Close

Excerpts:

"An appreciation of how the ‘No Time to Die’ star revitalized a decades-old franchise — and gave us the strongest, most vital interpretation of 007 of them all"
...
"He was blonde, for starters — that was enough to throw some purists into a tizzy. Stockier, too, with a pugilist’s build, and muscles that looked earned rather than sculpted in a gym. Handsome, but not in a pretty way, with that barroom brawler’s mug of his. Those blue eyes were less suggestive of matinee-idol seductiveness than a subzero temperature, chilling everything right beneath the surface. Unlike many of the previous Agent 007s, his vibe was way more East End than Eton, and the confidence of his movements only emphasized that he was a coil perpetually on the edge of springing. Still, he could do everything that was required for the role: handle a gun, throw a punch, trot the globe, quaff a martini, drive sports cars at high speeds, look good while blowing up an island lair, look great in a tuxedo, convince you he could bed numerous women in a single night and kill a man with his bare hands. There was nothing that suggested that, given the right circumstances and a halfway decent villain to go up against, Daniel Craig couldn’t make for a perfectly capable James Bond."
...
"Craig’s flesh-and-bone interpretation not only kept Casino Royale from feeling like a generic action movie coasting on pedigree; it would lay the groundwork for the next four Bond films that came after. The screenwriters, notably series veterans Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, began to tread into territory where the sins of mothers and fathers would keep weighing on sons and daughters. Bond was often a man with an long kill sheet, an endless supply of innunendos and no real past; that would change drastically, and now seems impossible to imagine without Craig gifting 007 with a heart and soul to match the physique. (There are a lot of cracks about Bond’s age in these movies, but Craig is the only Bond who shows up in more states of undress than his female costars, and, regardless of your sexual preferences, it’s extremely easy to see why.)"
...
"Now that we can see how his run ends, the achievement is even more impressive. Fleming’s Bond is in there, with his love of queen and country and specifically made martinis and sharp lapels and expensive watches. But by this swan song’s final fade-out, you’re seeing Craig’s Bond up there. He owns him now. With all due respect to Connery, Moore, and everyone who’s had the privilege to be licensed to kill, nobody’s done Bond — the larger-than-life archetype and the man — better."

How the hell did a slip of the tongue turn into a conversation about race. That was brief but a still ultimately bizarre episode LOL.

Sean Connery will forever be the best James Bond!!

By mecha:

D.Craig wasn't terrible, nonetheless that article sets up a false binary right out of the gate.... Aside from George Lazenby, how do we even begin to say who was "the best" Bond compared to all of the others?

As venerated as Connery is, the writer who once described him as having the charisma of formica during his first couple of films wasn't exaggerating. Yeah, From Russia With Love is great; let's just not pretend that a lot of this memorableness isn't just as attributable to the presence of two phenomenally charismatic villains in the form of Donald "Red" Grant and Rosa Klebs. To say nothing of Daniela Whatshername wearing nothing but bedsheets and a ribbon around her neck in one scene. SC had great presence, and definitely grew into the role; by time the last couple of films rolled around though, he'd gotten paunchy and clearly was exhausted

Roger Moore still dishes out one liners more adroitly than any Bond before or since. Everyone who pointed out that he's probably the least "Alpha" of the Bonds is correct. Does anyone really think Connery, Dalton, or Craig would've looked in place in one of the zany yarns that Moore found himself in? Aside from perhaps For Your Eyes Only

Timothy Dalton arguably came closest to embodying Ian Fleming's original vision. Oddly enough, this return to Bond's roots was pretty fitting for the blood and guts heavy action movies of the 80s, where the franchise was now having to contend with characters like John McClain, Rambo, and Martin Riggs. By time the more light hearted 90s rolled around though, Dalt's brooding and glum take on 007 would've looked just as retrograde as Van Damme, Stallone, and to a lesser extent Arnie did during that same decade

Pierce Brosnan functions as something of a hybrid between Dalton and Moore. He's pretty deft with the quips, and is a passable enough actor to seem believable in the action sequences, nonetheless he also hews more closely to the playboy adventurer interpretation of the character set forth by Moore than he does Dalton's laser guided assassin. He was a perfect fit for a decade in which The Soviet Union was no longer worthy of being called a menace, the narcoterrorists depicted in LTK seemed to be on the wane, and entirely too many of us believed that Bill Clinton's jack-sery was cute, rather than unpresidential. But he was already outmoded by time the early 2000s, and yes 9/11, had rolled around

For all the flack Daniel Craig takes for not having much personality in his interoperation of Bond, one also wonders what Eon and any actor who took this role was supposed to do in the world we've all inhabited since The West began is nebulous and now seemingly failed War On Terror? The Jason Bourne comparisons are valid, and they also grievously ignore the influence that characters like Jack Bauer almost certainly wielded over the direction Bond took. Yeah, Craig era Bond is more or less a monosyllabic killing machine, mightily as Babs Broccoli tried to give him a depth heretofore unseen in these films. They also didn't really have a blueprint upon which to build a new and adapted-for-something-other-than-The Cold War Bond though

Iconic as Connery's portrayal was, in many respects it embodied everything that the counterculture later derided as plastic and phony within the lives of upper middle class people and their fantasies; that sure as hell wouldn't have flown in the 21st Century. For all the drubbing that Moore's work gets, he was a perfect fit for the 70s camp that this era of Bond traded in. Going back in that direction would've seemed worse than anachronistic in the 2000s. Dalton's rightly been sited as the spiritual precedent to Craig's interoperation, nonetheless he was still too flip, too playful, and nowhere near as physically pumped up to have fit into a cinematic landscape where all traces of fun had been declared verboten, and actors who took these sort of roles were now being called upon to pretty much put themselves through the Q course at Fort Bragg before filming. Brosnan's interpretation was nowhere near as mirthless or serious enough for a world that's knickers were soaking wet over the mere mention of names like Bourne or Jack Bauer

Asking "Who's the best Bond?" ignores the fact that each era of the franchise is representative of a historical context that's markedly different from the others

It’s obvious that you put much thought into your reply and I definitely agree with your detailed analysis.

Your closing paragraph says it all.

I never liked the franchise to much over the top action and all those weird devices just made it all too crazy for me….

… so I have just seen bits and pieces over the years so this is more a personal opinion about the actors that played the part.

Sean Connery had the looks but the role did not bring the best out of him as an actor.

Playing Bond did nothing for his career. He should have aborted earlier.

I think his acting chops came later with films like The Wind and the Lion, The Man Who Would Be King , Highlander, Name of the Rose , the Untouchables and many more after. He was like wine .. the older the better.

Roger Moore : he was already very popular thanks to the series : The Saint which I detested.. so posh..

As Bond, he seemed insipid and underfed to me and I couldn’t help seeing that halo. 😇

Timothy Dalton : welI can’t be objective here cause I had a crush on the actor long before his Bond …saw him in Lion In Winter (‘68) Wuthering Heights (‘ 70) and Flash Gordon(‘80). So best to move on.

Pierce Bronson : he started in 1995 but I was and still am unfamiliar with this actor .. I think I saw him in one film( Remember Me with Pattinson) not sure if he did anything worth mentioning before or after .. was being Bond his best performance?

Daniel Craig : his body and face are great and fit the part ( for all that wild chasing etc) but I have an issue with his dumbo ears….. that said from the clips I saw, I like the down to earth Bond , he is with many flaws and we get a lot of backstory and personal drama.

Seeing I don’t care for the action packed scenes , for me seeing Bond having to deal with his childhood and past dramas makes Daniel Craig ,hands down, my preferred Bond ( despite the protruding ears).

@sunshine62 said:

By mecha:

D.Craig wasn't terrible, nonetheless that article sets up a false binary right out of the gate.... Aside from George Lazenby, how do we even begin to say who was "the best" Bond compared to all of the others?

As venerated as Connery is, the writer who once described him as having the charisma of formica during his first couple of films wasn't exaggerating. Yeah, From Russia With Love is great; let's just not pretend that a lot of this memorableness isn't just as attributable to the presence of two phenomenally charismatic villains in the form of Donald "Red" Grant and Rosa Klebs. To say nothing of Daniela Whatshername wearing nothing but bedsheets and a ribbon around her neck in one scene. SC had great presence, and definitely grew into the role; by time the last couple of films rolled around though, he'd gotten paunchy and clearly was exhausted

Roger Moore still dishes out one liners more adroitly than any Bond before or since. Everyone who pointed out that he's probably the least "Alpha" of the Bonds is correct. Does anyone really think Connery, Dalton, or Craig would've looked in place in one of the zany yarns that Moore found himself in? Aside from perhaps For Your Eyes Only

Timothy Dalton arguably came closest to embodying Ian Fleming's original vision. Oddly enough, this return to Bond's roots was pretty fitting for the blood and guts heavy action movies of the 80s, where the franchise was now having to contend with characters like John McClain, Rambo, and Martin Riggs. By time the more light hearted 90s rolled around though, Dalt's brooding and glum take on 007 would've looked just as retrograde as Van Damme, Stallone, and to a lesser extent Arnie did during that same decade

Pierce Brosnan functions as something of a hybrid between Dalton and Moore. He's pretty deft with the quips, and is a passable enough actor to seem believable in the action sequences, nonetheless he also hews more closely to the playboy adventurer interpretation of the character set forth by Moore than he does Dalton's laser guided assassin. He was a perfect fit for a decade in which The Soviet Union was no longer worthy of being called a menace, the narcoterrorists depicted in LTK seemed to be on the wane, and entirely too many of us believed that Bill Clinton's jack-sery was cute, rather than unpresidential. But he was already outmoded by time the early 2000s, and yes 9/11, had rolled around

For all the flack Daniel Craig takes for not having much personality in his interoperation of Bond, one also wonders what Eon and any actor who took this role was supposed to do in the world we've all inhabited since The West began is nebulous and now seemingly failed War On Terror? The Jason Bourne comparisons are valid, and they also grievously ignore the influence that characters like Jack Bauer almost certainly wielded over the direction Bond took. Yeah, Craig era Bond is more or less a monosyllabic killing machine, mightily as Babs Broccoli tried to give him a depth heretofore unseen in these films. They also didn't really have a blueprint upon which to build a new and adapted-for-something-other-than-The Cold War Bond though

Iconic as Connery's portrayal was, in many respects it embodied everything that the counterculture later derided as plastic and phony within the lives of upper middle class people and their fantasies; that sure as hell wouldn't have flown in the 21st Century. For all the drubbing that Moore's work gets, he was a perfect fit for the 70s camp that this era of Bond traded in. Going back in that direction would've seemed worse than anachronistic in the 2000s. Dalton's rightly been sited as the spiritual precedent to Craig's interoperation, nonetheless he was still too flip, too playful, and nowhere near as physically pumped up to have fit into a cinematic landscape where all traces of fun had been declared verboten, and actors who took these sort of roles were now being called upon to pretty much put themselves through the Q course at Fort Bragg before filming. Brosnan's interpretation was nowhere near as mirthless or serious enough for a world that's knickers were soaking wet over the mere mention of names like Bourne or Jack Bauer

Asking "Who's the best Bond?" ignores the fact that each era of the franchise is representative of a historical context that's markedly different from the others

---

It’s obvious that you put much thought into your reply and I definitely agree with your detailed analysis.

Your closing paragraph says it all.

I never liked the franchise to much over the top action and all those weird devices just made it all too crazy for me….

… so I have just seen bits and pieces over the years so this is more a personal opinion about the actors that played the part.

Sean Connery had the looks but the role did not bring the best out of him as an actor.

Playing Bond did nothing for his career. He should have aborted earlier.

I think his acting chops came later with films like The Wind and the Lion, The Man Who Would Be King , Highlander, Name of the Rose , the Untouchables and many more after. He was like wine .. the older the better.

Roger Moore : he was already very popular thanks to the series : The Saint which I detested.. so posh..

As Bond, he seemed insipid and underfed to me and I couldn’t help seeing that halo. 😇

Timothy Dalton : welI can’t be objective here cause I had a crush on the actor long before his Bond …saw him in Lion In Winter (‘68) Wuthering Heights (‘ 70) and Flash Gordon(‘80). So best to move on.

Pierce Bronson : he started in 1995 but I was and still am unfamiliar with this actor .. I think I saw him in one film( Remember Me with Pattinson) not sure if he did anything worth mentioning before or after .. was being Bond his best performance?

Daniel Craig : his body and face are great and fit the part ( for all that wild chasing etc) but I have an issue with his dumbo ears….. that said from the clips I saw, I like the down to earth Bond , he is with many flaws and we get a lot of backstory and personal drama.

Seeing I don’t care for the action packed scenes , for me seeing Bond having to deal with his childhood and past dramas makes Daniel Craig ,hands down, my preferred Bond ( despite the protruding ears).

Roger Moore was far from insipid and if anything had the most personality of all the Bonds. And what makes this thread annoying is the unnecessarily long and pretentious lists each users keeps coming up with, each Bond was for his time is all that needs to be said really. Stop making this so painful.

By Adam:

. And what makes this thread annoying is the unnecessarily long and pretentious lists each users keeps coming up with, each Bond was for his time is all that needs to be said really

I disagree…. mecha ‘s detailed analysis is interesting and gives weight to his conclusion:

That is:

Asking "Who's the best Bond?" ignores the fact that each era of the franchise is representative of a historical context that's markedly different from the others.

@sunshine62 said:

By Adam:

. And what makes this thread annoying is the unnecessarily long and pretentious lists each users keeps coming up with, each Bond was for his time is all that needs to be said really

---

I disagree…. mecha ‘s detailed analysis is interesting and gives weight to his conclusion:

That is:

Asking "Who's the best Bond?" ignores the fact that each era of the franchise is representative of a historical context that's markedly different from the others.

No, it doesn't. There doesn't need to be a list it basically boils down to a collection of pretentious comments about how Roger is insipid or pointless criticisms or juvenile insults about protruding ears.

By Adam:

No, it doesn't. There doesn't need to be a list it basically boils down to a collection of pretentious comments about how Roger is insipid or pointless criticisms or juvenile insults about protruding

I suggest you go back a re-read my last post .. it was about mecha’s detailed entry. Full stop

@mechajutaro said:

@Adammm said:

@sunshine62 said:

By Adam:

. And what makes this thread annoying is the unnecessarily long and pretentious lists each users keeps coming up with, each Bond was for his time is all that needs to be said really

---

I disagree…. mecha ‘s detailed analysis is interesting and gives weight to his conclusion:

That is:

Asking "Who's the best Bond?" ignores the fact that each era of the franchise is representative of a historical context that's markedly different from the others.

No, it doesn't. There doesn't need to be a list it basically boils down to a collection of pretentious comments about how Roger is insipid or pointless criticisms or juvenile insults about protruding ears.

I praised Moore and more than a couple of his films. As said prior, he was an ideal fit for his era

Sunshine was who I was talking about too she did a list too.