Live and Let Die
The first James Bond with Roger Moore, who slips into the role with ease. The action scenes and car (and boat) chases are spectacular, directed with aplomb, but the screenplay is rather redundant. It is still however an enjoyable entry into the series.
Watched Moonraker with my youngest this evening.
What a train wreck of a movie! I never saw this one at the movies back when it was released and somehow have never got around to seeing it until now. The worst Bond Iâve seen without doubt. Corny in all the wrong ways, Jaws comes back but they donât know what to do with him and wind up making him fall in love with a Pipi Longstocking lookalike, awful script, story all over the place and a pseudo Star Wars finale. Oh dear. Luckily the family are all converted Bond fans these days so there is a large level of forgiveness in the house.
[quote=âPhil H, post:282, topic:544â]Watched Moonraker with my youngest this evening.
What a train wreck of a movie! I never saw this one at the movies back when it was released and somehow have never got around to seeing it until now. The worst Bond Iâve seen without doubt. Corny in all the wrong ways, Jaws comes back but they donât know what to do with him and wind up making him fall in love with a Pipi Longstocking lookalike, awful script, story all over the place and a pseudo Star Wars finale. Oh dear. Luckily the family are all converted Bond fans these days so there is a large level of forgiveness in the house.[/quote]
I donât mind it, better than MWTGG for me at least.
I prefer Golden Gun clearly, so Iâm with Phil on this one. Moonraker is for me a lifeless and loveless sequence of too typical Bond scenes. Pre credits scene is easily the best. The rest is routine.
Funny, director Lewis Gilbert made one of the best, and tow of the worst of the series. The Spy Who Loved Me is filled with ideas, and is even stylish in places, while You Only Live Twice and Moonraker are tired and mechanical. But all 3 are very similar in their basic stories.
[quote=âPhil H, post:282, topic:544â]Watched Moonraker with my youngest this evening.
What a train wreck of a movie![/quote]
Indeed, the worst Bond of them all, bottom of the barrel, the pits
Only saw it once, never went back to it (rewatched the pre-credit sequence a few times on You Tube though)
Maybe Moonraker is the worst but itâs better as DIE ANOTHER DAY (stupid title). It looks like more a big budget James Bond Spoof of the 60âs. As Kid the scene in which the dogs killing the Bond Girl scared me a lot.They should have taken more from the novel which was fun to read. 
Isnât Rogerâs last one A View to a Kill the least Roger Bond?
And Die Another Day is not that bad, not as and as everybody seems to agree that it is. The first half is pretty good, but then there are of course a few stupid ideas in the 2nd half, but they donât ruin the film completely for me.
Starting to look a little old for the part in A View To A Kill.
Roger looked too old since For Your Eyes Only. But in A View to a Kill it shows the most.
Watched For Your Eyes Only with the familia last night and was pleasantly surprised. Never saw this one at the cinema as I had become bored with the Moore version of the franchise by this time but it is much better than its predecessor and the âback to basicsâ approach was exactly the right approach. RM is of course showing his age by now but even this is alluded to in his fending off of the young Ice skater as being too young for him. In fact he only beds 2 women in the whole film. In previous episodes he could have beaten that before the opening credits!
All in all a return to form in my opinion with some great stunts and a simple âretrieving a lost decoderâ plotline. All agreed in our house that this was much better.
i donât like any james bond movieâŠ
[quote=âPhil H, post:290, topic:544â]Watched For Your Eyes Only with the familia last night and was pleasantly surprised. Never saw this one at the cinema as I had become bored with the Moore version of the franchise by this time but it is much better than its predecessor and the âback to basicsâ approach was exactly the right approach. RM is of course showing his age by now but even this is alluded to in his fending off of the young Ice skater as being too young for him. In fact he only beds 2 women in the whole film. In previous episodes he could have beaten that before the opening credits!
All in all a return to form in my opinion with some great stunts and a simple âretrieving a lost decoderâ plotline. All agreed in our house that this was much better.[/quote]
One of my favourite Mooreâs actually, and heâs got a bit of a sadistic streak in this one, love it when he boots the car off the cliff.
Those who have read my previous post re For Your Eyes Only will know that I was pleased by the back to basics approach so I was hopeful that Octopussy would deliver more of the same. Sadly, they changed direction again with this one and we are back in Sillyville. Moore is now looking seriously aged and perhaps they felt it impossible for an audience to take him too seriously as an action hero. Doesnât stop them putting him in love clinches with a series of young beauties of course and I must say this was beginning to look downright creepy by this time. My girls, who have become firm Bond fans on our journey through the franchise were making sick noises at these scenes when not not laughing openly. All in all, the whole thing is played for laughs and the balance between suspense and the odd ironic quip which was the hallmark of the series was horribly lost. The fact that they had Moore dressed up in a full clown outfit by the end speaks volumes.
Not as bad as Moonraker, but really not very good at all except for some terrific mid air stunts of the kind which these films are rightfully renowned for.
And so we come to the end of the Roger Moore Bond era with A View to a Kill.
I have to say the whole family was kind of glad to get this one behind us and everyone is looking forward to having a different face in the role on our next visit to the franchise. I always liked Moore as The Saint and was never convinced by him as 007 but he had his moments over the 12 years or so that he had the part. By this time though he was way too old for the role and was out of place in both the action and romantic scenes. This one was an improvement over Octopussy but that really isnât saying too much. Worth watching for Christopher Walken though who always makes me smile.
Remember John Glen saying in an interview Moore could have pushed it to a couple of more Bonds after this one 
. But I am with you on this.
Not a great fan of the Bond franchise, only the Sean Connery ones (and the babes) make me watch any Bond film, in any case even of no importance to me, still canât understand today how the hell they put Timothy Dalton on the part.
To Bond or not to Bond.
I was expecting by now the guy would be dealing with some more âfashionableâ enemies like the ones our troops are facing in Afghanistan, but no not yet. No hot babes in Burka I guess.
I must be on a pessimist mood today, beating on poor old Bond.
I think itâs a good thing he hasnât been fighting the Taliban. Bond is a grand, escapist fantasy and to pit him against a real life threat would be very, very poor taste I think.
Probably, but the Cold War period from which he emerged, was a serious thing, a real-life threat so to speak
Fleming thought his Bond was a realistic character and the first movies were taken more serious than most people tend to think these days. People were afraid of âthe bombâ and they also had the idea that world peace could be threatened by a lunatic. Both ideas were related to WWII and the atomic bomb. Hitler was often referred to as âthat mad manâ, one who didnât have a âbombâ. Those idiots threatening to destroy the world, are a sort of descendants of the mad man who did have a bomb (or at least a device that could end civilisation) (they also seem to refer to Einstein, they probably were intended to be some kind of bastard sons form of the âgood scientistâ). A Pinewood created Al-Qaâeda leader could well stand in that tradition. Osama Ben Blofeld.
True. And if I remember right, in the first Timothy Dalton Bond film he fights alongside the Mujahadeen. Considered good guys in those days because they were anti soviets. Bad guys later when they became partly absorbed into the Taliban and therefore were anti west.
Bond has always, despite the cliched super villains, had a toe in the political reality of its time. So I would not be surprised to see him fighting the Taliban, Al Qaeda or some pseudo suicide bomber sect in the future.
[quote=âPhil H, post:299, topic:544â]True. And if I remember right, in the first Timothy Dalton Bond film he fights alongside the Mujahadeen. Considered good guys in those days because they were anti soviets. Bad guys later when they became partly absorbed into the Taliban and therefore were anti west.
Bond has always, despite the cliched super villains, had a toe in the political reality of its time. So I would not be surprised to see him fighting the Taliban, Al Qaeda or some pseudo suicide bomber sect in the future.[/quote]
True about this Timothy Dalton Bond; the villains are international arms dealers, played by our own Jeroen Krabbé and Joe Don Baker (who plays in fact a double-dealing Russian general).
In Rambo III Stallone fights alongside the mujahedeen too (in Afghanistan no less)