Die Another Day was bad, but I really like Octopussy.
I even posted a thread about it being the best Bond movie 5 1/2 years ago. Read it here:
I should create a sequel to that thread. “Casino Royale(2006)” is the best Bond movie. It’s clear to me now that the re-launch, with Daniel Craig, has rescued the series. Both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace are better than any of the 20 that precede them.
I don’t think I’ve seen Die Another Day, but unless it has a space battle in it, I’m voting Moonraker as the better of the two films.
What can I say? I’m easily amused, and space battles are cool 
That thread (and I feel the same way about Octopussy that I did in 2003) is proof of one major notion: post preview is valuable, because that thread is chock fulla format fuckups.
I’m not really a fan of Craig’s movies, though.
The “Evil trio” on Buffy had this very discussion in the Life Serial episode.
Cut to the black van moving down the street. It’s night, the headlights are on.
Cut to inside. Jonathan sits in the passenger seat and Andrew in the middle while Warren drives.
JONATHAN: Where’re we going?
WARREN: To Final Jeopardy. Where Buffy’s the one in jeopardy.
ANDREW: We are really super-villains now, like … like Dr. No. (Jonathan grins)
WARREN: Yeah, back when Bond was Connery, and movies were decent.
JONATHAN: (scornful) Who remembers Connery? I mean, Roger Moore was smooth.
WARREN: You’re insane. You’re short, and you’re insane.
ANDREW: I like Timothy Dalton!
Warren smacks Andrew upside the head.
ANDREW: Hey!
WARREN: Don’t make me pull over, okay?
<snip>
Cut to the interior of the van, rear. Andrew emerges from the front into the rear, followed by Warren. Jonathan comes last.
WARREN: (to Andrew) Connery is Bond. He had style.
JONATHAN: Yeah, but Roger Moore was funny.
WARREN: Moonraker? The gondola turns into a hovercraft? It’s retarded. Besides, the guy had, like, no edge.
ANDREW: Dalton had edge. In Licence to Kill he was a rogue agent. That’s edgy. (Warren and Jonathan give him looks of disbelief) And he was amazing in The Living Daylights.
JONATHAN: Yeah, which was written for Roger Moore, not Timothy Dalton!
WARREN: (annoyed) Okay, this is stupid! We’re wasting time. End of discussion.
The other two nod and turn to their consoles, begin typing. Beat.
WARREN: (very angry) I mean, there’s a shot of like pigeons, doing double-takes when the gondola blasted by! Moonraker … is inexcusable.
Moonraker was at least memorably bad. Die Another Day was just boring.
I’m not sure what the point of Die Another Day was supposed to be.
The Man With The Golden Gun was the worst Bond movie. James Bond driving an AMC Matador and doing a loop like a hotwheels car? WTF? Herve Villachez as a henchman? WTF? Christopher Lee’s been in a lot of cheap and plain bad movies, but this was a waste of his talent.
Moonraker did suck, but I was another 14 year old obsessed with Star wars at the time, so I gave it a pass. I only bothered to watch it all the way through once, so it can’t be that good.
I think Live and Let Diewas the only good Bond film Roger Moore made. It was the film and the song that made up my mind that being a secret agent was cooler than being an astronaut, a tall order for a nine year old in the early 70’s.
Diamonds Are Forever was pretty shitty too. Jimmy Dean? the breakfast sausage guy as a villian? James Bond getting his ass kicked by a couple of women? Oh, I see. They’re lesbians. That gives them secret-agent-fighting skills. I think the Broccolis were following the lead of the original Casino Royale with this piece of film.
You Only Live Twice has a six-foot-one Sean Connery passing as a Japanese man, and Charles Gray’s enormous block head, but the army of ninjas fighting the army of henchmen in a volcano lair equipped with a monorail was so cool it became a cliche.
Moonraker, duh.
Oh, I loved TMWTGG! It is my guilty pleasure 007 favorite. Christopher Lee is by far the coolest Bond villian of them all and has one of my three favorite Bond quotes of all time ’ “He always did like that mausoleum - put him in it!”.
He more than makes up for the lame-ass theme song, “From Russia With Love” re-tread pre-title sequence, slide whistle on the jump and the pointless re-ppearance of that redneck from “Live and Let Die” (although the idea of him rotting in a Thai Prison is appealing). That and Bond threatening to break Maud Adam’s arm, that was kind of cool.
For Moonraker, surely after his miraculous survival after a 100 mile airless free fall, Jaws was put to death for his multiple crimes aginst humanity? That would have been a crowning irony to that film!
The other neat-in joke in Moonraker is the Minister saying something about “I play bridge with this fellow” as they are about to raid Drax’s lab. In the book, Bond is sent by M to find out how it is Drax cheats at bridge.
Another quibble about Moonraker is that, like all Ken Adam Sets, the villian has a highly refined sense of style but no concept of risk mitigation around Occupational Health and Safety. All those staircases and walkways with out railings - someone is going to get killed on one of those one day!
I thought Blofeld was the villain and Jimmy Dean was just a recluse billionaire.
I thought that Jimmy Dean was Blofeld. Donald Pleasance, Telly Savalas and Charles Gray had all played Blofeld, so I thought that he changed his appearance via plastic surgery and now he looked like Jimmy Dean. I own it on VHS but it’s too close to my bedtime to start a shitty movie just to clarify something for a thread.
I strongly disagree with this. it may cause fond memories for you, but it was a major letdown, and a far, far better Bond film by Moore was For Your Eyes Only. In fact, that was to me (and many others) the only really good Bond film by Moore.
I’m an odd Bond fan who’s liked all sorts of Bond movies, even if purists think I shouldn’t.
Is “Moonraker” true to Ian Fleming’s vision? Not at all, but I had a lot of fun when I saw it. More fun than I’ve had at any other Bond film, in fact. It had a handful of spectacular action sequences, and waaay more belly laughs than the Maxwell Smart film “The Nude Bomb,” which came out around the same time.
It was silly and formulaic, but I didn’t mind a bit.
My appreciation for the wink-wink approach of Roger Moore doesn’t keep me from liking Daniel Craig, mind you. (Hell, I was about the only fan who liked Timothy Dalton’s movies!). I just don’t regard Bond as some kind of sacred character who MUST be played a certain way.
I thought Dalton was excellent - in fact, “Goldeneye” with Dalton would have been righteous and outstanding.
I liked Timothy Dalton as well, but that may be because the more serious tone of Living Daylights was such a refreshing change after all the silliness of Roger Moore (although For Your Eyes Only, as my first Bond flick, will still be one of my favorites). It’s too bad he didn’t get a better reception.
And for your enjoyment, a Bond-themed Visa ad with Pierce Brosnan.
That’s the way I remember it. Jimmy Dean played Willard Whyte (White? I’m not sure of the spelling), a Howard Hughes-type character who lived in the penthouse of a Las Vegas hotel.
I can still recall the horrible overdub when Bond and Blofeld use the voice machine to pretend their WW.
Well, if they put in railings the henchmen would just spend all day leaning…
I must admit that part at least never bothered me. It just made sense that in a fictional world where a private citizen could set up a huge space station, a government could send an small army. The fact that the special effects were bad did bother me - eventually; like others I was young and on a Star Wars kick at the time.
I’d have to say Die Another Day. For all its flaws, Moonraker at least had that great scene where the contaminated nerve-gas lab in Venice is cleaned up and transformed into the bad guy’s elegant office by the time Bond returns with M, and Bond fighting off the bad guy’s small Amazon fleet with his armed-to-the-teeth speedboat, and Lois Chiles, a WASPy beauty of a Bond Girl if ever there was one.