"Not aging well" Topic

I've been watching James Bond all week and he's not aging well. From Russia is great. Octopussy…ergh. A lot of these I loved as a boy now seem too damn cheesy for words….

OTOH, the teaser trailer for Spectre is awesome …

Awesome…!

YouTube link

Octopussy really was pushing things too far.

And yet Octopussy was scripted by the Flashman author George macDonald Fraser

…umm…. whats the significance of the octopus symbol on the ring in the trailer??

It is the emblem of Spectre, the international bad guys association and social club.

Doesn't Spectre have a Ladies' Auxiliary that does fund raisers for Chronic Flatulence ?

At least "Rat Patrol" still holds up well, but I know what you mean.

The modern Bond movies with Brosnan and Craig have been decent but there was some serious cheese in the Roger Moore years. I believe Moore himself said he played Bond tongue in cheek as it was just too cheesy to do otherwise.

Sadly you could say the same for Star Wars when you compare the special effects from now to the gunsights used. Or any movie with a mobile phone from the 90s early 00s.

David

Anything Bond film with Roger Moore wasn't worth watching. Pierce Bronson were just as bad, maybe worse. I remember one of them had some kind of invisible car or something. I had to turn it off it was so bad.

I agree that many of the films of the Roger Moore era are pretty much unwatchable. The hyper-cheesiness of that era just kept getting worse right up until Casino Royale. I really wish they had executed the Casino Royale "reboot" idea when they got Brosnan – I thought Brosnan was the second best-cast Bond ever (after Connery), but was completely wasted in the films produced during his tenure. The producers have now reined in the hyperbole just barely enough to get me watching Daniel Craig's Bond films, but they're still skating on thin ice. One thing saving them is that the rest of the Hollywood action genre has gone so far off the deep end, Bond movies seem "realistic" by comparison.

To be fair, the Bond franchise comes by its cheesiness honestly – just read the books. They were fun, well-written and tense, but Fleming's casual disregard toward fact-checking (typical of pulp fiction in his era) has not helped them age well either. They're not exactly outstanding English literature.

- Ix

Agreed on all of the above points, but I really don't understand much of the Daniel Craig love out there. I have watched the first couple of his Bond movies and they are simply awful. No amount of action or secret agent gimmicks can make up for the giant plot holes and ridiculous over-the-top even for James Bond set pieces that comprise much of the screen time. Not a fan of him at all.

I'll nail my colours to the mast and say outright that there are no bad James Bond movies. There. I've said it.

All of them are enjoyable movies and, admittedly, some are more enjoyable than others. Some have actual depth to them. I can make a case for each one being enjoyable…even Moonraker. I have no problems when that movie ends up in space. That's one of the better bits to it…it's the overdone joking around before Bond gets into space that wears on the viewer.

As for Octopussy; there's a lot going for it. The pre-title sequence is one of the best, you get a fine supporting cast with Maud Adams, Louis Jourdan and Steven Berkoff and although there's, again, some misfiring comedy this is a much better movie than its rival in 1983, Never Say Never Again. It should have been Moore's last Bond movie because there's this sense that we're watching Bond's last case. His discretion and judgement in Octopussy isn't the raw stuff we get with Craig, or the rough and tumble of Connery and he isn't going to be fooled like Brosnan or early Moore. Moore as Bond is very comfortable in his own skin and if I were to attempt a chronological list of Bond movies from beginning to end I'd put Casino Royale at the start and Octopussy at the end.

The Spy Who Loved Me is just as good today as it was when released. The Man with the Golden Gun was a turkey and still is however. Goldfinger is still top notch but I don't see how "Dr. No" ever managed to start a film franchise since it is a dog of a movie. The latest Casino Royale suffers from modern overindulgence in special effects – Bond has always done things that stretch human capability but that first chase scene if CR was beyond physical possibility.