The definitive James Bond film ?

Great in Game of Thrones.

 

Adore the theme tune. Not a big fan of this Connery Bond flick. Is that the one with..Asian woman “ do you like duck” ?

 

LOL - my mind runs amok - please - do not encourage me...

 

My fav?
Goldfinger by a mile!

 

The initial three are the classics, but the entire original series to me are untouchable artworks.
For example:
Dr. No is the first, freshest and most creative
From Russia With Love is the best mix between Fleming and film and arguably the best of the series.
Goldfinger is the most iconic.
OHMSS is the most direct Fleming adaptation.
DAF is a wicked black comedy.
LALD is the best straightforward adventure thriller.
TLD is the underrated gem.

Each film of the originals has a different approach and tack.

I can’t stand what the modern releases have become. CR ‘06 to me was like a slap in the face.

 

There was lots of copycat Bond type films characters Matt Helm, Tony Rome, Derek Flynt, Dr.Neil Connery.

 

The Man With the Golden Gub

 

From Russia With Love

 

PG: "I'm Prussy Galore"

JB: "I must be dreaming"

 

What I heard in reply was: "Well of course you are"

 

Yep! Stateside didn’t get the joke initially ( sure caught on).

 

Loathe to repeat myself but Goldfinger encapsulated everything that exuded James Bond regards to being a popular figure in the public eye at the time. No other James Bond film came close.

 

And asking an Asian ladies name whilst she is swimming.

Lady: "Chao Me"

Bond: "Maybe later"

 

Casino Royale. I reckon it’s a masterpiece.

 

Yes it is.

 

Which one.....??? I like the original one because it marks the only appearance by Jimmy Bond.... Then there's the new one where they play Texas Hold'em instead of Baccarat....what kind of spy would stoop to playing Texas Hold'em....???

 

When I was a child, I loved From Russia With Love.

As a teenager, I became a tad more infatuated with Sir Roger Moore and The Spy Who Loved Me was a lot of fun.

Nowadays, I really, really like License To Kill with Timothy Dalton and Skyfall with Daniel Craig.

Javier Bardem's performance is the closest we'll ever get to see Raul Julia playing a Bond villain and I love it.

 

Slightly off/on thread

These are rather amusing

Twitter

P.S - My Fave is Live And Let Die

 

OHMSS, You Only Live Twice, Goldfinger and an honourable mention for Live & Let Die.

 

New Bond ?

James D’Arcy.

 

It was quite an opening!

 

I agree with everybody who says that Goldfinger set the standard template for what Bond films needed to be: a surprise intro, a strong villain, a femme fatale that dies (often with Bond trying to save her), a different woman who becomes the "Bond girl" that survives to the end, and an almost-impossible mission for Bond to solve, sometimes done for personal reasons beyond his assignment.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service would've been the best Bond film if it had had Sean Connery in it. I think Roger Moore only made one really good Bond film: For Your Eyes Only, where he broke out of the usual goofy comedic asides he normally did and actually tried a serious approach, including killing a guy in cold blood by kicking his car off a cliff. I didn't like Timothy Dalton at all, but I think Pierce Brosnan was terrific most of the time in his films, except when the plots became a bit overwhelming. Daniel Craig doesn't do a lot for me, but he's OK. None of the Dalton, Brosnan, or Craig films are classics to me.

 

Goldfinger I would agree is still the definitive Bond movie after all these years; it's the one that set the archetype that all others have largely followed since (with one or two deviations)... but The Craig's blistering debut as 007 in Casino Royale is still the one to beat in terms of sheer quality... a knockout Bond by any measurable standard (with the very classy On Her Majesty's Secret Service in photo-finish second place).

 

Top Three
Goldfinger
OHMSS
Casino Royale ( DC)

 

Other Bond films point the way towards the ultimate Bond. They all fall short. I'd say the best attempts to bring Fleming's Bond to screen were From Russia with Love, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and then I'm going to throw in PARTS of films ..?first 20 minutes of The Living Daylights and Peter Sellers and Orson Welles at the card table in Casino Royale.

Then there is the Goldfinger orthodoxy. The film which established the series perfected its tropes and worked as a film above anything else. I don't think it was as good to Bond as it should be and it puts Bond in a bubble and the outside world becomes less than credible. So in that sense I will group the other Hamilton films together because although they are varied they kind of have Bond in the same place. So while these films often end up at the bottom of Bond lists I would rate LALD, Golden Gun, and Diamonds are Forever in the same level.

On the next level I find most Bonds are attempts at decent entertainments with the flaw of badly flubbing one or more elements of the Bond formula. Here I put the Brosnans and Craig's. I rate GoldenEye as the best of these. Alongside it I put another part of a film the first half of Moonraker and You Only Live Twice. Nice tries at capturing Bond's unique and weird world and keeping him in it.

So as I said...there are two great films that are Bond films FRWL &OHMSS they stand apart and I hope future Bonds will exceed both of these and take him into a new and respected place.

For me the best Bonds that exemplify the series as NOT great films but great attempts to create a film featuring The Bond character and his universe that don't try too hard to reject his universe in the interest of trendiness, PC, or envy of another universe AND which balance the sacred formula BOND, leading lady, villian/evil mastermind/henchman, score, travelogue/snob appeal, Bond-villain confrontation

I say Thunderball as the Connery which best balances Bond against all the competing elements that make up a great Bond film. It's flaws are glaring but since Connery was there at the start the first two films develop the series and can not fairly compare to what the series later became a shootout between the character of Bond vs spectacle, bad writing, indifferent character development, non credible women, badly cast or handled villains, and the ambitions of directors. I say Thunderball has Connery in peak form physically, in character as the active protagonist of the film and plot, delivering some of his best lines, and it is Terence Young at the helm of his final Bond.

I'd put Casino Royale as a solid film and a great Bond film. An attempt to reboot the character into the present day. Recast the M Bond relationship as more interwoven. The Bond formula elements an attempt at a realist villain misses the mark for me, gadgets are tossed aside, Bond as hacker, score ehhh but yes the character has to live in the now so be it. They hit it out of the park with leading lady in Eva Green...no Denise Richards or Teri Hatcher or Maryam D'Abo... Green is a woman you wonder about. Perfect.

Other one is Moore in the Spy Who Loved Me. Moore mugs the hell out of the first part but he figures out how he's going to handle it and this film plays almost like a remake of You Only Live Twice with many story elements from that film repeated. Apparently elements of the original scripted ending of Diamonds are Forever figure in here too. It betters that film's ending and so Lewis Gilbert makes up for any shortcomings of YOLT and betters it in a remake that establishes Moore and the post Fleming Bond as a going concern. Now what? That's what happens now!

* the failure to make a convincing villain presence in the film Spectre when you have Christolph Walz, Andrew Scott, and Dave Bautista was an existential failure and the chief reason Craig is back for another finale!