The Best Bond Movie: Moore

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See here for an overview of these posts.

Without further ado, here are the options:

Live and Let Die

The Man with the Golden Gun

The Spy Who Loved Me

Moonraker

For Your Eyes Only

Octopussy

A View to a Kill


As usual, I will be posting trivia on the films, as well as the novels and short stories they were based on.

I have to confess though, Moore is my least favourite Bond. XD

Moore used to be my MOST favourite until Pearce came along.

Why is Moonraker doing so well when everybody complains about it all the time?
I know it was the highest grossing Bond in it's day, but I'd always assumed it was because of what it followed on from.

Yeah, I'm surprised too. Oh well.

Live and Let Die was the second of Fleming's novels to be published, but because of the controversial nature of the novel, the storyline was changed, and the only things that are kept are the characters of 'Mr Big', Tee-Hee, the Whisper and Solitaire, as well as the New York and Caribbean settings. Parts from the novel are adapted into later Bond films: the keelhauling climax makes it into For Your Eyes Only, and Felix Leiter being part-eaten by a shark is revived in Licence to Kill, where Leiter is played by the same actor as in Live and Let Die.

The Man with the Golden Gun was Ian Fleming's last full Bond novel, published posthumously. Unlike the film, it is set in Jamaica, a locale used for the previous film, Live and Let Die. Christopher Lee was cast as Scaramanga, and the character was changed from a skilled but stereotypical Cuban hitman to someone who is more like a darker version of Bond. Lee was a relative of Ian Fleming's. It is also the last film to be produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert 'Cubby' Broccoli jointly, before a series of conflicts caused Broccoli to gain full rights to the James Bond series thereafter.

The Spy Who Loved Me has virtually no elements from the original Fleming novel (due to a term that Fleming actually stipulated, thinking TSWLM was one of his weaker novels) except the title, Bond himself, and a metal-toothed adversary.

While this film marks the first of Walter Gotell's appearances as KGB chief General Gogol, he had appeared once before in the Bond films, as Morzeny in From Russia With Love.

Originally, Jaws was to have died in the shark tank, but a previewing of the film showed the audience liking him so much that the ending was altered to show him surviving.

While the original movie to follow The Spy Who Loved Me was to have been For Your Eyes Only, because of the resurgent popularity of science fiction thanks to Star Wars, Moonraker was adapted. Very little of the original novel was kept, except that it involved a rocket called the Moonraker, and a mad industrialist called Hugo Drax who intended to use the Moonraker in a plot to kill a number of people. More of the plot of the original novel is actually used in Die Another Day.

1.} Moonraker
2.} The Spy Who Loved Me
3.} The Man with The Golden Gun

eh, despite being the most prolific Bond actor, Roger Moore is probably my least favorite Bond. Dalton and Brosnan had depth, Connery had style, Moore was just kinda like "who cares?". Man with the Golden Gun was pretty sweet though.

Notable trivia about For Your Eyes Only:

*For Your Eyes Only is actually a combination of two of Ian Fleming's short stories (For Your Eyes Only, and Risico), with a sequence taken from the end of the novel Live and Let Die (the keelhauling sequence).

*Because Carole Bouquet had sinus troubles, she is either represented by a body double in most long distance shots in underwater scenes, or filmed on a soundstage with a fan blowing her hair, filmed in slow motion, and with bubbles superimposed later.

*The man who hijacks Bond's copter at the start, only to get his comeuppance by being thrown into a chimney stack, is of course meant to be Blofeld, but copyright due to the ongoing dispute with Kevin McClory over SPECTRE and Thunderball prevented this.

Octopussy takes elements from two Bond short stories. It takes the title from the short story Octopussy, as well as the background of Octopussy's father, Major Dexter Smythe. It also takes the auction sequence, and the usage of Faberge eggs to finance espionage operations, from the story The Property of a Lady.

The Acrostar sequence was originally meant to be part of Moonraker, but proved too much to shoot at the time.

Maud Adams, who plays the titular character, has made an appearance in three Bond films, and three of Roger Moore's to be precise. She plays Andrea Adams in The Man with the Golden Gun, Octopussy in Octopussy, and has a cameo in A View to a Kill.

A View to a Kill takes its title from an Ian Fleming short story, From a View to a Kill, but any resemblance ends there. However, the plot is not unlike Goldfinger.

It is often considered the worst Bond film of all time, although Christopher Walken's performance as Max Zorin is considered to be excellent. Roger Moore was particularly horrified himself at the scene where Zorin mercilessly machine-guns the miners.

The music during the final fight on the Golden Gate bridge is reminiscent of the theme for OHMSS.

Roger Moore and Patrick Macnee were good friends, adding another level of humour to the scenes where Bond teases Sir Godfrey Tibbett. Macnee, of course, is best known for playing John Steed in The Avengers.

OK, I will let this run overnight (my time, so for the next 10 hours or so from this post) and then lock the threads. A final thread will be posted with a final poll.

Yeah Walken rocked in that one, I used to think he'd be great as a recurring villain, maybe more of a Scaramanga type than a Blofeld / Zorin type.
As bad as this film is, and let's not beat around the bush here, choosing between being staked out on an ants nest with my genitals coated in honey or watching this film again...that would be a tough choice to make. Having said all that the soundtrack is one of the best, due in no small part to Duran Duran's contributions.