Voros
Doomed Investigator
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2017
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The first movie I can ever remember seeing was Live and Let Die, which I saw at a drive-in with my parents when I was 4 or 5 years old. Was a double feature with The Mechanic, starring Charles Bronson.
Roger Moore was the Bond I grew up with. I didn't even know there was another Bond until years later when I gleefully sat down in front of the TV to catch a James Bond movie on broadcast network television (The CBS Sunday Night Movie or something along those lines) and it was some totally different guy playing Bond. I remember thinking "Who is THIS guy?!?"
Growing up, I'd always heard how Moore was an inferior Bond, and that Connery was the superior iteration of the character. And I didn't get it. Moore was Bond as far as I was concerned, because I'd imprinted on him like a baby duck. He defined the character for me. He was suave and debonair. He was the kind of guy who could take a sip of wine and tell you which side of the mountain the grapes had grown on. And he had killer one-liners. And there was always that final scene where he blows off his superior officers to bang the latest Bond Girl.
Over the past year, I have been rewatching the whole Bond series with my son. The last one we watched was For Your Eyes Only, and now that I am older and wiser, I understand why people dislike Moore. Connery had an edge that Moore didn't have. Moore never felt like a killer on a leash. Connery felt exactly that way.
Moore also got saddled with some mediocre movies. The Spy Who Loved Me is great and For Your Eyes Only is great and the rest are middling-to-bad. Live and Let Die is not good, The Man With The Golden Gun was only marginally better, Moonraker was damned silly, Octopussy was forgettable, and A View to a Kill was terrible. Maybe public opinion of him as Bond would be better if they'd given him better movies.
I quite like Moore too, The Spy Who Loved Me is the best of his run, I think. Would like to revisit it and a few others.