5 replies to this topic

[Qwerty]

The Roger Moore films are some of the bext in the series, personally. It's no real surprise I like him best as James Bond, and his films The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker rank as my top two favorite, with Octopussy very close behind also. However, his film A View To A Kill ranks as my least favorite of the official twenty.

I think the Roger Moore era can sometimes be seen as your average rollercoaster track with a variety of up's and down's, matching certain films. Critics often cite The Man With The Golden Gun, Moonraker, and A View To A Kill being the lowest in quality, and films like The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only being higher up, but it's never the same for every person.

I would claim most of the peaks to be The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, and Octopussy. The lower ranking films are The Man With The Golden Gun and A View To A Kill for me. However, I think The Man With The Golden Gun is one film that is sometimes underrated. It does indeed feature Scaramanga, who is one fine villain. The score, the locations, they all do add more for the film.

Then films like Live And Let Die and For Your Eyes Only, have for the most part, and continue to be for me, just average. I like both of them alot as they both have alot to offer, but they just do not seem to be able to really bring it off.

How do you interpret the Roger Moore era of films, do you see it with distinct peaks and drops regarding the films?

[licensetostudy]

The Roger Moore era of films are appropriate for their time, because audiences were tired of the social commentary films, or serious independent pictures. They were also beaten up by the Vietnam and Watergate era, so Star Wars met audiences need for light, escapist films about strange worlds apart from their own. In one documentary about 1970s film makers, one person stated if Star Wars had been made some years earlier when audiences frustrated with Vietnam, their government, and hard working lives wanted pictures they could relate to about the cruel real world, Lucas's film would have appeared silly like Buck Rogers. Pictures from George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and the Bond films staring Roger Moore came when audiences demanded fun, comic, escapist, ludicrous entertainment. The fun, sillyness of the Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker helped people escape the traumatic decade between 1965 and 1975. Moore's third and fourth outings have ridiculous plots, but alow the films to have much fun. TMWTGG however, is about Bond's quest to find an assasin, and it's easier to make a small plot like this uninteresting and for mainstream audiences, it isn't as fun as a megalomaniac trying to destroy the globe. Moonraker and The Spy Who Loved Me could do outrageous things that film goers enjoyed. I don't know about critics appreciating FYEO more than Moonraker, and I found several reviews written in 1979 and 1981 that suggest critics were more favorable to Moonraker. Roger Ebert gave FYEO ** out of ****, and said it was too ordinary, wasn't happy about Bond and Melina's chemistry, thought the special effects did not "equal Moonraker," that the mountain top fortress was uninteresting after Bond visited the hollowed out volcano, and in the new age of Lucas and Spielberg, FYEO was just dull. Critics mostly agreed that TSWLM was the best post Connery film, and felt Moonraker wasn't as good but still met the Bond film requirement of a fun, goofy ride. Critics seemed a little harsher by 1981, and stating that the Bond formula was becoming tired. This is the impression I got from some of my research. Ebert gives Moonraker *** out of **** by the way.

[freemo]

The "best" ones are overrated and the "worst" ones are underrated.

I really like Live and Let Die and The Man With the Golden Gun, light and fluffy, tremendous fun. Moonraker is probably the best of what it is.

Meanwhile, For Your Eyes Only is dull and uninviting, and A View to a Kill gets bogged down by it's own weight. Perhaps not so much of a rollarcoaster as a downward spiral.

[Jim]

Progressively shoddier

[Loomis]

How do you interpret the Roger Moore era of films, do you see it with distinct peaks and drops regarding the films?

The '70s Moores were genius. The '80s Moores were rubbish. See this thread:

http://debrief.comma...showtopic=18229

[Scottlee]

I can understand where the up/down theory comes from, but I'm easily satisfied as a Bond fan. I love all Moore's films, although if I had to be a bit choosy I would cite LALD and TMWTGG as being slightly weaker than the five that followed.