Goodnight, 007: Roger Moore (1927-2017)

"But James, I need you." "So does England."--The Spy Who Loved Me

The world is a sadder place this week. We lost the first of the series James Bond actors with the passing of Roger Moore at the age of 89 after a short battle with cancer.

Roger Moore was my first James Bond. I was seven when I first saw The Spy Who Loved Me on HBO in the summer of 1978. I didn't fully understand it at that age--and the guy with the metal teeth absolutely terrified me--but I couldn't stop watching it. I loved it. Almost forty years later, it's still an all-time favorite.
Of course, it's an argument that's gone on for decades: who is the best Bond? Sadly, in some ways, Roger Moore has gotten the most abuse of any of them. And yet, I will argue that Roger was the best.

"Oh, come on!" you are no doubt saying. "Everyone knows that Sean Connery was the best Bond ever. Daniel Craig is a close second."

Really? While I will admit that Connery's first three films are pretty great, let's be totally honest. Thunderball runs a bit too long and the underwater fight is pretty dull. Connery is outright bored and putting forward very little effort in You Only Live Twice. Diamonds are Forever is as silly as anything Moore ever did. And if Thunderball runs too long, it's remake, Never Say Never Again is just plain bottom five Bond. As for Craig, while Casino Royale and Skyfall are pretty terrific, Quantum of Solace joins NSNA on the bottom five and Spectre is a pretty good Roger Moore film. By the way, you wouldn't have Daniel Craig's films today without Roger Moore.

"That's crazy talk!" you shout defensively. "We wouldn't have Daniel Craig without Sean Connery."

Nope. After Connery left and George Lazenby did his one shot at Bond, the entire future of the series was hanging in the balance. To the point that the producers begged Connery back. He came back for Diamonds are Forever, of course, but that was it. If Roger Moore hadn't taken over the role and been accepted by audiences, we wouldn't have had Skyfall. That's right. If Live and Let Die had flopped, we wouldn't still be watching James Bond movies today. It didn't. And while his second film is a bit shaky, his third--like Connery's third entry--is his best and helped secure James Bond straight to the 21st Century.

"But his movies are so bad!"

Are they? I admit Live and Let Die is a pure product of 1973, riding the coattails of Blaxploitation, but it's actually a pretty good movie all the same. The Man With The Golden Gun leaves something to be desired but is somehow not as bad as Die Another Day or Quantum of Solace. The Spy Who Loved Me is where Roger Moore became the character of James Bond for sure and it's as good an entry as Goldfinger or Skyfall. Moonraker is kinda silly but fun. For Your Eyes Only showed that Moore could easily have done From Russia With Love style Bond. Octopussy is loads of fun. As for A View to a Kill, I think it's an under appreciated film. .

A View to a Kill was the first Bond I saw in the theaters. Does Roger look a little old in it? Maybe, though he certainly doesn't look as ridiculous as William Shatner in Star Trek V or--God help me--Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. First close up of him in that movie and all I could think was "He looks OLD". Besides, A View to a Kill has some great set pieces, including the fight on top of the Golden Gate Bridge. In 1985, on the big screen, that scene was a real nail biter. I was literally on the edge of my seat watching it.

By the way, in 1983 when there was the great 007 shootout between Moore's Octopussy and Connery's Never Say Never Again, not only was Octopussy the better movie, it did better at the box office.

"Yeah but he didn't have a career post-Bond," you snicker, thinking you finally have me.

Please. Outside of Connery, have any of them really had a career post-Bond? George Lazenby's career turned south so fast, he was a joke in Kentucky Fried Movie just five years after On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The last movie I actively remember seeing Timothy Dalton in was Looney Tunes Back In Action, where he played a joke on Bond. He also managed to pop up in an episode of Doctor Who, but wasn't asked back to reprise the character apparently. Pierce Brosnan has done a little better, but even he's not really a headliner anymore. As for Craig, we'll just have to see but it does seem notable that two of his higher profile non-Bond movies--The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Golden Compass--didn't exactly set the box office on fire.

Anyhow, his post-Bond career was dedicated to making the world a better place through UNICEF, so who needs a film career when you have that going on? He left Bond behind to become a different type of hero. It's also worth noting that he's the only Bond actor to not badmouth the role afterwards and to actually appreciate not only what Bond did for him, but what it meant for others.

"Oh, you're just being nostalgic for your childhood", you finally scoff.

You could be right. But then again, how many people aren't? I have found with Bond over the years that people's favorites are whoever they are exposed to first. I have a friend whose first Bond was Goldfinger in 1964, so naturally, to him there's only Sean Connery. On the other end of the scale, my nephew's first Bond was Pierce Brosnan and to this day he's the only one my nephew likes. My brother's first one was Live and Let Die, so that's his favorite. But that's okay, too. Bond is Bond. It's like Doctor Who. Everyone has a favorite Doctor and the argument will spin forever whose Doctor was best. But just like Doctor Who managed to continue on thanks to Patrick Troughton, James Bond continues to this day thanks to Roger Moore.

I make no apologies for liking Roger best. I grew up with him. I still have the Moonraker View Master reels. I may still have my well read copy of the Marvel tie in to For Your Eyes Only. Nobody Does It Better is still my favorite Bond tune. His Bond movies have provided me many hours of fun.

Roger Moore remains the longest running Bond with the most in-series movies (NSNA is outside of the series like the 1954 and 1967 versions of Casino Royale). He had a grace and a charm. He might have seemed to stroll through the films with a smirk and a raised eyebrow, but that was part of the fun. He might have turned Bond into Superman, but he did it with class. He was exactly the Bond we needed at the time he came along and what he ultimately did was prove that the series could survive.

So long, Roger. Thank you for being my 007.

"Bond, what do you think you're doing?" "Keeping the British end up, sir."

Why Idris Elba Won't Be Playing James Bond

Let's talk James Bond. Daniel Craig, who theoretically is signed on for a fifth Bond film, has stated that he never wants to play the character again. Spectre may or may not be his last film as Bond. Assuming he is out, we will once again get a new OO7, a fact that has caused some degree of speculation on the internet. The internet has told us that a fan favorite for OO7 is Idris Elba. I personally know nobody who wants to see Idris Elba as Bond, but the internet says it so it must be true, right?


Actually, there are people who want Elba to play Bond. You see them in the comments section of almost any article decrying the fact that he won't be Bond. Apparently, the rumored front runner is Damien Lewis of Homeland. I personally remember a time when the rumored front-runner to replace Roger Moore was Tristan Rogers and we got Timothy Dalton instead. So I suspect that none of the rumored front runners--Elba and Lewis included--will be OO7 and it will once again be the person we least suspect. Literally there are only two times a Bond actor was played by someone we expected and it took both of them years to get the part. I refer to Roger Moore (who was supposed to do it in 1962) and Pierce Brosnan (who was also supposed to suceed Moore).


Bond is an industry. He's been on the screen for 53 years now, played by six different actors. While each actor brought a little touch here or there to differentiate their version of the character, they all played the same basic character. None of the Bonds are really all that different. Quick: which Bond had a wetsuit with a duck decoy on his head? That was Sean Connery in Goldfinger, not Roger Moore which is what most people might assume. Which Bond threatened to break a woman's arm in order to get information from her? Roger Moore in The Man With the Golden Gun. Sure, Craig is a little angrier than the others and Moore was funnier than the others, but all in all, it's the same character.


The battle cry is that the producers don't want to do something different with the character by hiring Elba. "Bland, James Bland" is the snark going around. Yes, the producers probably don't want to radically change the character. Because if they did, he would cease to be James Bond. All of the major Bond characters to be played by mulitple actors have simply been variations on those characters. There have been four versions of Moneypenny in the series. Outside of giving her a gun and making her black in Skyfall, there isn't a whole lot that is different about Naomie Harris as Moneypenny. She was given more to do in the previous film than Lois Maxwell or Samantha Bond, I'll give you that, but the function of the character is pretty much the same.


The only one to be that radically different is Ben Whislaw's version of Q, and even he does much of the same sort of thing that Desmond Llewelyn did. Spectre isn't the first time Q went into the field to help OO7 out. Whislaw's arguably has more of a sense of humor than his predecessors and is a lot younger, but otherwise, he's Q.


So, outside of skin color, what about Idris Elba's Bond would end up being that different from Sean Connery's? Answer: not much. The times they've tried changing Bond up haven't worked out too well. Remember Timothy Dalton, the safe sex Bond who stuck to one girl per film and whose second movie could have been any action hero? Yes, he quit after the second, but he was unpopular enough that the studio didn't want him to do a third film anyway. Proof of how well a one woman Bond went over was Goldeneye, when he went back to being the James Bond we all knew and had sex with three different women. Even Craig has had more than one girl per film. That may sound crude, but it's true.


There are things about Bond that have become familiar over the last 53 years, things about the character people enjoy. The one-liners (even the bad ones), the gadgets, the promiscuity, and the fact that he's not just any action hero. He's fairly unique among action heroes, actually. The espionage is one of the things that sets him apart. That's the thing people disliked about License to Kill. It's not that it's a bad movie, it's that it's a standard issue revenge flick and that's not James Bond. License to Kill could have starred Arnold Schwarzennegar, Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone or any other action hero of the 80s and been basically the same movie.


I'm not saying Idris Elba couldn't play Bond. I'm saying that his Bond isn't going to rock the boat as much as people are expecting. Rocking the boat is not what the producers of the series are looking to do. Even the Craig reboots follow much of the formula the series has established. Why do you think there are so many scenes in them copying earlier Bond films? That's why Gemma Artertron's character in Quantum of Solace meets a fate similar to Shirley Eaton in Goldfinger and the DB-5 keeps showing up. It's called fan service.


Familiarity may breed contempt but it also breeds comfort. People go to these movies knowing what to expect and so long as they get that, the films will continue to suceed. The producers are not going to hire someone who is going to take the character in a wildly different trajectory than he's already been. It's also why you won't see Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino direct a Bond movie. Their movies have a particular stamp on them that is separate from what the franchise has been. Seriously, how many people picture a Tarantino Bond movie as having the main characters dropping F-bomb after F-Bomb? "Pay F-----g attention, OO7" may sound funny to say among friends, but it's not a line anyone would actually want to hear in a Bond movie.


When you do try to radically change an iconic character like Bond, you end up with a disaster of epic proportions. Don't believe me? I submit the case of the 1998 version of Godzilla. It may seem pretty silly to compare Godzilla to Bond, but not really since the two have been in popular culture for roughly the same amount of time. The first Bond adaption, a TV version of Casino Royale, came out the same year the first Godzilla movie was released. That said, the 98 version of the character of Godzilla radically changed practically everything audiences knew about him. Not only did he look totally different from the Toho version (sort of like an over-sized Iguana really), he acted differently. He perched on buildings, had baby Raptors, and was killed by missiles while perching on a bridge. Godzilla does not perch on buildings. He towers over them. He laughs at missiles. And he does not have baby Raptors in Madison Square Garden. Had that movie not been called Godzilla, it may not have drawn the ire that it has. Godzilla fans have a special amount of contempt for that movie. But I submit that had it been called anything else and the monster in it been called anything else, it might have been considered a harmlessly stupid but fun monster on the loose movie. Why do you think Gareth Edwards version strongly resembles the Toho version, right down to the atomic breath, and battles other monsters?


I could also use the New Coke argument where Coca-Cola decided to listen to people who said they should change the formula so they discontinued Coke and introduced New Coke in 1985. New Coke was so poorly received they brought back old Coke as Classic Coke before finally dropping New Coke entirely.


Are the producers wrong? The box office figures would suggest not. Pretty much every Bond movie since Goldeneye has made more money than the one prior to it. People are flocking to see Spectre not because it's radically different but because it's just like classic Bond. Critics are saying that you could swap out Craig for Moore in Spectre and have the same movie. Of course you could. You could also swap out Craig for any of the others and have the same basic movie. But you can do that with most of the Bond movies, at least from Goldfinger on. Seriously, You Only Live Twice has been made three times already in the series, each time with a different Bond: Connery in You Only Live Twice, Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me, and Brosnan in Tomorrow Never Dies. But look at them: they're the same basic story.


That's why you won't see Idris Elba as Bond. There's no need to make that radical a change to the character. Even if they did give it to Elba, they wouldn't make huge changes to the character. I'm quite certain the producers have an awareness of things like New Coke and the 98 Godzilla and see what happens when you go that far against the grain and have no desire to run that risk. Nor should they. At the end of the day, nobody really wants a New Coke James Bond, even if they say they do. Because if they got that, they'd complain it wasn't the James Bond they grew to know and love over the past 53 years. Didn't think of it in those terms, did you?

Spectre (2015)

There's two things keeping the 24th James Bond movie from being a total classic: the worst theme song since The Man With the Golden Gun and a plot twist that is so unnecessary as to be pointless. That said, not only is OO7 back, his greatest nemesis is back, too. And it's about time.

Long time fans of the series will remember the terrorist organization SPECTRE and their leader Ernst Stravo Blofeld as the big bads that bedeviled OO7 throughout the 1960s. Due to a complex legal situation, the last audiences saw of them was 1983's disappointing remake of Thunderball, Never Say Never Again. Spectre updates the terrorist group for the 21st Century. Instead of trading on 55ththe 1960s fear of nuclear war, this time Blofeld and his cronies are out to conquer the world Big Brother style.

The movie starts off with a thrilling and humorous sequence with Bond tracking a terrorist in Mexico City during the Day of the Dead festival. After blowing up a building and getting involved in a fight in a helicopter that sends panicked revellers running for their lives, Bond gets chewed ot by M (Ralph Fiennes). Seems his mission was unsanctioned and touched off an international incident. Oops.

We come to find out that Bond went after the terrorist on the orders of his late boss. His major clue involves a ring with an octopus insignia on it. Guess where the ring ultimately leads to?

What follows is most of the ingredients of vintage, Bond: gorgeous women, a big silent henchman who gives Bond a hard time, wild chase scenes, impossible escapes, and some much missed humor and gadgets. The latter is highlighted in a crackerjack chase through the streets of Rome. There's also a wonderfully destructive fight on a train between Bond and the aforementioned henchman (Dave Bautista) that recalls a similar slugfest between Bond and Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me.

All things considered, SPECTRE is a return to form for the series. By that I mean its a return to the sense of fun the movies once had. Some critics have griped that this is a Roger Moore Bond film starring Daniel Craig. That's not a bad thing, however. Bond has always about escapist fantasy and works best that way. Even the more grounded entries have a sense of humor about them. So it's great to see the series lighten up again.

In fact, except for the rotten theme song, the only thing really wrong with Spectre is the completely pointless attempt to make it personal for Bond again. The twist is a slap in the face of both Fleming and the series in general. Take it out and you have the best SPECTRE on film story yet.

Despite that, the OO7 of the 60s is back and man, is it great to see him again.

Let the Sky Fall...Thoughts on 50 years of James Bond

Skyfall, the 23rd official James Bond movie, was released yesterday. As with every Bond movie since Goldeneye, I chose to see it on opening night. I admit it. I'm a James Bond nut. Have been since I saw my first one at age 8 (The Spy Who Loved Me on HBO). I have not only the official 22 films, but the 67 spoof version of Casino Royale and 1983's Never Say Never Again. I even transferred the uncut version of the 1954 Casino Royale to DVD-R (the version included on the DVD of the 67 version is missing the end of the show). So, after Friday night's showing, I knew what my next blog would be. Take note that this isn't a spoiler-free blog, though I did put the spoilers in a different text (highlight to see them at your own risk).

Skyfall is currently being hailed as one of the best of the series. While I think it's a pretty damn good movie, I won't quite put it up there with the absolute best. It's not quite as good as the 2006 Casino Royale or the one that most people consider the very best (Goldfinger). It's far better than Quantum of Solace, but then again that one is a bottom five Bond for me anyhow. The opening action scene is terrific, a few familiar elements are re-introduced to the movie, and Javier Bardem's villainous Silva is probably the mos personable Bond villain ever. So what's wrong with the movie? To understand that, let's start with the re-introduction of Q. No spoiler here, since he's in the trailer.

At any rate, Q shows up and hands Bond a new Walther PPK and a radio transmitter. Bond comments "not exactly Christmas." Q's response was "What were you expecting? An exploding pen? We don't really go in for that sort of thing anymore."

Yes, it's a somewhat funny line, but it also dismisses one of the things that makes OO7 what he is. To get a better explanation of that, Bond producer Barbara Broccoli was quoted as saying that 9/11 happened while they were making Die Another Day and after the events of 9/11, they felt Bond shouldn't be so fantastical. But saying that misses the point of Bond.

James Bond is a fantasy figure, same as Doctor Who, Sinbad the Sailor, Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, and the various characters who populate the Marvel Cinematic Universe. OO7 was a fantasy figure from day one. Some Fleming purists might want to argue this, but even Fleming's creation had the touch of fantasy about him. Sure, most of Fleming's books were Bond versus SMERSH, cold war thrillers with plots that became somewhat dated and mundane over time. But Goldfinger in the novel still plans to attack Fort Knox, Dr. No still topples American missles, and Blofeld still steals a nuclear missle and plans to conquer the world. The books weren't totally grounded in reality, even if they didn't go as far as some of the movies went. Fleming still gave us megalomaniacs and Bond still had sex up the wazoo. Even in Fleming's novels, Bond was the type of guy women wanted and men wanted to be. The movies blew up those elements even more, and they did them right from the start.

It is true that Dr. No, the first of the movies, has no gadgets. But other hallmarks are there right from the start: the banter with Moneypenny, the numerous beautiful women Bond seduces, the larger than life villains, the even more larger than life bases, the plot to take over the world, the witty remarks after a cold blooded death. From Russia, With Love, the second entry in the film series (and the book that preceded the nove of Dr. No ironically), introduced Q (called Major Boothroyd) and the first of the gadgets--Bond's briefcase. Goldfinger followed a year later and cemented the blueprint for the series: the big henchman who gives Bond a hard time, the wilder gagdgets--including the iconic Aston Martin DB-5, the bona-fide sense of humor of the series. Goldfinger was funny, sexy, and thrilling and it ended up being a smash hit in 1964. By the end of the decade, other familiar scenes would show up (such as the skiing chase in On Her Majesty's Secret Service) and the audience ate it up. And there were gadget-less thrillers still done from time to time. The aforementioned OHMSS has no gadgets. Ditto Roger Moore's For Your Eyes Only. But both of those still had their fantasy elements in place. And Bond himself is still the character that we recognize from the other movies.

At the risk of pushing a point, sex has always been a big part of the series and it's appeal. Straight back to Dr. No, the Bond movies have always had a bevy of beautiful women in them. And in almost every single one up to the Craig era, the movies have ended with Bond and his leading lady in a clinch--usually with Q and M inadvertantly spotting this. Yes, some of the puns that accompany such a scene are usually groaners, but we love them for being groaners. It's part of the fun of the series. None of the three Craig films end like this. Come to it, Craig's Bond has sex with four women in three films and none of them survive. When did James Bond become a slasher series where sex with Bond was an automatic death sentence? I like Craig's Bond, but the man seriously needs better luck with the women.

Skyfall reintroduces other elements into the series, including Moneypenny. But now that the reboot is finally done, it's time for the series to make a return to what made it run for so long in the first place. The producers need to bring a little more fantasy in. Raise the stakes. Silva's plot--revenge on M and the destruction of MI-6 was pretty good. Certainly it was better than stealing the water supply of Brazil.  But Bond should go back to saving the world. After all, even under Fleming he did that. I'm not saying we need to go as far out as Die Another Day did. Even I'll admit that film was too much. But give us a villain with a major plot going on. One of my biggest gripes with Quantum of Solace is the fact that they set up such a great SPECTRE-like organization and then give them such a humdrum plot. That would be almost forgivable if they got a bigger plot in the next film, but they seem to have been jettisoned. That's a pity because Bond needs a SPECTRE. Most great heroes have an equally great villain. Batman has the Joker, Sherlock Holmes has Moriarity, Bond had SPECTRE. One of the many rumors surrounding Skyfall was that Ralph Fiennes was going to play Blofeld in it. He doesn't, which is a bit of a pity. Fiennes would have made for an awesome Blofeld. Audiences may like who Fiennes ends up playing in the film but he isn't Blofeld.

Oh, and can we please stop the string of "this time it's personal" stories for Bond? Every single Bond film since Licence to Kill has had Bond taking it personally. In that one, it was Bond's best friend Felix Leiter getting munched on by sharks and Bond seeking revenge. In Goldeneye, Bond's best British friend turns on him. In Tommorow Never Dies, the villain kills an ex-girlfriend of Bond's. In The World Is Not Enough, M is kidnapped. In Die Another Day he's betrayed by an insider and seeks revenge. Casino Royale has Bond's lover revealed to be a traitor. Quantum of Solace, he's seeking revenge on the organization that made her a traitor! And in Skyfall, M gets targeted again. That's 8 out of 23 films where Bond goes on a personal vendetta. 8 films in a row. Enough! Let the man go back to just plain out saving the world. Leave the baggage out of the next one and let's have a good old-fashioned adventure already.

At least the producers have gone back to real stunts performed by real stuntmen. The CGI Bond parasailing away from a tidal wave in Die Another Day was not only ridiculously stupid, it was a smack in the face to the rest of the series with it's insane stunt work. So the stunts is one thing the Craig era has right. And Sam Mendes lets us see what's going on in the action scenes, unlike Quantum's director Marc Foster. That, too, is a step in the right direction.The hectic editing that doesn't allow you to see who is doing what to whom might work for Batman, but it's as out of place for Bond as the aforementioned CGI. The series was built on a foundation of real stunts done by real stunt people that we could consistently see and enjoy. They were impressive and grin-inducing fun. When Bond runs across the heads of the crocodiles in Live and Let Die, it's a real stunt man running across real croc heads. It's a real stunt man skiing off a mountain, freefalling for a bit, and opening an Union Jack parachute in The Spy Who Loved Me. If you want to know what's wrong with Die Another Day and Quantum of Solace, just watch the opening chase through the construction site in Casino Royale. That's a terrific sequence and it highlights the faults of the two films that surround it. Skyfall does bring that sensibility back with it's opening chase and train fight.

Like I say, Skyfall is a good movie and it moves the series back in a proper direction. It corrects many (but not all) of the blunders of Quantum of Solace and it feels like the reboot is complete. Good. So, let's stop rebooting and give us THE James Bond. There is no reason Daniel Craig couldn't go on to be the best Bond of all time--even better than Connery. Give him his Goldfinger and see what he does with it. Trust me, Babs Broccoli, your father knew what he was doing for over 30 years. Trust the formula. Audiences still love it.

Oh, and quit putting the gunbarrel logo at the end of the movie!