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TMWTGG - His first encounter with Anders in her hotel room, where he threatens to break her arm, and even slaps her around for information about Scaramanga.. but even passed that, his comment of "who knows, he might even use one of those little golden bullets on you....... and that would be a pity, because they are very expensive." - thats a rather cold line to say to someone..
TSWLM - When reveals to Anya that he killed her lover. "In this line of work Anya, people get killed... we both know that, so did he... it was either him or me, so the answer to your question is yes, i did kill him."
and of course the aforementioned scene in FYEO with Bond kicking Loque / Car off the side of the cliff..
Moore kept the franchise alive during the 70's and into the 80's.
As much as I liked OHMSS, I really don't think Lazenby could have done that. He had a good movie and he was good in it, but Moore brought what the public wanted, at a time when the public was still recovering from the loss of Connery. He reimagined Bond in way that was required for the times, it caught on with the public, and the franchise stayed alive.
Sure, his movies have silly moments, but in the overall scheme of things, they are entertaining flicks, all of them, including the much maligned TMWTGG. The producers were already going silly before he came along with DAF, and continued to include silly moments in their movies well after he left the series, including in TLD and throughout the 90's. So it's not his fault entirely.
He was just too old for AVTAK and he should have left after OP, so Dalton could have taken over sooner. That is the only debate worth having here, i.e whether he should have left after perhaps FYEO or maybe after OP. Personally, I'm glad he did FYEO & OP (see below for why).
They really had no alternative during most of Moore's run. Dalton was not a real contender (he didn't want it when offered it earlier, saying he was too young) until after AVTAK. Lewis Collins, Michael Billington, Michael Jayston & James Brolin, who were all under consideration before FYEO, would have killed off the franchise IMO. As has been noted, they needed Moore to go up against Connery, and it's a good thing they had him when required. OP trounces NSNA despite it's stupidity in moments (including nearly all of the India outdoor scenes). It's unquestionably the better paced and more entertaining film. Can you imagine what the press would have been if EON had lost that battle?
His performance was consistent throughout his long 12 year tenure. No ups and downs. Just good ole Sir Rog, keeping the British end up, oozing charisma and delivering lines with class like no one else can. I salute him, and I'm glad he was Bond for the time that he was.
That's one of my favorite lines.
Is that the best one can say for those films?
They kept the franchise alive? With slide whistles and clown suits and hitting on really young women and riding around in a gondola-mobile and flopping about on train rooftops?
Really?
Gimme the quality stuff from the Connery fiilms, the Laz pic and the tough, fun Craig pictures any day of the week.
Laz's awful dubbed voice as Sir Hilary Bray
hitting on really young women - kind of like DAF right with Plenty O'Toole?
Riding around in gondola-mobile.... not as embarrassing as the moon buggy from DAF...
.....bottom line, there was plenty silliness to go around...
Connery only had GF & TB IMO.
No, not at all. There's much more that can be said about Moore's films, but that's not what we're debating here. The question is should he have been replaced after 1980? I agree with the arguments in this thread that he should not have been replaced until after OP. I myself have made arguments to support that case above and in previous posts on this thread.
Of the films in question after 1980, I'll take FYEO, & OP (yes even with the stupid India outdoor stuff - the clown thing does not bother me) over DAF at the very least, and also over DN. For me, they are on par with the vaunted GF (which I don't think too highly of).
I don't let the silly stuff spoil it for me, because I actually can overlook that and enjoy the other elements of the films. That's just me though, and you're welcome to feel differently.
Moore's best is arguably TSWLM.. after that, it's a mixed bag because different people will have different opinions.... for me, i really enjoy TSWLM, LALD, OP, and FYEO
For Connery, FRWL & TB are the gold standard IMO. GF is, as you say, GF. The others I'm not too keen on (although they are of course, not bad). I give DN credit for being the first, but I watched it recently and it is of course dated.
GF is GF, i like it - thats about it lol...
YOLT, it just seems like Connery is getting tired of the role by that time - and i think it tried too hard to want to top TB - and in ways it did - Ken Adams' sets were masterful... but for those that say TB drags, thats how i feel about YOLT...
and DAF, lol... it's a romp you can't take too seriously (like Sean's rug).. it has it's merits, but not enough - and in 7 years, Connery looked like he aged 20 years..... he looked better in NSNA.
the way i look at it... i like all the films - some a little more than others... but to say Moore's era was a complete waste of time and terrible, is a huge miscalculation... did he hang on a little too long?... yeah probably - the argument could be made that he should've hung it up after either FYEO or OP.. but he didn't.... the fact is, personal feelings aside for anyone - he was a very popular and successful Bond for his time...
I think it would have been the best swan-song for him as well. The next two would have benefited from moving onto Dalton immediately, and then they would have had more time to work out the right "groove" for him. As a result the best Bond got two compromised films. Damn shame.
Very true. I remember an ongoing thread last year where we came to the same conclusion. Maybe they asked Moore back for AVTAK, despite the fact that OP seemed like such a natural choice to retire on, having defeated the unbeatable Sean Connery and truly going out on an all time high (sorry I couldn't help myself), simply because no one else was really worthy of the role at the time. Their top choices were Dalton and Brosnan. Dalton turned it down for whatever reason and Brosnan was still locked in TV land. What else were they to do? Go back to James Brolin? Brolin's screen-test made Vin Diesel look like Daniel Day Lewis. He was more wooden than my front door. Moore on his worst day was more charismatic and charming than Brolin on that screen-test. The logical choice, with no clear successor, was to stick to what worked for alteast one more film. Namely Sir Rog, the best soldier EON would ever have.
People like to rag on AVTAK and make fun of Moore's age but it could've been so much worse. Imagine, in a state of desperation, they were forced to settle on a lesser actor and we'd be stuck with him all through the rest of the 80s. As you stated above, Moore's performances were always consistent no matter what his age was. I'd rather have a 57 year old Roger Moore doing what he did best than a new younger actor who didn't know what he was doing.
The silver lining for me with AVTAK is it allowed Timothy Dalton to be cast the following year. Had they signed a new actor for AVTAK we'd never have had Dalton. Which in my opinion, would've been a true shame.
I freely admit the moon buggy thing was silly, as I have previously admitted that as a picture DAF is by far the lowest point of the Connery years.
The dubbing of Laz was for a story reason, and it does not bother me, either does the silly bit with the fake gull on Sean's head, but I'd be more than happy to go beat by beat and compare the Moon Buggy with the Gondola to fully decide which one was more ridiculous and more embarrassing to the franchise.
If they had decided to change the actor playing Bond for AVTAK, the movie would have needed to be considerably modified I think.
;)
Legacy?
And of course his films can be criticized, they're the worst-reviewed in the entire series. He sure had no issue taking the money as the films got worse and worse.
I understand that such actors as Sam Neill, James Brolin had tested for the role but Cubby wanted Timothy Dalton, who unfortnately was unavaliable. It was then that he setteled on Roger Moore and they had to rush the pre production for FYEO.
Despite this, FYEO is one of the best films of the Moore years.
It is fun to speculate how the 80's had turned out had Dalton played Bond through the decade.
He starred in the worst reviewed films in the series if you go by Rotten Tomatoes, which seems to be your bible. But the fact of the matter is that every Bond actor starred in atleast one film that was not well recieved by critics. As my favorite actor of all time, Charles Bronson, once said, "I don't make movies for film critics because they don't pay to see them anyhow". At the end of the day it's the audience that matters most. The way an audience shows its approval is by buying tickets. So lets talk about Moore's "legacy" in that regard.
LALD, TSWLM, and MR (adjusted for inflation) grossed more money than all of Brosnan's films, both of Dalton's, and OHMSS. LALD grossed only a little less than CR and QOS. But what's even more telling is that the only Bond films to gross more than TSWLM and Moonraker are Skyfall, Thunderball, Goldfinger, and You Only Live Twice. Moonraker is the last Bond film to have the distinction of the being the highest grossing film of the year. Not even Skyfall can lay claim to that. These aren't moot opinions. They're cold hard facts. That's Moore's legacy. Being an undeniably massive success in the role of James Bond.
And yet when Dalton was brought in his films didn't fare any better than Moore's later efforts. Worse actually as both FYEO and Octopussy outgrossed TLD while LTK was the lowest grossing entry in the entire series. Casual audiences were tired of the Bond series in general during the 80s. The actor playing the character wasn't to blame. 6 Bond films were released during an 8 year span during the 80s. For the average fan it was a Bond overload.
A wise man Charles Bronson. ;)
The very wisest. ^:)^
Without Moore, there would be no Craig as Bond.
Exactly. In my eyes Roger only had 2 duffers (Gun and View), the rest ranged from merely 'ok' to excellent. Without Moore the franchise would have been dead in the water long ago.
Bless you sir...
@DaltonCraig007 is absolutely correct...
Say what you will about your opinion in regards to Moore as 007, or the quality of the films, thats your opinion which you are entitled to have - but as we've been saying, the real fact is.. they made money.. people at the time liked them.. and they kept the franchise going... if his films were so horrible as you suggest, the franchise would've tanked and gone under - so if it wasn't for Rog carrying the torch, and doing a fine job at it, there would've been no Dalton, no Brosnan, and no Craig...