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You could certainly make a case for 1974, with all the turnover in the lead role and then Harry leaving. Some members feel that Hamilton's Trilogy was the worst? Well, I'd have to disagree with that sentiment but I can certainly acknowledge the flaws of those particular films.
The most uncertain time had to be after LTK was released in 1989. Bond's popularity had already been in decline for a few years and then we had the six year gap on top of it. I didn't doubt that Bond would be back but some people certainly did.
You realise that's 10 movies out of 24 :-?
I feel it's one I can only answer from personal experience. Being in my early forties, I only became 'aware' of the franchise during the Dalton-era. I've experienced several nadirs.
The first one was the long hiatus between LTK and GE. Those six years seemed so long, that I often dreaded the franchise had ended with LTK.
The second was DAD. I really felt the franchise had 'betrayed' (maybe a strong word, but it's how I felt at the time) its origins. With Bourne popping up, and True Lies as a clear but very entertaining spoof, I feared Bond had dwelled into a cul-de-sac.
After SP, I'm somewhat doubtful on the future of Bond. I wouldn't call it a true nadir, but still ... The producers and script writers have made the stories in the Craig-era one whole. In a sense, that creates a nice multi-layered story. In another sense, it increases the difficulty to return to the Bond of old, when the episodes didn't interlock that strongly. I appreciate we are all fans here, having seen all Bonds multiple times, but I wonder how the occasional audience will react to the next Bond-movie that completely stands on its own. It's been 10 years since CR - that's an entire generation that maybe grew up with Bond, thinking the franchise exists of interlocking stories. Even if Craig and Waltz return for Bond 25, the movie-interlocking can't continue for that much longer.
At least, I hope it won't. The strength of Bond has always been that you can step into the franchise with (almost) any movie.
Again, I can't comment from memory because I only went into Bond in 1995, and I went into GoldenEye fresh - I hadn't seen the Bonds before then, and the whole six year-gap thing never came off as life-threatening to the franchise to me, nor did GE seem like a death-defying stunt, merely a huge success.
If I had to comment based on what I can predict, it's the 70's and 90's for me when it comes to creative thinking, the 80's for financial. I don't think much has to be said about the latter - most of the 80's Bond films were some of the lowest-grossing Bond films ever, and I believe they claim 3 or 4 of the bottom 5 when it comes to worldwide inflated gross. FYEO was the best in the decade, much better than the others, and yet only makes it to about halfway of the ranking.
From a creative perspective, I can't decide between the 70's and 90's - the former was piggybacking hard off the cultural trends of the time (blaxpoitation, martial arts, solar energy, sci-fi, etc.) while the 90's sorely felt the lack of Albert R. Broccoli's presence, and they kept relying on the (at the time, "tried and true") Bond formula, and it didn't fail them commercially, but you could feel the creative strain as they began ripping off the headlines of the day rather than making creative stories. And DAD was an absolute mess indeed.
You can say exactly the same thing about 71-85. What can be more auto-parody than the Bondola, the Moon Buggy or the Beach Boys? Don't you feel James was a caricature when he disguised himself as a clown? Or when he wore a poncho?
For all its faults, I don't think it's fair to say that the Brosnan era was the absolute nadir because Bond became a spoof of himself. The whole Moore era was basically one big pastiche.
The 80s Bond films also have to be taken in the context that movie grosses were lower generally as well.
Yes, the Bond movies in the 80's did well. If you look at yearly worldwide lists James Bond always is amongst the most successful movies of each year. Even LTK.
A "flop" or "failure" James Bond is simply a myth.
No, I don't feel that way at all. That was humour, which you can choose to enjoy or not. That is not the same thing as making a fool of the James Bond character himself by appearing to overemphasize his personal characteristics, tropes and tics ('Bond, James Bond' overdone, 'Omega watch gadgets' overdone, 'car gadgets' overdone, 'fancy suits' overdone, 'Bond theme' overdone, 'quips overdone and poorly', etc. etc.) at the expense of tension. Additionally, they were increasingly explosion and machine gun filled action fests rather than thrillers. This trend continued with each succeeding film during that era. Like they were doubling down. That's a far cry from Bond being put into humorous situations from time to time, or a little comic relief with the Beach Boys or gondola, which is what happened during the Moore/latter Connery periods. Moreover, they always corrected during that earlier period with another film which toned back. My view of course.
I was referring to the period from 1999 to 2002 in particular which was an absolute calamity as far as I was concerned. Those weren't Bond films to me. Rather, they were parodies of Bond films (as explained above). Disgraces to the franchise made by people obviously getting their feet wet and who didn't have confidence in the Bond character post-cold war. Having said that, I do enjoy DAD for what it is, but not TWINE.
You'll note that my comments above did not reference Brosnan himself as being the problem but rather the producers. That is where my criticisms were directed previously. In fact, Brosnan (through his demeanor and performance in GE) did as much as anyone to save the franchise commercially, as I noted above. Your comments could seem to suggest that I'm blaming that time on Brosnan and I want to clarify that's not the case. It's not that simple and my arguments on that front are a bit more finessed. I blame him for his horrendous emotional acting in TWINE, but not for the quality of his last few films. That is firmly the producer's fault.
But I believe the thread aims at discussing where the nadir of the franchise is, objectively speaking.
This rules the Brosnan era automatically out as GE is one of the few absolute fan favourites.
Not sure if the same can be said about TLD, if not, then the Dalton era would qualify sooner for being the nadir of the series.
I can see that TWINE-DAD could be seen as a low point. I was hugely disappointed in TWINE back then and it's near the bottom in my ranking.
Still, DAF to TMWTGG seems to be the one period of time in the franchise when it hit low after low in many regards. It was certainly a Godsend to have Roger Moore in two of those three movies.
And after TMWTGG it was clear to everyone, that EON has to do something.
After DAD the situation was very different. It had just broken ticket sales records and BO records and was regarded by many critics as at least a good movie back then.
Yeah I was very surprised when I recently read Roger Ebert's review of Die Another Day, he thought it was great.
That's probably because it followed TWINE. Heck, even I thought it was far better than TWINE, and still do.
No DAD is far worse than TWINE.
And he is right.
Even if I have TWINE near the bottom it's still clearly one of the very best movies of 1999.
The same applies to each and every Bond movie in its running year.
It's not the same to talk about the franchise only or to put it into perspective with other movies.
Quite a lot of people did back in the day - even some more hardcore fans.
It surprises me - I thought it was horrid - to the point where between 2002 and 2006 I wasn't really bothered about Bond any more. I enjoy it now and think it benefits from rewatches where you can enjoy it for what it is. It's still the worst entry in the series though. Just glad they didn't go through with the Jinx spin off series.
God, I remember them talking about that too.
I have to admit I thought it was decent enough back in 2002, though even then I knew the effects were rubbish. That was the main criticism of the film.
I think View is worse than MR too. At least MR is visually impressive and doesn't feel lazy.
I'm being hard on View because it does have some nice cinematography occasionally. However, the film feels very bland and uninspired. It gives us nothing new. At least Brosnan's films tried (albeit relatively unsuccessfully) to explore new ideas and promoted these ideas. View doesn't really do that.