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The Zenith of the Bond Franchise?
ForYourEyesOnly
In the untained cradle of the heavens
Seeing the success of my Nadir thread and the overwhelming amount of negativity around Bond right now, I've decided to switch things a little. With a little encouragement from a user PM, I've decided to now make a thread for the opposite discussion - when do you guys believe was Bond's highest point? This does not necessarily refer to right after the best movie was made, but simply when Bond's current position and future prospects appeared to be at their strongest.
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and
SF-SP
success wise.
Quality wise 1969, and the first four movies.
After 1969 it never went back to the quality of the 60's.
TSWLM came close.
GE as well to some extend.
Since then all scripts were between mediocre and bad.
GF and TB, massive success, Bond was new and fresh, probably the coolest thing on the planet at that point.
It will never reach those heights again, SF is an anomaly which tapped into something as was probably as successful.
Bond mania had hit and it's success was astronomical.
As I said there originally, it's the period from DN to TB imho. Unquestionably bulletproof, and nearly every Bond film since then has drawn from the genius of those four films, three of which were directed by Terrence Young and starred Sean Connery.
Everything else is just an imitation, some done better than others, again imho.
Well if you look at it terms of ticket sales, there is not much in it between DAD and CR so was Bond really in crisis at the end of the Brozzer era?
For the series the mid 60s the world seemed to go Bond crazy.
TSWLM and Moonraker were huge successes in the 70s
Brosnan with GE reinvorated the series
CR, seemed to excite audiences once again in Bond.
Again, I'm not so much focusing on the best movie, but the actual period of time and also considering things like competition and Bond's future at the time.
It's not whether you win so much as how you win, and all that jazz.
In that respect, I'll take CR in a heartbeat over several DADs.
( a very dangerous Bond) was Back. =D> as @tanaka123 says
I knew I was watching a classic Bond.
Indeed you are correct, I'm just always intrigued by this kind of thing, CR was showered with praised yet the real bump in business was not as high as perceived at the time. Similar with the transition from AVTAK to TLD not much in real terms.
For the fans it was a crisis, because DAD deviated way too much from what a Bond-movie should be. But for a general public who just wants to enjoy a fun and action packed movie, the comparison with the entire legacy is not as important.
You could compare it with MR - very few fans would put this one in their top half, but at the time it was an amazing succes at the box-office: breaching the $200M line - would not happen again until GE.
On the good side: both MR and DAD were followed by a story that went back to basics.
It was far more serious, and had wit & excellent dialogue, with less set pieces/explosions. It wasn't pandering to the pimply XXX young crowd, unlike Brosnan's last two or three. It was EON showing the world that they were returning to 'quality fare'. Plus Craig was a relative unknown in the US unlike Brosnan.
So the fact that it did as well as it did is a testament to how good it was.
QoS was the disappointment actually, because it didn't do noticeably better than CR and should have, given Craig had blown the doors out with the prior film.
Unlike some, I would not put SP in that category, due to the massive drop off in box office in the largest and most profitable (still) market, namely the US. I would put SP in the slightly lower tier category which includes YOLT (which also dropped off relative to TB).
TSWLM, LALD & GE should be in a slightly lower tier too, as films which are reviewed favourably for the most part and which also reinvigorated box office compared to their predecessors. They relaunched Bond, although they weren't cultural phenoms like GF-TB & SF.
Taking into account that movies are made in an economic reality, with huge movie crews to pay, box office is very important, especially for future prospects - movie history counts many sequels that were never released because the first in the series wasn't a success. And even more so for a franchise that already has had to switch companies because of economic reality.
Qualitywise I don't think the Brosnan-era was the zenith. But in guaranteeing a future for the franchise, the box-office success in his era certainly made a huge contribution.
A spectacular upward curve over 3 consecutive years of popularity, success and Bondmania. Ironically the quality of the films inverse to that but nonetheless.
Similar but significant high points were:
TSWLM-MR: Bond was absolutely back after 3 lacklustre films. Say what you like about MR but it has a fantastic swagger to it and is pure entertainment.
The whole Brozza era (until people saw DAD): let's not forget Brozza was very popular at the time and we had got back to films pretty much every two years. Bond was back after the interminable early 90's and people were pretty glad about it. Yes history has been less kind as the early promise of GE tailed off throughout his tenure but there was a buzz about Bond again.
SF-SP: Thanks to a perfect storm of circumstances SF went stratospheric and SP surfed on the back of that. Bond is the coolest thing on the planet again. Whether we are now coming off that wave or still on the crest of it we will have to wait and see but B25 really needs to smash it out of the park to keep up the momentum after SP's missteps.
In early 2003 DAD would have been seen as an absolute high point, now look how it's viewed upon.
Who knows how SF and SP will be seen in 10 or 15 years.
SF is not untouchable and SP may just have a similar fate like DAD...
...or will be seen as Craig's TSWLM.
Time will tell.
Agreed.
And thanks @ForYourEyesOnly for a positive thread. Very nice. I was getting bummed lol.
GF established Bond as a separate genre and urshered in "Bondmania" TB was the highest grossing film for the longest (factor in inflation adjustments) McClory had one good sense of timing!
Also the 1960's the films were all so new and many concepts were fresh. They relied on the books more back then too. FRWL and OHMSS following the written word the closest. TB, GF, DN has some minor deviations.
About being fresh: FRWL is a good old spy story; DN was an old fashioned adventure story, TB had that beautiful underwater photography (the first) and YOLT was exposing us to Japanese culture and those beautiful shots of Japan, and OHMSS featured the action on the ski slopes (the first)
Since the 1970's the movies began to follow current trends instead of establishing trends themselves.(LALD and TMWTGG) And on several occasions EON has stooped to re cycling what we had seen earlier. TSWLM. MR, AVTAK are the most glaring ones. While watching TWINE I kept having this feeling of "Been here, done that"
An old fart like me can easily recall the Bondmania of the mid-late 60's. Everyone copying Bond who was the gold standard.
The 1960's was the Zenith.
I wouldn't say it's too early to say that SF is a zenith in the franchise. Just about everyone loved it and raved about it, and it made an absolute killing at the box office. I don't think it'll ever be seen as a low point.
But general opinion might not be that favourably anymore in the future.
I daresay that despite CR being a better movie, SF will be considered Craig's TB
Then I misconstrued what you said. I took it as you saying it's too early to judge SF as either a zenith or a nadir, to which I stated that I think it's fair enough to say SF is most certainly a high point of the series, and won't ever be seen as a low point overall (even to those of us who don't care for it at all. ;) )