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That Golden Era of 007
I know that for most people, the 1960's from Dr. No through On Her Majesty's Secret Service is considered Bond's "Golden Era", but for me it is not, considering that three of the '60s Bond movies comprise my bottom three, haha. I've always seen the Golden Era to be from 1981 with For Your Eyes Only on through 1999 with The World is not Enough. It might sound crazy for some people, but all of these with the exception of TWINE make up 7 of my top 10, and TWINE sometimes gets roped in there after an exceptional watch. I love the 1981-1999 era because there was much more focus on superb action, leaving less room for boring "plot developement". Also, I've always enjoyed Roger's latter three Bond movies more than his other four, and of course, I'm always a big fan of the harder-edged and classy performances from Dalton and Brosnan. In my opinion, these eight movies are the epitome of 007. So my question would be what do you consider Bond's golden era?
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Also, I rank DN, FRWL and TB very high on my list of best Bond films. They possess a charm that almost puts tears in my eyes . That, however, isn't the main reason for my choice of the era. After all, 1969's OHMSS is also one of the best Bonds ever IMHO, but I think the Bond craze had cooled down somewhat at this point.
So there you are: the golden years of Bond, for me, include all films from DN to YOLT, mostly based on the general popularity of the films and their cultural impact.
2nd would be Dr. No thru DAF
And hopefully we are in a new era that I will consider top notch for a long time.
I can see how many people would extend that to 69, but to me YOLT was a bit of a mis-step. It was bloated, boring in places, and a little too OTT for my tastes now. When I was younger I loved the *idea* of the film, but found it dragged and Connery's performance was lacking.
OHMSS was my favourite Bond film until CR...so I guess I consider 1969 to be the series' "silver age"..?
The Fool's Gold Era: 71-79
The Silver Era: 81-95
The Golden Shower Era: 97-02
The Platinum Era: 06-Present
Ha, ha. Not a fan of Brosnan then? Must say that I quite agree with you listing - if we could move '67 to the Silver era!
Agree with this. Call the Brozz era the Interegulum ie doesnt exist. Good choice for silver era though.
Transitional Phase 1971 - 1974.. a passing of the baton with not just actors, but with style, and the redefinition of Bond as a character... these 3 films mix about as well as drinking and driving - definitely an era where they were searching for an identity...
Silver Era 1977 - 1989.. Moore hits his stride with a few good outings and Dalton takes over and brings the series back to center.. these years are notable for not only their hits, but also a couple of their misses..
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Era 1995-2002.. Brosnan starts out strong, but with each film moving forward, the series really starts to fall apart as it finds itself in the purgatory of dumbed down action and talentless hollywood starlets..
can't rightfully critique Craig's run until it is over... but so far, it's going good..
For me the golden era is the first three films, which are all perfect. However, I agree that with mid to late Roger the series once again hit cinematic gold. I rate almost all of Rog's films from Spy onwards pretty highly. They are different and perhaps not quite so classic as Sean's finest outings, but represent an impressive run of quality none the less. I also think TLD was great, so I suppose that can be added on to the end of the second golden era. Where I differ from you is in feeling that LTK actually represented a bit of wrong turn and was followed by the four worst films in the entire series. Since then DC has got things a bit back on track, but I would not say his films have attained the consistency or entertainment value of Roger, or the classic feel of early Sean. We live in hope though!
@Kerim
good ranking. I must say that by 1965 prior to TB release Bondmania was at it's height. by 1967 there were so many imitators in the market place but we knew Bond was tops. Seeing YOLT now some younger viewers can mistakenly think Bond was imitating the imitators.
After release of YOLT and the announcement of the next film OHMSS I remember this this strange feeling came over me. I had a feeling that the Bond movies were passing into a new phase. I don't know what to call it but I just had this feeling...
Next a new Bond actor was announced as the decade of the sixties was coming to a close. After OHMSS, that trashy DAF.
Yes, it was obvious: Bondmania was over. 1969 was the end of an era for Bond. The Golden Age was over...
Fool's Gold- agree. Films were flashy and expensive and made a crap load of money but it was like built on sand.
1981-95 thanks to John Glen's direction and some seriousness to the role the films actually began an upward swing.
97-02: Where Babs and Mikey pulled a circular firing squad on each other. Collectively shooting themselves in the ass.
Everyone of these films, and yes including DAF, are solid gold. This period epitomizes the series.
What I mean is, say for instance an era of Connery/Lazenby from 1962-71, and then Moore from 1973-85 for instance and then the rest as you are..
Actually that makes it harder to choose, and Moore for all his clowning around especially towards the end of his tenure, gave us some damn fine movies and actually did very well here and there. Connery really was only very effective and maybe the best Bond ever from 1962-63, so on that basis, it's a harder pick but I would of gone with Moore from 1973-85, simply in that I went to see most of them at time of release and I enjoyed them more overall
I liked the Moore releases, because although absurd at certain points, they offered so much to get involved in, and there was a nice variation from serious to comical along the way, so it was a nice blend that he provided..
And some of the very best action bits and pieces of the entire franchise without question. Connery, Dalton and Brosnan didn't necessarily supply that, at risk of a backlash with the third name
Haha. To me that's always been "Bond on life support era," well at least until 1995 when Goldeneye really revived the series. For Your Eyes Only and License to Kill were good films, but they weren't "classic" James Bond and didn't have that mainstream appeal. In my opinion Octopussy was entertaining and the Living Daylights was a solid Bond movie (and my favorite of the two Dalton films). However, A View to a Kill made me cringe throughout and is probably my least favorite of all the Bond films.
Just from having seen that set of films I had figured they made less money than prior and subsequent Bond pictures, my hypothesis was exactly right Looking at the inflation adjusted box office returns, every film from FYEO until LTK made significantly less money than the previous and subsequent set of films.
I think FYEO and LTK are true Bond classics, without a doubt. FYEO took Bond back to his grittier roots again, which really helped revive the series after the outlandish tomfoolery of Moonraker. Even though MR wasn't horrible, we certainly wouldn't want to go any further than that. LTK brough Bond to his grittiest and darkest point in the series, which for me is in itself a classic for taking the unexpected and extreme approach, which I believe worked exceptionally well! As for A View to a Kill, it never makes me cringe. From the amazing pre-title sequence where Bond destroys a Russian helicopter with a flare (EPIC!) to the finale fight on top of the Golden Gate Bridge, it remains a personal favorite of mine! Also, special note to the scene where Max Zorin machine-guns his workers in the mine. If that's not an echo of things to come with the Dalton era, especially LTK, I don't know what is.
It's only about opinions after all, and that's all very well, but I always have a hard time seeing why anybody can see any redeeming features in that awful release
When did Dalton use a machine gun in License to Kill anyway.. I haven't seen it in a long time in my defense, but I don't remember any such instance. You must mean Sanchez later on with the Kenworth Trucks chase but what he used was a Steyr TMP from I can recall
There you go.... I have what he's having......
I just made an info graphic on my personal rating of the movies. So I come to the conclusion of 4 peaks:
Connery/Lazenby: the true and first Golden Age
Moores middle three: the best of the goofy ones, inspired a new generation of fans
89-99: Not very inspired but very solid
And now there's Craig who does build up some kind of expectation for the things yet to come.