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Which was 007's most/least important mission from the start?

barryt007barryt007
edited March 2011 in Bond Movies Posts: 19,339
Which mission do you think was Bond's most important from the beginning of the film,i.e when he originally gets his instructions from M or a PTS that carries on to the film itself.

Some Bond missions start out small,eg Octopussy and grow as the film progresses and some immediately start big : eg Tomorrow Never Dies and You Only Live Twice.

What d'yall think out there is the most important and least important original missions at the start of any of the 22 Bond films so far ?
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Comments

  • CommanderStrangwaysCommanderStrangways
    Posts: 16
    Most important - Thunderball
    Nukes are bad, especially in the hands of men with eye patches.

    Least important - Quantum of Solace
    Sorry, still not even sure what was the real threat to merry old England in that one was.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,186
    I would almost say MR, as the entire human race is at stake there - well pretty much. But frankly, I think the most important mission would be TND for me. Keeping bad news from happening and ... from the media, isn't at all such a bad move. ;;)

    Bond's least interesting mission for me is without a doubt DN. Toppling of moon rockets feels so far from home.
  • RunawayRunaway
    Posts: 24
    I would say the plotlines for TB, YOLT, TSWLM, FYEO, AVTAK and TND placed Bond immediately into missions of the utmost importance. The pick of the bunch would have to be between TB and YOLT, where the threat of nuclear war loomed large.

    AVTAK might seem a strange choice but the PTS and the first few minutes after made clear that the Russians had developed microchips that could withstand EMP and it was Bond's mission to find out who had sold that data to them. I have felt there was quite a lot of hostility on the old forum towards FYEO because people felt that the thrust of the plot ie the threat of the ATAC falling into Russian hands wasn't taken seriously enough. I've always thought that it was made clear from the start that there was a certain amount of plausible deniability from the Admiralty towards the mission (as the ship carrying the transmitter was sunk in Albanian waters).

    The plotlines that were neither important to national security or were perceived as major threats to global stability where only Bond could save the world would have to be FRWL, LALD, TLD, LTK and QoS. QoS is probably Bond's least important mission.
  • MrBondMrBond Station S
    Posts: 2,044
    I dare say FRWL " Go find the lektor and take with you the girl ". Easy! ;-)
  • HASEROTHASEROT has returned like the tedious inevitability of an unloved season---
    Posts: 4,399
    most important mission(s).. for me, it would Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker.... my pick out of that bunch, Thunderball...

    least important mission(s).. From Russia With Love, Live And Let Die, For Your Eyes Only, Quantum Of Solace..... my pick, Live And Let Die - let the junkies have their drugs, who cares...
  • jaguar007jaguar007
    Posts: 638
    Least important. DAF. Even Bond questioned M why MI6 was even concerned with diamond smuggling.

    Most important, TB
  • KerimKerim Istanbul Not Constantinople
    Posts: 2,629
    I'm onboard with TB being the most important and DAF being the least important.
  • LiveAndEatPieLiveAndEatPie
    Posts: 101
    Most important would surely be MR...
    killing everyone on earth with gas from space is a pretty nasty plan.

    Least important would be LALD...
    I think Bond has better things to do with his time than stopping drugs get onto the streets of America.
  • HASEROTHASEROT has returned like the tedious inevitability of an unloved season---
    Posts: 4,399
    i would have to disagree with Diamonds Are Forever being the least important... on the surface, yes, who cares about diamond smuggling - but after finding out that it's Blofeld behind the scenes orchestrating it (a man who he thought he killed) - and then seeing what the diamonds were being smuggled in to create - a giant death laser in space to hold governments around the world hostage so to speak.. i would say it's a pretty important mission.... personal feelings towards the film itself aside..

    but, that's my opinion lol....
  • Austin_MaddingAustin_Madding
    Posts: 33
    First of all, I'd probably have to agree that Thunderball was the most important...although that struggle has been modernized slightly in later films. So I'm just going to play Devil's Advocate and argue for a couple of the unmentioned films. :D

    Goldeneye: This was probably the "electric" equivalent of Thunderball. Keeping evil hands off of an EMP weapon that can reach any target on earth (versus a missile's trajectory-based range) would be pretty up there, if you wanted to keep your hometown from permanently "roughing it."

    From Russia With Love: Nobody's life may have been hanging in the balance, but at the height of the Cold War, the enemy's decoding machines would have been a pretty poignant objective.

    The World Is Not Enough: In light of recent developments, would we really want someone to be the one, single major source of the world's oil?
  • PrinceKamalKhanPrinceKamalKhan Monsoon Palace, Udaipur
    Posts: 3,262
    If I had to put only one as the most important, I would say YOLT since it was the truly the first of "the entire globe is in trouble and only James Bond can save us now!!!!" plots that would more or less get repeated in Lewis Gilbert's other 2 sci-fi Bonds(TSWLM, MR). I would also add TB and OP with their nuclear explosion plots.

    Least important? Probably TMWTGG's. Searching after an assassin whose big threat is? Monopoly on solar energy. A little tame compared to many others, no disrespect to the 1974 film as entertainment as I am quite fond of it.
  • BAIN123BAIN123
    Posts: 11,189
    FYEO, Bond has to retrieve an ATAC (not save any lives) and ends up destroying it :p
  • Samuel001Samuel001 Moderator
    Posts: 13,355
    Thunderball or You Only Live Twice would top the list with Live And Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun bringing up the rear in my opinion.
  • UndiscoveredCountryUndiscoveredCountry
    Posts: 50
    In my opinion, TMWTGG probably contains Bond's least important mission at first, especially given that MI6 doesn't even know about Scaramanga's connection to the Solex until well into the film. YOLT and NSNA are probably the most important initially, with the latter film edging out TB because Sydow-Blofeld was threatening a larger number of nations (beyond just NATO).
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    YOLT undboubtedly the most important from the off - the Yanks and Russians are threatening nuclear war at the height of the cold war which means goodnight Vienna for all of us. Has nobody seen Threads?

    TB isnt anywhere near in the same league as this. All SPECTRE have is two warheads so at best they can total two cities. Bit of bummer if thats where you live and for those nearby getting cancer but whilst Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have ended the war and killed hundreds of thousands they didnt reduce the entire world to ashes.

    I would say TSWLM has the edge over TB. If we ignore the fact that Stromberg would need someone who is never shown in the film to hack the launch codes (I think its probably beyond Jaws and Sandor. Maybe the professors he tops have already done it for him?) then a nutter with two subs full of (multiple warhead) missiles is surely a bigger threat than Largo with one paltry warhead on the Disco Volante and another in a wreck off Miami Beach?

    Least important from the start is TMWTGG as all this concerns is an assassin who wants to kill Bond. The Solex stuff is there at the start but Bond is relieved of it by M and it is only later it becomes intertwined with the plot again. His mission from the start here is to find Scaramanga before he kills him.
    Now the death of Bond himself is hardly anything for M to lose sleep over as plenty of 00's die in the course of the films. The unfortunate collateral damage of losing an agent is hardly a disaster for Queen & country (unless of course you factor in that the likes of 004 or 009 would hardly be up to foiling Stromberg, Drax, Orlov etc in later years and therfore the long lasting effects of no Bond to save the day would ultimately mean the end of the world). In this respect then a case could be made that TMWTGG is the most important.
  • SeveSeve The island of Lemoy
    Posts: 424
    Dr No, because if he had failed to win the public over on that mission there wouldn't have been any more...

    ...and TMWTGG as explained above
  • saunderssaunders Living in a world of avarice and deceit
    Posts: 987
    Despite it's critical reputation as a Bond film surely MR was the most important as Drax was intending on wipeing out the entire planets population (and as plots go that's pretty big!).

    Despite its critical reputation as a Bond film FRWL is probabley his least important mission as if Bond had failed it would of just meant an embarressing sex scandel for the British Goverment and lets be honest that's not exactly uncharted territory for Her Majesty's finest,
  • 00Beast00Beast
    Posts: 4,762
    I'd say that FRWL wasn't exactly life or death important, had SPECTRE retrieved the Lektor as planned, I doubt that too much would have happened, and in any case, Bond could have been sent out to get it back. LALD is also not very important, just a simple drug plan by Kananga which quite frankly, the police could have handled. TMWTGG, as mentioned above, wasn't that important either, because Scaramanga could have waited to be hunted down another day. Maybe even TLD wasn't too important, it was just a matter of Whitaker getting some more arms for his deals, and the CIA could have gone after him some other time. LTK also wasn't critically important either, just like LALD, a simple matter of drug smuggling which the DEA could have handled.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,217
    Least imminently important? LALD & QOS.
  • 00Beast00Beast
    Posts: 4,762
    CraigMooreOHMSS wrote:
    Least imminently important? LALD & QOS.

    I didn't think about QoS, but that's a good call. I'm sure the Bolivian Secret Service, which Camille was a part of, could have handled Medrano and Greene's coup.
  • Goldeneye95Goldeneye95
    Posts: 546
    Most important missions-The Spy Who Loved Me & Goldeneye

    Leat important missions-Live And Let Die & The Man With The Golden Gun
  • thelivingroyalethelivingroyale
    edited February 2013 Posts: 12,837
    Most important is definetly Moonraker. Drax isn't ruining America's gold or starting a nuclear war, he's wiping out humanity, plain and simple. Can't really get more important than that.

    Least important is either QOS or LALD.

    You could argue FRWL or TMWTGG, but the villians evil plan in both of those involves killing Bond, and in the long run him surviving would be very important.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    edited February 2013 Posts: 28,694
    The ones that first come to mind as most important to me are TB, and GF. The former for the nuclear war risk and the latter for the endangerment of the US's gold reserves.

    Most important to Bond himself: LTK (for revenge against Sanchez), CR (Vesper/Letting his guard down), Skyfall (M/His own past)

    Least important/Least threatening: CR (funding terrorism is sadly common) and FRWL (just surrounding a Lektor) first come to mind here. Ironically, these are my favorites.
  • thelivingroyalethelivingroyale
    Posts: 12,837
    I think FRWL is still very important because SPECTRE want to kill Bond.

    If Grant had succeeded in FRWL than things would have probably played out very differently.

    Would 008 have been up to the task of stopping Goldfinger? Would Felix have managed to stop SPECTRE on his own in TB? Who would've stopped SPECTRE in YOLT?

    And then there's OHMSS. MI6 wouldn't have even been able to track down Blofeld if it wasn't for Bond.

    Same with TMWTGG. The Solex doesn't seem all that important but Scaramanga wants to kill Bond. And in the next film he'd be fighting a mad man with tons of nuclear submarines, then saving all of humanity from a space nazi.

    So I thinK FRWL and TMWTGG are actually two of the most important.
  • 00Beast00Beast
    Posts: 4,762
    URGENT IMPORTANCE!!
    Thunderball
    You Only Live Twice
    On Her Majesty's Secret Service
    Diamonds Are Forever
    The Spy Who Loved Me
    Moonraker
    Octopussy
    GoldenEye
    Tomorrow Never Dies
    Die Another Day

    Important
    Goldfinger
    For Your Eyes Only
    A View to a Kill
    The World is not Enough
    SkyFall

    Not as Important
    Dr. No
    Casino Royale
    Quantum of Solace

    Might Have Been Ignored
    From Russia with Love
    Live and Let Die
    The Man with the Golden Gun
    The Living Daylights
    License to Kill
  • karatemanchan37karatemanchan37
    Posts: 584
    I don't understand why FRWL is unimportant. Remember Tatiana would only give the lektor to Mi6 if Bond shows up. As M told him - it's exactly a trap, but the rewards are great. Plus, there was no hint of Spectre involvement until Grant and the train - so as small as the mission might be, it was a must-do, especially considering that Tatiana might change her mind halfway...

    I never understood the mission for TMWTGG. If there is a price on Bond's head surely you don't have him wandering about? Scaramanga is really just a trained assassin and hadn't even really be contracted to kill Bond!
  • pachazopachazo Make Your Choice
    Posts: 7,314
    I guess Moonraker would be the most important? Assuming of course that it was possible to wipe out the entire human race with a bunch of plants.
    The least important would have to be Licence To Kill because it's not a mission at all but a personal vendetta!
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    @00Beast, I doubt Bond would just ignore the fact that Sanchez had Felix half eaten and Della supposedly raped and killed.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    thelivingroyale wrote:
    I think FRWL is still very important because SPECTRE want to kill Bond.

    If Grant had succeeded in FRWL than things would have probably played out very differently.

    Would 008 have been up to the task of stopping Goldfinger? Would Felix have managed to stop SPECTRE on his own in TB? Who would've stopped SPECTRE in YOLT?

    And then there's OHMSS. MI6 wouldn't have even been able to track down Blofeld if it wasn't for Bond.

    Same with TMWTGG. The Solex doesn't seem all that important but Scaramanga wants to kill Bond. And in the next film he'd be fighting a mad man with tons of nuclear submarines, then saving all of humanity from a space nazi.

    So I thinK FRWL and TMWTGG are actually two of the most important.

    This argument is extremely tenuous. Might as well say DN is the most important then as if he pushes Bond into the reactor Blofeld destroys the world in YOLT.

    Or actually the most important moment is the fight with Mr Jones as if he takes Bond down and kills him the world is destroyed numerous times over.
    karatemanchan37 wrote:
    I don't understand why FRWL is unimportant. Remember Tatiana would only give the lektor to Mi6 if Bond shows up. As M told him - it's exactly a trap, but the rewards are great.

    FRWL is unimportant as the Lektor is just a MacGuffin. Even if MI6 get hold of it the Soviets will just redesign it the moment they know its gone. Yes it's a coup as it renders all of their existing Lektors useless but in the grand scheme of things it's nothing when compared to the likes of TB and YOLT.

    The fact they want Bond dead is also not that important when faced with the threats of SPECTRE, Stromberg and Drax. Bonds life is and always has been expendable in the service of his country.
  • 00130013
    Posts: 1,817
    Important for whom?

    Most important for MI6
    FRWL, SF

    Most important for the mankind
    TB, MR

    Most important for himself
    LTK, QOS

    Logically, the least importants are each movie in relation to the other categories (vg. FRWL is least important for the mankind.)
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