It could have ended at least on an kind of FYEO-like back to basics after DAD.
The talk about a Tarantino directed CR with Brosnan thankfully was just a rumour. But one more Bond, ending on a better and more risky film could have changed how Brosnan is viewed now.
I’ll say no, that Diana Rigg is not miscast. She captures the essence of Tracy di Vicenzo and improves on it. You can definitely see why James Bond would fall in love with her and marry her. She is athletic, adventuresome, and her own woman–while also still being a bird with a wing down. Additionally, the producers and director Peter Hunt needed a solid-to-great actress to offset the inexperienced George Lazenby as 007. Knowing they needed a woman of the aforementioned qualities, they went after the actress most equipped with those skills–Rigg. Undoubtedly, playing off her image as Emma Peel, the producers and Hunt banked on everyone’s familiarity with her from The Avengers to help sell Bond falling for her and it worked to perfection.
Totally disagree. Sure they may vary in quality and/or pale next to Ian Fleming’s efforts, but there ARE some good continuation novels out there.
Among my favorites are John Gardner’s License Renewed and Nobody Lives Forever and Raymond Benson’s High Time To Kill and Doubleshot. You also have Kingsley Amis’ Colonel Sun and Charlie Higson’s Blood Fever, and I will also include Gardner’s novelization of Licence To Kill. ALL are worthwhile, fun reads.
Now, some people may not like the continuations, that’s their prerogative–and they don’t have to read them. But some, like me, like to read as much James Bond stories as we can get. I can’t get enough of them and eagerly look forward to the next release–just like I do in the film series. And I can find something to like about all of the continuations although William Boyd’s Solo makes it a tougher job.
And yes, I can’t wait to read Anthony Horowitz’s With A Mind To Kill either. It sounds like it could be his best one yet. 
I wouldn’t necessarily say the first nine films co-produced by Harry Saltzman are the best James Bond films, but they are (along with the non-Saltzman entry The Spy Who Loved Me) the most iconic. A large part of that has to be, not only because they are the first films in the series, but also because they are based on Ian Fleming’s novels–and that CANNOT be underestimated. Fleming’s ability to create memorable and iconic characters and scenes is nearly unparalleled. The only full-length novels not covered in those first nine films are Casino Royale (which the producers didn’t yet have the rights to) and Moonraker (which they hadn’t had time to get to film yet but would by the end of the decade).
The other films in the series have memorable and even iconic moments too, but generally not to the extent of the first nine–although GoldenEye and Casino Royale have more than most.
Still, Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli and company caught lightning in a bottle and managed to ride it and re-create it when necessary to keep the series going for 60(!!!) years now, and that is quite an achievement, and I, for one, am grateful. Keep them coming. 
For now. And thanks Orion.
Count me as another who is not interested in expanding the James Bond IP. I didn’t like the idea of a Wai Lin spinoff after Tomorrow Never Dies nor a Jinx spinoff after Die Another Day when those ideas were rumored to possibly be happening. Instead, James Bond 007 is all I need.
If there absolutely, positively, HAD to be a Bond spinoff, the ONLY thing that would possibly interest me would be a Felix Leiter film(s) or limited TV series, and I probably wouldn’t be sold on that until I had seen some clips of the finished product.
So for me, I’m perfectly content with just seeing Bond…James Bond on the big screen–hopefully every 2-3 years.
You are very welcome, I don’t share your opinions but I want everyone to have their fair say. I can, and welcome, being shown I’m wrong
Using just the official series and leaving out Never Say Never Again, the films look like this:
Odd-numbered:
Dr. No • Goldfinger • You Only Live Twice • Diamonds Are Forever • The Man With The Golden Gun • Moonraker • Octopussy • The Living Daylights • GoldenEye • The World Is Not Enough • Casino Royale • Skyfall • No Time To Die
Even-numbered:
From Russia With Love • Thunderball • On Her Majesty’s Secret Service • Live And Let Die • The Spy Who Loved Me • For Your Eyes Only • A View To A Kill • Licence To Kill • Tomorrow Never Dies • Die Another Day • Quantum Of Solace • SPECTRE
As others have said, both sides have roughly about the same amount of classics and not-so-classics, so the odd-numbered theory that was stated above does not apply–not for the odds nor for the evens. As for myself, going by my rankings of the films, I seem to favor the even-numbered films over the odds, but only slightly. So again, there is no hard or fast rule for which is better when it comes to the James Bond series–and that’s a good thing. It’s just down to personal preference, which is the way it should be.
I agree with the last statement. The Craig films wasted both time and potential. What started out as the highest of highs with Casino Royale, ended in the lowest of lows with No Time To Die. Quantum Of Solace didn’t need to be a direct continuation of Casino Royale, Craig’s 007 was the Bond we knew and loved at the end of that film. And we certainly didn’t need to skip all the way from the beginning of his career clear to the end, starting with Skyfall where he suddenly was an old-timer with no missions in between. Then came SPECTRE and NTTD, which for some reason they had to shoehorn in everything that came before it to make it all connect together (even the previously standalone Skyfall).
The problem was they didn’t need to be connected. Instead, the filmmakers made everything overly complicated and stretched credulity (Bond’s arch-villain turns out to be his long-lost foster brother? What is this? A telenovela? And to top it off, a lot of the fun vanished from the series in the process–both from Craig’s portrayal and (at least for some of) us watching the films. They all should have been standalone films. As it is, Craig’s era should have ended after Skyfall or even SPECTRE. What the Craig tenure showed us, is that if you’re going to connect everything, you need to have that planned out ahead of time, not reconfigure in the middle of the run and then constantly maneuver things to force square peg ideas into round hole plots. So yes, the Craig films failed to live up to their original promise and wasted both time and potential. Oh, what could have been. 
As much as I love Roger Moore, I can’t see where he saved the series three times. Yes, Live And Let Die was a success, but not a huge one, and one film later after The Man With The Golden Gun, you could make the argument that Bond was back where he started when Moore took over.
As for Octopussy, yes, he was an important factor in winning the Battle Of The Bonds–and very possibly the only 007 actor who could have beaten Sean Connery, but as has been pointed out, Kevin McClory was extremely limited in what he could do with James Bond. At best he could do a Thunderball remake once a decade and even then he would never get Connery back in the role. Meanwhile, EON could continue making more Bonds into the foreseeable future even if the series might have lost some of its luster.
No, the only time Moore truly saved the series was with The Spy Who Loved Me. By 1977, the series was having diminishing returns, Cubby Broccoli had not yet proven he could produce the series on his own, and for all Moore’s likability, the Connery shadow still loomed large over the series. But after the grand slam home run of TSWLM, Bond was on strong footing again, with a thrilling film, terrific characters, outlandish stunts, and iconic moments that rivaled even the great Goldfinger–and Moore was, arguably, never better than in Spy.
That film proved once and for all that James Bond was more than Connery and–to a lesser extent–more than Harry Saltzman. It paved the way for all that followed, and we are still basking in 007’s fantastic adventures 45 years later. So thank you Roger (and company).
I just want to add that you raised an interesting point David_M about Broccoli giving Moore “a victory lap” with A View To A Kill for besting Connery in The Battle Of The Bonds. I’ve never really thought about it, but it seems very possible and a very plausible thing that Broccoli might do as he was a loyalty to a fault kind of guy. That makes Moore doing AVTAK more understandable as he clearly was looking too old in AVTAK. While he looked an older 007 in Octopussy, he did not look too old. But you can’t say the same thing in AVTAK and the various (unfortunately) obvious shots of the stuntmen doing certain stunts did not help the cause.
One has to take into account that CGI was not there back then. So every time a stuntmen was used in the Craig movies we just did not see it because they wore the dots on their faces which made it possible to replace them with Craig‘s in post production.
Imagine that being done in AVTAK.
Imagine the back projection process switched to CGI (good one).
Only then one could compare.
I can’t agree with this. SPECTRE was never more competent or dangerous than in From Russia With Love. They correctly plot out–thanks to Kronsteen–every move and countermove James Bond and Kerim Bey, and everyone involved with them, do. And it is only by sheer luck, smarts, charm, and fighting skill that Bond survives.
As has been said, Thunderball is basically the same film as Never Say Never Again as its the same story, though I’d give Thunderball the edge in SPECTRE’s competency/dangerousness. The organization just seems bigger and a little more organized but not by much.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Diamonds Are Forever don’t expressly have SPECTRE, but the criminal organization is there nonetheless. OHMSS’s SPECTRE, I’d rate on an effective par as NSNA’s version, but I’d put NSNA over on DAF.
As for the Daniel Craig era, NSNA easily tops SPECTRE’s SPECTRE and even further trounces No Time To Die’s version. But if we were to count Quantum Of Solace’s Quantum organization as SPECTRE, then I would give the nod to QOS’s version. Why couldn’t we have gotten more of that type of of SPECTRE organization in SPECTRE and NTTD than what we actually got? A missed opportunity.
Skyfall, motorcycle rooftop chase in Istanbul. A back projection couldn’t have been much worse… 
And who but Hitchcock ever plumbed the artistry of bad rear projection?
Hitchcock?!?!
What a hack?
I’m a big fan of John Glen. He directed four of my top nine Bond films–including my top three. So he is four for five (80%) in hitting home runs. However, I don’t think I can put him as the best.
Terence Young, I would consider the most important / influential director as he molded Sean Connery and three of the first four films into what the cinematic world of James Bond is and that cannot be underestimated. Guy Hamilton did the iconic Goldfinger, but his other three (two of which I also enjoy) don’t reach those heights. Lewis Gilbert arguably introduced spectacle to the series, but as others have said, his films are basically a remake of a remake. Peter Hunt did great in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but it was his only film. And Sam Mendes made virtually all the right decisions on Skyfall, but then he missed more than he got right on SPECTRE.
For the best, I’ll go with Martin Campbell who has two of my top seven Bond films. Both his films are widely considered great and are often placed by both critics and fans in the top five Bond films of all time. And not only that, but both films introduced a new 007 and also reinvigorated the franchise each time. So Campbell gets the nod for me.
But back to Glen. He may not be the most talented or artistic director or even work the best with actors, but for what the Bond films need, he has got it in spades. As a former editor and second unit director, he knows what it takes to make an action scene/film. And I have no problem saying that he is the best action director of the series. As others have said, he directed Bond during the action-filled '80s with Bond films that were at best comprised at least partially from Ian Fleming short stories so he doesn’t have the benefit of a working on a full Fleming story. Nevertheless, each of his five films are entertaining with some iconic moments as well–Bond skiing behind a bobsled on a bobsled run, Bond falling off a cliff while rock climbing, Bond in a mini-jet chased by a rocket, Bond fighting atop the Golden Gate Bridge, Bond parachuting out of a falling jeep, Bond and Necros fighting while hanging onto a drug-filled net outside a plane, and Bond driving a tanker truck on nine-wheels.
And one last thing, Glen was instrumental in making arguably the greatest (or certainly one of the greatest) James Bond moments when he convinced a reluctant Roger Moore to kick Emile Leopold Locque’s car off the cliff. It is a defining moment of not just Moore’s career, but the entire Bond series. So thank you John Glen.
Unfortunately, despite that, I can’t put Glen as Bond’s greatest director, but I can easily put him number two. And he certainly had the greatest run.
While I love Paloma in No Time To Die (and Ana De Armas the actress), I just can’t get on board the spinoff train. James Bond is the star of these films and everyone else pales in comparison. The only character I MIGHT be interested in seeing in a spinoff is Felix Leiter–and I’m not sold on that idea either. And as David_M pointed out NO character who came back in a second 007 film appearance ever met, or even topped, their first one.
De Armas’ Paloma was fantastic and left me wanting more–for that film. But her in a film without Bond just isn’t the same. One and done is enough for me. (On a side note, does anyone know when De Armas’ next film is coming out? 
)
I pretty much agree with what everyone else has said. Being an American, virtually all of the American locations do not look or feel exotic to me, whereas most of the non-American locations do. It’s not a fault of the storytellers, it’s just what me and many other Americans are used to. As David_M pointed out, those living in other locations that were used by the Bond series no doubt feel their locations are not that exotic either. It is what it is. And, as a result, the quality of the story, acting, and various scenes simply have to overcome it. But certainly by now, everyone should know that going in.
As for the main American actresses, they have been largely hit and miss.
Jill St. John as Tiffany Case is good until her character reaches the oil rig whereupon she becomes almost a different (and worse) character.
I’ve always enjoyed Barbara Bach as Anya Amasova, she’s my second favorite Bond girl. I think she’s solid and has good chemistry with Roger Moore, and The Spy Who Loved Me is one of the best films in the series–and she gets some credit for that.
Lois Chiles’ Holly Goodhead is a bit underwhelming for me, and I’m not exactly sure whether it’s because she doesn’t have much chemistry with Moore or her character seems a little cold/standoffish.
I give Tanya Roberts some props for bravely dealing with the burning elevator scene, but her Stacey Sutton character is not helped at all by her breathlessly screaming “James! Don’t leave me!” seemingly multiple times which solidly places her at the bottom of my list of Bond girls.
I love Carey Lowell’s Pam Bouvier. She’s my favorite Bond girl of the series. She’s tough and can handle herself and is also sexy. She is truly Bond’s “equal” before it was en vogue for an actress or the press to call a Bond girl “Bond’s equal.”
Like Roberts, I give Denise Richards some props for dealing with all that rising water in the submarine scene, but the gobbledygook that she has to spout as Christmas Jones does her no favors. Similarly, her initial outfit at the nuclear weapons facility is out of place (though she does look good). But Richards as a nuclear scientist is largely a case of miscasting.
And where do I put Halle Berry’s Giacinta “Jinx” Johnson? She looks great, is fresh off of winning an Academy Award for Best Actress, and yet her performance leaves something to be desired. I think the writing has a lot to do with that. For example, I actually don’t mind the “Yo, momma” line. It’s the line immediately following that that really bothers me. (“And she wanted me to tell you, she’s really disappointed in you.”) Ugh, that absolutely crashes and burns what was initially a good comeback. With a better script, I think Berry would have been ok, but as it is, she falls short of the hit category.
So all in all, American locations are not exotic and the main American actresses largely aren’t either, and more importantly, their success rate of delivering a solid, winning performance (which may or may not be solely their responsibility) has not been a good one.
Agreed–part of the lovely schizoid nature of DAF, which cannot make up its mind what kind of movie it wants to be.