They don’t like Roger Moore in the Jedi Council Forums at all because they do not believe he fits Fleming’s image of 007 or some ****. I would love some back up but can’t imagine I’ll get it lol.
So I’ve created this thread and hope you can share anything you like on the beloved Roger Moore.
Roger Moore was Bond when i was a kid so liked him . I liked the Connery films more but i still have a fondness for him. FYEO is one of my favorite Bond films.
Being fair-haired and blue eyed meself, I could always identify with Sir Roger more (or should I say, more with Sir Roger?). I’m always more likely to try to defuse a situation with wit rather than force, so there’s another similarity.
It would have been nice to see him in a film more closely based on the source material, so those moments in LALD and FYEO that were drawn directly from Fleming really shine. I just wish Sir Roger had bowed out with OP - that would have been a more classy, dignified way to depart.
FWIW, LALD, TMWTGG, TSWLM and OP rank among my top favorites.
First of all, any assemblage that calls itself the “Jedi Council” is hard to take seriously in the first place, and I might as well start there.
There was, once upon a time, a superpower possessed by fans and actors alike, and that was the ability to not take themselves too seriously. In those dark ages, we were allowed to have fun with the more ridiculous aspects of various concepts and franchises with no harm done. Thus my generation grew up with Adam West’s Batman, Roger Moore’s James Bond, rubber ears and tinfoil bikinis on “Star Trek” and yes, a fun little distraction of a film called “Star Wars.”
At some point, evolution caused the skins of fans to thin dramatically and their sense of humor to be supplanted by grim earnestness, righteous indignation, hyper-sensitivity and smug superiority. And so we got things like Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, Daniel Craig’s James Bond, Star Trek: The Next Generation and the horror that was the Star Wars prequels.
All of which is not to say that those things can’t bring pleasure, but the insistence of some fans to take with utter seriousness concepts which remain at heart as patently ridiculous as they were at their more naive, goofy genesis is a sad by-product of the rise of Geek Culture.
As pretty much the Patron Saint of Taking the Piss Out of Things, it’s only natural this crowd would regard Roger Moore with disdain, derision, confusion and, frankly, fear. They don’t “get” him so he must be bad.
Having said all that (and waiting for the flood of angry PMs), Roger was, to many of us kids of the 70s, the epitome of cool composure in the face of peril; the best-dressed, best-coiffed, handsomest bloke in any room, with a pithy bon-mot for any occasion and absolute, unshakable confidence no matter the situation. When you’re an insecure kid who’s the opposite of all those things, that’s a pretty powerful draw. Yes, all those traits were taken to insanely exaggerated lengths with Roger, but that was the whole point. Roger knew that the Bond mystique is equal parts cool and nonsensical, and he wasn’t afraid to ramp both sides of it up to 11. And yet, for those of us willing to look deeper than the surface, there was always more going on beneath that cocky veneer; his entries are full of little moments where fear, doubt, sorrow and fury bubble nearly to the surface, only to be tamped down under the facade of imperturbable invulnerability. Roger’s Bond knew that the key to unnerving and ultimately defeating the enemy was to never, ever let them know they’d gotten to you.
But mostly, he was just cool. No actor has really captured Fleming’s Bond – no, not even ONE of them – so as long as they’re all recreating Bond in their own image, we each of us get to pick which impersonation we like best. Roger’s was no less valid than any of them, and for some – like me – it was the favorite.
The British Dean Martin, whereas Connery was the British Frank Sinatra. No wonder I like Murderers’ Row as much as the Moore films I mentioned above.
Wot you said.
Thank you, DavidM for putting it all so well.
Sir Roger was my first Bond, too, and - as for most people - the first one is always the definitive one. He also was a magnificent actor per se but never was pretentious about it, to a degree that most critics never picked up on his qualities, just because he made it look so effortlessly. And, sadly, those actors who huff and puff and make it all look so extremely difficult always are revered as true artists, when, in fact, they are just attention seekers.
I do enjoy Dalton and Craig going for the serious and hard edges of Bond, too, but even they knew that Bond has to have a lighter side. To criticize Sir Roger for highlighting the humor is absurd and also disregards the times in which the Moore era was produced. Those indeed were the days when fun was not a dirty word and pulp fiction heroes such as Bond were rightfully considered light entertainment.
I absolutely believe that without Sir Roger opening up the portrayal of Bond to include the silliness, the suaveness and the laid back amusement, Bond films would have remained a footnote in film history. He turned Bond into something that could survive the change of its main actor and could even thrive by playing up the differences.
A true Jedi Council would be wise enough to recognize this.
In the novels the character of Bond is a cypher for the readers fantasies, he is never overtly described , in fact I imagine that Flemming was describing an ideal of himself . So in my opinion the only way to play Bond is as an hyper real version of oneself, this is why the Bonds in general have all been perfectly cast, Sir Roger Moore included, he was funny, handsome, charming and humane as Bond a really difficult thing to pull off when playing a paid assassin.
Roger had incredible charm, and in my opinion, the greatest sense of being an upper class know-it-all. Someone who knew the technical details of everything and anything, knew the best wines and how to pick the best suit. People can say he wasn’t a credible physical threat all they want, but I bought into his confident persona. Nothing really phased him that much because of his experience.
I like Dalton a lot, but facts are, Sean and Roger had long eras and imprinted their images onto the franchise in big ways. They absolutely owned their eras. It’s very hard to compete with that.
I should clarify that Roger wasn’t my first Bond (I saw Connery first on TV), but he was the “Bond of record” in my youth. And my preference.
Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, obviously, but Roger deserves props for making it possible for us to even have this debate in 2018. It’s easy to forget that with Connery’s departure and the end of the 60s (where prevailing wisdom said 007 “belonged”), it was far from a sure thing the series would endure. Roger not only kept it going but took it to new heights, and paved the way for his successors to each interpret the character in their own unique fasion, instead of doing Sean Connery impersonations til everyone completely lost interest. I think Lazenby showed that the “Sean Lite” approach would not have survived for long.
My first Bond was Connery and I was a massive fan. When Moore took over and Live and Let Die was released I had just turned 11 years old and saw it twice, back-to-back, on the opening Saturday afternoon with 2 neighborhood friends. We only intended to see it one, but were so blown away we ran into the lobby and used the pay phone to call our parents and get permission to stay and watch it again. I accepted Moore as Bond and never looked back. He was James Bond now and I loved him in the role. I never hesitated to see him as Bond. As I grew older I began to long for a less jokey version of Bond like the earlier films, so I connected well with For Your Eyes Only. By the time A View to a Kill was released I was ready for a new actor, but never regretted Moore’s tenure as my favorite spy.
He was the king: my first Bond and the one who made things fun… I don’t believe there will ever be a cooler moment than when the pilot in the pts of Moonraker says ‘This is where we leave you Mr Bomd’ before Shooting the controls, and Rog doesn’t even uncross his legs as he replies, ‘A little premature isn’t it?’ With an utter lack of concern… king???
Roger Moore was the epitome of class. He wasn’t acting as Bond as much as just being himself. The audience didn’t really get to really see that until TSWLM. I very much enjoyed the scenes where Moore did take the proceedings seriously, especially when Anya confronts him about murdering her lover.
I am a bit older than the other people who have posted so far. By the time that I had seen “Live and Let Die”, I had already seen all but one of the earlier Bond films in either first-run or in re-release. Here is the thing, I never thought that those earlier films were anything other than light entertainment either. Before I saw my first Bond film, OHMSS, I had seen “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” and that was simply a different type of film than OHMSS or any other Bond film. So, when I saw the Moore films in the 70s and 80s, I saw them as not much different than the earlier films. I still see the Moore films as light entertainment and love them for it.
Thanks for that perspective, and here’s a big surprise: Ian Fleming’s novels were also light entertainment. Maybe not kid-friendly, but definitely “have fun for a few hours, then move on.” Fleming was the first to admit it.
The grafted-on air of pretension and gravitas is a recent thing, and in its own way as ridiculous as a double-taking pigeon.
You are welcome. This is new book by Mike Ripley called Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang that looks at British spy novels from the 50s through 70s. I have not started it yet but from my understanding, it backs what you said about the Fleming books.
Roger Moore is my favorite Bond and The Spy Who Loved Me is my favorite film. LALD is a classic and, despite one glaring flaw, FYEO holds it’s own as one the best pure espionage adventures alongside FRWL, OHMSS, and CR. I do think Moore stayed one film too long, but AVTAK still oozes with Moore’s charisma. Then there’s the criminally underrated and underappreciated Octopussy.
Roger is everything.
What’s the glaring flaw?
The ever cringe-worthy Bibi Dahl. Also, Kristatos is one of the least charismatic Bond villains.
Rewatched The Spy Who Loved Me this past weekend. It just reminds how, IMO, it is the best film in the series. Very watchable, Sir Roger is at the peak of his game.