Roger Moore is the worst Bond! Comments?

I kinda like Roger but agree that Sean and Pierce were better.
IMO, Timothy Dalton was the worse.

Licence to Kill is the darkest one: murder, rape, maiming by shark, rogue Bond and a man's exploding head in a pressuriser.

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Don't agree with that. I think The Living Daylights is the best Bond movie (prior to the Craig films, I just like the edgier style of those Bond films better). License to Kill was good, though it probably felt the least "Bond" of all the films.

Roger Moore definitely had the worst films of any of the Bonds, like Octopussy (which as Bond dressing up as a gorilla and a clown, and doing a Tarzan yell while swinging from vines). The Spy Who Loved Me is probably Moore's best film - A View To a Kill was also good because it wasn't nearly as campy as most of Moore's earlier ones.

Some of Sean Connery's films (like Diamonds are Forever) were also pretty bad.

As for Brosnan - Goldeneye was a really good Bond film - the others were mediocre.

I don't think Connery's films were all un-edgy, though more so at the time. His Bond is not afraid to hit women.

With Craig, I think the scene in Skyfall where he gets into the shower with the woman is very disturbing. Were they implying that he raped her? Whilst the old Bonds are clearly forceful in their seductions, they were not that creepy. It was hard to work out whether we were meant to see him as a rapist or 'edgy'.

The point is that Bond is a misogynist, and kind of a sociopath. He later lets that same girl get murdered and he doesn't even feel remorse.

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Yes, he's a cold guy but he can't be too cold. The Bond films are about fantasy, so mixing that into the film muddies the waters. I think Timothy Dalton did a better job of making Bond cold (particularly in License to Kill) without making him creepy.


Also I was watching Skyfall and I do think that Daniel Craig looks too old for the role. Not Roger Moore old but not suave old. He looked like he was old enough to be Moneypenny's dad.

The actor himself is okay - his movies are overall the worst Bond films because they're too campy - he has some good films however like The Spy Who Loved Me, and A View to a Kill.

Hi I saw this statement and found it pretty odd. I wanted to hear your opinion on it more.

The point is that Bond is a misogynist, and kind of a sociopath. He later lets that same girl get murdered and he doesn't even feel remorse.

Are you talking about a specific Bond/movie? Because these statements couldn't be more incorrect.

in several of the films Bond goes well out of his way to save the females, even risking his own life (ex. Dr. No, The Spy Who Loved Me, etc) - Bond never purposely lets any woman be killed in any movie I remember. He also goes well out of his way to save others by thwarting evil conspiracies (without any strong material or financial incentive - as an MI6 agent he'd only receive a fairly modest salary for all his troubles).

If you could post the scene from Skyfall where he "let" her get murdered I'd like to see it, because I don't remember him intentionally letting her get murdered at all.

As far as the "sociopath cliam" - that sounds more like a "pop culture" definition such as one you'd see in a "Facebook quiz" more than any real clinical definition, and seems like a pretty hateful statement as well.

Having a visible lack of emotions for one, doesn't equate to "having no emotions" - a person in a field such as military or secret agency for example would be trained not to become attached or show emotions because it's necessary to do their job; people with some psychiatric conditions (ex. high functioning autism) or from more reserved cultures (ex. Japan) also display less visible emotions.

So this statement strikes me as very ignorant, since by the same standard any military veteran or police officer would automatically be a sociopath according to "armchair psychology".

The actual psychiatric diagnosis for sociopathy (according to "The Sociopath Next Door" by Martha Stout) requires that a person demonstrate a pattern of aggressive or harmful actions against others for personal gain. Simply "not showing emotions" would not fit the criteria, so you're basically inventing your own definitions and presenting them as Gospel here.

I missed that scene, but I think it's without a doubt the creators weren't implying that he raped anyone. There were rumors that some quote by the villain in Skyfall was implying that Bond was gay too - and I think they're equally nonsense.

While there are multiple instances of Bond saving various women across the series, he also has his fair share of failures. In Moonraker he sleeps with one of Drax's female employees so as to convince her to help him steal Drax's secrets - when Drax finds out, he has the employee mauled to death by dogs. That's either an instance of incompetence or malevolent indifference on Bond's part. As stated previously, there are also instances of misogynistic actions as Bond will occasionally hit a woman or threaten her with physical violence (such as saying he'll break Maud Adams' arm while interrogating her in The Man with the Golden Gun). This happens frequently enough so that it can't be an isolated incident. Also, it's debatable just how much of Bond's motive for thwarting conspiracies has to do with the intangible reward of saving innocent lives. It's his job, after all - what's he going to do, not do it? I imagine salary's not much of an issue when he lives off an MI6 expense account during his missions, and when is he ever not on a mission?

The scene in question involves Bond and the bad guy playing William Tell with a shot glass of whiskey instead of an apple and antique one-shot pistols instead of bows. The fact that he apparently waits for the bad guy to fire his own one-shot pistol (killing the woman in the process) before effortlessly defeating his enemies does seem questionable. The Editing Room's parody said it best

So yeah.

I'm not about to get into a debate as to whether or not Bond is a sociopath because it does get thrown around and misused an awful lot. What makes Bond fit the supposed definition of the sociopath that you outlined in the last paragraph is how his harmful behaviour is being directed towards villains courtesy of his superiors at MI6, thus giving him an acceptable outlet for his more dangerous tendencies. They naturally want to capitalise on his ability to kill without remorse in the missions that they assign him. The movies (especially the Craig ones) try to show him struggling with his emotions from time to time so as to counter such claims that he is a sociopath, but it's debatable as to how well they work.

Of course the filmmakers would never deliberately imply that their hero raped anybody (at least, I hope not), but it does seem awfully fishy because the back-story for the woman in question involves her spending most of her life as a sex slave, so for Bond's response to that revelation to be taking the next available chance to have sex with her comes across as grossly insensitive at best. There's no confirmation as to whether or not Bond is gay - if anything, the villain's just trying to intimidate him by any means necessary and Bond's response is out of defiant bravado.

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I haven't seen the Man with the Golden Gun in a long time - if it was simply part of his mission though that action wouldn't be misogynistic - he interrogates male villains pretty harshly - so unless it was disproportionately directed at women I wouldn't count it as misogynistic at all. Just like if in a war with female soldiers on the battlefield - shooting a female soldier wouldn't be "misogynistic" just because she's a female; if the opposing army however targeted female soldiers dis-proportionately to males that would be a different matter.

Based on his actions in films like Dr. No and The Spy Who Loved Me (where he went out of his way to save lives even when it wasn't part of his mission, and risked his own life in the process) I thinks that says he does.


I'd have to re-watch it - based on the way you described it it sounds more like a typical movie goof, than an attempt by the directors to portray Craig as not caring if the woman died. You might be reading into it too much.


My point is that based on this standard, you could make the same claim about anyone who's served the military or government in a combat situation (ex. American Sniper, etc).

Is that backstory in the movie, or a novelization or something? I don't recall that from Skyfall. Are you talking about the woman he's making love to right after he escapes from drowning?

In the case of The Man with the Golden Gun, after he extracts the necessary information from Adams' character he still has sex with her - while Britt Ekland's character, who he was having sex with before Adams showed up, is stuck in a closet and has to witness this whole thing. That's the kind of extra subtext that pushes what's already an uncomfortable interrogation into something considerably twisted.


It is a bit of an inconsistency. Bond movies generally don't go too deep with analysing Bond's motivations, so exactly how much of it is actual heroism or self-interest is always a bit debatable.

I don't think that was their intention - if anything, he does look like he's struggling to stay stoic after she is killed. Unfortunately, the way the situation plays out it looks like more than just a typical goof, as if the only thing that really was stopping Bond from defeating every single guard armed with machine-guns in one fell swoop was the bad guy holding an old guy with one shot in it. After a certain point, you have to invoke the death of the author.

American Sniper might not be the best example considering how people are criticising the real-life Kyle over parts of his memoir that convey an image of him as a vicious murderer who seemed to actively enjoy getting to kill Iraqis during his time in the service, even if the film itself does its best to gloss over those particular flaws.

No, it's this woman that he meets in order to make contact with the bad guy. I can't remember exactly, but she either tells him the back-story herself or he figures it out and tells it to her out loud to prove that he knows.

Just found this.

In all the scenes that I see - Bond's slaps are either against an enemy operative as part of an interrogation (and from the movies I've seen, Bond does much worse to male operatives), or in two cases they're a "play tap" on a woman's ass who he's on a date with.

I don't see any clips of Bond being an abuser, like Christopher in the Sopranos - which is what the comments above brought to mind. This seems like a politically correct tangent more than anything else.

I don't see any problem in having consensual sex with a woman for any reason - however I'll agree that leaving the other girl in the closet while he sleeps with a different girl was a callous move.

To me his motivation seems sincere - I think if anything the movies imply that his callous behavior is more the result of his first love being murdered (Tracy Bond in the original films, Vesper in the reboot films).

While I'm on the subject though - one goof with the reboot films is that Craig's Bond seems very cold right from the outset - if they were trying to portray hims as 'becoming cold' from losing Vesper they didn't do the best job, since he was a very cold guy to begin with.

I don't know much about the real-life Kyle - the movie version though seemed like a genuine character who didn't get a "thrill" out of killing innocents, he just did his duty. I just think it's wrong to presume that anyone who'd seek out a job in a combat situation must have sociopathic tendencies.

I've got to re-watch this movie, I didn't remember her at all, thanks.

Moore says he's the fourth best Bond. He's wrong, of course, he's the best, but anyway.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/roger-moor...6.html#2MqFiLV

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Moore is my favourite Bond, obviously he is perhaps the least realistic, built like a wimp etc but his movies are the most fun.


2nd Connery, basically the best Bond but my 2nd favourite to Moore.


The rest all a bit meh, except Brosnan did a good job I suppose, Goldeneye is one of the best movies but the rest of his films sucked a fair bit.

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I agree with Craig's character being cold. I do think it was a good call though as Bond has always reflected modern sensibilities. The modern era would probably require a cynical Bond and would certainly shy away from a Roger Moore type.


I do think though that by Skyfall he was just a bit too cynical and world-weary. Sure he can be a sceptic but we don't want to see him mooching around looking depressed. Craig doesn't strike me (at least in the Bond films) as being naturally charismatic, whereas Connery, Moore, Dalton and even Piers Brosnan in a bland way were charismatic.

Roger Moore is an excellent Bond. He saved the Bond franchise in the 70s and 80s by changing Bond to a lighter more likable fellow. If it hadn't been for Roger Moore we wouldn't be discussing this right now.

I liked Timothy Dalton's Bond, not so much Pierce Bronson.

I always found Moore a bit creepy- not really his fault but the fault of the writing and having his love interests be young enough to be his daughters- or even granddaughters.


I wonder when we'll find out who the next Bond will be?

In retrospect (other than Lazenby since I've never seen his movie), I think that Dalton is the worst Bond.

On other hand I think his movies are some of the best Bond flicks - but I think the actor himself has the flattest and least memorable performances.

The Moore films are my least favorite, but I still agree that the guy was more expressive and memorable than Dalton. Dalton himself is just to forgettable.