MI6's Best Bond Film Results

http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/interact_poll_results_2012_best_james_bond_film.php3

I'm pretty sure if BAB ran its own CR would be ranked near bottom. Of course, I would disagree with that since I think CR is top five Bond material. #1? Probably not, but it's kind of nice to see fans on the other side not be grouches about CR.

Although, having MR at the very bottom is utterly criminal. Those ingrates!

DAF should be much higher, but still, it's a very respectable ranking. Far less eccentric than ours. Then again, only a handful of posters are participating in our tournament so the results will inevitably skew in odd directions.

Fairly predictable outcome for a very young average forum membership.

These polls are a good barometer of the maturity, IQ level and independent thought of a Bond fan forum.

Quote :

1 Casino Royale
19 Diamonds Are Forever

Fuck 'em.

CR deserves a very high ranking. It's the unreasoning bitterness of many on this site that depresses its reputation here.

I love all the movies in it (I mean the top 5).
I would have put DAD, TWINE and others over QoS however.

The BAB rankings as of early August, courtesy of James Bond

James Bond wrote:

01) From Russia with Love - 149
02) On Her Majesty's Secret Service - 226
03) Thunderball - 297
04) The Living Daylights - 312
05) Dr No - 320
06) Goldfinger - 377
07) Casino Royale - 385
08) GoldenEye - 415
09) Licence To Kill - 510
10) For Your Eyes Only - 526
11) The Spy Who Loved Me - 538
12) You Only Live Twice - 598
13) Octopussy - 600
14) Live and Let Die - 624
15) Diamonds Are Forever - 629
16) Moonraker - 680
17) Quantum of Solace - 687
18) A View to a Kill - 753
19) Tomorrow Never Dies - 770
20) The World Is Not Enough - 773
21) The Man with the Golden Gun - 777
22) Die another Day - 905

Compared to MI6

1. Casino Royale +6
2. Goldfinger +4
3. From Russia With Love -2
4. On Her Majesty's Secret Service -2
5. GoldenEye +3
6. The Spy Who Loved Me +5
7. Thunderball -4
8. The Living Daylights -4
9. Dr. No -4
10. For Your Eyes Only 0
11. Live And Let Die +3
12. Licence To Kill -3
13. Tomorrow Never Dies +6
14. You Only Live Twice -2
15. Quantum of Solace +2
16. The World Is Not Enough +4
17. Octopussy -4
18. The Man With The Golden Gun +3
19. Diamonds Are Forever -4
20. Die Another Day +2
21. A View To A Kill -3
22. Moonraker -8

Movies ranked higher on BAB: FRWL, OHMSS, TB, TLD, DN, LTK, YOLT, OP, DAF, AVTAK, MR
Movies ranked higher on MI6: CR, GF, GE, TSWLM, LALD, TND, QOS, TWINE, TMWTGG, DAD

Not as much of a difference as I thought, really.

Typical. With all of the children posting over there, I'm surprised that FRWL made the top 5.

Tubes wrote:

The BAB rankings as of early August, courtesy of James Bond

James Bond wrote:

01) From Russia with Love - 149
02) On Her Majesty's Secret Service - 226
03) Thunderball - 297
04) The Living Daylights - 312
05) Dr No - 320
06) Goldfinger - 377
07) Casino Royale - 385
08) GoldenEye - 415
09) Licence To Kill - 510
10) For Your Eyes Only - 526
11) The Spy Who Loved Me - 538
12) You Only Live Twice - 598
13) Octopussy - 600
14) Live and Let Die - 624
15) Diamonds Are Forever - 629
16) Moonraker - 680
17) Quantum of Solace - 687
18) A View to a Kill - 753
19) Tomorrow Never Dies - 770
20) The World Is Not Enough - 773
21) The Man with the Golden Gun - 777
22) Die another Day - 905

With the exception of a Brosnan film somehow making our top eight, those are by and large okay or at least understandable rankings for the most part. The bottom four films are noticeably poor, the top five films are absolute class acts, and the films inbetween will be debated until the end of time anyway, so it doesn't really matter that much where they end up.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

CR deserves a very high ranking. It's the unreasoning bitterness of many on this site that depresses its reputation here.

Not so. It's respect for the novel and its legacy.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

CR deserves a very high ranking. It's the unreasoning bitterness of many on this site that depresses its reputation here.

Not so. It's respect for the novel and its legacy.

More this than anything else. Maybe my bitterness over CR comes for what I feel about the book.

CR is a great novel and a terrible film.

Speedos should not blind anyone to its inadequacies.

I can imagine all the kiddos on MI6 attempting to read the book after seeing the film and being dissapointed that no one was jumping off cranes.

They then went off to listen to One Erection or whatever they're called.

What's wrong with CR? My goodness, let me count the ways.

For starters,CR is rife with pithy Haggis dialogue. Drivel,especially the train exchange.

The reboot idea is inane in that we have an obviously older Bond being presented as just now earning his 00 stripes. What the hell has he been doing all these years? Shuffling paper. Reboot fine, but Bond just now earning his 007 status is non-sensical. It's not even remotely consistent with Fleming's introduction of Bond. Fleming presented Bond as a veteran agent in CR.

More could have been done with the book material. With all the crazy action that the film did have, could there not at least have been an attempt to include the attempt on Bond's life after he leaves the restaurant, from the two guys that blow themselves up. Why not at least try to work in the limited action from the source material?

Vesper is terribly off. It's criminal what the nu-Bond fillmmakers did to this iconic Fleming character. And before anyone points out what might have been done to other Fleming female leads (Mary Goodnight for example), TMWTTG did not pretend to be a "serious" film in the way that CR presents itself. CR drips faux gravitas and import.

In the book, Vesper's suicide made perfect sense. She was a traitor. She'd been working against England for many years. She was probably going to jail for treason and Bond would have dumped her like a hot potato once he found out who he was actually involved with. In fact Bond would have been real pissed. His "bitch is dead" line made perfect sense. Craig's delivery of the line though rings hollow. His Vesper really wasn't that bad. Even Mommy M tried to explain that to him. Craig Bond is clueless.

In the book, Vesper is quite useless to Bond. She's not even responsible for helping to save Bond. She's helpless - thoroughly in the grasp of her Smersh controllers. She is doomed and she knows it, no matter which way she turns.

Yet in the movie her situation is nowhere near as dire. Thus even her suicide barely computes. In fact one can legitimately wonder, why she didn't simply come clean vis a vis Bond. Situation was not hopeless. She did save his life. She didn't have a long history of treachery as Fleming's Vesper did. On the other hand, I had no doubts as to why Fleming's Vesper offed herself. She was looking at treason and utter rejection from Bond. In fact he might have killed her himself. Fleming's Vesper is much better conceived. She truly is a tragic character in a hopeless situation. Because of her relationship with Bond, she can no longer continue with her duplicity. We get what she's about. Movie Vesper is contrived nonsense. Soap opera drivel. Nu-Bond filmmakers completely lamed out on this memorable Fleming character. This does matter as again CR maintains the conceit that it is a "serious" Bond film.

Did Bond have to be playing holdem poker? Could they not have found a way to work baccarat into the story? Has the game died or something? I don't know. I don't hang around European casinos.

And the scene with Bond running out on Solange. This is contrarian nu-Bond filmmaking. Yes we know why he had to dash. Sean-Bond would have done the same thing in the same scenario, although I'm sure he would have been more polite about it. Craig-Bond though is an oaf. Yes we know, mission must come first, but Sean-Bond never would have been presented with the same scenario. The scene would have been written differently, so that he didn't have to run off and leave the nice woman panting.

But we get it. Nu-Bond doesn't care about such sexual encounters. He's not so frivolous. He's a serious Bond. Oh boy. My hero. Nu-Bond would have presumably told Sylvia Trench that he had to catch his plane to Jamaica. Hooray for nu-Bond, never mind that he looks like a flat-footed soccer hooligan, who spends way too much time worshipping his over-developed gym body, when he isn't lumbering about in his ball-buster swim trunks. Sean's trunks allowed for some breathing room.

CR is crap. It deserves being tossed in the dumpster with it's not quite as pretentious, but equally awful sequel. IMHO of course. :*sm*:

Goldeneye, OHMSS and FRWL are the only one form the Top 5 who comes close tow my own rank.
I rank Goldeneye higher on number 1, whyle OHMSS and FRWl a litle bit lower with the 5th and 8th place. TLD i rank 9th place, 8th place in the list. AVTAK is my GF as some people known who i rank 5/22.

From the last couple of movies, Quantum of Solace - Die Another Day and Moonraker are the moost close who i rank 14/22, 18/22 and 20/22.

tiffanywint wrote:

The reboot idea is inane in that we have an obviously older Bond being presented as just now earning his 00 stripes. What the hell has he been doing all these years? Shuffling paper. Reboot fine, but Bond just now earning his 007 status is non-sensical. It's not even remotely consistent with Fleming's introduction of Bond. Fleming presented Bond as a veteran agent in CR.

Yeah, it's ridiculous to hear from Babs et al that they needed to dump Brosnan prior to CR to get someone younger when they ended up hiring a bloke who looks the same age, if not older, than Brosnan.

Boo you guys, I thought CR was a worthy Bond entry, though not without its flaws.

Some people's opinions on CR have U-turned faster than I've seen anyone change their mind on a film. One year, it's a modern classic. The next, it's a poorly done Jason Bourne ripoff.

Some of you guys are lucky that MI6 nuked the fridge, otherwise I'd be pulling old reviews out as references.

I liked it a hell of a lot when it came out but it's dropped in my estimation after subsequent viewings. I'd still rate it as the best post-TLD film (Skyfap hasn't made it to the Antipodes yet, though).

CJB wrote:

I liked it a hell of a lot when it came out but it's dropped in my estimation after subsequent viewings. I'd still rate it as the best post-TLD film (Skyfap hasn't made it to the Antipodes yet, though).

It's the opposite for me. I like it a lot more now than I did in 2006. Which, to me, means CR is not only the best post TLD Bond film, but the best post 60's Bond film.

I think negative reviews of CR are hilariously exaggerated here.

I have never had much good to say about CR or the Craig-era. The problem with the Craig-era IMO is the central conceit which permeates the new series. The filmmakers act like they are producing superior films to anything that came before, and they are so full of themselves, that they actually believe their own hype -- that they are improving on the six-pack of '60s films that define the series. It's even obvious in their tacky homages. In SF we are treated to yet another lame GF nod. Is this the film they resent the most? The JB Theme is raised to salute Craig's dusting off of the old tricked-out DB5. The message is clear. The JB Theme is a relic of that era, associated with this crazy car. It's a nod and a wink to the old series, but also a statement that the news series is not only different but superior. The whole scenario is spoof and essentially dismissive of original Bond. As if Bond would really trick the car out this way.

Nu-Bond thus uses it's homages to spell out the separation from the old. Nu-Bond desperately wants to hear that CR and now SF are best-Bonds ever, that Craig is better than that old womanizing, frivolous quipmeister Connery.

This is a serious Bond yadda yadda. Flammingesque. My ass. I just finished re-reading the first four Fleming novels and I'm half-way through FRWL. Austin Powers is more Flammingesque than anything from the Craig-era. CR is probably the least Flemingesque of any of the movies. They got Vesper all wrong. The card game wasn't even close to what went down at Royale.

Fleming's Bond took benzedrine tablets when he was gearing up for a night- crossing to Mr Big's island, or getting ready to face Drax at the card tables. Now in SF, Bond is taking the tablets as he slacks off from his job, slumming in low-rent bars with cheap women. Whatever. Fleming's Bond also had personality. He wasn't the broody, dour oaf, or hopelessly mixed-up and confused agent that Craig-Bond is. The bennies are just a token nod to Fleming, to create the illusion that Craig-Bond is Fleming Bond. Nu-Bond really though, has no use for Fleming-Bond or Connery-Bond. Nu-Bond is superior Bond to both of these out-dated dinosaurs.

Babs and Craig are on a mission to change Bond. They can do Bond better than Fleming or the original producers. They will keep hiring Oscar-bait directors, and keep cranking out Craig ego-stroke, character-dramas. They are 3 for 3 so far. The gun barrel goes at the end of the films, because nu-Bond is better than old Bond. The Gun Barrell is so '60s. They want their films different. This is better Bond. He's not misogynist. He runs off on Solange. He doesn't want that sex stuff. He's about the mission not misogyny. Leave that for the womanizer Connery.

Worst line in SF trailer: "007 reporting for dewww-tee."

Sounds like he's been sucking on dried prunes for a month, as well as popping pills and engaging in moronic drinking games. The tight-ass is back. Call Mommy, and quick, find him his blue nut-huggers.

Sean should track him down and toss him off that bridge again.This time for keeps. Sean probably still could.

Craig is anti-Sean.

There is hope though. Someday it will be over and Bond will be back. In the meantime we endure.

====CR's positives: Despite the attemtps at destroying the Bond mythos, the filmmakers are still top craftsmen. So the film looks good, has strong production values, good cast, passable music. It works as a movie. The card game is very well done, even if its the wrong card game. But CR sucks as a Bond film. The whole Craig-era is an exercise in subversion of the Bond mythos. :evil:

Tubes wrote:

Some people's opinions on CR have U-turned faster than I've seen anyone change their mind on a film. One year, it's a modern classic. The next, it's a poorly done Jason Bourne ripoff.

Some of you guys are lucky that MI6 nuked the fridge, otherwise I'd be pulling old reviews out as references.

Pretty sure I joined after I first saw it so I think I'm safe. :*sm*:

Tubes wrote:

I think negative reviews of CR are hilariously exaggerated here.

No kidding.