Does anyone else split the Moore films up into different groups?

MilleniumForce · April 2015

Maybe it's just me, but I split Moore's films into three different groups.
-'Connery' Moore (Live and Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun)
-Big adventure (The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker)
-Older Moore (For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View To A Kill)

I was wondering if anyone else looks at them this way, or something similar.

Firemass · April 2015

Absolutely. Except I split them up by Director: Guy Hamilton, Lewis Gilbert, and John Glen. It comes out looking the same way as your groups.

Absolutely_Cart · April 2015

That's actually a good classification.

I wouldn't call Moore in FYEO old necessarily, but I wouldn't call it a big adventure either.

002 · April 2015

Yes, I totally agree with all of you. They naturally fall into these three categories no matter how you look at it.

AlphaOmegaSin · April 2015

Yes, LALD and TMWTGG have always very much felt like Connery Films -{

TSWLM and MR is when Moore really came into his own.

Moore didn't really start looking old until OP.

Thunderpussy · April 2015

I agree with your list MilleniumForce, -{ in my opinion Roger only looked old.
or rather showed his age more on screen was AVTAK. -{

M 'n' M · April 2015

Good topic

I have a different system (though agree with the one you've suggested as well)

My system is based on a very simple strong / weak pattern which - until Octopussy - was an odd/even sequence.

Basically it's:

LALD Strong
TMWTGG Weak
TSWLM Strong
MR Weak
FYEO Strong
OCT Strong
AVTAK Weak

The pattern shows that Roger only once had back to back strong films and that's maybe partly the reason the critics never gave him a break. It also suggests that his set of films was more all over the place than any of the others and makes me wonder how he would be seen as Bond if he had only done four films - LALD, TSWLM, FYEO and Octopussy

Higgins · April 2015

I am not a ranker, so - no!

Dutchfinger · April 2015

Jup, agreed on this. And like Firemass pointed out, they can easily be split into groups of their respective directors. I also kind of agree with the 'strong'/ weak' system that "M&M pointed out above, except that I find TMWTGG to be more enjoyable than LALD, but that's only me

Agent Lee · April 2015

MilleniumForce wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but I split Moore's films into three different groups.
-'Connery' Moore (Live and Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun)
-Big adventure (The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker)
-Older Moore (For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View To A Kill)

I was wondering if anyone else looks at them this way, or something similar.

That's exactly how I would split it up. Only "Big Adventure" Moore I'd just call "Moore" Moore in reference to the shift from "Connery" Moore to Moore making the role his own and establishing his tone for the 70's.

And older Moore I'd probably just call "John Glen era" because I think Glen's directing really had a lot to do with establishing the tone of Bond in the 80's. This is apparent in the way he works to the strengths of both of his Bonds (Moore and Dalton) while maintaining a certain overarching aesthetic.

Firemass · April 2015

M n M wrote:

The pattern shows that Roger only once had back to back strong films and that's maybe partly the reason the critics never gave him a break

I consider TSWLM and MR to be back-to-back Superbowl wins for Roger Moore. (please excuse NFL reference) Those two films were probably the most success and momentum the Bond series ever had going besides Goldfinger+Thunderball. I wasn't born yet, but I can still feel it.

LALD and TMWTGG are quite similar. One not being noticeably better than the other.

And the John Glen trilogy is solid 80's Bond with quite a bit of Fleming added back in.

In conclusion, I'm seeing a pattern of good Bond films.

Thunderpussy · April 2015

I like all the Roger Moore Bond films. -{ I grew up watching him
As Bond in the cinema, so I think of him as my Bond.

Absolutely_Cart · April 2015

Comparing tswlm to mr is like comparing rocky balboa to rocky dennis

MilleniumForce · April 2015

Absolutely_Cart wrote:

Comparing tswlm to mr is like comparing rocky balboa to rocky dennis

But they are essentially the same films.

Gassy Man · April 2015

I tend to break them into 1970s versus 1980s Bonds. Moore's first four are basically reworkings -- if inferior -- of the Connery films, but with a 1970s twist. The first two are drab and mod, the way the early 1970s were; the next two -- which are essentially remakes of You Only Live Twice -- have the whole plasticky disco thing going on.

Moore's 80s films are just that -- 80s films. The show the Bond formula not only demonstrating its age but also the sense of a different generation making the films, or at least trying to make them for a different generation. The presentation is more conservative, the concepts less imaginative, the pace overall slower but the action sequences featuring bigger explosions, the Russians essentially the bad guys in one way or another, a weird combination of wanting to be taken seriously while also obviously being contrived fantasy. Moore's age shows, but so does the franchise's by that point.

chrisisall · April 2015

Well I was gonna be content with sub-classifying Moore's films, but i decided to throw in the overview kitchen sink here:

1962 - 1969 The Flemingly Flavourful years.
Classic Bond at its peak.
1971 - 1985 The "I Dream Of Jeannie" era.
Because all along I was wishing for it to be just a bit less silly.
1987 - 1989 A Fine Mix.
A serious & literary Bond swimming in a cinematic backdrop.
1995 - 2002 The Steeley Bond.
A time when sheer fun & excitement was the name of the game.
2006 - ? Born (Bourne) Again OO7.
Seriousness Fleming himself could never have envisioned the cinematic version of his character thriving in.

superado · April 2015

I split the Moore movies by era, the 1st being the era of the "parted hair" and the 2nd, the "bullet head" era

) By the time he adopted the bullet head look he had entered his mature stage so that he couldn't pull off the boyish hair cut anymore, so visually the hair is a good cue of where he was in the character's life cycle. The first era culminated in the realm of the fantastic with MR, whereas the 2nd era opened with a more serious tone with FYEO.

chrisisall · April 2015

superado wrote:

I split the Moore movies by era, the 1st being the era of the "parted hair" and the 2nd, the "bullet head" era ) By the time he adopted the bullet head look he had entered his mature stage so that he couldn't pull off the boyish hair cut anymore, so visually the hair is a good cue of where he was in the character's life cycle. The first era culminated in the realm of the fantastic with MR, whereas the 2nd era opened with a more serious tone with FYEO.

I never realized this!

O07 · April 2015

MilleniumForce wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but I split Moore's films into three different groups.
-'Connery' Moore (Live and Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun)
-Big adventure (The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker)
-Older Moore (For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View To A Kill)

I was wondering if anyone else looks at them this way, or something similar.

Yes, I do, infact...

DN
FRWL
TB

GF
DAF
LALD
TMWTGG

YOLT
TSWLM
MR

FYEO
OP
AVTAK
TLD
LTK

SF
SP

You can tell that even with different leads playing 007 that they feel like part of a continuation of a theme, if Dalton had been Bond from FYEO (as much as it is undoubtedly to me Moore's best portrayal of the character and therefore best picture) he'd be much higher in the rankings.

I'm appalled at Peter Hunt didn't do at least another film.

Gassy Man · April 2015

superado wrote:

I split the Moore movies by era, the 1st being the era of the "parted hair" and the 2nd, the "bullet head" era ) By the time he adopted the bullet head look he had entered his mature stage so that he couldn't pull off the boyish hair cut anymore, so visually the hair is a good cue of where he was in the character's life cycle. The first era culminated in the realm of the fantastic with MR, whereas the 2nd era opened with a more serious tone with FYEO.

I don't think it was so much an age issue as a style one. The unparted, swept back "wet" look that Moore had in the 1950s and 1960s -- as many men did -- gave way to the distinct part "dry" look that was popular in the late 1960s through mid-1970s. By the 1980s, Moore just went back to the same hairstyle he had in the 1960s, particularly on The Saint.

O07 · April 2015

I personally feel that the FYEO cut is a hybrid. He was clearly going thin on top in MR and his face looked all droopy in OP, he looks a bit odd in AVTAK. Is it true that he had a face lift? I recall seeing a movie about ten years ago made in 1984 where Moore plays some sort of Psychiatrist who's framed for murder or something like that, anyway, he's clearly got a pronounced bald spot as well as a very pronounced middle section.

MilleniumForce · April 2015

O07 wrote:

MilleniumForce wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but I split Moore's films into three different groups.
-'Connery' Moore (Live and Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun)
-Big adventure (The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker)
-Older Moore (For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View To A Kill)

I was wondering if anyone else looks at them this way, or something similar.

Yes, I do, infact...

DN
FRWL
TB

GF
DAF
LALD
TMWTGG

YOLT
TSWLM
MR

FYEO
OP
AVTAK
TLD
LTK

SF
SP

You can tell that even with different leads playing 007 that they feel like part of a continuation of a theme, if Dalton had been Bond from FYEO (as much as it is undoubtedly to me Moore's best portrayal of the character and therefore best picture) he'd be much higher in the rankings.

I'm appalled at Peter Hunt didn't do at least another film.

I split all the films up in a different way:

DN
GF
TB

FRWL
OHMSS

YOLT
TSWLM
MR

DAF
TND
TWINE
DAD

LALD
TMWTGG

FYEO
OP
AVTAK
TLD

LTK
GE

CR
QoS

SF

AlphaOmegaSin · April 2015

What would you call Moore's AVTAK Hair Style?

)

Thunderpussy · April 2015

The " Trump"

AlphaOmegaSin · April 2015

)

Barbel · April 2015

O07 wrote:

Is it true that he had a face lift? I recall seeing a movie about ten years ago made in 1984 where Moore plays some sort of Psychiatrist who's framed for murder or something like that.

Yes, he had a facelift between OP and AVTAK. And the movie mentioned was "The Naked Face", ironically enough.

AlphaOmegaSin · April 2015

And it hadn't fully healed by the Time of AVTAK.

Mr_Sable_Basilisk · April 2015

I split them into two groups

The ones I'm willing to watch:

LALD, TSWLM, FYEO, OP

The ones I avoid:

TMWTGG, MR, AVTAK:

Silhouette Man · April 2015

MilleniumForce wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but I split Moore's films into three different groups.
-'Connery' Moore (Live and Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun)
-Big adventure (The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker)
-Older Moore (For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View To A Kill)

I was wondering if anyone else looks at them this way, or something similar.

Yes, and that is exactly how I split then up as it seems to be the most natural way of doing it.

-{

CmdrAtticus · April 2015

I put them into these two groups: the levity laden ones with a dollop of the serious and the serious ones with dollops of levity.

The former are LALD, TMWTGG, MR, TSWLM.
The latter are OP, FYEO, AVTAK.

The first four were by directors who emphasized the mirth, the ones directed by Glenn emphasized the seriousness. Hamilton started the more levity laden films with DAF, LALD, MWTGG. Gilbert continued the gags ride with his - TSWLM, MR. YOLT being his first, he at least tried to keep on Young's side with the seriousness, but when you put in Blofeld looking like a cracked boiled egg inside a volcano lair that would have cost more to put together than any of his schemes could have profited, he knew he couldn't stay serious for long, so he just reused the same plot twice with Moore (though Hamilton did the same with TSWLM).

So, Moore got his first three with the mirth directors and the last three with the more serious Glenn. That's how I split them.

Silhouette Man · April 2015

AlphaOmegaSin wrote:

What would you call Moore's AVTAK Hair Style? )

Moore's hair really changed (and not for the better either) from FYEO on for some reason. Perhaps it was thinning out?

Does anyone else split the Moore films up into different groups?

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