Re: book
I'm not convinced the quality of a movie is determined by the extent to which it represents the novel. On the contrary, if you want the novel, read the novel, I'd say.

@Obi - Bonds are like Doctor Whos: you like best the one you grew up with (unless you grew up with Roger Moore). But I would class The World is Not Enough higher than Tomorrow Never Dies, although both have their positive aspects. I love the opening sequence, the car sequence in the garage, the motorcycle chase and Michelle Yeoh kicking ass in the fight sequences in TND, but I really love the opening boat chase (hell, the entire opening sequence is awesome) and the parahawk chase in TWINE. And Sophie Marceau is simply a great actress. You actually believe she has claustrophobia when they get caught in the avalanche from the parahawks.

@red - I wasn't implying quality is directly related to how it represents the novel, but it is directly related to how well it represents the character in a series. Jason Bourne truly feels the same in all three movies as he does to the books.

@Draug I disagree there. I grew up on Brosnan and I love Connery as Bond and Craig is a close second if not tied for first.

Best bond film: Casino Royale hands down :)

I also have to agree that Daniel Craig turned James Bond into Jason Bourne.

The beauty of the movie character James Bond, in my opinion (that I may have voiced here before), is that he's not out there to resolve personal issues, but to use these issues as a force in his missions.

The resolution of ancient personal issues to form a more adapted, flawless personality is a very modern, and ultimately disgusting, notion.

For me the real bond is a case of Octopussy versus Pussy Galore. Way too much female admin in the later movies. I mean, who the hell needs to take orders from a woman when you can just give your hat and coat to Ms Monneypenny and get it over and done with.
There's a definite generation gap here.

I'm afraid I understood not one word of that.

@Red That's a good point. I actually really liked Judy Dench as M. I thought she did a fantastic job but 20-30 years ago that wouldn't of been possible.

Judy Dench was absolutely sublime. I'm not sure it would have been impossible 20-30 years ago: Thatcher was Prime Minister of the UK :D

@ obiwanobiwan

I did enjoy Tomorrow Never Dies. As you said, not flawless but very fun. I did like the realism of the storyline too. I think it's a commentary on how the media could start a war if they wanted to. I also liked the scenario of a Britain-Red China war. Not very many works of fiction explore such a scenario.

TND possibly has the best story line of any JB movie.

Actually, I prefer Goldeneye's storyline to TND. I just wish they would have had a car that *did* something in it.

Doesn't he have the Austin Martin with the champaign cooler in the beginning when he's driving through southern France with his evaluator? I thought that was pretty something.

By the way: part of the kudos for Goldeneye:
1) Great Nintendo64 game back in the day
2) Tina Turner http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hGQ97tCTOs

Yeah, but it is about as unrealistic as you can get... A 1963 Aston Martin DB5 runnign with a 1995 Ferrari and keeping up. I love the DB5, but even the owners of them will readily admit they aren't a modern performance car.

Eh dude, nothing more common than putting modern motors in old cars.. (in Europe I've seen this various times, don't know about US)

Honestly comparing Goldeneye to Tomorrow Never Dies is apples-to-oranges. Both explore unrelated issues with a comparable level of realism. Goldeneye has more action but TND has *better* action. Let's be honest; the shootout on the stealth boat was freaking awesome. One of my favorite Bond moments.

@red - Except this wasn't a modern motor in an old car. This was supposed to be *the* DB5 of old. And not too many people would take a classic worth hundreds of thousands of pounds and put some crate motor in it, thereby destroying the value. Finally, it's one thing when motor mounts line up, but a DB5 motor mounts won't line up with any modern crate motor.

Whose O7 is he knew?

1) Goldeneye

2) Live and Let Die

Why 2?

Yeah, hellenic. I love aspects of LALD, but would hardly call it under-rated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH85zxU4tqU&t=1m55s

lol UND

I don't like LALD at all. IMHO, all of the Moore movies were extremely weak except for Octopussy.

Octopussy has the original Faberge egg get busted though (the bug was I. The original, not the fake).

Honestly, the plot of For Your Eye's Only is quite good. If only they wouldn't have brought on Lynn Holly Johnson in the skater roll then had her trying to hit on 007 who was old enough to be her grandpa.

Live and Let Die is my favourite Roger Moore movie. And I figured it was underrated because no one else here had mentioned it once, and it's not mentioned that often in any other conversation that involves Bond. I don't really keep up to date on how much everyone else likes any Bond film from before my time.

It might be something to do with it being the first Bond film I saw but it's always been one that stood out for me.

First Bond films are always special too us. My first Bond film memory is Lazenby in OHMSS when it came to ABC split across two nights back in 76 but totally botched up the reedit. Nonetheless, to a 10 year old Draugnar, Diana Rigg was incredibly beautiful and Bond could do *everything*. I was hooked.

Now some 37 years later, I still love that movie, but is it was shown in the theaters, not the ABC hack job that mixed up the story,

To read about the damage they did to it, take a read of my buddy Dr. Shatterhand's review.

http://shatterhand007.com/OHMSSNarration/OHMSS76NarratedVersion.html

1) Casino Royale, I'm a big fan of Daniel Craig, and it's one of the better James Bond stories.

2) The Living Daylights. I had this one on video as a kid, so I've watched it many times. I like Timothy Dalton as James Bond, just like Craig he's a more realistic Bond. No laserbeams from outer space, no castles made out of ice,.

I'm sorry; I have to disagree. The Living Daylights sucked complete ass.