As an xmas gift I got a DVD copy of Skyfall. Already seen it twice. Once in the movies
and another time through Netflix. Watched it again last night. Great movie !!!
Opening scene of 007 fighting the bad guy on top of the train while the sexy black girl
is trying to line up a shot. WOW. Daniel Craig makes an excellent Bond.

Of the 3 dozen 007 movies which one is your favorite ?

The first three with Sean Connery or any with Daniel Craig. The ones in between were blah although the women were beautiful, and Roger Moore made Bond into a comic book character.

Fleming's original Bond was an assassin and a borderline alcoholic, he smoked and drank way too much. He knew some fancy fighting moves but used mostly what would have been taught to British Commandos in the war, not a lot of hai karate stuff. Later in his career the people he killed started to weigh on his conscience.

Craig, despite his political views, brings a lot more edge back into the role.

Casino Royal - Enjoyed the movie and Eva Green isn't so bad either

I suppose any "Bond" is better that no Bond, but, Sean Connery was the first, and best.

Ranked:
1. Sean Connery
2. Daniel Craig
3. Timothy Dalton
4. Pierce Brosnan
5. George Lazenby
6. Roger Moore

My favorite movies:
1. Goldfinger (Connery)
2. From Russia with Love (Connery)
3. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Lazenby)
4. Casino Royale (Craig)
5. Skyfall (Craig)

I have really enjoyed all the Craig movies, almost to the point to where I can no longer imagine anyone else in the roll. He has really made the role his own and has taken it to new heights. I also think the two Dalton movies were criminally underated because he rescued the roll from what Moore turned it into and took Bond back to what he was suppose to be, much like Craig has.

I too really like the direction the series is going in.

My two favorites at this point in my life however are:
From Russia With Love and On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
I wish George Lazenby could have, or would have, taken another crack at the character. Very touching scene for a Bond film at the end. Diana Rigg is a class act in OHMSS.

Bond ranking: Connery, Craig, Lazenby, Dalton & Brosnan, then Moore.

Movie Ranking is much tougher: The first three, OHMSS, then Skyfall and Casino Royale. At the end of my favorites list might be For Your Eyes Only.

I confess to not watching any of the ones with Craig or Brosnan. Connery was the best in my opinion and Lazenby, Dalton, and Moore were all okay and about even.

Had any of them been the original ones "best" might change a bit. The new ones, with the computer graphics used today just don't interest me at all.

I've been a Bond fan since I was a young boy. I once owned all of the music sound tracks on 33 RPM vinyl.

I've read every one of the Ian Fleming Bond novels and even the later ones written by John Gardner. I've seen all of the movies several times.

Casino Royal was the best authentic Bond film of them all. Stayed very true to the novel. Daniel Craig was superb.

It's all about the writing and I hope that the future movies stay more realistic like Casino Royal but I feel the last two have already strayed some.

Connery was the classic Bond and always will be. The rest would have been better if Cubby Broccoli had the screen plays written better. Not the actor's faults.

I've always felt bad for Brosnan because I really think he got the shaft for having to play a Bond that was very much a cartoon fantasy character.

I'd love to see a rated "R" Bond movie directed by Tarrantino. That would be something.

Dan

As a teenager, I was a big fan of the Bond franchise but preferred the books to the films..

While Connery is the classic Bond, I don't think the films have dated very well, with what looked "spectacular" at the time now looking decidedly cheesy and the plots being pretty unbelievable..

Moore and his films were a joke and nothing like the original books..

Dalton was too much of a "new man" type and never came across as menacing..

So my two favourites are Brosnan, who I think as a modernised version of Connery, and Craig, who is probably the best of the lot, but plays a very different character to the others.

That said, I am not sure how long Craig can go on for as he off screen he is looking very old and very tired..

So where should the film franchise go?

Personally, I'd like to see them revisit the Cold War years and do some remakes, but following the plot of the novels more closely.

I'd also like them to ditch some of the unrealistic big chase/fight scenes, and continue down the road of more gritty/dark thrillers..

I've thought the same thing although I wonder how that might be received in the 21st Century. Part of the original movies' appeal was the high tech (for the time) secret agent gadgets, but most teenagers today have electronic devices that surpass anything Q could have dreamed of. Trying to play up 1950's-60's era technology as something gee whiz would come across as comedic rather than dramatic.

But like you're saying, stick to the dark and gritty side of the novels and present them as Fleming wrote them. Emphasize the story over the peripherals and I think it could be a success.

Tarantino has the knack of being able to give a film the feel of decades past wile actually taking place in a current time frame. Using music, clothes and cars.

Imagine a very graphic Bond movie with an early to mid 1960's feel to it.

That would be fantastic.

I've read that the new Bond movie will re introduce SPECTRE from the early movies and the novels.

Dan

They have already reintroduce SPECTRE

When? I must have missed something...

One of the things I like about the Craig movies is that they have not gone overboard with the gadgets; as you say, looking back at the older films, they now seem very corny/comic..I think they just about got away with reintroducing the DB6 in Skyfall and only because a little nostalgic indulgence for us older fans rather than it adding anything to the plot.. Therefore In any 1960�s remake, I would restrict the gadgets to perhaps a minox camera and maybe a few hidden gold sovereigns.

The more I think of it, perhaps what I am actually wanting is a film based on of one Len Deighton's �Harry Palmer� books?

Its a long time since I read the original books, but was SPECTRE ever in them? I thought it was a PC enemy created for the films?

I thought SMERSH/NKVD was Bond's original adversary in the Flemming books?

SPECTRE was introduced in the 007 novel "Thunderball".

It replaced the Soviet run SMERSH.

Dan

Run by Ernst Stavro Blofeld, IIRC, who was the inspiration for Mike Meyer's Dr. Evil. (Let's see how well I remembered without resorting to google. )

Read all the Bond books by Fleming as a kid.
1. Sean Connery
Tie
2. Daniel Craig (stirred or shaken?- "Do I look like I give a damn)?
2.. Pierce Brosnan ("no more foreplay ").

For me, it will always be Sean Connery. I did like the brief stint with Pierce Bronson, though. Not a Daniel Craig fan at all.

The only one I really liked with Roger Moore was "Live & Let Die", although it was pretty silly.