10 Things You Need to Know about 007
The newest James Bond film, Quantum of Solace opens this week. If you are a diehard Bond fan like me, you are waiting to see how they will follow up after the success of Casino Royale. If you are new to world of 007 you may have a hard time communicating with Bond geeks like me so here is a quick and dirty list of things you should know about the series.
The Plot: An British superspy travels the world fighting crime and having unprotected sex with women. He never fails and he never gets an STD. It's not much of a plot but when you have hot women, fast action and/or cool gadgets you don’t really need one. In my eyes that makes him better than Super Man.
Most Popular Theme: Four Bond movies involved stolen nuclear weapons (Thunderball, Never Say Never Again, Octopussy, The Spy Who Loved Me). In the Bond universe, getting weapons of mass destruction is as easy as robbing a liquor store.
Best Villian: Played by four different actors, Ernst Stavro Blofeld is Bond’s worst nightmare. He was never really a physical threat to Bond but he was the hardest to kill and, if you watched On Her Majesty's Secret Service, you know that he took away the most important person in Bond’s life. That’s all the reason you need to make someone your archenemy.
Worst Villain: Hugo Drax, the bad guy in Moonraker, was a bad villain in a BAD movie.
Best Bond Film: This one is subject to debate because there are quite a few good ones to pick from. You can’t go wrong with Dr. No, Goldfinger, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Honorable mention goes Live and Let Die or as I call it Blaxploitation Bond.
Worst Bond Film: The popular and correct choice is Moonraker (a.k.a. Bond is Space) but don’t over look the suckiness of License to Kill which helped give Timothy Dalton’s the title of...
Worst James Bond: I know many people don’t like Roger Moore’s lighter portray of 007 but he was good at it. For my money Timothy Dalton was the worst of the bunch and the fact that he was in one of the worst movies didn’t help.
Best James Bond: I liked George Lazenby’s performance in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Roger Moore gave us the most innuendo filled one liners. Pierce Brosnan was probably the suavest of them all. Daniel Crag is moving up the list and could one day take the top spot but for right now, Sean Connery is still the alpha male of the Bond universe.
Worst Bond Girl: In my opinion it is Denise Richards. She played nuclear physicist Dr. Christmas Jones in The World is Not Enough. That’s right Denise Richards wanted us to believe that she was a freaking nuclear physicist. I’m not saying that nuclear physicists can’t be hot but let’s be realistic. Richards’ portrayal of one didn’t exactly help their trade much. I don’t remember there being a increase in the number of nuclear engineering majors after this film was released.
Best Bond Girl: Depends on what you like. For pure hotness just pick one and be happy. Bond movie casting directors have hot woman radar. Just like Hugh Hefner :)
If you are into the women who don’t play the typical damsel in distress role then you want either Michelle Yeoh or Ursula Andress from Tomorrow Never Dies and Dr.No respectively.
If you are more into the disposable Bond girls, the ones that only have about 20 minutes of screen time, then Lana Wood is your best bet. As Plenty O'Toole in Diamonds Are Forever she was part of one of the funniest exchanges in the history of Bond films.
O'Toole: Hi, I'm Plenty.
Bond: But of course you are.
O'Toole: Plenty O'Toole.
Bond: Named after your father perhaps?
With dialogue like that, who needs a plot?
channing100proof(at)gmail.com
I believe it was Octopussy in which Roger Moore swung across a creek or something on a vine, complete with Tarzan yell sound effect. Ahhhh, good stuff!!!
The newest Playboy has a big -- ahem -- spread on Bond, complete with what they do best: photos of Bond girls.
Thanks for the info. I think I need to swing by Books-A-Million :)
Actually, it appears Bond contracted several STDs during the making of the films. Otherwise, there would be no reason to replace him, and Connery would still be saving the world to this day, not being in crappy movies like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Also, if you'd read the books behind the stories, the nuclear weapons in three of the stories were actually stolen from liquor stores.
And regarding Moonraker: Having Roger Moore in that movie raised the box office from being counted in pesos to an inflation-adjusted $624 million. Everything that man touches turns to gold.
Finally, regarding the budget: I can't believe they spent $230 million to make that short movie. Was there some deleted scene where they burned down a federal currency stockpile somewhere?