The Bond films that stick in my head as being the most memorable from being on TV and such during the holiday periods are in no particluar order

Thunderball
Diamonds are Forever
Live and Let Die
Goldeneye

to add to these 4 the new one I would say was excellent and Casion Royale would be my Number 1

Thing about Bond is, I alwats rooted for bad guys/girls intent on world domination.

In a Spy who loved me, I liked Caroline Munro, who played the baddie helicopter pilot.

Sad but true...when I went to Tokyo last year, I had the You only live twice them on my MP3 player, I sat looking at the neon-lit streets with that music in my ears. Instantly it evokes Japan for me.

I thought the late Roger Moore era was Bonds worst period...Moonraker...Octopussy...A View to a kill...

Though For your eyes only had a more realistic feel.

Well this thread was in need of a little bit of an update so hensforth it will be known as The James Bond Thread. All James Bond chatter in here please...

Roger Moore was my first/growing up Bond so I thought he was the best, but looking back films like Moonraker and Octopussy were truly awful and now horrendously dated.

True but this a James Bond Thread.

Id like to see The Spy WHo Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, You Only Live Twice and Octopussy re done.

I love Moore, definitely my favourite Bond although that said, Goldeneye is far and away the best Bond movie.

Goldeneye has just started on ITV1 as well tonight weird huh?

Has the man with the best acting eyebrows really snuffed it ??? If he has, it just goes to show how out of touch with ( not so ) current affairs I really am.

The new Casino Royale is by far the best Bond movie without question. My eyes were glued to the screen from start to finish. Great stunts, great acting, great story, ( although it must be remembered it was the third outing for this particular Bond novel, so it was about time they got it right ). Daniel Craig has managed, in one film, to become ( almost ) the best Bond ever, only surpassed by the mighty Sean Connery. The only down side to the movie is that they wrote off the Vanquish. I also have to admit I'm just a little confused at how they can still cast Judy Dench as M. She took over the role in Goldeneye where ( apparently ) Bond has had his license to kill for quite some time, yet in Casino Royale she's the one that gives him his 00 status!?! The only way I can make sense of it is to use the premise introduced in the original ( big screen ) version in that James Bond is not actually his name, but an alias passed down from agent to agent as one is killed and another takes over his 00 number. Whether or not this correct I don't know, but either way it's not a good state of affairs as it forced me to have to remember that awful, piece-of-cack movie that I had to endure several months worth of intensive psychiatric treatment to be able to forget ( pass me the valium please, nurse ). It's interesting ( albeit hardly surprising ) to see that no-one here has posted either the ( cack ) Casino Royale or the equally best forgotten Never Say Never Again amongst their favourite Bond movies. I am surprised, however, that On Her Majesty's Secret Service has crept into as many of everyone else's list of top Bond flicks. I thought it was only me that had a soft spot for the Aussie 007. Just goes to show, eh!

On the subject of updating ( nay remaking ) one of the earlier movies, if there's any kind of benign being looking over us and protecting us from evil, it will never happen... or at least not in the proper sequence of Bond films ( neither the original Casino Royale ( with cheese ) nor Never Say Never Again were made as part of the official Bond franchise ). Most of the original Bond stories wouldn't ( and couldn't ) work if remade now anyhoos, as the social and political World order that prevailed at the time of their original release no longer exists. To update some of the earlier stories and preserve the original context would mean having films with titles like From Uzbekistan With Love, and I don't think I'm wrong in saying that doesn't have quite the same ring to it. There are some of the Fleming stories that could be remade though, as the original films vary quite wildly from their book counterparts ( The Living Daylights, Moonraker and You Only Live Twice being three that spring to mind ), but for them to work they would have to be set at the time they were written, and therefore couldn't have Daniel Craig starring as he is a Bond with his feet very much planted in the 21st century. I think it would be better to write and film all-new stories, and enjoy the previous films for what they so obviously are... shining jewels of a Britian long since past.

A Sad day for Bond Fans....


Bond star Lois Maxwell dies at 80
Lois Maxwell
Maxwell was a regular in the Bond series for over 20 years
Actress Lois Maxwell, who starred as Miss Moneypenny in a string of James Bond movies, has died aged 80.

Maxwell starred alongside Sir Sean Connery in Bond's first movie outing, Dr No, in 1962.

She played the role until 1985's A View To A Kill with Sir Roger Moore, who told the BBC she had been a "great asset" to the early Bond movies.

A spokesperson for Fremantle Hospital, Western Australia, said she died there on Saturday evening.

Maxwell starred in 14 Bond films as the secretary to M, the secret agent's boss and head of the secret service.

'Always fun'

She appeared in more movies than any of the actors who played the lead role in the spy series, including Sir Sean Connery and Sir Roger Moore.

Only Desmond Llewelyn, who played gadget man Q 17 times before his death in 1999, starred in more films.

"It's rather a shock," Sir Roger, who had known her since they were students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada) in 1944, told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"She was always fun and she was wonderful to be with."

"She was wonderful, absolutely perfect casting," he said of her role as Miss Moneypenny.

"It was a great pity that, after I moved out of Bond, they didn't take her on to continue in the Timothy Dalton films.

"I think it was a great disappointment to her that she had not been promoted to play M. She would have been a wonderful M."

Sir Roger said she had moved to Australia to be with her son after being diagnosed with cancer.

Born Lois Hooker in Ontario, Canada, in 1927, her acting career started in radio, before she moved to the UK with the Entertainment Corps of the Canadian army at the age of 15.

Golden Globe

In the late 1940s, she moved to Hollywood and picked up a best newcomer Golden Globe for her part in Shirley Temple comedy That Hagen Girl.

Lois Maxwell
Lois Maxwell appeared in 14 Bond films from 1962 to 1985
After a spell working in Italy, she returned to the UK in the mid-1950s.

As well as her 14 outings as Miss Moneypenny, she also appeared in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita and worked on TV shows including The Saint, The Baron, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), The Persuaders! and Department S.

Aged 58 when she made her final Bond appearance, she was replaced by 26-year-old Caroline Bliss for The Living Daylights.

As well as her acting career, she also worked as a columnist for the Toronto Sun newspaper.

Her last film role was in the 2001 thriller The Fourth Angel, alongside Jeremy Irons and Jason Priestley.