I watched them roughly once every night or two. And I’d previously seen them all.
And I was rather surprised at how I felt about the films afterwards. It seemed really clear that the quality of the films went continuously down after Casino Royal.
I thought Skyfall would stand out as the best followed by Casino Royal. But, in sequence, nah. Despite having clearly positive qualities, it seemed bloated and empty by comparison.
I also thought Quantum of Solace would rank pretty low as I recall thinking little of it at the time it came out. Instead, I thought it paired really well with Casino as a great follow up.
In fact, it felt like the Craig-era was basically Casino + Quantum and “other things”. And yea, the “post-Skyfall” films just didn’t feel like they were worth the effort. I thought they’d be more passable than they were, but after Casino + Quantum, which, for me, had a real punch and through-line, Spectre + No-Time-to-Die just felt like they were going through the motions and taking up space. At times, they really seemed to be badly flawed. And that’s where my impression of Skyfall really hit … it seemed that was the “what do we do now with this character?” moment and that Skyfall belonged with Spectre etc not the other way round.
Is this common among Bond fans or am I off base here?
When I saw Casino, I was blown away. I still think that’s it for the franchise, they’ll never top that movie. I’ve seen most of the newer ones since Casino, and to me I’m right.
And to me, Casino works standalone. That ending is the perfect implication of what happens next.
My favourites before Casino were From Russia With Love, Live and Let Die, and The Spy Who Loved Me.
I did really like Roger Moore, I thought his light hearted adventure style Bond movies were a lot of fun (not always good 😐)
Have you seen him in the TV show “The Saint”? It’s basically him as Bond before Bond existed.
I get what you mean, but technically Bond existed as books back then (although The Saint has existed as a book character for far longer).
I haven’t seen it. I have heard about it, but was well before my time. It was early 90s that my dad showed me all the Bond films and let me read his books.
If it had been running repeats on tv I’m sure my dad would have had us all watching it though.
Casino Royale is my favorite movie, and I’m not a bond fan otherwise, so I definitely agree that it stands alone