Roger Moore was the worst thing ever to happen to James Bond (but not for the reasons you think)

Sir Roger Moore is one of the greatest human beings on the planet. I'm not talking about his work with UNICEF but rather how he saved the James Bond film franchise from certain demise after Sean Connery stormed off in a huff (twice) and George Lazenby totally failed to live up to audience expectations (those expectations being Be Sean Connery). Across seven films and twelve years, Roger Moore left his indelible stamp on the franchise and saved it from an ignominious death through the medium of Having Lots of Screen Presence and Being Really Really Really Good At The Jokes.

Which is why he's the worst thing to ever happen to the franchise.


There are seven Roger Moore films. Two are good, one is very bland, two are enjoyably bad, and two are utter crap. I'll let you figure out which ones are which.

I would note that as soon as they cast Timothy Dalton, they suddenly realized they could no longer coast on their star's shoulders. Either that or Dalton just glared at them when they waved the first draft of The Living Daylights at him (that would be the draft where Bond rides a magic carpet) and continued glaring until they reinvented quality.

Now, of course, there are hideous cretins out there who don't like the Dalton films, and they're entitled to their own opinions, in much the same way that (insert adherents of your least favorite political party/religion/Doctor Who here) are. And, yes, Dalton only lasted about a fourth as long as Roger Moore did. To which I offer a counterpoint.

Pierce Brosnan.

The Brosnan films (GoldenEye aside) are extraordinarily cacky. (Oh, all right, TWINE is halfway decent if you've never seen/didn't like OHMSS and/or can refrain from constantly comparing the two, but honestly that's like refraining from comparing The Phantom Menace to A New Hope.) And he was out after four films, paving the way for Daniel Craig to throw the baby out with the bathwater and then do whatever it was he did in Quantum of Solace amidst the shakycam.

My point is that Roger Moore, with his humor and his unbelievably impressive-yet-easily-overlooked ability to paper over the glaring flaws in the scripts of his various films (I mean, have you seen A View to a Kill? Wretched facelift and all, Moore quips his way through it as effectively as ever), allowed the producers to coast in a way that the immensely shallow BrosBond did not. They had to rip out the gearbox and reinvent the franchise a lot faster when they tried making Roger Moore-style films without Roger Moore.

So I'm left wondering what would have happened in the script meetings for, say, The Man With the Golden Gun, if the producer and the writers hadn't had as much faith in Moore and/or simply decided not to coast on his shoulders.