For my next trick, I shall deliver unto you my picks for the 25 worst and 25 best single moments in the totality of Bond films. (Well, "totality" excluding the following: the "Casino Royale" episode of Climax!, Casino Royale '67, Never Say Never Again, and James Bond Jr, the latter three of which were excluded so they would not hog the entirety of the "worst" list.)
In deciding what moments to use in making the lists, I have done my very best to NOT do the following:
- include a moment merely because it is a great -- or terrible -- line of dialogue; so, for example, "Named for your father, perhaps...?" is nowhere to be found, awesome moment though that is; you will similarly not find "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to DIE!" here. That said, are there moments that are largely based on the dialogue delivered? Yep.
- include a moment merely because it is a great piece of stuntwork (a list of the best Bond stunts would be a great idea, though); which is not to say that no stunt-centric moments will make the list, for they surely will; but a few iconic moments (such as the boat crossing the road in Live and Let Die) are absent, as well
- include entire scenes; so, for example, Silva's entrance monologue is nowhere to be found, because that's not a moment, that's a scene (although it's entirely possible one moment FROM that awesome scene has made the cut); the scene in which Bond consoles Vesper in the shower, or the one in which Le Chiffre tortures Bond? Similarly absent. Best scenes of Bond films? Great idea for a post! Maybe I'll write it one of these years.
- include moments that may horrify modern audiences with their sexism and/or racism; you can find plenty of that in these films, and maybe some of them deserve to be here, but frankly, it might have threatened to overwhelm the focus of the post, and I simply didn't want to do that. You can probably find that sort of thing done in a more illuminating manner on some other blog.
- have the best-of list be merely a collection of "cool shit James Bond did" moments; this was a danger, and I believe I avoided it, barely
It is, admittedly, a very rough and ill-defined set of criteria. You may read through it and feel I've failed entirely in trying to herd the cats I'm referring to as "criteria" here.
If so, feel free to use the comment section and tell me how shite I am.
We'll begin, of course, with the worst. A note of clarification: #25 worst is, in my estimation, less bad than #1 worst. So we're counting down from the offensive to the horrendously offensive.
Got it?
Cool. Here we go:
The 25 Worst Moments In James Bond Films