The most heartbreaking deaths of Bond girls in 007 movies ...

Following the trend:

1. License to Kill - A somewhat controversial pick, I suppose. I just adore this film for it's fantastic villain, well written plot, violence, great Bond girl and Dalton in his prime. The final tanker chase is one of my favorite Bond action climaxes, but the film has so much more to offer. Especially in the moments between Dalton and Davi.
2. OHMSS - This could easily be #1. It's a flawless Bond movie to me, and yes that includes Lazenby's performance. It has my favorite Bond girl of all time (RIP Diana Rigg) and the best Blofeld interpretation in my book, along with a very unique sense of scale and cinematography. The soundtrack is always playing in my mind whenever I ski and the scene with Tracy ice skating is one of the most romantic moments in film to me.
3. Casino Royale - It's all very brilliant, except for a few lines of dialogue that are just too kitschy between Bond and Vesper. Aside from that, fantastic. One of the best openings+gun barrels+title sequences in all of Bond.
4. Goldeneye - I feel like this one is still super popular, but also has been getting a lot of shit lately. I think it's mostly superb. Yes, Brosnan isn't quite comfortable in the role yet, but he does have some stand out scenes, especially on the physical end. Great ensemble of villains and one of my favorite Bond girls that not nearly enough people talk about.
5. The Spy Who Loved Me - To me, this is the perfect mix of cheesiness and grit that a James Bond film needs, at least in Moore's era. It has an amazing end battle scene, the sets are breathtaking and Jaws scared the living shit out of me as a kid whenever he bites someone to death. Also, that opening will forever stay in my mind as magical.
6. From Russia With Love - Super straight forward and strong because of that. It's just a great cold war thriller, which introduced a lot of classic Bond elements for the first time. The fight between Bond and Grant on the train is still one of my favorite hand to hand fight scenes of all time!
7. Skyfall - Yes, I know it has a giant amount of plot holes and I don't really care. Seeing this as my first Bond film experience in a movie theatre was and forever will be memorable. Again, lots of love for the climax, but in general this film just oozes Bond to me and not because of the well planted references (as opposed to DAD).
8. The Living Daylights - Talk about oozing Bond. The scene where Saunders dies and Dalton turns into bloodlust Bond for a minute is one of my favorite things in the series. I love the naiv personality of Kara and Necros is one hell of a capable henchman.
9. For Your Eyes Only - Rewatched this one recently and man, is it good. So fast paced, so action packed and yet very well balanced with the story beats. Melina is undoubtedly one of the best Bond girls to me and Glenn's debut as a director was impressive as all hell.
10. Dr No - Where it all started. Yes, the other Bond movies in my list that rank lower might have more fun elements, but Dr No has something that beats it all out: Class. It knows exactly what it wants to be and it just is it. From the first time we see Bond, to the murder of Professor Dent, to the dinner with the titular character, it's all so classy, yet still raw. Exactly what Bond is meant to be.

So I went on a James Bond binge this weekend and watched all four Daniel Craig films. Casino Royale and Skyfall are both masterpieces. Spectre was meh, but it gave a sort of primal old-school Bond movie feel that I couldn't stop rewatching it. Quantum of Solace was absolutely horrid. Seeing it right after CR didn't exactly help it's image to say the least.
Dominic Greene is one of the most washed out villains ever seen on feature film. He literally just looks like an ordinary dude with bug eyes. Nothing frightening about him. The accent was atrocious and seemed forced. His costume was also dull, bland and had no character to it. What kind of mafia boss wears white dress shirts? There could have been so much more to "up" his villainous effect throughout the film.
Olga Kurylenko was weird in this movie too. Too cold of a demeanor and not nearly enough lines to emphasize character traits. There was something very "absent" about the portrayal, especially compared to someone like Vesper Lynd.
Daniel Craig wasn't too bad, but was lacking in attitude compared to Casino Royale. He didn't break the flim, though.
Although admittedly Spectre had a badly written villain played by Christoph Waltz, his henchman was FANTASTIC (absolute killer fight scenes in this movie as well). The locations were also far more interesting. A Lamborghini showdown in downtown Rome? A snowy chase in Austria? A hand-to-hand combat in a train in the middle of the North African desert? THAT'S what I call an action movie. Not some sinkhole revenge story and a Russian girl trying to defeat a chubby Spanish dude in an army uniform. Greene's "death" was also complete garbage. Bond just leaves him out in the desert. WTF?
Overall, Quantum of Solace was so cold and distant that you couldn't really connect with the characters. By all means, Camille Montes was a better Bond girl than Madeline Swan, but other than that, the bad guys were more pronounced in Spectre.
Spectre felt like a traditional action movie, comparable to stuff like the Transporter or Bourne series, which actually improves its standing as a Bond film. Also better humor and comedic relief by far. Quantum of Solace just seems laughable and Greene doesn't seem as dark and brooding as Blofeld. His demeanor was completely off, it felt like he had nothing to hide. Skyfall was quite a refresher after that shitshow of a movie.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS
Many have been speculating exactly what Madeleine Swann’s secret is in No Time To Die. I wanted to make a post with all the concrete details the trailers and other official sources have given us.
First of all, we know that the Noh mask we see Safin wearing in the trailers has a significance to Madeleine as early as the Matera scenes, which will likely be the first in the film. She cries when she receives the box with the broken mask in it, the same mask we see Safin wear as he fires a gun at someone under the ice. This links her secret directly with Safin. What is interesting too is that in Noh theatre the main character often is a ghost. “Faces from my past return...”
Bond knows in Matera that Madeleine has some secret but he does not know what it is. She asks him “Why would I betray you?” in the DB5 as they are being chased in Matera. Even by the time they are in London at MI6 Blofeld taunts James with “When her secret finds its way out, it’ll be the death of you.” Bond by that point still does not know, but Madeleine, Safin, and Blofeld all know independently.
Madeleine in Spectre tells James that a man came to her home one night with the intention of killing her father but she killed him first. Her father of course was Mr. White, the man responsible for the deal that cost Vesper Lynd her life.
In the song trailer, some clever editing shows both Bond and Madeleine with notes. Bond stands before a tomb with a burning note that reads “Forgive Me.” I am aware of articles that talk about unofficial details regarding the tomb, but here I want to focus on official. The tomb, if in Matera and has an emotional significance to Bond, would have to be Vesper’s. She is the only one who could be buried in Italy, and it very well was likely James himself who buried her considering she was an orphan without any family. If the tomb sets off a chain of events that allows Bond to know that Madeleine has a secret, this must link Vesper, Mr. White, Madeleine, Safin, and Blofeld together.
Madeleine would have been 20 years old around the events of Casino Royale and was estranged from her father by this point. Vesper herself was 25 when she died. I think this precludes Madeleine’s secret from having anything to do with Vesper’s death. Also, in Spectre, Blofeld uses the tape of Mr. White’s suicide to torture Madeleine. If she was a part of SPECTRE, he would not have done so. Blofeld hated Mr. White because White was tired of Blofeld’s evil games.
The biggest question I still have is what is important enough to Bond to be “the death of him.” His relationships with Vesper and (Judi Dench’s) M, sure, but the man already has lost both of them. On top of that he is an orphan and his ancestral home was blown to pieces. Madeleine is the only thing he loves now.
So, from all evidence we have currently, we know why Madeleine’s secret likely isn’t:
• She did not help her father orchestrate Vesper’s betrayal to save Yusuf.
• She is not secretly a SPECTRE agent or the “real” head of SPECTRE.
What it likely could be:
• Madeleine and Safin are brother and sister. Mr. White’s children chose different paths, one becoming fully dedicated to crime and the other dedicated to living honorably. (Vesper?)
• Madeleine contributed to Safin’s science programs before the events of Spectre but did not know he was developing something malicious. She knows who the kidnapped scientist is and that is what links Bond, Felix, and Paloma together to find the scientist. (Vesper?)
The piece I cannot understand yet is Vesper.
If y’all would like to add anything, please feel free! This is all just what I have observed from watching each trailer too many times and analyzing it all. April 10 cannot come soon enough!

I don't know if I can publish this article here, it might be deleted due to copyright, but here it is.
Eva Green on coping with crippling anxiety: ‘I’m very shy… I wish I was a silent movie star’
Gavanndra Hodge25 APRIL 2020 • 5:00 AM
I meet the actor Eva Green on one of those strange, early March days when we are yet to truly understand the implications of coronavirus – when people still hug each other and say, ‘Whoops, sorry!’ afterwards. Which is exactly what Green and I do when she arrives at Clifton Nurseries, a chic garden centre and café near her north London flat. She’s dressed in a black woolly hat, huge black puffer jacket and sunglasses.
‘Let me show you something so scary,’ she says, showing me a passage on her phone from Dean Koontz’s 1981 thriller The Eyes of Darkness, which seems to predict the pandemic with eerie prescience, appropriate passages circled in red.
Meanwhile, Green’s mother, who lives in Paris and to whom she speaks daily, has been telling her not to shake hands with anyone, not even to leave the house. Yet here we are, sitting perilously close, ordering fresh mint tea, ready to talk about Green’s new film, Proxima, directed by César-winning French screenwriter and director Alice Winocour.
In the film, Green plays French astronaut Sarah, who is preparing to depart for a year-long mission. But despite the hi-tech robotics and presence of Matt Dillon, Proxima is not your average space movie; it is not concerned with distant galaxies or alien life forms. The film is about Earth and the things that tether us to it. Sarah is an astronaut, but she is also a single parent; her daughter Stella played by the excellent 10-year-old actor Zélie Boulant.
‘It is a love story between a mother and a daughter,’ says Green. ‘And these people who are going to the International Space Station, all the way to Mars, they will lose sight of the Earth. It is like a self-sacrifice, like a death.’
In preparation for the role, Green undertook an arduous fitness regime with a Russian instructor in Cologne. ‘He was so harsh, treating me like a real astronaut. In the end he was so rude and mean that it became funny.’ She also spent time at astronaut-training centres, like Star City in Kazakhstan. ‘That was my favourite thing. I felt like I had entered a sacred realm.’
The film is a departure in many ways for Green. In Proxima, she is make-up-free, dressed mostly in overalls, dealing with the struggles of a working mother. It is beautiful and solemn – and her performance has been described as a career-best.
Green is probably most famous, though, for her glamorous role as Vesper Lynd in the 2006 reboot of the James Bond franchise, Casino Royale, featuring Daniel Craig as 007. At first she didn’t want to audition for the part (in retrospect, she says she was being ‘pretentious’), but when she read the script, she changed her mind. ‘I thought it was a very strong role. But I didn’t like when they said “Bond girl”. I would say, “I am not a Bond Girl, I am a character.”’
She loved making the film, though: ‘The set was joyous. Barbara Broccoli is amazing, one of the best producers I have ever worked with. I wish they were all like her: passionate, kind, caring.’ Green admits that she has had less pleasant experiences on set. ‘Of course, a lot. It is hard; it is the anti-glamour.’
Eva Green was born and raised with her non-identical twin, Joy, in Paris. Her mother, Marlène Jobert, was a successful actor who gave up her career for her family, and her Swedish father, Walter, is a dentist. It was, Green says, a very ‘Parisian bourgeois’ upbringing. She attended drama school in Paris, followed by a 10-week acting course at Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London. ‘It was very intense, in a good way. But because my English was not very good, when I had to do Shakespeare, it was very hard. Often I couldn’t even understand what the teachers were asking me to do,’ she says.
Back in Paris, Green won parts in a couple of plays, but had such a bleak time, getting stage fright and ‘having blanks’, that she considered giving up acting. It was, she says, the Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci who saved her. She was in her early 20s, when she heard about a Bertolucci audition. ‘I was obsessed with him, obsessed with Last Tango [in Paris]’, she says.
The audition was relaxed, and soon afterwards she was offered the lead role in The Dreamers, an adaptation of a Gilbert Adair novel – sexy and incestuous, and suffused with the riotous politics of Paris in 1968. ‘My mother told me not to do it,’ Green says. ‘She was afraid that I was too sensitive, that he [Bertolucci] was going to be quite violent with me,’ she says, referencing the fact that the actress Maria Schneider had found the making of Last Tango in Paris emotionally challenging. ‘And that it would destroy me for life. I was like, are you kidding? It was the chance of a lifetime.’
The film, which was released in 2003, was a critical success, but did more for Green than simply launching her career. ‘Bertolucci gave me faith in myself. He was like a little angel.’ After seeing her performance, Jobert agreed that she had made the right decision; but the rest of Green’s family found the film’s explicit intimacy shocking. ‘When you are not in the business and you see something so sexual, it is too brutal. I mean, it was horrific for me when I saw it. But I hate watching myself anyway.’
She hated the ancillary elements of being an actor, too, not least the red carpet. ‘I remember my first time. The Dreamers was about to come out. It was an Armani event, and [Martin] Scorsese was at my table. I said to my agent, “I can’t go, I have nothing to tell him!” But then [Giorgio] Armani took me aside and said, ‘We are going to do the red carpet!’
Green still doesn’t enjoy ritzy events, which she says is down to a lack of confidence. ‘I am very shy. It is a handicap. I am never good when there are lots of people. It is a thing from my childhood, I can’t even explain why.’
It is something that she has learnt to deal with, though, by taking herself off to the loo to do breathing exercises to calm herself, and wearing elaborate gowns (her favourite designer is Alexander McQueen) and melodramatic make-up as a kind of armour. ‘It protects me. Because otherwise it is very violent for me,’ she says. ‘I just wish sometimes that we didn’t have to talk, that we were just silent movie stars.’
And here is the conundrum, one that Green herself has said she does not quite understand: why someone so shy (although, one-on-one, drily funny, thoughtful and open) would do a job that is so emotionally exposing, both on screen and off it.
In a 2017 radio interview, Green’s mother revealed that Harvey Weinstein had attempted to physically assault her daughter when she was a young actor in a hotel room in Paris. ‘She managed to escape, but he threatened to destroy her professionally,’ said Jobert. Green has never been keen to go into details about the event, but she is happy to say how relieved she is that Weinstein has been sentenced to 23 years in prison. ‘I am grateful that justice has been served. I praise the brave women who risked so much in coming forward, not only their careers and reputations, but the pain that they have suffered in having to relive being raped in order to put this sexual predator out of harm’s way. Their courage has changed the world.’
This change is something that Green is living through – on the Friday before we meet, she attended the French César awards where Roman Polanski, who pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor in the US in 1977 but fled before sentence was passed (and with whom Green made the film Based on a True Story in 2017), was given the award for best director in absentia, resulting in many of the members of the audience walking out.
‘It was so tense,’ said Green. ‘I have never been in a situation like that before.’ She is enjoying the shift in the power dynamic in the film industry, working with female directors like Alice Winocour, making female-centric stories, like that of the astronaut Sarah, where there is not even a whiff of romance. ‘It is good, and there is still more to do,’ she says. ‘It is so radical – for men it is very hard, they take so many hits. There are very good men.’
One of the best men, as far as Green is concerned, is director Tim Burton, with whom she has collaborated on three films, most recently last year’s Dumbo. There have been rumours of romance between Green and Burton, who has two children with his former partner, actor Helena Bonham Carter, but Green has always denied this, maintaining that their relationship is purely professional. ‘My dream as a child, and later on, was always to work with him. I love his world. He is such a nice person as well.’
Green says she does not have a partner at the moment – her main companion is her miniature schnauzer, Winston. ‘Winston is so clever; very serious, very sensitive. I can’t lie to him,’ she says, showing me a picture of him, looking serious and sensitive in a tartan bow tie. ‘This is how I dress him.’
Green has lived in London since her early 20s, when she got a British agent and promptly moved into their spare bedroom in Primrose Hill. She loves London, but her circle is international – her sister, Joy, lives in Italy, on a vineyard with her Italian count husband and two children. ‘She is very different [to me], very down to earth. We are so different that it might have been a bit tense in the past, but we really get on now.’
When asked to elaborate on these sibling differences, Green considers, before saying, ‘Maybe I am a bit weird? If I mentioned tarot, things like this, she would go, “You are crazy.” So I don’t talk about any of that.’
Green became interested in tarot in 2014 when she was filming the Showtime series Penny Dreadful, a drama set in the Victorian occult underworld starring Josh Hartnett and Billie Piper. Green was nominated for a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Vanessa Ives, a young woman prone to satanic visions and demonic possessions.
‘If it [tarot] is done properly, it teaches you things about yourself. It is fast-forward therapy.’ She does not go to normal therapy, although she did a little when she was younger. ‘But if you have a few tools, you can become very connected.’
Her toolbox includes regular meditation. ‘I am very into this guru at the moment, Teal Swan, who lives in Costa Rica. She does guided meditations that really calm you.’ She also exercises every morning for 45 minutes, sometimes with a trainer, and uses the Wim Hof cold-water-therapy technique, which involves a daily 10-minute cold shower. ‘It is all about the breathing and helps you when you are stressed. It makes you get rid of all that s—t.’
These techniques are a proactive way of managing anxiety. But Green also likes a glass of red wine in the evening (‘Of course. I’m French. I have been doing that every day of my life since I was 18’), going for long walks, taking photographs, and compiling collages of black-and-white images.
She is not on social media – ‘it is very narcissistic and not in a great way’ – and her greatest pleasure is travel: trips to places like Namibia and Bhutan, long walking holidays, often alone. ‘The first day is always quite scary, but then you connect much better with your surroundings, with people as well. Your senses are more awakened.’
The opportunity to travel was just one of the reasons Green accepted a role in the upcoming adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries. Set in the 1860s during the New Zealand gold rush, the BBC Two series stars Eve Hewson, the actor daughter of Bono, while Green plays scheming brothel-keeper Lydia Wells. ‘I love characters like that. You think she is one thing and then you discover that she is something else. Of course she is manipulative, but she is not a baddie. She is a very strong woman.’
Lydia is also an astrologer, another of Green’s interests. ‘I am completely into that stuff.’ Her star sign is cancer, and in July she will turn 40, although there will not be a party. ‘I am not a birthday girl at all. I always want everyone else to feel so good that I cannot relax.’ The fact that it is a landmark birthday is adding to Green’s feeling of unease. We talk about how age brings maturity, wisdom and a sense of acceptance about who we are.
‘That’s true. And then there’s the immediate thing of, “I’m going to get old, what did I achieve, are people still going to desire me?” Especially as an actor, I think, because I’ve always heard that when you reach 40, it is going to be difficult to get roles. What about as a woman: can you still be attractive, do you have children? If you don’t have children, are you kind of a social failure? These are clichés, but people say, “You don’t have children?” and you feel like not a woman when you say, “No, I don’t have them.” It is hard… But then, I feel like I am 12 still and now I am about to be 40. What happened there?’
And yet, she does have a plan… ‘I want to get a farm. I know it sounds like a whim, but it is something that I have been thinking about a lot. Maybe Wales, I love Wales. The scenery is amazing. Sitting in the city, it is choking me sometimes, and there is nothing better than to connect with nature. You feel whole.’
Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/eva-green-coping-crippling-anxiety-shyi-wish-silent-movie-sta

-UPDATED, ADDED UP TO QoS-
I've seen the Brosnan/Craig era films but I never saw the originals. Currently watching in order, and here's my rankings. Tell me if it lines up with the general consensus. I'm not including the ones I've seen previously that I mentioned. I'm going to rank them when I rewatch them (Goldeneye, Casino Royale, etc.)
Casino Royale - This movie is too damn perfect. I remember watching it once when it came out and I haven't really seen it in full since then, but this time I got to really appreciate how amazing it is. What made OHMSS so great, this movie did better with the Bond/Vesper dynamic. Bond was as human as he could ever be in this movie, ranging from his flaws to his emotions to his mission. Not a single gadget was used in this movie, yet it didn't need any. Bond was as Bond as he could ever be. The homages to previous films weren't forced either like others (*cough*Die Another Day*cough*). I particularly loved the new take on the barrel sequence being Bond's first kill as a 00 agent, going right into the theme song (which is also one of my favorites). There's nothing too crazy in this film, just a good ol' fashion spy film with some good action sprinkled in between. This was the perfect balance of everything that makes Bond, cementing the fact that this is the best Bond film period. And I have to add this in here - "now the whole world is going to know you died scratching my balls" is quite possibly one of the greatest lines in the history of everything, let alone it being my favorite line in this series. Classic James Bond right there, as with everything in this movie. Being that I'm pretty positive at this point nothing is going to top this, I'm going over the scale here. 11/10
GoldenEye - I saw this movie growing up, so I tried to be as objective as possible so that it didn't take away from the following film with my own nostalgia. But as much as I tried to make the case that this wasn't the best Bond film so far, I couldn't. This movie is phenomenal. It is not only one of the best Bond films, but honestly one of the best action films period. Brosnan arguably had the best debut performance out of all the Bond actors before him. You could actually see the emotional turmoil he had for Alec's "death" and the eventual realization of his betrayal. Sean Bean is the epitome of a Bond villain, portraying 006 with perfection. Xenia is arguably the best Bond henchman ever, let alone being a henchwoman. Boris probably the best comedic relief of the series as well, and let's not underrate Gottfried John's performance as General Orumov. An absolute superb showing from everyone involved, in a plot that exemplifies Bond's strengths and weaknesses and highlights the theme M alludes to of Bond being a relic of the Cold War. Natalya wasn't a bad sidekick either, being able to hold her own throughout. The fact that they had to run with a plot completely void of Fleming's influence turned out to be a miracle that it ended up actually saving the franchise. Forgive me if any nostalgia may have gotten in the way of reviewing this, but I can't argue against it being the best so far considering it contained so many "bests-of" of the series itself (006,Xenia,the surrounding cast). Might have to go back and play the videogame when everything is said and done. 10/10
OHMSS - Without a doubt the best film up to this point so far. Great plot and chemistry between the actors. Best Blofeld imo, and so far the best Bond girl. You actually get to see Bond's emotions for the first time, and probably the most down to earth version of him. Loved the setting as well. Lazenby is criminally underrated and wish he stuck around. There's a lot of this movie that I can't really put into words how great it is. Just watch it yourself and you'll see why. 10/10
The Living Daylights - Holy crap, this was an amazing film. Dalton arguably nailed the first impression better than the ones before him. Maryam d'Abo put up an amazing performance as well. This was a film where the girl finally can hold her own and do some ballsy stuff, and actually saves Bond's life a few times. The film was action packed, but it also had some great espionage scenes throughout making this a true Bond film. Nothing crazy, just a few gadgets that are used sparingly and in ways that pay off. To be quite honest, it came really close to dethroning OHMSS. The one thing OHMSS has that sets it over the edge is seeing Bond's human element at his most vulnerable. The chemistry between Lazenby and Rigg was a bit better as well, but nothing to overshine Dalton/d'Abo's performance. Another one of those underrated classics that don't get enough mention, along with the following film after this on the list. Just a superb film through in and out. 10/10
For Your Eyes Only - I've never seen anyone put this movie on a pedestal before or even give it the amount of praise some of the other films received. But wow, this was a hidden gem and just an awesome standalone film, even if you forget it's James Bond. Another movie with great chemistry, albeit I wish Melina's actress could act better. But at least she made for a very competent and awesome Bond girl. It's awesome to see a girl in these films that can handle their own and not have to rely on Bond for everything. Julian Glover is an awesome villain too. Roger Moore was at his peak here imo. I love this movie. 10/10
Goldfinger - I see why people love this film. You got the entertaining villains. Bond's gadgetry really shines here, and it doesn't become overwhelmingly ridiculous like in later films. There's some great dialogue too, so even in the scenes with zero action you still are entertained. Connery was at his peak here and never quite matched it again. Honestly nothing left to say that hasn't already been said about this film. I wasn't entertained by it as my top two though, but probably the closest one. 10/10
The Spy Who Loved Me - There's a noticeable dropoff imo in how much I was entertained by the top three and this film. Still, it's a great film and it has the campy charm of the Roger Moore era while still maintaining a realistic approach. I wish Anya shined more in this film. The first half it had me believing she would be Bond's match but in the 2nd half she clearly played 2nd fiddle to everything and I was disappointed by that. The action scenes were awesome, although the ending was quite anticlimactic. Honestly a lot of this movie has lost potential, but it makes up for it with everything else. Also Jaws. 9/10
Octopussy - Wow. This blew away my expectations, all things considered since this movie was panned heavily by critics and what I thought was the general consensus among Bond fans. This is actually a great film. There was a lot of cliche moments and some cheesy quips by Bond and company, but that aside the movie kept me entertained all the way through. Another one of those realistic plots, this time returning to some nice Cold War action. I mean, aside from the ridiculous Octopussy cult but it's a Bond film so you kinda sort of have to expect that. It also threw me off a few times. From the beginning I thought General Orlov was going to be the big bad, but turns out he was just sort of a pawn for Khan's money making scheme. I appreciate that sort of twist, along with the good amount of memorable henchman in this film. Maud Adams was much better this go around than in TMWTGG as well. And as hilariously ridiculous Bond in a clown suit was, I've sort of grown to appreciate that sort of charm from the Moore era. As long the movies don't focus on these types of antics the entire time (see: Moonraker), it's good for a laugh in-between all the seriousness of the movie. Also Q gets some field time, which is awesome. 9/10
Thunderball - Less campy than Goldfinger and back down to earth like the earlier films, which isn't a bad thing because I actually prefer those types of Bond films. But it sort of drags on. There's some decent action here as well, like the underwater fight scene and Bond infiltrating Largo's villa. But aside from that, way too much water and way too much running around doing seemingly nothing. If they polished the movie a bit more and cut down on some scenes, noticeably the beginning at the rehab and the parade scene...this could have been a fantastic film, because the entire cast is awesome. Loved Largo as a villain and Leiter's portrayal as Bond's sidekick. Domino was one of my favorite Bond girls while watching this (RIP Claudine Auger). Fiona was a pretty awesome femme fatale. Overall still a great movie, just could have been executed a lot better. 9/10
Quantum of Solace - I liked this film a lot. I knew going in it wasn't going to be as good as Casino Royale, and that was okay. A lot of people thought this movie was disappointing, but I couldn't disagree more. It was a satisfying conclusion to the Vesper saga left on a cliffhanger of the previous film. The parallels between Camille and Bond seeking revenge for the deaths of a loved one played out quite well in this movie, allowing Bond to see a reflection of himself in her and eventually giving him the strength to not kill Vesper's boyfriend who turns out to be a member of Quantum abusing women in foreign intelligence to get information. That and also the countless times he needed to be reminded to not kill everybody he sees by M, it all coming together as a growing process for him to become more calculated in his actions instead of shoot first act later. That being said, this movie suffered a deal from the writer's strike. I sincerely believe with more time and dedication into finishing this movie proper, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace would have been an amazing 1-2 punch that could probably have gone hand-in-hand on most people's best lists. The movie seems very rushed at times, and at other times the pace is fine. It's a weird up-and-down roller coaster of driving the plot that kind of takes away from an otherwise good film. However knowing that they did the best they could work with given the writer's strike, I'm willing to give some of that a pass, because as I stated before the plot and themes themselves were fantastic. Overall still on the top level of Bond films, just disappointing we didn't get what we should have gotten. 8.5/10
Licence to Kill - This was a fun film. James Bond going rogue to avenge Felix Leiter? Count me in. Absolutely loved the fact Q got a lot of field work in this film. There were a lot of notable henchmen as well, including a young Benicio del Toro who I didn't even recognise until about midway through the movie. Robert Davi stole the show though, what an underrated villain for the series. There's a lot of good action scenes balanced with some classic espionage throughout as well. All of that being said, it doesn't set itself apart really from the aforementioned films. Dalton was a step down from his previous film, almost acting as if he was already through with the series. A shame, considering how great he portrayed Bond in TLD. The cheesy love triangle between Pam and Lupe was sort of annoying too. And the Scanners bit with Krest's head exploding was honestly so ridiculous that it made me forget I was even watching a Bond film for a few. That's the issue with this movie was that it was more like Die Hard than it was James Bond, which isn't necessarily a bad thing from an entertainment standpoint but in comparison it just comes off as a B-level action movie. This movie could have been executed a lot better, considering the talent and the original plot to work with. 8/10
Live and Let Die - Okay, I'm sort of a sucker for the Blaxpoitation genre and honestly as ridiculous as it was to pair Bond with the height of that era, in a vacuum this movie is actually pretty entertaining. Yaphet Kotto was awesome in this film as the main villain, but so were his henchmen. There's some awesome action scenes in this movie too, and most of the movie is still in the realm of believability so that's a plus too. But that's where this stops. Dear god this movie probably didn't age well in terms of tact. Rosie Carver was the first black Bond girl and she was...yeah she was pretty awful and dumb. The occultism stuff was cringy, especially considering that it doesn't even line up with the region. A lot of the dialogue coming from black characters were clearly written by old white guys that never actually heard a black person speak. Then there's the sheriff...hoo boy. The racial aspect aside, Solitaire's character could have been written a lot better. She shows signs of independence towards the middle of the film but then completely relies upon Bond for everything. Also rigging the deck was probably the 2nd worst thing Bond has ever done, and that's only because he borderline rapes Pussy Galore in Goldfinger. So yeah, forgive me for pandering but a lot of this movie's shining moments is weighed down by its antiquated garbage. Also never bring magic back into this franchise ever again please. All in all, it's still a great movie and I was highly entertained throughout. 8/10
The World is Not Enough - This movie started out strong. Strong enough potentially to be a top Bond film. You had an interesting setup with Elektra possibly being Stockholm syndrome'd by Renard, with Sophie Marceau doing a superb job at portraying a deceitful lover of Bond. Then you had M having a personal involvement in the whole case, showing the consequences of being the "queen of numbers". There's a lot of underlying themes here that callback on previous films, which I like. But then Christmas Jones happens. What the hell was Eon thinking? Denise Richards hands down has to be the worst actress to ever be a part of this franchise, and her "acting" really shows. None of what she says is believable at all and it's hard for me to believe she's a nuclear physicist. And she's not really useful at all if you think about it, because we know from past films Bond can diffuse a nuclear bomb quite well (TSWLM, Octopussy). So clearly she was just thrown in as a deus ex machina for Bond to have another lover while having an excuse for having a sidekick for the mission. Makes me think they wrote her in last minute because dumb test audiences didn't like that the only Bond girl was a villain, which I'm pulling out of my ass which is as equally comparable to how they wrote the 2nd half of the film. Yeah, Zukovsky just so happens to have a nephew as a submarine captain in the one city they need to blow up. Bullion just so happens to work for Elektra and be his chauffeur, as if hiring him wouldn't throw up any red flags in the first place. Let's hand a clock that clearly fell off the floor because of M back to her and that clock can easily be manipulated into a GPS signal with a locator device. There's probably other instances of lazy writing and lucky coincidences that plagues the 2nd half of this movie, but like its script I'm too lazy to recall them. And then we get the infamous "I thought Christmas only comes once a year" line to end the movie, which might actually be enough on its own to drop the score of this movie. Overall if it wasn't for the first half this movie would be a lot lower. It would be maybe a 5 if not for that, but overall it's a 7.5/10
Moonraker - This movie gets a lot of hate. And I understand why, because it is so ridiculous and is just a complete 180 from the beginning Connery days of the franchise. Trust me, I get that. But I'm willing to toss that aside in interest of actually seeing if I would be entertained by this movie and honestly, I was. It is so over the top fun and I appreciate that in terms of separating you from reality. If the film's goal was to be entertaining that maintains a level of insanity that doesn't get in the way of the experience, it pretty much nailed it. I'm not going to rank this movie any higher because it's still a Bond film, and it wouldn't be right to start reviewing this movie as if it was a separate entity entirely. So that's where the faults come in. This isn't James Bond. I don't understand how it got to this point when you look back at what Bond was supposed to be. The campiness is out of control, and while as I mentioned before I can appreciate that as a standalone film, it also just makes me feel like I'm watching Austin Powers. Goodnight is a cool character in premise, but her actress was so terrible I couldn't really get behind her. Drax was sort of cool I guess. The sacrificial lamb trope with Corinne was getting predictable at this point, though. In conclusion, it's an entertaining movie but they should have just focused on making an entirely different film separate from Bond. At least then it wouldn't have any expectations in the way, for better or worse. 7.5/10
A View to a Kill - This is one of those movies of the franchise they have all the right pieces for a great film, and it ends up so poorly executed. Did we really need to spend practically half the movie on a horse ranch? Why is 57 year old Roger Moore banging every girl he sees? What the hell was the point of May Day going to bed with him? And did we need an extra 10 minutes dedicated to a KGB agent attempting to steal a tape from Bond by seducing him only to fail and have it never get mentioned again? And as stupid James Bond going to space was, and seeing him in a clown suit...somehow him dangling off a firetruck and a blimp was more painfully cheesy and absurd to me. Perhaps it was just the fact it was just added in for meaningless action scenes and to pad the movie time, I don't know. And Midge is such a terrible actress and I really wish she wouldn't scream Bond's name so much. So why is this movie higher than the others? Max Zorin. He is hands down my favorite villain so far and I really wish he had more screen time and psychopathic moments. His backstory is cool too. Had I been in charge of the film I would have kept him alive for a future film, like make him a new Blofeld or something. Oh well, this movie is better than yellowface. 7/10
You Only Live Twice - This is when things are sort of getting bad. The first half? I actually loved it. Aki was pretty badass. I loved the action throughout the film so far and it had some great spy scenes as well. And then Aki dies and the film turns into Bond in yellowface blowing up volcanos with ninjas and some random Japanese girl in a bikini who serves zero purpose. I have nothing really left to say at this point, aside from thanking Donald Pleasance for giving us Dr. Evil. 7/10
Dr. No - I appreciate this film a lot. It sets the foundation for Bond and is a superb introduction into his character. Dr. No is an excellent villain and Honey Ryder represents the embodiment of what everyone is accustomed to expect of a classic Bond girl. From a historical perspective, this film means a lot to the franchise in so many ways and I can respect that. That being said, the movie is boring. When the film starts to pick up at Dr. No's island, it still seems like things just take forever. And while it finally pays off with the awesome back and forth between Bond and No at the dining room table, it just turns anticlimactic once Bond escapes his jail cell and eliminates No. The way he goes out is great, it's just I wish there was more interaction between the two. Also did they really need to kill Quarrel? 6.5/10
The Man with the Golden Gun - How did they mess this up so badly? The concept of the world's greatest assassin dueling against the world's greatest spy in a cat and mouse tale is such a superb idea. But instead we got Bond following Christopher Lee around for an hour and a half doing practically nothing aside from getting his mistress killed and fixing the mistakes Goodnight kept making. Also Goodnight sucks, I want to make this clear right now. She's not even in the realm of she's so bad she's funny. Like I'm convinced a producer thought having a dim-witted blonde at Bond's side was a great idea so they wrote her to be as dumb and offensive as possible. And kudos to them, because they pulled it off. Too bad it took away a lot of good from this movie. Like Christopher Lee's performance, arguably the best Bond villain so far in terms of acting. And Nick Nack, who made for a memorable henchman. But yeah, that's about it. Also the sheriff is back. Dear lord they botched this movie so bad. 4/10
From Russia with Love - Come at me with your pitchforks. I've seen this movie get placed as one of the best, if not the best Bond films of all-time. I've seen even a video game get made after it, which is crazy because it was so many years later. People always seem to answer the question of who Bond is to them and they say Connery in FRWL. And I can sort of understand that if you're there from the beginning or are really invested into the franchise, you can probably go back to this film and pick out the bits and pieces that make Bond so great and how Connery nailed it. I'm not arguing against the fact that this movie was important, because it was. But I'm going to be brutally honest - this movie is bad. I've said before I prefer the realistic down to earth take on Bond, but this one was a little too much for me. While the scene between Connery and Shaw on the train is probably one of my all-time favorite scenes of the franchise, most of the movie's dialogue is just drawn out banter between Bond and whomever about stuff that ultimately doesn't even matter. The pacing is so slow and it hardly ever seems as if Bond is accomplishing something. Tatiana goes from an interesting Russian spy to a completely dependent lover in less than two scenes. It's hard to even tell if she's putting up an act or if she really just failed her mission from the get-go and fell for Bond. I guess you could say that would mean she's putting up the deception well, but it's executed pretty poorly if that truly is the case. The gypsy camp part was a useless scene to pad out the movie and throw in some obligatory action to keep the viewer entertained. Red Grant could have been the Russian James Bond but really just stood around for most of the movie doing nothing until he actually meets Bond and then gets killed, so there's more poor execution on that end. The movie finally picks up at the end with the helicoptecar chase and the speedboat chase, but by then it's too little too late. I'm sorry guys, but this movie sucks. 4/10
Die Another Day - This movie is bad. And it's not even atrociously bad like the following films on this list. It's just such a forgettable movie, directed as if it was supposed to be a Fast and Furious film. No really, this movie may as well be part of that franchise. From the ridiculous slow motion and quick fast forward effects you'd see in every action movie of the mid-2000s, to the insanity of some magic gene splicing that can turn a North Korean colonel into an English playboy that can destroy the world with a solar beam while James Superbond drives around in an invisible car surfing on waves and avalanches in his spare time. You'd think with all this ridiculousness it could have some a value as a "so bad it's good" type of movie, but it really has none of that going for it. Because to be fair, the acting isn't too terrible. People gave Halle Berry shit for this movie but honestly she did fine considering what she had to work with. It's the most cookie cutter action film you could pick out from that era, with the littlest regard for it being a Bond movie. So with that in mind, it just comes out to be incredibly mediocre with zero replay value whatsoever. The only reason it's not as bad as the next two films is because the first 30 minutes of the film is pretty promising, along with there actually being a cohesive plot this time. 3/10
Diamonds Are Forever - This movie actually upsets me. One because it originally was supposed to be a revenge film for Lazenby's Bond to avenge Tracy's death. Two because Lazenby decided to leave and Irma Bunt's actress died, so rather than recasting her they decided to just throw Tracy's death into OHMSS as opposed to the intro to this movie and then recast Blofeld for the hell of it. And lastly because Connery puts a stain on his legacy as Bond by completely phoning it in with his performance here. That pain aside, there's no redeeming qualities about this movie at all. Tiffany Case is a Bond girl that barely passes an IQ test, so at least she's better than Goodnight. The movie was poorly edited and cut some many times you can barely follow the plot at times, then again who cares. Blofeld has clones now? So we're supposed to believe the real one was the one who got smacked around by Bond in a crane at the end of the movie? Which by the way, was so ridiculous I ended up laughing not for its intended effect but because of having it settle in how bad this movie was. Mr. Kidd Wint are just...ugh. Is there anything good about this movie? Yeah, Kanye West sampled the theme song and made one of his best songs. That's about it. Screw this film. 1/10
Tomorrow Never Dies - It was really hard for me to pick between DaF and this film as the absolute worst Bond film, but I had to settle for this one. Who wrote this movie, a 13 year old? The dialogue is absolutely terrible. All the forced cheesy innuendo aside, nothing in this script is believable regarding any sort of dialogue between any of the actors involved. The worst of it all was between Brosnan and Hatcher, which I'm willing to absolve their lack of chemistry with the fact that I am convinced a robot must have written the lines in their scenes together. Then there's the ridiculous plot. Yeah, it is scarily realistic now that the media can control so much of the public, but I'm talking about Pryce's plan. It is absolutely absurd to think his "reign" over foreign powers would last anything longer than a week tops. Unless we're living in a world where the entire global intelligence of every country has the IQ of the person who wrote this script, you know what forget it. This review was as physically exhausting as trying to get to the end of this movie was. I'll make this quick - Carver is the worst villain ever, Stamper is the worst henchman ever, and Wai Lin might one of the best Bond girls ever but not even she can save this from being the worst Bond film ever. Wai Lin was awesome enough to save this from being an absolute zero, though. 0.5/10
I'm onto Octopussy next, which I'm well aware of the hate it got. I also know Moore is close to a 60 year old clown in this movie at some point. I'm hoping it at least exceeds the very low bar the movie's reception has set for me.
Maybe I'll watch Never Say Never Again instead to save myself some possible misery.
E1: View to a Kill is next. I'm aware of this being another mediocre Bond film but I'm kind of excited to see Christopher Walken and May Day. It can't be that bad, could it?
E2: That was disappointing, as expected. Onto Dalton.
E3: Blown away by this one. I hear LTK is a noticeable decline from Daylights but hopefully it isn't too bad. Dalton was amazing so I'm looking forward to his 2nd and last entry.
E4: Killed three movies in a row with this one. Amazing, good, and awful. Onto TWINE.
E5: TWINE's done, onto Brosnan's last film and from what I remember, one of the worst Bond films ever.
E6: Almost done, just have Skyfall and Spectre left. The top is pretty much cemented as is the bottom. We'll see where these last two land.

First off, this is just what I've been calling the list for years. It doesn't really have anything specifically to do with being a "man" I suppose. They're just lessons that I think are important. So, I'm sticking with it for now.
This post will contain spoilers for the films, but I'll try to not totally blow the plotlines/endings ect. Also, a lot of this has to do with love interests, but I guess it can be applied to a lotta other stuff... Roll with me.
Movie 1- Tears Of The Sun. A team of highly disciplined Navy SEALs has to go get someone out of escalating danger. The mission is to just get that one person out, and at first the SEALs follow their orders to the letter, but quickly realize there's a bigger picture. Sometimes you have to turn the helicopter around. It's important to note that they still complete their original objective, the situation is weighed carefully, and they have contingencies in place, but it costs them.
Movie 2- Raiders of the Lost Ark. I mean, if you haven't seen this movie, I don't know what to tell you, but there's a key moment that may be subtle to some people. Indy has dragged Marion into this mess, and subsequently gotten her killed. He knows it's his fault. Indy's nemesis, Belloq, invites him to speak to him, Indy entertains this. Honestly, just watch the scene, but keep this in mind- Indy never looks at Belloq, he hates him, and when Indy finally turns to him he stands up and puts his hand on his gun, and just then everyone else in the bar draws a gun on Indy. Indy was going to kill Belloq, and die to avenge Marion. Now, this is a touchy area, I'm not suggesting anyone should go out and get a revenge killing, but it's important to know what your actions have cost people, and it's important to take responsibility. In Cairo in the 30s, that might get ya shot...
Movie 3- Casino Royale. This one is big spoilers, and unfortunately blends some of book James Bond with movie James Bond. James Bond falls in love with Vesper Lynd. So in love, that after finally achieving his 00 status, he sends in his resignation to be with her. But he was blinded by love. Vesper has been extorted by the enemy, and is going to foil MI6's entire operation. But she loves him as well. Overcome with guilt, she takes her own life, as this plot is revealed to Bond. It is only then that James Bond truly becomes James Bond, because now (like Indy) he's going to not only get vengeance, but (this is a bit of fan theorizing) he has a death wish so that he can die properly for her. Like Indy, Bond knows what role he played in her death, and could only be the cold blooded assassin he is because he couldn't give a shit about dying, because he wants to die for her. Bond makes his passion his job (and his job his passion), and is MI6's greatest asset, but he kinda does it all for her.
He also names his signature drink after her, and despite her betraying him, keeps the name. Because he really does love her. I also highly recommend the Vesper martini, make sure you use high proof vodka, and don't use Lilet, because they don't make it like they used to, you should use cocchi americano because it has a bit of quinine. They're delicious, and WILL get you messed up.(Let's not talk about Tracy.)
Movie 4- Casablanca. Do I need to explain this one? Bottom line- Rick does the right thing. Try as she might, Ilsa can not sway Rick. Rick even leads her on right up until the end, because he won't put her in danger. Fortunately, Captain Renault drinks at Rick's, and Rick (like the SEALs in Tears Of The Sun) weighs his options, and is pretty sure he can pull off shooting a Nazi point blank and walk away clean.
Movie 5- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Butch and Sundance are in deep. Like, waaaay deeper than you wanna ever be. They've been on the run all the way to Bolivia, and the men after them aren't giving up. After a hell of a shootout, they're pinned down in a small building. Wounded, they tell each other it's not so bad, and they just gotta get outta this scrap. Little do they know, a whole fuckin regiment of the Bolivian army is waiting outside. But Butch and Sundance are tight. And like the rest of the guys on this list, they know what they got each other into, and they have a pact. This pact is NEVER even questioned. There's no deliberation. Butch and Sundance bust out of the doorway, guns drawn, ready to take on the world. And the Bolivian army takes them on.
HONORABLE MENTION- Top Gun. Pretty much nothing about Top Gun is really how you should be a man. It does provide a good litmus test for homophobes though. Ask anyone why that volleyball scene is in the movie, and you'll usually get one of two answers. The correct answer is- Because a lot of guys dragged their girlfriend to Top Gun, and you gotta put something in there for them. Or whatever you're into, I don't care, you get the joke. Anyway, the honorable mention is that Maverick isn't Top Gun, Ice Man is. At the ceremony, Maverick swallows his pride, walks up to Ice Man, and simply says "congratulations." That's how you handle that. After all that bullshit between the two of them, suck it up, say congratulations, shut up, and move on.
EDIT: I forgot the second reason Top Gun is an honorable mention. After Goose dies (sorry, spoilers), Meg Ryan comes to Maverick, and she's obviously devastated. It takes every goddamn ounce of Maverick to not breakdown into a million pieces on the ground right in front of her, but he knows if he does that, she'll be even worse. She needs him to be strong for her, and he knows it. And he keeps his shit together. Not because he's some tough guy hyper ego fighter pilot who doesn't cry, but because he knows she needs his help to make it through.
I suppose an overarching theme of this list is- Know what you're getting yourself and others into, and take responsibility for it. Also, weigh your options, and have contingencies. Don't get caught thinking "wow I really fucked that up, why didn't I get here a half hour early?" or some shit like that.

"when the Quantum of Solace drops to zero, humanity and consideration of one human for another is gone."
-Ian Fleming
Normally when comparing Bond movies you can almost create a cross table and check how each movie performed the same trope. But not Quantum of Solace. Quantum of Solace throws the whole Bond formula straight out of the window and stands alone in being the only movie where James Bond shows actual character development.
There's something infantile about seeing Bond dress up and perform the same repeated crowd-pleasing tricks like a well trained monkey. QoS treats its audience like its mature enough to at least remember the events of Casino Royale and the effects it has had on Bond being a human character.
It's the only Bond movie in existence that continues directly where the previous one left off. Bond deals with Mr.White at Lake Como and immediately the sequel takes off with a car chase around the lake.
And it doesn't just stick to that continuation as a gimmick. Everything about Casino Royale reverberates into this movie. Rather than starting from a blank slate repeating the formula over 23 times. Bond is now shaken and stirred because of his loss of Vesper.
The man is a complete wreck. Sure the plot of him goinga gainst MI6 has been done several times. But this time Bond is completely unhinged. From start right up till the end we see a seething man who has lost everything while being extremely competent and dangerous when he puts his mind to what he wants.
One of the main criticism is the shaky cam. Which would be valid criticism if Bond were a Kung Fu movie but it isn't. It's a spy thriller and like most modern violence it's fast, hectic and over before we truly grasped what just happened. The camera was a deliberate style choice. It gave us one of the best scenes in Bond history. The utterly hectic Opera Scene
The stakes were grounded and muted. Some phony environmental philantrophist receiving an award while at the same time holding the Bolivian government over a barrel by depriving the people of water, all for a better contract. It was perfect for the story QoS needed to tell. Greene was just another oligarch playing geo-political cynical games making millions suffer in the process. He wasn't some psychopath that needed to provoke a war, nuke a city or blow up the moon with a giant laser. More so, he turns out to be just a puppet way in over his head and ends up being devoured by the regime he schemed aroudn with.
Special praise to both 'Bond girls' who finally served an actual purpose in the story. Being each other's opposites, a naive school teacher who Bond can easily manipulate in fulfilling his immediate needs (and with her paying the ultimate price for it) and Montest who, just like Bond is completely jaded and purely driven by revenge. Both looking for that intangible solace.
And that's how the movie ends. The solace remains out of reach. Montes was able to get her revenge. Bond was able to not only kill the man responsible for Vesper's death and rescue a girl just like Vesper from falling to the same fate, and neither one of them is able to feel any closure or resolution. When both discuss their revenge and their further plans Montest remarks "let me know how it feels" leaving two damaged people who despite being bereft of their fairy tale ending, have found a way to make their suffering theirs and use it for the better.

So over the summer I had been reading/watching a ton of different media and entertainment fan theories, "what if's," Lore, and so on. And thinking on this I recalled reading years ago about the theory of Finn being a double/secret Imperial agent.
I spent several weeks combing over the two movies so far, and other forms of Cannon material and some non-cannon, other shows/event and even real life as inspiration for this argument. With less than 1 month to go until the final act of the trilogy comes to an end I thought I might as well post the unfinished work i started earlier this year. Hopefully you find it interesting and if not, well sorry for wasting your time.
(This work is mostly my own, if anything seems like it comes from other articles or posts, its entirely possible, I don't know if i kept a list of all my sources or if i listed them in this document. Don't take offense if I failed to cite something, remember this is "unfinished" and most likely wont be as time has passed and unfortunately got away from me on this project.)
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***Please note this doesn't read like a book or story. If you ever enjoyed spy thrillers, movies, tv shows then come into it with the mid set of "how hard would it be to live this kind of life?" or "If this were a real spy, how might their body language behave?" or "How would I act if I were forced into a spy role if i had some form of military training, based on what i "Know" or have "Seen" of spy's in entertainment form?" Coming in with this kind of mindset may help ease some of the "quite the jump to that conclusion" retorts.***
Enjoy:
The Double Agent:
A Conspiracy Theorist’s Comprehensive View of FN-2187 aka Finn
I believe there is sufficient evidence to prove that the Resistance Hero: Finn is actually a double agent by means of some form of mind wipe. Think of Total Recall, Jason Bourne, Cylon sleeper agents or some alternate combination of different types of “mind control.”
I will provide approximate timestamps of both movies shown between the events of SW: TFA and SW: TLJ that will explain these statements. As well as other examples, which will, call upon some external sources and sites that further prove my statement. Some of these examples may seem like a bit of a stretch, so adjust your tin foil hats and let us jump in.
So for a bit of context I may have read an article or reddit post about this particular theory several years ago. I wanted to give it more thought so I re-watched the new movies with the idea of a Finn being a double agent. I got to thinking that a deeper darker character would make these movies much better by the end if the trilogy if they planted a deep cover agent into “Team good guys,” which by the way has not been done to this extent or over an entire trilogy (in the sense of Star Wars.)
By having a character who starts off as “the bad guy” morph into a hero you love then make a drastic turn to be something more sinister by the end would blow the viewers mind. Similar to the theories of Jar-Jar being the “drunken fist” version of a Sith master makes Phantom Menace better. In addition, the Obi-wan and Anikin are in a love triangle with Padme makes AotC and RotS better. Keeping the idea of Finn as a Double agent in mind, I re-watched TFA and TLJ and there are many subtle hints from what he says to body language to convenient tidbits of information that make this stand out.
The main issues I have with Finn, as a First Order deserter and Resistance Hero are these: his knowledge is too diverse, especially when it comes to the FO compared to the history of SW. Examples: ship schematics, R&D tech, Base locations & layouts, Shields & Security/exotic beasts/current events etc. His service history also changes about five times between the two movies. (One could argue he is omitting the information however each time he tells what his “position” was, it is to several different people when no one else is around with the exception of Poe introducing him to Leia.) Lastly, the combination of those makes him such a linchpin to the resistance aka; he is too perfect to their cause.
More importantly, if you choose to believe the story of a stormtrooper leaving the First Order to join the resistance this makes any regular ole trooper a major liability whether they defect or are captured and interrogated. Let this sink in for a moment, we are to believe that a stormtrooper knows virtually everything about the First Order. He is not a high-ranking Grand Admiral or Moff, or General but a stormtrooper. This is such a fundamental flaw for any organization let alone a military group. Let us look at it this way. Would an infantry soldier in the US army knows about or have access to troop deployments, vehicle schematics, top-secret research projects and security clearance above his paygrade and so on? That would be a major problem. At its core if a Stormtrooper knows EVERYTHING, then the FO has no security through segmentation of ranking officials, and creates a huge plothole.
His “story” constantly changes…slightly
· The first time is when he “rescues” Poe; there is no need to tell him what his position is. He strolls up wearing Stormtrooper armor. This is self-explanatory and from Poe’s position does not warrant further question.
· Second, when he meets Rey she assumes he is part of the resistance, which he haphazardly agrees to however, he later tells her the truth, (1:02:50) “I’m not who you think I am. I’m not resistance…I’m a stormtrooper.” *I believe this is the truth*
· Third, (1:22:37) coming from Poe “He’s familiar with the weapon that destroyed the Hosnian system, he worked on the base.” Since he does not say this at any point during the movie, you are lead to believe this conversation takes place off-screen.
· Fourth, Han asks him “What was your job was when you were based here?” Finn’s reply “Sanitation.”
· Lastly in TLJ during the conversation with Rose and Finn (41:44) she asks “but who knows where the breaker room is on a Star Destroyer?” his reply “Except for the guy who used to mop it.” This leads you to believe he either belonged to a maintenance or sanitation crew stationed on a Star Destroyer. Similar to a “scanning crew” in ANH at (1:06:55) or Matt, the Radar technician not a standard stormtrooper.
The rebuttals I have heard is that the FO has the ability to cross train their forces, or they double up the duties of the enlisted or due to disciplinary actions they would be temporarily demoted or that FN-2187 could have been a terrible trooper and simply transferred around from base to base or ship to ship. While all of these are plausible, let us first ask why or what need would the FO need to cross train its soldiers. Are they that short on members of their army? By the start of TLJ the FO reigns. To me this means they are larger than ever, even with losing Starkiller base, a planetary sized military installation, which I assume houses a very large number of Infantry, Pilots, Maintenance, Command, Special forces and possibly other types of soldiers.
I assume that like any military group they probably accept recruits, coupled with the fact that they “abduct children” to join the cause I do not see a real need to force diversity in training. I also highly doubt that any disciplinary action would result in a stormtrooper mopping decks for long periods. Regardless if the FO consists of a massive number of people enlisted, what is the need to have specialized divisions but then have its members belong to multiple groups within? I do not see the tactical need.
Next I will walk through both movies start to finish to spot light these interactions we see Finn from a third person perspective. Keep in mind all the scenes are actually not from his perspective but from someone else’s point of view is even though we are supposed to be focusing on his character. I believe this is vital.
At (5:37) into TFA, we see Poe shoot several stormtroopers, the last being someone FN-2187 knows. I surmise that this person is a close friend or possible lover. (Yes there are female stormtroopers you even hear one talk on Starkiller base towards the end of the movie) and up until this point he was actively engaged in live fire. However, the moment this unknown trooper dies in front of him (regardless of affiliation) I believe it triggers the same confusion/PTSD as seen in say Saving Private Ryan during the “storming the beach” scene. I do not believe it is simply “Finn’s awakening.” He then is looking around for a bit of cover as there is live fire coming back at them now.
Shortly after Poe is captured (8:40), Finn and the remaining troopers are ordered to execute the remaining villagers. He is still suffering at this point from the confusion/PTSD and only been a few minutes to process what just happened to following an order to execute the remaining civilians, which are not threating now, would explain his “hesitation.”
At this point Kylo Ren being someone who embraces the dark side or emotions can sense his anger and confusion. Not his reluctance to follow orders. Fast forward a bit to (9:11) and make note for later, you see three lone stormtroopers destroy Poe’s X-wing. Two using the standard blasters and the third using a heavier carbine.
In the next scene, you see Poe depart the shuttle on the Resurgent-class Battlecruiser aka; the Star Destroyer. At (10:00) FN-2187 walks past Poe and you can hear the anger in his heavy breathing as he enters one of the troop transports and removes his helmet. I say his emotions are similar to walking past someone you just seen murder a close friend, family member, or lover in a courthouse and not having the power to take revenge or seek “justice.” He is angry, frustrated, and emotionally hurt by being so close to the person who caused this, and yet powerless to do anything.
As this scene ends, Phasma shows up and says the following: “FN-2187, submit your blaster for inspection.”, “And who gave you permission to remove that helmet?”, “Report to my division at once.”
This is where I want to take a quick break and make the following observation; FN-2187 is not under the direct command of Phasma until shortly after this order. Let me break it down. There are a couple types of “divisions” to my understanding. The first example would be Engineering, Command, Stormtrooper Corps, FO Special Forces, Maintenance, Deck Crew, etc. The second example would be a subsection of those like the 501st or the 401st or different squadrons, Red/Gold/Blue/Rogue (original trilogy rebel squadrons)
I will admit I am not familiar with Finn’s service record before the events of TFA but will acknowledge that Captain Phasma trained the FN corps. In addition, they were considered by Phasma “to be the greatest in the FO” according to https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/FN\_Corps. According to https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/First\_Order I surmise that Captain Phasma being a “commander” and part of the triumvirate alongside General Hux and Kylo Ren -one of three High Ranking officials- has special command access and resources that others simply do not. She probably commands several units and has access to top-secret projects. Which leads to the point above, she gives FN-2187 a “transfer” command, which she later says he “He reported to her division, was evaluated and sent to reconditioning.” This is where I believe he either volunteered or recruited to become the Deep Cover Agent for the FO. I have also spoken with a couple veterans and asked them to give me their interpretation and so far have agreed, it sounds like an order to transfer to her unit.
Let us take another break to make an important declaration. The events of the movie do not give us a clear timeline of events in the essence of we are not shown how long Poe is being interrogated. This could range from hours to days. How it is acted out makes it “look” as its mere moments between scenes yet I disagree I believe in this context its days.
At this point FN-2187 reports to Phasma’s division, undergoes a psych evaluation and debriefing and is sent to reconditioning which according to the starwars.fandom.com site they link Reconditioning to a “Memory wipe” for droids. (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Phasma%27s\_division links to https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Memory\_wipe) I further surmise that they would have the ability to implant false memories and information*** vital to his mission (similar to Total Recall) for planting a double agent since your opponents have force abilities such as reading minds and emotions. After this process completes Finn receives new orders: Free the resistance pilot Poe, escape with him, and recover the map to Skywalker. Essentially placing Finn “in play.” This is where we see him enter Poe’s interrogation room (19:20) *with a brand new shiny suit of Stormtrooper armor.*
Note: I will notate with *** next to information Finn should not have access to that could be explained from this information being implanted or transmitted to him throughout both movies.
The Escape!
Note: Any enthusiasm that Finn displays is just a subversion ploy to convince resistance allies he is a part of them. In addition, Finn’s transition to Double Agent “unlocks” the use excessive force or the ability to break imperial protocol when it comes to killing other FO forces to keep the illusion he is a resistance fighter and Imperial defector.
FN-2187 leads Poe out and unconvincingly –to me- tells him “I’m rescuing you.” Because he needs a pilot. This is played off for comic relief but the body language says to me; “I’m trying to convince Poe to trust me and were in a hurry.” In other words, he is too eager to start his mission.
FN-2187 and Poe get into a Special Forces Tie Fighter. Which according to https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/111988/do-first-order-tie-fighters-have-hyperdrives does have shields and hyperdrive capability just for context. Now remember how three storm troopers destroyed a parked X-wing without the use of demolitions? We witness the Tie take several hits during its tethered takeoff, but it deals no real damage unlike the total destruction a few minutes earlier. This is explained by the ability to control the “level settings” on blasters. This example is shown in an early season of Star Wars Rebels in an episode where Ezra joins the ranks of stormtroopers and is involved with their basic training. *Strap on or adjust the tinfoil hat* The troopers firing could have been ordered –by Phasma- to adjust their blasters to a low damage output so as to not damage or prematurely cripple the Tie, this would allow them to keep up the façade of their “escape” by expending pawns in their attempt to plant their agent.
***Another observation of Phasma, General Hux and Kylo Ren belonging to the “unofficial triumvirate” of the FO they could/would also act as Finn’s handlers. As such he was probably given (or implanted with) a list of code phrases, similar to actual double agents. This observation explains why Kylo Ren does not throw a tantrum when their most valuable asset escapes. Instead he’s calm and calculated and knows who helped him escape (at this point in time General Hux is not let in on the secret) which lets Kylo humiliate Hux in front of his officers on the bridge by saying “his troops are good at committing high treason.”
In the cockpit at (23:22) Finn’s position is cemented with Poe and he starts spouting off real important information any resistance leader probably wouldn’t approve of given three minutes into the defectors escape.
Had Finn and Poe escaped to the planet together I surmise that once BB-8 was located Finn would turn on Poe and recover the information for the FO. However since they are separated on reentry and Finn is forced down the path of playing “imperial defector.”
Skipping ahead to (32:49) Finn is in the gunner seat of the Falcon and yells to Rey “Stay low, this confuses their tracking.”*** For someone who has flown in a Tie fighter exactly once probably would not know of this vulnerability. A Tie Pilot would probably know after hours of flying but not Finn. Moving along to (40:00) as they are being boarded by Han and Chewie, Finn throws out another tidbit about stormtrooper helmets being able to filter out smoke, but not toxins.*** To me this is an example of “textbook” information implanted to him. Think of it like this: in the IT world, many end-users do not know the inner workings of how computers work, they only care about the fact that it DOES work. I assume that average stormtroopers would be of the same mentality. Sure, they have field manuals that provide this information or it is in some training program early on but this obscure info would be something easily passed over or forgotten completely.
When Finn first finds out how “Han” (41:20) is he refers to him as the Rebellion General and War Hero. *** One could argue that Finn simply heard of the “legend” from stories told during his imperial service. However, I believe that this is another example of vital information that was implanted. (Mission parameter) Assess potential allies especially if they have ties or allegiances with past rebellions. Han fits this bill. At (43:00) we find out what Han is smuggling: Rathtars. After Rey asks “what’s a rathtar?” Finn replies, “Ever heard of the Trillia Massacre?”*** For being an ex-stormtrooper Finn sure does know a lot about events that take place on other planets and their exotic beasts. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Trillia\_Massacre
Moving along to (55:00) the conversation between Han and Finn, he paints himself as a big deal and follows up by asking he there are any known conspirators or first order sympathizers. This doubles as “I’m resistance and concerned” and “I can possibly get information back to my handlers.” Meeting with Maz, this is where his “reconditioning” starts to pay off as she has some ability to “read” people but cannot get anything very useful on him.
Taking another short break to make another observation. Han tells Finn we have a problem: women always figure out the truth. I believe he suspects Finn of either being a liar (either not with the resistance because he knows who is actually in the resistance OR that he is still with the FO. In addition, he simply does not care at this point in his life. He is no longer “IN” the rebellion/republic or “WITH” Leia, he is back to being a smuggler and potentially wanted by both the Republic and the FO. Therefore, he does not want to get involved, but he is hinting that if Finn really likes her he will have to tell her the truth and/or make a decision on what path he will take (resistance or FO)
Finn’s actions in the cantina scene remind me of the relationship between James Bond and Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale. About 2 hours in, they are together on the beach he actually considers leaving MI6 to be with her, that he loves her and he probably would have given it all up had she not betrayed him. Finn does the same thing as he leaves the cantina –only not as elegantly- (1:02:45) Finn tells Rey the Truth about himself. “I’m not who you think I am. I’m not resistance. I’m not a Hero…I’m a stormtrooper.” I believe this is foreshadowing and the actual truth from his perspective. He is subtly telling Rey he is not a good guy, that if he stayed there he would end up betraying her, however, he would leave it all to be with her IF they left.
Finn lands on the resistance planet (1:21:03) the only ally that trusts him so far is BB-8. Rey captured. Han still skeptical of him. After losing sight of BB-8 Finn spots the droid and Poe who is alive after all. This is Finn’s “in” to meet with the resistance leaders, aka other high value targets. At this point Finn is still under loyalty to the FO but still has feelings for Rey. Think of it as “two birds, one stone.” Finn enters the War Room and you can tell from his body language he is actively looking and taking mental note of valuable resistance information. A normal person would make a straight line and pay little attention to the surroundings if they were truly on a mission to rescue their friend.
Poe introduces Finn to Leia (1:22:25) as a valuable asset, someone who used to work on the base. This leads him to compile a report of the base’s location*** but also doubles as a trap as you later find out that the FO tracks these recon ships after leaving the system where Starkiller base is.
Breaking off slightly again. Leia sums up the resistance real good, they are desperate for any information he can provide. Finn’s plethora of knowledge makes him a linchpin for the resistance. Right here Finn becomes the most valuable asset the resistance owns. To backtrack and reiterate an earlier point if every grunt in the FO knows what Finn knows (assuming Finn is not a double agent) why not just preform simple gorilla style raids and take prisoners and break them into revealing information vital to the success of the resistance and republic? According to TFA audio book that goes into much more detail between Phasma and General Hux when reviewing his service record after he escapes, Finn was described as nothing more than an average stormtrooper. There was nothing special about him. Leia is the one who turns Finn into this “Big Deal.”
During the War Room briefing (1:32:33), they start talking about the new super weapon. *** Finn conveniently knows what powers this weapon and its weak points (the thermal oscillator.) In addition to the base’s location. Finn leads them to believe that he can disable the shields but he has to be there on the planet to accomplish this. This is a three-way motive. 1) This is a ruse; he is helping the resistance disable the shields/base. 2) He actually does want to go rescue Rey. Finally 3) He is still loyal to the FO, this is just another parameter of his mission to destroy the resistance from within alongside retrieving the map to Skywalker.
My issue with Finn knowing the base to this extent becomes a problem when compared to ANH; they had to have engineers analyze the technical specs of the Death Star plans to find the weakness. Now everyone is looking around at a hologram and this “engineer” just “KNOWS.” “Oh it probably needs something like uh I dunno a thermal oscillator?” And Finn is all like “uh yea it’s got exactly that, right here!” Imagine if TK-421 the bestest Stromtrooper knew about the exhaust port weakness of the Death Star just from moping the 4x8 foot platform with no rail where two random people adjust laser knobs.
Just after landing on Starkiller base (1:36:44) Chewie, Finn and Han are sneaking around. This is where Finn admits he does not know how to lower the shields and tells Han the truth. He just wants to rescue Rey. He then tells Han “oh, we will just use the force.” I see this as classic diversion, a way to change the subject. The scene just after that Han reminds them they are on a tight time restraint and says “…The shields…” Here is where Finn has an “idea.” I believe one of two things happens here, first he gets very lucky and bumps into Phasma, which is not part of his “idea”, or, second he knows she will be on the base due to secret communications with one of his handlers. I believe it is the latter. Let me elaborate.
There would be no way he would know that Phasma is currently stationed on the base in the building (precinct 47) they are breaking into this is too much coincidence. Finn got lucky that Phasma was not overseeing command on a Star Destroyer or in a different building on this “Planet.” However, no, she is conveniently just a few doors down on patrol and Finn knows where to find her or that is what we are lead to believe.
Now between the two scenes where Phasma “betrays” the FO by lowering the shields, this is where Finn and Phasma can communicate through code phrases. This example is similar to other works of entertainment involving spies and undercover agents; they tend to include the confrontation scene. This is where your hero (the spy) is in a situation where facing his handler or former friend and they speak in code to each other to let them know “look I’m not really a traitor” or convey whatever message they want to in their unique situation. In addition, if this is true it explains how she was able to escape with ease her “trashy” fate on the base.
One might say, well the comic book miniseries that follows Phasma shows she blamed some other fella then killed him to cover her tracks. How do you explain this? Simply, military politics of the FO. Remember only three people know of this plan (potentially only 2 until the start of TLJ) this would be Phasma and Kylo. I will explain later why Hux does not know at this point. Therefore, she does this to protect their asset in play, Finn. Yea but it leads to the destruction of the superweapon and massive base. How can that be justified? Again simply, by the opening events of TLJ, the crawl screen declares that the First Order Reigns. Remember according to SW lore the First Order is comprised up of many remaining imperial fleets (from the original trilogy) plus thirty years of rebuilding fleets and training new soldiers from these unknown regions of space. The loss of one base and super weapon could be a justified sacrifice for eradicating any resistance and potential allies, the complete destruction of the “remaining Jedi order” and finally displaying an impressive command of fear throughout the rest of the galaxy. Who says this is the FO’s only super weapon?
Finn’s final scenes of TFA is the fight between Rey and Kylo Ren and himself. With ease, Kylo picks up Rey and throws her into a tree. He stated earlier that she seems to be growing exponentially in the force and I suggest that he knows even if she’s knocked out she may still be able to recall or remember these events when she wakes up or in the future. So he decides to keeps up the façade of Finns nature due to them losing a base and super weapon, but potentially gaining much more. Alternatively, altering their plans for a long-term cover agent incase this attack does not immediately favor the First Order. To put it simply they prepare to play the long con.
As stated in other theories but I too believe that Kylo is just putting on a show in the battle with Finn. His ability to command the force compared to Finn, this battle should have been over instantly. All he would need to do is ignite the lightsaber Finn is holding and use the force to stab himself. Instead he lets him live with superficial flesh wounds with no lasting repercussions. Unless making Finn look like a hero in the eyes of the resistance, further cementing his position deeper and deeper making him a “Trusted” ally was the intention.
The Remaining conjecture takes place during the events of TLJ.
First, let us compare the Empire of the Original Trilogy to that of the First Order. We see Vader execute commanders and officers who fail both in the movies and written material (both cannon and no-cannon) this example is very similar to the way Sun Tzu enforced discipline and order in his army in the book “The Art of War.” The commanders of the Empire knew the consequences for failure. From what we have seen in both TFA and TLJ there is not the same discipline and structure. Kylo or Snoke do not go around executing officers when a mission fails or a prisoner escapes, or a stormtrooper defects to the resistance. This is more like a “modern” era approach to the military where they have other forms of punishment for failure. It is not simply Death.
The Empire of old was very disciplined and structured we could see this with the way the commanders and officers spoke with each other, their body language. Again, to compare it with the First order we see a lack of discipline in both their body language and their general composure. Let’s call it “relaxed.”
After the loss of the Dreadnaught Snoke publicly humiliates Hux but this is the extent of his particular punishment. Hux in turn tells them (12:36) that the resistance cannot escape, they have them at the end of a string. The scene then cuts to Finn just now waking up. I believe this is foreshadowing to the secret agent aboard the ship. Perhaps an implant used to wake him up violently. Jumping further ahead to (16:30) we see Kylo walking off an elevator to a conversation between Snoke and Hux already in progress. Snoke, laughing followed by “tied on a string indeed.” I like to think this is where Hux fills Snoke in about the plan to insert a deep cover agent into the resistance. You might say, “Well this is where Hux tells Snoke about the Hyperspace tracking or whatever.” Possibly, but as a “supreme leader” one would assume that he knows of all R&D projects or if this new tech he would be the one to know of its existence. So why would someone of a lower rank tell a higher official about current/new tech. Snoke would probably have signed off on the paperwork to start the work or knew of its existence. However, the existence of a deep cover agent on the other hand, this type of information would probably need to stay limited to only a few people to maintain its secrecy.
At (26:55) lead to believe that what we see is Finn seemingly looking at charts trying to fill in the gaps between the events of Starkiller base and this point in time. I offer up the following: Hes trying to gather as much intelligence as possible since they are now on the run. Therefore, any useful information he can glean would give him an invaluable advantage in this situation. He innocently asks, “Where’s Rey?” and Leia shows Finn, their new most valuable asset, potentially one of their greatest secrets. A cloaked beacon. At which point he walks up to the command station console and “rests” his hands there. I would like to believe that any sort “spy” would be good at “misdirection” and “sleight of hand” and can use this to get a signal back to the First Order, who conveniently show up almost instantly. One could also explain it as a lucky break at this point by the First order making a calculation based off their last known trajectory. (Since previous version of hyperspace tracking requires a device attached to the ship or possibly after 30+ years of development turned into nanotech via implant) We have seen two examples of tracking based off trajectory. First would be assumed during the events between Rogue One and the opening scene of ANH, the other would be where Boba Fett follows the Falcon to Cloud City. There wasn’t any special tech involved in these cases.
Leia assumes at this point that they must have come up with a way to track through hyperspace and Finn can use this as part of his story later. Finn also conveniently picks up the tracking beacon that the resistance is placing their entire faith in by giving Rey a way home should her mission succeed and she returns with Luke. This part is important for later.
We hear a speech by one of the resistance officers at (35:30) I would assume that this speech is broadcasted to the remaining resistance ships and it tells them that almost all of their leadership is gone and how they are down to around Four Hundred souls left between the remaining ships. Shortly after this Admiral Holdo does something that Leia failed to do especially with Finn. She does not give Poe –who’s been demoted- access to information that he shouldn’t have. We have not seen this done at all what so ever with Finn this entire time. We just accept that he is the “good guy now” because he is the only one ever to defect from the Empire or FO, its bad logic.
Around (38:20) we see Finn packing his bags, we could assume that he knows the command structure has shifted and he is essentially a “civilian” in this resistance faction with no rank. He decides to run (with the tracking beacon for Rey…) He later plays this off as him just trying to protect his friend. However, let us think this scenario through.
Scenario A: Rey is successful in her mission to return with Luke to the resistance forces and fight against the FO. However when they meet up with whoever has the Beacon (spoiler: its Finn.) Following his intentions to run and protect Rey, they would no longer know where the fleet is, or IF there is even a fleet left! So what does Finn gain by “saving” her? A pissed woman with a lightsaber and disgruntled Luke, also presumably with a Lightsaber. They would eventually end up splitting ways.
Scenario B: Finn is trying to escape back to a FO ship with the beacon, leading Rey and Luke into the hands of the First Order once they have wiped out the remaining resistance ships. (Remember they are down to three according to the speech) Once they execute Skywalker, Finn can then try to rebuild things with Rey, or use the same-ish tactics he used on Poe, and attempt an escape with her to get away from all this fighting and chaos of the FO and start a new life together.
Either way Rose (an engineer) busts his plans. The resistance labels him as “A Hero” simply because he left “The First Order and what he had done at Starkiller base.” This is where he needs to use his knowledge from earlier and improvise, letting Rose know of the hyperspace tracking system. (40:37)
HYPERSPACE TRACKING PRINCIPAL
Rose says, “Hyperspace tracking is new tech but the principal must be the same as any active tracker.” So what is an active tracker, there is very little information so I surmise it’s simply a device that allows the scanners of a ship to track the movement, ship type, life signs etc. of another ship (within range) then relay that information and telemetry back to the officers. This then becomes useless once a ship is out of that specified range.
The examples we have seen of Hyperspace trackers are:
1) A R&D tech project in Rogue One.
2) Seen in SW Rebels: as a prototype device that attaches to a ship that allows tracking through hyperspace.
Now Finn whose background is that of a “stormtrooper of no special history” can work through this logic with an actual engineer is beyond me to where they can finish the sentence together, let alone he knows EXACTLY where it is. How you ask? He used to mop that exact floor or area of a star destroyer. How convenient.

What makes Casino Royale so good is that it's a deconstruction of the formula and a haunting character study of what being James Bond might actually do to a person. James is kind of a monster who hates everything about what he does, but doesn't know how to live any differently. The tragedy is that when he finally meets someone who can rescue him from this, she betrays him and hardens his heart even further. It's perfect. Quantum of Solace, despite its flaws, provides a pretty good epilogue to this tale during which Bond forgives Vesper altogether. So we have this fully developed Bond, who understands love and death and the weight of his actions ready to face a larger world. Awesome.
So why do Skyfall and Spectre spend so much time trying to drag Bond back to where he was in the sixties? Skyfall starts by saying Bond is past his prime, which is just ridiculous since the last two movies were spent explaining how Bond arrives at his prime. He learns the last lesson he needed to, just to become old hat. He regresses into the same smarmy, self-righteous asshole the first two movies were actively trying to portray as a coat of armor. And while Skyfall is going out of its way to call James Bond old, it introduces archaic tropes like Moneypenny and Q Branch, which immediately feel outdated in this new Bond environment.
Spectre is the worst offender. The idea that Casino Royale, a pretty self contained film, was just the machinations of a hackneyed villain like Blofeld is incredibly insulting, to the movie, to Vesper, and to Bond. I want to punch this movie. It's like Sam Mendez watched Casino, thought it was stupid and just wanted to make From Russia with Love Parts 3 and 4. It's infuriating.
Feel free to disagree below. I just rewatched Casino Royale so I got riled up, but it's entirely possible I completely missed the mark regarding Skyfall or Spectre. I haven't seen those since they were released.

Just starting off a fun little post. Who wants to name the top moments from bond so far;
1) "Bond, James Bond" from Dr No (almost went with the Casino Royale version)
2) The Spy Who Loved Me Pre-Titles Sequence
3) Casino Royale, Vespers Death Scene
4) Goldfinger, Fort Knox battle
5) Goldeneye, Pre title battle in Russia
Honorable mentions are Goldeneye Tank chase, Skyfall first meeting between Bond and Silva and Live and Let Die's Boat chase (which nearly got in ahead of Goldeneye!)

There have been a fair number of really intelligent and thoughtful critiques (1, 2, 3) of Spectre since it came out, and I think it’d be fun to see if we can pick the movie apart and reassemble it to make it great.
My suggestion follows (with the obvious caveat that it’s totally arrogant to assume that I would have written a better movie originally, etc. This is just an exercise for fun). It’s rather long. ^{Also if you like pictures and pretty formatting, you can find this post on Medium.}

The Problems

• The Blofeld “reveal” and everything associated with it: “cuckoo,” Franz Oberhauser, “I am a supervillain because Daddy didn’t love me,” “author of all your pain.” This is the most glaring issue, and the one I’ve seen most often addressed in critiques. Christoph Waltz is an extraordinary actor. It is freakin’ known, Khaleesi. But he comes off way less threatening in this film than Javier Bardem did in Skyfall, and I’d argue it’s because of the script. Blofeld does not, at any point, show us why we should be scared of him, and his overly intricate backstory mystery only makes him less threatening. His continuous failures (mentioned in point 3) do even more damage to his menace.
  
• Madeleine Swann < Vesper Lynd. If Bond is going to quit MI6 and walk off into the sunset with a lady, she needs to be just as impressive and badass as Vesper. Moreover, we need much better evidence that she’s The One than Blofeld’s throwaway line about the daughter of an assassin being the only one who could understand Bond. She almost manages this in refusing to jump in bed with Bond seeking solace for her dead daddy—but then goes back on this statement, what, ten minutes later? She’s never shown to be Bond’s equal intellectually or emotionally; there’s no reason for him to choose her over the exciting spy life.
  
• Bond is never disadvantaged. In Skyfall, Silva almost always has the upper hand—even when he’s imprisoned, he never loses his aura of being exactly where he wants to be (for obvious reasons: how can you lose when you have “Summon Train” in your spell slots?)—and Bond is almost always disadvantaged (physically and psychologically unfit for duty, in conflict with M, barely scraping by in combat).
  In Spectre, Bond is only occasionally surprised, and Blofeld constantly gets one-upped. His only successes are (1) capturing Bond in the desert (which doesn’t stick) and (2) being “the author of all your pain” (which is so shoehorned as to be meaningless and is telling rather than showing). This all ties back to Blofeld’s unconvincing villainy. (And I know that one of the “draws” is that Bond films feature a badass, unflinching, totally-in-control protagonist…but surely we can do better than just another indulgent Bond flick. Skyfall wasn’t. Casino Royale wasn’t.)
  
• Bad Guys Inc. is neither threatening nor noticeably evil. What’s Spectre’s plan? What are they doing, and to what purpose do they do it? It seems they orchestrate a couple bombings and sex-tradings, and they’re clearly invested in Nine Eyes, so that they can…what? Contrast this with Skyfall, which had clear stakes: Silva is blackmailing M, threatening to release names, and agents will die if she doesn’t react.
  
• Lack of thematic heft. Maybe Spectre’s theme was just too subtle for me to grasp, or maybe I’m right in saying that it had no higher purpose. There was no thing-behind-the-thing. That’s not necessarily bad—but action movies are always the better for strong themes. The Dark Knight’s concern with the nature of man made it a great film. Skyfall brought up extremely relevant concerns about the nature of leadership, and tied them into Bond’s character arc.
  

The Story

Everything leading up to the infamous “cuckoo” line remains much the same: Bond kills Sciarra in Mexico, weathers New!M’s annoyance, teases Q, debriefs Moneypenny (we don’t see the faded picture brought back from Skyfall), and drives off to Rome with his cheeky grin (he’s cocky this time around; he’s beaten his fair share of supervillains, he’s at the top of his game). He nails Sciarra’s widow, tells the bouncer he’s Mickey Mouse, etc.
At the Spectre meeting we have our first change. The leaders of Spectre are no longer faceless suits; now there are people among them wearing bishop’s robes, decorated military uniforms, etc. There are a few police, as well, but no one seems concerned.
Instead of a business meeting, it almost feels like a party. People are drinking, laughing, talking shop. Bond draws a couple weird looks, but they’re not worried. Waltz is moving around the crowd, shaking hands, totally calm. He runs into Bond.
“James, isn’t it?” he says. “I was hoping we’d meet you tonight.” Bond doesn’t recognize him. He plays coy, and Waltz shuts him up. “We’ve got very special entertainment coming up. You won’t want to miss it.”
Bond is nonplussed. He hears a few people mention their business interests—trafficking of the sex and drug varieties, who’s going to kill the Pale King now, etc.—and his hackles are up.
Waltz draws everyone’s attention. “We have special guests tonight. If everyone would please welcome MI6 agent James Bond.” Applause and laughter from the crowd. Bond weathers it pretty well. “And, to cheer her up on this dreary evening, we have invited dear Lucia Sciarra.”
Doors open and Lucia is led in. She’s beat up. The group claps politely. Bond looks briefly shocked but keeps his cool.
Waltz makes a few jokes about Lucia being the sort of woman who doesn’t stay single for long, the sheets never get cold, etc. He gives Bond the cheesiest grin and then one of the henchmen shoots Lucia in the back. Waltz is still grinning.
Bond loses it and tries to fight his way forward; henchmen are on him in a hot second. He tears through several of them, and then Mr. Hinx has him in a headlock and three dudes have guns trained on him. Waltz talks to Lucia as she dies. “Your husband helped our organization become what it is today,” he says. “But we both know how easily he can be replaced.” He tilts his head at Hinx, indicating that they have found someone to assassinate the Pale King.
Bond slips away by the skin of his teeth and calls Moneypenny on the road, while Hinx follows him. This time, rather than asking her to search up Franz Oberhauser, he demands to know who the hell these people are. They meet with no attempt at secrecy; they murder a woman while surrounded by cops. What’s going on?
...I can’t fix the chase scene.
Back in London, M, Q, and C attend the vote for Nine Eyes. This plays out as before with the single opposing vote and M grilling C afterward, but this time C is slightly less obnoxious, more idealistic. He seems to believe that the 00 program is not only obsolete, but actively harmful. M gives his inspiring bit about the value of men in the field who make the horrible call of whether someone gets to live or die. C replies that Nine Eyes will be able to see the entire world in a glance; MI6 will see terrorist attacks before the perpetrator can buy his first barrel of explosives. But a man in the field can be bought, misled, or simply insubordinate. He plays Bond’s phone conversation, then quips that he’s not overawed by the “one man with a gun” model of intelligence.
Bond meets with Mr. White and gets his lead for Madeleine and L’Americain. When he tells Swann about her father, she angrily orders him out—and immediately starts preparing to leave once he does.
Bond gives Q the octopus ring. He sees Madeleine leave, but she doesn’t get far; Hinx arrives and captures her, leading to another chase scene I can’t fix.
After neutralizing Hinx, Bond and Swann meet with Q, who has not turned up much with the octopus ring except that there have been others like it, usually found on the bodies of terrorists. Madeleine jumps in to serve as Ms. Exposition: they’re all working for Spectre, a shadowy group made up of incredibly powerful, ambitious people. Q recognizes the name, but argues it’s an urban legend. If a counterintelligence agency existed and opposed MI6, surely they would know about it. Madeleine agrees. “Your superiors do know about it,” she says. “And there’s nothing they can do.” Spectre’s leaders have bought all the right people; even when some of them are imprisoned or killed, more rise up to take their place.
Spectre brings out the worst in the human species, she tells them. And it can’t be stopped; not with bullets, not with brave men. Their leader, Franz Oberhauser, is not some lynchpin to be removed. The worst they could do is inconvenience the organization.
Bond brushes this off; he and Madeleine make for L’Americain. Madeleine is clearly shell-shocked from her ordeal so far, and takes a shower. She makes it very clear to Bond that he won’t be joining her.
They find Mr. White’s stash of clues and head to the desert by train. Meanwhile, in London, the holdout African vote swings in favor of Nine Eyes. M confronts C, heavily implying that C somehow orchestrated a terrorist attack to further his goals. C is outraged that M would accuse him of something so despicable. “If this is the kind of logic the 00 program uses to ‘get its man,’” he says, “I feel proud to have ended it.”
Bond and Swann talk on the train, but this time there is more to their conversation than Bond extolling the virtues of the Sig Sauer. Madeleine pegs Bond as a maladjusted young man who struggles to connect because of numerous failed relationships in his past. She sees right through him; she’s a trained psychologist, she reminds him, and her father was an assassin. She can read Bond like a trashy magazine.
Bond—and the astute portion of the audience—recognizes the parallels to his first conversation with Vesper. He changes the subject back to guns.
Hinx attacks Bond and Swann on the train. They beat him; this time Madeleine manages to get a meaningful hit in against Hinx, rather than being a two-second distraction. Relieved and exhilarated from the fight, the two leads get busy in their train compartment.
They arrive at Oberhauser’s compound. The mind games play out much the same way; they’re welcomed in with no problems, Bond gives up his gun, Swann finds a dress on her bed. Bond finds pictures of M and Vesper in his room.
Oberhauser welcomes Swann and Bond to his meteor room. Instead of waxing eloquent about how James entered his life and stole Daddy’s love, this time he’s simply pissed about the times Bond mucked his plans. Quantum existed as a subsidiary of Spectre, and Bond’s successes against them have made Waltz’s life troublesome.
He shows off his panopticon room and brags about being connected to all the information in the world—we see Bond blink, making an intuitive leap, but he says nothing. He plays the clip of Bond and White; Bond urges Madeleine to look away. She does, but Oberhauser grabs her face and forces her roughly to stare at the screen. Bond tries to interfere, but doesn’t get far before a billy club brings him down.
Bond wakes up in the torture room. Oberhauser notes that Spectre has a very specific policy about troublesome people: buy them or remove them. Mr. Hinx was supposed to fix the problem, but now….
“It has been a long time since I involved myself,” Oberhauser says. “I don’t want to get lax, you know? Old and fat and lazy? How boring.”
He delivers a monologue about torture that is markedly similar to the one in the film, this time revolving around Lucia Sciarra instead of the nameless Spectre agent. “There was no one inside her skull.” He begins to torture Bond with the needles. Screaming. Blood. For at least one shot, we’re inside Bond’s head as the room seems to tip sideways and Oberhauser gloats about how easy it is to disrupt Bond’s sense of balance. Bond looks ready to puke.
Oberhauser leers at Swann as he tortures Bond. “Do you love him? What would you give me for his freedom? Would you take off all your clothes and dance? Give me all your earthly possessions? Sell me national secrets?”
Madeleine maintains a stiff upper lip and tells Oberhauser to go to hell. Oberhauser takes it in stride and tells her matter-of-factly that he will be removing Bond’s ability to recognize faces, so she had better say goodbye. Bond gets the watch to her; it explodes in time to save him from further torture.
Swann and Bond begin fighting their way out of the compound, though Bond’s balance is thrown all to hell and it’s making his aim poor. Madeleine takes the gun—not enthusiastically—and Bond guides her strategy: “shoot there, shoot there, wait. He’s cornered, another one will be hiding there.” They put bullets in a number of strategic places, rather than a single oil barrel. The compound goes up in flames.
They escape via helicopter, and Bond fills in Swann (and the few members of the audience who haven’t caught on yet) that C is one of Spectre’s agents, and they need to shut him—and Nine Eyes—down as soon as possible.
They meet up with Q, M, and Moneypenny in London and debrief as before. As they mobilize, Madeleine admits to Bond that she’s been ignoring something for too long: she wants no part in this life. She understands if James can’t give it up. “I wish you could.” She leaves.
Bond & Co. hash out a plan of attack as they drive, but midway through Bond receives a cryptic text from Madeleine’s number, from which he deduces that she’s been captured and taken to Old!MI6. He sends M, Q, and Moneypenny to handle C at New!MI6 while he tears off to save Swann.
Meanwhile, at New!MI6, C is working late. There’s a prominently placed countdown clock for the Nine Eyes launch. He gets a notification from the computer—it’s found aberrant data. It shows him assorted video clips of Madeleine’s capture on the road and her being taken to Old!MI6 and tied up in a room. He tells the computer to notify police. The system confirms the police will arrive in five minutes, then informs C that the demolitions in the building have been set to a timer inconsistent with regulation; the system flags it as highly suspicious. C looks out his window at the condemned building, and sets his jaw. He leaves MI6 at speed.
M, Q, and Moneypenny arrive moments later and shut down Nine Eyes.
Bond arrives at Old!MI6 and finds the graffitied arrows to guide him. Oberhauser appears (uninjured) behind the bulletproof glass (gotta get that iconic shot…that didn’t end up in the movie). Oberhauser sneers that Bond has proven more frustrating than he could have predicted; Oberhauser can’t simply kill him anymore. No, Bond has to be punished. Oberhauser taunts him with the opportunity to save Madeleine or himself before calmly leaving. Bond is furious but only for a moment. He runs back into the building, opening door after door, screaming Madeleine’s name.
We jump to a door opening to see Madeleine tied up, gagged, surrounded by wires. She’s horrified to see that her rescuer is not Bond, but C. He unties her, faltering from nerves, and explains anxiously that a terrorist has got control of the demolition in the building, it’s going to be blowing up shortly, and they both need to get out of there.
Swann does not seem convinced that C is friendly. The moment she’s free she sprints out of the room. C follows her, looking confused and more than a little terrified.
Bond and Madeleine run into each other and have no time for romance. “There’s a bomb—” “I know, this way.” As Madeleine runs to their timely exit via rope net, Bond spots C running down the corridor. C is relieved, and calls out to 007. Still believing C to be one of Oberhauser’s allies, Bond shoots him. C falls to the ground. He begins to bleed out, and mutters, darkly, “One man with a gun.”
Bond and Madeleine escape via boat as the building explodes. They shoot down Oberhauser’s helicopter, and Bond gets his moment of being The Good Guy by refusing to shoot Oberhauser dead in the face. Oberhauser threatens that as long as he lives, he will seek ways to claw the soul out of Bond’s life. Bond is mighty confident that this won’t turn out well for Oberhauser. M and Q arrive and arrest Oberhauser while Bond throws his gun away and walks into the sunset with Madeleine Swann.
We skip the scene of Bond collecting his Signature Cool Car from MI6 for two reasons: one, we’ve already shown him heading off for romantic bliss with a smart, capable woman who gets him and we don’t need to do it again.
Two, there’s one more scene before this movie’s done:
We’re at another Spectre office party. The mood is more somber than the last one. Someone offers a toast to Franz Oberhauser, who helped make their organization what it is today, and who will be replaced, but only with great difficulty; the Spectre members raise their glasses respectfully. The toast-maker goes on to say that in loss, there is always gain, and today, they welcome “a man who has come back from death and seen the entire world in a glance. In his new life, he has taken a new name, and new purpose: to destroy the people who murdered him in cold blood.”
He stands aside to reveal C, bound to a wheelchair, with a horrid scar over one eye. “Please welcome Mr. Ernst Blofeld.”
END

Greetings all! Many thanks to the countless people who contributed to 10 months of fantastic discussions about one of the most iconic (and one of my favorite) film franchises of all time. This is just a little recap/debrief/wrap up article where I'd love to get everyone's thoughts on the series as a whole. Additionally, I've done some more ranking and list making because it's fun and, let's be honest, there just aren't enough lists in the world! So let's open the discussion up and air out any final thoughts on the ongoing adventures of 007 & Co. Fair warning, I will use spoiler tags throughout my article for those of you who might not yet have seen Spectre, however be mindful of the comments.

Ranking the Movies

First thing's first. Here are all of my reviews and their assigned objective rankings.

Film	Score
Casino Royale	94
GoldenEye	86
Skyfall	86
Goldfinger	85
On Her Majesty's Secret Service	82
The Spy Who Loved Me	80
The World is Not Enough	79
From Russia With Love	76
The Living Daylights	75
You Only Live Twice	73
Spectre (spoilers)	73
License to Kill	72
Dr. No	70
The Man with the Golden Gun	68
Quantum of Solace	68
Tomorrow Never Dies	68
Live and Let Die	66
Thunderball	61
A View to a Kill	59
Moonraker	59
For Your Eyes Only	55
Octopussy	48
Diamonds Are Forever	37
Die Another Day	30

For a fun little experiment, I wanted to see how I ranked them in comparison to other "Rank the Bond Film" lists. My sources included Rotten Tomatoes (based on their freshness rankings), IMDb (based on their user scores), Peter Travers (Rolling Stone), Forbes, Timeout New York, E! Online, Moviefone, AMC Filmsite, BuzzFeed, an /JamesBond thread, and MRQE. Here are the results.

First, I've organized them by release date and shown what their scores are on the various websites.

Second, I figured out the average score for each film with the highest and lowest score for each film thrown out to eliminate outliers (my scores are not included in this calculation) as well as determine the standard deviation for each film (i.e., how consistently each film was ranked).

Finally, here is a visualization of how each site ranked the films.

Some observations:

• No real surprises in the rankings. Casino Royale, Goldfinger, From Russia, and Skyfall all nabbed top spots. The World is Not Enough, Moonraker, and A View to a Kill took the dubious honor of bottom feeders.

• Skyfall was the most consistently ranked film (averaging spot #4 on most lists). License to Kill was the most inconsistently ranked film. No surprise either. Dalton's films split opinions upon release and have aged just well enough to be considered decent but still stand out in such a way as to turn some viewers off entirely. Without it's highest (3) and lowest (22) scores, LTK still ranked as high as 8 and as low as 22. So it was either a top-10 film or the second-worst.

• I still just don't get the hate for The World is Not Enough. Truth be told, this was the one film that actually inspired me to do all of this. I saw one or two lists that had it ranked so low. I had to see if there was anyone that agreed with me that it is actually a top 10 Bond film. Turns out there isn't. In fact, the closet I got was Moviefone who ranked it as #13.

• I don't know what Forbes is smoking. There is no way that For Your Eyes Only is the second greatest Bond film of all time. Lunacy. Similarly, I am shocked at Peter Travers' ranking for GoldenEye at 18 -- especially considering he then put Die Another Day at 10!!

• And speaking of DAD, I was legitimately surprised that it was generally considered to be a more middling film, rather than a universally hated one.

• This only confirms my belief that the Bond movies are some of the most divisive films of all time. This must surely be due to a variety of factors, not least of which is that a film series that spans 50+ years and that varies so greatly in tone from film to film will allow for people to have wildly diverse opinions of each era of film. It can all depend on which films they saw first or which ones they grew up with. I mean that sounds obvious, but just look at how much deviation there is from list to list. I mean no film came even close to receiving unanimous rankings across any of these platforms -- even Skyfall varied from 1 to 6.

Ranking the Songs

I also decided to take a look at one of the most fun aspects of the 007 franchise: the theme songs. I will be very up front about the fact that I am not a musician, I know nothing about musical theory, etc. I am just a layman, listening to these songs a few times over and making my general observations. Oh and it's worth noting that I did not include Dr. No on this list. The opening titles begin with the standard Bond Theme song, which since it was adopted into every other film I didn't feel like that really counted, and then transitions into a rendition of Three Blind Mice, which also doesn't count.

Ranking	Song	Artist	Comments
23	For Your Eyes Only	Sheena Easton	Overly synth-y. Just another sappy love ballad. I just don't understand how this kind of songs was thought to be a spectacular start to a Bond film. Ugh.
22	All Time High	Rita Coolidge	Awful, schmaltzy saxophone intro. Same garbage as the previous three films (Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only).
21	Nobody Does it Better	Carly Simon	Sounds like something you'd hear at 3am in a piano bar. Not sure what it's doing in a Bond film. Can't stand the vocals. At least this song has a decent band swell that picks it up a bit. The gentle cymbal tapping just reinforces the late night smooth jazz vibe.
20	Moonraker	Shirley Bassey	Starts small, stays small, never builds. Bassey's vocals are totally wasted here. She has the ability to be fierce and biting. Here, she's lackadaisical and boring.
19	Die Another Day	Madonna	Starts strong with tense strings and immediately dive bombs the second Madonna's disgustingly auto-tuned vocals kick in. Terrible lyrics ("Sigmund Freud" wtf?). A pandering piece of overproduced bubblegum crap.
18	Writing's on the Wall	Sam Smith	So disappointing. Following such a strong entry in Skyfall, the producers completely dropped the ball with Smith's "Writing." His vocals don't remotely fit with the tone of a proper Bond song. Cannot stand his breathy, whiny chorus. Ugh.
17	A View to a Kill	Duran Duran	If you can't tell, I'm not a huge fan of '80s music, so the heavy presence of synths in this song are tough for me to swallow, but at least this song has some life! Especially following the era of the lousy love ballads, AVTAK was a breath of fresh air. As a song by itself, not bad. As a Bond song, not the greatest.
16	The Living Daylights	A-ha	Another entry just dripping in '80s production. Still, it's got lots of energy. It's got some great builds and uses some awesome big band/brass elements that are reminiscent of the classic Bond songs.
15	License to Kill	Gladys Knight	Love Knight's vocals. She's got a great classic Bond feel. Love the intro. It feels sleuth-y, epic. Could definitely do without those breathy backup singers.
14	Live and Let Die	Paul McCartney	Great song. Terrible Bond song. McCartney is second to none, don't get me wrong. This song just isn't a great fit for the series. The reason it's not lower is that is has lots of promise until the 1:22 mark. And that damn fishing reel SFX is just so damn weird… Picks back up again, however it falters again at the 1:51 mark. The good aspects of this song are great. The bad are real bad.
13	You Only Live Twice	Nancy Sinatra	Exotic with great vocals. It's a bit sappy but it's got a nice use of strings to keep the song from getting too schmaltzy.
12	From Russia With Love	Matt Monroe	I'm rather conflicted about this one. It has a great exotic feel, it's got a good crooner, and the lyrics match the globetrotting feel. I just feel that there are stronger entries that offer a bit more energy.
11	You Know My Name	Chris Cornell	Hard to judge this one. Great piece of rock but again, I don't know if it really feels like a true "Bond song". At least it never devolves into a weird place like Live and Let Die. This one gets major props for incorporating the Bond theme heavily throughout and having a decent set of lyrics.
10	The Man with the Golden Gun	Lulu	I know I'm probably going to get some hate for this one, but hear me out. Great use of electric guitar and big brass band. The lyrics are rightfully criticized for being way too literal and silly (and the chorus is very weak) but Lulu's vocals are wonderfully dry, yet full of character. I especially love the swell at 1:38.
9	Another Way to Die	Alicia Keys and Jack White	Another entry that might get some criticism for being this high, but I truly feel that with one minor tweak, this song could have been considered one of the best. I love the piano and crunchy guitar intro. What I don't like is the duet. If this had been a Keys solo (with White handling the instrumentals), this could have been even stronger. I also really love the lyrics' discussion of paranoia and mistrust.
8	The World is Not Enough	Garbage	Another very strong entry. Shirley Manson's vocals are incredibly sultry. I positively love how striking the twanging guitar chords cut right through this hazy song.
7	Thunderball	Tom Jones	Take note Matt Monroe, this is how to croon during a Bond song. The song kicks in with a great use of the Bond theme at 0:35. The lyrics are total nonsense, however it all comes together and sounds so excellent. Jones' killer note at the end of the song is spectacular.
6	Tomorrow Never Dies	Sheryl Crow	This was a huge surprise for me. As I went through these songs, I never would have thought of putting TND this high, but listening to it, I can't get enough. Throws everything in from the thundering opening, to the big drums, the bell, the jangling guitar, and the piano. Crows vocals are positively electric. Her performance is every bit sultry, sexy, and scorned. Excellent!
5	Diamonds Are Forever	Shirley Bassey	Forget the movie, I could just listen to this song for 2 hours instead. The opening notes are mysterious, the big band is perfect (with plenty of classic Bond brass). The drop at the 1:21 mark is fantastic. And of course, Bassey's vocals are as iconic as they get.
4	On Her Majesty's Secret Service Theme	John Barry (composer)	Okay so this one isn't really a theme song in the sense that these other songs were but how could I pass on it? This is perhaps one of the single greatest musical compositions of the series outside of the Bond Theme. The buzzing guitar and deep, thumping bass are totally badass.
3	GoldenEye	Tina Turner	Almost perfect. Sexy, mysterious, lurking, with excellent vocals and brilliant lyrics. Little moments like the Bond theme slinking in at 1:40 are just perfect.
2	Skyfall	Adele	I absolutely, positively adore the chilling piano intro. Adele's vocals are exquisite. I love the slow, warbling guitar (1:00), the somber strings, the huge builds, and the use of the brassy Bond theme at 1:51. The whole thing gives me chills, especially as it starts and ends on that beautiful brass note.
1	Goldfinger	Shirley Bassey	Surprise, surprise. It just simply does not get better than Goldfinger. This is the quintessential Bond song, the standard to which all other songs are held. The big brass band, the strings, and the vocals are all just a bit silly, just a bit sexy, totally iconic, and catchy as all hell.

Ranking the Villains

I came up with a little system for ranking the Bond villains. I determined that a good villain should have a proper plan, should be generally villainous (cruel, mad, etc.), intimidating, competent, and charismatic (or at least have a decent, definable personality). Regarding one of the series’ few recurring villains, I elected to rank Blofeld several times, one for each appearance in a different film. With that in mind, here are the Bottom 5 and Top 5 Bond villains. The full list including the scores for each category can be found here (Spectre spoilers in slot #21).

Worst Bond Villains

Rank	Villain	Film	Plot	Comments
27	Gustav Graves / Col. Moon	Die Another Day	Destroy S. Korea via space laser	Written as if a 12 year old came up with a Bond villain. Terrible plan, never truly intimidating, and the whole DNA replacement and "I modeled him after you" bit is completely stupid.
26	Aristotle Kristatos	For Your Eyes Only	Retrieve the ATAC device in order to control Soviet missiles, trick 007 into assassinating Colombo	Bland, boring, forgettable.
25	Brad Whitaker	The Living Daylights	Sell opium as a means to finance his arms trading	I applaud the realism of his plot, however the character is just so damned annoying. Baker plays the American General as a complete buffoon. And the whole wargame angle is weird.
24	General Orlov	Octopussy	Destroy NATO relations by detonating a bomb in a foreign Air Force base	Another fairly forgettable character. Berkoff portrays the General as an almost Dr. Strangelove-esque wacko.
23	Ernst Stavro Blofeld	Diamonds Are Forever	Destroy nations' nuclear missiles with a space laser if they refuse to give in to his ransom demands	The weakest of all of Blofeld’s various plots. Mostly, this iteration is ranked so low on account of Charles Grey’s portrayal. He’s insufferable, lacks any real intimidation, and the whole army of clones and voice changing devices are all just too campy for my taste.

Best Bond Villains

Rank	Villain	Film	Plot	Comments
5	Ernst Stavro Blofeld	On Her Majesty’s Secret Service	Brainwash women (Angels of Death) and use them as pawns in bacterialogical warfare	Okay so the plan is a little bizarre and Savalas’ portrayal might not be as iconic as the one in YOLT, however this is Blofeld at his peak. He is menacing, sinister, and intimidating. The whole lineage angle is unique and gives a little bit of humanity to what has been an otherwise flat character.
4	Alex Trevelyan (Agent 006)	GoldenEye	Exact revenge on England by robbing the national bank just before destroying digital records (via electromagnetic pulse from satellite)	Sean Bean performs beautifully as the MI6-agent-gone-rogue. His revenge mission plot is a wonderful balance of maniacal, villainous, and realistic.
3	Auric Goldfinger	Goldfinger	Devalue US gold stock by detonating a bomb inside Fort Knox gold reserve	Bond himself remarks how brilliant Goldfinger’s plan is upon hearing it. I’m going to refrain from making any “gold standard” jokes, but Goldfinger is seriously one of the best. Cunning, proud, coy, greedy, and downright evil.
2	Le Chiffre	Casino Royale	Make money by shorting airline stocks through planned terrorist attacks	Le Chiffre is one of the most fascinating villains in that he is a man driven by desperation and fear more than a god complex or a desire to destroy humanity.
1	Francisco Scaramanga	The Man with the Golden Gun	Steal solex agitator, assassinate 007	Christopher Lee’s Scaramanga is the perfect blend of flamboyant charisma, fierce intellect, and pure skill. The dinner scene between Scaramanga and Bond remains one of my all time favorites.

Honorable mentions go to Skyfall’s freakishly relentless Raoul Silva, Spy Who Loved Me’s megalomaniac Karl Stromberg, World is Not Enough’s coldly calculating Elektra King, Dr. No’s Dr. No for setting the template, and Moonraker’s surprisingly enjoyable Hugo Drax.

Ranking the Bond Girls

I came up with a similar method of ranking one of the other pillars of any good 007 film: the Bond Girls. For this category, I rated each Bond Girl by their intellect (general intelligence), competence (how skillful they were at their profession or tasks), initiative (do they just sit around and wait for Bond to tell them what to do or not), utility (do they have a direct impact on the story or are they just sort of there for show), and (yes I am aware of the hypocrisy here) beauty. This was a somewhat difficult list to assess, as the concept of a Bond Girl is rather loose. For example, in Skyfall, Bond seduces Severine, however she is in the film for such a brief period of time and her impact on the story is so minimal, that it didn’t even seem right to try and rank her based on these categories. Then of course there are any number of throwaway characters that Bond simply sleeps with or converses with briefly that are occasionally viewed as “Bond Girls”. Think of the iconic gilded Jill Masterson from Goldfinger. You might be aghast that she isn’t on the list, but she is such a small portion of that film (especially compared to her sister, Tilly), that it didn’t even seem worth it to place her on here, despite her image being plastered on every piece of promotional material for Goldfinger. So this is my best attempt at determining who is a Bond Girl and how they rank. The full list including category rankings can be found here.

Worst Bond Girls

Rank	Girl	Film	Comments
33	Rosie Carver	Live and Let Die	Perhaps the most miserable character in the series. I couldn’t help but give her the only 0 of this entire exercise for Competence. She whines and cries to a man she just met because she isn't a good CIA agent. She’s not useful, not talented, and utterly annoying. And the one time she finally acts proactively, she is condescendingly mocked for misreading Quarrel Jr.’s allegiance.
32	Mary Goodnight	The Man with the Golden Gun	Vapid, irritating, pathetic, almost entirely useless. She’s easily captured and even chastised for her one contribution: killing a guard. And of course there’s the infamous scene in which any dignity she might’ve had evaporates as she’s shoved in a closet while Bond and Andrea Anders have sex.
31	Tiffany Case	Diamonds Are Forever	Another worthless character who adds little to the plot. She is given a rare instance of initiative at the end of the film and it turns out that in doing so, she completely screws up Bond’s plan. Oh also, her dialogue is completely insufferable.
30	“Dr.” Christmas Jones	The World is Not Enough	Another character written to be skilled and intelligent, but portrayed by a woman who cannot convincingly pull off either. Her role in the film becomes little more than a tagalong with weak excuses being provided for why she’s still around. She also turns into the second instance of Bond’s magical ability to turn lesbians straight.
29	Stacey Sutton	A View to a Kill	Same deal as Jones, the character is written to be intelligent, but the actress doesn't sell it one bit. She tends to fail at everything she attempts, and Bond completely disregards her and forces her to become a damsel in distress throughout their time together. She becomes a complete tagalong after a while.

Best Bond Girls

Rank	Girl	Film	Comments
5	Elektra King	The World is Not Enough	Cunning, fierce, intelligent (though blinded by rage), she is absolutely integral to the plot, her actions are her own and she even acts as the puppetmaster for a wide range of people.
4	Camille Montes	Quantum of Solace	Not necessarily particularly intelligent per se, but highly skilled and motivated by her well formed backstory. QoS actually provides a rare instance of Bond screwing up her plans, though she bounds back quickly. Extra points for killing one of the film’s villains.
3	Pussy Galore	Goldfinger	The biggest downfall for Galore is her lack of integrity during the scene in which Bond apparently rapes her straight. Aside from that terrible scene, she is a fantastic character. She gets the drop on Bond multiple times, verbally spars with the best of them, and orchestrates a hugely important aspect of the film’s ending.
2	Teresa di Vicenzo	On Her Majesty’s Secret Service	It pains me not to be able to give her a perfect score, however she does have her downfalls. She really ultimately is just sort of going along with her father’s plans and when she’s captured, she reverts into a fairly standard damsel in distress. Aside from that though, her beauty and intelligence are almost without parallel.
1	Vesper Lynd	Casino Royale	The only character in this whole exercise to receive a perfect score. The single most well-rounded character of the entire series. Highly intelligent, witty, sharp, sly, plays her own game, acts of her own accord with her own motivations, integral to the plot — oh and stunningly gorgeous.

Honorable mentions go to Spy Who Loves Me’s crafty and skilled Anya Amasova, Die Another Day’s coldly independent Miranda Frost, You Only Twice’s Aki who saves Bond’s butt on more than one occasion, Tomorrow Never Die’s devil may care Wai Lin, and License to Kill’s rough and rowdy Pam Bouvier.

Ranking the Bonds

And of course there’s the ranking of the Bond actors. Everyone has an opinion that varies greatly from the last. Heck, I’ve already changes my mind three times as I’ve sat here writing this. Each actor is so wildly different and they all come from such unique times that it’s almost impossible to try and fairly compare them. And then of course there’s the struggle of trying to give each actor a fair shake when their films have varied so greatly in quality and number. But I will try to do my best.

Rank	Actor	Films	Years Active	Comments
6	Roger Moore	7	1973 - 1985	Easily the worst in my opinion. I never bought him as an assassin. I never bought him as a seductive gentleman. His humor was mostly lost on me. When they tried to get him to be rough and tumble in TMWTGG when he’s interrogating Anders, he just seems abusive. He also had the worst string of films to deal with and was kept on as Bond for far too long. Too few upsides.
5	George Lazenby	1	1969	This ranking is really misleading, as I actually LOVED Lazenby as Bond. I felt that he completely captured the crass attitude and unbridled swagger. I would frankly consider putting him as high as #3, however Lazenby’s biggest downfall is his lack of clout. He just wasn’t Bond long enough to get a decent gauge of how he really fit into Bond’s shoes.
4	Sean Connery	6	1962 - 1967, 1971	Blasphemy! Just because he was first doesn’t mean he was the best. He laid the groundwork and managed the suave nature and action better than some, however his characters never really felt like they had any depth to them. Mostly he is severely handicapped by his lackluster performances in YOLT and DAF.
3	Timothy Dalton	2	1987 - 1989	Ah Dalton, the Bond we needed but didn’t deserve. Dalton’s career was similarly too short. I considered giving him the #4 spot under Connery for this purpose alone, but I really feel like he did enough in his two films to establish what kind of Bond he was and would have continued to be. The dark, brooding exterior occasionally gave in to flashes of real charm and even caring. The humor could have used some work, but the action and especially the suave, high-class nature fit him perfectly.
2	Daniel Craig	4	2006 - present	Craig’s performance in Casino alone would have been enough to push him into first place, however he’s had kind of a bizarre run of films since then. The stories have set him up to just be continually cantankerous and sullen. I have him in the #2 spot temporarily, depending on how the rest of his run as Bond goes. If he is able to do more films and is able to continue to regain his wit from Casino and to continue his arc from brutish thug to refined gentleman assassin, I feel the #2 or even #1 spot could be his.
1	Pierce Brosnan	4	1995 - 2002	It was equally difficult to call Brosnan the unequivocal best. His run is sadly marred by a series of mediocre and downright bad films. That said, his performance in GoldenEye is probably one of the best in the series. Brosnan is able to pull off every aspect of what makes Bond Bond with ease. He nails the humor, he looks like he belongs in a tux, and he appears entirely at ease when in the midst of a tense shootout or car chase. He even totally sells a few small moments throughout the series that required him to appear frightened, surprised, and vulnerable.

Naturally there is so much more I could discuss (favorite gadgets, favorite moments, favorite henchmen), but I suppose I should save something for the lead up to Bond 25, eh? A sincere thanks once more to everyone who joined me for the discussions over the past several months. Cheers!