YouTube is streaming the first 19 James Bond movies for free | Hacker News Reader

YouTube is streaming the first 19 James Bond movies for free

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37 pointstosh40 comments

Not sure how popular this opinion is among Bond nerds but as a general movie lover, I find Daniel Craig to be the best. Got mostly better storylines, best action scenes, looks fittest. Maybe he lacks the Sean Connery suave but the other things make up for it.

They might be the best action movies, but I don't consider them the best Bond movies, bc they're so different than every other Bond movie. They're a different genre all together.

It's not that I don't like them, or even like them any less in general; I just have a hard time considering them to be Bond movies at all. They're so serious, even when being sarcastic and dry. They're not fun, and not something I probably would have been excited to binge watch as a kid, as the other ones are/were. I try hard to convince myself this is just temporal bias, but I'm less convinced the more I think about it.

And I still can't wrap my head around the fact that Goldeneye and Casino were directed by the same person.

I say this as someone who has 4 different actors in my top 5 Bond movie list, and none are Craig. So probably not a popular opinion- but also as someone who's never read any of the books, but seen every movie multiple times.

Then again, I also consider Brave Little Toaster to be a better version of Toy Story 3, for almost opposite reasons, while I still consider TS3 to be objectively the best Pixar-formula movie made. (Unless counting the first 10 mins of Up as it's own entity.)

Yeah, I 100% agree. I heard an interview with Daniel Craig once where he said that they couldn't make Casion Royale as fun and playful as the originals, because of "Austin Powers". He said they would have had to walk a delicate line between parody/campy and fun, and they felt it wouldn't have worked. But now we don't get any new "real" Bond movies. :/

Austin Powers borrowed a lot from the original Casino Royale (the 60s spoof version), and the classic 60s spoof duology In Like Flint/Our Man Flint (fun watches that still hold up; Austin Powers even directly name drops them). Those 60s spoofs didn't kill campy/fun James Bond, and also show us evidence of this sort of spoof/serious cycle in Bond (and elsewhere) is likely cyclical. If history is to judge, we're about to the point where Austin Powers flutters out of collective consciousness again and given the right actors/directors/producers the Bond movies can do fun stuff again.

That's more excuse than argument, to me.

I think that's basically an admission to packaging and marketing a new franchise under the Bond brand.

Anyway, all the Bond movies were campy or felt B-movie-ish to some extent. Each actor did it in a different way, but they all did it. And don't forget that Moonraker exists. Which I love, but come on.

The self-parody wasn't always explicit or obvious, but it was always blatantly there. Running on alligators, breaking the 4th wall, an eyebrow wax as a (racist by today's standards) disguise.

It was always there.

> They might be the best action movies, but I don't consider them the best Bond movies

yes, they seem to borrow heavily from the Bourne movies instead of from past Bond movies. Still enjoyable.

I agree and really love the Daniel Craig movies but, they're from a different era.

In my mind it ends up being like the Jordan-Lebron or the Ronaldo/Messi-Maradona debate. There are just too many intrinsic differences between the two eras that it makes a real comparisons basically impossible.

I use to marathon Bond movies thinking about the same thing. It's probably because he has the more believable body size for the stunts he makes.

The entire point of it is that James Bond is the perfect man, who always knows what to do and how to get the ladies. Graig didn't play that, so in my mind it makes it a bad Bond movie.

It may still be a great movie. The Bourne triology works great as a movie but it wouldn't, and isn't a James Bond movie.

I just wish the movie producers would create new franchises rather than reboot the others.

I think everyone likes the bond they grew up with but I think it's fairly uncontroversial to say that Craig is the best actor to play the role.

Skyfall is still alarmingly good, i.e. it's a bond film with explosions and car chases that also has real thematic depth and absolutely beautiful cinematography.

Craig has zero charm, and charm was Bonds selling point for me at least. If it doesn’t have that you might as well watch a Vin Diesel movie. “The man from UNCLE” was more Bond than anything Craig was in.

I feel Skyfall is the movie that proves Bond is a Time Lord.

I'm a big Pierce Bronson fan. Really liked Tomorrow Never Dies when I was a kid

Topic is not accurate. David Niven's Casino Royale is missing.

The best Bond movie.

When I wrote the first one in 1953, I wanted Bond to be an extremely dull, uninteresting man to whom things happened; I wanted him to be a blunt instrument ... when I was casting around for a name for my protagonist I thought by God, [James Bond] is the dullest name I ever heard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond_(ornithologist) , which agrees with what I read in the ornithologist's obituary, argues against that.

Aww, these appear to require Widevine in order to watch.

Oh well...

And you need to be in America.

James Bond is dead now (or retired). Will you cheer for Jane Bond 007 now?! All previous movies are considered chauvinistic by sjw battalion. She's black, so double diversity points there:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jul/15/lashana-lynch-n...

This is where "get woke go broke" rule kicks in hard. I've watched the last 10 or so Bond movies in cinemas, but I will stop doing it if they choose to desecrate it like that and I'm not the only one.

Old school Bond films can't be beaten - for a whole range of reasons. The storylines are absolutely chaotic and hilarious in equal measure.

Not in the UK.

Okay, I haven’t seen any Bond movies except for SkyFall (which I hated). I should probably try another. What should I watch?

The opposite of Craig is probably Moore in Live and Let Die, so maybe there (but it's also polarizing among fans), or Goldeneye for relatively recent Brosnan, or Dr. No or Goldfinger for classic Connery.

GoldenEye. You got the classic Pierce Brosnan suave and you get Sean Bean as the villian. Was my first bond movie and I still love it. Great action pieces too.

Here's a fun Fake TED Talk on why On Her Majesty's Secret Service is both often overlooked, and also quite possibly the best Bond movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac8JWzyNI6c

All of them. I'd start with the first one, Dr No. It's like going through history.

I don't know what it is about Skyfall but I also just hate it and it's my least favorite of the Daniel Craig even though Casino Royale and Spectre are great. Each Bond is different. My all time non-Craig favorite is Thunderball.

Goldfinger is a classic. I would not start with Doctor No, i never liked that one.

There is an argument for seeing them in order, but I have always loved Octopussy.

James Bond is best when there is a clear bad guy, so when the Soviet Union went away the movies went a little weird.

    Goldfinger
    Thunderball
    Diamonds Are Forever
    Live And Let Die

Why did you hate Skyfall?

Good question! It's been a long time and I don't remember much, but I think I remember complaining to a friend that Bond seemed invincible. He could automatically do anything, and so there never seemed to be any real danger.

Tomorrow Never Dies, Casino Royale are good starters.

You should try to save Casino Royale. It's worth the wait and, after enduring the middle 6 or so, you'll appreciate just how much better it is than all that came before it.

Best opening credits. Best femme fatale. Most believable villain. It's all downhill from there.

Yes and that includes everything starring the late Sean Connery, such as Dr. No and Goldfinger, through to Pierce Brosnan's brief Bond revival with titles like Goldeneye.

I’m pleasantly surprised that YouTube would do this given that is almost certain to rouse the ire of certain social activists due to the “problematic” nature of these films.

Youtube PR has more pressing issues with 'problematic' content this week. It would suit them fine if the internet argues about James Bond instead https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/8/22162779/christchurch-sho...

That could be said about literally every film on the planet.

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