After watching a Culture show special on James bond last night, I decided to rewatch octopussy today. As I wrote here, when I systematically went through the Bond franchise, I didn’t like roger Moore at all – he seemed too unlike the other bonds. However, many critics seem to like him, so I thought I would give him the benefit of the doubt. To my surprise, I found it much better this time: I was able to follow the plot much more easily, and I found Moore far more believable, deeper, if sill a tad cartoonish. I think my mistake was watching the franchise in such quick succession; it clouded my judgement. After all, this franchise spans fifty years, so they cannot be all alike. Bond films come in vintages, so expecting moore to be like, say, Connery is like disliking a cote du rhone because it doesn’t taste like a Zimphandel, when all you have had recently is Zimphandel and think that is what wine should taste like! Thus I think I need to rewatch the Roger Moore Bond films, perhaps a little more slowly this time, and without the preconceived ideas of what constitutes James Bond I got from the other films. After all, he made seven of them, so he can’t be that bad. Mind you, I might skip Moonraker – I suspect that film will be crap no matter how many times I watch it.