10 Biggest Mistakes The James Bond Series Ever Made
6. Keeping Roger Moore Beyond For Your Eyes Only
One of the greatest ironies of the Bond series is the fact that Roger Moore landed the role in 1973 at least partly because he looked younger than Sean Connery. In fact, Moore is three years older than his predecessor - and as his run in the role progressed, this became screamingly obvious.
It all started out well enough. Live And Let Die was a fine introduction; The Man With The Golden Gun is a bit too farcical, but still hugely enjoyable; The Spy Who Loved Me is easily one of the top 5 best Bond movies ever; and even Moonraker, while often lambasted for its jaw-dropping silliness, is still undeniably entertaining.
1981's For Your Eyes Only was Moore's fifth film (twelfth in the series overall), and marked a self-conscious return to a more down-to-earth approach in line with Fleming and the Connery movies. While it still has its painfully ridiculous moments (who can forget Margaret Thatcher's cameo), it's a considerably more introspective affair: note that it opens on an unusually sombre Moore taking flowers to his wife's grave.
For Your Eyes Only also acknowledges the hero's advancing years; Moore was now 53, and looking it. And, in what has to be a series first, Bond himself is turned off by a young woman's advances, as Lynn-Holly Johnson's young ice skater Bibi offers herself to him only for him to decline in a somewhat grandfatherly fashion.
When even Bond is creeped out by the age gap between himself and his would-be seductress, that's surely a sign that the time is right to move on. And yet the rapidly ageing Moore would remain in the role for a further two movies, 1983's Octopussy and 1985's A View To A Kill; which, not for nothing, mark possibly the lowest ebb of the entire Bond franchise.
The 80s were not especially kind to 007; which brings us to the series' next major mistake...