Why was NSNA so highly praised when it first came out?

The return of Connery as Bond got positive attention.

There was also the summer competition between Moore Bond and Connery Bond, an exciting time for critics and audiences. It was fun, great cast, had its moments.

Hated now probably for elements like the terrible musical score and how the production seems to be running out of money toward the end. It's so clearly not an EON produced-film without the Bond Theme, no gunbarrel, no grand action pre-titles, no nude silhouettes in a title sequence. There's also the School of Common Knowledge at work: the idea it's SUPPOSED to be hated, conversation over.

What no man Can give ya. And none Can take away.

Sean Connery

It was a breath of fresh air as the Roger Moore Bond films increasingly floundered, and was a welcome gadget-lite riposte to the worst excesses of the EON franchise in 1983, but time hasn't been that kind to it. But even in 1983 the score and Rowan Atkinson were much reviled.


"Security - release the badgers."

At first it really buoyed both patriotic and humanistic spirit, catching up with and surpassing the competition, culminating in a grand moment never to be equalled. Yes, it had some rough parts, but overwhelming amazing achievements mattered more. Now, it is considered less impressive and ambitious.

Primarily, I think that is due to the fact that it has no manned spacecraft to launch anymore, at least not until Orion http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/orion/index.html

Now, this is a signature gun, and that is an optical palm reader.

Well even if critics were excited about the competition, NSNA still got much better reviews compared to OP at the time, so critics were still like the low budget NSNA more for some reason.

Was it because OP had more of the Bond cliches in maybe, and the critics found NSNA to be a little fresher?

At $36m it was more expensive than any of the EON films at that time.


"Security - release the badgers."

I remember a Siskel and Ebert special about the Bond films, and NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN got much praise. I could tell the two were like overjoyed fanboys. I can't help but think much of their praise was simply over the return of Sean Connery, who they both agreed was their favorite Bond actor, with GOLDFINGER being their favorite Bond film. But they did name Maximilian Largo, played by Klaus Maria Brandauer, as the best Bond villain they had seen up to that point.


http://www.freewebs.com/demonictoys/

Here's the Siskel and Ebert review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz77Rb0J8Qo

They say that it has a much better villain than most of the previous Bond films, and that it's more down to Earth, and less like a cartoon, like the previous ones.

Is that a legitimate argument?