Spectre is now in theaters, and like any good 007 movie, it features James Bond making liberal use of his license to kill. But perhaps your Bondian bloodlust isn’t satisfied? Well, you’re in luck because the YouTube channel Auralnauts went and edited together a supercut showcasing every on-screen James Bond kill to date (with the exception of Spectre). All 362 of them.
Aside from being a gruesome (and frequently ridiculous) bloodbath, the video is also an interesting document of how Bond’s approach to killing has changed over the years. During the Sean Connery era, violence was sudden, messy, and often improvised. Connery’s Bond didn’t necessarily take pleasure in killing, but he knew he was good at this murder thing, and took satisfaction in a job well done.
Things changed as we moved into the ’70s. Roger Moore’s Bond was a debonair psychopath, who killed in needlessly elaborate ways (and often just needlessly) and seemed to take a certain wry pleasure in every death he caused. From blowing Dr. Kananga up like a human balloon in Live and Let Die, to dropping a wheelchair-bound Blofeld down an industrial chimney in For Your Eyes Only, Moore’s Bond was more maniacal than creative when it came to killing.
As we moved into the ’80s and ’90s, Bond no longer had the time to take any satisfaction or pleasure in killing — he was simply knocking off goons at too fast a pace. The defining image of the Pierce Brosnan era is an apathetic Bond, machine gun in hand, wildly mowing down every Russian that crosses his path. There’s a good reason Brosnan’s Bond actually worked better in video game form than in the movies.
And finally, we move into the Daniel Craig era. Bond has had varying reactions to killing, but up until Craig, he rarely showed any particular emotion during the act itself. Daniel Craig’s Bond turns that tradition on its head — you can often see the anger, weariness and frustration in his eyes as he’s killing somebody, but once the deed is done, the stoic mask returns. The complete opposite of Connery and Moore who were cold-eyed killers when it came to pulling the trigger, but always left us with a smirk, pun or brief furrowed brow afterward.
While we’re taking a stroll through the history of Bond violence, a clever Redditor also combined the gun barrel opening from every James Bond movie into a single fascinating GIF…
Click here for the animated GIF
Which era do you think best exercised Bond’s license to kill? What’s your all-time favorite Bond kill? You can discuss Bond’s history of violence, below.
