Your introduction to Bond
Remington
CAPosts: 239MI6 Agent
How were you introduced to the series? If we already have a thread about this, then please direct me to it. Guess I was feeling nostalgic. 
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1. Connery 2. Moore 3. Dalton 4. Brosnan 5. Craig 6. Lazenby
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Well, I have mentioned this a couple of times and in my introduction; first memory I have of Bond is the BMW chase in Tomorrow Never Dies on DVD, which my father rented because he gave it a miss at the cinema back in the 90s.
(It's still his favourite Brosnan Bond film and after GoldenEye it has become my own.)
First time I saw a full length Bond film was Quantum of Solace, again on DVD and I rather enjoyed it even though he panned it after seeing Casino Royale. For all the crap that it gets, my standards were pretty low back then and it over-delivered but it wasn't until I saw Licence To Kill after listening to the theme song and watching the very 80s music video on VH1 which intrigued me to this world of espionage which in effect was a push I gave to myself to be into Bond. Will never regret that decision. Then I saw Casino Royale, which was most accessible to me because he had bought the special edition and well... here we are.
First film I saw at the cinema was SPECTRE. Gave Skyfall a miss, unfortunately. Maybe that's why I love it so much.
Side note: I'm drawing out my father as a Bond fan but he admits that he wasn't. Well, not until we were through shooting through all the films.
First Bond experience was seeing fragments of Diamonds...and Goldfinger on teevee, but I wasn't paying attention, more into doing homework, or most likely reading comics.
I do specifically remember the cremation scene (still a striking image to this day), the golf scene (boring, probably why I quit watching) and Goldfinger's meeting scene with the pooltable/scale model (again, still a striking visual decades later).
First one I saw at the theatre and watched properly: The Spy Who Loved Me. Eleven years old, same year Star Wars and Close Encounters came out. That year made me a film buff for life.
Here's an odd thing: a year or two prior I read the Stan Lee book Son of Origins of Marvel Comics, which includes the first appearance of Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD, and Lee in his introduction explained this comic series was inspired in the mid-60 by the James Bond craze. So I was an aspiring James Bond fan well before I had the attention span to actually watch the movies!
Back in late 2008/early 2009, I was hanging out at a friend's house. He decided to put on DAD. I had just started playing GE on the N64 so I was intrigued. However, we only got through the title sequence before I had to go home.
A few weeks later, I was with my grandparents. A few days a week, my grandfather had dialysis, so me and my grandmother would just go off and do our thing for a couple hours. We went to Costco where I found Volume 3 of the Ultimate Edition Bond sets. I just wanted to see GE but I begged her to buy it for me. She did and I ended up watching it on a portable DVD Player in the parking lot. I was absolutely blown away by it and became the Bond fanatic I am today. It was an amazing experience for a kid at the not so innocent age of 11. I blasted through the the other films in the set right away. Then I got the rest at Blockbuster. God I miss that place. I was psyched when I found out there was another film on the way in 2010. Lol then Bond 23 got suspended indefinitely. In the meantime, me and my friends had some good times watching all the films.
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film " Live and Let Die " with my Favourite Actor ( from watching the Saint and The
Persuaders ) Roger Moore -{ so I pestered my big brother to take me to see it.
( I later remembered as a very young kid, seeing OHMSS on holiday, but being so young
I slept through most of it but could remember bits of the car chase. )
That basically was the start of my Fandom, as the Books and other cinema outings followed.
In the days before the internet, I was a member of " The James Bond British Fan Club " even
getting an "O level" in Bond
Funny thing about me as well, was that I would cite espionage as one of my favourite genres well before I discovered Bond.
As an "aspiring Bond fan" as you call it, I watched all of Burn Notice's seasons during my Miami Vice phase in 2014-5.
I'd also like to see some of the bigger Bonds on the big screen, Spy, Moonraker etc. but that probably won't happen.
Guess I'll have nothing but envy for a long time for your experiences.
Then when I was in my early high school years I decided to watch TMWTGG on television and the story took me in completely. After that I rented out other entries whenever I can. I saw almost all the Roger Moores at the time when OP had just been made, then discovered there was also Sean Connery while looking for the previous series. Eventually caught up on them all, including Lazenby's one off and eagerly snapped up AVTAK when it came out. So that was my 007 journey.
My grandfather died when I was eight and I inherited his books, which included Fleming. I read them avidly (though some parts I didn't quite get at the time!) and that was me hooked for life. This was in the 1960s, I'm probably one of a very few who were introduced via the novels rather than the films (although I did see them, too- GF first).
One night we rented the film Goldeneye on VHS and I remember enjoying it so much that me and my mates went to see the then newly released Tomorrow Never Dies at the cinema. I haven't looked back since.
I have vague recollections of seeing snippets of Licence to Kill on TV but I can't remember my age.
8. TMwtGG 9. AVtaK 10. TSWLM 11. SF 12. LtK 13. TND 14. YOLT
15. NTtD 16. MR 17. LaLD 18. GF 19. SP 20. DN 21. TB
22. TWiNE 23. DAD 24. QoS 25. DaF
We do, I remember contributing to it...it will be quite a number of pages back though
When DAF was in cinemas, my grandparents took my two older sisters but left me at home because I was too young they felt! The sister born before me goaded me to jealousy, describing this cool dude who kept his gun in a concealed shoulder holster, and who can make a car go up on two wheels! Anyway, a couple of years later my dad had me watch FRWL with him when it was broadcast on TV. Despite this being Bond before he became over the top, all those cool secret agent-ism like the gunplay, the trick attaché case how Bond battled the bad guys, I was a completed captivated 6-year old. I remember the next day in school, our assignment every morning was to draw whatever we wanted to draw and write a couple of sentences about it and you guessed it, I drew a picture of Bond carrying an attaché case!
Then a couple of years after that, I watched the TV broadcast of GF and guess what all the kids were talking about in the schoolyard the next day? The trick-Aston Martin! A couple of months after that, a visiting aunt brought me to the toy store and asked me what I wanted…guess what I got?!? Ahhh, the childhood joys of growing up with Bond…what a much lesser existence it would have been otherwise.
It was't until a summer 1983 airing of DR NO that I became hooked. My folks took me to see OCTOPUSSY the following week, and NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN in the fall. A great year to become a Bond fan, I must say.
The only Bond I've seen in cinemas have been the Craig films as I was in 6th grade when CR came out.
Check out my Instagram: @livingthebondlife
"I never joke about my work, 007."
I was a kid, and back then, there were only three major networks and a few local stations and, I guess, PBS, which was our tepid version of the BBC. Not much choice. But this was in the days when you lived your life around an event, which the Bond movies were. You'd wait all week for 9 p.m. on Sunday to roll around, as excited as for Christmas morning, and you knew your friends and relatives were all glued to the TV at the same time, which made it strangely communal. Everything would be prepared -- snacks, beverages, your favorite chair or spot in front of the television. Conversations would stop when the introduction music played. It was extra special because I not only got to see something a little naughty -- though I didn't always understand what that was -- but also stay up extra late since the Bond films always ran past 11 p.m.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure Diamonds are Forever was the first one I saw. That would make sense since it was still fairly new at the time.
I still get a little thrill if I run into a Bond film on TV, even though I own all of them on blu-ray, lol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orXln4f8efk
I remember the ABC Sunday Night airings as well. It really was an event to watch those. My Dad would stay up with me and watch whatever Bond was on. I have vivid memories of those exact airings as well. I remember November of 1983 had the network premiere of FYEO. The run-time according to TV Guide was 2 hrs 45 min. That meant I got to stay up extra late. My Dad made some popcorn, had some Lays Chips, and we each had a bottle of Coca-Cola. After that night FYEO became my favorite Roger film. The next month was GF, then DAF in January, TSWLM in March and FRWL in May. A great season for Bond.
We were trying to sort this out recently in another thread.
I know I saw all of them in between ...Spy... and Moonraker, some definitely more than once, so that was nine films over two years, at least one every three months.
Also a different year of course. More films to cycle through by 1983, but I think the minor revival in Bondmania was bigger in 1977, there may have been a bigger expected audience.
Casino Royale I had to stay up til about four in the morning to see, it wasn't part of that ABC Sunday night series. Probably would have scared an aspiring Bond-fan right off!
The first Bond I watched was in the summer of 2008 when I was going into 5th grade, I remember seeing the QOS trailer and getting so hyped I had to beg my dad to drive me to the local Half Price Books (I was a Boy Scout, had to be thrifty.) and the only movie they had was the 1999 DVD of Licence To Kill for about $4.
In about October of the same year, I actually got this rare screening at my local theater that showed Dr No on my 11th birthday (October 5th, I know, it's crazy to be born on 007 Day.)
After Dr No I saw QOS opening weekend. I will say that it Was a guilty pleasure all throughout High School because it's short runtime was good before doing homework and it still IS. But if it's not a weekday then i'm probably not watching it.