Roger Moore gets a bad rap. His run as James Bond, the longest of any actor in the franchise, was marred by attempts to rejuvenate the series through goofy stunts and genre mimicry. It didn't help that, by the time he reached his final installment, 1985's A View to a Kill, the actor was 58 years old and lacking Tom Cruise's motivation to be thrown off tall buildings. Moore's abundant charisma couldn't balance the physical deficit. But when it clicked the material, he was a lethal debonair. His hands-off-my-tie kill in The Spy Who Loved Me is up there with anything Sean Connery pulled off in the series.

The beauty of a 53-year-old franchise is the opportunity to dream: what if Moore had another shot? What if the actor was in his prime when the 1980s gave rise to spectacle cinema? Or the movies of today—can you imagine Moore standing in for Daniel Craig in Spectre? Well, dream no longer. The folks at Mars VFX tinkered with the trailer for the upcoming 007 adventure and the result is Moore in killer form:

And for younger Bond buffs, YouTube user The Unusual Suspect worked the same magic for Pierce Brosnan, culling clips from Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, and Die Another Day for the '90s era Spectre that will never be:

This article was originally published on Esquire.com

From: Esquire UK