No Time To Die: Production Diary

1114611471149115111522507

Comments

  • edited November 2017 Posts: 572
    I agree with the sentiment I'm reading (ala @bondjames). The next film should have more espionage, less superhero. I'm also tired of the puppeteer villain used to (cheaply) plug all the plot holes. Skyfall was one thing, but Spectre took it way too far. I personally don't enjoy having to be told, "I mastermined this, so all those things that happened, they're tied together so you can ignore them now." I'd rather have mystery than shock and awe. Ok rant over.

    Honestly, I have hope they can deliver with the next one. I believe they can do larger than life while keeping things grounded. Something perhaps like a bio-terrorism plot (something that can inject the shock and awe component) while keeping the storyline more about filtering through red herrings to peel back the layers of the onion. Easy to say, hard to execute, I know, but I think it's still in the realm of possibility.
  • If the craig era has proven anything, its that it will buck established trends in the franchise. I have full confidence in eon's approach for this film.
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    edited November 2017 Posts: 13,792
    FYEO is off the books as a favour to M so TLD and TMWTGG are the only times in Fleming when he is officially sent to kill someone as the object of the mission.

    The two kills to get his 00 are only alluded to obliquely in CR and there is no real evidence outside of Pearson to suggest these were direct assassinations any more than they were missions in which it became necessary to kill.
    Still, Bond acts as assassin in the short story "For Your Eyes Only". It's exactly what he's up to, for his boss even if Her Majesty's government isn't aware. And even if it wasn't a proper order from M, who resisted that for a couple reasons. That's Bond's usefulness as a double-oh, acting outside channels when needed.

    The Fleming content in Casino Royale is clear that Bond's assignments were to kill a chosen individual. To me that's also assassination. I should also say I'm not holding a strict meaning requiring a political or religious motive. Assassination as killing a targeted person is enough.

    Casino Royale. In conversation with Vesper.
    Bond frowned. 'It's not difficult to get a Double O number if you're prepared to kill people,' he said. 'That's all the meaning it has. It's nothing to be particularly proud of. I've got the corpses of a Japanese cipher expert in New York and a Norwegian double agent in Stockholm to thank for being a Double 0. Probably quite decent people. They just got caught up in the gale of the world like that Yugoslav that Tito bumped off. It's a confusing business but if it's one's profession, one does what one's told. How do you like the grated egg with your caviar?'
    Much later with Mathis.
    'Well, in the last few years I've killed two villains. The first was in New York — a Japanese cipher expert cracking our codes on the thirty sixth floor of the RCA building in the Rockefeller centre, where the Japs had their consulate. I took a room on the fortieth floor of the next door skyscraper and I could look across the street into his room and see him working. Then I got a colleague from our organization in New York and a couple of Remington thirty-thirty's with telescopic sights and silencers. We smuggled them up to my room and sat for days waiting for our chance. He shot at the man a second before me. His job was only to blast a hole through the windows so that I could shoot the Jap through it. They have tough windows at the Rockefeller centre to keep the noise out. It worked very well. As I expected, his bullet got deflected by the glass and went God knows where. But I shot immediately after him, through the hole he had made. I got the Jap in the mouth as he turned to gape at the broken window.'

    Bond smoked for a minute.

    'It was a pretty sound job. Nice and clean too. Three hundred yards away. No personal contact. The next time in Stockholm wasn't so pretty. I had to kill a Norwegian who was doubling against us for the Germans. He'd managed to get two of our men captured — probably bumped off for all I know. For various reasons it had to be an absolutely silent job. I chose the bedroom of his flat and a knife. And, well, he just didn't die very quickly.
  • Posts: 12,467
    If the pattern continues, I will probably enjoy Bond 25 more than QoS and SP since I have most enjoyed Craig’s odd-numbered entries and they are more standalone-styled. I’ll randomly predict it becomes my third favorite Craig Bond movie, but no way to know until later. I think they will go with a more standalone approach.
  • edited November 2017 Posts: 832
    FoxRox wrote: »
    If the pattern continues, I will probably enjoy Bond 25 more than QoS and SP since I have most enjoyed Craig’s odd-numbered entries and they are more standalone-styled. I’ll randomly predict it becomes my third favorite Craig Bond movie, but no way to know until later. I think they will go with a more standalone approach.

    Seems like it. These facts and the motivation to go out on a bang/ apparent recognition of past mistakes cause me to have confidence this time.
  • Posts: 12,467
    Ottofuse8 wrote: »
    FoxRox wrote: »
    If the pattern continues, I will probably enjoy Bond 25 more than QoS and SP since I have most enjoyed Craig’s odd-numbered entries and they are more standalone-styled. I’ll randomly predict it becomes my third favorite Craig Bond movie, but no way to know until later. I think they will go with a more standalone approach.

    Seems like it. These facts and the motivation to go out on a bang/ apparent recognition of past mistakes cause me to have confidence this time.

    I am optimistic about it as well. They will realize CR and SF were way more successful in part bc they didn’t have to rely on any of the other films. At least I hope. I like QoS and SP too, just not as much.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    FYEO is off the books as a favour to M so TLD and TMWTGG are the only times in Fleming when he is officially sent to kill someone as the object of the mission.

    The two kills to get his 00 are only alluded to obliquely in CR and there is no real evidence outside of Pearson to suggest these were direct assassinations any more than they were missions in which it became necessary to kill.
    Still, Bond acts as assassin in the short story "For Your Eyes Only". It's exactly what he's up to, for his boss even if Her Majesty's government isn't aware. And even if it wasn't a proper order from M, who resisted that for a couple reasons. That's Bond's usefulness as a double-oh, acting outside channels when needed.

    The Fleming content in Casino Royale is clear that Bond's assignments were to kill a chosen individual. To me that's also assassination. I should also say I'm not holding a strict meaning requiring a political or religious motive. Assassination as killing a targeted person is enough.

    Casino Royale. In conversation with Vesper.
    Bond frowned. 'It's not difficult to get a Double O number if you're prepared to kill people,' he said. 'That's all the meaning it has. It's nothing to be particularly proud of. I've got the corpses of a Japanese cipher expert in New York and a Norwegian double agent in Stockholm to thank for being a Double 0. Probably quite decent people. They just got caught up in the gale of the world like that Yugoslav that Tito bumped off. It's a confusing business but if it's one's profession, one does what one's told. How do you like the grated egg with your caviar?'
    Much later with Mathis.
    'Well, in the last few years I've killed two villains. The first was in New York — a Japanese cipher expert cracking our codes on the thirty sixth floor of the RCA building in the Rockefeller centre, where the Japs had their consulate. I took a room on the fortieth floor of the next door skyscraper and I could look across the street into his room and see him working. Then I got a colleague from our organization in New York and a couple of Remington thirty-thirty's with telescopic sights and silencers. We smuggled them up to my room and sat for days waiting for our chance. He shot at the man a second before me. His job was only to blast a hole through the windows so that I could shoot the Jap through it. They have tough windows at the Rockefeller centre to keep the noise out. It worked very well. As I expected, his bullet got deflected by the glass and went God knows where. But I shot immediately after him, through the hole he had made. I got the Jap in the mouth as he turned to gape at the broken window.'

    Bond smoked for a minute.

    'It was a pretty sound job. Nice and clean too. Three hundred yards away. No personal contact. The next time in Stockholm wasn't so pretty. I had to kill a Norwegian who was doubling against us for the Germans. He'd managed to get two of our men captured — probably bumped off for all I know. For various reasons it had to be an absolutely silent job. I chose the bedroom of his flat and a knife. And, well, he just didn't die very quickly.

    Bollocks I totally forgot that passage. I had in my head for a minute that that was from Pearson and the only reference in CR was with Vesper. Need to reread it again.

    Nonetheless congratulations Sir you win the million pound prize that has gone unclaimed for donkeys years for proving the Wizard to be demonstrably wrong about something.

    However the point still stands that it's extremely rare for Fleming to send Bond off on a pure assassination mission. The two kills for 00 status might even be testing whether or not he has the bollocks to pull the trigger if necessary.
    ToTheRight wrote: »
    It's not all he does, but assassin is an important item on OO7's resume . And witness "For Your Eyes Only" and "The Living Daylights", as mentioned. It's how he earns double-oh status.
    In discussion I've heard it proposed Bond is not a secret agent (though it's the title of Chapter 1 in Casino Royale), Bond is not a detective (he regularly does that kind of work), even Bond is not a spy (though he's advertised as Ian Fleming's Master Spy and often called a spy). He's all those things, and an assassin when called on.

    FYEO is off the books as a favour to M so TLD and TMWTGG are the only times in Fleming when he is officially sent to kill someone as the object of the mission.

    The two kills to get his 00 are only alluded to obliquely in CR and there is no real evidence outside of Pearson to suggest these were direct assassinations any more than they were missions in which it became necessary to kill.

    Bond is someone who investigates for the government to protect British interests who is sanctioned to kill if it becomes necessary in the course of said investigation not someone who is regularly sent out with the objective of killing someone. That's an important distinction to make

    It can occasionlly be his task to assassinate people but it's only a very small part of his overall role.

    This is another criticism I have of SP and the misunderstanding of the character by P&W and, at the risk of being on the receiving end of more of Gustav's histrionics, Mendes. It's mentioned numerous times that he is just an assassin as if that is the be all and end all of his job.

    Good Bond job description. I'd love to see Bond go back to investigating some situation for the British government.
    Seems Craig's Bond is so often sent to eliminate it becomes the expectation: "a clean kill or do you want to send a message?", "and terminate him, for Ronson", etc

    With all this time in between films, the writers could go back and easily re-read Fleming's entire Bond catalog to get a grasp on what 007 does for a living.

    Good call actually. Seems like P&W have read that passage in CR and become convinced that Bond is just an executioner. Fleming would be aghast at the above line from M about terminating Patrice for Ronson as that reduces MI6 and the 00 'program' (words cannot describe how much I despise the use of that word in SP. I think I loathe it worse than the stepbrother stuff) to SMERSH dishing out revenge killings.
  • SirHilaryBraySirHilaryBray Scotland
    Posts: 2,138
    FYEO is off the books as a favour to M so TLD and TMWTGG are the only times in Fleming when he is officially sent to kill someone as the object of the mission.

    The two kills to get his 00 are only alluded to obliquely in CR and there is no real evidence outside of Pearson to suggest these were direct assassinations any more than they were missions in which it became necessary to kill.
    Still, Bond acts as assassin in the short story "For Your Eyes Only". It's exactly what he's up to, for his boss even if Her Majesty's government isn't aware. And even if it wasn't a proper order from M, who resisted that for a couple reasons. That's Bond's usefulness as a double-oh, acting outside channels when needed.

    The Fleming content in Casino Royale is clear that Bond's assignments were to kill a chosen individual. To me that's also assassination. I should also say I'm not holding a strict meaning requiring a political or religious motive. Assassination as killing a targeted person is enough.

    Casino Royale. In conversation with Vesper.
    Bond frowned. 'It's not difficult to get a Double O number if you're prepared to kill people,' he said. 'That's all the meaning it has. It's nothing to be particularly proud of. I've got the corpses of a Japanese cipher expert in New York and a Norwegian double agent in Stockholm to thank for being a Double 0. Probably quite decent people. They just got caught up in the gale of the world like that Yugoslav that Tito bumped off. It's a confusing business but if it's one's profession, one does what one's told. How do you like the grated egg with your caviar?'
    Much later with Mathis.
    'Well, in the last few years I've killed two villains. The first was in New York — a Japanese cipher expert cracking our codes on the thirty sixth floor of the RCA building in the Rockefeller centre, where the Japs had their consulate. I took a room on the fortieth floor of the next door skyscraper and I could look across the street into his room and see him working. Then I got a colleague from our organization in New York and a couple of Remington thirty-thirty's with telescopic sights and silencers. We smuggled them up to my room and sat for days waiting for our chance. He shot at the man a second before me. His job was only to blast a hole through the windows so that I could shoot the Jap through it. They have tough windows at the Rockefeller centre to keep the noise out. It worked very well. As I expected, his bullet got deflected by the glass and went God knows where. But I shot immediately after him, through the hole he had made. I got the Jap in the mouth as he turned to gape at the broken window.'

    Bond smoked for a minute.

    'It was a pretty sound job. Nice and clean too. Three hundred yards away. No personal contact. The next time in Stockholm wasn't so pretty. I had to kill a Norwegian who was doubling against us for the Germans. He'd managed to get two of our men captured — probably bumped off for all I know. For various reasons it had to be an absolutely silent job. I chose the bedroom of his flat and a knife. And, well, he just didn't die very quickly.

    Bollocks I totally forgot that passage. I had in my head for a minute that that was from Pearson and the only reference in CR was with Vesper. Need to reread it again.

    Nonetheless congratulations Sir you win the million pound prize that has gone unclaimed for donkeys years for proving the Wizard to be demonstrably wrong about something.

    However the point still stands that it's extremely rare for Fleming to send Bond off on a pure assassination mission. The two kills for 00 status might even be testing whether or not he has the bollocks to pull the trigger if necessary.
    ToTheRight wrote: »
    It's not all he does, but assassin is an important item on OO7's resume . And witness "For Your Eyes Only" and "The Living Daylights", as mentioned. It's how he earns double-oh status.
    In discussion I've heard it proposed Bond is not a secret agent (though it's the title of Chapter 1 in Casino Royale), Bond is not a detective (he regularly does that kind of work), even Bond is not a spy (though he's advertised as Ian Fleming's Master Spy and often called a spy). He's all those things, and an assassin when called on.

    FYEO is off the books as a favour to M so TLD and TMWTGG are the only times in Fleming when he is officially sent to kill someone as the object of the mission.

    The two kills to get his 00 are only alluded to obliquely in CR and there is no real evidence outside of Pearson to suggest these were direct assassinations any more than they were missions in which it became necessary to kill.

    Bond is someone who investigates for the government to protect British interests who is sanctioned to kill if it becomes necessary in the course of said investigation not someone who is regularly sent out with the objective of killing someone. That's an important distinction to make

    It can occasionlly be his task to assassinate people but it's only a very small part of his overall role.

    This is another criticism I have of SP and the misunderstanding of the character by P&W and, at the risk of being on the receiving end of more of Gustav's histrionics, Mendes. It's mentioned numerous times that he is just an assassin as if that is the be all and end all of his job.

    Good Bond job description. I'd love to see Bond go back to investigating some situation for the British government.
    Seems Craig's Bond is so often sent to eliminate it becomes the expectation: "a clean kill or do you want to send a message?", "and terminate him, for Ronson", etc

    With all this time in between films, the writers could go back and easily re-read Fleming's entire Bond catalog to get a grasp on what 007 does for a living.

    Good call actually. Seems like P&W have read that passage in CR and become convinced that Bond is just an executioner. Fleming would be aghast at the above line from M about terminating Patrice for Ronson as that reduces MI6 and the 00 'program' (words cannot describe how much I despise the use of that word in SP. I think I loathe it worse than the stepbrother stuff) to SMERSH dishing out revenge killings.

    But on the other side of the argument he showed mercy to Blofeld and let Whyte (Spectre) and Green (QOS) decide their own fate. He also passed up on the opportunity to kill Silva (Skyfall).
  • Posts: 16,163
    FYEO is off the books as a favour to M so TLD and TMWTGG are the only times in Fleming when he is officially sent to kill someone as the object of the mission.

    The two kills to get his 00 are only alluded to obliquely in CR and there is no real evidence outside of Pearson to suggest these were direct assassinations any more than they were missions in which it became necessary to kill.
    Still, Bond acts as assassin in the short story "For Your Eyes Only". It's exactly what he's up to, for his boss even if Her Majesty's government isn't aware. And even if it wasn't a proper order from M, who resisted that for a couple reasons. That's Bond's usefulness as a double-oh, acting outside channels when needed.

    The Fleming content in Casino Royale is clear that Bond's assignments were to kill a chosen individual. To me that's also assassination. I should also say I'm not holding a strict meaning requiring a political or religious motive. Assassination as killing a targeted person is enough.

    Casino Royale. In conversation with Vesper.
    Bond frowned. 'It's not difficult to get a Double O number if you're prepared to kill people,' he said. 'That's all the meaning it has. It's nothing to be particularly proud of. I've got the corpses of a Japanese cipher expert in New York and a Norwegian double agent in Stockholm to thank for being a Double 0. Probably quite decent people. They just got caught up in the gale of the world like that Yugoslav that Tito bumped off. It's a confusing business but if it's one's profession, one does what one's told. How do you like the grated egg with your caviar?'
    Much later with Mathis.
    'Well, in the last few years I've killed two villains. The first was in New York — a Japanese cipher expert cracking our codes on the thirty sixth floor of the RCA building in the Rockefeller centre, where the Japs had their consulate. I took a room on the fortieth floor of the next door skyscraper and I could look across the street into his room and see him working. Then I got a colleague from our organization in New York and a couple of Remington thirty-thirty's with telescopic sights and silencers. We smuggled them up to my room and sat for days waiting for our chance. He shot at the man a second before me. His job was only to blast a hole through the windows so that I could shoot the Jap through it. They have tough windows at the Rockefeller centre to keep the noise out. It worked very well. As I expected, his bullet got deflected by the glass and went God knows where. But I shot immediately after him, through the hole he had made. I got the Jap in the mouth as he turned to gape at the broken window.'

    Bond smoked for a minute.

    'It was a pretty sound job. Nice and clean too. Three hundred yards away. No personal contact. The next time in Stockholm wasn't so pretty. I had to kill a Norwegian who was doubling against us for the Germans. He'd managed to get two of our men captured — probably bumped off for all I know. For various reasons it had to be an absolutely silent job. I chose the bedroom of his flat and a knife. And, well, he just didn't die very quickly.

    Bollocks I totally forgot that passage. I had in my head for a minute that that was from Pearson and the only reference in CR was with Vesper. Need to reread it again.

    Nonetheless congratulations Sir you win the million pound prize that has gone unclaimed for donkeys years for proving the Wizard to be demonstrably wrong about something.

    However the point still stands that it's extremely rare for Fleming to send Bond off on a pure assassination mission. The two kills for 00 status might even be testing whether or not he has the bollocks to pull the trigger if necessary.
    ToTheRight wrote: »
    It's not all he does, but assassin is an important item on OO7's resume . And witness "For Your Eyes Only" and "The Living Daylights", as mentioned. It's how he earns double-oh status.
    In discussion I've heard it proposed Bond is not a secret agent (though it's the title of Chapter 1 in Casino Royale), Bond is not a detective (he regularly does that kind of work), even Bond is not a spy (though he's advertised as Ian Fleming's Master Spy and often called a spy). He's all those things, and an assassin when called on.

    FYEO is off the books as a favour to M so TLD and TMWTGG are the only times in Fleming when he is officially sent to kill someone as the object of the mission.

    The two kills to get his 00 are only alluded to obliquely in CR and there is no real evidence outside of Pearson to suggest these were direct assassinations any more than they were missions in which it became necessary to kill.

    Bond is someone who investigates for the government to protect British interests who is sanctioned to kill if it becomes necessary in the course of said investigation not someone who is regularly sent out with the objective of killing someone. That's an important distinction to make

    It can occasionlly be his task to assassinate people but it's only a very small part of his overall role.

    This is another criticism I have of SP and the misunderstanding of the character by P&W and, at the risk of being on the receiving end of more of Gustav's histrionics, Mendes. It's mentioned numerous times that he is just an assassin as if that is the be all and end all of his job.

    Good Bond job description. I'd love to see Bond go back to investigating some situation for the British government.
    Seems Craig's Bond is so often sent to eliminate it becomes the expectation: "a clean kill or do you want to send a message?", "and terminate him, for Ronson", etc

    With all this time in between films, the writers could go back and easily re-read Fleming's entire Bond catalog to get a grasp on what 007 does for a living.

    Good call actually. Seems like P&W have read that passage in CR and become convinced that Bond is just an executioner. Fleming would be aghast at the above line from M about terminating Patrice for Ronson as that reduces MI6 and the 00 'program' (words cannot describe how much I despise the use of that word in SP. I think I loathe it worse than the stepbrother stuff) to SMERSH dishing out revenge killings.

    Referring to it as a "program" rather than the Double-O-Section feels wrong. I wonder who came up with that.
    If I recall, Fleming's Bond had a strong respect for the fact he could kill well. Although he was good at it, he didn't particularly like that part of his job. He wouldn't do it if he really didn't have to. In TLD story and film he shoots the gun out of Trigger/Kara's hand. Even later in the film when sent to eliminate Pushkin, he prefers to follow his instinct and investigate.
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    edited November 2017 Posts: 23,883
    The 'assassin' remarks in SP were poorly conceived as well. I noticed it on first viewing and found it a bit unsettling, especially since it was coming from White and Blofeld, two folks who are far more murderous than Bond (despite White's apparent dislike for killing "Women!!!" & "Children!!!!").

    I still contend however that the way Bond has been portrayed over the past few films is more superhero than paid Govt. spy, policeman, or however else you may want to think of him -with backstory, childhood 'coming of age' cave & blatant heroism themes etc.. As I said, I'm quite sure it's an attempt to play into the current fascination with all things Marvel/DC & it's been quite successful for EON to date.

    I still believe the next outing will continue on that path with a Logan'esque finale (I don't mean the same conclusion as that film, but rather a similar path of desolation, set some years after the events of SP. A film where he comes to terms with his life choices). It's the logical path, and gives Craig some meat to delve into, which accounts for his interest in returning. I can't see him jumping up and down for the TSWLM/GF route, because for all intents and purposes they tried that already with SP, to mixed results.
  • It's not all he does, but assassin is an important item on OO7's resume . And witness "For Your Eyes Only" and "The Living Daylights", as mentioned. It's how he earns double-oh status.
    In discussion I've heard it proposed Bond is not a secret agent (though it's the title of Chapter 1 in Casino Royale), Bond is not a detective (he regularly does that kind of work), even Bond is not a spy (though he's advertised as Ian Fleming's Master Spy and often called a spy). He's all those things, and an assassin when called on.

    FYEO is off the books as a favour to M so TLD and TMWTGG are the only times in Fleming when he is officially sent to kill someone as the object of the mission.

    The two kills to get his 00 are only alluded to obliquely in CR and there is no real evidence outside of Pearson to suggest these were direct assassinations any more than they were missions in which it became necessary to kill.

    Bond is someone who investigates for the government to protect British interests who is sanctioned to kill if it becomes necessary in the course of said investigation not someone who is regularly sent out with the objective of killing someone. That's an important distinction to make

    It can occasionlly be his task to assassinate people but it's only a very small part of his overall role.

    This is another criticism I have of SP and the misunderstanding of the character by P&W and, at the risk of being on the receiving end of more of Gustav's histrionics, Mendes. It's mentioned numerous times that he is just an assassin as if that is the be all and end all of his job.

    Thank you for taking the time for this apt job description for Mr. Fleming's creation. I am also completely fed up with this assassin and 00 program and whatever stuff.
  • ClarkDevlinClarkDevlin Martinis, Girls and Guns
    Posts: 15,423
    Bond, to dress up on more confidence and feel lesser remorse, was draining the life of his Whiskey bottle if I remember correctly in order to take the shot in TLD. When his field colleague, Captain Sender (Saunders' counterpart in here) threatened to report that Bond was getting derailed from the usual training resources, Bond told him the following:

    "Look, my friend. I've got to commit a murder tonight. Not you. Me. So, be a good chap and stuff it. You can tell them anything you like when it's over. You think I like this job? Having the Double-O number and so on? I'd be happy if you get me sacked from the 00-Section, so I could settle down and make a snug nest of papers as an ordinary staffer. Right?"

    Bond did what he had to do and when he had to. He didn't like killing but he wasn't afraid to carry it out.
  • Ottofuse8 wrote: »
    If the craig era has proven anything, its that it will buck established trends in the franchise. I have full confidence in eon's approach for this film.

    You are of course absolutely right, because with the amount of creativity and talent currently housed at EON they much more prefer to cater unconditionally simply to current fashion trends instead of wondering what exactly it was, that made this franchise survive for some 50+ years. Presumably they will cling to the melodrama train until two movies after the trend has already fed up everyone and his brother.
  • FYEO is off the books as a favour to M so TLD and TMWTGG are the only times in Fleming when he is officially sent to kill someone as the object of the mission.

    The two kills to get his 00 are only alluded to obliquely in CR and there is no real evidence outside of Pearson to suggest these were direct assassinations any more than they were missions in which it became necessary to kill.
    Still, Bond acts as assassin in the short story "For Your Eyes Only". It's exactly what he's up to, for his boss even if Her Majesty's government isn't aware. And even if it wasn't a proper order from M, who resisted that for a couple reasons. That's Bond's usefulness as a double-oh, acting outside channels when needed.

    The Fleming content in Casino Royale is clear that Bond's assignments were to kill a chosen individual. To me that's also assassination. I should also say I'm not holding a strict meaning requiring a political or religious motive. Assassination as killing a targeted person is enough.

    Casino Royale. In conversation with Vesper.
    Bond frowned. 'It's not difficult to get a Double O number if you're prepared to kill people,' he said. 'That's all the meaning it has. It's nothing to be particularly proud of. I've got the corpses of a Japanese cipher expert in New York and a Norwegian double agent in Stockholm to thank for being a Double 0. Probably quite decent people. They just got caught up in the gale of the world like that Yugoslav that Tito bumped off. It's a confusing business but if it's one's profession, one does what one's told. How do you like the grated egg with your caviar?'
    Much later with Mathis.
    'Well, in the last few years I've killed two villains. The first was in New York — a Japanese cipher expert cracking our codes on the thirty sixth floor of the RCA building in the Rockefeller centre, where the Japs had their consulate. I took a room on the fortieth floor of the next door skyscraper and I could look across the street into his room and see him working. Then I got a colleague from our organization in New York and a couple of Remington thirty-thirty's with telescopic sights and silencers. We smuggled them up to my room and sat for days waiting for our chance. He shot at the man a second before me. His job was only to blast a hole through the windows so that I could shoot the Jap through it. They have tough windows at the Rockefeller centre to keep the noise out. It worked very well. As I expected, his bullet got deflected by the glass and went God knows where. But I shot immediately after him, through the hole he had made. I got the Jap in the mouth as he turned to gape at the broken window.'

    Bond smoked for a minute.

    'It was a pretty sound job. Nice and clean too. Three hundred yards away. No personal contact. The next time in Stockholm wasn't so pretty. I had to kill a Norwegian who was doubling against us for the Germans. He'd managed to get two of our men captured — probably bumped off for all I know. For various reasons it had to be an absolutely silent job. I chose the bedroom of his flat and a knife. And, well, he just didn't die very quickly.

    Bollocks I totally forgot that passage. I had in my head for a minute that that was from Pearson and the only reference in CR was with Vesper. Need to reread it again.

    Nonetheless congratulations Sir you win the million pound prize that has gone unclaimed for donkeys years for proving the Wizard to be demonstrably wrong about something.

    However the point still stands that it's extremely rare for Fleming to send Bond off on a pure assassination mission. The two kills for 00 status might even be testing whether or not he has the bollocks to pull the trigger if necessary.
    ToTheRight wrote: »
    It's not all he does, but assassin is an important item on OO7's resume . And witness "For Your Eyes Only" and "The Living Daylights", as mentioned. It's how he earns double-oh status.
    In discussion I've heard it proposed Bond is not a secret agent (though it's the title of Chapter 1 in Casino Royale), Bond is not a detective (he regularly does that kind of work), even Bond is not a spy (though he's advertised as Ian Fleming's Master Spy and often called a spy). He's all those things, and an assassin when called on.

    FYEO is off the books as a favour to M so TLD and TMWTGG are the only times in Fleming when he is officially sent to kill someone as the object of the mission.

    The two kills to get his 00 are only alluded to obliquely in CR and there is no real evidence outside of Pearson to suggest these were direct assassinations any more than they were missions in which it became necessary to kill.

    Bond is someone who investigates for the government to protect British interests who is sanctioned to kill if it becomes necessary in the course of said investigation not someone who is regularly sent out with the objective of killing someone. That's an important distinction to make

    It can occasionlly be his task to assassinate people but it's only a very small part of his overall role.

    This is another criticism I have of SP and the misunderstanding of the character by P&W and, at the risk of being on the receiving end of more of Gustav's histrionics, Mendes. It's mentioned numerous times that he is just an assassin as if that is the be all and end all of his job.

    Good Bond job description. I'd love to see Bond go back to investigating some situation for the British government.
    Seems Craig's Bond is so often sent to eliminate it becomes the expectation: "a clean kill or do you want to send a message?", "and terminate him, for Ronson", etc

    With all this time in between films, the writers could go back and easily re-read Fleming's entire Bond catalog to get a grasp on what 007 does for a living.

    Good call actually. Seems like P&W have read that passage in CR and become convinced that Bond is just an executioner. Fleming would be aghast at the above line from M about terminating Patrice for Ronson as that reduces MI6 and the 00 'program' (words cannot describe how much I despise the use of that word in SP. I think I loathe it worse than the stepbrother stuff) to SMERSH dishing out revenge killings.

    But on the other side of the argument he showed mercy to Blofeld and let Whyte (Spectre) and Green (QOS) decide their own fate. He also passed up on the opportunity to kill Silva (Skyfall).

    White is already destined to die from poisoning ( which in a only slightly more intelligent written script would beg the question why they chose to send some hit men after him, but since it's only SP ...) and to send someone with nothing but a can of oil into a desert is not really my idea of let him choose his own fate.
    P.S.: Bonds inner turmoil in FYEO when he is sent to snuff some people of whom he knows, that they killed an old, peaceful couple just for profit actually just tell us anything about Bonds mental constitution as an "assassin". This man really needs a convincing reason to kill otherwise he just isn't able to handle it psychologically. Those two kills in second world war fit that description. Their dead probably saved dozens, if not thousands of lives.
  • Posts: 1,031
    I hope for some news soon ... regurgitating the hatred towards Mendes and Spectre gets tiring after awhile.
  • edited November 2017 Posts: 11,425
    May be the code name theory explains all this confusion. Fleming was simply writing about a different person to the one played by Craig!

    Tamahori had it sorted.
  • Posts: 1,031
    Getafix wrote: »
    May be the code name theory explains all this confusion. Fleming was simply writing about a different person!

    Code name theory?
  • ClarkDevlinClarkDevlin Martinis, Girls and Guns
    Posts: 15,423
    Oh yeah, Fleming's man was called Peregrine Carruthers.
  • Posts: 1,031
    Oh yeah, Fleming's man was called Peregrine Carruthers.

    'It was all the confirmation she needed that Mary Smith had, through carelessness, signed Sir Peregrine Carruthers' s death warrant.'
  • dominicgreenedominicgreene The Eternal QOS Defender
    Posts: 1,756
    Bond, to dress up on more confidence and feel lesser remorse, was draining the life of his Whiskey bottle if I remember correctly in order to take the shot in TLD. When his field colleague, Captain Sender (Saunders' counterpart in here) threatened to report that Bond was getting derailed from the usual training resources, Bond told him the following:

    "Look, my friend. I've got to commit a murder tonight. Not you. Me. So, be a good chap and stuff it. You can tell them anything you like when it's over. You think I like this job? Having the Double-O number and so on? I'd be happy if you get me sacked from the 00-Section, so I could settle down and make a snug nest of papers as an ordinary staffer. Right?"

    Bond did what he had to do and when he had to. He didn't like killing but he wasn't afraid to carry it out.

    Great bit of dialogue.
  • CASINOROYALECASINOROYALE Somewhere hot
    Posts: 1,003
    Pretty simple!

    Connery to Brosnan, Bond was a spy.

    Craig is just an assassin. A government hit man. His job is to kill. Casino Royale was the only film where he actually did some spy work.
  • JamesBondKenyaJamesBondKenya Danny Boyle laughs to himself
    Posts: 2,730
    Pretty simple!

    Connery to Brosnan, Bond was a spy.

    Craig is just an assassin. A government hit man. His job is to kill. Casino Royale was the only film where he actually did some spy work.

    Connery was a Spy, and Dalton is a Spy, brosnan, moore, and Lazenby are just there for the ride
  • Pretty simple!

    Connery to Brosnan, Bond was a spy.

    Craig is just an assassin. A government hit man. His job is to kill. Casino Royale was the only film where he actually did some spy work.

    The past 9 years were a real real hard hard life for Bond fans.....if I read this *sigh*.
  • CASINOROYALECASINOROYALE Somewhere hot
    edited November 2017 Posts: 1,003
    Pretty simple!

    Connery to Brosnan, Bond was a spy.

    Craig is just an assassin. A government hit man. His job is to kill. Casino Royale was the only film where he actually did some spy work.

    The past 9 years were a real real hard hard life for Bond fans.....if I read this *sigh*.

    I love Daniel Craig! I just feel like the era of Bond being a spy is gone. I miss that. Craig just feels like a hit man at this point. Is he really that different when compared to Jason Bourne?

    Hopefully the next movie has him being a secret agent again.


    What did M say in Spectre

    “Find him and kill him”

    Not, “Find him. Follow him. Find out all you can about the organization he’s working for. Kill him and bring that organization down Bond. They are responsible for everything..”
  • RemingtonRemington I'll do anything for a woman with a knife.
    Posts: 1,534
    In CR and QOS, Bond was a spy. In SF and SP, he was a hitman. Killing isn't his job. It's just part of it.
  • royale65royale65 Caustic misanthrope reporting for duty.
    Posts: 4,423
    "Find him and kill him"

    ... which leads Bond to SPECTRE and Blofeld. And he does shut them down.
  • When was he last in disguise? (instead of just pretending to be someone else).

    I don't think we can call him a real spy till he's a Zorro, too.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    FYEO is off the books as a favour to M so TLD and TMWTGG are the only times in Fleming when he is officially sent to kill someone as the object of the mission.

    The two kills to get his 00 are only alluded to obliquely in CR and there is no real evidence outside of Pearson to suggest these were direct assassinations any more than they were missions in which it became necessary to kill.
    Still, Bond acts as assassin in the short story "For Your Eyes Only". It's exactly what he's up to, for his boss even if Her Majesty's government isn't aware. And even if it wasn't a proper order from M, who resisted that for a couple reasons. That's Bond's usefulness as a double-oh, acting outside channels when needed.

    The Fleming content in Casino Royale is clear that Bond's assignments were to kill a chosen individual. To me that's also assassination. I should also say I'm not holding a strict meaning requiring a political or religious motive. Assassination as killing a targeted person is enough.

    Casino Royale. In conversation with Vesper.
    Bond frowned. 'It's not difficult to get a Double O number if you're prepared to kill people,' he said. 'That's all the meaning it has. It's nothing to be particularly proud of. I've got the corpses of a Japanese cipher expert in New York and a Norwegian double agent in Stockholm to thank for being a Double 0. Probably quite decent people. They just got caught up in the gale of the world like that Yugoslav that Tito bumped off. It's a confusing business but if it's one's profession, one does what one's told. How do you like the grated egg with your caviar?'
    Much later with Mathis.
    'Well, in the last few years I've killed two villains. The first was in New York — a Japanese cipher expert cracking our codes on the thirty sixth floor of the RCA building in the Rockefeller centre, where the Japs had their consulate. I took a room on the fortieth floor of the next door skyscraper and I could look across the street into his room and see him working. Then I got a colleague from our organization in New York and a couple of Remington thirty-thirty's with telescopic sights and silencers. We smuggled them up to my room and sat for days waiting for our chance. He shot at the man a second before me. His job was only to blast a hole through the windows so that I could shoot the Jap through it. They have tough windows at the Rockefeller centre to keep the noise out. It worked very well. As I expected, his bullet got deflected by the glass and went God knows where. But I shot immediately after him, through the hole he had made. I got the Jap in the mouth as he turned to gape at the broken window.'

    Bond smoked for a minute.

    'It was a pretty sound job. Nice and clean too. Three hundred yards away. No personal contact. The next time in Stockholm wasn't so pretty. I had to kill a Norwegian who was doubling against us for the Germans. He'd managed to get two of our men captured — probably bumped off for all I know. For various reasons it had to be an absolutely silent job. I chose the bedroom of his flat and a knife. And, well, he just didn't die very quickly.

    Bollocks I totally forgot that passage. I had in my head for a minute that that was from Pearson and the only reference in CR was with Vesper. Need to reread it again.

    Nonetheless congratulations Sir you win the million pound prize that has gone unclaimed for donkeys years for proving the Wizard to be demonstrably wrong about something.

    However the point still stands that it's extremely rare for Fleming to send Bond off on a pure assassination mission. The two kills for 00 status might even be testing whether or not he has the bollocks to pull the trigger if necessary.
    ToTheRight wrote: »
    It's not all he does, but assassin is an important item on OO7's resume . And witness "For Your Eyes Only" and "The Living Daylights", as mentioned. It's how he earns double-oh status.
    In discussion I've heard it proposed Bond is not a secret agent (though it's the title of Chapter 1 in Casino Royale), Bond is not a detective (he regularly does that kind of work), even Bond is not a spy (though he's advertised as Ian Fleming's Master Spy and often called a spy). He's all those things, and an assassin when called on.

    FYEO is off the books as a favour to M so TLD and TMWTGG are the only times in Fleming when he is officially sent to kill someone as the object of the mission.

    The two kills to get his 00 are only alluded to obliquely in CR and there is no real evidence outside of Pearson to suggest these were direct assassinations any more than they were missions in which it became necessary to kill.

    Bond is someone who investigates for the government to protect British interests who is sanctioned to kill if it becomes necessary in the course of said investigation not someone who is regularly sent out with the objective of killing someone. That's an important distinction to make

    It can occasionlly be his task to assassinate people but it's only a very small part of his overall role.

    This is another criticism I have of SP and the misunderstanding of the character by P&W and, at the risk of being on the receiving end of more of Gustav's histrionics, Mendes. It's mentioned numerous times that he is just an assassin as if that is the be all and end all of his job.

    Good Bond job description. I'd love to see Bond go back to investigating some situation for the British government.
    Seems Craig's Bond is so often sent to eliminate it becomes the expectation: "a clean kill or do you want to send a message?", "and terminate him, for Ronson", etc

    With all this time in between films, the writers could go back and easily re-read Fleming's entire Bond catalog to get a grasp on what 007 does for a living.

    Good call actually. Seems like P&W have read that passage in CR and become convinced that Bond is just an executioner. Fleming would be aghast at the above line from M about terminating Patrice for Ronson as that reduces MI6 and the 00 'program' (words cannot describe how much I despise the use of that word in SP. I think I loathe it worse than the stepbrother stuff) to SMERSH dishing out revenge killings.

    But on the other side of the argument he showed mercy to Blofeld and let Whyte (Spectre) and Green (QOS) decide their own fate. He also passed up on the opportunity to kill Silva (Skyfall).

    White is already destined to die from poisoning ( which in a only slightly more intelligent written script would beg the question why they chose to send some hit men after him, but since it's only SP ...) and to send someone with nothing but a can of oil into a desert is not really my idea of let him choose his own fate.
    P.S.: Bonds inner turmoil in FYEO when he is sent to snuff some people of whom he knows, that they killed an old, peaceful couple just for profit actually just tell us anything about Bonds mental constitution as an "assassin". This man really needs a convincing reason to kill otherwise he just isn't able to handle it psychologically. Those two kills in second world war fit that description. Their dead probably saved dozens, if not thousands of lives.

    Let's not forget the end of TMWTGG when instead of just putting a bullet into Scaramanga like the cold blooded assassin we are told he is in SF and SP, he dithers and shows a bit of mercy to let his quarry have a final prayer and very nearly gets himself killed.
  • It seems 20th Century Fox is in talks with Disney. Disney wants to buy most of the company's strongholds, including the remaining Marvel titles, 20th Century Fox global movie distribution, the home entertainment branch, the TV Channels, everything basically: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/06/21st-century-fox-has-been-holding-talks-to-sell-most-of-company-to-disney-sources.html

    As you know 20th Century Fox currently is the home entertainment distributor of the James Bond films, making renegotiation about this deal important as well. Ooowh, and 20th Century Fox is one of the parties vying for the global distribution rights of the actual Bond films.

    I call this substantial news.
  • ClarkDevlinClarkDevlin Martinis, Girls and Guns
    Posts: 15,423
    I was expecting that to be honest. Even though Bond won't enter their territory, that much I am sure of, Disney eventually will buy the entire Hollywood. They're that much of a monster company all in one.
Sign In or Register to comment.