It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
It was exactly that - indulgence on Craig's part. For the fans of NTTD, apparently seeing Bond die was the most perfect, fitting way ever to end his tenure, and that an ending where Bond sails off into the sunset alive instead would have been an absolute tragedy of epic proportions. How they coped with the endings of the previous Bond films beats me.
The decision to kill off Bond is something I will never get on board with, no matter that Bond can always be rebooted once again (yawn) into another brand new shiny DC/Marvel-esque timeline.
You can say you don’t like something without having a go at those who do.
To clarify, I don't think Bond 26 will try and emulate The Batman's tone necessarily. Batman and Bond are different characters and their franchises are different too. If it does take influence from The Batman it'll be through more broad ideas - general story concepts, themes, embracing a more stripped back direction etc. (even for practical reasons they'll need to do the latter. The final Craig films had bloated budgets and didn't pay off for them as they'd hoped).
A few fans have said they'd want a whole film more along the lines of the Cuba sequence in NTTD. I get where they're coming from. It's worth noting however that the sequence is also full of Bond trope subversions (Paloma ultimately being a competent agent despite how ditzy she initially appears, SPECTRE's meeting not being in a stuffy boardroom but a bonga bonga party) and has some rather dark moments in it that wouldn't look out of place in a Horror film. It's not just light hearted, but uses effective contrasts of tone and brings something new to the table. I'm not sure I'd want an entire movie of Bond simply running about from set piece to set piece in some sort of 'romp', the film constantly trying to outdo itself in terms of scale but ultimately without much to invest in. There are already plenty of films like this, most lesser than Bond. I'd rather that these fun action/set pieces be tied together with something a bit more narratively fresh.
Matera, for me. Could we still have Paloma in it, though? ;)
+1
Where am I having a go? I'm saying I don't like the ending but I know others absolutely love it, which still baffles me even now.
Different people like different things. Who knew.
It's hard to disagree with this.
But whatever mess the series is in, it is what it is and I expect the best way to go ahead is make Bond films like they used to. Singular adventures, without any reference to the silly little fact that they killed the character off in the previous film.
Considering every Bond film bar OHMSS has a fairly upbeat ending, and we love Bond surviving no matter what the odds (an essential part of the cinematic character), then yes I am surprised Bond fans are loving seeing Bond get killed off.
People like different things, of course they do. General cinema goers with no invested interest in the Bond franchise - no, that doesn't surprise me if they are rejoicing at Bond being killed off. Critics - no, that doesn't surprise me either. Different people like different things, like you said.
But die hard Bond fans loving, gushing, celebrating to the rafters at seeing their hero die on screen? This does surprise me. It doesn't make any sense.
If EON only knew how happy it would make Bond fans seeing their hero get killed off, they should have done it a long time ago, and then repeat it with every new actor in the role. Because this is what really makes Bond fans tick, right? We no longer want to see Bond survive anymore.
Frank Galvin : Your honor, with all due respect: if you're going to try my case for me, I wish you wouldn't lose it.
Exactly, I can totally understand why some people weren’t keen on it -some fans especially- and it perhaps wasn’t the Bond film the world needed at that moment in time, but the ending worked for me. No one loved seeing him die, but that was rather the point.
Die hard Bond fans are also different people who see the films differently. Mental I know.
But it is for a completely different reason. Those who liked the ending were upset to see Bond die, but in the framework that the filmmakers intended. In other words the gambit worked, you bought in emotionally, which works out to your benefit. I don't want to speak for others, but it seems, like with me, those who disliked the ending didn't care for the death because it didn't work as intended, and felt as though we were being overly manipulated, rather than genuinely earning our emotions. No right/wrong, obviously, in the end it is visceral and any argument in this instance works backwards from that fact. And of course, I don't think I'll ever feel satisfied with Bond dying on screen.
Like I said, if EON only knew how many Bond fans would be ecstatic at seeing Bond die, they should have done it years ago, and many times over.
Now that is a great movie. Newman at his best.
Good point. The story wasn't designed to come out during a pandemic.
That’s fine but it’s not really what we’re talking about, which is someone being baffled at the idea that anyone could possibly enjoy that ending because of the character of Bond dying. I was explaining why it works for a lot of people, as you also pointed out.
And yes, I’m sure a fair few people had the problem with it you describe, and that’s totally fine, it’s a shame it didn’t work for them. I don’t think it’s the only reason that people didn’t like it: some folks clearly just didn’t want to see him die no matter what, as pointed out above by people who say as much (and as you yourself say in this very post). My point in replying to livingroyale was agreeing that it’s not too hard to see it from different points of view, and it’s not really baffling that there are different takes on it.
Yeah I tend to imagine that if they’d started making it in early 2020 rather than finishing it by then, it would have maybe been a bit more of an upbeat crowd pleaser: I’d be interested to hear the producers’ thoughts on that and whether they think they would have changed it if they’d known. It’ll be interesting to see what tone MI7 takes considering it was made in that timeframe.
A while back someone wondered why so few people where interested in talking about Bond having a child in NTTD - well, when the reset button is pushed so quickly afterwards, what is there to talk about? Things just tend to become meaningless, or at least that's how I feel about these things. With separate What If? continuities anything goes; Bond can have a child, become a traitor, lose him arm and have it replaced with a cyborg limb, fail to save the world and see it destroyed in nuclear Armageddon, etc. I feel the same way about the movies made about super-heroes that are primarily defined by their comic book continuity - a lot of it fails to reach me because it lacks weight.
I'll disagree.
NTTD is self-contained, even beyond Craig films 1-4, by taking place 5 years after his retirement. There's no expectation that will happen again anytime soon, if ever.
On that point alone, for the general audience and those following more closely there shouldn't be any confusion when a younger Bond shows up for duty as 007. There should not be thoughts or speculation that Bond is returning from retirement. Or from the dead. He's just Bond as he is for the latest mission.
And during his tenure as 007 (I'm not counting the flip request from Nomi on the plane) and for all the actors, he never did die on a mission.
Credit to the filmmakers is my thinking for how they linked the story in subtle ways to Bond's (and Fleming's and the original producers') WWII origins, and the deeper ethos of sacrifice and duty and even family. What was worth fighting for. The incredible real world delays due to the pandemic just added to those themes, giving an unexpected relevance. They really made it count.
So to me the the franchise is strong as ever, it's a great time to be a Bond fan, and the future is bright.
If a certain section of the fanbase are so thrilled at seeing Bond die, its a shame we never saw Connery get killed on a cruise liner by Kidd and Wint, or Moore fall to his death off the golden gate bridge, or Dalton setting himself on fire along with Sanchez. That poor section of the fanbase, the ones who want to see Bond die, really missed an opportunity there.
EON take note. More Bond deaths next time please, as this is what a certain section of the fanbase now demand.
That sort of is every single Bond film up until 2005 though, isn’t it? They’ve never had continuity. Bond and Blofeld meet face to face in one film, and Blofeld fails to recognise him in the next one (because he’s wearing glasses?) etc. The Craig ones are the only ones to have proper continuity.
Yes, I’ve always said, if you’re happy with a joke it’s worth repeating it at least three or four times ;)
‘It’s a shame that those fans who still wet themselves with pleasure that LTK was made didn’t get to see Felix lose a leg in every single film from Dr No onwards’ etc.