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He pretty much dies at the end of FRWL; Fleming just changed his mind.
What is the issue with the child then? Is it okay for him to have a child if he didn't know about it, as in YOLT? Where is the line drawn, and what's the actual problem?
I guess if you don't believe what you're being shown then you can never really engage, but I'd say Bond always requires suspension of disbelief otherwise you'll get nowhere. Even CR has a completely insane plot (a secret agent getting sent to gamble a baddie into submission?) but unless you swallow what they're telling you, you can never have fun.
According to Some Kind of Hero P&W had started to look at CR as Brosnan's 5th, but Brosnan was gone in 2004.
@slide_99
This is exactly the kind of arrogance that gives the "Bond fan" a bad name. Why would these people, who know more about making Bond films than you and I, apologize for delivering some of the most financially and critically successful Bond films ever made with one of the most committed actors ever in the series?
We are still waiting for a formal apology from those who clogged our NTTD threads with caustic comments without actually having seen the film.
From Russia With Love ended with Bond dying of poison. Had Fleming not changed his mind, that would have been it.
Bond is believed dead at the end of You Only Live Twice, but they did that one already.
Leiter dies in the original draft of Live and Let Die, US editor persuaded a change, but it is still presented as a death right until it isn’t, rather than being completely dropped.
This is the kind of thing I hate seeing in fandom. Is there some rulebook that Fleming wrote before he died? Did he stipulate that Bond should never become aware that he’s a father, or that a pregnancy actually came to term just because Fleming never went there? Is it just an assumption that “if Fleming didn’t do it, then he was opposed to it?”
Is there a Fleming religion at play? Are his books being treated like sacred scrolls or holy bibles that we have to interpret in a very strict orthodox manner? Is Bond wearing a windsor knot sacrilegious because Fleming once wrote that Bond didn’t trust people with windsor knots?
No problem here. I was just pointing out that Bond didn't have a child in the books. Certainly not one he met like in NTTD. He didn't know that KS was carrying his child, but we never found out if the child was born, or anything about it. It's not the same as in the last movie, which is where the comparison came from.
I don't think you can say he 'pretty much died', if he didn't die. I'd say death is pretty much a black and white thing, there's no grey area really. It's like saying "he died, a little bit". It doesn't work.
He either died or he didn't, and he didn't. I know you like to offer counter-arguments on here, but at least allow me this one fact. Fleming didn't kill Bond off.
I'm glad the writers are bold enough to go beyond Fleming. You can't milk the same cow for over 60 years.
But he did in FRWL. Fleming said so and then he retconned the story when he decided to continue with the character.
Sometimes my sarcasm doesn't come through over the interwebs. I don't expect or want any kind of apology.
Obviously not, because they did. They can do anything they want, and we can all choose to like it, or not.
One day, they might even send him into space!
. . . erm
I don't remember any Uncle Bruce in the Fleming novels, so I suppose Bond having a kid named Mathilde is alright then.
In some ways the Craig era evokes Gardner more than Fleming to me. I could see John Gardner coming up with a SKYFALL type story or NTTD. That isn't really a bad thing, IMO. I'd still like to see some of the Gardner titles used for future films.
A delightful Bind film!
One of his novels should be given the chance at a cinematic Bond adventure. I’d pick either Icebreaker or Nobody Lives Forever. Especially if MGW isn’t going to be in charge for much longer it seems. Ironically, some of his Bond ideas were lifted after Gardner’s novels were published.
I liked both of those novels, too. Great titles as well.
Blasphemy! I am a true believer in all things Ian Fleming, the Holy One, and I condemn to Hell any disbeliever!
The power of Fleming compels you! The power of Fleming compels you!
If there’s no problem… I don’t know what point you’re trying to make, sorry.
In the books he fathered a child. In the movies he fathered a child. There are differences between the movies and the books, that’s just how it’s always worked.
He did kill him off… until he didn’t. Much like Conan Doyle; and indeed Eon will (in a slightly different way: they’re not going to undo the death, just start a new continuity).
I’m not sure if you’re just making counter arguments for the sake of it or if you’re trying to say something in this conversation about where the films go.
James Bond will return.
maybe the child was died of miscarriage, We didn't even know the gender of the child if she's a boy or girl.
But in the film, she's already a 5-year old girl.
Fleming never made it explicit, we just knew that Kissy was pregnant that's all, we never get to know if the child survived, in the book it was just a fetus, in the film it's already a grown up kid.
Because Bond was not meant to be a father.
She was 5 years old but Bond wasn't exactly a father to her so the parallels are the same. He cooked her breakfast, saved her from the bad guy and then died to protect her all within 24 hours of meeting her for the first time.
He wasn't going to Sunday League games and threatening her suitors with violence if they mistreated her on school disco night.
It's all a matter of perspective. I think a lot of people are getting hung up on the smaller details as if they're the big picture (and I'm not NTTD's biggest fan for numerous other reasons).
I don’t get the point, I’m afraid. Is the idea that he can create a child but meeting them would destroy his quintessential Bondness? Fleming was going for the poignancy of having a child and never even knowing, which is a fine angle; the films went for the more dramatic angle of seeing what effect that would have on the character. I genuinely can’t see why only one of these is supposedly a valid route.
Bear in mind that Raymond Benson also wrote a story in which Bond met Kissy’s child many years ago; was this unacceptable too? Should Bond really have so many tight parameters on what he can do?
So, what? Because Fleming never got around to writing a page where Bond finds out he’s a father, that means that scenario is completely verboten in future writings? That’s a ridiculous argument.
It's just my opinion, but sorry to those who've been confused by this statement.
I'd say you're half right. Bond can be rather fantastical and I'm generally pretty good at going along with villains in weird lairs, outlandish plots... hell even Bond going into space. But I think the films have to earn the audience's suspension of disbelief by engaging them. Otherwise these concepts will fall flat. Even if Bond goes into space I want it to be treated seriously and come off as plausible in the context of the film.
With NTTD's ending much of the nanobot stuff comes off to me as just a bit too contrived to be engaging (again, I've found it's not uncommon for first time viewers of the film to have have expected some sort of Chekov's Gun on instinct - what about the EMP watch or smart blood etc? Will that save Bond etc.) Again, I personally find Safin's odd rambling at the end cringeworthy, which really takes me out of the film (I feel so bad for Rami Malek as I'm a fan of his, but his performance can be so questionable at certain points for me) and I feel like the movie is trying to give us a big reveal that Mathilde is in fact Bond's daughter... which was handled a bit confusingly prior to that which doesn't help me be emotionally invested. I've spoken to a few people about this film, and it really is interesting how differently people feel about this ending. I really wish it did something for me on a gut level, but it just doesn't and I don't think I'm the only one who feels this.
Sounds simple. I'm with you, but not optimistic.
Every introduction film in the classic era had done it successfully, no backstories, not serialized stories.
Connery in Dr. No
Lazenby in OHMSS
Moore in LALD
Dalton in TLD
Brosnan in Goldeneye
They're introduced without a backstory, and the franchise survived that.
I really missed the classic era (1962-2002). 🥺