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Not entirely seeing your logic here. NTTD does at least give us an ending; a cliffhanger never-to-be-resolved would be something of a copout and risk leaving people disappointed at the lack of ending.
And if the cliffhanger is 'Here's CraigBond, about to die..' ... what's the difference to what we got? At least here it is given some space to play out and something of an uplifting epilogue.
Never mind. It's a new Bond for a new generation.
I can't wait for the ad campaign for Bond 26.
Those of you who create those marvelous graphic images, please start a new thread for the Bond 26 ad campaign. Remember YOLT: You Only Live Twice, and Twice is the Only Way to Live.
Bond is Back from the Dead, hotter than ever in all his Explosive Glory.
Summer 2025: Phoenix from the Flames.
Let's have some fun.
Yeah, a fan-made trailer for Bond 26 might even use Alec's Back From The Dead from GE as voice-over. The press are very likely going to use Back From The Dead as well. So it's all about Bond returning from the dead. Maybe Craig's Bond dying in NTTD might be a good thing, as James Bond would be seen as an immortal around the world when he returns in Bond 26.
Are you trying to say that it is confusing now they have killed him? Or are you saying it's making it too easy to understand?
Yeah, you can't just have him retiring and driving off with Madeline again. I don't see what endings were left.
Exactly, it’s the only ending that made sense unless you wanted to repeat the conclusion to SP. My biggest issue with NTTD is that it fell victim to the kind of weird, incoherent narrative through-line of the Craig films. SP was the wrong kind of story to tell following SF, even though I do like the idea of it in a vacuum ( I’ve always imagined it to be a “Craigified” retelling of OHMSS). As much as I loved it from a stand-alone perspective, acknowledging Bond’s age in SF is what really painted them into a corner. We’ve now got a Bond who, after SF, is a bit more emotionally mature, in the tail end of his career (but has also rededicated and reaffirmed his place as a 00), then in SP reintroduce Blofeld and SPECTRE only to have Bond find love and come to the understanding that he needs to walks away from MI6 and take Moneypenny’s advice to “try life”.
SF, to me, is the crown jewel of the Craig films in a vacuum, but ultimately set the character down two completely totally different tracks that aren’t really narratively compatible. Unless they were actually willing to end Craig’s run with SP, they basically had to kill Bond. The Dark Knight trilogy set out to do something similar but actually pulled ot off because the story/character arcs don’t contradict each other with every film. Also reinforces that if you want to make Bond films that rely so heavily on narrative/thematic continuity, you probably need to have the big picture planned out in advance.
As far as I'm concerned, the biggest issue with ending No Time to Die with Bond's retirement would have been that the film already starts by showing us a retired Bond (unlike Spectre which is more ambiguous and less explicit about it). If they hadn't started the film like that, it could have been feasible to claim Bond didn't retire after capturing Blofeld in the previous film.
In Spectre, Madeleine talks about a man visiting her father when she was a child. The film later implies it's Blofeld. For No Time to Die, they switched him with Safin. If they did that with that plot point, they could have done the same "adjustment" with Bond's retirement.
Assuming then that Bond didn't leave the service at the end of Spectre, they could have started No Time to Die with Bond still being a 00, and being forced to complete one last assignment before retiring for good. The assignment, of course, would be to find Safin, who according to intelligence reports, wants to kill Blofeld, destroy Spectre and unleash the nanobots on the world. In the course of the assignment, Safin decides to kidnap Madeleine. By doing away with the whole "Madeleine becomes Blofeld's shrink" plot point, her character loses a bit of agency, which perhaps could have been recovered by having her elude Safin's people on her own, for a while, as well as looking into his past in her father's documents. Then she gets kidnapped for good, and Bond has to both complete the mission and save her. Then, finally, he retires.
There's a clear feeling of "forced extension" to this alternate story, but it's not particularly worse or better than the actual film we got, which already has that feeling and it doesn't bother me (not to mention the repetition of seeing Bond dealing again with Vesper, and the topic of retirement in general which was already explored in Casino Royale and Skyfall).
Edit: To add to the last paragraph, regardless of where you take the story, there is an inevitable narrative "whiplash" that emerges when you make a sequel to Spectre that is strongly connected to the film (as opposed to a standalone story). Certain aspects from Spectre would have suffered with a fifth film, no matter what, and they did. Not that these things bother me too much, as the filmmakers came up with a good film in No Time to Die, though I would have preferred Bond to live.
Someone wrote that if Bond is alive at the end of NTTD, that will be confusing to viewers of Bond 26. Why? The role has changed five times before. It'll be the same with the next film. People will accept the change. But there will be plenty of questions.
First question asked: Is this the same Bond?
Yes, and no. This is a new Bond in a new timeline that bears some similarity to previous films that you shouldn't think about, even if some of the same actors from previous films appear in the new one.
@007ClassicBondFan
We all know what a reboot is.
Who said that? I'm not seeing it here..?
We seem to be getting a thousand different reasons as to why it was such a bad idea.
I don't know; it's pretty explicit. Madeline makes him consider stop being a secret agent; and he stops; they drive into the sunset... I think retconning that as a holiday would be a real cheat. I guess maybe at a push you could have him still working for the foreign office or something, but not as a Double O. I dunno though, still feels off.
+1 to this. They really needed to tie off the ends to SP, especially Madeleine, and to a lesser degree, put Vesper to bed already: she drowned, her corpse got blown up, what would be next?
I think the ending of NTTD is a lot braver and ballsier than that of TDKR.
Spectre wasn't a great movie but the ending worked for Craig's Bond. NTTD leaves us on a pointlessly-sour note that casts a shadow over Craig's tenure and the character in general, while having no redeeming qualities at all.
Completely agree.
@slide_99 — you’ve seen the film as a whole to judge the ending? It’s like reading a book, you shouldn’t read a few passages, and judge the entirety. Or maybe you do?
Just like you don’t watch clips from YouTube to judge an almost three hour film— which I know you do, 😂.
you didn’t like the idea that Bond was killed. Oh well. Watch the entire film, UNTIL he gets blown up, then stop the film, and line up a YouTube clip of Bond driving off in his Aston with Maddy.
Maybe that’ll work for you, 😂.
Madeleine said she was a young girl, so this is definitely before Casino Royale. Blofeld and White were not enemies at that point in time, so why would Blofeld kill his associate?
Also, would Blofeld really go and kill White personally? I'm pretty sure he would just send one of his goons like he sent Hinx in Spectre. Waltz's Blofeld has never been shown to be phisically strong for a fight nor has he ever held a gun.
If you refer to Blofeld's "but I do" line, that's just an artifact from a previous script where he was obsessed with Madeleine when she was a child.
If that were the case then half the people still complaining about NTTD’s ending would’ve stopped and moved on by now. It’s one thing to point out your reasoning for not liking the ending, it’s entirely different to start projecting your thoughts and opinions as if their certain fact, and unfortunately there have been several statements made in the thread implying the franchise has now backed itself into a corner with NTTD’s ending.
When you have people who continue to ignore how Bond has always been recast in favor of constantly making broad statements like “well they killed him off in the last film, so it’s going to be hard for the new guy to assume the role” or “NTTD’s ending leaves the future of the series in uncertainty” then yes I’m afraid that the word “reboot” does in fact soar above people’s heads. It’s entirely possible to continue the series even if they made the decision to kill Craig’s Bond off, but yet it still seems some members have a tough time understanding that.
Well said @007ClassicBondFan
Thank you @peter, I must admit it’s become incredibly infuriating to see a thread called “Where does Bond go after Craig” constantly circle back to arguments over NTTD’s ending every couple of pages. It’s also incredibly annoying to see NTTD’s ending being the only ground breaking element that’s discussed, and hardly the aspect of Bond having a family on screen for the very first time. At this rate, I’m ready to move on and start theorizing what Bond #7 will be like, and I wish others could finally get to that mindset.
@007ClassicBondFan … I agree… it’s getting a little pathological at this point. Especially when those who haven’t bothered watching the film once through keep repeating the same old, same old.
Time to get over it and move on.
P
I defer to your knowledge on the "but I do" dialogue. It's good to know why it's there.
Barring that information, I assumed the incident in question occurred before Spectre was formed, or at least before it became a massive criminal organization. Regardless of what the filmmakers concocted for the story, it still seems like a plausible assumption.
I even found the idea that Blofeld had tried to murder Mr. White early on in their relationship, only for them to later become associates, delightfully twisted. A business association born out of fear, manipulation, convenience?
The remaining point of contention would be that Madeleine's words imply she witnessed the death of someone that day. Since Blofeld didn't die, he would've had to have arrived at her house with someone else. I hadn't given this particular point much thought before, but it's possible. It also works for me because as I said, I always imagined Spectre as we know it possibly didn't even exist at that point in time.
I think the film as it is supports this interpretation, even if it's merely an accidental, unintended byproduct of the script development (and by support, I mean "it's plausible", not "that's what we meant when we wrote the script"). I also find it much more interesting than Blofeld's visit to Madeleine's house being separate from the gun-under-the-sink incident.
I’ll admit that I do find some humor in the some of the people who are “Anti-Craig Bond” being incredibly upset over watching him get blown to smithereens. You’d think they would’ve cheered at that moment 😂.
People can ignore whatever they want. Project whatever they want. If they feel the future of the series is uncertain, so be it. That's how they feel, even when they'll be proved wrong. The series will survive, questions will be asked about the ending of the previous series, and perhaps some answers will be provided or completely ignored. But they can still offer opinions. They don't have to be told to get over it.
Killing off the main character of a beloved series feels dumb to a lot of us, whether you think people understand what a reboot is or not. Whether I have a better ending or not makes no difference. I don't support the killing of Bond as a way out of an actor's tenure or the end of a particular reboot.
When I see Bond 26, I won't forget Craig's Bond was blown to hell, but I'll accept it like I have all previous changes. That the series has wildly successful and immensely profitable for more than sixty years doesn't mean it isn't without flaws and questionable decisions. And killing Bond was questionable for many fans, even if there was no other logical solution given how the script was developed. But the script could have gone another direction. I wish it had. It didn't. I don't need to supply other endings because I am not paid to write Bond films.
I look forward to the next film. I hope the next series begins with as much promise as CR. If Bond must die again when the next actor is through, so be it. My guess is the producers won't go that route again.
@CrabKey , very true, but I think what @007ClassicBondFan was getting at, is this particular thread is “where does Bond go after Craig”.
After. Craig.
But frustrated fans use their dislike of Bond’s death as an argument/debate/opinion when this thread is about the future, not the past.
There is a thread to discuss NTTD and I think there is even one about the ending. Opine there about the death, but this thread is about the future.
Look you’re talking to someone who also didn’t enjoy the way NTTD ended, but if I’m able to easily let go and move on from the ending of that film without having to constantly state my disapproval over it, then yeah I do feel other people should do the same, especially when it’s the same group of members constantly bringing up in an attempt to provoke those who do like the film.
If a movie, or any other piece of media bothers somebody THAT much where they feel the need to share their dissatisfaction on a constant basis, then that is simply unhealthy, and not a productive way to discuss something. Especially when some of the members still haven’t seen NTTD. This is exactly the kind of thing that’s happening within the Star Wars fandom now, and it’s annoying to witness there as well.
Nobody is denying anyone else of sharing their opinion. Just that some people need to go outside, touch some grass, and realize that this isn’t time well spent.
Exactly. I wouldn’t care about people sharing their opinions on this particular subject matter, but when the topic of this thread is constantly thrown off by people unable to move on from NTTD’s ending, then what is the point of this thread?
This could even lead to full-scale thread war, in which Raymond Benson is discussed in Ian Fleming threads, Ian Fleming is discussed in Raymond Benson threads, John Barry is discussed in Eric Serra threads, Eric Serra is discussed in John Barry threads, and Woody Allen's Bond is discussed nowhere.
You realize this means an angry letter to the Times!