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I think he's said before how he enjoyed subverting the character. I wish he'd have gone and subverted a different one to be honest, The Lone Ranger or something. Have him riding off into the sunset with an arrow in his back from Tonto...
"Hi ho Silver....argh!"
Thud.
Laughed at that. And sure, but I did love much of what he did through all 5 movies - I've had him ranked 2nd behind Connery. Subvert away, just leave him breathing, or at least maybe breathing, when you're finished with him.
Yes… Craig’s interpretation was indeed very special. It went to deeper places the films hadn’t explored before… (and that’s not taking anything away from the other Bond actors; in the end, if NTTD isn’t your cup of tea, then it isn’t your cup of tea (start drinking coffee, very black). However, in a few years time, there will be a new Bond and a new adventure, and you can just leave this time line to someone like me!)
It's not a different actor that's the problem though. The problem is, they've killed off the character.
Craig's Bond has taken that journey seriously and a good deal of distance, we have seen a man who fell in love and lost that love. We have seen him taken down in the name of king and country and to lose a surrogate parent amongst the place where his parents are buried.
In Spectre we glimpse at a home half finished incomplete a comment on his lack of domesticity and normality and then he meets someone who challenges him to find his way out who themselves lives in the same world of death and it turns out near death.
In NTTD for a few vital seconds he actually gives up and Madeleine who knows she maybe pregnant pleads with him not to not be overwhelmed at that moment.
He has his glimpse of paradise and then leaves for one final denouement. He has always been denied any kind of normality the loss of parents, his work, the hatred of his surrogate brother the loss of his surrogate mother of the love of his life and then Safin offers the final denial. His life is an epic tragedy but it is given reason in his death. His chance to save his child.
Now people may say that is not what I have signed up for but for Craig Bond to live and be replaced by another actor after all that makes no sense to me at all.
If Bond returns then it absolutely needs to be a complete rethink a slate wiped clean. In the meantime with some flaws I have in my lifetime had the Bond journey I now realise I had always craved.
People have overcome insurmountable tragedies in their lives. Normal people, not heroes. If there's one movie hero could do it, it's Bond, the guy who always overcomes, "always has an escape plan." His last film could have ended on a positive note with him living with his family. The "continuity" could have been closed by having the final scene have an elderly Craig-Bond watching his kid grow up. He could have both closed his tenure and passed the torch to the next actor. Instead, according to a lot of reviews on IMDB and YT, we have kids crying in theaters and people leaving depressed after watching this. What kind of note is that to end any series on?
Well, that depends. Is your story arc complete?
I laughed.
I don't think it will ever happen again, which is what will ultimately make NTTD a classic.
:))
I am well aware of that and I did not say it. We are talking about someone who kills people for a living. Based on my experience of people who do that it it places them in a different place which you can see the effects of but not empathise with.
I was profoundly up set both times I watched it but the release of such emotions is cathartic and enriching and means I understand the experience of being a human being a little better.
If people come out of the cinema miserable (not depressed thats a prescribed mental state) then they need to man up and begin to learn to live with the reality of the human experience which is we all die and what makes NTTD elevating and enriching is what he did in life and thats a beautiful positive message.
QoS dropped off because of a writers strike, but still pushed the envelope, and wrapped up the revenge angle. But from SF onwards, all the bits you mentioned above is where they pushed Bond into the wrong direction. starting subtly with Bond's loss of his parents, seeing his family home, but then going too far - reinventing things that Fleming never explored, and for good reason. Fleming never saw sense in going there.
Bond and Blofeld being brothers (utter trash), Bond saving his child, Bond being outright killed (no cliffhanger deaths that Fleming occasionally flirted with).
At least that's one positive then for all our bitching and moaning. :D
That was fantastic.
Precisely. People standing on principle that a fictional character should never die should consider expanding their literary and film horizons to include classics in which the main character, gasp, dies at the end to fulfill a thematic point. We should all encourage this franchise to be taken seriously for a change after years and years of being perceived as a thing only midlife-crisis guys really get into. That doesn’t mean it can’t still be popcorn entertainment, but that shouldn’t be all it is.
Maybe the States has moved on to more cerebral fair like Venom.
I doubt the ending as any effect on NTTD box office US takings. It's the pandemic.
Plus: the movie dangerously flirt with viruses, which may not be what people want to see on screen at this moment. They may just want pure escapism ala Venom, ie leave your brain at the door, as well as any character arc and fleshing out.
You say that like killing off a beloved screen character of sixty years is somehow brave and revolutionary. I don't think it is - It's a cheap, easy moment that's compromised the narrative flow of the series. I get it that some people are thinking it's a perfect 'end to Craig's arc'. But it's the whole 'this actor gets his arc' daftness that people like me are moaning about. What makes Craig so special that they're re-writing Fleming and killing him off? It's obviously only been done because these daft 'reboots' are a cinematic trend. It's like they thought "oh, we can kill him off now, because they do that with the comic book stuff".
And again, the "it's good for Batman, it's good for Bond" argument. Can I remind everyone that Bond is supposed to be a drama, based in the real (albeit fantastic) world? He's not Luke Skywalker, Batman or Captain Kirk.
These movies aren't supposed to be fantasy movies, (despite Moonraker).
If the next Bond movie has Bond being raised from the dead by witchcraft, are people going to be saying "well that's okay because it worked in Game of Thrones".
Haha. Bond’s death is not a factor in the US performance.
I really have a problem following the logic behind this hate towards this creative decision. Perhaps because there isn’t.
Bond will come back, yes, but with another iteration of the character. A new Bond. Craig’s Bond death is emotional because his Bond, his arc, his stories are over.
Plus, let’s now pretend for a minute Bond isn’t dead and NTTD ends with him driving happy into the sunset. If you approach this films like a perpetual continuation and if you think about Bond being always the same person portrayed by different actors, how about Bond being Blofeld’s foster brother, how about Bond being a father? The point is, and lot of people seem to never been able to accept that, the Craig films have always been their own thing. From DN to DAD the saga worked in a way, the way that you describe, but CR was a total schism from the very beginning (just think about the black and white PTS and the “apocryphal” gun barrel) and the Craig era even before NTTD established itself as an independent self contained connected story that explicitly aimed to deconstruct a 40 years old character, with an unrepeatable beginning and now an unrepeatable ending.
To sum up, like it or not, accepting it or not, the Craig era has always been its own separate thing from the previous adventures.
I think trying to explain things to make the other person see things more clearly (meaning the perspective we have) is just repetitive knocking heads against walls. Same as it ever was, yes.
That was disconnected from where cinema was going, so CR bought it all back to earth, and NTTD enforces the point. Hard.
But blowing Bond to smithereens, and then saying 'he'll be back' isn't a 'slack chronology'. It's just daft. And no matter how many times people say "it's a timeline/reboot/character arc/alternate universe blah blah - they've killed off the character of James Bond after sixty years, and for me and others, it's a shitty thing to do.