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NO TIME TO DIE (2021) - First Reactions vs. Current Reactions

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  • RyanRyan Canada
    Posts: 692
    What is even happening to this thread?
  • matt_umatt_u better known as Mr. Roark
    Posts: 4,343
    LeonardPine wrote: »
    Feyador wrote: »
    NickTwentyTwo wrote: »
    You’re right. Still, she wasn’t successful; the Morocco escape would have been a more satisfying resolution of that mini arc in my opinion.

    Not at all ... in doing so, on a moving train, she physically incapacitates Hinx and distracts his attention long enough for Bond to get the rope around his neck.

    She saved Bond's life twice in SP. Which is why I find it confusing Bond suddenly distrusts her in NTTD.

    Bond doesn’t trust no one because of Vesper’s betrayal. Once he finally start to open again with another woman SPECTRE strikes back, they say to him Swann is involved, so he’s triggered because he feels that same damn betrayal feeling again.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited October 2021 Posts: 12,480
    Thanks for clarifying a bit, @AstonLotus.

    For those interested in why Vesper kept coming up in the rest of Craig's Bond's films here is this interview. If you start at the 36 min 30 sec part Daniel talks about this. Also this audio interview is first with the wonderful Jeffrey Wright, then with Daniel Craig. ]]On this site: https://theplaylist.net/daniel-craig-jeffrey-wright-the-fourth-wall-podcast-20211006/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

    I enjoyed the chat with Jeffrey, too. I found all of Daniel's comments quite interesting and insightful for NTTD.
  • FoxRoxFoxRox
    Posts: 12,473
    While I tend to prefer less direct sequel approach for Bond, I don't think bringing up Vesper is as bad as the detractors say. Really though, she's only brought up a handful of times in QOS, SP, and NTTD, and not at all in SF. She obviously made a huge impact on Bond's life, and since they went for a more continuity-heavy approach for Craig, it makes sense it would be addressed at least a little.
  • FeyadorFeyador Montreal, Canada
    Posts: 735
    matt_u wrote: »
    LeonardPine wrote: »
    Feyador wrote: »
    NickTwentyTwo wrote: »
    You’re right. Still, she wasn’t successful; the Morocco escape would have been a more satisfying resolution of that mini arc in my opinion.

    Not at all ... in doing so, on a moving train, she physically incapacitates Hinx and distracts his attention long enough for Bond to get the rope around his neck.

    She saved Bond's life twice in SP. Which is why I find it confusing Bond suddenly distrusts her in NTTD.

    Bond doesn’t trust no one because of Vesper’s betrayal. Once he finally start to open again with another woman SPECTRE strikes back, they say to him Swann is involved, so he’s triggered because he feels that same damn betrayal feeling again.

    Yup!

    It's like the entire Craig arc of films has been an elaboration of the beach scene in GoldenEye.

    As always, Natalya nails it from the start ... except, of course, in this case it was Trevelyan and not a woman.

    But the general point about distrust stands ... and about what makes him 'cold' and what keeps him 'alone.'

  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited October 2021 Posts: 12,480
    Daniel goes over the points well in that interview. If connecting his films, then of course in telling this Bond's story Vesper is important - he has to deal with her and try to move on, or not. And he does try. It all actually adds to my enjoyment of all of Craig's Bond movies.
  • FeyadorFeyador Montreal, Canada
    Posts: 735
    echo wrote: »
    Feyador wrote: »
    echo wrote: »
    After all the buildup on the train when she handles the gun, they needed to pay off Madeleine's ability with a gun in SP, somewhere, somehow...not wait until the next film. It's Chekov's gun.

    But we do see that:

    During the fight on the train with Hinx .... she shoots Hinx in the arm just at the point where it appears that he is getting the best of Bond.


    Good point.

    I guess I just wanted Madeleine to have more agency in the final third of SP. I don't mind Vesper being tied up and left in the middle of the road--it's true to Fleming, after all, and she's a physically "weaker"/more vulnerable character--but Madeleine is set up as feisty, not unlike Tracy.

    Yes, I agree ... or just found a better way to wind things up at the crater base - and not to have included the "C" character at all so there would have been no reason to go back to London.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,188
    Just wanna give a shout out to @Revelator for taking the time of pouring out all those well articulated thoughts on NTTD.
  • sworddevil1sworddevil1 USA
    edited October 2021 Posts: 526
    Did Bond really need a love interest after Vesper? The answer seems to be a hard no. The Casino Royale storyline proves that she was the love of his life, because he never seemed to get over her. Not even in the scene during NTTD at the grave (I don’t think he was sincere in letting go). It was extremely unbelievable that he would go for another long term relationship again (knowing his reputation as we do). Even in Casino he was not predisposed to relationships, as he only had flings with married women. So, how do we go from that to Madeline deal in Spectre and NTTD? Makes no sense to me. It felt forced, contrived, unnatural and goofy.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,480
    And for me it was very natural, a natural progression to Madeleine. Realistic in so many ways, and I was happy for Bond to have that ... even brief ... love with Madeleine. I think it is an important and effective way to end his films.
  • sworddevil1sworddevil1 USA
    edited October 2021 Posts: 526
    4EverBonded wrote: »
    And for me it was very natural, a natural progression to Madeleine. Realistic in so many ways, and I was happy for Bond to have that ... even brief ... love with Madeleine. I think it is an important and effective way to end his films.

    I wish I could see it that way. It would have been nice to see him go on two new stand-alone missions for the last 2. And at the end, it would have been something similar to how Skyfall ended (next mission).
  • Michelle_Johnston_55Michelle_Johnston_55 England
    edited October 2021 Posts: 49
    Revelator wrote: »

    I guess as an amateur Fleming scholar I should have been pleased by “Die Blofeld, die!” and the garden of death. But I’d rather see these elements not introduced rather than presented as sawn-off allusions. Don’t bother with the Garden of Death if you’re not going to do much with it. I don’t need or want Easter Eggs. If you can’t adapt Fleming without ripping sections out of context and drastically foreshortening them, you needn’t bother. Save the Fleming stuff for a later film. I’ll be satisfied if there’s material in his spirit instead of letter.

    Thank you for your fulsome observations. I redacted the rest of your excellent read down to this because it gets to the nub of your concerns and made me realise why and how I am "all in" with No Time To Die.

    Craig Bond has always sat outside what you call the floating continuity but in Spectre I felt the separate story laced with bond markers particularly in the third act did not work.

    In No Time To Die they went much further and in a much more effective way. They tied up Craig Bond which has so much to do with Mr White in a truly symphonic way and yet used the movie language of "Bond the tradition" in a much more effective way.

    The score insertions worked perfectly for me but so did the inflatable dingy and the presence of the tanker. The garden of death placed in the volcanic Faroe Islands all the things told me this was a Craig Bond story told using the language of Cinematic Bond.

    Bonds casually taking out of everybody in the shot out Cuba felt like the Casual Connery take out with the camera panning back in Japan in the ship yards both entirely operatic.

    There are far more examples I could offer but the most obvious and striking one at the heart of the Pre Titles is of course the DB5. The car is a part of Bond Language.

    There was much I did not recognise in my experience as compared to yours but that does not matter but I would just remark on Tanner. The increasingly worrisome and tiresome bureaucrat is so of our times as much as Bond having to repeat his full name to the lovely guy checking him into M's offices, that felt not about Bond Language but "Bond in the Now".


  • NeverSayNeverNeverSayNever Rome
    edited October 2021 Posts: 131
    @Revelator:
    Your comment was a great read. I started out wanting to quote the passages I agreed with, but soon realised I would end up quoting it in its entirety, especially starting from the points re: Tanner and Felix. I wish I could have put my thoughts as eloquently and comprehensively as you did, but your review perfectly sums up my admittedly more jumbled thoughts.

    ETA The only point where I differ with you is not regarding NTTD, but Skyfall, which I see as being the best directed and, arguably, the most stylish among the Craig installments.
  • bondywondybondywondy Uk
    edited October 2021 Posts: 346
    I don't mean this to be unkind but I feel Craig made an insulting comment with regard to the next Bond actor. He was quoted as saying

    "I just committed myself to it as much as I possibly could and tried to sort of elevate it as much as I could. I hope I’ve left it in a good place and I hope the next person can just make it fly. It’s an amazing franchise, I still think there’s a lot of stories to tell."

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cinemablend.com/amp/movies/no-time-to-dies-daniel-craig-has-some-blunt-advice-for-the-next-james-bond-actor

    How is Bond dying leaving it in a good place?

    That's just taking the piss. No self-awareness at all.


  • LeonardPineLeonardPine The Bar on the Beach
    Posts: 4,007
    Revelator wrote: »
    I was traveling when No Time to Die premiered and didn't get a chance to see it until a week ago. I’m not sure why it’s taken so long to collect my thoughts, especially since I wasn't able to get anything major done until I did. This is a film that gives you plenty of food for thought, and unlike its predecessor you can't be indifferent to it. Apologies in advance for the length of my comments.

    It’s certainly the best-directed Bond film in years. Skyfall had moments of style and Spectre had a stylish precredits sequence, but No Time to Die is genuinely stylish. And what is a Bond movie without style?The compositions, camera placement and angles, and production design (by Mark Tildesley) are a pleasure. Cary Joji Fukunaga and Linus Sandgren can take a richly deserved bow and are welcome to return for a future outings.

    The lengthy pre-credits sequence had more verve, excitement, and style than all of Spectre, though I wish Craig hadn’t speedwalked through the gunbarrel again. Michael Wood in the London Review of Books makes a fascinating point: this is the first Bond film to devote so much time to memory via flashback, and the flashback is within the memories of the female protagonist. When was the last time so much of a Bond film took place in the heroine’s head?

    The pre-credits action sequence is also the most memorable in the entire film. The “Oh s%&*” moment when the Aston was surrounded gave real chills, while the machine gun donut is the sort of clever solution required to prevent action from growing stale (as it does toward the end). As Bond took on Spectre's minions I thought back to Raymond Chandler's comments on Bond in his review of Diamonds Are Forever: "I like him when he is exposing himself unarmed to half a dozen thin-lipped professional killers, and neatly dumping them into a heap of fractured bones."

    The film also succeeds in balancing sex appeal with the modern obligation for strong/"badass” female characters. Paloma is charming; her scenes are the only universally praised part of the film, perhaps because they have a lightness and playfulness that the remainder of the movie lacks. Finally, someone who's really enjoying themself! As for new 007 Nomi, she gets to be competent and feisty without overshadowing or thoroughly one-upping Bond, as Wai Lin did.

    However, I did find her switch in attitudes toward Bond sudden, as if a page had been dropped from the script. I didn’t think there was an issue with Bond not sleeping with Paloma or Nomi; the audience got to feast its eyes on the pretty ladies without having to worry about how awkward an aging Craig might look with them in bed. One thing that slightly bothers me: as several people have said, both characters could be excised from the script without major damage to the story. I wouldn’t want that, but it suggests the script wasn’t fully developed.

    Many have remarked on M’s behavior, and how feckless and/or malevolent it looks. I think the film missed a trick by not giving M a chance to express his motivations. Presumably he thought he was saving lives, by avoiding messy drone strikes. The film also doesn’t stress that his scheme would have also made the double-O section redundant. More could have been done with this and the reaction of the double-O section if the movie wasn’t so focused on “Bond’s story.”

    What’s the point of Tanner in these movies? What does he do that Moneypenny can’t? In the books he was Bond’s closest friend in the Service and a refuge from M’s coldness, a way of figuring out what the old man was really thinking. In these films he’s M’s lapdog, a boob of a bureaucrat. Get rid of the character or repurpose him. Moneypenny could have used his screentime.

    Felix’s death was a shock. “How will they deal with this in the future?” I thought oh so innocently.

    No Time to Die charges out of the gate and gradually slows and sags, especially in the third act. The action sequences become less inventive and more laborious; the shoot-em-up toward the end was something out of a bad video game and badly needed trimming. A film like this should tighten up toward the end.

    Zimmer’s score is adequate, if not memorable. If I was doing the score I would not want to quote John Barry—that inevitably makes me the lesser presence. Bond’s death music was pretty but so generic I wondered if it was recycled from somewhere else too.

    The Slavic scientist is way too broadly played, right down to his cartoon accent. He’s a refugee from another film and hamfisted comic relief. His vicious racist turn is out-of-the-blue and he might have been a more interesting villain if we'd gotten hints of its earlier. It's like the film decided at the last minute to make an analogue of the trolls who whined about a black female 007. That would have been a good idea if explored earlier on. His death cues the corniest line in the film. I can take bad puns and wordplay--I liked "blew his mind" because it capped a truly violent death--but they have to be really good if they're also going to reference the film title.

    The film does a fine job tying up and redeeming the loose ends from Spectre—whether that was worthwhile obligation is another matter—but gives shorter shrift to newer material. Rami Malek has a good creepy villain voice and demeanor but his character is an underwritten afterthought. His interest in Madeline and Matilde remains sketchy and abstract (as the film was afraid of just making him a pervert). He has to carry two plots—the destruction of Spectre and the exploitation of Project Heracles—and while his motivation for the first is simple and clear, the second is conveyed in a vaporous speech of convenience. It might have been better to just make him venal: he wants big bucks from selling the nanobot-virus and doesn’t care how many die as a result.

    I wish Spectre and Blofeld hadn’t been introduced into the Craig era—introducing them in one film and killing them off in the next just wasn’t worth it. The organization and its leader were always meant to have more mileage. The first cycle of Bond films understood that, even with their shambolic approach to continuity.

    I guess as an amateur Fleming scholar I should have been pleased by “Die Blofeld, die!” and the garden of death. But I’d rather see these elements not introduced rather than presented as sawn-off allusions. Don’t bother with the Garden of Death if you’re not going to do much with it. I don’t need or want Easter Eggs. If you can’t adapt Fleming without ripping sections out of context and drastically foreshortening them, you needn’t bother. Save the Fleming stuff for a later film. I’ll be satisfied if there’s material in his spirit instead of letter.

    I was shocked to hear Bond say “we have all the time in the world,” then even more shocked to hear the song quoted on the soundtrack. And requoted. And then the end credits not merely quoted but recycled Louis Armstrong’s “We Have All the Time in the World.” I found this vampiric and cynical: the film knows older fans are predisposed to love this material and transfer its emotional weight to the film doing the quoting, while audiences unfamiliar with OHMSS will immediately incorporate the borrowings into the film.

    But the recyclings hammer in the message—this is Craig’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It too will have epic length, an extra-emotional special story, and a stunning ending. The film is a going-away present for having the longest and most commercially (and probably critically) successful run of any Bond actor.

    You can retroactively hear the wheels turning in the filmmakers’ heads: Let’s give Craig a big send-off, his very own OHMSS—the template for a special Bond film. That had Bond falling in love and getting married, but we can’t simply repeat that. Let’s raise the ante—Bond re-falls in love, gets a “wife”--and a kid! Now for the special tragic ending…well, we can’t just kill the Bond girl again, and killing the kid would be too much. And we can't have Bond settling down with his family--that'll leave people wondering if they’ll be in later films. Solution: Kill Bond. Don't just kill him though, give him the complete heroic death, sacrificing himself for country and family. That'll complete his personal arc!

    The deck is stacked for death, what with Bond getting shot to pieces, having to staying behind to reopen the base doors, getting nano-poisoned in a way that threatens his new family, etc. Substituting Fleming's YOLT ending wouldn't work--it was already done in Skyfall and it would still leave Bond with a "wife" and kid out there. Bond's genuine death signals a mandatory reboot and continuity wipe of his new family.

    Spectre, structured to be Craig’s last film in case he didn't return to the series, ended with him happily driving off into the sunset with his true love, his “personal arc” resolved. Craig’s return required restarting the “personal arc” machine because that became the formula of his tenure—Bond undergoing various stations of the cross. The second opportunity to bid Craig farewell meant he couldn’t just ride into the sunset again. Something bigger was needed.

    So the Craig era wraps up in over-compensation. Bond re-finds true love! Bond has a kid! Bond dies the ultimate hero’s death! Bond cures cancer! (I might have made the last one up.) Sensing the grandiose contrivance behind this self-conscious self-apotheosis is part of what left me emotionally involved by the finale. I wasn’t angry or outraged depressed…or tearful and happy. The problem is that I didn't feel much of anything. I just thought, “Oh. They’re going there.”

    I'm not necessarily dead-set against the idea of Bond dying, and the idea of Craig’s era being a separate continuity that can be closed off with Bond’s death is indisputable. But since my allegiance is to the series as a whole, part of me still thinks no Bond actor should enjoy the privilege of portraying the character’s death, regardless of his personal issues. That said, I don't think much of the audience will be confused or outraged by this—Bond is doing what plenty of superhero films and comics have already done. That’s part of my problem with the last act, but more on that later.

    I’m still trying to figure out why I wasn’t moved and why the death scene didn’t strike me as the way for Bond to go. In scripts terms it seems overdetermined and schematic. Visually it consists of Bond waiting around for rockets to vaporize him while he holds last minute cellphone conversations. I was moved more by Bond cheerfully proposing to light a cigarette under the rocket in Moonraker. (“ ‘Cheer up,’ he said, walking over to her and taking one of her hands. ‘The boy stood on the burning deck. I’ve wanted to copy him since I was five.’”) It goes to the core of the character in all his incarnations.

    Part of my problem might be that Bond's new family is not one I find very involving. Craig and Lea Seydoux have more chemistry here than in Spectre, but not enough to make their characters’ relationship flame into life. Madeline still seems over-determined as Bond’s last and greatest love. Seydoux is recessive performer, without the charisma and inner fire of Diana Rigg or the siren presence of Eva Green. She looks perpetually uncomfortable, as if she was waiting to go back to arthouse films. There isn’t a deep sense of connection with Craig, whose own performance style is minimalist and closed-off; his rhythms and hers never meet. No sparks fly because their acting styles refuse to complement.

    The child actress who plays Matilde is adorable, but the character doesn’t have much personality—she’s there to look innocent and wide-eyed and be symbolic. Bond getting a woman pregnant and walking away has been done; Bond acting as a full-fledged father, and having a child play a large part in Bond film, is unprecedented. And perhaps a violation of the character’s fundamental appeal. Much of Bond’s attraction lies in being an escape from the humdrum real world, including domesticity. It’s why children never figured in the books or films up to now. Fleming took Bond up to the threshold of domesticity in OHMSS--and then dashed the prospect at the devastating last minute, because domesticity is what Bond is supposed to be an escape from. NTTD crosses that threshold; now we see Bond preparing breakfast for his child, driving his family around in a Range Rover, guarding his child from supervillains, etc. I found something deflating in this. Turning a powerful fantasy character into yet another devoted dad and husband—one of us—brings him too far down to earth.

    I also disliked how the film treats having a (de facto) wife and child as the apex of human existence, rather than an embodiment of the everyday world Bond—whether on film or on the page—is in perpetual flight from. Bond is a “man of war”; when not on the job he is bored and subject to accidie. He ceases to be interesting in the real world, including the world of domesticity. He needs his job to save him from boredom. He feels most alive when on the job, and the idea that a “wife” and child would really compensate for his job's absence would be depressingly sentimental if true.

    Every Bond story has to find a balance between fantasy and its emotional counterweight. In return for living a life of danger and hardship, Bond reaps the rewards of the high life. For that danger to ring true there must be moments when Bond’s emotions are engaged, when “death is so permanent” and suffering is real. The deaths of Tracy and Vesper are painful reminders of this. At the back of an effective Bondian fantasy there should a whisper of melancholy, which ultimately makes the fantasy stronger. But the whisper shouldn't become a scream: the novel of You Only Live Twice has a chapter of outright depression, but it’s also the Bond novel with the most quips. The right balance gives the fantasy a seductive plausibility and emotional foundation. The wrong balance results in a Bond who’s a hedonistic, callow, fop--or a glum and joyless bruiser.

    Craig’s Bond is obviously keyed to an age where everyone is working through trauma and mental health issues. But his films have occasionally strained the fantasy they were ostensibly made to project. The relentless insistence on Bond being broken and neurotic, in need of healing, the ponderous approach to these issues, the bloated running times and awkward plot structures, the heaviness…

    The fact that numerous screenwriters have tried giving Bond a child and making him a father perhaps points to a sense of exhaustion. There’s a limited number of novelties that can be wrought upon the character's personal life. What’s left? Nor is giving him a child a step into uncharted territory. The trope of a cold-hearted protagonist discovering his humanity through a lost child has been done everywhere from superhero films to TV shows like The Blacklist. Bond’s death will also seem a familiar trope to anyone raised on comics and fantasy-based films. It’s what you do nowadays when your series has played itself out. Kill everyone off, then return with new actors, crew, and continuity a few years later. (Some critics have also compared NTTD's ending to that of Armageddon.)

    “I want to tell you a story of a man. His name was Bond, James Bond.” This sounds less like plausible dialogue between mother and daughter than high-flown self-mythologizing. Tom Sawyer got a laugh out of enjoying his own funeral. The franchise gets Christopher Nolan-style self-importance.

    NTTD is less an organically-germinated story than a series of objectives around which a story was built—Bond must complete his “story arc” and “personal journey”, enjoying his apotheosis and glorious finale. I grant that NTTD closes out Craig’s “personal arc.” Though I sometimes ask which personal arc? The one resolved at the end of Quantum of Solace? Skyfall? Spectre? How many endings does this arc require? Is he having one in the afterlife as we speak? So many personal journeys. And now he’s journeyed into having a partner and child, which means journeying out of being James Bond. I don't want to see a personal arc where James Bond learns how to be ordinary. I don’t think it adds anything to the character to know that he would sacrifice himself for his family. Who among us wouldn't, aside from deadbeats? It was more unusual and special to have a hero so ready sacrifice himself for his country.

    Comic book & comic book film continuity is less a floating continuity—that of the old Bond films, where Roger Moore could briefly reveal he was the same character Lazenby played and then get back to fighting Jaws—than a thousand continuities. Hard reboots are profitable, attention-getting, and easy to find excuses for. You can start and restart stories ad infinitum. Just bring in the new talent and start a new timeline. Batman rides off into the sunset as Christian Bale but returns a few years later as Ben Affleck in a different world from an entirely different creative team and vision. Now we do the same thing with Bond actors, except that the next Bond film after NTTD will be produced by the same people (even if Michael G. Wilson stands down, his son will take over). I wouldn’t be surprised if Purvis and Wade returned either.

    If the next actor to play Bond is popular with the public and appears in several well-regarded films over the course of a decade of more, he’ll probably get his own death and apotheosis too. And if later actors enjoy the same luck, fans 60 years from now might be comparing Bond’s deaths the way we compare Bond’s cars. The door’s been opened.
    I know that floating continuity started collapsing with Casino Royale, but its maintenance had kept Bond different from other action franchises. Those had to have complete reboots because each really was a separate series, whereas Bond was a family affair stretching back to 1962. Bond’s death in NTTD marks a full admission that the comic book/ comic book film approach to continuity and death has prevailed.

    But just as floating continuity gave plenty of opportunities for starting over, so does NTTD, which has taken the Craig approach as far as it can go. (A glorious apotheosis or a dead end, depending on your mindset.) And I hope when the series returns it rely less on cannibalizing its past (OHMSS will forever remain unique for being the first "personal" Bond story and being the least self-conscious about it) or repeating tropes set by bigger-grossing franchises. I would like Bond films to stand on their own merits again. How long has it been since a Bond film set the trends for action/adventure films? Not just in content but in style. Moviegoers went out of something like Goldfinger thoroughly dazzled—there was nothing else like it on the screen. Now I go out of a Bond film thinking about all the tropes it’s emulating. You don't need ever more elaborate personal problems to wring emotion out of Bond--a well-told story can do that instead. It's time for the series to ensure first and foremost that it's delivering sophisticated, dazzling thrillers.

    Congratulations to Daniel Craig on all his achievements as James Bond. No Time to Die won't dethrone Casino Royale and Skyfall as his finest outings as 007, but third place is still an honorable one. On with the next Bond and the inevitable--and much desired--series course correction.

    Excellent piece @Revelator

    One of the best and in depth critiques I've read about NTTD.

    Lots of stuff in there that I was possibly thinking, but could never articulate as well as this.
  • NeverSayNeverNeverSayNever Rome
    Posts: 131
    bondywondy wrote: »
    How is Bond dying leaving it in a good place?

    I think he means it by leaving a completely blank slate for the next actor to start from. It may not be a good thing for all viewers, but it is likely a more interesting challenge for the next actor taking on the role. I do not think an up-and-coming Bond actor candidate would be terribly thrilled playing a burned-out family man incarnation of Bond.
  • matt_umatt_u better known as Mr. Roark
    Posts: 4,343
    Bond 26 would've been a total reboot anyway so from a creative standpoint Bond being dead in the previous one it's not even a thing.
  • Michelle_Johnston_55Michelle_Johnston_55 England
    edited October 2021 Posts: 49
    4EverBonded wrote: »
    Thanks for clarifying a bit, @AstonLotus.

    For those interested in why Vesper kept coming up in the rest of Craig's Bond's films here is this interview. If you start at the 36 min 30 sec part Daniel talks about this. Also this audio interview is first with the wonderful Jeffrey Wright, then with Daniel Craig. ]]On this site: https://theplaylist.net/daniel-craig-jeffrey-wright-the-fourth-wall-podcast-20211006/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

    I enjoyed the chat with Jeffrey, too. I found all of Daniel's comments quite interesting and insightful for NTTD.

    Thank you so much for sharing this. For me the stand out remarks were from Jeffrey that whilst there is so much we can not trust institutionally we can see in them something that transcends all that uncertainty. From Mr Craig I will go with that remark that if we are going to make Bond complicated why on earth would you not make the woman complicated (and my words) rather than run throughs. You can pull Camille and Severine into that grouping with Vesper and Madeleine so the way to give woman parity is not by being equally badass but being equally interesting.

    Lots of other things but they stood out to me.
  • TR007TR007
    Posts: 1,165
    ringfire211 wrote: »
    MakeshiftPython wrote: »
    You compared transgenders to pedophiles.
    Twisting things that I said. I made a comparison about what is acceptable nowadays but at one time would have been unthinkable. A man becoming a woman. Then I said that in the near future what is unthinkable now (the rights of pedophiles) will become normal. You may think it ridiculous but I firmly believe we’re coming to that. Let’s face it - we have the blood of so many babies on our hands. They don’t have a say in their happiness, do they? As long as the adults are happy. As long as the mother is happy. The baby is secondary. I notice that the little ones are always the ones who end up suffering. It’s shocking but some day the rights of pedophiles will be more important than the rights of the little innocent ones.

    Hey Mods. Any chance you can press the red button and eject this guy from the forum?
  • AstonLotusAstonLotus
    Posts: 1,394
    sworddevil1 wrote: »
    Did Bond really need a love interest after Vesper? The answer seems to be a hard no. The Casino Royale storyline proves that she was the love of his life, because he never seemed to get over her. Not even in the scene during NTTD at the grave (I don’t think he was sincere in letting go). It was extremely unbelievable that he would go for another long term relationship again (knowing his reputation as we do). Even in Casino he was not predisposed to relationships, as he only had flings with married women. So, how do we go from that to Madeline deal in Spectre and NTTD? Makes no sense to me. It felt forced, contrived, unnatural and goofy.

    Agreed.What doesn’t help is that I don’t get anywhere near the same chemistry between Bond and Madeline that Bond and Vesper did.I think Craig had more chemistry with Ana De Armas in 10 minutes than he had with Seadoux in two movies.

    And again,he just knew Vesper for only a few weeks at best and it was years ago! Get over it dude!
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    Posts: 3,152
    matt_u wrote: »
    Bond 26 would've been a total reboot anyway so from a creative standpoint Bond being dead in the previous one it's not even a thing.
    But doesn't the 'total reboot anyway' for Bond 26 mean that the result would've been the same if they hadn't had Bond die in NTTD? Which means that there was no actual need to kill him from a creative or story arc perspective. If it wasn't for those pesky wider Hollywood trends...
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited October 2021 Posts: 3,152
    Michelle_Johnston_55 wrote: »
    I will go with that remark that if we are going to make Bond complicated why on earth would you not make the woman complicated (and my words) rather than run throughs. You can pull Camille and Severine into that grouping with Vesper and Madeleine so the way to give woman parity is not by being equally badass but being equally interesting.
    Exactly. Craig's films did that - Vesper, Camille, Severine, Lucia and Madeleine were all interesting characters in their own right, not just surface gloss or functional plot pieces. Even with smaller roles like Severine and Lucia, they put in the effort to give those characters some depth. In doing that, they proved that they don't have to go down the (now cliched in its own right) route of women as 'Bond's equal' in order to give a female character some substance. Ok, they made concessions to the badass Amazon archetype with Nomi and Paloma in NTTD, but I think the conscious decision for Craig's films to have female characters with more depth definitely paid off and made the films better and the stories richer.
  • StamperStamper
    edited October 2021 Posts: 387
    Bond isn't dead. He made it look like he died to preserve Madeleine and his daughter.

    I guarantee that in the next one, we discover he made it look he died, but he found a fridge Indiana Jones style or something (P&W probably already know), and disappeared. (Just like Skyfall beginning in fact, which sources the same YOLT inspired situations).

    Maybe he was disfigured.

    Now he comes back, and has to convince M he is the real Bond, or maybe just like in Fleming novels, he even try to kill him. The door is wide open, and it doesn't take anything away from the ending of NTTD, because the whole point of 007 "death" is he knows he won't see his family again and can't, so he dies figuratively.

    Free to be reborn by another actor.

    After all, it's in the title. NO TIME TO DIE.

    I even wonder if they shot the angles we didn't saw where he finds a solution to "escape" death already during production. Which will mean we might see a bit of Craig again in the pre-credits sequence of the next one. Who knows.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited October 2021 Posts: 3,152
    Hey, man, if Bond can have an invisible car, Safin can have an invisible bomb shelter, right? Yes, he can. Can't prove he didn't. So there! Cough...
  • StamperStamper
    edited October 2021 Posts: 387
    A Safe room! Add some kind of holo-projections to make it seem he is outside. It's not too far fetched for Bond, especially if they want to bring back the fantasy elements. Also, there are always cure for nanobots as some posters pointed out. We will see in Bond 26.
  • cwl007cwl007 England
    Posts: 611
    TR007 wrote: »
    ringfire211 wrote: »
    MakeshiftPython wrote: »
    You compared transgenders to pedophiles.
    Twisting things that I said. I made a comparison about what is acceptable nowadays but at one time would have been unthinkable. A man becoming a woman. Then I said that in the near future what is unthinkable now (the rights of pedophiles) will become normal. You may think it ridiculous but I firmly believe we’re coming to that. Let’s face it - we have the blood of so many babies on our hands. They don’t have a say in their happiness, do they? As long as the adults are happy. As long as the mother is happy. The baby is secondary. I notice that the little ones are always the ones who end up suffering. It’s shocking but some day the rights of pedophiles will be more important than the rights of the little innocent ones.

    Hey Mods. Any chance you can press the red button and eject this guy from the forum?

    Agreed, Mods please do something about this individual. He's ignored your request to button it, I feel confident in saying comments like this aren't appreciated by anyone on this forum. Disgusting. Please get rid of him.
  • Michelle_Johnston_55Michelle_Johnston_55 England
    edited October 2021 Posts: 49
    Venutius wrote: »
    Michelle_Johnston_55 wrote: »
    I will go with that remark that if we are going to make Bond complicated why on earth would you not make the woman complicated (and my words) rather than run throughs. You can pull Camille and Severine into that grouping with Vesper and Madeleine so the way to give woman parity is not by being equally badass but being equally interesting.
    Exactly. Craig's films did that - Vesper, Camille, Severine, Lucia and Madeleine were all interesting characters in their own right, not just surface gloss or functional plot pieces. Even with smaller roles like Severine and Lucia, they put in the effort to give those characters some depth. In doing that, they proved that they don't have to go down the (now cliched in its own right) route of women as 'Bond's equal' in order to give a female character some substance. Ok, they made concessions to the badass Amazon archetype with Nomi and Paloma in NTTD, but I think the conscious decision for Craig's films to have female characters with more depth definitely paid off and made the films better and the stories richer.

    Paloma varies the palette she is the insertion during the absence of Madeleine and the perfect counterpoint. She is pure entertainment and part of that Bond Language thing I talked about earlier. Nomi is the class swat with the tiniest bit of attitude so not the gum chewing bad ass which would have been very unfortunate given her colour. She was the technical thoughtful warrior.

    My only 'issue' with Daniel's era would be Agent Fields but again she counterpointed Camille. The more I thank of that element the more it does not work on a number of levels. Off the cuff I would say she should have played the female Tanner of QOS to his NTTD and in her bureaucratic naivety still ended up dead.
  • SomethingThatAteHimSomethingThatAteHim
    Posts: 532
    cwl007 wrote: »
    TR007 wrote: »
    ringfire211 wrote: »
    MakeshiftPython wrote: »
    You compared transgenders to pedophiles.
    Twisting things that I said. I made a comparison about what is acceptable nowadays but at one time would have been unthinkable. A man becoming a woman. Then I said that in the near future what is unthinkable now (the rights of pedophiles) will become normal. You may think it ridiculous but I firmly believe we’re coming to that. Let’s face it - we have the blood of so many babies on our hands. They don’t have a say in their happiness, do they? As long as the adults are happy. As long as the mother is happy. The baby is secondary. I notice that the little ones are always the ones who end up suffering. It’s shocking but some day the rights of pedophiles will be more important than the rights of the little innocent ones.

    Hey Mods. Any chance you can press the red button and eject this guy from the forum?

    Agreed, Mods please do something about this individual. He's ignored your request to button it, I feel confident in saying comments like this aren't appreciated by anyone on this forum. Disgusting. Please get rid of him.

    Agreed, it’s incredibly off-putting reading filth like that, especially on a Bond forum.
  • thelivingroyalethelivingroyale
    edited October 2021 Posts: 12,837
    bondywondy wrote: »
    I don't mean this to be unkind but I feel Craig made an insulting comment with regard to the next Bond actor. He was quoted as saying

    "I just committed myself to it as much as I possibly could and tried to sort of elevate it as much as I could. I hope I’ve left it in a good place and I hope the next person can just make it fly. It’s an amazing franchise, I still think there’s a lot of stories to tell."

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cinemablend.com/amp/movies/no-time-to-dies-daniel-craig-has-some-blunt-advice-for-the-next-james-bond-actor

    How is Bond dying leaving it in a good place?

    That's just taking the piss. No self-awareness at all.


    He’s left it in a good place because the brand is the most critically and commercially successful it’s been since the 60s (would you have thought we’d ever get back to Bond films being nominated for oscars after DAD?) and now they have a completely clean slate. No baggage at all.

    I think an actor’s first Bond film has usually always been a difficult task, because of expelling the ghost of the last guy. The mementos from old missions in OHMSS make it impossible not to compare Lazenby to Connery. Moore’s early films have a few Connery hangovers that don’t really suit his Bond (like that scene where he slaps Andrea around, that didn’t feel right coming from Moore, he was a gentleman playboy type). Dalton hit the ground running with a classic entry, but even there, you had a couple of puns that were more suited to Moore, and the cut flying carpet scene. I love TLD to bits, but I think LTK is his definitive film. It’s tailored to him perfectly and that’s why it’s my favourite. Then there’s GE, which is very, very good. But it could have been a Dalton film, and it wasn’t Brosnan’s best performance. I love his Bond, but I don’t think stepping into those big shoes with all that baggage (the casino scene is like a greatest hits checklist, the DB5, Bond James Bond, etc) helped his confidence at first.

    This time there’s no baggage. No preconceptions. No need to tie it into anything or make it at all consistent with prior films. They have the freedom to completely reinvent it any way they want. They could strip it down again, they could go full Lewis Gilbert again, they could cast literally anyone and not have to worry about them being the same person as Craig in the eyes of the audience. A complete clean slate, and the massive success of the Craig films will have given them more freedom to experiment. I think he’s left it in a very good place.
  • matt_umatt_u better known as Mr. Roark
    Posts: 4,343
    Venutius wrote: »
    matt_u wrote: »
    Bond 26 would've been a total reboot anyway so from a creative standpoint Bond being dead in the previous one it's not even a thing.
    But doesn't the 'total reboot anyway' for Bond 26 mean that the result would've been the same if they hadn't had Bond die in NTTD? Which means that there was no actual need to kill him from a creative or story arc perspective. If it wasn't for those pesky wider Hollywood trends...

    What? Killing him off was a creative choice they made because that's how they felt Craig's Bond story arc needed to end.
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