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. . . and try and forget the whole 'he's dead, but he's coming back' silliness ever happened.
Spectre - Family Ties
NTTD- Bond Knows Best (when people saw it, they’d say “oh, that’s a play on Father Knows Best). Brilliant. Simply brilliant! =D>
Remember Captain Scarlet? He was indestructible too. You could kill him and he came back. I don't know what special powers he had.
Whether you like the ending or hate it, “he’s dead and we’ll get a whole new version next time” really isn’t silly or hard to grasp. The series has always been different takes on the same character (Brosnan sniffing Klebb’s shoe isn’t a sign of continuity, it’s just a cheeky nod, same as the OHMSS references in NTTD). The Craig era just made a point of setting this new take apart in a more concrete way and giving it a proper ending for a change.
Apparently this is for some. I don't get it myself, personally, as it seems incredibly obvious, but I've tried to explain it a few times now with no success. It's not even a subjective thing, it's clearly what the series is going to do.
What I don’t get is how it’s apparently so different to what came before. I know there was some carryover between films from 1962 to 2002, but did people really see Moore’s Bond as the same Bond from OHMSS, for example? He was married to Tracy, but he was essentially playing a whole different character. And even if we do accept Connery to Brosnan as the exact same person, why is an immortal never aging man who has a new face and a complete personality transplant every few years believeable, but Bond dying and the story starting anew is silly/sci-fi/etc?
I knew the ending would be divisive, but I really didn’t expect it to confuse so many people.
Each Bond actor is playing a different interpretation of the same character, there is no continuity (save the Craig era), each is a standalone story.
I think it would be simpler for some people if they consider the entire Craig era as one "entry", or "film", in the franchise. They told a story, it's done, on to the next one.
I don’t think it confuses hardcore fans as much as it does the casual fan. My aunt for example, was confused by it-she thinks he is dead period. Here’s the thing: she didn’t stick around to see James Bond Will Return. I would say a lot of people didn’t as well. So...one can see how that would be a problem. I didn’t wait for it either,but of course I knew. Probably 90% of the people at my showing left and didn’t watch the credits.
It's because the Bond series had its own loose continuity rules that got ruffled with CR but now have been totally discarded with NTTD. Like I've said before, the Bond series only worked over the course of many decades because the actor playing Bond passed the torch to the next guy. But now with NTTD, Eon has basically said that the Craig era is totally closed off from everything else. So basically we have two Bond series now, the first (DN-DAD) and Craig's.
The reason why a lot of people don't like this is because Eon traded their traditional continuity rules with comic book "reset" rules that are all the rage nowadays. The question isn't whether Brosnan-Bond is the exact same person as Connery-Bond, as there was only a very loose narrative continuity to begin with. It simply wasn't an issue. Our point is that NTTD has forced this to become an issue because of its shock ending which should never have happened.
It’s only an issue if you make it. Chill out. It’s all make believe.
It seems like you're semi-intentionally making it very problematic for yourself.
The Bond series *only* worked over the course of many decades because the actor playing Bond passed the torch to the next guy? No, there has been no torch-passing.
It's as if you're creating your own strict rules for the franchise just so the Craig Era and NTTD can break them.
EDIT: @MakeshiftPython, exactly.
Though to be honest, I’ll be kind of annoyed if they carry over any actors from NTTD like Ralph Fiennes. I rather they start off clean. No references to past films. It’s just Bond on a new mission.
This one makes the most sense to me and the way I choose to view them because otherwise you'll wreck your head trying to make sense of it when they're all just bloody good fun stories in the end.
I don’t think it’ll really be a problem. We’ve already had one Bond reboot, and people have seen plenty of different takes on superheroes in recent years.
Even people like your aunt will get it once they cast the next guy, but to be honest my experience has been the exact opposite. The casual fans I’ve spoken to seem to get that they’ll just start again, but then I come on this site and read comment after comment still struggling to grasp it.
The Craig era has always been its own new series. If you don’t like that okay, but I don’t get why NTTD’s ending suddenly makes it an issue for you now (rather than it being an issue when they first rebooted). If anything the ending is narratively liberating. They could go back to a looser continuity next time now, if they wanted to, without it seeming as weird as it would’ve done if we’d jumped into that straight from Craig’s “it’s all connected” mini series.
And a flimsy ongoing continuity as we had from 1962-2002 is only one way for it to work. Other ways can work too, as we’ve just seen from the Craig era’s success. Different takes on old legends have been happening for as long as storytelling has been a thing too, so I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss it as a solely comic book thing.
We’re also back to schrodinger’s Bond film again here, where “a lot” of people don’t like the ending, but also EON were just doing it to chase comic book trends that are popular enough to be “all the range”. If you’re going to keep making up imaginary motivations for the ending to try and cast it in a worse light (rather than just critiquing the film itself), then you should at least make those motivations consistent with the film’s apparent lack of popularity.
Wes Anderson to direct Bond 26.
The cast (you can be sure) is already in place:
Saoirse Ronan as Bond
Timothée Chalamet as the Bond Girl
Bill Murray as M
Frances McDormand as Q
Jason Schwartzman as Felix Leiter
Mathieu Amaric [it doesn't matter] as Blofeld
Et al ....
... but this time it's personal!
I doubt it, but I suppose that depends on your definition of safe sex a reboot. Maybe I'm conflating reboot with origin story, but IMO Bond 26 will be as far away from any sort of origin story as possible.
But if an "extreme" reboot just means new cast, new story, then I suppose you're right. I guess CR was "extreme" because it was an origin story and the only holdover was M, and I'd agree that I don't think B26 will have any holdovers at all from the Craig Era.
I see no reason this should occur based solely on its own. Like they did with carrying over Dench from Brosnan to Craig, I find carrying at least Fiennes over from Craig to be most appropriate. Carrying over actors in their roles provides a level of stability and viewer expectation for the series, something that I think should carry some weight. For actors like Whishaw, who has expressed he isn't interested in comeing back, fine...or for Harris, who may develop an undesirable age discrepancy with the Bond (depending on how they want that relationship to work), also fine. But dropping Fiennes, just because some fans have this lust for a blank slate is not reasoning worth giving much consideration, IMHO.
I think the decision not to blank slate the cast up to this point, given its merits, has been very intentional and I don't think that's a barrier worth breaking for the sake of it.
In heaven ... or in hell?
Probably purgatory ....
That’s why I find it cheap.
Yes, I am on board with all your points here, @thelivingroyale . And @Creasy47's.
It has gotten to the point now where I am not enthused to get into many threads about NTTD because this issue of "confusing" ending and "OMG, how will they ever continue in Bond 26?" is pervasive. And no fun. Some people just cannot see their way past it, and I respect their feelings. But the cycle of going back and forth about this now is more than tiresome.
I also realized that it would be a divisive ending (love it or hate it) and do NOT expect people to change their feelings much on that; perhaps somewhat. But I also did not foresee the angst and arguing about how "confusing" this movie is and the woe-is-us the franchise is "doomed" type of comments. Just ... nope.
On I go to other threads. I will peek in here from time to time. After all, I want to hear from our Aussie and Malaysian and other members who will be seeing NTTD for the 1st time in a few weeks. B-)
Same here, honestly. I've been enjoying the QoS Fan Club thread, and the Best/Worst Lines thread.
For better or worse, NTTD was a bit of an explosion for the franchise, and once the dust settles and everyone calms down (for lack of a better expression), there will be a lot of fun discussion to be had surrounding it (and, in fairness, there already has been as well). I do think it will be appreciated along with OHMSS in time by a majority of Bond fans. NTTD doesn't have Rigg, Savalas' Blofeld, or Fleming source material, but it surpasses Lazenby's outing in quite a few other areas I'd say.