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As Arnold himself said on Twitter I think at the time of release, brings together elements from all the various scores.
OHMSS
Gotcha. My bad.
Great find. Just listening to this, but can't spot it. Around what time?
You can have character development and originality without subversion and deconstruction. Craig spent 3 out of his 5 films playing a broken-down Bond before they finally bumped him off. Subversion is simply taking what's been done before and inverting it. It's not creative. If anything it signals a lack of creativity.
Man that scene frustrates me. Bond has every opportunity to level with M, but always opts to needlessly complicate it to the point where she personally brings agents to escort him.
Screenshot, if not illegal on this board, would be appreciated.
So death is the only "proper" ending in your opinion?
If you don't get it then how can you explain it?
Yet you continue to assert your own view and criticise others who have a different view for doing the same...
I entirely "get" your point of view, and on one hand I compartmentalise my Bonds and have no problem understanding that it is only Craig-Bond who is dead and look forward to the next Bond
But on the other hand I don't agree with killing off the character and feel there was too much melodrama in the Craig era. (one persons "character development" can be another persons "melodrama")
To a casual viewer killing Bond and then saying "he will return" is confusing
To those who don't believe the character should be killed off and then brought back in the next movie it is ridiculous.
Not "Bond", this line of thinking only applies to "Craig-Bond" who seems to have been in a downward emotional spiral since day one.
"Book-Bond" is an adrenaline junkie and espionage is his drug of choice. Cold killing is part of it and he has mixed feelings about that side of it. However he also understands that life without the excitement is not for him, as the "ennui" he feels prevents him from living a "normal" life and sustaining a "normal" couple relationship. Only late in the series does "Book-Bond" get married and Tracy dies before we find out whether Bond can sustain it.
With "Craig-Bond" it's the deaths of those around him that bother him (fair enough in a "normal" person, but do real secret agents have that much empathy?). At the beginning of NTTD it appears he is capable of living the quiet life if only the World would stop interrupting him.
However "where there is life there is hope".
The two plot mechanisms viewers seem to have identified for Crag-Bonds death-wish are
Noble sacrifice due to fatal bullet wounds (the "Danny Archer" scenario) or due to incurable nanobots (The Sydney Carton scenario)
It's all good, but IMO it's "Craig-Bond" not "James Bond"
CR ending sad? Standing over Mr White - Look out villains, James Bond is coming to get you! IMO that is a positive ending.
SF ending sad? Yes, M is dead, but there is a new M, it's downbeat, but the message is that life goes on, the struggle against evil will continue
SP ending... Craig-Bond has had enough, see you on the next episode of "Escape to the Country"
NTTD - “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
IMO, on balance, James Bond sacrificing his life has to be a sad ending, no matter how noble it is
The only long term character development that matters is that of James Bond
Other characters only need to be developed as far as necessary to serve the individual story in which they appear
Meeting Tracy and marrying allows development of Bond's character
Tracy dying allows further development of Bond's character
Meeting Vesper allows development of Bond's character
Vesper dying allows further development of Bond's character
Meeting Madeleine allows development of Craig-Bond's character
Being prepared to sacrifice his life for her and his daughter is also character development for Craig-Bond
But I'm not sure how actually dying advances the cause?
Because, when "James Bond returns", it will be as if all that character development never happened.
It also just keeps the series popular. I was happy with the Brosnan era, and I originally struggled to adjust to Craig. But I’ve had conversations about the new Bond films since with people who I never thought I’d be able to talk about James Bond with. And just look at the box office of the last few films.
I’d still be happy with a formulaic Bond film every two years, because I’m a fanboy. But the current blockbuster landscape is so oversaturated with franchises that currently hold a lot more cultural capital than Bond (spies haven’t been a big craze for a long, long time), and I think the reason the last few have done so well despite that is that EON have managed to turn it into a real event. Every new Bond film now immediately takes the UK by storm. And I’m not sure that would’ve been possible if we’d just stuck to Bond on a mission every time. Most of us would be happy. But general audiences already have plenty of other Bond films they can watch for that.
Not sure how you managed to get that from my post since I never even implied that but no, of course not. Him retiring again for good or something would’ve been just as concrete. Even him going back to active service could work as a proper ending, if it was forshadowed and given weight. But I do think death was the most fitting ending for the story they’d been telling.
If you’ve been living under a pop culture rock and have missed the wealth of different unrelated Spidermen, Batmen, etc, and the Bond reboot we’ve already had, then I guess it could be confusing. But again, ironically, I haven’t met anyone who was confused in real life. I’ve just seen comment after comment still going on about it on here.
I’m sure some people are confused, but as ever, I think it’s the internet amplifying the voice of a vocal minority. Most people are used to reboots, and most people don’t think this deeply into it in the first place. They just watch the film, move on, and forget about it until they see a trailer for the next one. And even the ones who are confused will immediately get it when they cast the new guy.
Even IMF films with Tom the man Cruise are just tap water/elevator music films, like all Marvel and DC. They are made to be enjoyed in the cinemas, and forgotten 10mn after getting out. Only crazy die hard fans spend time on board dissecting the IMF films. They are just ephemeral enjoyments, only revisited for continuity when a new one comes up.
Bond is an institution, and it achieved that taking crazy risks, all it's films and litterature life. (The novels set the template). He is in place Spider-Man will never be. (the film Spider-Man. The comics was made institution by Lee/Ditko/Romita/Kane and no film has come close).
I don't get the hoopla around Bond dying because I've expected Bond to die (pardon the formulation) back in 2008 with the first sequel. For me that was the only way to top CR. I'm amazed they finally got there because they beat around the bush for 3 intermediary films of relative importance, that otherwise, kept the British end up because they were still boldly going places Bond had never went before.
Go back to the novels. They aren't cliche about some guy in a white smoking suit that get the women and drink and smoke and gamble and had gomina in his hair and his assigned a mission and get it done and get the girl in the end. They are deep exploration of the masculine and feminine psyche.
What happened during the Craig season is they went back Fleming. And they are far from having exhausted the source. The 60's films might have exhausted the stories and situations, but not the subtext. And there's plenty more where that come from.
Cool, "most fitting" is a better choice of words
To me "proper" implies that previous endings were wrong or inadequate in some way
Batman died? Spideman died? Connery-Bond died? Rog-Bond died? etc
Sorry, yes, I missed that
As far as I'm aware franchises usually don't kill off the titular character (they just stop after the last instalment doesn't make enough money at the box office) So reboots are usually just a new actor playing the same character, as in the Bond franchise up until NTTD, even if they do choose to retell the origin story in a slightly different way.
However Iron-man and Wolverine might change all that in the near future?
Nothing surer than that those two won't be staying dead forever
Black Widow is one exception I can think of, killed off before getting to star in her own movie!
And Captain Kirk of course, but many Star Trek fans didn't like that either
That's right, anyone who disagrees with you must be a vocal minority with their head stuck in an echo chamber...
This is a fan site, where people enjoy discussing the minutiae that "normal" movie goers overlook
The image has nothing to do with the discussion @DoctorKaufmann and is nothing more than spam. Please refrain from posting such things again. Thanks
No, I think (as in, I reckon) you’re the minority, based off my entirely anecdotal experience (never meeting anyone in real life with these complaints) and the fact that the film is still doing very well, making lots of money and getting good audience scores.
And I only said that to disagree with your point about casual/normal moviegoers being confused, you were the one who bought them up. You were saying people won’t understand, I was saying I think those that don’t are in the minority, because the only place I’ve seen confusion is here (which as you say, is a fansite, pretty far removed from the average viewer experience).
Batman as good as died in The Dark Knight Rises. Missing, presumed dead until we see him retired and sunning himself in Spain or somewhere with Catwoman at the end. Then Joseph Gordon Levitt’s character takes the mantle.
They started over with Ben Affleck just three years later, and I don’t remember anybody asking where Joseph Gordon Levitt had gone, why he was out of retirement, why he didn’t have Catwoman with him, etc. Because people understood it was a reboot. Just as people understood that Craig’s Bond was a reboot, and just as people will understand that this new Bond is another reboot.
First, many of our complaints are based on the Craig era mimicking other franchises, particularly with all this "reboot" nonsense. Secondly, would the Batman reboots have worked if any of the previous continuities had killed off Batman? Killing off a character on-screen regardless of reboots might make it harder for audiences to accept that he's coming back in a different continuity, not easier. That's why you don't kill off the hero of his own series. A month after learning about NTTD's ending, I'm still utterly baffled as to why Eon made this decision.
Because they thought there was a good story to be told of Bond dying. That’s all.
Nail. Head. 👍
Count me in the live and let live camp. Those who didn't like it, that's fine and sorry to hear! Those who enjoyed it (like myself) had a good experience and good memories. Much better approach than to live and let die over this...?
And the Craig Era, to me, has been the cherry on the top, that (and here’s the controversial opinion that I will later put into the Controversial Thread), I may never need to see another Bond film again (other than in passing).
Connery was the ultimate in cool-killer sex appeal with charisma oozing from his every pore…
Laz felt like the innocent Bond (with flaws);
no one could match Moore’s dapper public school boy;
Dalton’s jadedness, but more so his unstoppable drive, was unmatched…
But Craig’s blunt instrument mixed with humanity and passion completes everything I need from this character… So do I need to see another incarnation of the character after this dramatic five film arc?
I’m not so sure that I do….
I always think its healthy to stop interacting when you have said and responded to everything just once but this post was on my MI6 screen on my phone and it struck me that you have said what I feel.
Inevitably my views have changed since the mid sixties, my needs have changed, but Daniel's introduction has changed the way I see the entire sequence, aside from Majesties, which I own and watch once a year, I do not hanker to watch any of the others. I admire the first three, Timothy's are a mixture and certainly both have real moments and start well but by that point the real challenge of how to 'end' a bond movie was an issue.
Daniel has taken it to a different level of intensity where what happens to him leaves an indelible mark on him and the audience. We get a chance to see what that means, real change occurs and it leaves its mark on him and the audience. We are on a journey and of course his death is entirely logical as a consequence.
However in the sameway I am not interested in the early films any more (I never watched the Moore films more than once on release) it is likely that it may not be important to me to see what comes after. I would not have been surprised if Barbara and Michael stopped, indeed I am more surprised they are carrying on.
That is controversial. It's impossible to imagine, at this point, a Bond film coming out that I won't be interested in seeing day one.
Spot on. Exactly right.