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I hoped I'd warm to it too. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. I still haven't bought a physical copy of it, I can't bring myself to put NTTD with my James Bond films. It's daft.
This is exactly how I felt with SF: wasn't at all invested yet extremely jealous at how much love and praise most on here were throwing its way. I saw it five times in theaters, desperately hoping that it'd finally click for me, that I'd see the magical classic that so many others did, but 10 years later, it never did. It's an awful feeling.
Same here. It's only the second Bond film I never bought because I couldn't deal with the idea of writing a story around a single idea instead of having an idea about a good story... (the other one for me is Moonraker).
I desperately want to enjoy NTTD, it's very well made, the action was thrilling and the Matera/Jamaica are wonderful. The story just frustrated me and that's my overriding feeling, frustration
Remember Charlie Higson's reaction? Maybe we would likely to see more of that had Bond didn't die, yes it will be more remembered for Bond having a daughter, and people would bashed it too.
Just my feeling that if the film ends with him driving with his family, people would likely to call it "awful" and "Bond should not be a family man" etc. Etc. Etc.
Thanks pal. Happy to take credit for spreading a little unhappiness about NTTD.... ;)
Part of that was the slow hype train of its delayed release making me go back and rewatch the others, but a big part of it was how well it crystallised the mini-series that they are.
And all those things?
Mathilde?
Blofeld dying not in some grand fight and scheme but almost by accident?
Bond unable to save himself, but able to save the world one last time and protect the people he cared about?
Those are what *make* the film.
And I am glad it uplifted the story in QoS, because that film always *looked* stylish, but didn’t have much weight… in retrospect it’s now much better as part of the overall thread of the era.
Shame it doesn’t quite uplift Bro-feld in quite the same way, but it does a tiny bit.
Is it Bond? The whole era is completely disparate from the films I grew up with as a kid, more so than any of the other jumps when actors changed. So it isn’t that.
But it is Bond and it is good.
If I want escapist I will go watch Brosnan (even DAD isn’t as bad as it felt twenty years ago)
If I want nostalgia, there’s Dalton (TLD is my old favourite) or Moore for memories of Cold War Christmases with ITV on.
If I want to remember how some things age horribly, but it’s where the adaptations really started, then I can go watch the Connery era, but I don’t enjoy them frankly.
If I want stylish, with emphasis on characters and character arcs, then there’s the Craig era. And overall… it’s as good as any of the others, and if I am honest and remove my bias, better overall than anything in the previous run.
If I can be arsed putting myself through it, there’s always Lazenby, but I’ve read the book and don’t particularly like much of the film tbh.
These are personal opinions, but I can point out objective things too, like cinematography, thematic elements — even what feels like a fact that Paloma is the best Bond Girl ever xD — and how people seem to have really worked on crafting something on every one of these films.
That's a really interesting thought, I can almost see that happening. The 'happy ending' of LTK kind of feels like an afterthought anyway, like they're going through the motions because that's how a Bond film ends. I don't think plotwise there's enough of a reason for Bond to die- there's nothing really to sacrifice himself for and his life isn't over (Felix's life isn't even over! Della's is of course, but I don't think there's a hugely strong bond established between her and Bond), but tonally I could see that film working if he'd died at the end. He has gone off the rails enough for that to be an ending to the movie.
That could have been a great emotional thriller. Instead of the depressing tragedy we've got.
Incorporating that ending would have changed SP potentially, which isn't a bad thing per say. They could have had Quantum and SPECTRE being different organisations or waring fractions. After SPECTRE's lair is blown up by Bond they take advantage of the opportunity and try to pick up the pieces of their organisation, capture Bond etc. That or it'd have to be Mr. White who does the capturing/brainwashing, which means his death and connection to Swan would have to be changed.
It's a big old downer though, and that's what a lot of these comparisons with Top Gun have been about.
There'd be something almost poetic about potentially the final Bond film being called License To Kill.
I would have liked it. Spectre as the first act of a two parter. Wasn't that the plan of Mendes / Logan at one point?
Mr. White brainwashing Bond on Blofelds behalf, so that Bond forgets Madeleine. The father protects his daugther from beeing with a killer just like him. And in the next film Bond brings White and Blofeld down. THAT would have endet the Craig-Era in a satisfying manner for me. A bit of character-drama, but still beeing an epic thriller.
I have no idea myself, but it would make a lot of sense if the whole torture to make 'Bond forget faces' thing was a left over from a very early idea of that ilk.
I do think, however, that Blofeld would have to die in that film in order for it to work best. SP was a film that needed to feel like some sort of finale to what we got in CR and QOS. Even without the foster brother subplot, the idea that Blofeld is the man in charge of the organisation that caused Vesper to die, led to Bond dedicating his life to the Service etc. is significant. There needed to be some sort of showdown between Bond and Blofeld. What we got was underwhelming, but more or less this. The film after was always going to be the conclusion to tie up all the character threads of the Craig era. That's why I feel having Mr. White return/do the brainwashing in a version of that idea is best. At least then whatever mission Bond is sent on after being deprogrammed can have this character reappear to tie it all together.
It's an interesting 'what if' for sure. Hell, the hypothetical fifth Craig film we could have gotten in this parallel universe could actually have been similar to what we got. Blofeld is dead, but the remaining SPECTRE agents and White are being hunted down by Safin, nanobots and all.
Yeah maybe. It still might have felt that he was dying for nothing in a way, I think you'd need to write in that he's doing it for the sake of someone else (beyond the faceless victims of drug smuggling). Or make Sanchez's threat more immediate. And of course, given the film's similarities to Flemings TMWTGG, it wouldn't have been too far off the novel to kill him at the end- Bond barely survives.
I do think they absolutely should have killed Felix regardless: it feels like they wimped out when he's just fine again at the end. Considering how most allies and friends that Bond meets tend to die, for him to go all Rambo when one of them just gets badly hurt, feels a bit of a mismatch.
Yeah it's the only thing that makes sense, but by the end of the film she's forgotten apart from an inscription on a lighter (what was James doing carrying that around?! The most incriminating object he could possibly have with him! :)) ) so it does rather to add to the feeling that she was 'fridged', as the term goes. Killing and raping her leaves a bad taste in my mouth as she exists purely to be murdered, I'd have much preferred if they'd just have killed Felix off.
Yes, you're right. There wasn't enough reason for Bond to sacrifice himself....and Yes! his death would have worked more in LTK than NTTD. The tone of LTK was very consistent that it even showed in Dalton's Haircut not looking very Bondian in most of the film and even when they did his hair for the Casino scenes, it had a Draculaesque look to it, compared to TLD where his hair was very Bondian.
This is mainly down to Craig's performance. Others have said it, and I've had my nits to pick about it since viewing one, but it's even more noticeably wildly different when watching in the context of the marathon. Took away from the big finish, because I felt like I wasn't watching the same character. And I'm shocked to be saying that.
Idk. Maybe I'm delirious. Or maybe Skyfall had the perfect ending to Craig's tenure.
At the same time, it increases my fondness for Craig’s performance in SPECTRE where he’s playing 100% cinematic Bond without any of the chip on his shoulder he had in the first three films. The film may not be strictly formula as many want, but Craig is playing Bond exactly as I wanted to see since he was announced: Being a straight up aloof bastard.
Yes. I get what they're going for with Craig's performance (though it's a little off in the PTS when he's yelling at Madeline), but idk if they pulled it off. I remain convinced his Knives Out character seeped in too much, somehow. It's not just that he talks more, it's everything, expressions and all.
You're bang on with the SPECTRE performance. That was a highlight in the marathon. It was a lot like his QOS performance, actually, but without playing the impulsiveness the character had at that stage.
Ironically it was of course the long flight back from Italy, which was a trip in-part to visit Matera, as recently mentioned, a location I otherwise would've never known about were it not for NTTD. And yet NTTD fared worst (and that's not to say I rank it low. It still may be my 3rd fav Craig. Just the marathon did it no favors. Again, could just be it was the last film in a long marathon on a tedious flight haha).
Even I would have been ok with a cliffhanger ending. It would have been a bit of a downer compared to TGM, but it still wouldn't be such a final, depressing ending. There would be still hope. We know Bond is going to survive to live and fight another day.