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I do hope they don't use some of the editing tricks in NTTD going forwards, some of them felt a bit cheap in my opinion
Ranking on IMDB and RT, NTTD is middle of the pack in the Craig era. CR is number 1. NTTD doesn't fare that high on Metracritic either.
Again we all seem to mix in different circles. Every person I have spoken to, with the exception of 2 people, had massive issues with NTTD, not just Bond's death, but the film itself.
As my circle are broadly massive movie fans, with many of them working in the industry, I tend to think collectively we all have a pulse as to whether a film worked or not.
TGM by comparison - unanimously they all loved it, couldn't praise it enough.
Completely. Well said. Up to that point, the film worked, but then it all came unraveled.
I don't watch superhero movies, but I suspect most on here do, and that's why they're happy with the 'kill everyone and start again' approach of NTTD.
I'm sick of reading "but Logan did this" and "Batman did that" and "it worked for the Joker" etc. Last time I looked, the Craig era was supposed to move away from the cartoonism of DAD and more slapstick Bond movies, and be a proper gritty spy drama series that reflected the 'fantastic realism' of the books . But now we're firmly in the camp of Bond as a superhero with separate universes and timelines, and 'character arcs' and incarnations. It's a right mess for anyone that approaches Bond as real-life drama. But as I keep being told, I'm silly for thinking of the cinematic James Bond that way.
Yeah, I love NTTD, but just anecdotally, reactions to Bond's death felt pretty mixed among the casuals I know who saw it. Some loved it, some hated it and are tired of the relatively mopey Bond, and others liked it overall, but didn't care for the death.
Gosh I don't see that at all. Certainly they're no more tragic than the books, which have him as a mostly morose figure, often badly injured, just about winning through nothing but pure luck and suffering mild depression most of the time. And I think anyone should be fair game to die in stories like these: look at Holmes.
Anyway, it's done now: he died. There's nothing to be done about it except accepting it.
So you don't actually think that OHMSS was any good as a story or film, you only see merit in it because of the identity of the person who wrote the story? That's bonkers. Fleming's books were good because they were good, not because they had Ian Fleming on the cover. If NTTD was exactly the same story but with a 'by Ian Fleming' story credit, your opinion on it would change?
And you don't think that Fleming was following all of the trends in popular adventure fiction writing?
Please mention Top Gun again, you've only managed it about thirty times on this page ;)
I just can't see why you see only one way of doing things. Sometimes heroes win triumphantly, sometimes they have tragic and heroic deaths. Both work in these sorts of stories and always have done. You can't refuse that both are as old as storytelling itself.
Yes, not least because they already did the YOLT 'death' of Bond at the beginning of Skyfall. Only without the amnesia bit, because it's ridiculous, and it's also more interesting dramatically for Bond to decide to stay away.
What on Earth is camp about different adaptations? Or character arcs? That's not camp at all, that's just drama. Is it camp to have different Macbeths?
I would say that approaching Bond as a real-life drama, hover gondolas and all, is much more camp! :)
People aren’t bringing up those examples because they think Bond is a similar property, obviously it’s a different kind of fantasy. They’re bringing them up because Bond, like those superhero films, is a 200 million blockbuster aimed at a massively wide audience.
I’m not really a fan of superhero films either, haven’t watched them for years, but I don’t live under a rock so I heard a lot about Spiderman last year. Highest grossing film of the year iirc. Not only have they done what Bond’s about to do (fresh start, reset, reboot, new universe, whatever, the terminology doesn’t matter) several times, they actually used the sci-fi nature of it to embrace the “universe” concept literally and have all those different Spidermen team up. If audiences can accept and understand that, then I’m sure they can accept Craig’s Bond being dead and the films moving onto the adventures of a new one.
Yeah. It probably wasn’t just fans who didn’t like it to be fair, it did have its share of mixed reactions in comparison to CR and SF, but even most of the people who didn’t like it will have moved on almost as soon as they saw it, because it’s a film that came out nearly a year ago. The only people still complaining now are a small minority. I suppose casual viewers who didn’t like it might hold a grudge, but to be honest I don’t think it’s that deep to them. The film divided Bond fans because he’s our childhood hero. If they’re just films to you then you’re not going to be that arsed, even if you didn’t like it.
OHMSS is a great story - my favourite Fleming novel. NTTD as a story is terrible, regardless of who dare claim to be the sole contributor of writing that mess. Fleming didn't always write the perfect novels (see Thunderball), but I doubt he would have had it in him to spew up that drivel in NTTD.
Top Gun, Top Gun, Top Gun, Top Gun, Top Gun.... B-)
No, that's not why I'm happy with NTTD, @ColonelAdamski. Yes, I do watch superhero movies. No, I don't expect Bond to copy that formula. No, I'm not less critical of my Bonds because of certain trends.
What I am sick of is being considered "less of a Bond fan", "less intelligent", "ignorant of Fleming", "a byproduct of the current Hollywood trends", ... for enjoying the Craigs, especially by those who don't like some of the latest films (which is fine) and now seek all sorts of objective and external vindications for that (which is problematic). If you don't like a film, fine. Just please don't resort to condescending remarks such as the bolded one in the quote above, because that's part of the reason for the constant back-and-forths in this thread. Fans of the Craig era will not give you peace as long as you keep trying to "prove" that the latest films are terrible and that there's no excuse for liking them (and shame on us for doing so).
I call utter bullocks on this. The likes of SP and NTTD are constantly being attacked for sucking the fun out of the series, for taking themselves too seriously. You should be pleased then because they clearly have moved away from the cartoonism of DAD; they are gritty and dramatic to a fault, what with Bond himself dying and all. What more drama do you want?
Conjecture. We're not. In fact, we're nowhere now, because the Craig era is over and we have absolutely no idea what they will do next. I don't know if you were around in 2002, but some sourpusses back then were absolutely sure that the Bonds had slipped into pastiche--that from now on, the ridiculousness of DAD was to be expected all the time. Guess what, CR was the anti-DAD. Perhaps Bond 26 will be the anti-NTTD. We don't know. We know nothing. The Craig era was a one-time thing. It takes more than one era before we can spot a pattern. Who is to say they won't return to the happier Brosnan days next? They have shifted tones so often in the past, that there's absolutely no guarantee the first non-Craig Bond since Craig will be another Craig Bond. These assumptions are ridiculous. They are based on fear, not on reason.
Moreover, has there ever been a Bond "universe" or "timeline"? I mean, seriously, what are we going on about? Consider the first 20 films. Was that a "universe"? Really? With a continuity more "loose" than sexual morals at a '60s hippy concert. Was there a "timeline", with Bond growing older, then younger, then older again, over 40 years of changing tech and world politics? The Craigs were somewhat continuous in that they kept track of certain arcs. Is that a problem? Every Craig Bond still featured another villain, another set of locations (apart from the MI6 building), other action scenes and different connect-the-dots-plots... We didn't literally revisit the ruins of Skyfall in NTTD; we didn't go back to Casino Royale for another poker game in SP; we didn't invite Camille for a drink at Bond's hideout in Jamaica; we didn't retcon Mathis's death and pretend he survived after all. Good lord, is a little continuity such a grave crime then? For if so, let's burn our copies of MR for bringing back Jaws or set FRWL ablaze for bringing back Sylvia and mentioning the death of Doctor No.
There were callbacks in the "old" series. And there was a stronger sense of continuity in the Craigs. On the "film continuity" spectrum, they are both somewhere, but neither one is at the very end of the spectrum. But this nonsense about separate universes and timelines... I'd say that sentiment is coming from an obsession with the superhero / F&F series, not the simple acceptance of a little continuity in the Craigs.
Lastly, a series that's 60 years old and has spawned a massive 25 films so far... You can't seriously fault a series like that for a reboot, a "different approach" or a "self-contained era." This isn't like Spider-Man going multiverse three times in less than 15 years! This isn't Disney buying up the X-Men so they can do their own thing with it. This isn't Batman thriving on different iterations every once in a while. The Craig Bonds were the first to build layers. Some of us don't like that and, well, some of us do.
I do. And after 30 years of conscious Bond fandom, more than half a dozen re-reads of the Flemings, several studies of the Bond phenomenon through in-depth books and more, over 17 years on these boards, and so on, I simply will not accept being compared to a brainwashed superhero fanboy for enjoying NTTD. Bloody hell!
=D>
Not necessarily, though. I hate most superhero movies such as all the DCU and MCU movies and I unironically believe they're awful, so much so that I genuinely believe that even the Star Wars prequels and the fourth Indiana Jones flick, as bad as they are, are better movies than Thor, The Avengers, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Batman vs. Superman. Yet I loved NTTD and its ending.
See, and that's the thing. I have known you for years as an ardent Bond fan, @jetsetwilly. And I respect you and your opinion. Clearly, our opinions of NTTD do not align, but I'm not constantly trying to undermine your "credibility" as a Bond fan, let alone your Bond fandom itself. We both have opposite views of the film, but we still respect each other as Bond fans. It's a shame that some others, who joined less than a year ago, are arrogant enough to think they know where my views on NTTD come from. I don't mind a good rant regardless of whether I agree or not, but I will not tolerate being lumped in with the mindless ADHD teen crowd for not thinking NTTD sucks.
By the way, most people who like a good superhero film do so for its inherent qualities, not because it is a part of some crossover, multiverse kind of thing. Then still, comic books went there decades before their characters found a second life in cinema. It is in keeping with the source material that things like these happen. I can respect that. I can respect the emotion and drama in The Flashpoint Paradox; I can appreciate the fun in Spider-man's multiversity.
I can also appreciate extreme brutal visceral horror in certain "torture porn" flicks. I can appreciate Bo Derek's non-stop nudity in Bolero. I can appreciate Buster Keaton's excellent physical comedy in Steamboat Bill Jr. And I can appreciate the hard, depressing drama in Schindler's List.
That doesn't mean I want any of the above in my Bond film, though. Ergo, @ColonelAdamski's thesis about us "superhero stooges" is debunked.
That's shocking, what made you didn't liked it?, it's great for me, the plot was near realistic and Domino was a great and complex Bond Girl, Blofeld in this story was also great (particularly his descriptions), and yes it's my favorite novel along with Casino Royale and Moonraker.
Fleming wanted to kill Bond many times, he's tired of the character, so there's a possibility that he could kill him off, but much better, not the way NTTD did.
Not sure why I was never a fan of TB. I like the first few chapters at Shrublands, but once the story focuses on the workings of SPECTRE, I feel it begins to weaken. It does feel like a script-turned-into-novel (which essentially what it was), and doesn't hold my interest like the other novels do. I find the plot itself not great either, yet we had two films covering the exact same storyline, mainly because of McClory's ego. 2 atomic bombs are nicked and the west is held to ransom, while Bond goes off an a holiday in the Bahamas looking for them, was never a great basis for a story.
I like the style of TB as a film, it's the one Bond film were you really feel like going on holiday after watching it. Connery's wardrobe of espadrilles, Fred Perry polos, pink linen shirts and pink shorts, light blue striped short sleeve shirts, etc. are the essential things to pack when I jet off to sunnier climes.
But as for the plot, and the painfully slow underwater sequences, I feel both TB and NSNA suffer because of the book they both follow.
This was all terrific!
When it came to money or killing off Bond definitively, I think Fleming would always choose the money. He had been trying to get his novels adapted for years, and the FRWL novel was basically the tipping point, at least in terms of worldwide recognition of his creation.
Craig plays it perfectly as an emotionless killer
- M's three mission objectives - as someone pointed out months back, very video game-like
- Bond getting his wristwatch modified (pretty much his sole [or main] gadget for the mission proper)
- Bond's reaction to Q not having tested said gadget
- Q's little "whoops" moment when sliding out the wrong drawer with tea set
When operating the smart blood injector gun:
"Bond, you don't mind a shot or two whilst at work?"
"Well, I haven't had a drink for three or four OW!"
And:
"I assume you know how the stealthy bird works."
"No, no idea."
"Gravity."
My favourite little detail of that scene is the fact that Q is still wearing his pyjamas under his jacket, as he's clearly been rushed out of bed to go on this assignment.
I'm still not sure I entirely get that. The point of gliders is that they defy gravity. If it were a parachute it would work as a joke. I thought she was referring to the flashy light propulsion thing at the back, I'm still not sure what that is.
Yeah. Craig always takes it seriously when it matters most, even if the jokes in NTTD were too heavy. The Matera Sequence and The Bunker shootout is Undiluted Craig's Bond, further heightened by Zimmer's music.
Gravity eventually brings it down. The gliders simply make sure you don't fall down fast. The thrusters at the back push the thing forward, but don't "fly" it "down". Lowering the altitude doesn't require anything, just "hold the gas" so to speak. So I suppose that what Q means is that if you want to leave the plane and touch the ground, all you need is gravity. ;-) But yeah, it's not really a joke as such; the joke, as I read it, is that Bond asked a stupid question according to Q, which is why he stated the obvious more as sarcasm. ;-)