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Yeah, I agree. Something like that can be done in an overdramatic and ham fisted manner, but I think what we got was a bit too vague. Like I said I don’t think it went over people’s heads more than it made them go, ‘wait, hold on.’ I don’t think Madeline saying ‘she’s not yours’ would immediately strike people as a metaphorical thing to say and it’s understandable. I know it’s not an uncommon complaint about the film and BB herself has even publicly clarified what the line is meant to mean (which I don’t think should necessarily be needed if this moment had been more well written).
Sometimes you just have to guide the viewer or reader of the script a bit with these things. Metaphorical dialogue has been done effectively in Bond before. I mean, no one for instance gets taken out of SF when Silva tells the story about the rats. It’s purposeful enough for the audience to know exactly how it relates to the story, what it tells us about this character, and is generally engaging/easy to follow.
I will say for all my issues with this plot point, I’m glad Craig was the lead. It’s something Brosnan wouldn’t have been able to handle.
I agree, the problems with Bond 25 start with Madelines "betrayal" of Bond. The first 20 minutes should have been a montage-like sequence similar to OHMSS, but instead of falling in love, it's the birth of his child and the start of their family life together. Cut out the whole "break up" between bond and madeline thats ultimately pointless and only serves to make Bond a misery guts again.
What you’re suggesting sounds like a tighter film in a way, but I dunno, the glimpse we saw in NTTD is about as much as I’d like to see of Bond playing happy families. I think he should only ever get a little taste of that sort of life before he gets reminded of who he is and what sort of film he’s in.
I think the breakup also improves SP’s ending too, and the Bond/Madeline relationship, by showing how flimsy it was and how much of Craig Bond’s emotional baggage hadn’t actually been resolved. And I do think that’s something that needed resolving, because they’d gone too far down that road to change course in the last film.
For me, the Bond/Madeline/Mathilde story is fine the way it is. I just wish they’d spent a bit more time on it and cut some other stuff.
I just think Bond being a misery guts and going into hiding before being stirred out of retirement has been done before, and it doesn't add anything to this story when there's already enough plate spinning going on. I think if the film started with bond witnessing childbirth, driving madeline home, placing baby in the crib, waking up in the middle of the night in a frantic panic, realising it was something mundane, stepping on a rattle etc. That would really give the impression to the audience, okay, this is really going to be a different type of Bond film, and not knowing where its going and what to expect.
Oh yikes, imagine all of the acting Pierce would have done in that film. A lot of acting.
I mean, thats basically the character he played in mama mia.
The bit at the end in front of the church where Streep sings a song and Pierce has to stand in the background mugging for three minutes straight is one of my all time favourite Brosmoments.
I went to see that film with my mum when it came out, I appreciated how they portrayed Brosnan as the cool dad and the other two were the lame ones.
But no, that would require some clever writing from the writers. And to remain faithful to the character of James Bond. Which of course they’re not interested in anymore. Not when Danny boy says he wants Bond to die. Or else…
I thought Skarsgard was the cool one! Brosnan's had a bad habit of wearing a smart shirt with jeans :)
The friend I watched it with didn't think Bond was dead till the credits rolled. She said "is that it?"
I said "yes"
She said "so he's dead, no more Bond films?"
I explained that there would be more films, and we're meant to imagine that the next James Bond will be a different character who lives in an alternate universe. She said "well that's just silly", and I agreed, but said that lots of people who see movies these days find that completely acceptable and don't have the slightest problem with it, and we were old fashioned and 'confused' if we didn't appreciate that.
Then she said "but James Bond always escapes, that's what James Bond does"
"Not in this film"
"Well, that's a bit rubbish then"
"um, yes, it is".
Is it rubbish? Well your mileage may vary on that; I think it's a legitimate story to tell and I think it was nicely dramatic and well-told. Some didn't like it, and that's fine, but it's been two years now.
As I keep saying, understanding the concept isn't the difficult bit. It's not thinking it's bloody daft concept that I can't manage.
I wish they'd have knocked out a 'Bond by numbers' film like TND in the meantime, sort of like a Bond sorbet, just to clear the palate. The unpleasant taste of NTTD has lingered too long, as you say, it's been two years.
Still, I loved With a Mind to Kill, so it's not all doom and gloom.
It’s not “old fashioned”, it’s just fiction.
"Alternate universe" makes zero sense since there is no "Bond universe". Apart from a minor few recurring characters and some very loose continuity at best, there is nothing that links these films together. The few ties between films in the entire series amount to less than what ties two MCU films together. You obsess over timelines and universes but those are meaningless in the Bond series. Even the Craigs, with some measurable continuity between them, are barely viewed in that manner. When people watch SP, they rarely do so as the one to follow up on SF and use elements from CR and QOS. It's just another Bond film. When people watch TLD, they don't wonder where the older, brown-haired Bond went, or why Bond isn't packing the dart-shooter he used in space for his trip to Vienna, or why Baron Samedi isn't recruited by MI6 as the immortal voodoo agent. Every next Bond film is just another Bond film to most, not James Bond with a Roman numeral. There is no timeline. There is no universe. There is an imperfect continuity at best, more often neglected than confirmed.
When the next film hits theatres, literally no-one except a few sourpusses will wonder out loud how Bond can be dead and yet not be dead.
If you cannot handle it, stay away from NTTD threads and pretend the film never happened. It's really easy. The more you complain, the worse it's going to get.
Right, I always like to compare the Connery-to-Craig arch to Disney stories: Scrooge McDuck is still active today, in spite of having made his first dime before he even went to Yukon territory to stake his claim, and he hasn't aged at all although he'd have to be about 150 years old - rather excessive for a duck, by the way. That being said, I think this floating-time line thing works only (and even then one has to really stretch things) until the Brosnan phase, if beyond the Connery phase at all. But considering that CR (accepted and lauded by basically everyone) started a new timeline with Craig's Bond being a rookie in 2006, one should accept that this is a new story which may as well have been finished off by this Bond's death in 2021, or whenever the movie is supposed to be set considering the delays in production.
I love the Craig period (minus SP and QOS), but now it's over. Let's get to a fresh start. Or as it said at the end of the closing credits even in NTTD: James Bond will be back.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11042835/House-intelligence-committee-speaks-new-DNA-bio-weapons-target-single-person.html
I agree 100%; I loathe that sequence. It could have been played so much better.
Those others I mentioned aren't daft though; neither is this. Characters die sometimes.
Imagine being that reader griping about Conan Doyle killing off Sherlock Holmes. Nowadays it's one of his most memorable stories.
And yes, they brought him back after that too.
And I'd say that wasn't a Bond-by-numbers at all. And is debatable as to whether 007 is about to die at the end too.
He gave us his best Benoit Blanc in that scene. 😄
Inconsistent tone, unstable acting from the casts, plot contrivances and plot holes, I could go on and on.
The problems of NTTD were also the same problems of TWINE, I tend to think of NTTD as the twin sister of NTTD.
Yeah unfortunately that’s how I kind of look at it. I don’t hate NTTD, and I think it’s pretty decent for what it is. But for an era that started off so strong, it went with kind of a whimper imo. Though to be fair, I think the decline really started with SPECTRE.
Doyle was able to bring back Holmes in a way that made sense, which is something they can't do with the cinematic Bond.
So the only people that should post on NTTD threads are people that like the movie?
Jesus, some of you guys can be really snotty on here.
I remain puzzled about what's so bad about that scene.
Oh gosh: they don't need to explain it. It'll be in a different continuity - you say that you understand this but then you seem to show that you don't.
The Bond Fandom is weird, really.
Some of them even tend to complicate things.
I love all of Craig's scenes with Jeffrey Wright. A highlight of the film for me.
It's weird, right?