NO TIME TO DIE - Questions Thread

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  • M_BaljeM_Balje Amsterdam, Netherlands
    edited November 2021 Posts: 4,512
    The guy who played Sir Sebastian D'Ath explain why Directer give this guy litle role in Jane Eye and NTTD.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/former-top-civil-servant-hayden-phillips-james-bond-b957787.html


    Swann is metafor changing later in something ele's . Inspyred by story of Ugly Dug. Like we get Hans & Grietje in Skyfall (Breadcrumbs by light with M and Kinkade). I think it was idea from John Logan, brother thing and earlier Silva Rat / Willem Tell story be his idea too i think.

    I expecting story of Rat guy from Hamelen have been next, follow the leader element. Even without John Logan. But in NTTD we get The shapes scene, simalar meaning. Refer to: Follow a leader as a shape.A better metafor. This was a nice trow back to QOS phone scene (Dog fight).
  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    edited November 2021 Posts: 14,556
    As for how the character got it, in-universe, I think there are basically three options. I don't know if there is any background information that proves or disproves any of this. One would have to go through the four films this is relevant in and look through all the background info, I guess:
    1. Mr. White's name isn't White. It's a codename and his actual, civilian name is Swann.
    2. Swann is Madeleine's mother's name. Either she never took the name White or they were divorced at some point and Madeleine got her mother's name (bringing this together with the seperate problem of Madeleine saying her parents divorced) or she took the name after the events of the NTTD PTS to distance herself from her father (either as an emotional coping mechanism or to hide herself).
    3. It's made-up and she took it or her father gave it to her to hide her from SPECTRE/Safin.

    The fact that she never seems to change it or even be in any way interested in changing it or mentioning it's not her real name, for me points toward #3 not being the answer, although it probably is the cleanest possibility.
    #1 Seems obvious, but makes little sense, when we think that Madeleine was in fact trying to hide. SPECTRE surely would know her father's real name and look for her that way. It could of course be the case (and is still pretty likely) that neither "White" nor "Swann" are the real names of the man we know as Mr. White.
    I'm kind of leaning towards #2, even though it basically has the same problems as #1 and we still don't really know how her parent's relationship evolved. SPECTRE surely would have known who White was married to.

    So it's probably something like #3. A name she just picked and there is so much crap involved with her maiden name that she sticks with this new identity even after all of her past is unravelled.

    And maybe she pulled a "Rise of Skywalker" and changed her and Mathilde's name to Bond at the end =P~

    Mr White s real name was apparently Hans Koenig.

    Where is that from?
    Makes sense with the „Pale King“ moniker…

    I think it was from an official prop requisite. Or was it Friedrich Koenig?
    Yeah, Friedrich König. It's seen on his Austrian driver licence and medical prescription.
    Loosely translates to 'Pale King'.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    König is King, but I don't think Friedrich has any connection to "pale". According to wikpedia, Friedrich comes from the Old High German words for peaces, safety, security (fridu) and powerful, rich (rîhhi). Nothing pale there. I also can't think of any more modern connotation that points in that direction.
    I think it has more to do with either his codename being "White" or him just being a pretty pale guy..

    Talking about White and SPECTRE: The twitter-account @BondWriting recently posted screenshots from the script of the SP scene at the end of which White kills himself. In the scripted version, he tells a story about Blofeld: The two of them where part of a rogue French Foreign Legion unit somewhere in a desert. They were stranded by a sandstorm and "the weakest of them all" (Blofeld) cut the throats of his eight comrades and only left White alive to carry the corpses and use them as rations for their trek out of the desert.
    Extremely dark backstory for both White and Oberhauser.



  • Posts: 384
    Let me guess, they feared internet backlash from the cannibals community.
  • M16_CartM16_Cart Craig fanboy?
    edited November 2021 Posts: 541
    (Blofeld) cut the throats of his eight comrades and only left White alive to carry the corpses and use them as rations for their trek out of the desert

    Christoph Waltz's Blofeld is such a cutesy cinnamon roll little goober.

    I wouldn't imagine him doing any of that.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,546
    M16_Cart wrote: »
    (Blofeld) cut the throats of his eight comrades and only left White alive to carry the corpses and use them as rations for their trek out of the desert

    Christoph Waltz's Blofeld is such a cutesy cinnamon roll little goober.

    I wouldn't imagine him doing any of that.

    I dunno, to me, Waltz gives off both of these vibes at the exact same time.
  • Jordo007Jordo007 Merseyside
    Posts: 2,641
    König is King, but I don't think Friedrich has any connection to "pale". According to wikpedia, Friedrich comes from the Old High German words for peaces, safety, security (fridu) and powerful, rich (rîhhi). Nothing pale there. I also can't think of any more modern connotation that points in that direction.
    I think it has more to do with either his codename being "White" or him just being a pretty pale guy..

    Talking about White and SPECTRE: The twitter-account @BondWriting recently posted screenshots from the script of the SP scene at the end of which White kills himself. In the scripted version, he tells a story about Blofeld: The two of them where part of a rogue French Foreign Legion unit somewhere in a desert. They were stranded by a sandstorm and "the weakest of them all" (Blofeld) cut the throats of his eight comrades and only left White alive to carry the corpses and use them as rations for their trek out of the desert.
    Extremely dark backstory for both White and Oberhauser.



    That's pretty interesting to be fair. I do like the scene we got in Spectre though.

    Although I would have kept in the TV screen showing Spectre as more of a real world threat. Maybe to add to the action, I'd have added Mr Hinx and a few goons showing up to kill Mr White, then having Bond trying to protect him for information, but failing to do so and Bond escaping from Hinx then when they meet later on in the train, it'll be set up how difficult Hinx will be to kill
  • BogmoreBogmore Hull, UK
    Posts: 2
    James Bond at the end of the film will kill his big love or her daughter if he touches them or gets near them because of the nanites in his Blood, and no one in the film mentions the Nanites are shielded against EMPs. So, Bond has an EMP watch that kills all machines.

    Am I the only one that has put two and two together? He sets the watch off, kills the nanites (the Poison) and they can all drive off into the sunset.

    A plot hole even James Bond could drive through without damaging the Car.
  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    Posts: 14,556
    Perhaps, just like his wristwatch, the nanobots are resistant to powerful magnetic fields of 15,000 gauss.
  • goldenswissroyalegoldenswissroyale Switzerland
    Posts: 4,474
    The makers of the film talked about two different LED number plates for the DB5. Did the number plate change in the PTS? I didn't realize this gadget, if it was used. If not using it, why planning it? It is even mentioned in the making of book.
  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    Posts: 14,556
    No number plate change, sadly. It's still the same plate in the title sequence too.

    Turns out there were several props made for the film that either got altered, hardly seen or didn't show up at all.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    Bogmore wrote: »
    James Bond at the end of the film will kill his big love or her daughter if he touches them or gets near them because of the nanites in his Blood, and no one in the film mentions the Nanites are shielded against EMPs. So, Bond has an EMP watch that kills all machines.

    Am I the only one that has put two and two together? He sets the watch off, kills the nanites (the Poison) and they can all drive off into the sunset.

    A plot hole even James Bond could drive through without damaging the Car.

    Well, Q says they are eternal, which heavily implies that they can't be killed by the EMP. We have to assume that the man who built Bond's EMP watch would have tried it on the nanobots that currently are threatening humanity.
    It's a bit of a cop-out to be sure and it probably is a hangover from the seemingly last-minute switch from a biological to a technological threat, but it's not like they could/should set aside a 5 minute scene in which Q goes through all the things he tried to kill the nanobots with and how that didn't work. He has a sample in his lab. He says they can't be destroyed, once they are inside your system. We have to take his word for it.

    There is the very, very dark possibility that by the time Bond sacrifices himself, he isn't actually infected with the virus or it isn't as permanent as they think. Neither he nor we have any way of knowing whether that red vial actually is a working virus targeted at Madeleine and there is the outside chance Q screwed up and Bond's EMP could have killed the virus (he didn't use it after his fight with Safin but he could have, if he thought it would help) or there is some other way to get rid of it. But that is kind of bad fandom in a way. The script surely is convinced he is infected and there is no way out.
  • HildebrandRarityHildebrandRarity Centre international d'assistance aux personnes déplacées, Paris, France
    edited November 2021 Posts: 480
    We also need to remember that these films are still supposed to provide some kind of escapism, outside of real-life scenarios. Audiences prefer somewhat abstract threats, rather than stories that are covered by the news or that could happen in real life. That's why Bond won't face Islamic terrorists or American militias or why the early films would feature SPECTRE even when From Russia with Love was originally about a Russian operation to get rid of a British agent.

    Even for the biological weapon, before Covid, this stuff would already flow better with some kind of fantasy dimension that makes it look less of a real-life threat and doesn't make the audiences anxious about it. When you involve miniature robots even if it makes no sense (the robots couldn't pass and multiply from person to person until they reach their target), it becomes slightly "magical", and you simply need to get it justified by some technobabble from Q.

    My father served for decades in the French reserve army, in the Army Health Service. It mostly involved going to congresses every year in some nice large French city, to have lunches with old friends and a few bottles and attending some conferences. One of them was about biological weapons. It is an open secret that most big nations had or still have some biological weapons program despite the treaties, to develop new weapons or to provide a strategy and treatments if they were under such attack.
    Every expert starts by mentioning a huge problem with these weapons, that makes them a very low possibility. If you use them, you're facing a lot of collateral damage for you if the bacteria, the microbe or the virus gets carried over within your own borders and kills your own population.
    In No Time to Die, it's also mixed with recent news that have nothing to see with biological weapons. Some government agencies are pressuring tech companies to leave some passkey that would only allow them, in extremely rare circumstances, to recover data from very bad guys without bricking their smartphone.
    However, every security expert will also tell you that the agencies could be quick to abuse this functionality and that hackers would ultimately manage to exploit what's actually an intentional backdoor in the systems.
    And that's what happens with M and Heracles. The weapon that was developed to target select criminals without killing anybody else was, like every best laid plan, quickly reverse engineered to allow criminals to kill entire families or ethnic groups, achieving exactly the opposite thing that M wanted.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    In No Time to Die, it's also mixed with recent news that have nothing to see with biological weapons. Some government agencies are pressuring tech companies to leave some passkey that would only allow them, in extremely rare circumstances, to recover data from very bad guys without bricking their smartphone.
    However, every security expert will also tell you that the agencies could be quick to abuse this functionality and that hackers would ultimately manage to exploit what's actually an intentional backdoor in the systems.
    And that's what happens with M and Heracles. The weapon that was developed to target select criminals without killing anybody else was, like every best laid plan, quickly reverse engineered to allow criminals to kill entire families or ethnic groups, achieving exactly the opposite thing that M wanted.

    Well that is one of the aspects that hold NTTD back from being an absolute classic, for me personally. That idea is in the film, sure. It's a very good idea and one I wished a Bond film would actually interrogate fully. NTTD doesn't. There are no consequences for M for doing this, not even a hint. Bond is kind of angry with him for a bit and he seems anguished for a couple of minutes and then we are back to business, really. Same goes for having the world's most dangerous criminal/terrorist be able to continue leading his organization right from inside a high security prison, btw.
    There is no hint that this virus could stand in for other technology that might be more realistic, like the encryption backdoors you mentioned. We can come up with the parallels (and I think you explained it very well. Thank you for that.) but they are not clear in the film at all. At least to me.
    There is also no real interrogation whether this is a good thing, a bad thing, necessary or unnecessary and under which circumstances. It happens and then we deal with the fallout and that's it.
    Now, I don't necessarily need a redo of the hearing scene from Skyfall (even though it's great) and Bond doesn't have to go rogue again and again and again. But for Craig's entire tenure they have signalled towards interrogating what national Intelligence apperatusses are actually doing in the 21st century and what kinds of problems and dilemmas something like a 00 section would pose and come up against and they always shy away from it and instead focus on Bond's personal, emotional struggles. CR is the only film that doesn't really go there and Skyfall is the only one that at least somewhat commits to it and has a thought or two about the state of the world and of MI6. Those are the two stand-out films.

    I don't know why this turned into a rant, but it is really bothering me. I love the Craig era, I really like NTTD and I know that Fleming isn't Le Carré. But I would love, love, love it if they found a writer who had a bit of a better grasp of what any of this actually means on a level that goes beyond MI6 good, Americans grey, others bad.
  • HildebrandRarityHildebrandRarity Centre international d'assistance aux personnes déplacées, Paris, France
    Posts: 480
    M got away with it with PM Johnson by saying the French were to blame.
    More seriously, it’s extremely likely that M will suffer serious consequences and will at least be fired, even if Britain doesn’t share that they secretly developed a weapon which fell into the wrong hands and could have wiped millions or hundreds of millions if it had been shipped to the prospective buyers. The unauthorized missile strike on an island which is already disputed by two countries is more than enough to have some serious impact and result in M being fired to satisfy Russia or Japan. The funeral wake at his office may be the last time this crew will meet (and it’s definitely the final time we see this cast) but it isn’t M’s film and it isn’t about Nomi taking over. It is the story of a man called Bond.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited November 2021 Posts: 3,147
    By bombing the island, M's stopped Heracles from falling into the hands of the Russians and non-State actors. He's cleared up his own mess, saved millions of lives and he's destroyed everything else that Safin concocted too. If he's not squared everything up, he's gone a long way towards it. He might be allowed to fall on his sword and resign to save govt face, rather than being fired and giving the Russians/whoever a big scalp. Retirement planning and all that...
  • HildebrandRarityHildebrandRarity Centre international d'assistance aux personnes déplacées, Paris, France
    Posts: 480
    M, and by extension Britain, still created the mess that could have wiped a huge part of the planet. Even if Bond ultimately saved the day, the risks were huge. In a realistic world, M would have been arrested just because of this black ops program getting out of control. In the universe of the film, I guess that he will be allowed to step down or that he will be fired quietly (which is the same) with the details of the program being kept secret (so nobody ever tries to recreate Heracles). Bond himself didn’t help Mallory out of respect. He knew that Mallory had terribly messed up and he’s outspoken about it even if he understands the motivations. He helped because otherwise it would have been the apocalypse he had witnessed in Cuba, and because Safin had kidnapped his family.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,546
    M, and by extension Britain, still created the mess that could have wiped a huge part of the planet. Even if Bond ultimately saved the day, the risks were huge. In a realistic world, M would have been arrested just because of this black ops program getting out of control. In the universe of the film, I guess that he will be allowed to step down or that he will be fired quietly (which is the same) with the details of the program being kept secret (so nobody ever tries to recreate Heracles). Bond himself didn’t help Mallory out of respect. He knew that Mallory had terribly messed up and he’s outspoken about it even if he understands the motivations. He helped because otherwise it would have been the apocalypse he had witnessed in Cuba, and because Safin had kidnapped his family.

    You say that, but in real life, to shady higher-ups in the government really get arrested/go to jail for their huge mistakes?
  • matt_umatt_u better known as Mr. Roark
    Posts: 4,343
    M was lucky the island was a private property and not actually Japanese nor Russian official territory.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    M, and by extension Britain, still created the mess that could have wiped a huge part of the planet. Even if Bond ultimately saved the day, the risks were huge. In a realistic world, M would have been arrested just because of this black ops program getting out of control. In the universe of the film, I guess that he will be allowed to step down or that he will be fired quietly (which is the same) with the details of the program being kept secret (so nobody ever tries to recreate Heracles). Bond himself didn’t help Mallory out of respect. He knew that Mallory had terribly messed up and he’s outspoken about it even if he understands the motivations. He helped because otherwise it would have been the apocalypse he had witnessed in Cuba, and because Safin had kidnapped his family.

    You say that, but in real life, to shady higher-ups in the government really get arrested/go to jail for their huge mistakes?

    Of course not, and they should all be locked up.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,546
    matt_u wrote: »
    M was lucky the island was a private property and not actually Japanese nor Russian official territory.

    Wasn't it "contested" or something? Isn't that different than being privately owned?
  • matt_umatt_u better known as Mr. Roark
    Posts: 4,343
    Yeah the waters were contested like the whole archipelago. That would help anyway even if only the facilities were property of the Safins.
  • HildebrandRarityHildebrandRarity Centre international d'assistance aux personnes déplacées, Paris, France
    Posts: 480
    It may have not reached anybody in the cabinet but the mere fact that M didn’t want to answer the PM in the early days is an issue of national security in itself. The crisis he’s started is also enough to get his head, even if the details will remain secret to the outside world.
  • goldenswissroyalegoldenswissroyale Switzerland
    Posts: 4,474
    QBranch wrote: »
    No number plate change, sadly. It's still the same plate in the title sequence too.

    Turns out there were several props made for the film that either got altered, hardly seen or didn't show up at all.

    Thanks for the reply @QBranch.
  • FeyadorFeyador Montreal, Canada
    Posts: 735
    What I don't get is that M & Tanner have shared a bit of dialogue where it is clearly established that M doesn't have "the authority" to authorize a missile strike. Yet, we later hear M authorizing an admiral to launch the missile strike on Poison Island.

    Huh?

    Surely no intelligence chief would have any such authority, which the film seemed to acknowledge in that earlier scene. Nor would any real-world admiral act so directly without direct communication with MOD, itself under the jurisdiction of political oversight--the only entity that could authorize this. It's not even a question of going "rogue". I don't think that's how the chain of command could possibly work in such a scenario.

    Even in a fictional setting like that of NTTD, that missile strike could only have been authorized by political entities. Surely M & MI6 would only have been in a position to "advise" on the best timing of such a strike--and not directly authorize it?
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,546
    He is able to, but he is not allowed to? Felt fairly straightforward to me, but maybe I didn't think about it enough.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    Cue „Bond actually died from Safin’s gunshots and everything after that is a dying fever dream that never actually happened, so it doesn’t matter whether it makes sense or not”-theory.

    Although, the missiles are already launched at that point, right? Seems like I have to find another moment before that…

    Or do we just continue with everything since the torture scene in SP being a dream, including the entirety of NTTD?
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,546
    I'm in the "what's on the screen is what happened, unless explicitly stated otherwise" camp.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited November 2021 Posts: 3,147
    Can't help thinking that M would probably have to personally kill the Queen on live tv in order to get sent to prison. Ok, bit of an exaggeration, but figures at the heart of the British Establishment just don't go to prison. Archer and Aitken were here today gone tomorrow MPs, they don't count - M might technically be accountable to the PM, but in practice much of his role would be extra-governmental. I'm thinking the reality would be a D-notice to the media followed by a phased handover and quiet retirement.
  • GettlerGettler USA
    Posts: 326
    Sorry if this was asked already, but would it have been possible to create new nanobots designed to eliminate the deadly nanobots inside an "infected" person (such as James)?
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