NO TIME TO DIE - Questions Thread

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  • echoecho 007 in New York
    edited October 21 Posts: 6,277
    Stamper wrote: »
    The character I think has MGW hands all over him.
    That kind of humor goes back to FYEO, or maybe earlier?
    There are many overdubbed added one liners in that scene, like "May I cut in?", "There you are", and countless others. It could be cool to do an inventory.
    Me think the audiences were confused, during test screenings, so they did some overdub doctoring.

    Yes, I'm not sure if it was test screenings, or overdubbing because they were writing the script on the fly and needed to make the story clearer.
  • ArapahoeBondFanArapahoeBondFan Colorado
    Posts: 62
    Probably been answered previously but, I don't feel like wading through 31 pages and I don't this the search is too well, why did Madeleine say that Mathilde is not Bond's?
  • Posts: 1,971
    I would assume after witnessing Bond's reckless behavior and how he endangered her life, trust was certainly an issue.
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 13,767
    As motherly protection, her instinct was to separate the child from association with Bond. Whose presence always brings danger in her experience.
  • thedovethedove hiding in the Greek underworld
    Posts: 5,400
    Probably been answered previously but, I don't feel like wading through 31 pages and I don't this the search is too well, why did Madeleine say that Mathilde is not Bond's?

    I wondered that very question as well. I remember thinking that it was obviously Bond's given the age of the child and the time of their relationship. Then as a viewer I doubted myself and thought, no Bond must not be the father.

    I can see her wanting to protect her from the danger of Bond and his lifestyle. But then she and the child willingly jump into a car and she involves her child in the danger that she wished to avoid.

    I haven't watched the movie in 3 years so I guess it might be time to re-watch it so that I can freshen my memory on why they both needed to go with Bond and not go their separate ways.
  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 9,509
    thedove wrote: »
    Probably been answered previously but, I don't feel like wading through 31 pages and I don't this the search is too well, why did Madeleine say that Mathilde is not Bond's?

    I wondered that very question as well. I remember thinking that it was obviously Bond's given the age of the child and the time of their relationship. Then as a viewer I doubted myself and thought, no Bond must not be the father.

    I can see her wanting to protect her from the danger of Bond and his lifestyle. But then she and the child willingly jump into a car and she involves her child in the danger that she wished to avoid.

    I haven't watched the movie in 3 years so I guess it might be time to re-watch it so that I can freshen my memory on why they both needed to go with Bond and not go their separate ways.

    Because Bond finds out from Moneypenny, inadvertently, that Nash and goons were on their way to Madeleine's house to capture her for Safin.

    Madeleine's only chance of survival would be getting in that car with Bond and trying to escape...
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,344
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Venutius wrote: »
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Nevertheless, enough references are made to Bond as one of M's sons, and to M liking to think she's his mother and whatnot, that the ma'am/mom confusion doesn't seem all that unintentional.

    Indeed. It's just the way they said 'marm' that grated on me ;)

    Well, I'm not a native speaker so it doesn't bother me that much. ;-) It took a while to get used to it, however. Brosnan had never addressed her as his mother.

    Neither did Craig. As Crabkey says, it’s only Silva who did that.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,959
    I always figured they played on that pronunciation confusion after CR with Bond's "mother" joke in the plane in QoS.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited October 24 Posts: 16,344
    It's never even occurred to me that there is any confusion though: calling senior females ma'am is as correct as calling senior males sir- it's just the right phraseology. Some Americans call their dads 'sir', so does that mean Sean's Bond was calling his M his dad? I would say not.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,959
    mtm wrote: »
    It's never even occurred to me that there is any confusion though: calling senior females ma'am is as correct as calling senior males sir- it's just the right phraseology. Some Americans call their dads 'sir', so does that mean Sean's Bond was calling his M his dad? I would say not.

    It's the way it was heard by certain ears, it has nothing to do with the word itself. I guess more untrained audiences heard "mom" instead of "ma'am" when Craig was in the elevator in CR, and I always took his later joke in QoS as a way to play on that very confusion.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,344
    Are you not ignoring me anymore then? Does that mean you accept my apology?
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited October 28 Posts: 3,147
    Yeah, it's pronounced 'mam', but that sounds far too much like a Northern flat vowel to London ears, so it's often mispronounced as 'marm', with a long Southern vowel, in tv and films. Ironically, 'mam' is also the Northern word for 'mum' or 'mom', but let's not confuse this! CraigBond started out saying 'mam' in CR, but had switched to 'marm' by SF. I remember being irked at the time and then talking myself out of the pedantry a bit later! I, er, seem to have slipped back into it, though...cough... :D
  • Posts: 1,971
    I often hear it in British detective shows as marm.
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 13,767
    Folks may be surprised to hear Sheriff Pepper's name pronounced as jay-dubble-yoo.
  • GoldenGunGoldenGun Per ora e per il momento che verrà
    Posts: 7,108
    Rewatching NTTD atm, and while I rather like the part that I've already watched (up until Bond's return to London), it still bugs me to no end that Bond beliefs Blofeld and Cyclops without any hesitation about Madeleine's fake betrayal. Even worse though is that he doesn't even hear her out, that could have been handled a lot better imo.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited October 29 Posts: 3,147
    CrabKey wrote: »
    I often hear it in British detective shows as marm.
    That's because 99% of them are made by middle class Southerners who'd faint clean away with dropsy if they uttered a word like 'mam', which sounds like a working class Northern flat vowel. ;)
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited October 29 Posts: 16,344
    Or alternatively, for those without a northern chip on their shoulder ( ;) ): because that's how it looks like it should be pronounced. Two As often are pronounced as an 'aar' sound: bazaar, baa, aah, aargh etc. In this case though, yeah, it should be 'mam' because that's how 'madam' sounds without the d.
    As Crab says though, it often features in detective shows because it's simply the correct terminology and has nothing to do with jokes about mothers or anything like that.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    edited October 30 Posts: 6,277
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    Rewatching NTTD atm, and while I rather like the part that I've already watched (up until Bond's return to London), it still bugs me to no end that Bond beliefs Blofeld and Cyclops without any hesitation about Madeleine's fake betrayal. Even worse though is that he doesn't even hear her out, that could have been handled a lot better imo.

    It is a plot device, agreed.

    The film does its best to sow suspicion because Madeleine brings up where Vesper was buried and hints that she brought Bond to Matera. So once the bomb goes off and Bond is painfully reminded of Vesper's betrayal, Bond stops acting rationally. He starts acting out of emotion and self-preservation.
  • Posts: 1,971
    Caller: Bond and Madeleine are on their way to Matera.
    Blofeld: How do you know?
    Caller: We know. We're SPECTRE. We know everything.
    Blofeld: Rght. Put a bomb in Vesper's tomb and have some sheep ready to block the road. Oh, and have plenty of black cars and fire power ready to go in the town square if anything kicks off.
    .............................
    I always marvel how the bad guys anticipate everything. I know Blofeld called Madeliene, but I'm hazy on the details how everything was anticipated and arranged. Wish we could have seen that planning and operations scene at SPECTRE HQ.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited October 30 Posts: 18,264
    CrabKey wrote: »
    Caller: Bond and Madeleine are on their way to Matera.
    Blofeld: How do you know?
    Caller: We know. We're SPECTRE. We know everything.
    Blofeld: Rght. Put a bomb in Vesper's tomb and have some sheep ready to block the road. Oh, and have plenty of black cars and fire power ready to go in the town square if anything kicks off.
    .............................
    I always marvel how the bad guys anticipate everything. I know Blofeld called Madeliene, but I'm hazy on the details how everything was anticipated and arranged. Wish we could have seen that planning and operations scene at SPECTRE HQ.

    Kingsley Amis memorably remarked on this "second-sight contingency planning" phenomenon in the Bond films in his New Statesman review of Christopher Wood's James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me film novelisation where her refers to the extended chase sequence in the film of The Spy Who Loved Me:

    What nobody could have cut out is the element of second-sight contingency planning (or negligence) that gets by in a film, indeed is very much part of the style of these films, but obtrudes in a book. Your enemy has an explosive motorbike sidecar ready to launch at your car in case he’s forgotten to kill you for certain and in secret a few minutes before. In case that misses, he has already aloft a helicopter fitted with jets and cannon. Your car is submersible in case you meet such a helicopter while driving on a coast road. In case you submerge your car he has a midget submarine waiting. In case he has you have underwater rocket-launchers.
  • Posts: 1,971
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    CrabKey wrote: »
    Caller: Bond and Madeleine are on their way to Matera.
    Blofeld: How do you know?
    Caller: We know. We're SPECTRE. We know everything.
    Blofeld: Rght. Put a bomb in Vesper's tomb and have some sheep ready to block the road. Oh, and have plenty of black cars and fire power ready to go in the town square if anything kicks off.
    .............................
    I always marvel how the bad guys anticipate everything. I know Blofeld called Madeliene, but I'm hazy on the details how everything was anticipated and arranged. Wish we could have seen that planning and operations scene at SPECTRE HQ.

    Kingsley Amis memorably remarked on this "second-sight contingency planning" phenomenon in the Bond films in his New Statesman review of Christopher Wood's James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me film novelisation where her refers to the extended chase sequence in the film of The Spy Who Loved Me:

    What nobody could have cut out is the element of second-sight contingency planning (or negligence) that gets by in a film, indeed is very much part of the style of these films, but obtrudes in a book. Your enemy has an explosive motorbike sidecar ready to launch at your car in case he’s forgotten to kill you for certain and in secret a few minutes before. In case that misses, he has already aloft a helicopter fitted with jets and cannon. Your car is submersible in case you meet such a helicopter while driving on a coast road. In case you submerge your car he has a midget submarine waiting. In case he has you have underwater rocket-launchers.

    I love this. It's a feature of films that often take me out of the film. The traps set for Bond by Silva in SF always set me thinking about the planning and rigging up. Silva's position on the ladder to avoid being shot. The timing of the tube train. Same with SP. The red string and photos of M and past enemies pasted on the wall. Who planned that? When? Who physically set it up? And in NTTD, "keep those sheep on standby."

    Q is equally problematic. Always anticipating what new gadget Bond will need. I get this is fiction, but sometimes things go too far. CR didn't have an omniscient villain, nor a bunch of gadgets. Not only is it enjoyable, but believable.


  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited October 31 Posts: 16,344
    It might have been quite fun if Matera was literally Spectretown, where the whole place has been taken over by them and a bunch of them effective live, which Bond just happens to blunder into.
    But really, it kind of works: they know Vesper's grave is there so they know Bond might turn up sooner or later, so they put one guy looking out for him there. Bond turns up one day, so they have enough time to get some more fellas in to ambush him and put a bomb on the grave overnight before he visits the it. It's not exactly the most far-fetched thing in a Bond movie.
  • Posts: 4,108
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    CrabKey wrote: »
    Caller: Bond and Madeleine are on their way to Matera.
    Blofeld: How do you know?
    Caller: We know. We're SPECTRE. We know everything.
    Blofeld: Rght. Put a bomb in Vesper's tomb and have some sheep ready to block the road. Oh, and have plenty of black cars and fire power ready to go in the town square if anything kicks off.
    .............................
    I always marvel how the bad guys anticipate everything. I know Blofeld called Madeliene, but I'm hazy on the details how everything was anticipated and arranged. Wish we could have seen that planning and operations scene at SPECTRE HQ.

    Kingsley Amis memorably remarked on this "second-sight contingency planning" phenomenon in the Bond films in his New Statesman review of Christopher Wood's James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me film novelisation where her refers to the extended chase sequence in the film of The Spy Who Loved Me:

    What nobody could have cut out is the element of second-sight contingency planning (or negligence) that gets by in a film, indeed is very much part of the style of these films, but obtrudes in a book. Your enemy has an explosive motorbike sidecar ready to launch at your car in case he’s forgotten to kill you for certain and in secret a few minutes before. In case that misses, he has already aloft a helicopter fitted with jets and cannon. Your car is submersible in case you meet such a helicopter while driving on a coast road. In case you submerge your car he has a midget submarine waiting. In case he has you have underwater rocket-launchers.

    That perfectly sums up the Gondola chase in MR for me. Surprise Bond with a knife thrower coming out of the coffin. If that goes wrong have a man with a machine gun on stand by (but don't have them just shoot Bond in the first place. That'd be silly). Of course if on the off chance that doesn't work out get the back up boat ready to intercept him. Hopefully Bond won't have some sort of super gondola at his disposal.

    To be honest it's all part of the fun. I can't get annoyed at it. It's also why I can never understand some viewers getting hung up on plot contrivances long after they've watched the film.
  • thedovethedove hiding in the Greek underworld
    Posts: 5,400
    Little jumps of logic are fine to overlook and enjoy. It is when things take a fantastical leap that you may start to lose an audience.

    Silva's march to M is a clear example of some massive logic leaps. From the train dropping by right in time for the explosion to the knowing that Q would be analyzing the drive with no firewalls or protection. It starts to bring the audience out of it.

    Course every film has a point where the villain has Bond dead to rights. Instead of just shooting him, he instead plots an elaborate death. Course that is the fun of the films. In some cases we can overlook it, in others we are left to question.

    Even FRWL, Grant has Bond knocked out on the ground. Put a bullet in him and leave the train. But he lets Bond up and then proceeds to chat with him. It gets explained away as Grant loving to see how Bond has been made a fool of. The other thing that always bothered me was Grant saying the first bullet won't kill you nor the second not even the third, not until you crawl and kiss my boot. It was supposed to be a murder suicide. LOL!

    Back to NTTD, it's a complete stretch of logic that SPECTRE would have planned for everything with the grave site. My first question is why was Vesper buried in a small town in Italy? Wouldn't she be buried in England?
  • edited October 31 Posts: 4,108
    I suppose everyone’s tolerance for Bond film nonsense is different. Personally I’ve never really noticed any of those contrivances in the Craig films, nor FRWL. Heck, I’m able to happily go along with TSWLM and MR. If the film keeps me engaged it can get away with a lot. I think nowadays too because we’re able to rewatch films so easily and talk about them openly online there’s a kind of satisfaction for some people pointing these things out. I tend to believe/notice these realisations often come long after their first viewing anyway, or at least comes about because others point it out and it impacts subsequent viewings (which no film can stand up to, especially something as escapist as Bond).

    I do get being taken out of the moment when watching a film for the first time though. For me the only time this has really happened is in TB when Bouvar is revealed to be dressing up as his own widow. It was so shocking for me with Bond punching this ‘woman’ that I couldn’t help but think about why he’d done this in the film, and yet no answers came up (it’s actually an incredibly pointless thing to do without explanation). I think that’s the only time a Bond movie has really fallen apart for me.
  • edited October 31 Posts: 5,990
    Back to NTTD, it's a complete stretch of logic that SPECTRE would have planned for everything with the grave site. My first question is why was Vesper buried in a small town in Italy? Wouldn't she be buried in England?

    The list of names that appear on the grave in Matera shows very distinctively that Vesper was buried in her own family grave, alongside her parents and other ancestors.

    images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT-vGmjvW0jOCUPP0_H71zrnUA3cMvvdBMCFQ&s

    As you can see, over her name, you can read "Elena Saviani Ved. (vedova = widow) Lynd"

    Just one thing more about that chase scene in TSWLM : if I do agree with Kingsley Amis about the side-car, the car and the helicopter, I don't agree with him about the mini-sub. For me, it was simply the guard patrol of Atlantis, with standing orders to kill anyone who got too close to Stromberg's headquarter. Standard Operating Procedure for any villain worth its salt, and I'm quite sure that a few divers have found themselves on the wrong end of a speargun before Bond.
  • Posts: 1,971
    For me a Bond film is at its best when things feel reasonably plausible. I am less bothered by Jacques Boviar showing up at his own funeral dressed as a woman than I am by the conveniently placed jet pack that anticipates something will happen and Bond will have only one escape route option, otherwise the jet pack sits there waiting to be discovered by a groundskeeper.

    DN begins with no gadgets. FRWL a very believable briefcase. And then there's GF and the tricked out Aston. That one works for me because GF is a formidable opponent. The ejector seat is a stretch because it anticipates Bond will have an undesirable in the passenger seat. Little Nellie was an actual mini-copter.

    Once we get to the RM films, Q Branch and its gadgets are full on comedy relief. So much in that series of films is flat out silly.

    I like that the Craig era backed off on the gadgets, but SF, SP, and NTTD relied on villains anticipating Bond's moves, which always strikes me as far-fetched even in a series that is itself essentially far-fetched.

    My hope for Bond 26 is that we don't have a bunch of preposterous Q Branch gadgets that anticipate the exact predicaments Bond will get into and that we also don't have a villain who can anticipate Bond's every move with a series of traps and back ups each time Bond manages to avoid a trap.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,344
    I guess to be fair to the DB5 and its contrived gadgets, I think it's the only time in the films when a gadget doesn't get used (the car has a few gadgets we never see). I guess you could say the gold sovereigns in the FRWL briefcase don't either, but they do play their part.
    The issue with the jet pack for me is that he doesn't need it. Just run down the stairs James! That would have been solved by setting it in a chateau with a moat.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    edited November 3 Posts: 6,277
    Watching NTTD again and I noticed:

    At the very beginning, Madeleine says on the phone to her friend, "You eat too much because you're depressed." This foreshadows the psychiatrist that she is to become.

    Clever! They really took a lot of care constructing the PTS.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    edited November 3 Posts: 7,546
    Nice catch! I think she’s talking to her tamagotchi or whatever though, isn’t she? Could be wrong.
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