It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Because he ends up with Madeleine, and because he throws away his gun, he pretty much needs to spare Blofeld before that. That all tracks. (And it all ties into Madeleine's conversation with him on the train.)
It is the London stuff before the bridge scene that makes no sense.
Yeah, I love Spectre and think it's great — but this is true. They knew they needed Bond in the haunted house MI6 buildling and they needed to get Madeleine in their with the red strings of fate and all that stuff. They knew they needed to get to the point of Blofeld on the bridge with the gun, so Bond can make a different choice. That's all fine. But it all fits together is just a biiiiiiiiit scuffed lol.
It's been prevalent all the way through the Craig era after their were creeping hints of it through the Brosnan era. Bond is a military man and wouldn't show that level of disrespect to a superior. He wouldn't break into M's flat, wouldn't break into her house in SF looking like a bum, and wouldn't speak to Mallory the way he did in SP and NTTD.
But, of course, it does make good drama. So there's always a trade-off.
For some reason it didn't bother me with Craig and Dench's M. I understand the disrespect of him breaking into her house, twice. However, outside of that, I felt that there was always a mutual respect with those characters. Craig and Fiennes character incarnations just seem to hate each other.
Yes that's a good point. Ms Broccoli was talking in a recent podcast about how each of Craig's movies outlines a specific move in his career and life, and although there are obviously flaws in how it was all carried, she doesn't seem to be wrong. He is changed by the end of each movie.
Yeah, if he'd killed him he wouldn't be leaving that life behind: he'd be the same assassin he was at the beginning of the film. It's also a victory over Blofeld: Blofeld is still fuming about what James apparently 'did to him' in his childhood, whereas Bond shows he's the bigger man by just turning the other cheek and moving on from it. He has a future where Blofeld doesn't because he's dwelling in the past- he's even renamed himself after his long-dead mother.
And that still holds true into NTTD: Bond is trying to make amends with his past with Vesper and move on whilst Blofeld is still maintaining his insane vendetta.
I think he does respect him in SF: it's just a bit of protectiveness towards his M (Dench). And then in Spectre it's the same issue: he's loyal to M, the problem is he's more loyal to his M (Dench). And then in NTTD it's simply a matter that he's not under M's command any more, but then they find a ground of mutual respect and work from there.
It's not as if Bond has always just blindly followed M. Look at Living Daylights, which a lot of fans point to as a 'straightforward mission film': he disobeys direct orders twice just because he thinks he knows best (three times if you include the hamper :) ).
Yes! Heard that podcast. Obviously, authorial intent isn't always the end all be all — but it was sweet to hear not just that Broccoli's analysis lines up with my own, but also that she uses the exact same language I use lol. Especially when she said the point of NTTD is him "earning" the title of father, which Madeleine gives him in the end.
I think it was there, but there was a prolonged struggle to get it across. In the early emails, the Sony execs talk about how they like the premise that SP will be 'Bond's last mission' but later they're looking for a convincing reason for why that'd be the case. Why would he walk away at this point, what was it about Madeleine that made him fall in love for the first time since Vesper ('why this girl, why now?', as one of the suits asks), etc. It was one of the studio execs that asked for Madeleine be written as a deeper character so that viewers would believe that Bond would give it up for her. When you look at those emails again, it's quite striking just how much input into the actual story ideas the Sony and MGM people had - they weren't just stumping up the money and waiting to collect. Bit concerning to think that Amazon execs might want or have similar input!
I agree. When I first saw that scene when he said I love you I thought it was cringey and out of character. It worked when George Lazenby said it to Diana Rigg's Tracey.
Spot on.
Or OHMSS when he turns to Draco when M won't sanction a rescue mission to Piz Gloria for Tracy. Bond hadn't resigned at that point.
Also, Connery's Bond seemed to spar with M quite a bit at the beginning of DAF when meeting with Sir Donald, right in front of him, similar to the meeting in GF. It wasn't really disrespect but not exactly respectful either.
To be fair, Mallory isn’t either of those Ms. I do like that each new M after Robert Brown has essentially been a brand new character that Bond has a slightly different dynamic with. M as played by Lee and Dench had a dynamic of a parent with a child (more so with Dench). With Mallory they’re much closer in age (close enough that Fiennes could have made a suitable contender for the role of Bond in 2005), and so Bond doesn’t have the same reverential respect and trust that he had with his older M’s. Sort of like how the dynamic is different from Boothroyd to Whishaw’s Q. It’s breaking tradition, but that’s the whole point.
Yes, absolutely. You’d had Bond end a film being “ready for duty” and you’d then had him leave the service in the next. You can’t really have him repeat either of those.
Bond ends nearly every movie with a woman in his arms but Craig can't have two movies with a similar ending?
It's... I... I just feel that if SP had been better received, Craig would have walked away there and then. Maybe the idea of killing Bond had been discussed, and then filled away. But Craig and EON decide that they don't want to end his run on SP, and so decide to go for broke with one last film, dusting off that ending.
I’d say it’s inevitable in that Bond, regardless of who’s playing him, will never have a happy ending he wants. Bond chose the life of an assassin, and for that his life is cursed. It’s why Craig can’t just live the rest of his life with his lover and daughter. It’s why Lazenby never had a chance with Tracy. He’ll either die on the job or die old and alone.
If they hadn’t already done SKYFALL, Purvis & Wade probably would have gone with that kind of ending with Bond accepting the path he’s taken.
Yeah I think that’s possible.
Who knows, they may even have wanted to kill him in Spectre initially, but the story just didn’t lead in that direction and took them somewhere else.