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I would have Nomi arrived after Bond in her Aston Martin Sports Car, then Nomi would picked Madeleine and Mathilde and escape from Norway (this would give Nomi something to do, instead of arriving late at the scene doing nothing than to show her style).
Then have Bond tricked those Land Rovers using his V8 through a car chase that would lead to a shootout in the forest, it's just Bond alone against Safin's men.
While his family are in safety, then after Bond killed Logan Ash by pushing his car down, Bond would be knocked off by Primo at the back, then when he awakes, he's tied and already at Safin's lair, like in the original scene where Safin was at his front sitting at the floor, this time, no Mathilde as his hostage, it's just Safin and Bond (tied) while talking to each other, but still the same scene.
@MI6HQ that's a great idea too mate.
I remember in 2019 when I read they were going to film on the Atlantic Road, it got me excited and thinking of the car chase on there. What we got was a bit underwhelming i thought
I feel like you could swap all of these around and still see it as true. Very much in the eye of the beholder, this stuff.
I think two Aston Martin chases in the same film is too much. I'd keep the Toyota but have got the stunt team to come up with something new and fresh, not just bonking the cars into each other. Make more of those big hillside jumps, something.
As I have written before (and others have also said), Safin is basically two characters: There’s Safin before Blofeld is killed and there’s Safin after. The first one has an understandable goal and motivation and goes about it in a unique way. He is always a parasite. He gets other people to do the work for him. His „organisation“ consists of him, Obruchev and Ash. That’s it.
The second Safin is a megalomaniac with a god-complex, has unclear goals and unclear actions to attain those goals and suddenly commands an army of goons, scientists and worker bees.
The problem and where I think a lot of the divergence stems from is that really, Safin I doesn’t appear on screen.
And here is where my fix comes in: Obruchev and Safin are the same person.
It cuts his organisation down even further. It allows for the actual villain of the film to be in it a lot more and means you can seriously cut down the third act, because you no longer have to introduce him and give Rami Malek enough to do. It makes the fact that Bond saves him from both SPECTRE and MI6 even more complicated and interesting. You no longer have to graft on another plot after the revenge plot is done. They found out he is the villain, he has the weapon, is on the lose and has taken M&M. For me that’s reason enough for Bond to go after him. Like I said before, I would like to find a way for the goon army Bond fights through in the finale to also be people who think they are doing one thing, but are actually used by Safin.
And this change allows to build out his relationship with Madeleine more, because he is some regular schmo government scientist.
You can even fit it into the PTS: That was the first step of his revenge plan, the first time he did any of this and he almost got killed by a teenager. So from then on, he doesn’t do anything himself anymore, but gets others do the dirty work. He was wearing the mask, so with film brain, it’s possible Madeleine wouldn’t recognise him when he worms himself into her life later, because he became obsessed.
Neat little addition you could do here: Blofeld wasn’t in the original set of Heracles DNA. Bond wouldn’t be toxic to him before Madeleine touched him (it’s unclear in the film). Safin doesn’t blackmail her into the perfume. He either gives it to her as a gift or we get a scene where he secretly puts something in her stuff. And then our guys find out he’s the real bad guy after Blofeld shockingly dies and the only place the toxin could have come from was him (or maybe MI6 think she’s the baddie, but Bond believes in her).
Plus, you already have a fake-out villain for the marketing in Blofeld. Maybe people would be suspicious if you cast Rami Malek as the MacGuffin scientist, but it wouldn’t be on the level of Waltz claiming he isn’t Blofeld and everyone’s knowing he’s lying.
It all fits so well it’s maddening, because it’s useless. The films the film and there is nothing to be done.
An escape hanging on to a balloon like in the YOLT novel would have been great. In my dream world, as the island explodes, you think he's brown bread, then he appears out the flames hanging on to the balloon and soaring into the sky with the flames licking his heels while the Bond theme is blasting away.
I know, I'm a dreamer.
1. Make it a standalone film, no returning characters from SPECTRE, no Madeleine, no Blofeld returning, no continuation from SPECTRE, no SP sequel.
2. Make it a faithful adaptation of Fleming's You Only Live Twice novel.
That makes sense. However, you couldn't really make a faithful adaptation of YOLT without Spectre or Blofeld. If you were to do such, ditch Madeline at the end of the PTS (I'd keep it exactly the same). Replace Blofeld with Safin. Perhaps the stealing of Heracles scene is replaced with breaking Blofeld from prison and he reclaims the Garden of Death.
There's definitely ways to improve the last two films. Especially Spectre coming off of Skyfall. I cannot think of a single way that Bond needed to go rogue in Spectre. Simply the Mexico mission was handed down from Fiennes' M. Things went south as seen and M still sends Bond to Rome (albeit quietly).
The whole dynamic and relationship between Craig and Fiennes characters was like having a spoiled child fighting against his father. I didn't feel any mutual respect or reasoning as we had seen with any incarnations of past Bond and M relationships.
Headcanon: Heracles is Smartblood. They started out with that project and brought in Obruchev to weaponise it.
I have been thinking about an ending where Bond manages to shelter from the rockets (and survives the gunshots) but now has to live on this island, alone, without ever touching anyone. That might be more depressing than the actual ending.
Not so much as script change but I do wish these two photos would have been used in the promotion of NTTD. They're both great
Edit. Sorry about the first image it won't let me post it properly. It's a photo from the official twitter account, they posted yesterday
The said sequence could still exist more or less as it is, with Bond forcing Madeleine to board a train out of the city in order to protect her, considering she's in danger as long as she's by his side. From there, he would be on the run, trying to escape the SPECTRE assassins and to dismantle the organisation. Like in the early drafts of Spectre, Bond would go to see Felix because he doesn't trust anyone. And like in Logan's script, he could be paired with a CIA female agent who turns out to be a traitor. So again, the Cuba sequence could still exist more or less as it is, but with an alternate female partner for Bond.
Also any story were Ana De Armas gets more screen time is great in my book
Like how you set that up @TimYorks. Here's a Bond survival ending.
Result of the rain of missiles targeting Bond's eyes, the near wholesale destruction leaves a piece of 007's tissue washed down a stream and out to sea to survive on plankton and evolve into a Kaiju-type behemoth. Destruction and antics ensue.
Unfortunately Bond doesn't look much like his old self, and fashion becomes a problem.
He becomes short-fused.
Can still get the ladies, though. So he's still a lot of fun.
BRILLIANT ! It could make a fortune in Japan.
The thing about making the film even more Book-YOLT than it already has in it, is that if you have Bond land, forget who he is, etc. then it would lead VERY much to the next film, as in the books where the beginning of TMWTGG picked up from the ending of YOLT. That would be problematic with a change in actor in between.
Perhaps your ideas are similar to mine - Bond survives (by balloon) but does NOT suffer memory loss. He re-unites with Matilde and Madeleine. Of course, that "happily drive off into the sunset" approach ALREADY was the ending of SPECTRE, which is why so many people have noted the Craig series reached a natural ending at the end of SPECTRE. So doing it again ? Nah. To come back one more time, Craig wanted to stretch, and the producers went with him on it. Hence, Tragic Hero story arc. As for having the ol'-switcheroo of the deadly device routine and thereby the villain gets hoist by his own petard and Bond leaves safely - that can work for another film.
Ditch Madeleine in the PTS the same as what we've got, then have Bond be amnesiac at the end of the film with the navy picking him up his body then they would find out that he's amnesiac.
The film would end with M (as like in the movie) reading his obituary, that's all, end credits.
Bingo.
If they were going to use a hoary cliche like amnesia, it would have had to be in Craig's penultimate film. Even Glidrose couldn't end the series on YOLT.
You remember the watch that Bond got from Q? Q said – be careful – it’s not tested. Well suppose it was more powerful than Q thought. Suppose it could actually diffuse or disable a bomb – or maybe even deflect an approaching bomb/missile?
OK, so they opened the silos (to destroy the nano bot farm) – but remember they said that the base was a bunker so strong that the missiles would just bounce off unless the silos were opened. Bond wasn’t in a silo. He was in a bunker/watchtower. He has an instinct for survival, and he could get back below as the missiles got closer, there was a blast proof door, to protect him from any blasts below.
Either he tries to actively use the watch or – maybe the watch actually operates somehow without him knowing. Eventually he passes out. But he wakes up and, at first, can’t believe he’s still alive. He’s somehow survived the missiles. But, he still thinks he has the nano bots. How does he get rid of them? Two possibilities?
1) Straight away. Supposing the destruction of the nanobot farm somehow also affects nano bots in the locality - even ones in Bond. That’d be a quick solution. But he would not know this yet.
2) Later on - An antidote exists developed by Spectre, which he has to obtain.
So – he has a look around the ruins and finds some gold coins from a broken safe. He goes down to the shore and finds a boat – or maybe he hails a local fisher man and goes to a nearby islands and lives as a recluse knowing that he can’t touch anyone. He lives using the gold coins he found. The islanders talk about a strange guy who never emerges from his house and he has food delivered to the door. He might even take in a new girlfriend (to keep him company), who will then be infected (or not).
Q meanwhile has picked up some signals that he can’t quite believe. He establishes that somehow the watch has moved to the new island. He tells M that the watch should be retrieved as it has secret technology that they don’t want to fall into the wrong hands. They might even speculate that the watch could have saved Bond. Anyway, an agent is despatched. The Agent tracks down and confronts Bond.
Various possibilities:
1) They have a fight and in the process , Bond hits the agent. Bond escapes. The agent returns to London (with maybe the nano bot infection).
Q tests the agent and , if Bond’s nano bots are already removed – then the agent is OK and they know that Bond is free and without nano bots. But Bond still doesn’t know that .
If Bond still has the nano bots – then MI6 are also looking for the antidote. Whatever, they have to track Bond down and tell him what’s happening.
Then there’ll be some other plot developments:
Somehow they find an antidote – or maybe (if its not needed ) they can tell Bond that he’s is ok and can return to Madeleine. Or maybe the girl that Bond met on the island is jealous and touches Madeleine knowing she’ll be lethally infected (if the continued infection scenario is being used).