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You mean getting reduced to meat chunks by a wave of missiles isn't hopeful to you?
LOL, will you be here all week? :))
That's not how I view these films.
Point taken.
Exactly. Using that song in NTTD tarnishes it, and also cheapens the film itself. Zimmer couldn't come up with his own personal song for this tragedy film, so had to rip off the one from OHMSS instead.
And also, the usage of the OHMSS theme tune when Bond is talking to M? What was all that about? Totally inappropriate to stick it there, or to reuse it too. That theme belongs to one film.
The only way I can deal with NTTD is pretend the film didn't exist, I never saw Bond die, I never heard the brilliant Armstrong song get so destroyed by being ripped off and linking it to such a bleak film, I never saw Felix die, I never saw Bond with a daughter. Utter shambles of a movie!
The more I think about how crap NTTD, the angrier I get. I need to calm down... #-o
WHATTITW is a beautiful song that took me right back to OHMSS, which I regard as a better film. Why do it? Surely Billie Eilish and her brother could have created a love song for Bond and Madeleine that would have done for them what Armstrong's song did for Bond and Tracy.
Exactly! And if WHATTITW is in the script, and this was done by Beavis & Butthead, then they should never be allowed near a Bond script ever again.
Then what’s the point in mentioning it? If, as you suggest, all creation of art is down to ego (which I refute) then Cubby Broccoli made these films because of his ego, Connery was brilliant in them because of his ego, Dalton was driven by his massive ego. If you hold this to be true, why even bring it up in Craig’s case?
They’ve been willing to incorporate so many bits and pieces from Fleming over the years, moreso than any other writers, and as you’ve always said that’s the priority I’d have thought you’d have liked them. Even that comes from Fleming.
I dunno, maybe if Billy Eilish had done an electro-noir version or Mark Lanegan had done it sparse, spectral and reflective - or even if it'd been an instrumental version - but the straight re-use didn't quite have the effect on me that it was supposed to do. It's probably too associated with Tracy to translate wholly successfully into a different scenario.
I guess I'd say the reprise of the melody in Matera was very nice.
I suppose, other than the Bond and 007 themes recurring, and comedy flashes like the LALD quote in TMWTGG, the seals on this sort of thing were broken when David Arnold started off his first film by quoting both FRWL and OHMSS in his very first cue, weren't they?
I'd be interested to know how much of Fleming began from them in earlier drafts, and how much eventually gets removed or watered down with rewrites from new scriptwriters.
If what you say is true, and they do try and cram as much Fleming as they can in their earlier drafts, then I take back everything I said.
I think a lot remains in the scripts. Even quite subtly at times, right down to autobiographical details: they specified that Spectre should be partially set in Kitzbühel, and when Fleming lived in Kitzbühel he stayed with a family who provided therapy to people caught in a negative contest with their siblings, which is obviously a detail which had significant echoes in the film. As well as the whole thing being loosely based on Octopussy of course. They know their Fleming and always try to put as much in as they can. If the only thing you value is Fleming stuff being inserted in there above all else, then I think you're not going to find any other writers doing as much as they have done.
They even removed a lot of the MI6 teamwork stuff from the draft of Spectre they inherited, deeming it too far into 'Mission Impossible territory'.
Well, what @MTM says is true, they really know their Fleming and always try to incorporate as much as they can. They've stated that in numerous interviews, and tbh I think it shows. I'm not a big fan of theirs mainly because they don't know how to write proper dialogue, but that's a completely different discussion.
Many here don't like the V8 or WHATTITW, but to my mind it all hints at the one solution, that is the 'saga' explanation for Bond. In that way all Bond-films are Bond-stories retold over the years in 'modern' (corresponding to the age) settings. That makes sense, it also explains the DB5 in all of those films, and leaves a lot of room for creativity without damaging the concept.
The only problem I have with NTTD is that it gives us an ending to the ambiguety Fleming created (even though he thought of killing Bond himself). The thing is, Bond always longed for a 'normal life' in the books (if you can call a chicken farm a normal life), settling down and retreating with the girl. But he also knew that would be giving up the life that he was living, and he wasn't sure he could do that. I've always loved that perspective, but NTTD makes the choice: he'll never have that life. He just touched it, had two minutes of it (him getting to know his daughter, making her breakfast) and his job took it away permanently.
I think, in the end, most who oppose this film see their own 'Bond-universe' beeing destroyed (be it the 007-codename theory, or whatever other line of thinking persisted) as NTTD doesn't fit in. And tbh, I can imagine that. It has nothing to do with Craig and his incarnation though, it's the course the producers have taken for Bond. That would indeed explain why Craig's tenure for some has been burned with the last film (eventhough QoS is unequivocally the best film ever), and not with, say SP.
Yes I think that in part is why the song is there: it wants to remind us of the long history of the Bond films and is a bit of technique to really pull on our heart strings a bit more and realise that this is James Bond, who we've been watching since the 60s, who just died in front of our eyes. Although I guess you could see that as a bit of a cynical, slightly meta trick (showing us that 60s song and the 80s car, almost feels like only a step away from a montage of Sean and Roger etc.), I'm not actually criticising that decision as it was part of the arsenal they had at their disposal which other films don't have, and you use everything to involve your audience as much as you can.
Yes I think that's well-expressed, and it's what I quite like about that ending. I think everyone who's thought about it has always kind of wanted a happy ending for Bond where he becomes a normal person and stops having to kill people all the time, but we know that can never happen because: he's James Bond. Folks are always wanting to see him function as a normal person, whether that's to see May looking after him in his flat, or him playing a friendly round of golf with Bill Tanner etc. we want to see more of the 'real' side of his character. To actually finally explore that, and what would happen if he actually found a life, I don't really see as a failing. That he could only touch it for a few minutes, as you say, and to instantly realise he'd found his reason to die, is kind of perfect I think.
It's just brief, I suppose.
What really upset me is WHATTITW.
If there's a song I would've liked to return, it's Surrender by KD Lang (maybe they could've used it for the Title Sequence of the next film), if there's a case with OHMSS, then I don't see any reason for not reusing those old themes back.
Next time Bond fall in love, they should also use If There Was A Man for example (WHATTITW was already used).
And there's a Dalton renaissance going on today, maybe they could also play If You Asked Me Too if there's another romance for Bond.
I wish the Three Blind Mice was also played in NTTD, since they're celebrating the 60th and of Dr. No (there are even dots).
All week, my friend. Get your tickets now!
As for the OHMSS tune, I do like it in NTTD. It's one of those divisive bits of the film that I'm on the side of enjoying. It doesn't have the exact same emotional impact as it does in OHMSS, of course, but it's still ballsy enough a decision to work.
Ithink it was used to link all Bond's 'true loves' together: Vesper, Tracy, Madeleine. All the others are just 'flings'. Actually, I think it's only Tiffany Case who ever returned in a subsequent novel, but there Fleming explains what usually happens: the love ends in complaints and misery and they break up, after all the excitement and adventure is gone (obviously, Kissy is a completely different story). Only Tracy and Vesper ever go beyond that in the novels, and I think WHATTIW is there to give Madeleine the same status.
But then, there should be an original theme song dedicated to Bond and Madeleine's romance, they're making the romance big, almost more bigger than both Bond and Vesper, and to the lesser extent, maybe Tracy, because she's the only Bond Girl whom Bond died for, yet it's all lazy that they're not given an original song that signifies their relationship?
Flings? But of all the flings, it's only Pam, Kara and Natalya that had been given their own song with regards to their relationship with Bond?
The reason why there's WHATTITW is to make Tracy's relationship with Bond unique from others.
Can I get a location for the chicken farm reference? I find the idea amusing, and if it’s real, where does it come from?
It’s from one of the novels, but I can’t remember which one.
But mostly films with that kind of ending I find utterly depressing and makes feel like I never want to watch it again.
Seeing the hero dying at the end of a franchise that I've grown up with, then it's 100 times worse. I don't find anything perfect about this. Bond is a character I want to see cheat death every time, and live to fight another day, even an amnesia ridden one sailing off to Russia, not knowing who he is. Somehow you just know Bond will survive that too.
If those members on here who are ok seeing Bond die at the end of a movie, I'm fairly sure they'd accept a cliffhanger ending too, and wouldn't start hating the film because they didn't see Bond die at the end.
I'd accept the ending, as long as the execution is good, whether it's Bond dying or the cliffhanger of the YOLT novel.
I don’t find either depressing, because whatever emotion I feel watching these films is always tempered by the knowledge that I’ll watch more, so like @SIS_HQ I just want them to do whatever they’re doing well. But I think YOLT is definitely a bleaker ending in pretty much every way. I can understand thinking the NTTD ending is too sentimental or even too happy and triumphant in comparison, but depressing? It’s a happier ending.