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It may not be the happiest ending, but creatively speaking, it feels like the right one and by far the most emotionally affecting as a cinematic experience.
I would have loved if he'd somehow pulled a TDKR-style comeback in the last second, but I don't think I would have respected the film's ambition as much as I do.
They brought Daniel Craig's era in with a huge roll of the dice. They ended it the same way. Mad respect.[/quote]
I wish I could see it like this.
For me, this is not a debate about the merits of an oil painting.
It is about whether burning down the art gallery is valid artistic expression.
Next, however, and this is purely my personal view: I would like to see more glamour, a lighter Bond (a straight-faced Dalton driving a tank in a tux has been mentioned elsewhere), a bit more humour but it had better be good, not just terrible puns although I'll wear one or two for old times sake, less soap opera (great that they've done the family stuff but all it really needs is a psychopath hellbent on destroying the Earth and Bond sent to stop him - we are not talking Ibsen here).
As a female fan and a feminist, Bond movies have actually always had some great female characters, but I could do without 007 slapping them around - that day has gone. But you can have mutually consensual casual sex without abuse or without the girl hanging on Bond's every word (I got the impression that Jinx Johnson would just smile, shrug and go onto the next mission without pining overmuch for that charming British 007 guy). I could also do without the 'first' Bond girl getting stiffed, as became more of a thing, IIRC, as time went by.
I don't mind MI6 backing him up, but a bit more respect for M might be nice if M merits it (and from earlier years no more 'you can come to my club, Bond!' 'that's very kind, sir, but....' He doesn't have to be a maverick all the time).
And since Fleming was all about snobbery and we've had a couple of years of heating up leftovers and making sourdough, a bit of luxury champagne, jewellery, clothes and caviar. Craig was great, but a bit more lighthearted fun is called for, I think, without turning it into Austin Powers.
Agree.
We all die. You. Me. All of us. We die.
It's how we die that matters - and that is what the writers explore here.
For me, NTTD does justice to Craig's Bond. Connery, Moore, Brosnan represented a Bond who was/is, basically, a man who defies death. But Craig's Bond was always on a one way ticket to death. It was bloody obvious from his start in CR.
I believe Barbara knew that. Hence, she would not let Craig go after SP.
Craig's Bond could not just drive off into the sunset.
Some fans fail to see what was bloody obvious. And those are, from the posts I've seen, the ones who still can't see it. Perhaps, with time, they will.
Your post is somewhat arrogant. Different fans will have different interpretations. They don't need to "see" what you see.
In 2006, the point of CR was to show how Bond became a badass. Now it's being retconned to, "This is why Craig's Bond deserves to die?" When Bond says, "00's have a very short life expectancy," it wasn't some dark foreshadowing, it was Bond saying, "I'm going to defy that." That was the whole point of CR, that Bond needs to become a suave badass in order to survive. NTTD spits on that whole theme.
Well, yeah, he could have, if that's what they had written. They didn't need to write this movie. They chose to. They could have written an entirely different one. They could have put Bond on an island with Kissy Suzuki or had him turning down a knighthood the way Fleming's last novel ended. Instead they wrote this. There is nothing in any of Craig's previous movies which forces this particular ending. Eon forced it because it's the trendy thing to do in Hollywood.
+1
Well spoken, Colonel. As usual.
Most of the fans against this concept of Bond dying as the natural conclusion of a self contained arc have no interpretation to offer. They're just against the idea. No matter how it's done, point is Bond CANNOT die. This is no interpretation. That's closer to an obsession. At the same time, some of those fans imply that the ones that like this idea aren't true Bond fans.
Give us a break.
I said different fans will have different interpretations. Do you agree or do you think only one interpretation is possible?
Agreed. But I'm pushing here.
James Bond hasn't died. As an idea, an icon, an abstraction, a character... he will be back. But this Bond, the one who's been with us for five movies, has died. This isn't the end of 60 years of cinematic greatness, nor is it the end of a big multimedia franchise. It's the end of an era, though, and that's perfectly fine, because there will be another one soon enough. I fail to see what we're getting so worked up over. Craig was given a dramatic exit, surely one that's much more befitting his tenure than, say, pulling diamonds out of Halle Berry's belly button. These five films are as much stories about Bond as they are stories with Bond in them. We've always known that the Craig Bonds are somewhat different. I'm sure his Bond's death doesn't come as a surprise.
I fully agree with @ColonelSun. This Bond can't just meet a new beloved and live happily ever after with her. It was either a dramatic death or have Bond wither in an old-folks home and die unceremoniously.
Can anyone care to explain to me what 'True Bond Fan' is? I personally took it that I am a Bond fan partly because out of 25 films, I thoroughly enjoy more than I don't, and to a degree other film series haven't yet come close to. No, I am not a fan of NTTD, or it's ending. If there is anyone else who also likes the films and does like NTTD, I'm not going to start lobbing dressed up digs at people insinuating or outright calling out people as 'Bad Fans'.
Some people like it, some don't. I haven't posted regularly here since 2009 and got drawn back in a little on the back of seeing a piece of entertainment, and wanted to discuss the merits and deficiencies of the film. If I can get a heads up on if petty name calling and insinuation is just a post-NTTD phenomenon or the norm, I'd appreciate the info before sinking anymore time in.
Edit: Nothing aimed specifically at matt_u here - that post was the most recently quotable with the term True Bond Fan in it.
Fans are entitled to have diverting feelings about NTTD, as we are all entitled to have different feelings, attitudes, etc. for every novel, movie, etc. And just because they have different opinions about NTTD, does not make part of the “true” fans or “no fans”. Yet again: NTTD is fiction. James Bond is fiction. We all love the movies. And the books. More or less.
I was and am okay with Bond dying. I like the film, and maybe my views might change after repeated viewing.
BTW, a guy I know, refused to go, and watch the LOTR movies, because scenes he saw in the trailer, did not go well with his idea of LOTR, of the characters or whatsoever. And up till today, he has not watched. At least he says so.
And there will be a new Bond in 2-3 years.
I rest my case, your honour.
A few pages ago bondywondy and SpectreNumberTwo were suggesting that fans that accept the idea of depicting Bond’s death were not “true fans” and that ruffled a lot of feathers. That’s where that came from. Our mod Birdleson put a stop to that rhetoric.
Plenty of people in this thread and elsewhere have offered valid criticisms of the ending. BTW it's not a natural conclusion. Nothing in the previous movies made this conclusion inevitable. In fact I'd say the most natural end to Craig's tenure was what they did with SP.
Some ideas are inherently bad. If NTTD ended like a typical Bond movie would you really be demanding the ending we currently have?
It's not an obsession, it's a reaction to what many people feel is a terrible decision on the part of the producers. That's the interpretation. Eon intentionally set out to make a divisive film. If the Bond fanbase goes up in flames over it, it's because of the movie they made, not because the fans are overly obsessive. Make divisive movies, get divided fans, many of whom will not come back for further movies, if they make any.
Regarding the end there's only one correct interpretation and the movie makes it perfectly clear. All the rest is just up to personal taste, personal ideas, preconceived judgments etc etc.
On a side note, I respect and sympathize with someone saying "I hated the ending because he didn't resonate with me, since I found the Bond/Swann relationship poorly handled", for example. But if someone comes to me and say that "Bond CANNOT die because he just can't, he's an icon, he never died in 59 years, end of the story, the movie is automatically horse shit, EoN ruined my life" I just can't take that person seriously.
I don't know man, ask the ones who implied that...
It's the weakest rhetoric in the book, the 'no true Scotsman' fallacy, an appeal to something supposedly universally accepted by those whose opinion matters more. We're all Bond fans; none is a "truer" fan than another. So I agree, @Simon, this is not how we're having this debate.
Respecting difference is of course key as is moderation of one's words and feelings and listening.
But I would say this: if one is indeed a fan of the character/series? Then of course you will be upset by said character's DEATH, especially when it was not flagged in advance by counterpart novel.
It leaves the series in an uncertain shape in an uncertain world. We did not 'need' that and it is the height of pseudo erudite nonsense to condescend on those who do not 'get' the creative vision of 'arcs' etc for a film series whose USP was an escape from such ambitions.
Bond was never high art nor meant to be such. Reliably thrilling pulp with class, style and surprises, a hint of patriotic pride and yes, Brit propaganda for the overgrown teenager in us all. Essay on film theory / literary epic on film: no.
NTTD takes literal chunks of Fleming and bits and bobs from the darker Bond films and tries fusing those to camp scifi imho. That is not artistic or clever. It is to my mind, inexplicably fool hardy.
But I do respect those who see the film as a necessary experiment every bit as surely as those who are genuinely upset and rightly so. I am a third way guy. It's why I like Living Daylights and GoldenEye and Skyfall (tonal balance rather than awkward fusion as fission of logically irreconcilable visions). x
Well, Connery died last autumn, after NTTD was completed, so I am not so sure about his death having any impactt on EON.
So you cannot take seriously all those who decided that Bond shouldn't die for the last 59 years? It is no coincidence that Bond has never died, but rather a conscious decision of those involved.
Agreed about the hardliners who won’t give the idea of Bond dying any consideration. NTTD could be the greatest film of all time and those folks would still cross their arms over it on principle.
And that’s fine.
I can't follow you there. There's the real world... and there's the fictional world. Not sure why one should render something in the other impossible.
There was never any dedication for Harry Saltzman, Richard Maibaum, John Barry, Ken Adam, Maurice Binder, Peter Hunt, Terence Young, and the biggest exclusion of all, Ian Fleming.
So Connery and Moore not getting one is not that surprising. I would have thought them being Bonds would have made them exceptional compared to those mentioned above, but I suppose not.
Basically you're saying that Eon can do anything they want with the character and that if people fundamentally object to that, their opinions are invalid. So if they make a movie where Bond is an alien or a ghost, fans have to blindly accept it and justify their dislike of the movie on other grounds (acting, direction, etc).
I have to disagree. That might fly for a normal installment of a franchise, but when the filmmakers do something extreme and divisive, and particularly for no reason, people have every right to dislike it for that reason and no other. NTTD's ending invites controversy, and it's ultimately the only thing that people are going to be talking about.