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Haha! Comment of the year.
Thanks, TheTruth ;) X
Though nb I do like Cory as filmmaker and he did some great stuff in NTTD.
Bond is not an auteur product, imho. Mendes changed that. They toyed with making it more director oriented in the 90s /early 00s. Ridley and Tony Scott both mooted for a Brosnan entry but it did not happen.
I think for a Bond film? You need a capable craftsperson. John Glen, Spottiswoode, Campbell. But it's a mistake to let one vision shake things up on what, by nature, is a coca cola formula with which you need not mess
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That's probably a fair shout.
EON clearly wanted to do something different with Craig's Bond. I think of it as its own timeline, and hopefully Bond 26 goes back to the Bond of Connery to Brosnan. A lot of it worked, some of it didn't, but it was memorable. And having the so called auteur type directors helm them worked for these, but going forward solid, capable directors will be needed. EON end up handing over too much of their vision with an auteur.
Fair enough.
There was a time when I struggled with a Bond who told a British operative to "piss off" and decided to work outside the service. After all, Bond's loyalty had been fairly unblemished until then. I wasn't particularly happy about Bond telling Saunders that M could fire him if he wanted to either. Then I got a little upset over Bond left to rot in a Korean prison if it hadn't been for the whole Zao thing. But time and again, I got over it. Because since the days of Dalton, they have been trying, albeit slowly and carefully, to break bits and pieces off Bond's near-pefect track record. I see this, and the entire Craig era at that, as nothing but an extension of that into an all-bets-are-off sort of place.
In essence, I agree with you, @Birdleson. At the end of the day, I, too, want Bond to survive--which is why I am giving them only this one film out of a total of 25 to end on this note. I don't want them to terminate Bond every time from now, let that be clear. I was spoiled too, going in, so I had already made my peace with the fact. (Thanks to the media: "We won't tell you the ending but it . will . SHOCK . you!" Okay, Bond dies. Thanks for being 'subtle', dear journalists...)
The true ending for Craig's Bond to me is the ending of Spectre when he and Madeleine drove off into the sunrise of London in the DB5.
And not just without him seeing his family: as long as he's in the world there's a chance those nanobots could get passed from person to person until eventually they find Madeline & Mathilde. He can't leave.
Yeah, I wouldn't be as harsh perhaps, but where Bardem and Mikkelson brought extra stuff to what was on the page, I didn't feel Malek managed that.
Indeed, and just look at what they've been pissed off about over the last few films: blond Bond, Nomi as 007, you can't kill M etc. None of which were actually bad, folks just complained about them before they saw them.
Yep, I always say that if forums had been around in 1973, LIVE AND LET DIE would have been hugely controversial and angered so many fans. No Bond in the PTS, no tux, no martini, no Q, no MI6, supernatural elements, a clairvoyant Bond girl, smaller aspect ratio, no John Barry, black people, a song without a chorus, and not least: some new smarmy fair-haired guy playing Bond, etc. etc.
But now no-one even notices it.
Totally OT, but every time I watch TB I wish that Fiona Volpe was the main villain: she's easily the best one in it. Imagine if she's been the one controlling the operation there, the actual fizzle she has with Connery.
I do tend to agree that Largo is basically a henchman. He's literally referred to as 'Number Two'! :)
He has the charisma of a henchman too.
I would say White, Silva and Le Chiffre are stronger than any of the Brosnan villains to be honest. With the exception of Sanchez, you'd probably have to go back to Walken to find any that match.
I don't know if that's a pervasive idea, but it's possible that other people out there got the same vibe, especially since the whole dynamic of the movie (and many other non-Bond movies) was the children of those who die growing up to 'avenge' them or follow in their footsteps.
I couldn't agree more. Or imagine the Internet thoughts to the somber ending of OHMSS.
I like that the ending is so divisive. It stands out for that very reason.
Yes, I know Bond will be back in another film, and yes, if he dies again it won't be for a while, as doing it frequently would be pointless. I just don't care about seeing Bond die. And I say that having liked this new film apart from that outcome.
Not every Bond film has to be a "fun romp" for me. In fact, seeing him lose a loved one, seeing him fail, seeing him on the brink of death, that's alright with me. But then, after the bad guy got away, after the timer on the bomb reached zero, after the building collapsed... he emerges from the rubble, literally and figuratively. A survivor first and foremost, still in the game. Don't ever rule him out. That's what I like.
I would have preferred the ending of Spectre for the Craig era. A man who thought he'd have a short life falls in love again and drives off to a peaceful tomorrow. I don't know if they could have done that for this latest film without it feeling repetitive, though.
But let's how that second watch of the film goes for me. I don't go to watch a film hoping to find fault with it, but I suspect in the future I won't find Bond's death sad, just irritating. But hopefully I'll be wrong.
Irrespective of whether I like the ending or not, I don't like the fact it's divisive, to whatever extent it is. I would prefer to see everyone enjoy it, even if it was surprising or unexpected.
Welcome to MI6, @Benjamin! Glad you liked the film. There is a thread for personal rankings of the films, if you are interested.
You Only Watched Twice, old chap.
when I did I thought great film dud ending.
Alien 4 comes to mind Sigourney Weaver insisted on dyeing only to years later try to make a film that totally ignored Alien four.
will some one just give these petulant actors a slap accross tha face..
for this reason I will never except the ending. but I thought it was a highly engaging well directed Bond move.
when its on TV if they don't cut the ending down Il just turn of at the end..
I like all the bond moves but my current favrouts are Docter No Spector and the spy who Loved my
I would argue continuity is important at this moment in the franchise's history. We're shown and told Bond is dead. It's over. The end.
But he's back in Bond 26!
The transition/resurrection/reboot feels clumsy. Ideally, the death and rebirth/reboot of James Bond should be ten years later. Around 2031. If there's time distance it makes Craig's Bond death feel more meaningful but if Bond 26 is in two/three years time and it's a full reboot and everyone is supposed to pretend or forget Bond died in the last film... lol... kinda dumb, perhaps!
"Ooooooooh Bond is dead... but not really, he's rebooted!"
Or
"Ooooooooh Bond was never dead in the first place, we fooled you!"
Both options will upset some fans.
Eon have created a problem that didn't need to exist. Bond 25 could/should have ended with Bond saving the day and that's it. But we've got this weird alternative reality Bond waiting to appear in Bond 26.
Maybe You Only Live Twice should be retitled...
You Only Live Again And Again
🙄😉
Yeah very good point about OHMSS. It'd be nice if everyone enjoyed it, but I guess that can't really be true of anything; we're all different.
I'm just not sure it's realistic to expect everybody to enjoy something. Don't get me wrong, I know that all of us on the forum who are die hard fans would hope that the new film gives everybody the same enjoyment, but I find it always makes for good discussion when not everybody agrees. The same way some love Moonraker and some think it's ridiculous. It's what I love about Bond - everybody has different favourites, and no two fans are likely to feel the same way.
I completely agree with @mtm. Imagine The Internet when OHMSS, LALD or LTK were released. People would have gone nuts over certain films, announcements, ... Not to mention Keaton's casting in Batman, but that’s for another thread.
Now if only Safin was a better villain...
I won't say the film's runtime does it any favors. It takes something like an hour an a half for Bond to even learn Safin's name, and then they don't even meet until the last act. I enjoy longer movies, don't get me wrong, and would gladly sit through every LOTR extended edition back to back, but NTTD didn't really make good use of its length like those films do.
I won't lie that ever since she was revealed in the trailers, I was positive Nomi would be a traitor, and holy hell was I glad I was wrong. I was also glad that she never stole the spotlight. This was Bond's movie from start to finish and never did she feel as though she were being set up as the future of the franchise.
Was I the only one that felt Bond talked more in this movie? I swear he had more lines than in the last two films combined.
Now some negatives: I felt Mallory was a little... off. After campaigning against a government surveillance system in the last film, he runs an off-the-books bioweapon here? If it weren't for the last two films portraying him as a man of principle, this wouldn't really be a problem, but even his "For Queen and Country" justification rings hollow. And while Blofeld running SPECTRE from his incarceration was nice, the idea that MI6 never figured that out after five years seems illogical at best.
On the easter eggs side, are we to assume Robert Brown's M was now a predecessor to Judi Dench's in the Craig era as well? That was a nice, yet odd thing to have his portrait on the wall.
To sum it up, I loved this movie. It was everything I'd wanted from the finale of the Craig era, and now that it's over, we can begin anew with a new Bond, no origin rehash, and a return to form.
Yeah I really hated what they did with M in this one, definitely didn’t jive with his character at all.
I agree, it's not realistic. But it's nice to hope for it, at least to the extent that it doesn't signal the creative stagnation of the filmmakers.
Yes I'm completely with you on that: the action in this is pretty lacklustre I think. The opening car chase is decent (although really quite short I thought) but after that there's nothing really very special in terms of inventiveness in the stories they were telling over the course of the action, or wit and originality with Bond himself doing something we've never seen before. As you say, the winch cable is maybe the closest thing to a Bond moment (Brosnan did that same thing in DAD and in amongst the other action it's not really memorable!).
For all its faults, I thought the design of Spectre's action sequences at least still showed a memory of what Bond does.
A lot of people really enjoyed Cuba, but I thought it was a bit dull to be honest, just lots of fighting and shooting. It didn't really have a hook to it.
Mission Impossible still has Bond beat on the action by the looks of it; Bond had MI beat in terms of the emotional beats of the story. And then, how much of the power of the ending depends on our having a lifetime knowing this character?
Oh wow yeah! And now everyone's happy that he's coming back- which you certainly wouldn't have expected reading the papers in 1989! :D
Yup, nothing wrong with being nice :)
Yeah, I think the riverside chat was supposed to change our mind on what he'd done and make us forgive him, but he'd developed a bioweapon- that's a big no-no, we don't do that. It's against all the rules, and he was always a proper straight-down-the-line good man up until now. I feel like the film didn't quite understand how big his crime was.
Was it explained how Blofeld ran his operation from his cell? I felt like that must mean someone inside is helping him but we never found out.
I agree with you here as well, but after everything that happened in this film, I think they'll probably switch out everyone for B26. Just my two cents though.
Hoping Mallory still gets his portrait.
Yeah, I wonder if it shouldn't have ended with M getting his marching orders. Especially as the ending involves him ordering a missile strike on foreign soil.
Then maybe do what Lois Maxwell always hoped for: Bond goes into M's office and the chair turns around to reveal: Moneypenny! :)
To clarify (just in case), I mean to say I'm not interested in an ending being controversial or divisive. I don't look at a film from that perspective. I just try to understand what the creative people did, and appreciate it to the extent that I can.
Every new film has to bring something new to the table, and someone's always going to dislike it, but hopefully most of us can enjoy it.
Blofeld was giving orders by pretending to be talking to himself and his voice was being transmitted via his bionic eyeball (are we to assume the dead eye he had at the end of Spectre was bionic, or was a surgeon after he was arrested part of Spectre? Unclear!). So I don’t think anyone inside was helping him.