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Yeah, I was thinking on this today. He never even mentions his wounds to Q. And Q should have heard the shots, right? He heard the fight in the stairwell. But regardless, once he's poisoned, Bond never mentions his wounds or his lack of time. He only asks about the nanobots as if Q could give him any semblance of hope even though he knows there isn't any as he's heading to the ladder. And even if the argument is made that he would have bled out anyway, he never mentions any of this to Madeleine when he tells her that he isn't going to make it. Instead, she guesses about the vial of poison and he confirms it. As if she knew that was the only thing that could possibly be keeping him there. So if it wasn't for the nanobots, he absolutely would have tried to leave.
Yep!
Final ascent up the ladder and then swan dive off. 🙃
There was No Time to Dive.
Or, dare I say, a Swann dive?
But I welcome it ... as it's probably the key matter at the heart of the film. And one that cuts to the very quick of who Craig-Bond really is. Now I grant you that there might be room for some ambiguity regarding his intention to escape. But as with anything that is ambiguous, we all tend to see what we want to see. No less so myself.
We probably agree on the following: that Bond has every intention to escape up to the point of his final confrontation with Safin* [see below]. What happens in that final confrontation is that Bond has (by my count) been shot three times from a total of six to eight shots fired by Safin. And that Bond has been infected with nanobots that are targeted by Safin for Madeleine/Mathilde.
In an earlier scene, we hear the following exchange:
Q to Bond: "The missiles will take about nine minutes from launch. Do you think you can do it [open the blast doors] before the ships arrive?"
Bond to Q: "Plenty of time, plenty of time."
But then after that confrontation with Safin, Q informs Bond that he has, if I recall correctly, 4 1/2 mins. to escape. In traditional Bond-world time that might as well be an eternity. All the time in the world, as it were! But in Craig-Bond time it's a death sentence.
Given Craig-Bond's final visual perspective from the roof of the control room, we know that he's a lot further than 4 1/2 mins. away from the water. Now, does that necessarily preclude him from seeking shelter elsewhere on the island away from the coming points of impact, perhaps not.
But as a man carrying three increasingly debilitating gunshot wounds, and who could barely get up that ladder, I think it physically unlikely. And his knowledge of dying with the targeted nanobots just provides a kind of consolation/acceptance of his imminent death.
That's my own interpretation.
But what about the John Wick-like level of super-human heroics that Bond displays in fighting his way to the control room, we might ask, why would only 3 gunshot wounds stop him from escaping the island? Surely every Bond from Connery to Brosnan would have managed to do so? In my view that's just one of the contradictions (or flaws, if you must, in being neither fish nor fowl) that is not unusual in the Craig era: on one hand, this adherence to a kind of "reality" & psychological complexity when it suits the dramatic purposes of his character; while on the hand, the necessity of providing us as Bond fans with the largely "unrealistic" action thrills that we demand of the genre.
* As an aside, "Sa fin" suggest the French for "his end," as in Safin the character is literally the instrument, or embodiment, of Bond's demise. Thanks to Chris of JBR for pointing this out. Don't know how I could have missed it ...
OK, thanks, but I wonder, how did he amass his power to smash SPECTRE, something that the combined power of the CIA/MI6 could not accomplish... 🤔
Was it simply turning Valdo with his vision of what to do with Heracles? He must still have had enormous resources pre-coup, I would think ...
MI6 built Heracles, Safin just sneaked himself in there and used it for his own means. Just like he used SPECTRE to get Valdo out if the lab and then the CIA/Bond to get him out of Cuba and how he used Madeleine to get to Blofeld. Safin in the first half is a super interesting character who has one singular personal pursuit and achieves it by subterfuge and having other people do what he wants without them even knowing. He doesn't really have or need henchmen or even an big use of resources or money, he just uses everyone else's. (Granted, we don't know how he got Ash in board...). I think, that would have been a really cool thing to further develop for a Bond villain. And then in the second half/last third he suddenly turns into a generic megalomaniac super-villain with unlimited resources...
So, Bond would just need to put on some gloves and could live forever with his family... poor James!
Yes. But my question is what is the mode of action? What does the venom do to the cells and wondering if anyone had any best or educated guesses.
I think you are putting more thought into this than anyone in the production team did...
The outward symptoms I remember are those boils (?) on the skin, especially in the face, and almost instant death (although it could be unconsciousness followed by later death) which seemed to come by suffocation, although I wouldn't rule out sudden cardiac arrest. Blofeld died much more quietly than the people at his birthday and in his case we see the pustules (really not sure about English terminology here) only develop after he is already unconscious/dead. I do think that the picture we see of a corpse about to be buried, doesn't show there being anymore of the boils, but I could be wrong.
As for a diagnosis, I have absolutely no idea.
Absolutely I am :)! But thanks for engaging with my thoughts anyway :).
EDIT: Also what a picture! I've never seen that one before. Where did that come from? Let me have a little look and see if I can figure it out.
I can only make out some of the words on the far right. Barely. And they're guesses.
The letter (underneath the bullet points) I can only make out SPECTRE?
The bulletpoints, it's obviously headed SPECTRE. The second bulletpoint looks like the word "Train" at the beginning and maybe the word "Negative" underneath it.
More ridiculous than diamond powered space lasers? You seem to be quite the expert in pseudoscience. ;)
I’m not sure it was ever followed up on, but that’s an interesting thought; it was meant to hint at mosquitos being a way that Heracles would spread. They’re the animal responsible for the most human deaths worldwide already…
I don't know for sure, but it almost seems unscripted ... or maybe improvised? The kind of subtle, ambiguous or open-ended moment that you get when you have talented people in front of and behind the camera ....
And certainly it provides her some personality while underscoring the complete vulnerability of her character - but also suggests a child's sudden or maybe growing awareness of the mounting danger? And that she must be protected at all costs ...
There are a couple. Dr. Vogel and a an oriental guy were in Rome as well.
I also think the man carrying Blofeld's eyeball was the Spectre agent who followed Q in the tram leaving the Hoffler Clinic.