It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Of course, what if this had been the case and Craig had pushed back saying that Bond shouldn't die and wouldn't do the film at all if this ending were in place? Would the whole idea of actors making demands be viewed as necessarily a negative thing for some people? Anyway, just a thought...
It's very much a hypothetical as we know Craig went into this film with the idea that his Bond would be killed... again though, what if it'd been Broccoli's idea and Craig was the one against this (or at least doing so in the definitive way we got)?
I guess what I'm trying to say is depending on one's view of the creative choice, the idea of an actor making demands, ultimatums and standing by certain artistic choices isn't always straightforwardly positive or negative. I'm sure there are examples of actors insisting on things which in hindsight made their movies better.
They don't just blindly go along with their star: they demonstrated this when they decided not to hire Brosnan again. Up until that point Brosnan had been the only star that Broccoli/Wilson had had whilst they were in top charge of the films- he had been a massive success, made the films properly popular again, but they decided that their concept was bigger than the star.
What interview was that? I thought they'd said that she wasn't averse to the idea back in 2006 (I feel like that's on the NTTD podcast too..?), but obviously they weren't going to kill him after just his first film :)
https://variety.com/2021/film/news/no-time-to-die-ending-james-bond-death-daniel-craig-1235144941/
I don't think actors having input in their films is the issue. The issue is specifically why BB and MGW pandered to Craig so much, starting with getting Lindy Hemming fired and spending all of the post-QOS films looking ridiculous in tiny suits and weird outfits like the corduroy suit and duster in NTTD. Did they really think that the franchise was hinged on the SIXTH actor to play the character and that they couldn't go on without him? The whole thing is bizarre.
They should have revealed "the mission that changes everything" in one of the trailers, then before the premiere allow Craig to announce he's stepping down from the role, maybe in the Being James Bond documentary.
Knowing for certain in was Craig's last since 2017 was a distraction if anything.
Everybody rightly so was fixated on how the story will end rather than what the story would be, I'd be even include the producers in that as well
100%
I have no issue with his casual wear though, he wore some nice pieces of casual clothing.
The worst example for me is the suit during the SP PTS. Craig looks like he's desperate to remove it so he can breathe. Not very practical for a spy.
But it's Craig himself who have insisted to have those tight suits.
Regardless, it doesn't change how goofy and ill-fitting the suit looks.
I doubt that they will explain it, they will just reboot it like in the classic films without explanation, it'll likely to be a "wipe the slate clean".
To prove that it only happened in the Craig Era to close his arc and separate it from others, isolated.
The only thing that I can think of as a solution to this, if they want to hit two birds at the same stone is to return to the classic continuity:
A.) They can easily move on from the Craig Era, reboot and all, and leave the Craig's films as separate and isolated from the other Bond films.
B.) That's the easiest way that they can avoid of explaining of how he survived from that ending, that film can easily show us that this new film was return to the classic continuity and returning back to where DAD left off.
So no need for the audience to think how Bond survived or was he a codename, and instead think of it as what's written in A.
Absolutely. That certainly helps make it as divisive as it is.
"Now, Mister Bond, take Operation Thunderball, as your government dubbed it. This project involved the holding to ransom of the Western World by the acquisition by me of two atomic weapons. Where lies the crime in this, except in the Erewhon of international politics? Rich boys are playing with rich toys. A poor boy comes along and takes them and offers them back for money. If the poor boy had been successful, what a valuable by-product might have resulted for the whole world! These were dangerous toys which, in the poor boy's hands, or let us say, to discard the allegory, in the hands of a Castro, could lead to the wanton extinction of mankind. By my action, I gave a dramatic example for all to see. If I had been successful and the money had been handed over, might not the threat of a recurrence of my attempt have led to serious disarmament talks, to an abandonment of these dangerous toys that might so easily get into the wrong hands? You follow my reasoning? Then this recent matter of the bacteriological warfare attack on England. My dear Mister Bond, England is a sick nation by any standards. By hastening the sickness to the brink of death, might not Britain have been forced out of her lethargy into the kind of community effort we witnessed during the war? Cruel to be kind, Mister Bond. Where lies the great crime there?"
I know Craig and Malek had a lot of trouble with the dialogue during Safin/Bond's encounter and had to go off and make a lot of it up, but could this not have been used to some extent? Seems like Safin justifying his use of the nanobots, a dangerous weapon, against SPECTRE and perhaps even subsequently against the world with such logic would be more interesting, no?
Would have been great to this speech adapted for their scene in the film. However, if we are suggesting changes to the script/plot, I would love to have seen Blofeld be the main villain and deliver this speech to Bond, but make references to his past schemes in the more recent films of Craig's run. Everything building toward this moment, it could have been the big showdown between these two arch enemies. Something we never really got before outside the novels. The finale between Safin and Bond would have felt more cathartic the moment he realizes the vial scratched his face if it was Blofeld wielding it instead.
That being said, I still loved this movie from begining to end. Still liked Spectre too, despite its flaws and knowing it could have been better in some areas (e.g. the car chase in Rome).
To be fair, as much as I think they messed up his character in the third act, I really like the idea of Safin. He's this ghost of a man - his body (perhaps mind too) damaged from the poison, stalking around this Japanese island surrounded by his family's plants, constantly motivated by revenge and nihilism... He's an interesting villain in theory. I just think he needed to justify his actions to Bond for him to be believable. The confrontation between him and Bond has all this stuff about people needing an invisible God, how him and Bond are the same (which is particularly baffling... I mean, if this had come from a villain like, say, Silva or Alec Travelyen, then I'd have understood... but Safin?) and it muddies the water. What is his motivation? Why does he suddenly love Madeline? Who knows.
To be honest, I kind of wish Malek had played Blofeld in SP... would have been something a bit different (ditch the foster brother subplot I'd say though). NTTD would have been a different film perhaps, given the fact that Waltz was not warmly received as the character and even by his own account wasn't especially strong in the role.