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
With a few rare exceptions like Silva all Bond villains are underwritten and it's up to the actor to make the character with the performance. All he did was mumble and look blank faced. He brought nothing whatsoever to the role. Even if you don't like how it was written he brought nothing whatsoever to it.
Agreed, in a film where they clearly wanted to concentrate on Bond and his relationships, they might have been better to select an person who has immediate impact and looks the part first and foremost, rather than an actor who needs to be provided with quality dialogue to work with in order to persuade the audience of their evil intentions.
The likes of Basil Rathbone, Richard Widmark, Lee Marvin, Jack Palance, Lee van Cleef, Neville Brand, Albert Salmi, Jack Elam... Mads Mikkelsen or Javier Bardem, don't need any lines at all in order to establish their credentials.
Thanks lads, it's nice to pop-in! I can't say for sure I'm back, likely just visiting but I'd like to make more of a semi-regular thing than a one time shot ;)
I guess you're right. I thought he was sufficiently eerie in the beginning, and in the scene in Madeleine's office.
Agreed. It's like I said, NTTD is following the Hollywood trend of franchise subversion. The question is, why subvert to begin with? For an initial shock that only works once but leaves a lingering bitterness long after, like a Vesper martini? What do they gain from this ending, aside from audience shock? If we're willing to admit there's no strict continuity then they could just as easily given it a happy conclusion and not pissed off a lot of fans.
I rather they focus on making a good film than worry about pissing off fans. If they worried too much about angering a loud minority then Craig would have never gotten the part and we would have been stuck with a dull clothes horse like Henry Cavill.
Craig was interested in that subversion from that start. He's on record as saying that it was the main reason he took the role. He would not have if James Bond was being drawn up as the same as always.
I doubt it. People will find anything to complain about, I’m sure they pissed off some people throughout those 60 years. Look at all the people who were pissed off in 2006. I think you’re mistaking your feelings for everyone’s feelings.
I agree. This is a result of Barbara Broccoli appeasing to Craig's every whim. The ending of 'NTTD' is one of the reasons why Danny Boyle got into an argument with Craig and EON. Killing Bond probably has Cubby rolling in his grave, though I doubt that he would have ever allowed Craig anywhere near this intellectual property.
I know that a lot of hard work was put into 'NTTD,' but technically, the film should not exist. The only reason it does is because 'SPECTRE' is a totally underdeveloped mess. The final scene of Bond and Madeleine riding off was CLEARLY intended as the conclusion of the Craig saga. That notion bothered me from the very beginning of 'NTTD' and I couldn't shake it off completely as I watched.
That’s not entirely accurate. In fact the only years where you could say they tried playing things safe was with the Brosnan films after they took a radical departure from formula with LTK that resulting in mixed results.
And, for one time, the production company actually delivered on being named Everything or Nothing. They didn't compromise on the story they wanted to tell. They went all in, even if some people hate the end result.
100% agree. And as I’ve said before it’s divisiveness makes me like it all the more. They went bold, and it had an impact.
It’s funny how many new members appear to have signed up just to complain about it. Did that happen with Spectre when it came out?
I also look forward to the next one. Very much so. Clean slate for sure. But I am a very happy Bond fan these days. I hope NTTD continues to do well enough to be considered successful. Certainly it is historic and it is heartwarming that outside the U.S. it is performing extremely well.
I think audiences who did not rewatch Spectre may have had some difficulty at first in getting the importance of Madeleine or indeed of Spectre. Six years between films is a VERY long time for the general movie-going public to remember key elements of a movie.
The Matera scene is one of my all-time favorite Bond scenes. Going to visit there one day. Stunning.
Agreed. It’s easy to see why it featured so heavily in the marketing.
"You only live twice.
Once when you are born.
And once when you look death in the face."
There was simply not enough time to escape the island, or even the bunker. Had Bond not had to go back to re-open the blast doors, and had he not been shot multiple times by Safin, he might have had time to do so. But he doesn't. That's just the logic of the film.
The nanobots had nothing to do with his death. Not directly. Asking Q about how to get the stuff off was Bond’s way of coming to terms with his own inevitable & imminent destruction. Meaning, that he could never touch Madeleine & Mathilde again somehow made death's acceptance that much easier for him.
Immortal?
Where is it written that Bond doesn't die? He's not a god. Though, ironically, he does achieve a kind of godlike ascension into myth by the end of the story. And there can be little that is more indicative of his heroism than that.
Just because there is no precedent for his death is not an argument against it - but rather a belief, or even an article of faith in something like ... well, what? The Church of James Bond?
It's not much of a stretch to say that the single-most important thematic factor in the entire Craig run of films is the demonstration that his Bond is human. Very human. All too-human. That he bleeds, that he suffers, both physically & emotionally - just like all of us. And ultimately that he dies, too - his own sacrificial lamb, as in the equally unprecedented deaths of Mathis, M & Felix before him. This is the thematically consistent conclusion to his films.
I don't see the Craig movies as "subversion" but rather as a fascinating reiteration of a character we all thought we knew, perhaps too well, if only because the brushstrokes in presenting him both onscreen and in print were so few or so broad. Craig has literally fleshed out the Bond character, just as others may reinterpret him in the future.
It might have been nice if Bond had found some happiness along the way, but of course in the Craig context, therein lies Bond’s tragic flaw. And then, the same thing that made him a superbly efficient state-sanctioned killer (half monk, half hitman) was never going to make him fit comfortably into any life of domesticity. Now that might have made for an interesting creative choice to explore, but hardly a heroic one.
TND didn't do anything new due to the script basically being improvised, but the other entries each introduced new concepts with varying degrees of success.
GE: first time another 00 is a major player, and a villain at that. First use of a mostly electronic/industrial music score. First female M.
TWINE: first female villain. MI6 being bombed. M taking a lead role in the story. Bond being tortured. Bond killing a woman in cold blood.
DAD: Bond captured and imprisoned by a foreign government, abandoned by MI6.
Overall the era was safe in terms of structure and the major plot beats, but it did enough new stuff to make it interesting.
This is an extra ordinary perceptive post. Just one comment, in the trailer the scene with Blofeld she says the lines "you don't know what this is" as an accusation whether it was an alternative take or one of the pick ups from December 19 those lines are offered with sympathy in the movie, they are a mirror of "your a kite dancing in a hurricane Mr Bond" but from an entirely different emotional perspective. Madeleine is sympathetic to Bonds naivety because Blofeld is right she still loves him and that "intimate scene" in Norway shows the weight of that love for both of them . Its mostly non verbal but Lea and Daniel communicate the knowing journey of what they really feel to each other and the audience perfectly.
Exactly, the previous post was just another ill thought out cheap shot at the Brosnan era
And you have perhaps overlooked the Paris Carver element of TND - Bond encountering an ex while on a mission, which was that films contribution to Bond character enrichment program.
In fact you could say the Brosnan period followed on from LTK in trying to introduce a modicum of character development, but was criticised, by those who longed for a much more melodramatic Bond, for being only cosmetic and not going far enough.
It was only after the Roger Moore era had run it's whimsical course that people began calling for the character to "develop". Dalton pushed for that, but perhaps the audience weren't quite ready or perhaps other factors intervened to thwart him (depending on your personal perspective on the Dalton era)
And speaking of the Church of Saint-Daniel... Hallelujah Brother!
Half Monk???
Well, maybe there's a God above
As for me all I've ever learned from love
Is how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
But it's not a crime that you're hear tonight
It's not some pilgrim who claims to have seen the Light
No, it's a cold and it's a very broken Hallelujah
Now I've done my best, I know it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didnt come here to London just to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand right here before the Lord of song
With nothing, nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
The Craig years will not be remembered for having great villains, Earlier, when James Bond wasn't a character study, colorful villains and henchmen were plenty (like the gadgets), they usually had more scenes, were better scripted and had memorable one-liners (Drax as a perfect example). It certainly doesn't help that the villains from CR and on, all had to be connected to the same "master plan", but not by pre-prepared grand design where they think one, two or even three movies ahead, but by trying to connect dots from earlier movies.
Because of this, for me, the best villain during the Craig years is Mr. White.
- "The one you're touching now is all yours... but only after the mission is done!"
Not at all. I have watched it with different friends who are more casually into the films as well as my mother. They all took it as a given that they would make more Bond films. It was not a matter of discussion. My Mother had this interesting interpretation: - "It was the logical choice, as we have now grown so fond of Craig's Bond that the only way we would accept that they replace him in the role is if they kill the character off!"
I am truly astonished to read so many harsh comments regarding the film's ending. No more Bond! They killed the franchise! The continuity is all messed up! I can't watch CR anymore!
Wow... It is the crime of the century, it is. 😒
Bond 26 will be such a soothing experience.