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2012. I dont't think, it needs the death of the hero to be emotional relevant. And yes, the ending of NTTD ruined the whole movie experience for me.
But as i said before, it's all about personal taste and feelings. You can't argue about that. I don't want to badmouth the movie for people like you, who liked it a great deal.
Beeing on this forum for the last 3 weeks, expressing my obvious problems with NTTD and reading, how others react to the movie, helped me to deal with it.
I think, it's time to move on now.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion. However, there are those of us that find the storylines and endings of SP and NTTD so distasteful, that we can’t enjoy it, therefore, why watch them? Skyfall, narratively, provides a perfect end for Craig’s Bond(IMO). Exhilarating mission, thrilling, and he ends the film better than ever. The hero, standing tall, ready to go out and do his thing. Essentially, SP and NTTD are like one long, discombobulated and uninteresting yarn. Blofeld and the brother deal, we all know, but how boring and uninspiring was that? Tons of camp. Basically, Bond in this film was the opposite of the Bond we saw in Casino Royale. Then, Bond let’s Blofeld live. That did not seem natural for him. Why would he leave perhaps the most dangerous man in the world alive? Made no sense. And it was a very FLAT and deflating ending. The Madeline romance felt unnatural and tenuous at best. Tying Mr. White in as a dying man, and making a deal with his greatest enemy (Bond) to save his daughter...I’m getting exhausted just typing all this trope. And then, we get more of the very same in NTTD. Eon is like, “this is a series, not a movie. What can we do that we haven’t done before? Oh yeah, let’s kill Bond!” And we are taking about 5 hours and 15 minutes or so of this? Are there some good action sequences and scenes? Sure. But is the payoff of Bond dying and exploring his romance with Madeline worth it? Not for me. And I’m not alone.
The film is too long and nothing that happens at the poison garden or the factory at the end is interesting. In fact nothing with Rami Malek or his half-baked scheme is interesting. Why is he doing what he is doing? None of that is explained. We’re supposed to just accept that he’s a crazy who fancies himself as a “savior” of mankind. But even in his warped mind what he’s doing is supposed to make some kind of sense. He babbles something about people wanting to be led and told what to do. Ok, that’s fine but what does that have to do with you trying to wipe out large segments of the population with your smart DNA virus? How does that make you a savior? Again, what’s the scheme here? It’s never explained to us. Is this supposed to be some kind of population control scheme a la Bill Gates? If so that’s never clarified. So we have a boring mumbling villain with a scheme which we don’t know what it is. That’s great. And then the secondary villain - Brother Blofeld. Another fail. Bringing back someone who didn’t work in the previous film and putting him in a Hannibal Lector cage for more of the same boring nonsense - “I’m the author of all your pain and can really get under your skin”. Blah.
Madeline is back (yawn) and now Bond has a child with her. Great. Need I say anything else about this? What’s the point? And of course Bond can’t be a daddy so that’s yet another reason to kill him. And speaking of killing Bond, I just can’t fathom this. Isn’t that precisely why Danny Boyle was fired? Because he wanted to kill Bond. So they bring Fukunaga on board and go ahead and do the same exact thing anyway? How does that make sense? Baffling.
So what did I like? Only 4 scenes. That’s it. The snowy opening in Norway, the scenes in Matera, loved Bond at his home in Jamaica and his bathing waterfall outside (that stuff feels right out of Fleming, could be Fleming’s home where he wrote the novels), and my favorite is the stuff in the forest in Norway. Everything from the Land Rover chases to the suspense in the forest is extremely well executed and shot. We’ve never really had a scene like this in Bond and this was a welcome addition for sure. The closest we ever came to forest action would be Corinne being chased by dogs in MR and the twins stalking 009 in OP. Both had some eerie horror film overtones without going into actual horror, both very well done. This one fits the same bill as well except done on a grander scale. And that’s pretty much all that I liked about the film. I did not like the Cuba scenes (the SPECTRE meeting was ridiculously bad with Blofeld talking to them through some cheesy eyeball) and the whole shootout that followed left me completely disengaged. None of it felt tense or exciting. Just a bunch of people firing machine guns. I don’t get what people enjoy in that entire sequence. Even the praise for Ana de Armas from all the critics is strange. I just don’t get it. Her giddy school girl routine was annoying. Good looking she is for sure but that’s it.
Black female 007? Woke, anyone? No thanks. So I guess 007 is just a number that anyone can carry. Not only that but now apparently even James Bond is a code name too that anyone can carry. Because this Bond is dead. So we’ll have another agent who will be James Bond next. Oh man, it just gets more and more painful.
So because of the few exciting scenes I guess I’ll place it just above QOS and SP but it’s nowhere near SF and CR. Not even close. And I don’t even consider those 2 masterpieces. What’s really interesting is that I have zero interest in seeing the film again. Even QOS and SP I wanted to see again in the theater, even after being disappointed on first viewing. I mean it’s Bond after all, right? But with this one I just don’t care anymore.
When producers make extreme decisions, it results in extreme reactions from fans. NTTD has pretty much the most extreme ending a Bond movie can have. Alienating fans was inevitable, not because the fans are unreasonable, but because the producers seemingly structured an entire movie just to shock people, following what is currently the worst trend in Hollywood. We don't know the fallout yet from this movie, but if it permanently fractures the fanbase like the awful Star Wars sequels did, it wouldn't surprise me.
People got over missteps like MR and DAD because they were only cosmetic missteps, not narrative ones. The envelope was pushed, but the envelope could always be pushed back. With NTTD, Eon doesn't push the envelope, it burns it. And for no natural reason. They could have given Craig's swan song (why does he even need a swan song?) a more hopeful ending. They could have had him turning down a knighthood like in the last Fleming novel. They could have shown him as a retired old man reflecting on his past. That would have allowed for a younger actor to start up a new continuity without resorting to a cheap, sentimentality-infused shock death.
Nicely said. Yes. Turning down the knighthood would have been perfect.
Of course not.
Yes, so I guess because of his closeness to the British prime minister, Haines wasn't in the Cuban SPECTRE meeting (although he was part of its South American branch and the meeting was in Cuba, and it said all of SPECTRE are dead). So they should hurry to tie up Haines before the targeted Nanobots reach him. One reason more to bring Bond 26 quickly. 🙂
One of the points you are zeroing in on is that Bond had reached an impasse when they went with Daniel. It had reached a point where it was not only being caricatured but it was a losing battle to simply offer up even more far fetched action sequences someone would better it next week including plots. However its trump card was the character itself and if you found the right actor you could begin to turn a mirror in on the inner bond. Start telling stories and moving the character through an arc. Grip a wider audience by making the stories have more emotional resonance.
If you do that you can then make the plot thematic and symbolic. Manipulation of money, the environment and intelligence were handled with a degree of symbolism rather than looking for a literal big bang.
If they had carried on with mission movies rolled out in the tradition as popcorn I think the franchise would be in an entirely different place.
That is quite separate from my being being very happy with stories and characters that inhabit the key note James Bond qualities.
I would finish by saying we have just seen a movie where a member of the older generation had a life threatening condition which would impact on those he cared for sacrificed himself and put his child first.
They could never have anticipated how such a story would be played into a world which has spent the last 20 months turning the lives of the young and healthy upside down for the sake of the old where the notion of sacrifice for a future is entirely missing. Bond had a reason to die, to let go and did it with all the panache I would have expected of the character because it is all right .. to die.
Yeah that's what I said.
I like CR and QOS. There's such a big disconnect between them and SF-SP-NTTD that in a way, I've always felt that when Craig-Bond walks off into the night at the end of QOS, he didn't really return. We never got that energized, youthful Bond back. They did a soft reboot (again) with SF, turning him into an old man, and then tried to connect it to QOS with its follow-up SP, and it resulted in a mess that I can't really wrap my head around. So much of the SF-SP-NTTD continuity doesn't make sense to me and doesn't line up with any previous era of Bond, not even Craig's first two movies.
Yeah this is just my opinion, but SF-SP are really bizarre movies to me. I've said it before but they come off as metatextual commentaries on Bond movies rather than proper Bond movies. They are made in a self-aware style, treating Bond as some kind of legend everyone knows, and the themes are handled in such an expository way that they seem like the filmmakers are openly talking about Bond as a character, if you get what I mean.
Heck, the thought crossed my own mind to basically regard Craig's tenure as CR, QOS, and SF, as those are three of my favorites and all comfortably in my Top 10, and SP and NTTD are very much the opposite and if anything serve to retroactively blemish (to my mind) the greatness from the first half of Craig's run. No one has to accept a filmmaker's vision if that vision dampens their enjoyment of some other part of the story.
Two of my favorite action flicks from the early '00s are The Matrix Reloaded and Kill Bill Vol. 1, and yet both of those films hinge on enormous cliffhangers that were answered in both cases by a film that overwhelmingly disappointed me: The Matrix Revolutions and Kill Bill Vol. 2. I occasionally revisit Revolutions just to discover all over again what an abysmal film experience that is but haven't bothered with Kill Bill Vol. 2 in years and likely will never see it again.
As odd as it may seem, I am still able to enjoy The Matrix Reloaded and Kill Bill Vol. 1 as contained film experiences despite both ending on cliffhangers that lead to a sequel that failed my expectations on every possible level. But none of that matters. The Matrix Revolutions and Kill Bill Vol. 2 don't have to mean anything to me, and they don't.
I'm not saying I'm never going to revisit SP or NTTD again. I will. I'll enjoy the parts of each that I like. In an odd way, I think NTTD has actually helped me come to appreciate the comparative simplicity and cohesiveness of vision in SP and who knows how the years ahead may help me come to reappraise NTTD. But more so than with any other era of Bond, it makes sense for someone to decide SP and NTTD in particular are for them not the end of Craig's Bond's story.
Skyfall has a fantastic ending in and of itself. An ending with a beginning. I see no problem with viewing CR, QOS, and SF as a perfect, contained trilogy for the purposes of one's own enjoyment. That takes nothing away from how anyone else views or enjoys the series.
Because Mathilde asks about mosquitoes in the car and eventually asks if mosquitoes have friends. Yes...they do...and they spread disease. I didn't think about this until the third viewing and it occurred to me that this bit of dialogue isn't random and meaningless.
And dividing fans is not a goal in itself; it's a natural consequence of how diverse any large fandom these days is. I submit that it is impossible in 2021 to make a film that won't leave some fans screaming for more while others are screaming in horror. The gray area is growing smaller; the extremes are getting louder. We can spot the same trends within the DC / Star Wars / ... fanbases. And reading some truly insulting responses online ("Babara Broccoli should be fired; she doesn't understand Bond; she's taking a dump on her father's legacy; she and Kathleen Kennedy are ruining cinema; ..."), I actually applaud the producers for sticking to their ideas instead of succumbing to those of entitled fans. And those same entitled fans can't take it that 'their' ideal Bond isn't the Bond we're given. I'm sorry children, but that's the way it is.
Like the film or don't, but please don't try to reason that they are wrong in not making a guaranteed cash-grabber or a film that was put together from ideas drooled by entitled, more-creative-than-thou fans all over the low-IQ comment section of YouTube. It's their film, not ours. Want to make your own Bond movie? Find the money, purchase the rights, start your own production company and go ahead. Until that day, no matter how creative, smart or talented you are, it's not your call. You can complain all you want, dislike and even hate all you want, but there's a certain line we oughtn't to cross, in my humble opinion.
Yeah, I’m sure they’ll all be queuing for the discounted food at Waitrose on a Thursday morning. “If only we’d played it safe, like that guy on the internet said.”
It doesn't make sense because it's not what happened. If you just watched a film in which they killed Bond, and still think the reason they sacked the previous director is because he wanted to kill Bond, I won't take the rest of what you say too seriously either.
This is such an infuriating aspect of the internet age. People see an unsubstantiated rumour in social media, and not only take it to be 100% true, but then repeat as fact in support of their argument. Please try to engages bit of critical thinking. It was just a rumour, and it has already been cleared up (again not from the horses mouth so treat with caution) that Boyle actually left because he didn't want to kill Bond.
As for 'black female 007', woke anyone? Yes of course 007 is a number anyone can have, it isn't a person, it's a position. Someone had it before Bond, someone will have it after him. There was actually a good gag in reference to this in the film where Nomi asks him 'did you think they'd retire the number?' as if he's an iconic footballer having his shirt retired.
This labelling of anything people don't like as woke, because the media have told them to be on constant alert to be outraged is so dull. A large number of people will say if there is any black, female, homosexual representation where there wasn't previously, then it is 'woke' whatever you think that means. Now, given that they have been underrepresented in cinema and culture for the entire modern age, casting a black woman is just making the film normal. Rather than some weird fantasy universe some people seem to like where women and minorities don't exist except to satisfy male fantasies. What you are saying is 'I don't like seeing black women in films', because the reality is if Bond is retired, there is no reason whatsoever 007 shouldn't be a black woman, in fact I imagine MI6 absolutely needs diversity in its agents no? Your ability to launch undercover operations are quite limited if you only have white men! This is only reflecting real MI6. It is your demand, not woke, that is demanding tokenism and divergence from reality, in order to satisfy a rather sinister need not to see black women.
If having one black woman iin a film is too much for you, or one gay man for those who were upset about Q, I suggest you go and quietly reflect on why. I wonder how you'd feel if black female culture had dominated everything for 200 years and a white man was suddenly allowed to appear prominently. You'd probably like it and think of it as progress no? I for one am glad black female kids no longer have to grow in a world they are airbrushed out of. Try and walk a mile in their shoes, as they say.
Roger Moore had less to do with Connery's character or Fleming than anything Daniel Craig has done. There is no way in a million years he and Connery are the same man. But some people don't mind as long as he occasionally slaps a woman and treats them as objects, which for some here is clearly the only character trait of Bond that they really care about. Some of them may even be grown men.
Imagine if Goldeneye came out today how angry the internet would be about the sexist mysogynist dinosaur bit. Bit there was no internet and people hadn't been told they needed to get angry then so they just accepted it and had a laugh about it. Maybe think about that?