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Ah, it's a different continuity. That explains everything! Now I understand how they can kill him off then say he'll be back minutes later. It's all about continuity.
Now it all makes perfect sense!
Thanks for helping me out with that.
I wouldn’t say so necessarily. It’s just what fans do.
But I do get it, I’ve read some discussions on here where even I’ve not seen the point in complaining about something to do with Bond (the above is probably an example, haha). But I suppose I can’t talk, I’ve done it myself likely.
No no, you don't get it. My point is that for two years you have been suffering because of NTTD. I don't care what anyone posts. I just think that it's best for one's health to let go at some point. If Bond's death, a few minutes before his return is announced, pains you so much, just pretend the film never happened. You've got 24 Bond films (26 if you're being generous) to enjoy. Don't let NTTD get on your nerves.
It's more exasperation to be honest. Let me try to explain.
For real world fiction to work, it has to adhere to real world rules. James Bond doesn't teleport, time travel, fly or have X-ray eyes. He doesn't regenerate like Dr Who or have magic powers like Harry Potter. He was conceived as a literary character just like Tom Sawyer, Sherlock Holmes and Gabriel Oaks. He doesn't die and come back to life, and no matter what word you use*, killing him and bringing him back is a deceitful thing to do, and shows no respect for the audience. How on earth can the viewer have any emotional attachment to a character dying, when they're told the same character will be back, minutes later?
Simon Mayo made exactly this point to Mark Kermode when the latter did his review. He asked "what real-word cinematic character has been killed off and resurrected in the same series?". Kermode put him right in the same way I've been constantly put right on here.
"It's a different continuity".
There you go. It's an explanation that means nothing, because it makes no sense. If Fleming had killed Bond at the end of FRWL, and bought him back for the next book, saying "this is a different continuity", people would have rightly complained. Yet we're supposed to accept this silly conceit in a movie series. Why? Because bleedin' Batman did it? Sorry, but that's not good enough for James Bond.
Read this next sentence and please ponder on its meaning. It completely explains my stance in five words.
When anything's possible, nothing matters.
*Let's compile a list, shall we?
Continuity.
Alternate Universe.
Character Arc.
Timeline.
Incarnation.
Are there any I've missed?
Yes! You've explained it very well.
I mean, probably won’t… ah well.
But anything IS possible. An untrained Bond flies into space. He suffers a heart attack, technically dies, and then walks again and finishes the best poker game he has ever played. He survives the worst explosions and blasts. Armies of goons fire at him like an execution squad: not a scratch. Men have steel teeth that cut through metal cables. Everything is possible and anything goes and not even the sky is the limit. That’s why this series has been so successful. People love that.
But what you are talking about is a reboot between film 25 and film 26. That is not even a case of "anything is possible" because both have nothing to do with each other, the same way GE has nothing to do with LTK. The same way LALD has nothing to do with DAF.
What is so hard to understand about it? Every Bond film is its own thing. Otherwise, how can a WWII vet be running around as an active field agent in a post-9/11 world?
You are right about Fleming. But Fleming published one book every year for about a decade and, indeed, kept a tight continuity, even though most of his books also read as standalone adventures. The films, however, are not like that. If Fleming had described Bond as a handsome, dark-haired man in one book and turned him obese and blond in the next one, people, would also have rightly complained. The films went from one dude to another, then back to the former, then to yet another. They took one M from a seasoned Bond and re-introduced her in a beginning Bond's career. The films have never cared about any of this. You are right about Fleming, but the comparison to the films is false. Comparing the Bond films to the Batman films is, however, not as silly as you seem to think.
Because that's what you're saying, when you say "anything is possible".
It's not just Batman though; it's so many other fictional characters throughout the history of fiction. I kind of don't get how you're not familiar with this happening. Stories get re-told all the time. 'How come Macbeth's back on? I saw him get killed last year' said no-one ever.
I get that you're saying it's empty if they're not ending the character forever, but then if he was brought back with a really good explanation, just as you asked for in the way Conan Doyle did it, then it would still feel empty, surely? You keep dancing between reasons why it's bad, and that's why it's hard to follow exactly what your issue with it is.
You say 'when anything's possible nothing matters': well now we know Bond can die. When all the evidence in the last 70 years pointed to the contrary and that it was impossible for him to do so.
I've tried to explain it as simply as I can, even down to a five word sentence. I can't say it any other way, I'm sorry.
Not really; this is the story of James Bond. It's starting from the beginning again, just like Macbeth does every time it's put on. By the same producers sometimes!! Just because one is divided into acts and the other into films makes no difference.
First it was 'not a tricky concept to understand' then you complained that Conan Doyle did it in a way that 'made sense'. As I say, you keep swapping reasons around: either you can't understand it or you can.
I agree with everything you wrote here, @mtm.
No, because now you're just taking things into extremes. "But they kill Bond and then bring him back, isn't that extreme?," you ask. Here's why that reasoning is flawed. They didn't kill Bond and brought that same Bond back in the same film. They killed the Craig Bond and then announced that the character will be back for other adventures. They know that audiences are smart enough to understand what that means: different actor, different story, and no ties whatsoever to the previous films. Apart from you and the guy who didn't even see the film, I haven't heard anyone complain about this! Even the Bond fans among my students talked about how they felt about the film, and then started dreaming about where to take the series next with the next guy. I honestly think you are making far too big a point of this. Would you have been satisfied if the "James Bond will return" line hadn't been added, and if Bond 26 was announced a few years later? Just an honest, neutral question, no trap.
You've completely lost me there.
I said that Conan Doyle bought Holmes back in a way that made sense. Nothing wrong with that. If Doyle had given Holmes an explicit death (like Bond's was in NTTD), then he'd have done the honourable thing and written any future books based in the time before Holmes' death.
Because Holmes' death had an element of ambiguity, Doyle was able to resurrect him with plausibility. Something that the James Bond series of films is unable to do.
Yes, I wished they've kept Bond's death vague.
Like yes, it would be messy now, because what?
Another new timeline for Bond 26? Where would that set? Another reboot?
Unless, they went back to the original timeline where DAD ended, leaving Craig's Bond Era an isolated one, but if they created a new timeline, then it's time now to introduce...... The Codename Theory!
Because it would be already three different timelines: The Classic Bond Era, The Craig Era, and the New Bond Actor's Era.
Apart from the fact that the "classic Bond era" is not one timeline -- is the Bond from LTK really the one who raided a hollowed-out volcano, lectured a girl on taking lives and flew into space? -- yes, that's how it will be. Are we honestly going to complain about "already three different timelines' in a 60+ year old film series? A college student who went to see DN is now someone's great-granddad. Spider-Man was given three different timelines in less than a third of that time. I'm just not getting what's so upsetting about this.
And again, anyone trying to to fit the first 20 films into one timeline is wasting their time if you ask me. Honestly, I doubt that Harry and Cubby were ever worried about what happened before and how to logically follow up on that. When they considered bringing Goldfinger's brother into the films, it was because of the "brand" Goldfinger and its successful reputation, nothing else.
There you go: you're switching tack again to complaining about continuity. And when that's pointed out to you, you get snarky and say you actually don't like it for another different reason.
I'd always be unsatisfied with any James Bond film that killed him off. The fact that they announced that he's not dead in the credits only makes it worse.
Wanna know what I want? I want to see him emerge from the cloud of the explosion, whizzing across the water on Roger's jet-ski with the James Bond theme blaring. That's satisfaction! None of this nuking a lovelorn Bond with a cuddly toy in his belt. Sod all that!
The atmosphere of it is great too, I love how ominous it is, Bond feels in danger there although he looks composed, which is so Bondian.
At risk of sounding flippant, it’s a bit thankless thinking too deeply about the logic of timelines or how stuff in the old series connects. And hey, if anything it’s kinda cool we’re getting a new Bond that’s distinct from Craig’s. No baggage from the last films. It’s similar to how I felt about the new Batman film after Nolan’s trilogy - it’s a chance to do something genuinely fresh.
Totally agree, and as another example Doctor Who is having this at the moment with everything from 2005 to 2022 becoming it's own era, and everything from 1963-89 is refers to as the 'Classic era' but that betrays how complex and disparate that period was. Just like with Bond, I don't think it's that fruitful an area of discussion.
I don't think I've said this statement 😅
There's a technical error here, perhaps?
Could you clarify it to me, maybe I could remember this statement? Thank you.
Sorry, that was my fault. I've edited it now.
👍
Don't forget Godzilla!
Yes... That’s how fiction works.
Well, it's seemed like that's the majority of fandom really wanted these days, they want fantasy.
But I liked my Bond to be realistic.
That's how science fiction works.