NO TIME TO DIE - Questions Thread

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  • MinionMinion Don't Hassle the Bond
    edited November 2021 Posts: 1,165
    You Only Live Thrice

    Once when you’re born, once when you stare death in the face, and once again when they reboot you.
  • jake24jake24 Sitting at your desk, kissing your lover, eating supper with your familyModerator
    Posts: 10,591
    I’m curious, does anyone actually like or enjoy watching the character of Valdo Obruchev? For me he is without a doubt the worst part of an otherwise excellent Bond film. I’m not sure what they were thinking when writing that character.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    edited November 2021 Posts: 7,546
    jake24 wrote: »
    I’m curious, does anyone actually like or enjoy watching the character of Valdo Obruchev? For me he is without a doubt the worst part of an otherwise excellent Bond film. I’m not sure what they were thinking when writing that character.

    I do. I've mentioned a few times before, but his silliness I find refreshing, and a good foil against the seriousness of the rest of the film. After four viewings, I enjoy him more and more.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    jake24 wrote: »
    I’m curious, does anyone actually like or enjoy watching the character of Valdo Obruchev? For me he is without a doubt the worst part of an otherwise excellent Bond film. I’m not sure what they were thinking when writing that character.

    I do. I've mentioned a few times before, but his silliness I find refreshing, and a good foil against the seriousness of the rest of the film. After four viewings, I enjoy him more and more.

    Plus, the slow realisation that this weird comic relief macguffin type character might actually be the most evil person there is quite something.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,546
    jake24 wrote: »
    I’m curious, does anyone actually like or enjoy watching the character of Valdo Obruchev? For me he is without a doubt the worst part of an otherwise excellent Bond film. I’m not sure what they were thinking when writing that character.

    I do. I've mentioned a few times before, but his silliness I find refreshing, and a good foil against the seriousness of the rest of the film. After four viewings, I enjoy him more and more.

    Plus, the slow realisation that this weird comic relief macguffin type character might actually be the most evil person there is quite something.

    This time watching I figured he picked the white guy doctor to help them/live in the lab kidnap scene rather than the woman as a foreshadowing to his later-revealed racism.
  • 00Heaven00Heaven Home
    edited November 2021 Posts: 575
    jake24 wrote: »
    I’m curious, does anyone actually like or enjoy watching the character of Valdo Obruchev? For me he is without a doubt the worst part of an otherwise excellent Bond film. I’m not sure what they were thinking when writing that character.

    I do. I've mentioned a few times before, but his silliness I find refreshing, and a good foil against the seriousness of the rest of the film. After four viewings, I enjoy him more and more.

    Plus, the slow realisation that this weird comic relief macguffin type character might actually be the most evil person there is quite something.

    This time watching I figured he picked the white guy doctor to help them/live in the lab kidnap scene rather than the woman as a foreshadowing to his later-revealed racism.

    Maybe ... but I saw it more as being he picked the guy because hes hugh dennis who is relatively familiar to a British audience and it gave his cameo more time.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,546
    Alright, but hopefully there are narrative reasons the characters in the film make choices as well.
  • FeyadorFeyador Montreal, Canada
    edited November 2021 Posts: 735
    Alright, but hopefully there are narrative reasons the characters in the film make choices as well.

    Or only insofar as we feel the need to speculate & impose those reasons upon the film, in many cases.

    The reasons that we may find are often not internal to the logic of the film, which is comprised of blocks of set pieces & their interlocking scenes. In theory, NTTD should have been a much longer film, but while each set piece may work to spectacularly good effect, the character psychology that might rationally link one scene to the next is not always present, except by means of broad flourishes, ie. Bond's "distrust"; Madeleine's "secretiveness": Safin's "revenge"; Blofeld's "obsession", etc.

    The movie is so rich with narrative detail & incident that it leaves us to fill in the gaps & plot holes where none might have existed - and so tightly edited as it is that much is left out of necessity, which we might not even notice until several viewings in.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    edited November 2021 Posts: 7,546
    They made a big enough deal that they had Valdo choose, so there must have been something to it. Nothing is random; otherwise Primo could have just picked one other scientist at random.
    Just my take on it!
  • edited November 2021 Posts: 1,075
    Why does the new 007 go to Jamaica to warn Bond off going after that scientist. Did M16 know that Felix was going to ask Bond to get involved prior to their meeting?
  • 00Heaven00Heaven Home
    Posts: 575
    I think because the CIA and MI6 were at each other's throats over the whole thing that it may be more likely that Nomi was following Felix.

    Then Felix goes to Bond's home in Jamaica, leaves the cigar ash (which Bond finds)... And as he's driving he passes Nomi (because she was tailing Felix) and also Felix/Ash along the way.

    I don't think she absolutely knew Felix was going to ask him, I think it may have been more of a happy coincidence. MI6 think Bond may have been dead as he'd "fallen so far off the grid" after all.
  • Posts: 1,075
    So she wasn't sent to tell Bond to lay off, she did that under her own steam after discovering he was there whilst following Felix. I see.
  • matt_umatt_u better known as Mr. Roark
    Posts: 4,343
    Nomi was tailing Felix because the CIA was in advantage in the search of Valdo.
  • Posts: 2,159
    00Heaven wrote: »
    I think because the CIA and MI6 were at each other's throats over the whole thing that it may be more likely that Nomi was following Felix.

    Then Felix goes to Bond's home in Jamaica, leaves the cigar ash (which Bond finds)... And as he's driving he passes Nomi (because she was tailing Felix) and also Felix/Ash along the way.

    I don't think she absolutely knew Felix was going to ask him, I think it may have been more of a happy coincidence. MI6 think Bond may have been dead as he'd "fallen so far off the grid" after all.

    On that last point, I assume it was just a retort from M back to Bond, same as his “desk” comments.
  • Posts: 384
    Wasn't it advertised at one point, that when M says "where 007?", Nomi appears?
    It may look like they edited that out so that we are on the same page as Bond when it comes to the new 007 info.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    In the film M says "Get me 007" or something along those lines and it cuts to Bond on the yacht. The reveal that Nomi is 007 happens later. Don't know if they did it differently in the trailers, but I doubt it, given that the 007 reveal was supposed to be a surprise (albeit the worst kept secret of all time).

    As for why she is there, I was wondering that as well. Her shadowing Leiter makes the most sense, but then that leaves the question why they later need Bond to tell them that Ash was a bad guy. If she tailed Leiter, she must have seen Ash. When Bond comes back to MI6 and says Leiter is dead, it shouldn't take a genius to at least ask in Washington what happened to the other guy (who at that turn seems to have gone full heel).

    However, I maintain that if they rolled that sequence of Jamaica and Cuba out as more or less the whole film and spent a bit more time tidying up these loose ends, it would make for a fantastic little spy thriller in it's own right.

    Second addendum: A further collateral of jumping from QoS right into Skyfall and the sunset years of James Bond is that we never got a really good Leiter-in-the-field part for Jeffrey Wright. I would have to watch CR, QoS and NTTD in close succession, but as much as it pains me to say, he doesn't seem like an amazing field agent. I like Wright in the role, but his Felix is kind of always screwing up. They didn't get to LeChiffre in time or convincingly enough. He personally helps Bond in QoS, but the rest of the US presence in that film is a joke (on purpose) and here he gets outmaneuvered by Bond while tailing him, apparently is tailed by Nomi at the same time without noticing and it turns out has had the villain's henchman as his running-mate and not only couldn't do anything about it, but actually led him to Bond.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited November 2021 Posts: 3,147
    Yes, I think the original idea was for a sight gag - 'Where's 007?' and a black woman walks in. Bit 'post', but would've been good - but yes, probably changed so we get the reveal when Bond does. I agree with those who think that Nomi was trailing Felix and wasn't expecting to encounter Bond. Felix himself might've been out of practice in the field - wasn't he already promoted to Section Chief by the end of QOS?
  • Posts: 384
    Yes, I did remember that was how it was explained to us at one point during the production. I was pointing that out because I think they cut the M/Nomi briefing scene, thus explaining why people wonder what she was doing there, and having to figure it out by themselves.
    It makes sense however, because if we did find out first that Nomi was the new 007, we would be one step ahead of Bond, which is usually a nono in films.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    Posts: 3,147
    Good points, Stamper.
  • Posts: 1,075
    I don't think there was enough camaraderie with Leiter across the Craig era to earn him the 'brother' moniker. I suppose we have to assume more adventures happened off-screen.
    And oddly enough, Fleming wrote that Bond and Leiter had 'shared many adventures' in one of the early books, (was it LALD?), although they had only met once previously (in CR). Any Fleming scholars back me up on that?
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,959
    So she wasn't sent to tell Bond to lay off, she did that under her own steam after discovering he was there whilst following Felix. I see.

    An interesting aspect I hadn't really thought of. The film is unique in bringing together characters through sheer coincidence, like Bond and Nomi meeting up in Norway because Bond was going after Swann and Nomi was tracking Ash, only for everyone to realize that Ash was actually tracking Bond/Madeleine all along, which brings the two together after Madeleine/Mathilde are taken by Safin.
  • Posts: 1,075
    Thanks for the responses, guys.

    One more question, about the production rather than the plot. Do we know for a fact that Craig had a stipulation that he'd return only if they killed Bond off?
    Or is it that just speculation?
  • matt_umatt_u better known as Mr. Roark
    Posts: 4,343
    He toyed with EoN with that idea since CR, that was confirmed in the JB Archives book.

    Based on that I believe he came back only if Bond would’ve died. There were 3 main things that they wanted to do in this one since day one: introducing a new 007, using a DNA targeted toxin and killing off Bond.
  • 00Heaven00Heaven Home
    edited November 2021 Posts: 575
    However, I maintain that if they rolled that sequence of Jamaica and Cuba out as more or less the whole film and spent a bit more time tidying up these loose ends, it would make for a fantastic little spy thriller in it's own right.

    Hah! I love this idea, you know. What a cracking little film that would have been. It wouldn't have been a behemoth in running time either. One of my friends said he wished there was more time spent in Jamaica and I have to agree.

    So here's my question... Primo is also in Jamaica... So is he trailing Bond? Or is he trailing Leiter because he knows Leiter will lead him to Bond? At that point SPECTRE has Heracles and Primo goes to Jamaica and he steals Bond's toothbrush that he then gives to Valdo in Cuba.

    Does that then mean Blofeld is playing the long game by knowing the two sides, CIA and MI6, are playing off against each other? Does that mean he then orders henchmen to steal Heracles and knows this will be too much of a carrot on a stick for Bond to resist as the CIA feel no choice but to get involved. He then gets Primo to track Leiter as he knew Leiter would likely be the only one to know where Bond is which means he can enact his revenge later on in Cuba... Bond's death all timed as the perfect birthday gift for SPECTRE's glorious leader and from there he will be able to use Heracles unrestricted as a weapon in the future without one giant thorn in his side, or so he thought...

    EDIT: On top of that... Safin and Ash also know that Bond can get rid of SPECTRE JUST by turning up at Cuba as killing them all will give Waldo a way out too - Bond being Blofeld's big carrot on a stick in return. I feel like there's a lot of people playing 4D chess in this movie.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,959
    I would've had no problem with the film featuring way more Jamaica and Cuba. Hell, give us a DN-type clone and Bond's forced out of retirement by Felix due to some sinister happenings going on in Jamaica, which inevitably leads him to Cuba or something. Not knocking the film we got, of course, but that would've been great too.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    00Heaven wrote: »
    However, I maintain that if they rolled that sequence of Jamaica and Cuba out as more or less the whole film and spent a bit more time tidying up these loose ends, it would make for a fantastic little spy thriller in it's own right.

    Hah! I love this idea, you know. What a cracking little film that would have been. It wouldn't have been a behemoth in running time either. One of my friends said he wished there was more time spent in Jamaica and I have to agree.

    So here's my question... Primo is also in Jamaica... So is he trailing Bond? Or is he trailing Leiter because he knows Leiter will lead him to Bond? At that point SPECTRE has Heracles and Primo goes to Jamaica and he steals Bond's toothbrush that he then gives to Valdo in Cuba.

    Does that then mean Blofeld is playing the long game by knowing the two sides, CIA and MI6, are playing off against each other? Does that mean he then orders henchmen to steal Heracles and knows this will be too much of a carrot on a stick for Bond to resist as the CIA feel no choice but to get involved. He then gets Primo to track Leiter as he knew Leiter would likely be the only one to know where Bond is which means he can enact his revenge later on in Cuba... Bond's death all timed as the perfect birthday gift for SPECTRE's glorious leader and from there he will be able to use Heracles unrestricted as a weapon in the future without one giant thorn in his side, or so he thought...

    EDIT: On top of that... Safin and Ash also know that Bond can get rid of SPECTRE JUST by turning up at Cuba as killing them all will give Waldo a way out too - Bond being Blofeld's big carrot on a stick in return. I feel like there's a lot of people playing 4D chess in this movie.

    This part of the story also has my favourite version of Safin: The player in the shadows using all of these people against each other. Making them think they are achieving their own ends while in fact getting him closer to his own goal. He has SPECTRE steal Heracles. Leiter finds Bond. Primo releases the toxin and then Bond get's Valdo out and to Ash. In the end, Safin has Valdo and the toxin, SPECTRE is destroyed and he got his revenge and he basically didn't lift a finger. Like I said: After Cuba, tack on a finale in which Bond infiltrates Safin's layer, but the henchmen aren't just Safin's guys, but either SPECTRE goons who think they are still working for Blofeld or even soldiers from a different nation's military who were again somehow tricked by Safin into protecting him/attacking Bond and you have a very solid, twisty spy film on your hands.

    As for Blofeld's original plan and what Primo is doing in Jamaica: It's another one of those things that stays just a little to close to the surface level and could/should have been explained better if those sections where longer. Plot mechanically, he is there to get Bond's DNA. However, at that point, they cannot know that Bond will come to Cuba. Someone in another thread mentioned Ash/Safin could have tipped SPECTRE off early enough, making them think Ash is working for them, funneling Bond to the meeting. That works, but it would have been cool to somehow see Ash play this triple-game.
    My preferred variation (and I have mentioned this once or twice, I'm just not sure whether it was in this thread. Excuse me, if I am repeating myself) is that Blofeld initially just had his birthday party be the occasion where all of the SPECTRE people ceremoniously infect themselves with the Heracles-variant targeted at Bond. Then they let the thing take it's course while Primo continues shadowing Bond, so that Blofeld can see him, and at some point he'll shake some random guy's hand and drop dead. Or even just Primo walks up to him, so Blofeld can see his face, while he dies. That scenario makes more sense to me, because it uses Heracles to better effect. Why steal a highly secured DNA-targeting nanbot-virus, if your target will just stand right under the sprinklers anyway? Once Bond is in the building, they could arguably have used dozens of simpler techniques to kill him. And they could surely have created an easier MacGuffin for him to chase. Anyway, once Bond comes to Cuba and strolls into the party, Blofeld improvises, does his speech and hopes to see Bond die then and there and you know how the rest goes.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    Posts: 3,147
    I'm happy to go with Felix having been involved in some of Bond's missions in the gap between QOS and SF. I just wish we'd seen them!
  • Posts: 1,075
    Venutius wrote: »
    I'm happy to go with Felix having been involved in some of Bond's missions in the gap between QOS and SF. I just wish we'd seen them!

    I checked my LALD novel a while ago, and when Leiter is found maimed Bond reflects on 'the many adventures they had'. Yet they only met in the previous book, (CR), and the Harlem job was only their second assignment together.
    License to Kill had the best Felix/Bond cinematic relationship for my money.

    And, where did they say Felix is from in the latest film? Somewhere in NY I think. He's a straw-haired Texan in the books.
  • BennyBenny Shaken not stirredAdministrator, Moderator
    Posts: 15,129
    I took Bond referring to Felix as his brother to Ash, as a callback to Felix introduction to Bond in CR.
    “Felix Leiter, brother from Langley.”
    Maybe it’s just me who saw it that way.
  • w2bondw2bond is indeed a very rare breed
    Posts: 2,252
    What if Nomi had taken Waldo back to mother in Cuba? Movie over :-D
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