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No Time To Die Script - Alternative pitches/what would you change?
No Time To Die's a pretty controversial film among Bond fans from what I can see. I know some people sit on opposite sides of the fence with it, but I feel I'm in the camp that enjoyed a lot of it but felt, much like Spectre, that it needed at least another two drafts of the script in order to get everything right. I know there are elements a lot of people really like about it (people seem very fond of the Cuba scenes for example) and other things people dislike (the ending, which doesn't work for everyone, me included). Regardless, I think most people can agree it's not a perfect film in terms of script for various reasons.
So, my question is if you were a producer/the creative lead and the film we got was in its script form, what would you change about in order to get the best Bond film possible?
For me, I'd change the beginning slightly. I like the scene with a young Madeline/Safin and would keep this. I also like much of the action, but I don't like how the film adds this odd subplot of Blofeld trolling Bond by trying to convince him that Madeline is an agent of SPECTRE. I find this contrived as a) I don't believe Bond would ever think that Madeline was an agent of SPECTRE to begin with and b) I as a viewer never thought this would be the case. Keep the assassination attempt on Bond, but cut Blofeld's ploy to convince Bond that Madeline has set him up. Like in the film we got, Bond would thwart SPECTRE'S attempts to kill him, but he would make the decision never to see Madeline again as he would presumably believe this gives her and him the best chance of survival. He could even be quite cruel to her when he does this in order to get her to leave.
I'd also adapt the nanobots slightly to include Safin's expertise of plants/poisons. Instead of the nanobots being already developed as in the finished film, perhaps they are just weaponised tech to be used once, and Safin is the one who develops the method of transmitting them to the intended target through other people. Could even make up some fake plant that he adapts this idea from. I would, however, specify that the nanobots are not permanently inside someone but merely transmit themselves from person to person through touch. I'd also specify that while much of SPECTRE is killed during the Cuba sequence there are still remaining members. Also I'd rather Felix not die but be badly wounded (akin to the Live and Let Die novel).
I'd keep everything more or less the same from here with these little changes in mind until after Blofeld's death. I'd cut out Mathilde entirely. Bond confronts Madeline in her childhood home. I still think there's room for pathos here - Bond could be heartfelt saying how he only wanted to protect Madeline and now that SPECTRE is almost gone they can start a life together. Madeline could in turn be unsure about this, claim that death seems to follow Bond, questions whether they can realistically start a family etc. Oh, and for reasons clear later they need to make up and shag at some point. Same as in the finished script, Safin and his men come after them and Madeline is captured.
The third act is where I'd make the most changes. I'd have Safin's ultimate plan be to use the nanobots to assassinate the remaining SPECTRE agents, but due to some sort of quirk with its method of transmission Q works out that it could kill many people with similar DNA patterns (or perhaps mutate to do so, if that doesn't hit too close to home with Covid).
Safin's relationship with Madeline needs to be changed too. I like the idea of Safin having been born with his heart on the wrong side of his chest like the titular character in the Dr. No novel, which could be how he survived the fact that Madeline shot him. After this, perhaps he found a new lease on life or something (albeit in his own twisted mind) and could even claim that since Madeline kickstarted this he has some sort of infatuation or 'love' for her, which would explain why he's keeping her in his lair. Perhaps he could even claim that he was inspired to do all this because of her. I'd change Safin's lair too - have it be more of a mix of organic, poisonous plantation inside glass domes and industrial surroundings (like he's trying to 'preserve' his father's garden).
Bond's interaction with Safin should be changed too - he could still claim him and Bond are similar, but only because of how much pain SPECTRE caused them, and perhaps because of their shared love of Madeline. When Bond tells him that the nanbots could kill many other people, however, Safin should dismiss this. The guy doesn't care. Bond quickly realises he's crazy.
I'd have the climax be similar to the film, Nomi and Bond infiltrate the lair. Madeline and Nomi escape and Bond goes commando before the missiles are set to launch. Same as in the finished script Safin manually closes the shutters. Bond, however, now has to go through the poisonous garden to get to the switch. He tries to avoid the deadly plants but is shot by Safin. A struggle ensues, and in the midst of this Safin and Bond come in contact with poisonous plants. Safin, the weaker man, is dying quickly. He asks Bond why he can't just understand why he wants revenge and once again points out that SPECTRE caused him much misery too. Once again he claims they're the same. Bond replies they are not - he would never let innocent people die because of him. Safin laughs and says perhaps not, but now both of them will die the same way. Bond rushes to the switch and stops the shutters. He has his goodbye with Madeline over the radio and collapses before the missiles destroy the castle. Bond's heart monitor flatlines.
Back in London a small funeral service is held for Bond, which Madeline, the MI6 regulars and a wheelchair bound Felix attend. M says to Madeline that although Bond was a man with flaws he had the virtues of bravery, patriotism and love for her.
The next scene we see Madeline driving in Bond's DB5 in Italy. She whispers to herself 'you were right James, we have all the time in the world'. A shot of her as she puts a hand to her stomach...
Back at Q-Branch, Q is staring at Bond's heart monitor. Moneypenny comes in, to which Q admits that he sometimes thinks there's a small chance Bond could have made it out - the poison is not always deadly with adrenaline, he could have gotten out in time, and his heart rate would be out of range to pick up. Both quickly dismiss this idea however and leave. Bond theme slowly begins. We push in towards the monitor. A single beep before we cut to black.
Sorry for the long post. Anyway, anyone else have any alternative adaptations they feel would make NTTD better? :)
So, my question is if you were a producer/the creative lead and the film we got was in its script form, what would you change about in order to get the best Bond film possible?
For me, I'd change the beginning slightly. I like the scene with a young Madeline/Safin and would keep this. I also like much of the action, but I don't like how the film adds this odd subplot of Blofeld trolling Bond by trying to convince him that Madeline is an agent of SPECTRE. I find this contrived as a) I don't believe Bond would ever think that Madeline was an agent of SPECTRE to begin with and b) I as a viewer never thought this would be the case. Keep the assassination attempt on Bond, but cut Blofeld's ploy to convince Bond that Madeline has set him up. Like in the film we got, Bond would thwart SPECTRE'S attempts to kill him, but he would make the decision never to see Madeline again as he would presumably believe this gives her and him the best chance of survival. He could even be quite cruel to her when he does this in order to get her to leave.
I'd also adapt the nanobots slightly to include Safin's expertise of plants/poisons. Instead of the nanobots being already developed as in the finished film, perhaps they are just weaponised tech to be used once, and Safin is the one who develops the method of transmitting them to the intended target through other people. Could even make up some fake plant that he adapts this idea from. I would, however, specify that the nanobots are not permanently inside someone but merely transmit themselves from person to person through touch. I'd also specify that while much of SPECTRE is killed during the Cuba sequence there are still remaining members. Also I'd rather Felix not die but be badly wounded (akin to the Live and Let Die novel).
I'd keep everything more or less the same from here with these little changes in mind until after Blofeld's death. I'd cut out Mathilde entirely. Bond confronts Madeline in her childhood home. I still think there's room for pathos here - Bond could be heartfelt saying how he only wanted to protect Madeline and now that SPECTRE is almost gone they can start a life together. Madeline could in turn be unsure about this, claim that death seems to follow Bond, questions whether they can realistically start a family etc. Oh, and for reasons clear later they need to make up and shag at some point. Same as in the finished script, Safin and his men come after them and Madeline is captured.
The third act is where I'd make the most changes. I'd have Safin's ultimate plan be to use the nanobots to assassinate the remaining SPECTRE agents, but due to some sort of quirk with its method of transmission Q works out that it could kill many people with similar DNA patterns (or perhaps mutate to do so, if that doesn't hit too close to home with Covid).
Safin's relationship with Madeline needs to be changed too. I like the idea of Safin having been born with his heart on the wrong side of his chest like the titular character in the Dr. No novel, which could be how he survived the fact that Madeline shot him. After this, perhaps he found a new lease on life or something (albeit in his own twisted mind) and could even claim that since Madeline kickstarted this he has some sort of infatuation or 'love' for her, which would explain why he's keeping her in his lair. Perhaps he could even claim that he was inspired to do all this because of her. I'd change Safin's lair too - have it be more of a mix of organic, poisonous plantation inside glass domes and industrial surroundings (like he's trying to 'preserve' his father's garden).
Bond's interaction with Safin should be changed too - he could still claim him and Bond are similar, but only because of how much pain SPECTRE caused them, and perhaps because of their shared love of Madeline. When Bond tells him that the nanbots could kill many other people, however, Safin should dismiss this. The guy doesn't care. Bond quickly realises he's crazy.
I'd have the climax be similar to the film, Nomi and Bond infiltrate the lair. Madeline and Nomi escape and Bond goes commando before the missiles are set to launch. Same as in the finished script Safin manually closes the shutters. Bond, however, now has to go through the poisonous garden to get to the switch. He tries to avoid the deadly plants but is shot by Safin. A struggle ensues, and in the midst of this Safin and Bond come in contact with poisonous plants. Safin, the weaker man, is dying quickly. He asks Bond why he can't just understand why he wants revenge and once again points out that SPECTRE caused him much misery too. Once again he claims they're the same. Bond replies they are not - he would never let innocent people die because of him. Safin laughs and says perhaps not, but now both of them will die the same way. Bond rushes to the switch and stops the shutters. He has his goodbye with Madeline over the radio and collapses before the missiles destroy the castle. Bond's heart monitor flatlines.
Back in London a small funeral service is held for Bond, which Madeline, the MI6 regulars and a wheelchair bound Felix attend. M says to Madeline that although Bond was a man with flaws he had the virtues of bravery, patriotism and love for her.
The next scene we see Madeline driving in Bond's DB5 in Italy. She whispers to herself 'you were right James, we have all the time in the world'. A shot of her as she puts a hand to her stomach...
Back at Q-Branch, Q is staring at Bond's heart monitor. Moneypenny comes in, to which Q admits that he sometimes thinks there's a small chance Bond could have made it out - the poison is not always deadly with adrenaline, he could have gotten out in time, and his heart rate would be out of range to pick up. Both quickly dismiss this idea however and leave. Bond theme slowly begins. We push in towards the monitor. A single beep before we cut to black.
Sorry for the long post. Anyway, anyone else have any alternative adaptations they feel would make NTTD better? :)
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Comments
https://d5tlfha2av0cx.cloudfront.net/annapurna/2021/screenplay/nttd/No_Time_To_Die.pdf
I don't like the general story at all, so I'd just make an entirely different movie, but to mildly improve this mess:
1. Replace Paloma's role with Felix.
2. Replace Safin's role with Blofeld.
3. Relegate Nomi's role to one scene where Bond gets his 00 back instead of giving Bond a sidekick.
4. Replace the nanobots with a designer virus made by SPECTRE, not MI6.
5. M dispatches all of the 00's to Poison Island, not just Bond.
6. Bond kills Blofeld and saves his wife and kid.
7. Final scene is Bond turning down a knighthood and retiring to live with his family.
Interesting. I have a friend who said that they knew Bond was going to die in NTTD the moment it was revealed he had a daughter/a chance at happiness with Madeline. The logic was that Bond as a character can never have those things - a family, retirement, a happy life etc- and it it would be less radical to have him die rather than have those things. That's kinda why I say it would have been better to keep Mathilde out of the story altogether.
Having a family however short-lived is what qualifies Bond to have had the good life that Felix spoke of. That point wasn't lost on him in his final moments.
That would have been much better, and then it could turn out Madeline had given Mathilde a wristband tracker earlier in the movie and we see Bond and Madeline trying to track her down in the complex. Mathilde winds up wading through this sewer while clutching Dou Dou. Bond and Madeline finally catch up with her, but they're on the floor above and Bond has to cut through the grates with his watch laser. Mathilde's looking around the sewer and Madeline's telling Bond, "Hurry, James," and Bond's like, "I know," and Madeline's like, "I mean it," and Bond's like, "I know!" and there's this pinging sound that's getting louder for some reason, and then we see Safin slowly rise up out of the water behind Mathilde, and Bond's kicking the floor grate now, trying to knock it through, and when he does Madeline reaches down and screams "No!" and all we can see is Dou Dou floating in the water. Think that'd have been a pretty awesome scene.
I started reading this post thinking it was going to be a serious one. That was a mostly foolish idea.
Mostly.
2. Have bond be more like James Bond - have him order a wine by name just to add that refinement that no other film characters have
3. Completely get another take of Craig in the blofeld scene his acting here is weak
4. Explain why safin just lets mathilde go
5. Ditch the nanobots for a disease / virus
6. Absolutely do not in any universe kill James fucking bond. Have him escape on a weather balloon or anything.
Well...we're talking about things that didn't happen in the movie, right?
A good "Game over, man" could have helped NTTD's ending go down better for me.
On a serious note, this would have been a very good solution to Safin just letting her go, and it could have made use of the maze-like nature of the compound, which we don't see a lot of. Even if she had run off and we saw Safin consider giving chase for just a moment before deciding it wasn't worth it would have been good.
I can agree with all of these. There are a few other changes I'd make too, like letting Felix live and giving him a chance to get in on some of the combat on the island. That was a big missed opportunity I thought.
I have a lot of love for 3 and 5 in particular here. Can you do us a favour and write the next script?
I love the idea of Bond working with the CIA (one of the few things that I enjoyed in the movie). I would've extended his friendly nemesis relationship with Nomi and had them continually undermining each other during the missions but eventually teaming up. I would've created more of a mentor-student partnership between Bond and Paloma.
I actually like Safin and the whole garden of death element, but his plan and his motivation needed to be more clearly defined. I would've thrown out the nanobots crap and made Safin's weapon a virus.
He didn’t leave her for no reason though, he left her because he was hurt that she didn’t want his “help”. In his own perverse way, Saffin was just trying to ensure that Mathilde would get a chance at the kind of happy and nurturing childhood that he, Bond and Madeline didn’t have. Could have been better acted/staged imo but I think him letting her go suits the character.
I agree with some of your points here mate👍
1. In the PTS:
Would have been better if Blofeld was using Quantum instead, with Primo telling Bond that Quantum is reforming with Madeleine as their new leader, and their first plan is to kill Bond, much more believable than Madeleine's connection to SPECTRE, atleast in Quantum, it's more believable because she's the daughter of Mr. White.
2. I agree with you cutting out Mathilde, the daughter thing didn't make sense.
3. When Bond arrived in Norway:
Have Madeleine not be convinced about everything Bond has said, she should have told him that he's only there because he needs something from her, he needs information, and "you will not be here if not for Blofeld's death, right?" She will also say that "so are you planning to seduce me? To get the information you need?, Like what you always do?"
She will confront Bond's attitude of seducing women for information, telling Bond that it would not work for her.
4. As for Safin's evil plan, I would have stick to the original plot of cloning instead of nanobots, there's some rumours going around at the time before the release of the film that Safin's plot involves cloning, that's much more interesting than the Nanobots.
It's a good film, but if you were a kid and this was your first Bond film, would you be bothered about seeing more?
Beyond that: give Nomi something to do. She's not involved in the story at all, all she does is stand behind Bond getting nervous about losing her 00 number. Make her more actively suspicious of Bond, tailing him or confronting him or something; or actually let her get the upper hand over him at some point (which she never does at any point in the film- she even fails in her initial meeting to warn him off getting involved!). She could have saved him from the sinking ship for example- it wouldn't have changed anything but would have given her one moment of triumph. Or have her actually turn up on time in Norway and take down a couple of baddies. She's supposed to be a threat to Bond or maybe even a reflection of how he was when he was a rookie, but she doesn't really play any part in Bond's personal story or the plot. If you removed her from the film literally nothing would change- her biggest addition is to drive the dingy off the island with Madeline and Mathilde, and Madeline could have done that.
Valdo: sort out his character tonally- is he funny or scary?
Primo: just have him working for one baddie; you can't have two opposing baddies who have the same henchman. Have him and Ash squaring off or something.
Otherwise: trim some stuff out. It's just too long.
That's a really nice idea. I guess it probably would have meant a bit too much continuity and the audience to have to remember a lesser character from 5 years ago, but it would have made M seem less like a fool.
Agreed on all of those there.
Cheers. I guess my logic of wanting to drop the whole 'Madeline might be a SPECTRE agent' thing entirely is that it never lands. Seydoux's acting during the PTS (in which she seems genuinely fearful) is unambiguous and we know a) she's the main Bond girl and b) Blofeld is a bit of a trickster. It's just not something I can see Bond being so stupid as to fall for. I can, however, see him doing something he sees as necessary like cutting ties with her for their protection. Just seems like a stronger idea and would be more interesting from a script point of view.
I like the idea for 3 a lot. Has a bit more bite to it than what we got (which seemed a bit... I dunno, generic?) My favourite Bond/Bond girl interactions are not unlike that - one that springs to mind being the hotel scene between Bond and Paris Carver in TND.
I didn't know there was an original cloning idea for the plot. If the nanobots resemble the villain's plan from the video game Everything or Nothing, then that idea resembles the one from Agent Under Fire (or the one from Casino Royale '67). Not gonna lie, I don't mind nanobots or clones in my Bond films. If they can be depicted convincingly and the threat is taken seriously, then fine.
He's ambushed in his old classic car in the early part of the film after retiring from MI6 and living happily in remote seclusion in his 50s, he reluctantly returns to the spy fold and rejoins MI6, after discovering that his old 007 number is now use by a younger agent. He discovers he had a daughter he never knew about and sets about getting to know her. She however is kidnapped by the villain who holds a grudge because of his childhood (after the older main villain has surprisingly been killed off) and taken to his lair, which Bond storms with the help of other Double 0 agents (after he reassumes the mantle of 007) with a big machine gun in his hand- he then dies at the end saving the world :)
(Credit to Barbel on ajb)
Haha, true. There's a fine line between parody and a great Bond film that most of them tread at the best of times I feel.
Yes, and about Madeleine being an agent of SPECTRE, it's really unbelievable because in the last film, she helped him many times against Blofeld: First in the train scene, she saved Bond's life from Mr. Hinx, then second when he's heing tortured by Blofeld, if not for Madeleine he'd been dead, so him suddenly falling for that Blofeld's trick, it's really hard to take seriously. I like that he cut his ties to her because he's now aware of the danger that's following them.
Nailed it. Matera was the perfect tone for Craig's finale
Such a simple fix as well. Any rewrites needed to accommodate it would have been minor (perhaps the most significant scene needing a rewrite would be the interrogation with Blofeld. To be honest, that's a probably a good thing as the writing/acting in that scene is pretty bizarre anyway, at least to me. Why does Bond act so strange? I always cringe during the 'die Blofeld, die' bit).
About that "Die Blofeld Die" thing, it's in the book, but yes, poor writing and execution indeed. I don't know my feelings and thoughts about this film was like three different storylines got mashed up together in one film, and it became messy because of that, its overstuffed. You're right at every point. @007HallY .
I really love that fight in the You Only Live Twice novel. I've seen so many fans defending that scene in NTTD because it's a nod to it. Very different contexts I feel though. It's also rather dramatic in the film (the music even swells as Bond grabs his throat). I always thought Bond just came off as daft, haha. A bit like when he tried to tackle Blofeld during SPECTRE for some reason.
Actually, that's pretty good and it'd work perfectly as it'd show that Bond was someone who's prepared to sacrifice his own happiness to protect someone he loved - which would foreshadow the bigger sacrifice, made for the same reason, at the end. Good one.