No Time To Die Script - Alternative pitches/what would you change?

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  • Posts: 1,371
    CrabKey wrote: »
    Certainly more interesting than anything I saw in NTTD.

    Yes, maybe too expensive?
  • Jordo007Jordo007 Merseyside
    Posts: 2,641
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    Was there an idea at one stage that Bond would return to space in NTTD? I think I saw or read something about that.

    Hodge/Boyle's script had Bond going into space, I remember reading that a rocket, a Russian gulag and other sets had already been built when Boyle left the project.

    Hodge and Boyle's big idea was for Bond to have a daughter from a previous relationship and if I remember rightly he was still going to sacrifice himself at the end of their film. It was just going to be in space

    "It had a very different tone. It felt like a pastiche in a way. It also had this idea that M had ordered a hit on Bond, which didn't ring true"
    Robert Wade talking about Hodge/Boyle's script in the book Being Bond.
  • Posts: 2,000
    Two dumb ideas: Bond in space and Bond dying. Here's a cool idea. An actual spy thriller in which Bond doesn't get killed.
  • edited July 6 Posts: 4,174
    Jordo007 wrote: »
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    Was there an idea at one stage that Bond would return to space in NTTD? I think I saw or read something about that.

    Hodge/Boyle's script had Bond going into space, I remember reading that a rocket, a Russian gulag and other sets had already been built when Boyle left the project.

    Hodge and Boyle's big idea was for Bond to have a daughter from a previous relationship and if I remember rightly he was still going to sacrifice himself at the end of their film. It was just going to be in space

    "It had a very different tone. It felt like a pastiche in a way. It also had this idea that M had ordered a hit on Bond, which didn't ring true"
    Robert Wade talking about Hodge/Boyle's script in the book Being Bond.

    It’s quite funny - the way Boyle described his script when he left made it come off as some sort of FRWL type film to me. It seems just as big in scale and more outlandish than the NTTD we got.

    I’ve said in the past I think it’s a case where EON wanted very specific things from this film and Boyle worked them into his script. Obviously on one level this was the basic story beats of NTTD - a retired Bond going on one last mission, him dying at the end by sacrificing himself (the daughter subplot seems to have come later/was seemingly Hodge’s idea, but it’s there). Even the basic sense of conflict between a retired, off grid Bond and M is there. I also suspect EON wanted this film to have a more high stakes, world domination type plot, perhaps a big set piece for the final act, and a megalomaniac villain (so a bit more in the Lewis Gilbert Bond film mould, something Craig’s Bond had never quite had). That doesn’t even take into account some of the more deeper level stuff they may have worked out either with Boyle or beforehand (ie. the villain’s God complex/obsession with free will which obviously we got with Safin. The fact that there’s a Monastery in those designs gives me that vibe anyway).

    From what I understand EON even had Madeline’s return cemented during later stages of this script. It’s interesting thinking about just how different this film would have been, and yet how similar it would have been to NTTD (heck, it may even have been called NTTD as well had Boyle worked out/they’d have taken it into production).
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,428
    I'd love more of the Hodge version to come out at some point.
  • edited July 6 Posts: 4,174
    mtm wrote: »
    I'd love more of the Hodge version to come out at some point.

    Yeah, it sounds interesting. I don't think they'll ever release a full script though. Another thing I've kind of speculated about is it may not be a single script as such (at least when it was abandoned), but instead several drafts, rewrites, with ultimately the last draft unfinished or not quite in a state to be released. That and it wouldn't be fair to the NTTD we got in the sense it has so many similarities it might draw comparisons.

    But these designs are really interesting. I really like the flooded lab/city or whatever it is. I can see that being used in a future Bond film.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited July 6 Posts: 16,428
    Yes I guess that's often the reason that the unused versions don't see the light of day (not least they're none of our business of course!) in that Eon do like to re-use ideas which didn't get to the screen from previous films.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited July 6 Posts: 18,282
    mtm wrote: »
    Yes I guess that's often the reason that the unused versions don't see the light of day (not least they're none of our business of course!) in that Eon do like to re-use ideas which didn't get to the screen from previous films.

    Definitely, I'd say Eon jealously guard such unused ideas as good original ideas are hard to come by. As a case in point, NTTD even had an old unused idea about wiping out the Spectre leadership that was taken from an unused Richard Maibaum script for TSWLM.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,428
    Interesting! I didn't know that, thanks.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,282
    mtm wrote: »
    Interesting! I didn't know that, thanks.

    Yes, it's fascinating isn't it? When I first saw NTTD in the cinema I immediately realised they'd used that bit from the old TSWLM script where various political terrorist factions killed off the old guard of SPECTRE and took it over. I believe it was first mentioned in Steven Jay Rubin's seminal book The James Bond Films (1981). I find the reuse of old ideas in new Bond films particularly interesting.
  • edited July 28 Posts: 580
    I had yet another Bond related dream last night: I was watching an alternative version of BOND 25, in which Craig was playing Bond but the main villain was Damian Falco from DAD, and the shocking twist was that during the climax, Falco revelead to Bond that he (Bond) was Jewish.

    I know that this sounds ridiculous, I mean why would that be shocking, but within the dream, it was. Maybe this is the universe's way of telling me that the next Bond will be played by the Jewish Aaron Taylor-Johnson? :-?
  • George_KaplanGeorge_Kaplan Being chauffeured by Tibbett
    Posts: 688
    I had yet another Bond related dream last night: I was watching an alternative version of BOND 25, in which Craig was playing Bond but the main villain was Damian Falco from DAD, and the shocking twist was that during the climax, Falco revelead to Bond that he (Bond) was Jewish.

    I know that this sounds ridiculous, I mean why would that be shocking, but within the dream, it was. Maybe this is the universe's way of telling me that the next Bond will be played by the Jewish Aaron Taylor-Johnson? :-?

    Yes it does.
  • BennyBenny Shaken not stirredAdministrator, Moderator
    Posts: 15,138
    You can keep your dreams to yourself from now on @Colonel_Venus
    Thanks
  • Posts: 4,174
    I once dreamt that I watched a version of GE where Pierce Brosnan did a spontaneous break dance to prove he was a secret agent to Natalya. It worked…

    It may well have been the universe’s way of telling me something… but I don’t know what.
  • George_KaplanGeorge_Kaplan Being chauffeured by Tibbett
    edited July 30 Posts: 688
    I went to the chemist yesterday and the charge came to exactly $7.07. I think this is the universe's way of telling me that I'm going to be the 7th 007.
  • TripAcesTripAces Universal Exports
    Posts: 4,585
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    Don't get me wrong. I think NTTD is great and admirably does a lot of new things with Bond thus moving the film series forward into new areas. I just think a little more time could've been spent developing the Safin character more and focusing on what he wants to do with Heracles after wiping out Spectre. All it would've taken was a few little script and dialogue tweaks here and there. Still, the film is what it is and we have to work with what's there on the screen and make the best of it.

    I agree. I got Safin's motivations--similar to Stromberg's in TSWLM. But just a little more clarity could have helped. To me, there were two other significant things that would have improved NTTD immensely:

    1. The relationship between Safin and Madeleine could have been punched up. It would have worked better if Safin had been keeping tabs on and contacting Madeleine, periodically, for years. When he shows up at her office, the exchange should have been something like:

    Safin: I lost track of you after you left the clinic. You disappeared. I was worried about you.
    Madeleine: My father died. I didn't need to keep up the charade anymore.
    Safin: I didn't kill him.
    Madeleine: I know that. So why are you here?
    Safin: Like I said, I was worried about you. And I have an opportunity for you, an opportunity to avenge your father's death.

    2. Bond should not have been stricken with Heracles. The decision to die needed to be a matter of heroism and not fate. We'd get a better ending if Bond had made the choice to stay in order to open the silo doors and (as Felix put it) "save the world."
  • NoTimeToLiveNoTimeToLive Jamaica
    Posts: 95
    TripAces wrote: »
    2. Bond should not have been stricken with Heracles. The decision to die needed to be a matter of heroism and not fate. We'd get a better ending if Bond had made the choice to stay in order to open the silo doors and (as Felix put it) "save the world."

    It is his choice. He'd rather die than let Madeleine and Mathilde die.
  • DenbighDenbigh UK
    edited July 31 Posts: 5,970
    On paper I do think it is rather poetic that Bond met his end by being infected with something he can't get rid of, specifically a bioweapon made by MI6 themselves, so even more so works as a kind of metaphor for MI6's place in Bond's life. No matter where he goes or what he does, he'll always come back to the service, which we've seen from other entries in Craig's tenure, so the fact that that's what gets him in the end makes so much sense.

    Now I agree that the execution left a lot to be desired, but I think a lot of that is down to the changes that were needed to be made through production, because of what was going on globally. To be honest, overall and unfortunately, throughout Craig's tenure they faced a lot of outside issues that at the end of the day were kinda out of EON's control, so it's easy to see how certain things ended up becoming what they were.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,282
    Denbigh wrote: »
    On paper I do think it is rather poetic that Bond met his end by being infected with something he can't get rid of, specifically a bioweapon made by MI6 themselves, so even more so works as a kind of metaphor for MI6's place in Bond's life. No matter where he goes or what he does, he'll always come back to the service, which we've seen from other entries in Craig's tenure, so the fact that that's what gets him in the end makes so much sense.

    Now I agree that the execution left a lot to be desired, but I think a lot of that is down to the changes that were needed to be made through production, because of what was going on globally. To be honest, overall and unfortunately, throughout Craig's tenure they faced a lot of outside issues that at the end of the day were kinda out of EON's control, so it's easy to see how certain things ended up becoming what they were.

    By that do you mean NTTD's production and script were affected somewhat by the Covid-19 pandemic? I didn't closely follow the long production of the film but I got the impression that the film was ready for release in 2019 (so prior to Covid being a thing) but I could well be wrong. Did the impact of Covid (as compared to Heracles and the nanobots) have any influence on the finished film I wonder?
  • Posts: 4,174
    From what I can gather (so take with a pinch of salt) I don’t think Covid had a direct impact on the plot of NTTD at all. I know it certainly wasn’t changed from a real virus to nanobots at a late point or anything like that, and yes, they’d essentially finished it up by 2019. I can’t think of any narrative threads or bits of dialogue they could have been edited out or they’d have had the means to change at a later point anyway.
  • DenbighDenbigh UK
    edited July 31 Posts: 5,970
    Maybe that was an assumption on my part? I know it's been at least discussed as a theory or suspicion in that case? Only because of how confused the nanotechnology felt and also the inclusion of the poison garden that doesn't actually play a particular role? It all just felt pointed in a certain direction, but then undercut by the inclusion of nanotechnology, which then seemingly led to narrative assumptions.
  • Posts: 4,174
    Denbigh wrote: »
    Maybe that was an assumption on my part? I know it's been at least discussed as a theory or suspicion in that case? Only because of how confused the nanotechnology felt and also the inclusion of the poison garden that doesn't actually play a particular role? It all just felt pointed in a certain direction, but then undercut by the inclusion of nanotechnology, which then seemingly led to narrative assumptions.

    The film’s quite convoluted, no doubt (a lot of Bond films are, so it’s not a criticism in itself). But I’d say that’s an indication that it hasn’t been edited or rewritten extensively after a tricky point in production. It’s the fact that the exposition about the nanobots is made so clear, and everything leads overtly into the ending. It’s the sort of thing that has been overthought about if anything. Stuff like the Garden is more a character point on Safin’s part anyway, and a brief nod to YOLT.

    The only things that feel to me like they were late-ish additions is perhaps the dialogue between Safin and Bond (the invisible God stuff. Not to say they had no idea of Safin’s motivations - weird as it is - just that it feels like they tinkered with it a bit even if just in the edit or on the day) and the buyer ships also feel a bit tacked on as if they’ve come up with the plot device not long prior to filming. But I don’t think these came after production wrapped, nor do I think Covid had anything to do with it.
  • NoTimeToLiveNoTimeToLive Jamaica
    Posts: 95
    Plus didn't we gather that the movie had been already dubbed into other languages before Covid happened? When the international trailers came out, the dubbed trailers revealed some bits missing from the English trailers, such as Safin's name (Lyutsifer) and Nomi being 007, which meant the trailer lines had been taken from the finished dubbing.
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