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Did Danny Boyle's script have a similar ending?
Wasn't that only a rumour?
From what I can tell the producers had certain fundamental parts of the story worked out beforehand. So I'm relatively sure Boyle and Hodge's script involved a retired Bond being brought back for a last mission, and indeed him dying at the end, even if it was otherwise very different compared to what we got.
I'd heard that his script didn't have Bond dying and that was the reason he was sacked. But then I also heard that he didn't want any other screenwriters to come work on the script which caused his firing.
A child is (normally) the epithany of the love of two people, as is referenced by Bond when he tells Madeleine she made the most wonderful thing in. The world. It's not there to shock the audience, it's there to give Bond reason to make the final decision, protect his family for always, as in his blood is the inherent death of his child. A small cut could be her death.
Now, personally I don't like the unlimited aspect of this smart blood, but that's a different problem.
Bond greets Felix as an old friend, they have some banter together, Felix convinces Bond to come back into the game. So how does it not carry any weight? Bond is losing everything he cared for in this film (his job, friends, even his number), except for beeing able to safe his own family (and getting his nr back).
How is Nomi underused? She's a pivotal part of every part of the film except for the start.
I find the nr. Thing funny, but why would you want to explore that more? What does that add, getting your designated staff number back?
Btw iirc Fleming does mention a 0011, the numbers are randomly chosen and do not follow a pattern, which fits with mi6 culture in the early years after the war.
Okay, it's understandable, I do get it, after all, it's subjective.
But again, I liked the concept of those things, those were the concepts, what I'm talking in there is the shortcomings of the film in how they've did those.
Regarding the death of Felix Leiter, still, it still doesn't carry any weight because it's not developed well, okay, there's Felix who convinced Bond to come back into the game, but the thing is, we've never seen this version of Felix hanging out with Bond more to prove it.
Man, I wish Felix Leiter appeared in SPECTRE or in Skyfall, so there's that fleshing out more of their relationship.
Compared it to the Classic Felix Leiter of the old Bond films, he appeared in many Bond films prior to LTK just to develop his relationship with Bond more, and seeing them hanging out with each other more than once, so by the time LTK happened and Felix Leiter's life was put in danger, it's felt because we knew how fleshed out their relationship was, we knew how long it was, because we've really seen them together so many times, not just by occasion.
So, it's a good concept of like what you've said, having Bond lost all of what he cares about, but the problem is all of what he cared about had been given a brief and small time to be with him, yes, even his daughter.
The problem was Bond didn't have any time with his daughter, aside from him peeling an apple and cooking a pancake for his daughter, that's all, had they given the chance to have Bond at least talk to his daughter on the radio in that ending, I think that would've added a lot more weight.
And there's that question of is she or not? kind of thing of whether she's Bond's daughter or not, because of Madeleine's denial, so how could it carry any weight?
The audience (I'm with them) kept guessing at whether Mathilde is Bond's daughter or not, then she's revealed to be by giving a hint in the ending which made us all "okay, so she is", so where's the emotional weight? It's not felt, because it's been stolen by this never ending guesses whether Mathilde was Bond's daughter or not.
And again, if it is, there's none still, because we're not given much more of Bond's moments with her.
Now, that ending was just down to Bond and Madeleine, with the daughter on the background.
Again, we cared about the concept, it's felt throughout the film, but the problem was how we've actually seen it in the film.
About Nomi, I know it, she's a pivotal part of the film, it's in there, but the thing is, she's not given much due, her character failed in the Norway sequence, she's absent for the whole action and arrived late.
Sure, to enhance the familial relationship of Bond to Madeleine and Mathilde, but sure, they could find a way to include Nomi in the action without ruining that moment of Bond with his family.
Her character made sense in the first half, but in the second half, she suddenly turned into a bit of redundancy (I still liked Nomi), but I wish she'd been utilised a lot more in the second act.
For its very long runtime, these things aren't that fleshed out.
I think the stuff about Boyle walking because of the ending was just a rumour. There was also a spin on the story at the time where Boyle was the one who pushed for Bond's death. Like I said, from what I can tell it was pretty much set in stone during pre-production, and any director/scriptwriter would have had to incorporate Bond's death in some form. I have, however, heard that it was John Hodge who came up with the idea of introducing Bond's daughter, but I'm not sure about this either.
To be honest, with a director like Boyle disagreements over bringing on other writers are more likely the reason for him leaving than this particular story decision. He's not a director who's ever really worked on something as big as Bond, and is probably used to having a great degree of creative control over the script/who gets to write it, even if hiring script doctors and other writers is the norm for these films. From what has come out about the script it seems very odd anyway.
No, and I don't suspect it will be available for a while.
We do, however, have concept art that someone else on these forums posted (I actually don't remember who it was so I apologise to them as this was a nice find).
https://imgur.com/a/B8JQn0O
Regarding the script, Boyle told Esquire 'They want you to freshen it up a bit, but not really challenge it, and we wanted to do something different with it. Weirdly — it would have been very topical now — it was all set in Russia, which is of course where Bond came from, out of the Cold War. It was set in present-day Russia and went back to his origins, and they just lost, what’s the word... they just lost confidence in it. It was a shame really.'
He also confirmed that it was Hodge's idea for Bond to have a daughter: 'The idea that they used in a different way was the one of [James Bond’s] child, which [Hodge] introduced [and which] was wonderful.'
Regarding his exit, Boyle told the Guardian that 'I work in partnership with writers and I am not prepared to break it up … We were working very, very well, but they didn’t want to go down that route with us. So we decided to part company.' I'd say that supports the earlier rumours that EON wanted to drop Hodge and Boyle wouldn't stay on with another writer, so he left in sympathy with Hodge. Not that he was too bothered: 'We all got very well paid, so you have to hold your hand up. You can’t walk around with grievances.'
It'd be interesting to read this script, but I suspect it's not a fully polished draft and would be quite an odd reading experience. I suspect a big part in all this is that it wasn't working for whatever reason, to the point where it was slowly slipping away from being a Bond film. Don't think we'll be seeing Boyle return to Bond.
https://fandomwire.com/yeah-hes-got-to-die-keanu-reeves-forced-director-to-kill-his-character-in-john-wick-4-only-for-the-studio-to-humiliate-him-later/
Now, would this face the same reactions as people about NTTD did?
Well, there's the proof that these things do happen! ;)
But also: what ending for Bond was left that they hadn't already done?
Yes I remember the rumour at the time being that Boyle had to go because he wanted Bond to die, and the producers didn't want that. That's half of the reason why I guessed Bond died in NTTD when Eon were saying 'no spoilers' after the premiere.
I think that's fine isn't it? Weren't people saying that a big problem with the Craig films was that they didn't know where they wanted to end up with it when they started? With this film they knew exactly where they wanted it to go.
To be entirely fair Rotten can be a bit of old git and likely would have hated any film/show about the Sex Pistols. Boyle is, however, a very impressionistic filmmaker. He enjoys blurring the line between reality and how his characters see the world (there are many scenes in Trainspotting which does this, and it's there in films like 127 Hours and Trance). I've said in the past that I suspect the producers wanted NTTD to be a very different type of Bond film - much more dark in places, apocalyptic, fantastical, and indeed impressionistic at times. It's definitely there in the film we got, at least to a degree. So him being hired makes sense.
That said it seems like he just wasn't the right man for the job, and it's likely that his script was a bit of a mess. I suspect he and Hodge crossed a line somewhere between making a Bond film - however unusual a Bond film it was - and something else entirely. And yes, it's debatable how much love he has for the source material (however much this is needed - he is, after all, a republican who directed the Queen and Craig for that short film for the 2012 Olympics).
It would certainly be interesting to read his script. The concept art looked interesting.
I dunno though. I like many of Boyle's films (Trainspotting for me is one of the best film adaptations of a novel and even improves on it in my opinion), but at the same time I have a lot of trust in BB and MGW's conception of James Bond, despite my issues with some of their films. I get the sense they generally have a good grasp on how to adapt Fleming's character for modern films, and if they had some sort of creative disagreement with a director there must have been a reason. That and what has come out about his film makes it sound very strange.
George’s seven picture deal?
( 😂 )
Although, it's not as if they killed Bond at the end of NTTD because that was the only thing left to do - if it hadn't been for Dan wanting to play the death and BB, MGW and the studio agreeing that it could happen, Bond wouldn't have died. So without that they'd've had to have had some callback to past endings or a variation thereon. That's presuming that Dan would've agreed to make the film at all if Bond didn't die...
Yes, exactly - I remember on here a while back when some people were dubious, even though Peter told them repeatedly that it was fairly commonplace to write an ending first and then work out how the rest of the script got there. Given Peter's profession, you'd think they'd've taken his word for it - so it amused me to see a direct quote from the John Wick guy saying that's exactly what they'd done. Vindication for Peter! :D
Craig's Bond movie between QoS and Skyfall, I think they're planning some?
Is it Once Upon A Spy? Some sources even stated that it involved Bond killing M.
Edit: It's written by Peter Morgan
https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/peter-morgans-unmade-bond-movie-once-upon-a-spy-wouldve-featured-007s-most-shocking-kill-yet-102987/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2015/nov/20/lost-james-bond-film-once-upon-a-spy-007-killing-m
Sure, that's a given that he wanted to do that; but maybe he wanted to do it because it was the only ending left? The only other ones I can think of would be that he turns evil, or becomes M! :)
Just going off into the sunset again... I can see why Craig may not have wanted to do that.
Yeah I read about Morgan's draft but it sounded like it needed more work; I'm not sure they missed any opportunities there.
He did, sure; but you can come to the same conclusion 15 years apart for different reasons. It may well have seemed increasingly more of a valid idea as they progressed through the films. And if you're doing the final James Bond story, as this effectively was; what else are you going to do? Irma Bunt and her giant Australian rats?
I do wonder if we can really go back to a more stereotypical 'Bond sleeps with the girl' ending for Bond 26. But at the same time I don't want them to repeat any notes from the Craig era endings.
That would’ve been more probable than Nanobots.