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So do I, if done correctly (LTK as a prime example).
There is so much wrong with NTTD, that the Fleming nods (or lack of them) are not what made the film a bleak, depressing, horrible ending to the Craig era.
NTTD is now on par with DAD in my book, but for vastly different reasons. Another film that has now been consigned to the garbage bin, never to be revisited again. This is only the second time I have felt like this after a Bond film. I have never watched DAD again after seeing how low the franchise could sink, but I'm afraid NTTD has plummeted to a whole new level - something I never thought would be possible.
Exacly, why not an island near Japan with a feudal castle and a garden of death? Why not Guntram Shatterhand? Why not Bond infiltrating it alone by training to swim the distance (someone with Craig's physique would do it believably). Why not a weather balloon? An escape to a cliffhanger ending? No wife and kid. Just 007 brought back from retirement to an impossible almost suicidal mission?
Oh, I see, that doesn't fit the soap opera format with all the players checked on the list.
Once upon a time, killing a friend's wife at their honeymoon would send Bond on a full on vendetta. Now the stakes have to be idiotic: he has to be a father, a man who loves a woman he easily felt she betrayed him and abandoned her for it; he has to scold an M who got on the scotch wagon and thought DNA seeking nanobots infecting civilians to target government sanctioned targets would be a fine ideia. He has to confront and accidentally kill his half brother megalomaniac sociopath. His brother in arms has to be shot and killed as well right in front of him. His number has to be just a number, and offered to another.He has to go rogue again with the scooby gang... ALL IN ONE BLOODY MOVIE!
Doesn't anyone else find this to be ridiculously too much?
Once upon a time it was: "Get the girl, get the lektor, but it's obviously a trap", or "Go investigate a murder/finds a megalomaniac trying to topple missiles", or "Investigate why this perfume-named man wants to smuggle gold", or go to a casino and win a game. I'm being overly reductive, I KNOW. But compare those with what's above, emotionally.
But maybe it's just me, and I find it way OTT.
Meanwhile, here is a nice review:
Brace yourself. They'll tell you he doesn't have to be happy because...well...he's also dead.
They'll talk about FRWL's ending as definitive and not a cliffhanger.
They'll talk about Kissi Suzuki and her pregnancy, of which Bond is ignorant.
They'll tell you it's all Fleming.
But, paraphrasing Bond himself in NTTD: it's alright. It'l alright.
When the dust settles on this one, the knives will be out. This film will alienate the fan base like no other, and no way will this be fondly remembered as a classic like GF, OHMSS or CR. If anything, I'm sensing it will be remembered (or forgotten) as Craig's DAD. Another Bond travesty flick that will end up at the bottom of many fans lists.
Disagree.
Let's wait and see.
Yes, I think that too. The dust will settle. We have been waiting for 6 years. All of us want to love it. I want to love it. Desperately. And I did, for the first hour. But I can't deny the iceberg surfing like madness that is the second and third act of this film. Really, I stoped recognising Mallory, Bond, even Moneypenny's reactions were not on par with what they've built in the previous films. That list of stakes I wrote above is really madness in one film alone. Madness.
And it will win new fans with it, too.
But maybe it's just me, and I find it way OTT.[/quote]
When the dust settles on this one, the knives will be out. This film will alienate the fan base like no other, and no way will this be fondly remembered as a classic like GF, OHMSS or CR. If anything, I'm sensing it will be remembered (or forgotten) as Craig's DAD. Another Bond travesty flick that will end up at the bottom of many fans lists.[/quote]
Disagree.[/quote]
You disagree that this film will alienate the fan base? Have you read the previous posts? It obviously does
Nailed it.
I'm afraid it will always be divisive. As a film, structurally, it already is. I love 1/3 of it to bits. Really do. 1/3 of it is somewhat filled with the best of the series, and 2/3 are filled with the worst.
IMHO, of course, as always :)
Again, let's wait and see. We have all the time in the world....
Yes, braindead teenagers brought up on Netflix crap and Marvel, who are looking for shock-a-minute cheap thrills.
Remembered, not highly regarded or fondly remembered by this longtime Bond fan. My dust has settled.
Do you think / accept that it may also lose a significant amount of fans?
Ah yes here we go again with the nonsense that people are lesser fans than you are for thinking No Time to Die is great just because you didn't feel that way about it.
"Oh man, you nailed it. :))
But seriously, there are loads of people around here who think only two good Bond films have come out in the last 30 years. People who love plots about hypnotized babes with chicken allergies complaining about silly elements in the new films. People who are clearly unfamiliar with Fleming who would certainly hate his ideas if they thought they came from Purvis and Wade. These people are indeed fans, but as a guy who thinks Michael and Barbara have done a great job, and who loves Spectre and Die Another Day, their moaning does not put me off a film."
Sorry - the quote button went wrong (or rather I messed it up).
@ProfJoeButcher Who are these people you talk about? They don't exist. You have brought together odd comments here and there and constructed a mythical Bond fan who you are railing against.
I, for one, don't think any of these things you describe. So who does?
I also think that just because someone might struggle in the moment to perfectly articulate why they don't like a film, it doesn't mean that they are wrong or that their ideas about the film are stupid or ill informed. We've all only seen it once or twice! And remember how DAD got good reviews back in 2001...?
You seem to get very offended when someone says they don't like SP or NTTD. And I happen to think that being excited or in hysterics because some fans hate the film is a very odd reaction for a supposed Bond fan.
I want a Bond film that we mostly all like. I want Bond fans to be happy. For example, I am cool on the film right now, but I am genuinely happy that you and other fans had a great time with it.
Anyway, peace. I know that if we were in a room we could judge each other's tone and there would be less animosity. So no hard feelings I hope?
No need to get nasty. Remember how DCINB folks claimed CR and Craig will never make new fans? Let’s not resort to their rhetoric.
I wouldn't. Fleming of course wrote the end of FRWL so that he could conclude the series if he wanted to, as he was growing tired of the character. However, while the book Bond was undeniably a hit at the time, the character's role in pop culture hadn't yet ascended to the status of global international icon, and what Bond means as that icon is very different to how he would have been perceived when 'merely' a literary hit. Bond as he is now is (as Skyfall intuited) a sort of modern King Arthur, a man forged in the values of old yet ready to emerge and defend his kingdom from any new threats. Underneath the drinking, womanising and high living, Bond is a symbol of endurance and duty, which is key to his ongoing appeal: he's always going to be there, the ultimate man ready to take up the good fight. Fleming had recognised that by the time he wrote YOLT, which is why it ends as it does (and OHMSS, and to a lesser extent TMWTGG): Bond's tragedy is that he may sometimes desire the domestic idyll, but his nature will always drag him back to his service. The peaceful, settled life can never be for him: "For James Bond, the same view would always pall."
With that in mind, if I had to end the Bond series, it would be by recreating the end of the YOLT novel: Bond, having assumed a new life after suffering amnesia as a result of injury, having the domestic dream within his grasp and yet being drawn back by some trace of his past. The final shot would be of him walking away, back towards London and his job, the tragedy and greatness of the realm's eternal protector. I certainly wouldn't have blown him up while getting sentimental on top of a concrete tower.
I was asking how you would kill Bond, not that you wouldn’t. That’s why I phrased my question with not having the option to keep him alive.
I didn't really feel anything, honestly. Not just because I didn't like the film, but I think because character continuity is very important to me and the Bond I grew up with ended when the Casino Royale reboot happened. Craig was always a different man to me, and while I loved CR and Skyfall, my attachment to his portrayal has been markedly less than the actors from the classic films (Connery through Dalton, and to a slightly lesser extent Brosnan, since I was a bit older when his films were coming out). If the original Bond had been killed - aka if Broz had died at the end of Die Another Day - I suspect I'd have felt a lot like many people are feeling about seeing Daniel Craig's Bond being killed. However, since he wasn't my Bond in a very literal sense - he's a different man - I was far more ambivalent, particularly given the film itself did nothing for me (or his characterisation within it). I suspect my feelings towards the next guy are going to be even more indifferent given there will be absolutely no way to even begin reconciling his Bond with anyone who has come before.
An actor is approached by Eon to play James Bond in Bond 26.
Barbara Broccoli asks the actor..."are you interested in the role?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"You ruined the franchise by killing off James Bond. I don't want to work for producers that have such little regard for Bond. It's disgraceful!"
"So you won't consider the role then?"
"No. Absolutely not. I can't think of one good reason to play Bond. Not one!"
Barbara takes out her debit card.
"I'm sure I can think... of 20 million reasons."
"Well, maybe I was a bit hasty...."
😊