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Nope, not really. But I do like discussing the decisions that went into the Craig era.
Again, my first post here I said that I wasn't going to watch it. There's no revelation. I've been talking about narrative and continuity issues, not the particulars of the movie, which I don't really care about.
Your comments are irrelevant until you’ve seen the film.
What? I've never criticized or even commented on NTTD's technical aspects like acting, directing, cinematography, or music. I've never posted any kind of review of it whatsoever. This entire thread I've been talking about narrative and continuity issues arising from NTTD's ending and how it relates to other Bond movies.
I know people who are fans of other series like Alien and Terminator, who haven't seen the recent ones, but they still talk about them. What's the difference?
If you get this then get a beer on me.
On another note. Saw nttd for the fifth and final time in the cinema tonight drunk on cocktails with a mate. It didn't help with emotions. Can still confirm it's a great movie.
Well, maybe that's just silly silly me, but before I join a discussion, be it a movie, a cd, a play, or a novel, is to watch it, listen to it, or read it. How about Father Christmas? Have you met him in person, woith his sledge and the reindeers? No? Well, then maybe Christmas does not exist at all. I have never met the real Father Christmas, who, BTW is an invention of Coca Cola. The one with rthe red clothes, that is.
@slide_99 … I didn’t say you criticized the “technical aspects”, I said you’re criticizing a visual medium that you haven’t SEEN… and SEEING a MOVIE (which is short form for MOVING PICTURES), is paramount to film criticism.
Give it a rest.
Or go and see the film.
I’ll forward you the $$ to see it.
But until then, give it a rest.
You don't truly get the narrative from a summary, and regardless, there are no narrative or continuity issues raised in relation to the four Craig films that preceezed it, the only films that matter toward the conclusion of this one. We saw this Bond rise, we saw this Bond fall.
All you've done is criticise what you can't understand, which a song once said you shouldn't do. By all appearances, it seems you joined just to be critical about something you have no interest in and lord your opinion over those who've seen the movie.
Do yourself a favor, watch the movie, form a real opinion. Wear a mask if you're afraid of catching Covid.
Ultimately I think I agree with what you say. Bond didn't choose to stay when he could have escaped, or had a reasonable chance of escaping. He was going to die because his wounds would have slowed down his escape, or would have ended up killing him (as mentioned before, he drops to the floor in agony at one point). And knowing his survival would have endangered his family, he accepted his imminent death without any doubts or regrets, content in having saved them and having served a purpose in life.
The scene could have played out in a different way: Bond gets poisoned but isn't shot, and then refuses to leave the island. Then, the message would have been absolutely clear: he chose death. Certainly, they didn't go in that direction because audiences wouldn't have liked to see Bond "quitting." It would have left the door open for audiences to question why Bond --despite Q's exposition that nanobots are "forever"-- didn't at least make an effort to carry on living and try to find a solution to his poisoning.
Alternatively, Bond could have been shot, but not poisoned, and died from his wounds. But perhaps they didn't go with this option, because that would have meant Bond "failed", so to speak. The bad guy finally got him.
So what does having both the wounds and the poisoning add to the scene? I suppose it's an attempt to give us the best of both worlds. The wounds suggest Bond didn't just give up on life and chose to stay when poisoned; he actually succumbed to them. And the poisoning suggests he didn't "fail" and succumb to those wounds; he actually came to accept he had to die for the sake of his family. And what does all of this mean? That Bond didn't give up, and he didn't fail. It's a middle ground. Does that make sense? I can feel smoke coming out of my brain.
Of course, all of the above is an attempt to look at the ending from a functional point of view, trying to get into the mindset of the people who put the story together, and understand what they wanted to achieve when they made those choices.
I still wonder if, in a way, this discussion betrays a lack of narrative clarity from the film, and if that lack of clarity is a negative. Whatever the case, it's clear to me is that the filmmakers must have talked the hell out of this ending.
Edit: They could have also done this, which I believe was suggested in this thread before. Bond comes to the conclusion that someone needs to stay on the island and do something to hold the doors open for the missiles. So he stays and gets blown up. No wounds, no poisoning. It could have worked: Bond didn't quit, and didn't fail.
Like the student who writes book reports on books he hasn't read apart from what's printed on the cover, your every attempt at claiming any qualification to even discuss the film's narrative is ludicrous.
Let me say something that is probably going to stir up some controversy: to hate or to love a Bond film in a community of Bond fans (as opposed to, say, a community of Star Trek fans) is not the same thing. All opinions are welcome, but negative opinions will, inevitably, have to work harder to gather sympathy, unless there's an easy consensus (e.g. it's "easier" to get away with a negative comment regarding DAD versus a negative comment regarding FRWL.) A new Bond film is always a particularly sensitive subject in that way. Right or wrong is not the point: the new film is, by definition, hot material. Lovers will fight for praise, haters will fight for total and absolute demolition. Neither side is superior... but haters will have to work harder because that's how it usually goes with fans. A new baby was born, and if you call it ugly, you better state your reasons why.
That makes these NTTD debates flammable, to say the least. For fans of the film, any negative comment feels like a violation of the film's virginal perfection. And to say something positive about a film is easy. "I like it." Clean and simple, and few people will take offence. But a hater will have to explain himself. To coin a phrase: a film is good until proven otherwise. I'm not saying this is the way it should be, I'm saying this is pretty much the way it is. This also explains why haters have a pretty hard time here and (correctly) feel like they are being targeted way more by lovers than the other way around. It's the nature of the beast.
Hence, if someone were to say, "I haven't seen the movie yet, but I've read the wiki summary and I can call it a good film," most people will let that slide. If someone says, "I haven't seen the movie yet, and I won't, but I have read a plot summary and this film sucks!", get ready to be tarred and feathered.
Is this balanced? Just? Fair? No, probably not. But that's the way it is. Come into my house and call my wife beautiful, and I'll shake hands with you. Come into my house and call my wife ugly, and you'll have to explain yourself. Come into a Bond fan community and call the latest film, with a substantial number of fans, terrible, you better prepare yourself for a few rounds in the ring. But if it then turns out you haven't even seen the film, yet spent dozens upon dozens of posts adamantly burning the film to the ground, forget about a fair fight in the ring, mate. That's just game over.
If you had just stated once or twice, "I haven't seen the film and I don't intend to because I know what happens and I don't like the notion of it regardless of how the film plays out," that would have been cool. But the way you have been firing torpedoes at this movie with the relentlessness of a hunter and the ferocity of a predator, while not having seen the movie, that's not just "not cool", it means your entire rhetoric was built on quicksand. I'd be ashamed.
Now take the Craig era, where very definitive situations occur in a specific sequence of events across the films that plays into each plot (except SF, to be fair). When I took my parents to NTTD, I had to explain what was going and it really detracted from their experience.
And then on top of that, they go out of their way to go into territory that I feel otherwise would have been left to the viewer's imagination. Bond's childhood. Bond death. It's all explicit. We are reminded of Bond being an orphan several times and we now cant get away from the fact that Bond is bros with Blofeld. Bond is definitively made dead.
The one thing thankfully they've mostly managed to keep in the world of ambiguity is politics. Thank God for that.
He'll tell you he did mention "once or twice" (once) that he had no intention of seeing the film.
But regardless of the current topic, this is a great post on the new-material dynamic in a fan club. Of course all opinions are welcome and debate is encouraged, but ultimately it's a fan club, not an objective film critique office. Not to say, of course, that you have to be a fan of every Bond film, but as you said, if you have strong negative opinions, arm yourself because no one here will save you.
And not having experienced the material in question, you've brought a plastic butterknife to a gunfight. It's borderline insulting to the people you're engaging with.
OHMSS only has three things on NTTD, and their names are Rigg, Savalas, and Fleming. In 10 years this film will be regarded up along with OHMSS.
It wasn’t just the buyers, it was the Japanese, Russians, and even the British Navy. It had to be destroyed before anyone knew what it was.
No I don’t think contriving an “against the clock” situation was inappropriate for a Bond film.
Sounds good my friend. Btw, I visited Vancouver about 8 years ago. Beautiful city! B-)
Great post DD. I've certainly gone a few rounds in the ring on here due to my stance on the film, but that was to be expected on a Bond fan forum. All par for the course.
And @slide_99 - just go and see the movie. You may actually like it, even though you think the plot sounds terrible.
Especially @DarthDimi. That last post is a very insightful look into how places like this can function.
I think you are spot-on there. Discussing this decision in such depth starts to make the seams appear more clearly and the more I think about it, the clearer I can see the writers and producers sitting around a table proposing and dismissing different scenarios.
This makes it sound pretty bad, but to me it's really well done. While seeing the film, I never felt like it was written by committee or something. It just pulled me along.
There is much to like about NTTD, and it at least offered a return to high-quality & well produced 007 adventures, ie. it actually left me more optimistic that Bondfilms to come will be qualitively high than the last few.
I was, quite honestly, more 'depressed' after seeing Spectre... :|
Bloody Nora mate, this is a lot of writing to do instead of watching the film. Have a cup of tea and relax mate, I get not wanting to see the film in theaters but I know you can watch it for free with Amazon Prime Video. I'm guessing you have Amazon Prime, but if you don't then you can start a free trial to watch it.
Why not watch it? There's no harm in doing so, and you would contribute a lot more to the conversation. No offense, of course, but it seems as though everyone else, including myself, agrees it is a bit inappropriate to not have so much as seen the movie and expected to be received well in this thread.
I keep hearing people say that Bond "gave up" at the end of NTTD. I heard it again repeated on a dedicated (but largely anti-Craig) James Bond podcast yesterday. But that is so clearly not the case I had to "give up" listening to it. One of the participants even acknowledged that while Bond had been shot "five or six times," in his words, Bond somehow still "gave up." I mean, what!?
It's not even a question of interpretation because as I've outlined in an earlier post with specific detailed reference to the events & time frame of the conclusion, that's just not what happens. And when people get the chance to look at the last ten minutes of NTTD more closely, I think they will come to see that this supposed "giving up" is just not the case.
Hmmm, you know ... I think I'm happy with the ending as it exists. And in the unlikely event that they never make another James Bond movie ever again, I would be content with this as closure for the entire series.
I never fail to be moved by the conclusion of NTTD, especially after several screenings now. It has a lot of feeling and provides plenty to think about. And yet, it hardly matters how he died, why he died, or who he died for--it's enough for me that he died rescuing his family and helping to save the world "one last time." Yes, I know, while Craig-Bond may never have saved the world before, in presenting this particularly characteristic scenario it is connecting him to the earlier Bonds who have done so. And so the conclusion is not strictly about closure for the Craig era, as the film is also in a kind of dialogue throughout with the entire tradition of Bond films, which is why the OHMSS touches work for me.
What did Moneypenny say once, "Same James, only different"? That's a line, or variation of it, that Madeleine might have used during their reconciliation in Norway.
But as this is Craig-Bond, with all the relative degrees of "realism" that are present in his films, both psychological and otherwise, it is - I think - fitting that he does not survive his own storyline, which has largely been one of a tragic, deathward trajectory. And yet, I don't find that depressing in the least.
Why? Because he died heroically ... rescuing his family & helping to "save the world," as it were.
And Safin is right about one thing, "Life is all about what we leave behind." And so Mathilde functions both as a character in herself but also as the physical embodiment of Bond's legacy - just as our children may do for us.
And for another, it ends with the Bond character literally passing into myth, like one of the heroes of the ancient world. Heracles, anyone? What does Madeleine say at the end, "I'm going to tell you a story." So in that sense, Bond very much does survive.
Edit: Moneypenny actually says, "Same James, only more so." [OHMSS]
It's not on Amazon Prime Video, is it?
I read that you could watch it on Amazon Prime somewhere, that's my bad. My point about watching it still stands.
Are you kidding me? Is he 'aving a laugh?
That reminds me of some old classmates of mine who would rattle off talking points from ThatGuyWithTheGlasses videos as their own opinions and when called out on whether or not they'd actually seen the thing they're criticizing they'd sheepishly admit they had not. That's you, @slide_99; you're the sheep.