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Comments
Yes, maybe too expensive?
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Thanks
It may well have been the universe’s way of telling me something… but I don’t know what.
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."
It is his choice. He'd rather die than let Madeleine and Mathilde die.
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?
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.