maybe his "mad as a bag of bees" babbling was cover for occasionally giving instructions or speeches over a hidden microphone? His guards were used to him continuously babbling and even if he seemed sometimes coherent they couldn't have taken his birthday speech to be literally true, more like he was having paranoid waking dreams.
Still, with all the security of his cell, why did nobody think to examine that prosthetic eyeball when he was first locked up?
There are several questions about the "mosquitos" line on pg2. @Number24 has already answered correctly, but my understanding is Norway's climate is similar to northern Ontario and we sure get'em here. That boggy lowland landscape looked like mosquito territory to me.
The line might not have gone anywhere in terms of plot points, but symbolically did remind us the pervasiveness of the virus threat. At the time of filming they might have felt we needed reminding how viruses normally spread, to keep that fear in the back of our minds even if it hadnt been mentioned in the plot for a few scenes. Not so needed now, of course, I couldnt sit in the theatre without being aware of all my fellow theatre-goers airborn aerosols. And of course we've now got used to a whole different medium of virus spread since the film's delays, so the symbolic significance of mosquitos might actually be less obvious in our aerosol-obsessed present than 18 months ago.
But the child's actual line, an unanswered question in itself: "do mosquitos have friends?" is that maybe symbolic? Bond is a killer, is he any better than the mosquitos? Does he have friends? This whole detour to rescue Madeleine is Bond acknowledging his obligation to a friend.
ha! this film really is very dense with information, even at its bloated length. Once we get the dvd's we'll need to make notes and flowchart this stuff out.
I had vowed to take a peebreak during an action sequence, since those usually drag on forever without actually adding to the plot. But in this film the infodumps were coming fast and furious during even the action scenes, and often relayed visually rather than through dialog (for the record, I ducked out during Felix's death scene, I figured how Bond escapes from the boat is the least important question at this point)
I think this was a deliberate bit of unresolved suspense throughout the second half of the film. For a long stretch I suspected Safin was the father, since Madeleine seemed suspiciously close to him and Bond already had reason to be jealous of their relationship. During the faux-dinner scene, when Safin held the child and went through the "philosophy of power" type debate, I felt they were provoking that suspicion.
At the end Madeleine confirms Mathilde did inherit her blue eyes from Bond. But when first asked she said the opposite, perhaps because she was mad at Bond and wanted him out of the child's life. But at the end, when she knows Bond is dying, is she just telling him what he wants to hear?
The possibility Mathilde is actually Safin's child remains open-ended, but narratively it doesn't work for the child to be anybody else's but Bond's. The credits show DNA patterns formed by guns, and its not just the nanobots that are being foreshadowed: Bond may die but has successfully replicated his own DNA, the literal Purpose of Life.
The question of how she keeps this child secret from MI6 is very good. The motivation can be inferred, the child is in greater danger if the world knows she is Bond's. But how does she keep the secret when working for Military Intelligence, who are payed to know such things? (then again Kissy Suzuki similarly fooled them in the novel). And the real threat is from Blofeld. the master-mindgamer who has was shown having access to all the world's surveillance data his first appearance. Howd she keep the info from him? And why should she volunteer to be his psychiatrist when he's the one person above all she has to protect her child from?
It’s definitely true. And they were shot. Even the foreign language voice over artists recorded 3 different endings. So they got well past the post production stage.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that they hadn’t settled on the final ending though. They might have done it so that those crew involved didn’t definitively know what the ending would be. This is quite a common thing to do with major endings or cliffhangers like this on both TV programmes and films.
I cant imagine the expense, especially if they played out significantly differently. The ending we got looked expensive enough. And now we're worrying this film may not make enough money...
I sat through most of the credits, but did not see. Was there any "In Memory of" for Connery and Moore? (not to mention Blackman and Rigg, and I've lost count of how many others)
and...
I'd say the film had five main acts (1. precredits, 2. raid/Jamaica/Cuba, 3. scenes in London, 4. scenes in Norway, 5. the villain's headquarters). Has anybody timed them? the precredits and the villain's headquarters scenes were both conspicuously long and I wonder how they compare to previous entries.
answers courtesy of Mark Salisbury, who the intro states had backstage access and has written a book called No Time To Die: The Making of the Film so sounds like someone who oughta know.
We all expected NTTD to put elements of SP into a new light, and in some ways it did. One element I haven't seen been commented on is Madeileine's attitude to alcohol. Madeleine's mother is shown as an alcoholic in the PTS of NTTD and it can be argued she could have survived if she was sober. In SPECTRE Madeleine gets drunk in L'Americaine in a scene where she's thinking of her parents. There is also the scene in the train where Bond suggests an aperitif. Madeleien replies: "I'm not sure. Gets me into trouble. Makes me do crazy things". She then orders a dirsty vodka martini, a strong drink. I'm not sayng the children of alcoholics should or will have a certain attitude to alcoohol, but these scenes do rise some questions. Madeleine gets drunk in l'Americaine, a place full of memories of (mainly) her father and her alcoholic mother. A strange reaction considering the NTTD PTS. The scene in the train is very different. The scene isn't nostalgic to her. Instead the scene is flirty and lighthearted. She says she can't handle strong alcohol, yet she orders a strong drink. In a sense she plans to get somewhat intoxicated for fun and flirtation. This is different from the hotel scene, but also interesting in the light of what we know of her mother. Any thoughts or comments?
Yes. I had noted this as well. It's not a very sure touch from the writers. The NTTD PTS throws up several conundrums. In SP, Bond asks Mr White if he's protecting his wife and White says "She left long ago." Note LEFT not DIED. Now, in QOS Mr White was with a woman at the opera, so did he remarry after the death of his first wife? Additionally, Madeleine relates the story of a man coming to the house when she demonstrates an ability to load a handgun. She never once says: "I shot the nasty bugger, but later he saved my life, I'm lucky to be here, James. Have you ever shot someone and seen them resurrected? Guns are rubbish. They don't kill anyone." This is one of the reasons these 5 Bond films don't work, because the script writers are trying to join dots after the event, not through a cohesive pre-considered timeline. Trying to interpret what I see now, I think Madeleine probably drinks to forget in the hotel, in the same way her mother drinks to forget in NTTD, but given her education and her job at the psychology centre, I'd rather think she was better adjusted than that. I can understand why she gets drunk: White's a killer, Bond's a killer, life appears to be repeating itself, but this doesn't explain her behaviour in the train, especially as getting drunk in the hotel didn't make her do anything silly. Anyway all women fall for James Bond on trains. Is it the rhythm of the wheels or something? Their coupling - at this point in the story - seems highly unlikely. The fight draws them together. Notice Madeleine shoots the bad guy. Bond doesn't say: "How does it feel to shoot someone" and she reply "I've done it before." The whole sequence, her personal journey around drinking and guns is completely unfathomable between the two films.
"She left long ago." is a common enough euphemism. People sometimes avoid the cold clinical acknowledgement of death and find it easier to say "she's gone now" or "she's no longer with us"
Madeleine has no obligation to tell the whole sordid story to Bond, nobody is obliged to relive traumas just to make conversation, especially to a stranger, the details are absolutely none of his business.
and Madeleine drinks to get drunk because she is child of an alcoholic. Alcoholism is a disease passed from generation to generation and recovered alcoholics do not believe it is possible to drink socially
I do think Madeleine's drinking is yet another victim of the retrofitted plotlines in Craig's movies. Unlike the "She left long ago" line it should have been easily avoided.
If I remember correctly (and I sometimes do), the member Someone had a theory early in the production that EON was secretly making Bond 25 and 26 back-to-back. "That's a crazy theory" I ..... other members I mean ... thought at the time. But after listening to the latest episode of the excellent James Bond And Friends podcast ("Unmade Bond 24) we learn that the producers and writers really did want to make Bond24 (SPECTRE) and Bond25 back-to-back, but Craig vetoed it. someone wasn't right, but he was more right than many of us thought. 🙂
From what I was told, it didn’t get past the initial discussion…it was just a logistical nightmare and would have taken up too much money - which Eon and MGM just didn’t have.
YNWA 97
Asp9mmOver the Hills and Far Away.Posts: 7,541MI6 Agent
It wasn’t just Someone that reported this. It was actually Bond 24 and 25 that was going to be filmed back to back. Unless they’re including NSNA as an official Bond film now.
Comments
maybe his "mad as a bag of bees" babbling was cover for occasionally giving instructions or speeches over a hidden microphone? His guards were used to him continuously babbling and even if he seemed sometimes coherent they couldn't have taken his birthday speech to be literally true, more like he was having paranoid waking dreams.
Still, with all the security of his cell, why did nobody think to examine that prosthetic eyeball when he was first locked up?
There are several questions about the "mosquitos" line on pg2. @Number24 has already answered correctly, but my understanding is Norway's climate is similar to northern Ontario and we sure get'em here. That boggy lowland landscape looked like mosquito territory to me.
The line might not have gone anywhere in terms of plot points, but symbolically did remind us the pervasiveness of the virus threat. At the time of filming they might have felt we needed reminding how viruses normally spread, to keep that fear in the back of our minds even if it hadnt been mentioned in the plot for a few scenes. Not so needed now, of course, I couldnt sit in the theatre without being aware of all my fellow theatre-goers airborn aerosols. And of course we've now got used to a whole different medium of virus spread since the film's delays, so the symbolic significance of mosquitos might actually be less obvious in our aerosol-obsessed present than 18 months ago.
But the child's actual line, an unanswered question in itself: "do mosquitos have friends?" is that maybe symbolic? Bond is a killer, is he any better than the mosquitos? Does he have friends? This whole detour to rescue Madeleine is Bond acknowledging his obligation to a friend.
ha! this film really is very dense with information, even at its bloated length. Once we get the dvd's we'll need to make notes and flowchart this stuff out.
I had vowed to take a peebreak during an action sequence, since those usually drag on forever without actually adding to the plot. But in this film the infodumps were coming fast and furious during even the action scenes, and often relayed visually rather than through dialog (for the record, I ducked out during Felix's death scene, I figured how Bond escapes from the boat is the least important question at this point)
damn you're right! first ever Blofeld appearance without the white cat! What a rip-off, hardly a proper Blofeld appearance at all...
oh this one's easy! James Bond 007 Licensed to Kill is a better shot than a little girl!
I think this was a deliberate bit of unresolved suspense throughout the second half of the film. For a long stretch I suspected Safin was the father, since Madeleine seemed suspiciously close to him and Bond already had reason to be jealous of their relationship. During the faux-dinner scene, when Safin held the child and went through the "philosophy of power" type debate, I felt they were provoking that suspicion.
At the end Madeleine confirms Mathilde did inherit her blue eyes from Bond. But when first asked she said the opposite, perhaps because she was mad at Bond and wanted him out of the child's life. But at the end, when she knows Bond is dying, is she just telling him what he wants to hear?
The possibility Mathilde is actually Safin's child remains open-ended, but narratively it doesn't work for the child to be anybody else's but Bond's. The credits show DNA patterns formed by guns, and its not just the nanobots that are being foreshadowed: Bond may die but has successfully replicated his own DNA, the literal Purpose of Life.
The question of how she keeps this child secret from MI6 is very good. The motivation can be inferred, the child is in greater danger if the world knows she is Bond's. But how does she keep the secret when working for Military Intelligence, who are payed to know such things? (then again Kissy Suzuki similarly fooled them in the novel). And the real threat is from Blofeld. the master-mindgamer who has was shown having access to all the world's surveillance data his first appearance. Howd she keep the info from him? And why should she volunteer to be his psychiatrist when he's the one person above all she has to protect her child from?
thanks @Asp9mm
do you know of any other scenes or shots that were cut from the final film?
I know they shot three alternate endings. And quite extensive versions too.
asp9mm said:
I know they shot three alternate endings. And quite extensive versions too.
any idea what those alternate ending s were? hopefully we get them as bonus features on the dvd
The people that were involved all had to sign heavy NDA’s so even if I knew I couldn’t say. And I don’t.
I read somewhere on the MI6 board that the three endings rumor wasn't true. Different endings were proposed at the script stage but no later.
It’s definitely true. And they were shot. Even the foreign language voice over artists recorded 3 different endings. So they got well past the post production stage.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that they hadn’t settled on the final ending though. They might have done it so that those crew involved didn’t definitively know what the ending would be. This is quite a common thing to do with major endings or cliffhangers like this on both TV programmes and films.
I cant imagine the expense, especially if they played out significantly differently. The ending we got looked expensive enough. And now we're worrying this film may not make enough money...
_______________________________________________________
two more questions:
I sat through most of the credits, but did not see. Was there any "In Memory of" for Connery and Moore? (not to mention Blackman and Rigg, and I've lost count of how many others)
and...
I'd say the film had five main acts (1. precredits, 2. raid/Jamaica/Cuba, 3. scenes in London, 4. scenes in Norway, 5. the villain's headquarters). Has anybody timed them? the precredits and the villain's headquarters scenes were both conspicuously long and I wonder how they compare to previous entries.
No "In Memory Of" that I saw. Haven't timed anything yet.
I found this FAQ style online article that purports to answer some of the outstanding questions: 'No Time to Die’ explained: All your James Bond plot questions answered
answers courtesy of Mark Salisbury, who the intro states had backstage access and has written a book called No Time To Die: The Making of the Film so sounds like someone who oughta know.
We all expected NTTD to put elements of SP into a new light, and in some ways it did. One element I haven't seen been commented on is Madeileine's attitude to alcohol. Madeleine's mother is shown as an alcoholic in the PTS of NTTD and it can be argued she could have survived if she was sober. In SPECTRE Madeleine gets drunk in L'Americaine in a scene where she's thinking of her parents. There is also the scene in the train where Bond suggests an aperitif. Madeleien replies: "I'm not sure. Gets me into trouble. Makes me do crazy things". She then orders a dirsty vodka martini, a strong drink. I'm not sayng the children of alcoholics should or will have a certain attitude to alcoohol, but these scenes do rise some questions. Madeleine gets drunk in l'Americaine, a place full of memories of (mainly) her father and her alcoholic mother. A strange reaction considering the NTTD PTS. The scene in the train is very different. The scene isn't nostalgic to her. Instead the scene is flirty and lighthearted. She says she can't handle strong alcohol, yet she orders a strong drink. In a sense she plans to get somewhat intoxicated for fun and flirtation. This is different from the hotel scene, but also interesting in the light of what we know of her mother. Any thoughts or comments?
Yes. I had noted this as well. It's not a very sure touch from the writers. The NTTD PTS throws up several conundrums. In SP, Bond asks Mr White if he's protecting his wife and White says "She left long ago." Note LEFT not DIED. Now, in QOS Mr White was with a woman at the opera, so did he remarry after the death of his first wife? Additionally, Madeleine relates the story of a man coming to the house when she demonstrates an ability to load a handgun. She never once says: "I shot the nasty bugger, but later he saved my life, I'm lucky to be here, James. Have you ever shot someone and seen them resurrected? Guns are rubbish. They don't kill anyone." This is one of the reasons these 5 Bond films don't work, because the script writers are trying to join dots after the event, not through a cohesive pre-considered timeline. Trying to interpret what I see now, I think Madeleine probably drinks to forget in the hotel, in the same way her mother drinks to forget in NTTD, but given her education and her job at the psychology centre, I'd rather think she was better adjusted than that. I can understand why she gets drunk: White's a killer, Bond's a killer, life appears to be repeating itself, but this doesn't explain her behaviour in the train, especially as getting drunk in the hotel didn't make her do anything silly. Anyway all women fall for James Bond on trains. Is it the rhythm of the wheels or something? Their coupling - at this point in the story - seems highly unlikely. The fight draws them together. Notice Madeleine shoots the bad guy. Bond doesn't say: "How does it feel to shoot someone" and she reply "I've done it before." The whole sequence, her personal journey around drinking and guns is completely unfathomable between the two films.
none of that seems problematic to me
"She left long ago." is a common enough euphemism. People sometimes avoid the cold clinical acknowledgement of death and find it easier to say "she's gone now" or "she's no longer with us"
Madeleine has no obligation to tell the whole sordid story to Bond, nobody is obliged to relive traumas just to make conversation, especially to a stranger, the details are absolutely none of his business.
and Madeleine drinks to get drunk because she is child of an alcoholic. Alcoholism is a disease passed from generation to generation and recovered alcoholics do not believe it is possible to drink socially
I do think Madeleine's drinking is yet another victim of the retrofitted plotlines in Craig's movies. Unlike the "She left long ago" line it should have been easily avoided.
If I remember correctly (and I sometimes do), the member Someone had a theory early in the production that EON was secretly making Bond 25 and 26 back-to-back. "That's a crazy theory" I ..... other members I mean ... thought at the time. But after listening to the latest episode of the excellent James Bond And Friends podcast ("Unmade Bond 24) we learn that the producers and writers really did want to make Bond24 (SPECTRE) and Bond25 back-to-back, but Craig vetoed it. someone wasn't right, but he was more right than many of us thought. 🙂
https://podcast.mi6-hq.com/e/0147-unmade-bond-24/
That wasn’t the first time filming DC Bond movies back-to-back had been mentioned…the idea had been kicked around before.
I didn't know this. When was this an option?
From what I was told, it didn’t get past the initial discussion…it was just a logistical nightmare and would have taken up too much money - which Eon and MGM just didn’t have.
It wasn’t just Someone that reported this. It was actually Bond 24 and 25 that was going to be filmed back to back. Unless they’re including NSNA as an official Bond film now.
It was 24 and 25, as stated in my post. Someone expected 25 and 26 to be filmed back-to-back, so he wasn't as far off as I thought at the time.
When was back-to-back filming discussed earlier than SPECTRE?
It was discussed as early as 2013.
Interesting.
Does anyone have info on Safin's shoes from the opening scene? What they heck are these things? Are spoke shoes like this a real thing???
They’re crampons over his boots.
Microspikes, more specifically.