SPOILERS - I FIGURED OUT WHY SOME OF US HATED IT (ANALYTICAL REVIEW).
thegreatgalling
Posts: 180MI6 Agent
SPOILERS BELOW
This is going to be long, but I am hoping that it will provide some clarity for those of you who feel like something about this film didn’t work, and you can’t put your finger on it.
As the credits rolled, I sunk deeply into my chair. The pit in my stomach danced enough to be a physical reminder of the mental anguish. “Ok,” I thought, “they did it, we thought they might.” But what might have been an important moment for the character’s history was ruined by a heavy cloud of disappointment
I suspect there will be a lot of people like me, who leave the theater a little shocked, confused, and angry. I endured a very real feeling of loss witnessing the death of a “hero” that has been a part of my life for the better part of 2/3 of it. His mythology is a part of my soul, it’s in my makeup, my constitution.
Anyway, let’s cut to the chase.
WHY IT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME
Going into the movie I expected Bond’s death was a very real possibility. Articles about the “LAST” Craig outing, the title, the posters, the slogans all eased us into the realization that they may just have enough courage to do it.
The real question is if they should have done it.
There are VITAL considerations to make before cinematically ending a characters life. After all, we go to films to be entertained. Some films are designed for us to push our emotions - and sadness is a part of the cinematic adventure. You may leave the theater crying, but the experience was WORTH those emotions.
That didn’t happen here.
Here’s why:
BOND WASN’T KILLED. HE KILLED HIMSELF.
For me to accept Bond’s cinematic death, there are things I feel NEEDED to be established. This is a doctrine based on the history of cinematic deaths of major characters. In my opinion, when a cinematic death misses one of these crucial aspects, we leave disappointed. Here they are:
1) A HERO’S DEATH MUST HAVE PURPOSE
This is the BIGGEST most TENABLE reason I am fundamentally disappointed with how Bond ends.
The filmmakers knew they needed a purpose to Bond’s death. This tenet in writing literally goes back thousands of years. It’s necessary. It has to happen to provide enough psychological cushion for us to accept and appreciate the ending.
In real life, people die without purpose everyday. It’s the most traumatic thing EVERY human being will be FORCED to face. Instead, however, we have a higher standard for cinema because the filmmakers control our character’s destiny. There is no reason to put us through witnessing the trauma of losing our heroes. It’s cruel. Films offer an escape from reality, and when reality and film collide the consequences are to leave us suffering an immense emotional toll.
HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED
The filmmakers THOUGHT they satisfied this tenet.
Heres what they gave us:
Bond becomes infected with a nano virus that will preclude him from ever seeing the love of his life and his child ever again. If he goes near them, they will die immediately. He is also gravely(?) injured with gunshots but also is walking. He decides that he must sacrifice(?) himself to save his family, and also because without his love he has no will to live. So he takes a front row seat of some ballistic missiles and ceremoniously baptizes himself with their mercy of a swift death.
WHY THE DEATH HAD NO PURPOSE
Lets break it down.
1) THE NANO PREMISE
I am willing to buy into the entire convoluted, bloated, nano virus plot. Ok sure. It’s big, it’s Bondian. Most of Craig’s films came down to earth but in his swan song we go back to the big ornate super villain with a giant plan to end the world with a super plot. I’m ok with that. The angry dude with the flowers wants to terminate millions of people for literally no reason so soon after Thanos’ tired population control? Ok whatever, new ideas are at a premium.
But to tie Bond’s death to this overly convoluted plot cheapens it. I would have accepted it more readily if it was designed a bit more cerebrally, but we have to accept Bond’s fate based on three bits of spoon fed exposition.
First, Bond can’t remove the nano virus from his body. “It’s in you forever.”
Second, this nano bug isn’t precise and it kills relatives. As a writer, the minute Q utters the nearly (then) useless words, “well it’s a good thing you didn’t go near anyone related to Blofeld, you’d have killed them too,” or something, the alarm bell rang.
“Ok they wanted us to know that this spray kills relatives. Noted.”
Generally with writing, the best films SHOW you important points. Weak writing TELLS you.
Exposition is lazy writing. Foreshadowing can be interesting, but it should have meaning. Some examples of cinematic foreshadowing is masterful. Sometimes foreshadowing is a red herring which is also masterful. But ok, enough about the writing.
Finally, in his final moments, Q confirms via radio the nano virus is “eternal.” Strong words.
2) BOND IS SHOT 91 TIMES IN THE BACK
Ok, the writers here raised the stakes by making him bleed. He’s hurt. They give you enough time to maybe perhaps come to terms with the reality than Bond might just be too hurt to get out of this. Then he springs up and holds his shoulder in a non vital location, and he limps on, speaks, climbs a ladder, and smiles on his twisted sun deck of death.
The gunshots are there for a reason.
The filmmakers couldn’t make you think that Bond could have easily escaped (bulls*t), so they raise the stakes. But! They also needed Bond to have a dignified swan song on his two legs and a pouty chest.
These two premises collide where we are left not really believing Bond is mortally wounded. After all, he has been escaping similar fate for half a century.
With no real belief that Bond is about to succumb to his wounds, we are left with no other feeling than the following:
3) BOND COMMITS SUICIDE
The first thing I heard someone utter as they walked out of the theater was “I guess Bond had to sacrifice himself?” They looked as confused as I did.
Did he?
Here’s basically what the filmmakers presented.
Q is telling Bond he needs to get out of there. Sure he doesn’t know he was shot, and yes it’s an island, but it’s Bond. There’s not one person on Earth who wouldn’t find it just as believable if Craig leaps out of the window before the missiles fall and swims to some miraculous safety. In fact, we are EXPECTING that.
Instead, Bond gives in to his fate and ends it.
For that to be a “SACRIFICE,” Bond needs to be sacrificing something. That is the act of giving something up for the sake of something else. Otherwise he is just OFFING HIMSELF.
The only logical sacrifice is that he is killing himself to remove the temptation of his wife and daughter from the desire to see him, that would put themselves in harms way. He also perhaps thinks that a Swift death and grief would be better for them than to have him alive somewhere on the opposite side of the world. BOND literally decided he’d rather DIE than watch his daughter grow up through FaceTime and Zoom.
That’s a weak sacrifice.
Not to mention, he had potentially years, DECADES for some cure of the nanos to be developed at some distant time. His death was an answer to a problem they really didn’t convince me existed with two lines of quick dialogue.
4) BOND’S DEATH LACKED MEANING
Without adequate purpose (that he absolutely needed to die), there could be no meaning.
Bond is a modern mythology. Ingrained in his intrigue is a social contract he has with the audience: that no matter how bad his situation looks, no matter how untenable; dangerous; hopeless, Bond will not only survive, but get the girl, and save the world. The historic Greek’s, through Latin, called it Deus ex Machina. The idea that just when the situation reaches its peak impossibility, the hands of fate will reach in and present glorious salvation. For 007, sometimes it’s the right gadget and exactly the right time. Sometimes it’s an ally with a gun just out of frame before revealing herself.
Obviously for a hero to die, this contract between the character and the unseen hands of “God,” or his writers, must end.
But Bond’s “end” was too unceremonious to signify the machinations of what kept him alive all these years was through with its purpose.
What makes Deus ex Machina work and the concept that is ingrained in nearly every one of our big modern mythological heroes (Bond, Indiana Jones, Star Wars) is an almost supernatural protection of our heroes. They are agents of GOOD, and as such, the very universe keeps them alive so they can carry out their purpose.
I could have bought Bond’s death. I could have understood that with the death of the last big baddie in the world, Bond outlived his need for supernatural protection. The Gods pack it up and he’s on his own.
But there’s just something so merciless to have Bond abandoned so dramatically by his savior’s hands with no reward. Sure he gets to smile and think about his daughter and love living out the rest of their days with all the time in the world, but that would have happened anyway - whether he lived or died, as long as he stayed away from them. That isn’t a reward. It’s a punishment.
5) BOND WAS PUNISHED, BUT WHY?
Bond’s death is ultimately a punishment for his character. He LOSES.
Bond “winning” would be the enjoyment of his last days in the happiness of his loved ones. Instead, he is left with the realization that Blofeld STOLE his happiness for half a decade, separating him from all he cared about in the world, only to have to lose it again.
It’s not an ending that befits a “Knight of Good.”
Bond doesn’t deserve punishment. He doesn’t need to atone. Yes he’s a killer, but for half a century, he has used awful means to serve a greater purpose. Yes there has been collateral damage and friends have died, but not one of them died without serving the greater good.
HOW BOND’S DEATH COULD AND SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED
Bond could have died on screen and it could have been tragic but so glorious that we would leave feeling like our hero was given a fitting end. Something to hang our hat on knowing it exists in the world. Why do I know that? Because it has been done: Tony Stark, Neo, Han Solo, Bruce Willis in Armageddon. Each of those deaths left us with extraordinary peace in knowing the world was saved not INSPITE of their death but BECAUSE of it.
Bond should have died AS THE ARCHITECT of salvation, not a passive spectator. He should have turned the key that blew up the facility.
But maybe I’m lying to myself. Maybe I just didn’t want our hero to die at all. Maybe I just wanted the hands of fate to reach in one last time, but this time, let him survive to serve his OWN purpose, and not just theirs.
Because Bond has no time to die.
Comments
Tony Stark's dead? And Hans Solo! You'll be telling me David Bowie's dead next.
Reading this, I imagined you as Kevin Costner in JFK... and his magic bullet theory.
Yes, I mean the snag is it's all shoe-horned in to the third act. We do see the scientist early on, but have no idea to his purpose and personally the whole 'lets switch the dose so it wipes out Spectre instead and erase them' perhaps that's a knowing ref to how fans feel about the film Spectre. But it doesn't really convince. As the whole thing is tagged on with, as you say, a lot of exposition, there isn't too much foreshadowing, perhaps because they were writing it on the hoof.
I felt the same about Vesper in CR however. For surely the first hour we don't see her. If we'd had just a contrived five mins with her, even not with Bond in the scene, we'd have 'known' her longer.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Well thought out. Well written. I enjoyed that.
Question, how is Bruce’s death in Armageddon all the different from Bond’s? I ask because for me I likened them both to one another after I saw the film. I’ve now seen it 3 times. I still feel the same. I know these are all opinions and not facts per se since we are talking about make believe things.
My thoughts -
Bruce’s character saves humanity from the asteroid. Bond saves, potentially, all of humanity by making sure the silo doors were opened for the bombs. The whole, “They’ll be nothing left to save” thing. To me, it seems like has he not done that, saved himself he would run the risk of killing his family if he came in contact with the as well as the rest of humanity if the rest of the stuff got out. I took it as Saffin was having this stuff modified to impact the whole world, but I could be wrong.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks!
"Keeping British end up, sir." - RM "This never happened to the other fellow." - JL "I must be dreaming." SC
To me the main difference between Bond and Bruce is the degree of causation to saving the world
Bruce needed to remain to operate the drill. His final moments are literally dying so the plan can work. It’s direct, obvious.
In Bond’s case, he opens the doors already. He’s done. Now he just stands and watches the missiles and chooses not to save himself. Had they made it so he needed to hold the silo doors open with some sort of key or something, I think that would have been a sacrifice. Instead, it’s just suicide
The nano virus premise was immensely complicated, which I have come to resent. Classic Bond villains were always big and flashy but usually their plans could be explained fairly easily in a sentence or two. Good luck with this one.
If Bond had survived, I did not get the impression that anyone outside Madeline and Matilde would be in jeopardy. After all, Madeline received her own dose.
I think it just comes down to Bond allowing himself to die because he didn’t want to live without his family. His job was done, so he turns himself in.
Tragic.
Loved the Costner comparison. I am a lawyer so it’s not too far off.
Great points about Vesper and the shoehorned exposition.
Honestly when Bond was infected at the end I originally thought these particular nanobots were engineered so only he was immune but would infect ANYONE else he would come into contact with (including Madeline and Matilde). His sacrifice makes more sense that way. Is it possible that's what happened, or am I definitely misremembering something Safin said?
@thegreatgalling, I think you're on to something, but the biggest problem for me is the movie simply doesn't earn the ending. Intellectually, it makes sense -- going out in a blaze of glory rather than fading away in old age, etc. Emotionally and otherwise, it rings hollow. It requires people to give in to sentimentality rather than the honesty of the moment.
The scenes didn't unfold in a more natural and satisfying way, as they did in On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Casino Royale, for example. Instead, NTTD felt forced, manipulative, and at times, random. It has little thematic grounding, and like a graphic novel, merely gives us glimpses and chunks of its point rather than fleshed out movie scenes. So, Bond just standing there itself seems yet another cop out.
This is the guy in Casino Royale who didn't stop for anything, not even crashing through drywall or breeching a foreign embassy while bullets hit all around him. This is the guy who pulled a nail out of his shoulder, asked if Vesper was okay after literally being raised from the dead, and refused to give up on LeChiffre -- not in poker, not when he being tortured, not when it looked like it was curtains. This is the guy who carried around with for 15 years the memory of a romance that only lasted a few weeks or months.
In NTTD, rather than fight anymore for his family -- since when did Bond simply accept defeat, like there was no cure and never going to be one? -- he just waits for the bombs to fall. Like his nitwit plan in Skyfall to save M by taking her back to his house to get killed, his death in NTTD is one of those emotionally charged moments that at first may seem like something greater than it is until you realize how dumb it actually is. It's antithetical to his nature, even in this Bond universe. He's 007, not Alec Leamas. Sacrifice himself, as you suggest, maybe. Just get blown to bits. Not that guy.
Yeah, maybe you’re right. I didn’t come to the same conclusion, but your points are valid. I don’t know if I completely agree, but that is okay I enjoy a healthy conversation like this
"Keeping British end up, sir." - RM "This never happened to the other fellow." - JL "I must be dreaming." SC
Also not sure how it quoted you twice.
"Keeping British end up, sir." - RM "This never happened to the other fellow." - JL "I must be dreaming." SC
That would have changed my enjoyment of the film. Because Safin designs the spray based on Madeline’s hair that he collects at her office, we are to assume it was designed for her and her alone (plus her relatives).
At least according to Wikipedia, for what that’s worth, “Safin infects Bond with a vial containing nanobots programmed to kill Madeleine and Mathilde…”
If I am wrong please let me know!
@Gassy Man I agree with your last paragraph 100%.
Bond giving up was bad enough but the writing was too convoluted to make it impactful. Offing himself because Q says nano tech can’t be eliminated? Did he ask him to try again?
If he was going to die it should have been straight forward that he *had no other choice.* That’s Bond.
Wow the more I think about this the more frustrated I am.
WHY NOT A VIAL THAT MADE BOND IMMUNE BUT WOULD KILL EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD.
That would have made mad sacrifice a sacrifice!
It would have (shocked) MADE MORE SENSE.
For all that, by coincidence or otherwise, the writers have their finger on the pulse! Bond's terminal condition is confirmed by Q over the telephone in a year when GPs are unable to provide face-to-face consultations and in the news today one poor sod was given a year to live over the telephone. You might ask for a second opinion.
Likewise someone suggested a good ending would be Bond meeting Madeleine and his daughter separated by a glass screen - perfect for a year involving social distancing from loved ones in care facilities.
Re Bruce in Armegeddon, one thing that amuses me in these kinds of films is how when someone seems to sacrifice themselves, another is always desperate to stop them! I mean, what is the alternative for Ben Affleck's character? If Bruce said, yeah, you're alright, maybe it should be you after all... There's a similar scene with Colin Farrell and Fiennes in In Bruges, and with Ford and Ray Winstone in Crystal Skulls - these rogues suddenly acquire a fan club! If I were watching on, it would be a case of, yep, go on then, see ya...
Roger Moore 1927-2017
@thegreatgalling very well reasoned arguments. Thanks for that. I'd like to say, Comment #4 is very true, and I'd not considered this POV of Bond's demise. My opinion of the event was it didn't involve me emotionally because I wasn't caught in Bond's journey to his doom. It came on me so fast that I, as an audience, couldn't empathise with it. It didn't seem heroic and I wasn't sure it was tragic, because Bond while he dies, isn't dying because of the events which unfold around him, only because he chooses to. There's no inevitability about it.
Anyway, I also agree - and this is one of my major gripes with the film - the nanobot stuff is very confusing. As plots go, it's probably the worst and least identifiable scheme we've ever seen in the franchise, and that includes the orchidea nigra from MR and the three-way mess of TLD.
Fair points all...but I disagree. Watching it a second time in an early matinee, in two hours' time, in order to fully digest, but I for one was fully swept up in the urgency of the moment when the time came, and of course Craig played it beautifully. I have always believed that over-analysis is the death of escapist fare, but (like televised golf) it is enjoyed as a pursuit by many.
I think the closed circuit of Craigger's five-picture arc - insulating it from the rest of the franchise - allowed Eon to make this final move. And, of course, it raises the stakes for whatever comes next.
Very stimulating conversation, gents! Cheers 🍸️
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
So you want Safin to get someone to make a DNA nanobot that kills everyone? 🤔
Why would Safin want to kill himself? Why would a scientist make it, knowing it would kill them and their family? 🤔
That question could be asked about a lot of the brave men and women working for Bond villains over the years. 😀 I kind of thought this plot was a little far-fetched for a Craig Bond. It reminded me of the scheme to destroy the world in TSWLM where apparently everyone working for Stromberg seemed OK with it.
Given the far-reaching dimensions of this nanobot plague, isn't it perceivable that some of Safin's own crew - those red besuited workers ferreting away like zombified rice pickers - would be killed by the damn thing? At least Drax removed all his "survivors" to a space station, so they at least had a reason to be grateful, though not cheerful judging by their expressions. We don't even see this mob, they are like eerie red shadows. What are they doing? Where did they come from? Where do they escape to, if indeed they do, and how? So many questions...
Sorry, in another thread I made it more clear that it could have been a virus that Safin and Bond were immune to but would kill everyone else. However they would arrive at an ACTUAL sacrifice for Bond, I would have appreciated.
I don't think it's unearned unless you view Bond as purely being a vessel of action with no real characterisation. That may be true of previous Bonds but from the start of his tenure, CraigBond was emphasised as being emotionally damaged, with plenty of backstory included in the past.
We already had him save the day through destorying the machine- with no reason to live other than his job (which he's quit multiple times before), he goes out with a bang on his own terms.
The reason why many fans are annoyed is partly because killing off Bond is a no-go for them full-stop and partly because they were never really sold on the idea of CraigBond, that he should be human. It's a part of the character that they put up with simply because they want to continue watching Bond films.
I believe this is in fact what it did. It made him a vector for the nanobots, which wouldn't likely kill him, but which could infect anyone.
I'm not sure the movie ever specifies whether this was because they had the DNA sequences of millions/billions on file, or if it was simply a "pure" form without the targeting specifics/limiters encoded into it.
But it was my interpretation that he was infected with something that could basically wipe out humanity, not just his family.
You make a good case. God knows, the film has plenty of plot holes. But I have been asking myself, "What did Eon intend with that ending?" And it's led me to a different interpretation.
At the outset, I have a suspicion I can't prove that Herakles began in the early drafts as a personalized DNA disease and not nanobots. Then along came Covid.... Safin is a poisoner from a line of poisoners who cultivates living poisons. Herakles manifests itself as something like the plague. No other kind of robotics are shown of even mentioned. So when Q says "Once you have nanobots you always have nanobots," it sounds silly because a robotic ailment seems obviously curable in the Bond universe. But if Herakles was a disease, it reflects the reality in which we live. "Once you have herpes you always have herpes" is a cruel fact of life.
Sometimes, like @Lady Ice, I think people on this board don’t appreciate how psychologically messed up Craig’s Bond was. Brosnan's Bond never seemed to me more than a series of elegant gestures. But Craig, for better or worse, felt he needed to act Bond from the inside out.
We cheer Casino Royale because it shows the emergence of "our" James Bond, but for the character himself it is a tragedy. And I think this is how Craig has seen him. He begins as an amoral assassin, then falls in love with a woman who might rescue him from himself, only to have her die by suicide because she knows he can't forgive her. M says he's learned who to trust and who not to trust, but it's a bad observation. Vesper betrayed him when she didn't know who he was. But if he could have forgiven her (as he does at the start of NTTD), he might have had something like a normal life.
Eon and its various writers decided "trust" is at the root of all of CraigBond's problems. And so NTTD is a tragedy about a character who fails to learn the lesson he should have learned in his first outing. Because of his unresolved issues with Vesper, he distrusts Madeleine even though anyone in the audience can see through Blofeld's misdirection.
For that failure, he sacrifices a marriage and a daughter. He earns himself 5 more years of hedonistic solitude.
Then at the end of NTTD three things happen:
1.) He's shot.
2.) He's infected with a robotic disease that means the end of his "family" and any chance at happiness.
3.) Missiles!
Death in a tragedy isn't always a punishment. For what crime is Hamlet published?
But what matters, in any case, is that CraigBond punishes himself. But not by consciously committing suicide. What I believe the Eon writers intended is that Bond realizes he's fortune's fool and accepts the inevitability of his death. It's not very Bondian, if one thinks of the character before Craig came along. But it is consistent with his troubled, star-crossed take on 007.
Am I happy with the ending? Not particularly. But I think this might be how the writers justified it to themselves.
Very thoughtful, thank you very much for taking the time to respond.
I agree with your characterization of Craig Bond.
To expand a bit, I think you are 100% correct for what the filmmakers were going for. I hope with time I can begin to agree with their choices. For now, I am not sure. I agree the writers chose trust as a theme - and made Craig Bond repeat the same mistake that he did in Casino Royale, but that doesn't thrill me as a choice. To me, it takes away Bond's arc and means he didn't learn much since his early days as an Agent. I found M's remarks about him knowing who to trust to be profound - Bond grows. This Bond didn't learn much and his judge of character remains tragically flawed.
If he truly loved Madeleine as much as they wanted us to believe, I found his rash rush to judgment out of synch.
I liked your interpretation that Bond punishes himself. Do I love that? I don't know.
Perhaps there is some synchronicity that ties his decision to take his own life to Vespers decision?
He really loved Vesper though and she betrayed him, so he probably didn't want to make that mistake twice. By trusting in 'love', he makes himself vulnerable; by not trusting in 'love' he makes himself miserable.
He's changed in the sense that he could live with that before but then gets to the point where he can't.
I agree that the nanobots addition was a rewrite due to Covid and that it was originally some sort of virus (hence the Poison Garden).