If it hadn't been.......?
Unknown007
Posts: 201MI6 Agent
Was Nobody Does It Better ever considered for No Time To Die? Thought it might have been good to have it after All The Time In The World over the End Credits?
Comments
Not for me personally. It would have rubbed further salt into the wound.
great song, and I see how it could fit the narrative if the project were a music playlist.
however the film was already relying too much on songs from old movies to tell the story, perhaps fitting...
...given the end of an era aspect of the film...
...but still a narrative cheat. The filmmakers should be able to tell the story with their own original material, instead of relying on an earlier creator's work to tell the story for them.
I know there has been recycling of instrumental themes in previous films, particularly the Bond Theme itself and the 007 Theme, but usually those were new recordings and arrangements integrated into the new film's score. The instances where they used the Dr No recording of the James Bond Theme for an action sequence instead of a new recording were done against Barry's wishes.
I think that the song is so associated with Roger that it it would have rubbed almost any fan of Roger the wrong way. To make the direct comparison of Daniel to Roger would be really insulting to both actors. Roger had also been the only Bond to have passed away at the time the film was completed, and I think it's too soon to use that song in relation to another Bond actor. For me, if they ever did it, it would be too soon.
I hated "We Have All The Time In The World" in No Time to Die. It felt like it was trying to piggyback off another film rather than do the work that this film needed to do. If they're going to take a theme from a previous Bond film, it should only be the James Bond Theme or 007.
@Matt S I agree that 'Nobody Does It Better' is inextricably associated with Roger Moore's Bond, a connection which was reactivated and reinforced by its widespread use as a tribute at the time of the actor's passing.
In 1977, the song's title was resonant in a number of ways:
(i) it reasserted an idea of Bond's dominance in popular cinema, as a counter to the perceived sagging of the franchise in the previous film, TMWTGG, and after a longer than usual period between films (i.e. it's still the case that nobody does popular cinema better than Bond);
(ii) it affirmed *Moore*-as-Bond during a decade when the media had still been running occasional 'Moore vs Connery: who's the better Bond?' non-stories (typically in Connery's favour) - and when McClory was obstructively rumbling along in the background as a serious potential rival;
and (iii) it implicitly connected to an idea of Britannia herself, capturing a reactionary national mood in the UK in the year of the Queen's Silver Jubilee (with the feted climax of the PTS exquisitely segueing into the song; i.e. Bond backs blighty, through thick and thin, O.H.M. not-so-Secret S.) That year of all years, it seemed, nobody was doing it better than H.M. Elizabeth II (certainly not her own government) - whatever "it" was supposed to mean!
iv) In a straightforward way, of course, the song was a love ballad.
TWSLM was a huge hit which, at the time, was generally celebrated (in at least a couple of those respects) as having 'earned' the claim of the song's title. TSWLM's lavishly spectacular style made it one of those landmark proto-blockbuster Bond films.
At first I squeed (to use fan parlance) at the use of 'We Have All The Time In The World' in NTTD, but now I tend to share your sentiment, having re-examined my feelings about it after a couple of re-viewings.
Aside from the Bond theme itself, I think the one piece that I'd be happy to see re-purposed/ re-arranged in a future Bond film would be Barry's OO7 theme - if a film's tone was right for it, and if the rest of the score was successfully put together in a complementary style. But those are massive "ifs", it's very unlikely to happen (even Arnold didn't go there) and it's all been debated before.
Nobody Does It Deader would have been apt.
Roger Moore 1927-2017