ENDING of NO TIME TO DIE - Opinions and theories - SPOILER
FlemingBond
Posts: 9MI6 Agent
From the moment I finished to watch "No time to die", my mind actually doesn’t realize the James Bond’s death. Because there are some things who I’m not convinced about it.
We can suppose James Bond is killed by missiles. But technically we are not sure if he’s dead or alive. We don't see him dead. He's hit by the explosion. And, yes, you can think that in this way is impossible to survive.
So, I've tried to remember some Fleming moment in the movie and I've re-read final chapters of YOLT. I’m suggested that No Time to die is a modern revisitation of the novel and also the ending can be similar.
In the novel, James Bond escapes from Blofeld’s castle with a baloon. Fleming wrote: "Something hit him on the side of the head, the same side that was already sending out its throbbing message of pain. And that finished him. He knew it had! For now the whole black silhouette of the castle swayed in the moonlight and seemed to jig upwards and sideways and then slowly dissolve like an ice-cream cone in sunshine. The top storey crumbled first, then the next, and the next, and then, after a moment, a huge jet of orange fire shot up from hell towards the moon. A buffet of hot wind, followed by an echoing crack of thunder, hit Bond and made his balloon sway violently. What was it all about? Bond didn’t know or care. The pain in his head was his whole universe. Punctured by a bullet, the balloon was fast losing height. Below, the softly swelling sea offered a bed. Bond let go with hands and feet and plummeted down towards peace, towards the rippling feathers of some childhood dream of softness and escape from pain.”
Here we can considered JB probably dead.
And we could suppose it with in the following chapter, when M writes his epitaph: "I was happy and proud to serve Commander Bond in a close capacity during the past three years at the Ministry of Defence. If indeed our fears for him are justified, may I suggest these simple words for his epitaph? Many of the junior staff here feel they represent his philosophy: “I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."
If novel ended here, we are suggested that James Bond is dead.
This also happens in the movie.
So we are one difference between movie and novel: it’s more clear that in the novel James Bond isn’t dead and we know it in the following final chapters.
My theory is: if No time to die is inspired by YOLT novel, how are we sure that Bond is dead? And if was similar to the novel?
And why the name is “No time to die”?
One of the concepts in the movie is the time (remember how we see in the opening credits) and they take the same words from Fleming’s novel to explain the meaning of the time: "I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time”. So JB uses his last time to save his family, and the connection to Fleming’s words is logic. But why there’s “no time to die?”
The other thing that could confirm this theory is the last line of the movie, I've listened it in italian and english version. Madeline to her daughter says: “By the man, his name is Bond, James Bond”. So because grammar is not an opinion, why does she say “is” and not “was”?
My opinion is that the final is more phylosophical than material: James Bond is half dead half alive, dead as we know James Bond’s Daniel Craig and alive as the character that we know. He will return in some way in some time, Daniel Craig not. And we so can considered the final open.
Comments
Nope. He died pretty much in a way that is unequivocally as final as getting hit by missiles directly can be.
You can’t be half dead and half alive. It’s one or the other and he is certainly dead. Fully. Obliterated.
His name is James Bond dead or alive. The only way you’d say WAS James Bond was if he had changed it. Dead or alive his name is still James Bond. That’s the English language for you.
He’s dead, gone vaporised, get over it. There’s no wiggle room here.
It is a more sophisticated and philosophical reflection. Analyzing a movie means looking beyond things and understanding their concepts. I tell you because I do it for work ...
They've left enough wiggle room to make a decision down the road if he's dead or alive.
Showing him disappearing in a cloud of explosion has just enough movie ambiguity, and I suspect that was intentional. They have no idea right now what to do next, whether Craig can be coaxed back for one more, or whether they will simple start over in a different timeline.
People insisting he's dead are like Star Trek fans insisting they saw Kirk and Uhura kiss, when at the last moment, they turn their heads so we can't quite tell. (And it wasn't even the first interracial kiss on TV -- not even on Star Trek.)
And there is room in the Fleming novels for supposed death and resurrection, along with the films. It's a wide open playing field right now.
I don't mind the idea of Bond dying in Craig's timeline, though I do think that after Casino Royale, these Bond films basically became a serious version of Get Smart! I just don't think NTTD earned it, at least not from the story as it played out. Maybe there were scenes on the cutting room floor that would have helped.
If Bond does survive, and the next film we find an amnesia ridden Bond living a simple life at a Japanese fishing village, only to sail off to Russia and be brainwashed to kill M, I will be a happy man.
And bizarrely, that will completely change my whole outlook on NTTD too, which right now is pretty damn low.
I think is probably that DC will never come back. He's out. So there no will be another sequel and they will restart with another timeline. The ending has a double meaning: a new restart for Bond (as novels YOLT and TMWTGG because James Bond will return) and DC's last breath in the saga.
He is definitly dead ... The shocking thing for me is he commited a suicide. the reasons are understandables.
Interesting thoughts @FlemingBond Thanks for sharing👍️
I wasn't happy seeing the ending so graphically depicted. On second viewing I also notice the computer screen to the left of Q, which I think was reading Bond's vital signs from the smart blood injection he gave him, was blank, showing zero, some flat red lines, so unless I misunderstand what the computer screen was monitoring, I think it was in there as another confirming piece of visual evidence that DC's James Bond is definitely dead.
I think Madeleine certainly says his name WAS Bond not IS. So not sure how the Italian translation ended as IS. One would certainly use WAS if talking about a person in the past tense and someone deceased, as Madeleine does in this scene.
@Glidrose007 That's how I would like Bond26 to start too, or; have an unknown man in a balaclava break into MI6 after dark. We don't know it's the MI6 building and it appears this is just the start of a typical Bond film, with a man (Bond?) on a mission. He breaks into an office where a man is sitting at his desk, we then realise it's M, this is M's office, this is MI6. The man in the balaclava pulls out his gun to shoot M, but at the last second he's struck down from behind by Security or Moneypenny or whomever, they pull off the balaclava and exclaim, my God! Bond!
Anyway, just a little scene I had in my head. I appreciate it does have similarities to the start on NTTD.
I get the feeling there won't be any continuity from NTTD in the slightest. Bond's death in NTTD will never be referred to again and they'll just start off afresh with a new actor, story and nothing to do with DC's arc at all, especially NTTD.
I've listened english version and she says "is".
It appears Craig’s Bond did not survive, but Janes Bond survived because it says James Bond Will Return.
Absolutely not. She says "WAS". I can assure you she doesn't use the present.
I've seen the movie another time. Yes, she says "was".
But, for i've written before, i'm in doubt for the ending. I consider the finale still open to various interpretations.
I don't think the ending is open to interpretation. Not only do we see Bond die, we see him die for a cause/in a way that Will make any "he survived!" solution look like a gigantic cheat. I think this was done om purpose.
I hadn't been to a cinema in over 18 months and I went to see "No time to die" after the BBC news website reported that it was "a film that rounds off an era with tremendous ambition and aplomb" and gave it a 5 star rating.
I sat through the whole of "No time to die" just waiting for this 5 star film to emerge and it didn't. The only good thing about it was Ana de Armas - a truly stunning Bond girl and a great character.
As for the ending - you just cannot kill off James Bond. I wanted my money back for my cinema ticket after watching the ending. It was bad enough that the whole film was too long and in serious need of a good editing session to trim the excessive running time, it was bad enough that the script writers jumped onto the diversity bandwagon and have Lashana Lynch as the new 007 while hypocritically relegating Naomie Harris to behind a desk when Harris's character was actually very good with a gun in "Skyfall" but killing off James Bond - why?
What should have happened was that the producers should have ended the Daniel Craig era with "Spectre". It had a great story and great ending.
Bringing back Daniel Craig when he publicly said that he didn't want to play James Bond again was a mistake and this whole film, apart from Ana de Armas, is a mistake.
The only hope is that in the next instalment, whoever plays James Bond starts the film by waking up Bobby Ewing style and "No time to die" is some awful nightmare.
Or, even simpler: Bond26 is a hard reboot and simply starts fresh with a new timeline. No mention of NTTD, GF, AVTAK etc. It also has the advantage of being the obvious solution.
Can you get refunds from cinemas just because you don’t like who dies in the film 🤣
I second that.
This is precisely what I think should happen :)
Watched NTTD last night. The pre titles intro is amazing, fantastic action sequences, cinematography, sound and stunts. It continues like this for an hour. 10/10.
The last 2/3rds gets boring. Attempts to soften Bonds persona fail, no chemistry between him and Madeline. Rami Malek is unconvincing as the villain, not nasty enough, Cyclops is far better.
It’s like watching two films stuck together.
As for the ending, that was really poor. I can understand that Daniel Craig wants a divorce from Bond, but I think this is more about the actor moving on, rather than the character. For me, one of the attractions of Bond, is that he is invincible, he’s a superhero, sadly this film has ruined the franchise for me. I wanted to love it but I’m in a state of mourning.
** Plus point that female CIA agent was super.
"James Bond will return" as the end credits said (I didn't stay for that bit but it has been reported widely that these words did come up in the end credits for "No time to die") and a "hard reboot" as you say is definitely on the cards. It is my personal opinion that this is a hackneyed film making bandwagon that thankfully has disappeared in recent years.
I was getting tired of reading in e.g. Empire magazine that film makers are proudly announcing "a reboot" of a franchise. The original computing use of reboot is the option of last resort when your computer has gone catastrophically and irretrievably wrong and there is no option left to rescue it apart from shutting everything down and starting again from the beginning. That is not a good phrase to go about boasting to the press about because what you are saying is that your film franchise has gone catastrophically and irretrievably wrong and there is no option left to rescue it apart from shutting everything down and starting again from the beginning which means that you've done an utterly rubbish job with your storytelling. But strangely, it was weirdly trendy and fashionable to announce (it seemed that every director was proudly boasting about this) and do a reboot and the results of a reboot was often even far worse than the previous series e.g. "Fantastic Four".
The only time, as far as I can remember, a reboot worked was the Christopher Nolan "Batman" series.
However, in the case of "No time to die" a reboot would be appropriate because I (and many other James Bond fans going by reading various film websites) feel that the story has gone catastrophically and irretrievably wrong and there is no option left to rescue it apart from shutting everything down and starting again from the beginning.
But as we know, the Daniel Craig era is a reboot in itself of the previous films so a reboot of a reboot isn't a good start.
While I was somewhat joking when I wrote that the next Bond should start with him waking up and declaring "No time to die" as a bad dream, this would strike "No time to die" from the Bond record. James Bond cannot die. While I was somewhat joking that I wanted my money back for my cinema ticket, I wrote this to illustrate my depth of feeling about the ending and the film in general.
The "James Bond format" has been written about in the past in Empire magazine and we all know what this is: action packed pre-credits sequence, surreal credits sequence, James Bond meets M and given a mission, James Bond meets up with Q to gear up for the mission, James Bond meets Bond girl, James Bond encounters megalomaniac villain , James Bonds *fist fights* *gun fights* *car/vehicle chases* his way to the villain's lair, beats villain and lives to fight another day. Repeat for emphasis: James Bond cannot die. If this format didn't work, audiences wouldn't have kept coming back for 60 years. Of course it is the same story line but we like it that way.
This is what Bond fans and filmgoers pay their money to see and while I joke about this, if it was any other product e.g. a TV, if a customer doesn't get the product that they expect, they are entitled to get their money back.
In terms of the actual ending itself, this series apparently prided itself for being more grounded but it wasn't really. First of all: James Bond's daughter - how can any 5 year old child not cry after being involved in car chase, gun fight, kidnap and separated from their mother and witnessing several adults being shot to death?
Second of all: the presence of Royal Navy and US military in the area, why didn't M call for assistance? There was plenty of British and US military assistance in many previous Bond films, why send just two agents to save the world if the risk was that high?
Third: there are bunker busting bombs in existence. These would have solved the problem of those pesky blast doors and James Bond could have evacuated that island well before they were even dropped. In fact, why the rush in bombing that facility? It wasn't as if there were enemy missiles about to launch. It now feels like the story tellers were rushing to hoodwink the audience that they have a badly researched ending and putting in a sense of panic to cover up the plot holes.
As for the rest of the film, I could go on and on e.g. Lea Seydoux's character - why does she continue living in the same house where her mother was murdered and she almost got killed in (I mean, how healthy is that for one's mental health seeing the spot where your mother was killed every day) knowing that her enemies know where it is? How did she maintain it while living "off the grid" with James Bond for 5 years? Did she rent it out on AirBnB? Why did she think going back to it after being chased and almost killed by Spectre agents would be a safe idea, putting her own daughter in an even more dangerous situation than she was in the film's introduction? How did she stay safe in the same house where previous enemies knew where it was? Her character wasn't safe with James Bond "off the grid" in Italy so she thought it would be safe to go back to her previous well known house in Norway?
As for Safin - how old is he supposed to be? He tries to assasinate Madeleine Swann when she was about what, 10 to 12 years old? Then when Madeleine Swann is in her 30's, Safin hasn't aged a day. Either he is one giant 10 year old himself at the intro sequence or he is supposed to be at least 50 years old when the adult Madeleine Swann character appears.
If James Bond is so good and hand picked by Felix to capture the Russian scientist, how come all his enemies know where he is and end up in the same bar as he is?
Really, with Blofeld and all of Spectre being killed off before James Bond getting offed himself, this whole film was about scrubbing out all possibility of continuity and ultimately not an enjoyable experience for fans who know what to expect from a Bond film and cheating them all out of the experience that they come to expect. Like I said, Bond fans kept coming back for 60 years because they knew what they are going to get and will they come back for another 60 years if they don't get what they expect? It would be utterly arrogant of the film makers if they think fans will want this uncertainty.
What would I have liked to have seen in "No time to die"? More Ana de Armas for a start. I kept waiting for her to reappear later in the film but she didn't. MI6 HQ being infiltrated and attacked by Safin's goons and Naomi Harris' Moneypenny whipping out an MP5 or other compact rifle from under her desk and defending M in an epic gun fight that leaves the entire MI6 HQ in a bullet ridden firey mess and of course Moneypenny saving the day. You want diversity? That is diversity - Moneypenny not just a pretty face, not just a gun totting goon but also a pretty smart lady to handle the bureaucratic side of managing M.
In fact, I would like Ana de Armas's character be brought to MI6 HQ to introduce her for her superb work to M and then the gunfight starts and Ana and Naomi kick serious ass together. What a wasted opportunity, eh?
James Bond having a daughter? Why not have the little girl call him "Daddy" or "Papa" since she speaks French when they first meet? That would have been really emotional and tear jerking and Bond can cry about finally having a child to love him.
For now, that is my two pence on what I would have liked to have seen.
I agree with you on all points.. reboot is a computer term used when you are desperate.
James Bond cannot die, that is what makes the character so endearing.
There was no rush to blow up the base, as there was no means to release that poison. I really dont know why M didn’t order bunker busters, but he was reluctant to do anything to that island because it was in disputed territory.
If this was a stand alone film and not part of a franchise, i could understand the ending but it just reeks of Daniel Craig wanting out, and poor script ideas, and dodgy edits.Which bits did P W Bridge write??
He will return, but they need a serious rethink how they will reintroduce the character. Like Dr Who having a big rest, the same needs to happen for Bond. Oh and please get a better song, this one is awful.
Weren't there boats 20mins out coming to collect the first batch of the reformatted Heracles? This is a rhetorical question.
Hi yes maybe I missed that, but if that’s the case, they could have just blown up the boats.
Thanks for agreeing with me Jonnytunnel and I agree with your points too.
From a distant memory of reading either Empire or the defunct Film Review magazine, once a film has around 4 or 5 screen writers then that is a sign of a film in trouble during production - not a good start I thought when I saw the four screen writer credits in the introduction credit sequence.
I don't really know (or much care) which parts PW Bridge wrote but regardless, there are 4 screen writers credited and in movie terms that is never a good sign for any film.
I also missed out that part of enemy ships coming to collect the first batch of reformatted Heracles and I agree with you - with at least 1 Royal Navy warship in the area, those enemy ships could have been blown up.
Expanding on my own personal re-write, I would suggest that M had a kill switch device for the nanobots to give the reason for an assault on MI6 HQ.
Ralph Fiennes' M was clearly introduced in an earlier film as having served in the Army in Northern Ireland so he could have been armed as well, think older characters in command wielding a rifle like Lance Henricksen in the original "Terminator" or Al Pacino in "Heat" - it works because it shows older characters with experience taking charge or at least helping out in desperate situations.
Talking of "Heat" it would have been utterly brilliant to have a similar "Heat" style realistic shootout with Naomi and Ana as the last line of defence and then turning the tide. I would also add in Q joining with chucking Naomi and Ana experimental weapons or gadgets, yelling over the gunfire that his weapons are experimental and he doesn't know if they will work or even fighting himself with these weapons to help turn the tide of being outnumbered and outgunned by the enemy goons. There should be music to reinforce the desperation up until this point and when the tide is turned, Naomi and Ana could emerge from cover behind e.g. an upturned reinforced desk (previously added by Q in preparation for such an attack perhaps) and cue change to victorious epic music as Naomi and Ana heroically walk forward into the enemy gunfire, taking brief cover along the way, retaking ground inch by inch.
Then with Moneypenny, Paloma, M and Q heroically victorious but injured e.g. realising that M is about to be shot and either Moneypenny or Paloma pivoting in slow motion and running to take a bullet for M but not killed off herself and out of the fight, James Bond arrives after the fight, upset at his friends' injuries and so is given the plot reason to go after Safin by himself and I dare say this would be a better plot reason.
For the final battle, I would have Daniel Craig and Lashana Lynch fighting Safin and Primo, initially with guns and all 4 run out of bullets and they square off, all four somewhat injured to heighten the drama, with hand to hand combat. That is what Craig brought to the franchise so this is how it should end with an epic hand to hand combat fight with Craig and Lynch swapping fighting Safin and Primo with each other. That is what cinema is about - fantastical fighting.
If I had to keep the big explosion ending then fine, have a massive explosion that fills the entire cinema screen but James Bond cannot die so he can base jump off a cliff/tall building like Nicolas Cage in "The Rock" or Matt Damon in the one of Bourne films and plunge into water, float a bit to keep the audience in suspense and then start swimming because........James Bond will return!
Ah a case of too many cooks spoil the Bond.. Love your ideas, defo needed more hand to hand combat near the end, Safin was a poor villain and needed to be meaner, and Craig has built his Bond on his physical toughness, which wasn’t done justice.
Paloma’s character could have been expanded on, perhaps she has encountered Nomi before and they beef or lovers?..
Having M taking up arms would have been great, we know he’s a tough guy too, lets see more of that.
If there was an explosion at the end, it would have been cool to have both 007’s there. One survives, we don’t know who, as the ending is ambiguous, and M refers to the agent as 007, and we are not sure if it is Bond or Nomi who has perished.
If I was part of the production team, I’d look at some of the international writers who have done gritty Scandi or French or even South America thriller series.
I watched a Finnish show called Deadwind this week, I’d take that over NTTD anyday.
For now, that is my two pence on what I would have liked to have seen.
@Scotia_daylight thanks for your thoughts, I enjoyed reading your post immensely because, two weeks on from my first and only viewing of NTTD, some of the structural points you raise have also been knocking on the door of my brain. As a first watch experience, I found NTTD enjoyable. It's a James Bond film, so first-time around that is almost a given. They are presented well and the stories hold my attention. I've never left a movie theatre and thought: "That stank." However, as with all Bond films, there are issues and I get entirely where you are coming from, especially with the inconsistency in Madeleine's choice of home and the peculiar behaviour of her child. I intend to watch the film again fairly soon, but with some trepidation as I fear I will only see plot holes when my initial take on the film was that it passed fairly comprehensively. Looking back on my viewing, and gaining knowledge from other comments, there are clearly problems with the storyline and the behaviour of characters within it. Indeed, I've come to the conclusion that the problem is there are simply too many characters: two OO7s, two major villains, 3 deaths, two wipe outs of villainy, two car chases, two gun battles, two women for Bond to save, two henchmen, two Aston Martins, etc, etc. The movie is bloated and feels it - that's before I even get to the downer ending.
While I don't necessarily concur with your ideas for an alternative, the characters who DID seem to offer more in variety were Paloma, Moneypenny and Q, who all seemed to provide the natural chemistry and spark which Craig needs to deliver a decent performance. The scenes when they are around felt sharper, more sophisticated and went somewhere. The slowness of the intro on Jamaica, the Blofeld confrontation, the trawl to Norway, the repetitiveness of the final gun battles, makes me feel I'm watching more than one film, as I think you pointed out. The excellent PTS beginning is spoilt by Madeleine's return there, which make no sense psychologically or for security. Safin should have been dumped. This is Blofeld's sort of world endangering plot - I mean, what were Eon thinking in killing off Blofeld when possibly Spectre's greatest and deadliest scheme is right around the corner?
The idea of those two gorgeous and fantastically talented actresses Naomi Harris and Ana de Armas kicking some serious ass together does indeed sound wonderfully enticing. I'd certainly pay to watch that above Craig and Lynch doubling up on OO7s with brute face and no joy.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this post, just wanted to say my thanks really.
Thanks again Jonnytunnel.
After having more thoughts on my personal re-write and additional scene, when I wrote about Moneypenny and Paloma being the last line of defence, I really mean this because as we all saw, Moneypenny's desk is right outside M's office which is why I wrote what I wrote originally. Paloma could be inside M's office chatting with M as the assault starts, placing her also on the last line of defence. I imagined this scene because I felt that Moneypenny's character was just wasted sitting behind her desk and Paloma didn't have enough screen time.
During the fight back once the tide is turning, if I was director, I would have filmed Moneypenny and Paloma fighting back with their backs touching each other as they take on the encircling enemy, piroutteing around each other with their rifles pointing outwards. While this has been done before in "Mission Impossible 3" with Tom Cruise and Keri Russell and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie at the end of "Mr and Mrs Smith" amongst other films, nobody does it better than James Bond. This means not only James Bond himself but the whole franchise and the James Bond franchise can set a whole new standard for such a move because for 60 years, other action films followed James Bond and this must continue. Nobody should do it better.
To keep in with the realism of the Craig era but also to keep with Bond girl tradition, during the fightback, I would have a moment where Paloma's rifle jams so in true SAS style (I learned this on TV documentaries on the SAS), Moneypenny would pivot and stand right next to Paloma and give protective covering fire while Paloma lets go of her rifle (slung of course, not chucking it away like a SAS trooper), crouches down and releases her secondary back up pistol which is strapped to her thigh and of course, like she did earlier in the film, flash her perfect legs while doing so. Then resume the fire fight. This is James Bond - the women are stunningly beautiful and stunningly deadly. Anyone objecting to this is watching the wrong movie and should go watch something else.
When I read on the opening credits that Hans Zimmer was doing the music, I was excited because I love his work. I mean, I loved his first two "Pirates of the Caribbean" soundtracks so much that I went out the next day to the record store or for the second film, I downloaded the soundtrack from iTunes as soon as I got home.
This time round, his music was quite anonymous or put another way, I didn't download the soundtrack from anywhere when I got home after watching "No time to die".
I would love to have something along the lines of James Horner's music from the rooftop scene from "The Amazing Spiderman" where Spiderman is hurt but digs deep inside himself to muster up the energy to take a run up off a roof. You can find this on YouTube if you haven't seen this already, search with "The Amazing Spider-Man: The Best Scene HD [Crane]"
The music of that scene made me sit on the edge of my cinema seat and pump my fist in time with the orchestral drums and choir, cheering on silently in a packed cinema for the hero. Something like this would be excellent for Moneypenny and Paloma as they save the day - a true landmark action sequence should have the audience on the edge of their seats, pumping their fists in support of the heroes and maybe even cry a little at the joy of seeing their heroism against overwhelming odds.
What did we get instead? Moneypenny behind a desk and Paloma stuck in Cuba!
I agree with you that there is plenty of talent overseas. I recently watched season one of the Spanish TV series "La casa de papel" or its English title "Money Heist". There were some seriously good gun fights in this season (I haven't watched the other seasons so no spoilers please from anyone!) but this is not just because of the fight choreography but because you cared about the characters and this is why character development is so important.
Thanks Chrisno1. I appreciate your compliments.
Thinking more about Bond's daughter character, I was reminded of the Denzel Washington movie "Man on fire". Denzel plays an ex-counter insurgency soldier who is alcoholic because of his past traumas (ring any bells?). He is hired as the bodyguard of a child aged Dakota Fanning. She melts his heart and for the first time in a long time, he smiles (ring any bells?).
During her kidnapping scene, Denzel puts up a doomed and heroic fight. Dakota's character grimaces and looks utterly heartbroken as she reacts (obviously filmed without her witnessing the shootings) to Denzel's character getting near fatal shots. My heart broke for her character as she does this and as she screams his name. Dakota really showed her acting chops here.
What did we get in "No time to die"? A child that doesn't react to a car chase, kidnapping and multiple shootings!
How much more memorable would it be if Bond actually had a relationship with his daughter and she screams,
"Papa!" as she is taken away and we then get a close up of a pained Bond as a worried father. Then cue epic rescue sequence.....
Scotia_daylights. I can picture Paloma and Moneypenny back to back gun fighting. Moneypenny is a massive waste behind the desk, we know she has form, she can defo fight, shoot and drive.
I know this film will make tons of money, it’s Bond, it’s still better than many films but it isn’t great. By now, the franchise should have reached its pinnacle, no compromise on script, acting,stunts,character plotlines, music, it should be perfect.
You should send a treatment to B Broccoli for the next film, you’d do a better job than they did this time.
I love Bond but I’m in mourning, and feel a bit cheated.
It could be ended like in YOLT novel: fewer gadgets and brutal man-to-man combat. Am I wrong or Craig started in this way? Do you remember the fight on the staircase in Casino Royale? Fleming wrote books not comic book.
@Scotia_daylight It's a holy truth. I had imagined it in pre-production with the change of director and screenwriters. A good script must be shared but there must be few hands to write it otherwise too many different ideas are mixed.
A theory I have about the ending of NTTD is that the film is long enough to make it likely that in the cinema one really feels a need for a toilet break by the time that Safin is muttering his way through his cod nihilism with Bond or when the water is cascading down through the opened silo doors! On my first viewing I held on to check that 'James Bond Will Return'. On my second viewing I was speeding down the aisle in the direction of the Gents as soon as Louis Armstrong broke into song!