I think CR was just so damn good and was of course a Fleming story that they had no idea what to do next so just knocked out stories which had a link to it.
I remember in interviews them saying they threw everything at NTTD… sometimes less is Moore… see what I did there 😉
When Satin meets Madeleine, shortly before they both meet in the treatment room, he takes a hair - supposedly from Madeleine. But Q finds out that it is not Madelaine's hair, but that of another patient. Satin creates the Nano Bots with a "fake" DNA.
In addition, Bond uses his watch during the bombing on the island. Because we didn't learn how strong this watch actually is, because again, Q had still said on the plane, "be careful, we don't know exactly how strong this watch is."
According to this, Bond initially suffers from amnesia and is picked up by a fisherman (YOLT). The (real) whole world believes or thinks it knows that Bond is dead. - Blofeld too.
Because the Blofeld who was in prison is a (classic) double of Blofeld. Or rather, Blofeld's clone. That means in the End of Bond24, on the Lambeth Bridge, that was a clone - a clone ready to die. This clone has received instructions from the real Blofeld via the mechanical eye.
- Blofeld is about to rebuild his organisation (from a snowy place like Piz Gloria) and tries to take over Heracles by capturing Madeleine.
Since the bots are forever attached to Bond, among others. Madeleine (and Bond) can kill Blofeld.
Blofeld knows this and therefore has Madeleine captured and locked away, while of course having his SPECTRE people kill those who have touched Madeleine. In Bond's case, of course, he does not know that he is still alive.
Only M and Q know this at some point. And then they let Bond go to kill Blofeld. There is finally a big showdown between the two cuckoo brothers.
Bond lives in Peace with Madeleine and Mathilde...
Yeah it is the best one I've seen too; the idea that Safin got the wrong hair in the first place is an excellent way out of it!
But I guess the fundamental problem with all of these is that it would undermine everything in the last half of NTTD, and I don't think you can do that. It'd be worse than if DAF had opened with a scene where Tracy sits up in the Aston and rubs the blood off her head, saying "Sorry James, I fell asleep and squirted my jam doughnut all over my face- what were you saying?" 😄
Also it can never solve our problem that Bond is in his mid-50s and happily in a relationship with a daughter. Even if you forced him to survive somehow, he's not James Bond 007 anymore (That's not a complaint about NTTD, I'm just saying it was a proper ending).
Yes, I think the suggestion I've seen. But your comparison to starting DAF with Tracy waking up with jam on her forhead is spot on. You can't "fix" the ending of NTTD in Bond 26 without destroying NTTD.
Yep, we all just have to move on from it and accept NTTD for what it is. There's no way to get out of that mess really. If only they had left it open! (but I'm not going there again..) Hopefully, we can just start afresh. A new Bond (not a reboot as such) just a return to great Bond action adventures, stand alone missions with an ultimate feel good factor. Get all the right ingredients back, and two or three films in with the new actor, the ending of NTTD will be a distant memory.
Diamonds are Forever completely ignores the shock ending of the previous movie, so theres precedent. Bond26 could begin with Bond walking into the office same as every other day, and Q and Moneypenny doing a doubletake, looking at Bond and each other and saying "wait, didnt you just...? oh never mind. M will see you now, 007"
I like the idea of Tracy with a bit of jam on her forehead, would fit the campy tone of Diamonds are Forever, except that I cant imagine ConneryBond shackled to a ball-and-chain for the rest of the movie.
youre right come to think of it, she wouldnt be the conventional type off housewife reminding him to pick up groceries on the way home and stop flirting with those gangster chicks, she'd be taking down Bambi and Thumper singlehanded while Bond sits back and enjoys the show. Now I'm trying to picture Connery and Rigg doing a Nick and Nora Charles act. ConneryBond's not so witty as John Steed (or Nick Charles), itd be a slightly different rapport.
Getting ready to watch NTTD for a second time after watching it once in the theater. Only watching it once in the theater about says it all. At least I was not like the old geezer next to me in the cinema as the film ended (FYI I am a old geezer as well ) " THEY RUINED BOND. I WILL NEVER watch another Bond film again as long as I live @#@# $#%$C #$@#$# "
The lesson from this is you never bring back a lead actor after they have been quoted as saying " I would rather slash my wrists than play Bond again. A great deal has been written about how Craig basically loathed the character of James Bond by the time this film came around and was clearly in the " IT MUST BE THE MONEY ' mode PERIOD , STOP.
The biggest problem I have with NTTD is its BI POLAR tone. If you are going to kill off Bond then give him the type of gritty emotional film he deserves . You dont treat the first half of the film in the campy " Moonraker/ Diamonds are forever" tone only to try and shoehorn a reverse 180 pivot to a " On her Majesty's secret service " tone by the end of the film. The film's tone was just all over the map. The title might as well have been called "Its spring time for Hitler THEN EVERYBODY DIES" Or DO THEY . I could have sworn I saw this little phrase at the end of the movie
" James Bond will Return"
But how can Bond return if just sacrificed himself for his baby girl. Ok I'm confused , it comes with being a old geezer and " I KNOW NOTHING "
At least the Craiger has gone out like a true Bond James Bond in his final out , IE in a truly bloody awful Bond film. Luckily he has history on his side
Connery's final Bond film; " Diamonds are forever "or "Never Say Never." UGH
Moore's final Bond film; "A view to a Kill "Double UGH
The Brozzer's final Bond film " Die another day " Not enough UGHS in the book
and Now the Craiger has "Springtime for Hitler" / "No time to die" firmly sliding into its final UGH UGH UGH pantheon of SHITTY final Bond outings.
I hate to admit it but I spent so much time writing I didn’t watch it yet. I DID watch the first episode of the new Harry Palmer spy series on AMC+ the Icress files though . It is fantastic. Makes me wish the Bond producers would just set the new Bond films in the 60’s again and re use ALL of Fleming’s source material again. After 50 years I think it’s ok to bring Gold finger , Dr No and the rest back for another run.
I don't think feature Bond films set in the sixties will happen, but a high-end period miniseries could work. A period TV series could be live-action or animated.
I'm still amazed that the press and the general public had the disipline to keep the ending secret for so long. Was this your experience too, or was it spoiled for you early on?
I know that he's going to die, Screenrant even spoiled for it for me.
From the time I've seen the quote in the trailer "Thatwillchangeeverything", i know that he's going to die, there's no other way to change everything other than to kill him off.
I think also when it premiered and EON put out all of those 'those who have seen the film, please don't spoil it for others' messages when Bond films don't usually require spoiler warnings did rather give the game away too.
Craig's last film + spoiler warnings... it didn't take a genius to work out where it was going. I don't think I knew it for a fact before I went in, but I wasn't exactly unprepared. I think his having a daughter was more of a surprise (although not a total one).
It surprised me. I'd steered well clear of spoilers and speculation. I was a genuine NTTD virgin. I did watch the midnight show on opening day though, thus ensuring I avoided all rumour. It was an extremely well guarded secret and the majority of critics and viewers were very respectful and restrained, which I guess tells you the esteem EON and OO7 hold among fans and in the industry.
I knew it was possible Bond died in NTTD when I entered the, but I didn't know it. What I read from your posts is that some understood from EON because of trailers and stuff like that, but so far no-one had it spoiled by the press, internet or friends.
When [BBC's Martha] Kearney said that Bond had been killed off, Craig said: “He’s not really dead. I’m gone, but it says right at the end [of “No Time to Die”] that Bond will return, so he must return at some point.”
Asked by Kearney about reinventing the character, Craig said, “I don’t know if it sounds disingenuous, I said to Barbara a long time ago, back in 2006, ‘If I do all of these movies, and we get it right, can we kill him off,’ and she said, ‘Yes, you can.’ And I was thinking about myself, about my postponed career and I was trying to think of how that would work and but I was also thinking what they did with ‘Casino Royale’ – they had the chance to reset with that because they went back to the beginning. I thought you’ll have a chance to reset again. That kind seems to be like a good move.”
About the death of Bond, who appears to be blown up on an island at the end of “No Time to Die,” Craig told U.K. publication “The Times”: “Real tragedy is when you have absolutely no choice. We had to find a way to make his death no choice. It was the happiest Bond had ever been because he’d found exactly what he was looking for. Like everyone on Earth, he was just looking for love.”
It seems to reaffirm what we already knew, that Craig's Bond exists in his own timeline, separate from both what came before and what will come after. But also should put an end to speculation the next Bond will somehow be CriagBond with a different face, miraculously survived. Craig's Bond will not be cloned, or float away on a previously unseen weather balloon. Rather the next Bond will be a different character with the same name just as Craig's Bond was an allnew character with a familiar name.
Note the last paragraph: he wanted Bond to be left in a situation where he would have no choice, and says Bond died happier than he had ever been because he had found love. Did viewers get that from that final scene? (I can never tell when CraigBond is happy, so I didn't get that). We have previously argued the multiple causes of death was overkill (bullets, virus, missile), but that can be explained by the need to leave Bond with "no choice": a superman who has escaped death a thousand times before is finally boxed in.
"The lesson from this is you never bring back a lead actor after they have been quoted as saying " I would rather slash my wrists than play Bond again."
Well...
"The problem in interviews of this sort is to get across the fact, without breaking your arse, that one is not Bond, that one was functioning reasonably well before Bond, and that one is going to function reasonably well after Bond. There are a lot of things I did before Bond ... like playing the classics on stage ... that don't seem to get publicized. So you see, this Bond image is a problem in a way and a bit of a bore, but one has just got to live with it." - Sean Connery, 1965
"A great deal has been written about how Craig basically loathed the character of James Bond by the time this film came around and was clearly in the " IT MUST BE THE MONEY ' mode PERIOD , STOP."
Well...
"I want all I can get. I think I'm entitled to it. I have no false modesty about it. I don't believe in this stuff about starving in a garret or being satisfied with artistic appreciation alone. But that doesn't mean that I will do anything just for money. I gave up a part in El Cid to act for 25 pounds a week and no living expenses in a Pirandello play at Oxford. But as far as this series is concerned, after the next two, the only condition for making any more would be one million dollars plus a percentage of the gross." - Sean Connery, 1965
Connery outright quit playing Bond THREE times, by my count, yet doesn't seem to catch the flack Craig did for being candid one time about being exhausted in 2015.
I just saw this thread now, after seeing No Time to Die on UK TV this evening for the first time. I stopped paying to see Bond films in the cinema after Golden Eye.
I agree with everything you say, but Kirk did kiss Uhura:
Like others here, I suspect a clean reboot will happen.
From what I recall of Bond's death, the camera cut away before the blast got to him. So there is slight wiggle room for him to be rationalised as having survived by clever screenwriters.
Overall, I thought the film was mediocre. The pre-credits sequence was too long, and when we finally got to the action part (what we were all really waiting for) it failed to excite me. Just a gunfight on wheels. The best pre-credit sequence in a Craig Bond film was Spectre's... I wish I had seen that on the big screen.
It was good that the music score introduced elements of OHMSS's score, but the score went downhill after that. It made the Thomas Newman score sound good in comparison. Bring back David Arnold, that's what I say.
Again, like in most Craig Bond films, it had supporting characters helping him out, either in person or via radio communications back at HQ. This is not very Bond to me. Bond used to always do everything by himself. He was alone in hostile territory, not linked via satellite to HQ.
As others have said, a clean reboot is necessary. The Craig era was a curious experiment, but it sacrificed too much.
Asp9mmOver the Hills and Far Away.Posts: 7,541MI6 Agent
Comments
I think CR was just so damn good and was of course a Fleming story that they had no idea what to do next so just knocked out stories which had a link to it.
I remember in interviews them saying they threw everything at NTTD… sometimes less is Moore… see what I did there 😉
my theory is this for the ending and next Bond26:
When Satin meets Madeleine, shortly before they both meet in the treatment room, he takes a hair - supposedly from Madeleine. But Q finds out that it is not Madelaine's hair, but that of another patient. Satin creates the Nano Bots with a "fake" DNA.
In addition, Bond uses his watch during the bombing on the island. Because we didn't learn how strong this watch actually is, because again, Q had still said on the plane, "be careful, we don't know exactly how strong this watch is."
According to this, Bond initially suffers from amnesia and is picked up by a fisherman (YOLT). The (real) whole world believes or thinks it knows that Bond is dead. - Blofeld too.
Because the Blofeld who was in prison is a (classic) double of Blofeld. Or rather, Blofeld's clone. That means in the End of Bond24, on the Lambeth Bridge, that was a clone - a clone ready to die. This clone has received instructions from the real Blofeld via the mechanical eye.
- Blofeld is about to rebuild his organisation (from a snowy place like Piz Gloria) and tries to take over Heracles by capturing Madeleine.
Since the bots are forever attached to Bond, among others. Madeleine (and Bond) can kill Blofeld.
Blofeld knows this and therefore has Madeleine captured and locked away, while of course having his SPECTRE people kill those who have touched Madeleine. In Bond's case, of course, he does not know that he is still alive.
Only M and Q know this at some point. And then they let Bond go to kill Blofeld. There is finally a big showdown between the two cuckoo brothers.
Bond lives in Peace with Madeleine and Mathilde...
-JAMES BOND WILL RETURN-
Nah they're Bond films: they've never been about 'less is more'- more is more! 😁
I'd watch that. It sounds no worse than other plots we've been asked to believe.
The NTTD ending was made that way to avoid any doubts whatsover that Bond really gets killed, and still we get theories likes this. 😂
These theories are perfectly understandable and ultimately inevitable, and Fulchi2020 theory is quite well done and one of the best I've seen.
Yeah it is the best one I've seen too; the idea that Safin got the wrong hair in the first place is an excellent way out of it!
But I guess the fundamental problem with all of these is that it would undermine everything in the last half of NTTD, and I don't think you can do that. It'd be worse than if DAF had opened with a scene where Tracy sits up in the Aston and rubs the blood off her head, saying "Sorry James, I fell asleep and squirted my jam doughnut all over my face- what were you saying?" 😄
Also it can never solve our problem that Bond is in his mid-50s and happily in a relationship with a daughter. Even if you forced him to survive somehow, he's not James Bond 007 anymore (That's not a complaint about NTTD, I'm just saying it was a proper ending).
Yes, I think the suggestion I've seen. But your comparison to starting DAF with Tracy waking up with jam on her forhead is spot on. You can't "fix" the ending of NTTD in Bond 26 without destroying NTTD.
Yep, we all just have to move on from it and accept NTTD for what it is. There's no way to get out of that mess really. If only they had left it open! (but I'm not going there again..) Hopefully, we can just start afresh. A new Bond (not a reboot as such) just a return to great Bond action adventures, stand alone missions with an ultimate feel good factor. Get all the right ingredients back, and two or three films in with the new actor, the ending of NTTD will be a distant memory.
Destroying NTTD?
Diamonds are Forever completely ignores the shock ending of the previous movie, so theres precedent. Bond26 could begin with Bond walking into the office same as every other day, and Q and Moneypenny doing a doubletake, looking at Bond and each other and saying "wait, didnt you just...? oh never mind. M will see you now, 007"
I like the idea of Tracy with a bit of jam on her forehead, would fit the campy tone of Diamonds are Forever, except that I cant imagine ConneryBond shackled to a ball-and-chain for the rest of the movie.
😆😂😆
I refer you to Imaginary Conversations post 1708, which I'd be happy to expand on with you. 🙂
It might not be Bond, but the idea of Connery and Rigg as a duo fighting diabolical masterminds is a very appealing one! 😊
youre right come to think of it, she wouldnt be the conventional type off housewife reminding him to pick up groceries on the way home and stop flirting with those gangster chicks, she'd be taking down Bambi and Thumper singlehanded while Bond sits back and enjoys the show. Now I'm trying to picture Connery and Rigg doing a Nick and Nora Charles act. ConneryBond's not so witty as John Steed (or Nick Charles), itd be a slightly different rapport.
Getting ready to watch NTTD for a second time after watching it once in the theater. Only watching it once in the theater about says it all. At least I was not like the old geezer next to me in the cinema as the film ended (FYI I am a old geezer as well ) " THEY RUINED BOND. I WILL NEVER watch another Bond film again as long as I live @#@# $#%$C #$@#$# "
The lesson from this is you never bring back a lead actor after they have been quoted as saying " I would rather slash my wrists than play Bond again. A great deal has been written about how Craig basically loathed the character of James Bond by the time this film came around and was clearly in the " IT MUST BE THE MONEY ' mode PERIOD , STOP.
The biggest problem I have with NTTD is its BI POLAR tone. If you are going to kill off Bond then give him the type of gritty emotional film he deserves . You dont treat the first half of the film in the campy " Moonraker/ Diamonds are forever" tone only to try and shoehorn a reverse 180 pivot to a " On her Majesty's secret service " tone by the end of the film. The film's tone was just all over the map. The title might as well have been called "Its spring time for Hitler THEN EVERYBODY DIES" Or DO THEY . I could have sworn I saw this little phrase at the end of the movie
" James Bond will Return"
But how can Bond return if just sacrificed himself for his baby girl. Ok I'm confused , it comes with being a old geezer and " I KNOW NOTHING "
At least the Craiger has gone out like a true Bond James Bond in his final out , IE in a truly bloody awful Bond film. Luckily he has history on his side
Connery's final Bond film; " Diamonds are forever "or "Never Say Never." UGH
Moore's final Bond film; "A view to a Kill "Double UGH
The Brozzer's final Bond film " Die another day " Not enough UGHS in the book
and Now the Craiger has "Springtime for Hitler" / "No time to die" firmly sliding into its final UGH UGH UGH pantheon of SHITTY final Bond outings.
@GaddGeneGadd did you like it more or less this time? I liked it less.
I hate to admit it but I spent so much time writing I didn’t watch it yet. I DID watch the first episode of the new Harry Palmer spy series on AMC+ the Icress files though . It is fantastic. Makes me wish the Bond producers would just set the new Bond films in the 60’s again and re use ALL of Fleming’s source material again. After 50 years I think it’s ok to bring Gold finger , Dr No and the rest back for another run.
Yes, I watched and enjoyed "Ipcress" too. Have a look at this thread where it's discussed-
https://www.ajb007.co.uk/discussion/46150/the-60s-bond-rivals-2-harry-palmer
I don't think feature Bond films set in the sixties will happen, but a high-end period miniseries could work. A period TV series could be live-action or animated.
I posted this elsewhere but it is relevant here too. Charlie Higson does to approve.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10953127/Young-Bond-author-calls-007-boring-family-man-latest-film-No-Time-Die.html
I'm still amazed that the press and the general public had the disipline to keep the ending secret for so long. Was this your experience too, or was it spoiled for you early on?
I know that he's going to die, Screenrant even spoiled for it for me.
From the time I've seen the quote in the trailer "That will change everything", i know that he's going to die, there's no other way to change everything other than to kill him off.
So, it's spoiled for me early on.
I think also when it premiered and EON put out all of those 'those who have seen the film, please don't spoil it for others' messages when Bond films don't usually require spoiler warnings did rather give the game away too.
Craig's last film + spoiler warnings... it didn't take a genius to work out where it was going. I don't think I knew it for a fact before I went in, but I wasn't exactly unprepared. I think his having a daughter was more of a surprise (although not a total one).
It surprised me. I'd steered well clear of spoilers and speculation. I was a genuine NTTD virgin. I did watch the midnight show on opening day though, thus ensuring I avoided all rumour. It was an extremely well guarded secret and the majority of critics and viewers were very respectful and restrained, which I guess tells you the esteem EON and OO7 hold among fans and in the industry.
I knew it was possible Bond died in NTTD when I entered the, but I didn't know it. What I read from your posts is that some understood from EON because of trailers and stuff like that, but so far no-one had it spoiled by the press, internet or friends.
Craig says Bond is "Not Really Dead" in Variety article
(which itself is quoting a BBC interview)
When [BBC's Martha] Kearney said that Bond had been killed off, Craig said: “He’s not really dead. I’m gone, but it says right at the end [of “No Time to Die”] that Bond will return, so he must return at some point.”
Asked by Kearney about reinventing the character, Craig said, “I don’t know if it sounds disingenuous, I said to Barbara a long time ago, back in 2006, ‘If I do all of these movies, and we get it right, can we kill him off,’ and she said, ‘Yes, you can.’ And I was thinking about myself, about my postponed career and I was trying to think of how that would work and but I was also thinking what they did with ‘Casino Royale’ – they had the chance to reset with that because they went back to the beginning. I thought you’ll have a chance to reset again. That kind seems to be like a good move.”
About the death of Bond, who appears to be blown up on an island at the end of “No Time to Die,” Craig told U.K. publication “The Times”: “Real tragedy is when you have absolutely no choice. We had to find a way to make his death no choice. It was the happiest Bond had ever been because he’d found exactly what he was looking for. Like everyone on Earth, he was just looking for love.”
It seems to reaffirm what we already knew, that Craig's Bond exists in his own timeline, separate from both what came before and what will come after. But also should put an end to speculation the next Bond will somehow be CriagBond with a different face, miraculously survived. Craig's Bond will not be cloned, or float away on a previously unseen weather balloon. Rather the next Bond will be a different character with the same name just as Craig's Bond was an allnew character with a familiar name.
Note the last paragraph: he wanted Bond to be left in a situation where he would have no choice, and says Bond died happier than he had ever been because he had found love. Did viewers get that from that final scene? (I can never tell when CraigBond is happy, so I didn't get that). We have previously argued the multiple causes of death was overkill (bullets, virus, missile), but that can be explained by the need to leave Bond with "no choice": a superman who has escaped death a thousand times before is finally boxed in.
"The lesson from this is you never bring back a lead actor after they have been quoted as saying " I would rather slash my wrists than play Bond again."
Well...
"The problem in interviews of this sort is to get across the fact, without breaking your arse, that one is not Bond, that one was functioning reasonably well before Bond, and that one is going to function reasonably well after Bond. There are a lot of things I did before Bond ... like playing the classics on stage ... that don't seem to get publicized. So you see, this Bond image is a problem in a way and a bit of a bore, but one has just got to live with it." - Sean Connery, 1965
"A great deal has been written about how Craig basically loathed the character of James Bond by the time this film came around and was clearly in the " IT MUST BE THE MONEY ' mode PERIOD , STOP."
Well...
"I want all I can get. I think I'm entitled to it. I have no false modesty about it. I don't believe in this stuff about starving in a garret or being satisfied with artistic appreciation alone. But that doesn't mean that I will do anything just for money. I gave up a part in El Cid to act for 25 pounds a week and no living expenses in a Pirandello play at Oxford. But as far as this series is concerned, after the next two, the only condition for making any more would be one million dollars plus a percentage of the gross." - Sean Connery, 1965
Connery outright quit playing Bond THREE times, by my count, yet doesn't seem to catch the flack Craig did for being candid one time about being exhausted in 2015.
I just saw this thread now, after seeing No Time to Die on UK TV this evening for the first time. I stopped paying to see Bond films in the cinema after Golden Eye.
I agree with everything you say, but Kirk did kiss Uhura:
Watch the video till the end.
Like others here, I suspect a clean reboot will happen.
From what I recall of Bond's death, the camera cut away before the blast got to him. So there is slight wiggle room for him to be rationalised as having survived by clever screenwriters.
Overall, I thought the film was mediocre. The pre-credits sequence was too long, and when we finally got to the action part (what we were all really waiting for) it failed to excite me. Just a gunfight on wheels. The best pre-credit sequence in a Craig Bond film was Spectre's... I wish I had seen that on the big screen.
It was good that the music score introduced elements of OHMSS's score, but the score went downhill after that. It made the Thomas Newman score sound good in comparison. Bring back David Arnold, that's what I say.
Again, like in most Craig Bond films, it had supporting characters helping him out, either in person or via radio communications back at HQ. This is not very Bond to me. Bond used to always do everything by himself. He was alone in hostile territory, not linked via satellite to HQ.
As others have said, a clean reboot is necessary. The Craig era was a curious experiment, but it sacrificed too much.
Nope! You see the blast hit him right in front, on top and then behind. Very clearly
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/213/009/f52.gif