No Time to Die (2020)

Walecs wrote:

True, I've been complaining about them a lot, but it seems like they're the only ones at EON who actually know their source material. I also seem to understand that changing Blofeld's real name (Stockmann) to Oberhauser was their idea, since Mendes and Logan really wanted to go with the "brother angle" and they at least tried to give it a sense (as little as they could with such hideous an idea) by tying it to Fleming.

SP is where my opinion on them turned, as well. Those Sony leak emails showed the shambles things were in when P&W came back to do what they could within the constraints imposed, of sets already designed, etc. And from what we know it seems like their work made the film in finished product superior. I think it was also around that same time that we started to get more insight into the production of DAD, then their chief demerit, which made it more clear that what many had been blaming them for was in fact more Tamahori's meddling and rewriting large chunks.

Those aside, you have: TWINE - which I like more and more over time. To me its shortcomings are more in execution than in script, and in fact I think it's the Eon original idea that most mimics a Fleming novel. CR - everyone who adores the film is quick to credit Haggis but P&W's original script sounds better to me, not having the Venice finale and not pulling its punches with the triumphant ending we got in favor of having Vesper kill herself as in the book and end the film on a gut punch. QOS - which seems to have shimmered into existence via Craig and Forster reconstituting some crap from Haggis. And SF - where again Logan takes much credit but if these other instances are anything to go by I suspect P&W had some sort of guiding influence.

Surely stuff to complain about but they seem to have more a clue than anyone else currently.

Quote :

but I guess he's gotta do what he's gotta do for a paycheque

Every transaction has at least one sucker. With NTTD we'll find out who. Hoping Fukunaga but let's be honest it's probably both sides.

Quote :

Spot on, Somerset. Alas, entire oceans have gone under the bridge since 1965. In those days the Western world was still overwhelmingly rational and normal. Nowadays, irrationality and transgression are the rule.

One problem is I think there are a number of people who feel this way but write the feeling off - this general sense of the past being somehow better - write the feeling off as some age-old fallacy that humans have fallen into from time immemorial, and so really feel like nothing is to be done about it because the feeling is their mistake. I think this is particularly true in younger folks, who even in their shorter time here have noticed something change. It's obviously partly true (our minds do frequently weed out bad memories in favor of good, the "golden age" trope dates to ancient times, etc.) these are quite distinct concepts in and of themselves and can't even begin to empirically satisfy as an explanation for what's happened in culture and society in a relatively fast amount of time. In the end it's just another bogus sales pitch, regurgitated by pitchmen who crawl out of the woodwork and "correct" anyone who dares discuss how this or that part of the past was better (seriously, do a search for "the past was better" and look at all the nudging). Status quo must proceed unopposed.

Well said.

Most people look back on their youth with rose-coloured glasses, but it's not always fallacious. Some things were objectively better in the past and not all change is change for the better.

Luckily the neo-Khmer Rouge types who get to dictate what the Normals are and aren't allowed to think or watch are more than happy to erase those elements of the past that are inconvenient.

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Most people look back on their youth with rose-coloured glasses, but it's not always fallacious. Some things were objectively better in the past and not all change is change for the better.

Agree. And that's not to imply certain change hasn't been better. Only that the wokey stuff relies on the idea of human progress being some linear process from the Enlightenment toward Utopia when "progress" really just ebbs and flows on different scales. Right now it appears we're in a macro sized dip across multiple domains.

Quote :

Luckily the neo-Khmer Rouge types who get to dictate what the Normals are and aren't allowed to think or watch are more than happy to erase those elements of the past that are inconvenient.

True, I didn't even think about the Year Zero component. Worse than banning such-and-such and cancelling so-and-so are the subtle, slow disappearing acts: the streaming services catalogs shrink and start showing all the same films, cable tv channels go out of business and consolidate and all show the same movies all the time (anyone in the U.S. who tunes into the sci-fi channel is greeted every single day by an endless marathon of the Harry Potter movies), Disney buys all the studios up and starts putting their back catalogs in its "vault," etc.

When I think of the variety of films I could get at my local rental store back in the day on VHS or DVD, or even Netflix when it was strictly a mailing service...when it was easier to "own" the stuff you liked. I would laugh if my heart were not so heavy.

To bring it around to Bond again, I wonder what the recent acquisition by MGM will mean for home media releases going forward? If we will ever get that 4K set, etc.

Somerset wrote:

Agree. And that's not to imply certain change hasn't been better. Only that the wokey stuff relies on the idea of human progress being some linear process from the Enlightenment toward Utopia when "progress" really just ebbs and flows on different scales. Right now it appears we're in a macro sized dip across multiple domains.

Indeed. In our absolutist liberal society, the constant refrain of "It's <Current Year>" as some sort of rationale for whatever new subversion has crept out of academia into the mainstream media and corporate world aims to convince the Normals that everything they know to be true counts for nothing because the pages of the calendar keep on flipping and that's that.

Somerset wrote:

True, I didn't even think about the Year Zero component. Worse than banning such-and-such and cancelling so-and-so are the subtle, slow disappearing acts: the streaming services catalogs shrink and start showing all the same films, cable tv channels go out of business and consolidate and all show the same movies all the time (anyone in the U.S. who tunes into the sci-fi channel is greeted every single day by an endless marathon of the Harry Potter movies), Disney buys all the studios up and starts putting their back catalogs in its "vault," etc.

Best to get the classics on hard copy before they're chopped up or erased altogether.

As for Harry Potter, I'm sure that will be made verboten soon enough based on Rowling's views on biology being incompatible with <Current Year> orthodoxy.

Somerset wrote:

Walecs wrote:

True, I've been complaining about them a lot, but it seems like they're the only ones at EON who actually know their source material. I also seem to understand that changing Blofeld's real name (Stockmann) to Oberhauser was their idea, since Mendes and Logan really wanted to go with the "brother angle" and they at least tried to give it a sense (as little as they could with such hideous an idea) by tying it to Fleming.

SP is where my opinion on them turned, as well. Those Sony leak emails showed the shambles things were in when P&W came back to do what they could within the constraints imposed, of sets already designed, etc. And from what we know it seems like their work made the film in finished product superior. I think it was also around that same time that we started to get more insight into the production of DAD, then their chief demerit, which made it more clear that what many had been blaming them for was in fact more Tamahori's meddling and rewriting large chunks.

Those aside, you have: TWINE - which I like more and more over time. To me its shortcomings are more in execution than in script, and in fact I think it's the Eon original idea that most mimics a Fleming novel. CR - everyone who adores the film is quick to credit Haggis but P&W's original script sounds better to me, not having the Venice finale and not pulling its punches with the triumphant ending we got in favor of having Vesper kill herself as in the book and end the film on a gut punch. QOS - which seems to have shimmered into existence via Craig and Forster reconstituting some crap from Haggis. And SF - where again Logan takes much credit but if these other instances are anything to go by I suspect P&W had some sort of guiding influence.

Surely stuff to complain about but they seem to have more a clue than anyone else currently.

Quote :

but I guess he's gotta do what he's gotta do for a paycheque

Every transaction has at least one sucker. With NTTD we'll find out who. Hoping Fukunaga but let's be honest it's probably both sides.

Quote :

Spot on, Somerset. Alas, entire oceans have gone under the bridge since 1965. In those days the Western world was still overwhelmingly rational and normal. Nowadays, irrationality and transgression are the rule.

One problem is I think there are a number of people who feel this way but write the feeling off - this general sense of the past being somehow better - write the feeling off as some age-old fallacy that humans have fallen into from time immemorial, and so really feel like nothing is to be done about it because the feeling is their mistake. I think this is particularly true in younger folks, who even in their shorter time here have noticed something change. It's obviously partly true (our minds do frequently weed out bad memories in favor of good, the "golden age" trope dates to ancient times, etc.) these are quite distinct concepts in and of themselves and can't even begin to empirically satisfy as an explanation for what's happened in culture and society in a relatively fast amount of time. In the end it's just another bogus sales pitch, regurgitated by pitchmen who crawl out of the woodwork and "correct" anyone who dares discuss how this or that part of the past was better (seriously, do a search for "the past was better" and look at all the nudging). Status quo must proceed unopposed.

Saul Bellow once said that all change is change for the worse. I think that was partly tongue-in-cheek, but not entirely. Personally, I'm deeply skeptical of the notion of general progress, and I used to be a positivist. Now obviously, there is progress in certain areas--medicine and technology are the most obvious. But progress in these fora generate whole new categories of problems. Overpopulation is one, psychological dysfunction stemming from overuse of social media is another, and then there's the evil uses to which the Power Structure and malign individuals put digital technology. You can add up all the plusses and minuses from "progress" beginning at the dawn of history up to the present and it's all more or less a wash. Counterintuitive though it undoubtedly is, I doubt people in general are any happier now than they were 5,500 years ago. As far as the Bond series goes, can anybody honestly say it's in a better place now than it was in 1965?

Somerset wrote:

Quote :

Most people look back on their youth with rose-coloured glasses, but it's not always fallacious. Some things were objectively better in the past and not all change is change for the better.

Agree. And that's not to imply certain change hasn't been better. Only that the wokey stuff relies on the idea of human progress being some linear process from the Enlightenment toward Utopia when "progress" really just ebbs and flows on different scales. Right now it appears we're in a macro sized dip across multiple domains.

Quote :

Luckily the neo-Khmer Rouge types who get to dictate what the Normals are and aren't allowed to think or watch are more than happy to erase those elements of the past that are inconvenient.

True, I didn't even think about the Year Zero component. Worse than banning such-and-such and cancelling so-and-so are the subtle, slow disappearing acts: the streaming services catalogs shrink and start showing all the same films, cable tv channels go out of business and consolidate and all show the same movies all the time (anyone in the U.S. who tunes into the sci-fi channel is greeted every single day by an endless marathon of the Harry Potter movies), Disney buys all the studios up and starts putting their back catalogs in its "vault," etc.

When I think of the variety of films I could get at my local rental store back in the day on VHS or DVD, or even Netflix when it was strictly a mailing service...when it was easier to "own" the stuff you liked. I would laugh if my heart were not so heavy.

To bring it around to Bond again, I wonder what the recent acquisition by MGM will mean for home media releases going forward? If we will ever get that 4K set, etc.

Diversity means we all look differently but think exactly alike. And the monomaniacal drive to ensure that all culture appeals to the diverse, panders to the diverse, resolutely avoids offending the diverse, and models diversity, means that the scope of culture has narrowed intolerably. One of my occupations is as a sportswriter covering college football and basketball. At these events you hear nothing but rap. The "music" is dreadful enough to drive one mad, but what the choice of rap says about society is even more disconcerting.

Bond films, I fear, will eventually be memory-holed. I've got them all on DVD, and I suggest all Bond fans do so, as well. It's your only insurance policy against the waffen cultural cleansers.

CJB wrote:

Somerset wrote:

Agree. And that's not to imply certain change hasn't been better. Only that the wokey stuff relies on the idea of human progress being some linear process from the Enlightenment toward Utopia when "progress" really just ebbs and flows on different scales. Right now it appears we're in a macro sized dip across multiple domains.

Indeed. In our absolutist liberal society, the constant refrain of "It's " as some sort of rationale for whatever new subversion has crept out of academia into the mainstream media and corporate world aims to convince the Normals that everything they know to be true counts for nothing because the pages of the calendar keep on flipping and that's that.

Somerset wrote:

True, I didn't even think about the Year Zero component. Worse than banning such-and-such and cancelling so-and-so are the subtle, slow disappearing acts: the streaming services catalogs shrink and start showing all the same films, cable tv channels go out of business and consolidate and all show the same movies all the time (anyone in the U.S. who tunes into the sci-fi channel is greeted every single day by an endless marathon of the Harry Potter movies), Disney buys all the studios up and starts putting their back catalogs in its "vault," etc.

Best to get the classics on hard copy before they're chopped up or erased altogether.

As for Harry Potter, I'm sure that will be made verboten soon enough based on Rowling's views on biology being incompatible with orthodoxy.

The position of the Left is that their views trump the entire corpus of what the best and brightest have said and thought over the course of approximately 5,000 years. They are at war with the whole of Western history, which is why they are doing everything in their considerable power to expunge this history. All that flies in the face of current orthodoxy--and that means practically the whole of Western history--must be eliminated. Now Ian Fleming and James Bond films aren't quite as important as Plato and Aristotle, but like those towering geniuses, they too will have to go.

Somerst wrote:

Really whetting the appetite for NTTD there. Glad to see they've gotten another Artist involved who is in no way a fan of the films or the literary material they're sourced from. At this point I shudder to think what the last two decades would be like if Purvis and Wade weren't around.

Such a great point. I'm probably what one would consider a Purvis and Wade apologist but I've long maintained their understanding and appreciation of the source material is what Eon trust and why they've been around for so long, even with sometimes less-than-favourable results. I blame Tamahori for DAD's crass dialogue and Haggis for CR06, only the Tosca sequence survived from the treatment Purvis and Wade turned in for QOS and they came in only to make SP feel more Bondian, which I'd say they did rather successfully. So it leaves only TWINE and SF to be the two main examples of their grasp of the Bond mythos and in my book, they're the two strongest films in the series since 1999.

Somerset wrote:

Sexual maturity in wider culture has regressed massively since the time of TB. No one with a working brain actually thinks they've witnessed non-consensual sex in a Bond pic

Problem is there's never someone with a working brain when you want one.

Somerset wrote:

Cary's phone bill might make for interesting reading being he's under the impression sex is a verbal adventure instead of 99% nonverbal.

Correct. In all forms of human interaction, 80% of communication is body language. 5% is what we actually say. The other 15% is tone. So much emphasis is on 'verbal consent' which makes up for 5% of the seduction process.

Walecs wrote:

True, I've been complaining about them a lot, but it seems like they're the only ones at EON who actually know their source material. I also seem to understand that changing Blofeld's real name (Stockmann) to Oberhauser was their idea, since Mendes and Logan really wanted to go with the "brother angle" and they at least tried to give it a sense (as little as they could with such hideous an idea) by tying it to Fleming.

Mendes was indeed intent on the 'cuckoo' dynamic. It's a real shame the Oberhauser name gets dragged in the mud to satisfy that misguided creative choice. They had the perfect opportunity to tie in Quantum/Spectre's South American ventures with Fleming's backstory for Blofeld but Mendes opted for the most melodramatic option instead.

CJB wrote:

Disappointing that Fuk' has thrown vegan imitation-meat to the braying mobs, but I guess he's gotta do what he's gotta do for a paycheque.

PK wrote:

Bond will also bend the knee to the madness, if he hasn't already in NTtD.

The one that works.

Lots to digest there, Perilagu Khan. By way of a quick reply, this...

Quote :

Personally, I'm deeply skeptical of the notion of general progress, and I used to be a positivist. Now obviously, there is progress in certain areas--medicine and technology are the most obvious. But progress in these fora generate whole new categories of problems. Overpopulation is one, psychological dysfunction stemming from overuse of social media is another, and then there's the evil uses to which the Power Structure and malign individuals put digital technology. You can add up all the plusses and minuses from "progress" beginning at the dawn of history up to the present and it's all more or less a wash. Counterintuitive though it undoubtedly is, I doubt people in general are any happier now than they were 5,500 years ago. As far as the Bond series goes, can anybody honestly say it's in a better place now than it was in 1965?

...reminds me a lot of John Gray (specifically Straw Dogs). One of the clearest thinking people left.

Quote :

...only the Tosca sequence survived from the treatment Purvis and Wade turned in for QOS...

Had no idea this was the case. Always thought that entire section was the best idea in the movie.

Initial reviews rather positive. Current Rotten Tomatoes score is 89%.

That doesn't inspire confidence when the reviews suggest the film features what we've come to expect from the Craig era.

And if that's not enough, remember: the early reviews of Spectre were positive.

Somerset wrote:

Lots to digest there, Perilagu Khan. By way of a quick reply, this...

Quote :

Personally, I'm deeply skeptical of the notion of general progress, and I used to be a positivist. Now obviously, there is progress in certain areas--medicine and technology are the most obvious. But progress in these fora generate whole new categories of problems. Overpopulation is one, psychological dysfunction stemming from overuse of social media is another, and then there's the evil uses to which the Power Structure and malign individuals put digital technology. You can add up all the plusses and minuses from "progress" beginning at the dawn of history up to the present and it's all more or less a wash. Counterintuitive though it undoubtedly is, I doubt people in general are any happier now than they were 5,500 years ago. As far as the Bond series goes, can anybody honestly say it's in a better place now than it was in 1965?

...reminds me a lot of John Gray (specifically Straw Dogs). One of the clearest thinking people left.

Quote :

...only the Tosca sequence survived from the treatment Purvis and Wade turned in for QOS...

Had no idea this was the case. Always thought that entire section was the best idea in the movie.

I too loved Tosca. Really one of the better sequences in all of Bond.

It's great! It's the most coherent sequence in the film, demonstrating why we shouldn't take their contributions for granted.

And for it to end in a SWLM nod, of all things.

Heard a NTTD promo radio interview with Craig where the interviewer showed him the 'non-sweeping sweeper' from QOS. He was tickled, and said that it looked like it was a cameo by an MGM 'suit'.

Lotta talk that there's more humour in this one.

Hopefully cleverly-written quips and not the sort of dumb gags reminiscent of those Marvel "movies."

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/keir-starmer-bond-good-morning-britain-daniel-craig-london-b958103.htmlhttps://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/keir-starmer-bond-good-morning-britain-daniel-craig-london-b958103.html

Quote :

Asked on ITV’s Good Morning Britain who was his favourite Bond actor, Sir Keir said: “I don’t have a favourite Bond but I do think it is time for a female Bond.”

Fuck me, what a wet sop. That should be the end of his prime ministerial ambitions.

At least the last guy - that bearded commie - would've taken an honest "Don't care about Bond as he's a tool of the decadent capitalists" position, instead of this tiresome, bourgeouise-liberal gender-bending pandering that appeals to nobody.

CJB wrote:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/keir-starmer-bond-good-morning-britain-daniel-craig-london-b958103.htmlhttps://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/keir-starmer-bond-good-morning-britain-daniel-craig-london-b958103.html

Quote :

Asked on ITV’s Good Morning Britain who was his favourite Bond actor, Sir Keir said: “I don’t have a favourite Bond but I do think it is time for a female Bond.”

Fuck me, what a wet sop. That should be the end of his prime ministerial ambitions.

At least the last guy - that bearded commie - would've taken an honest "Don't care about Bond as he's a tool of the decadent capitalists" position, instead of this tiresome, bourgeouise-liberal gender-bending pandering that appeals to nobody.

Didn't say "black female Bond"? He's gonna burn for that little bit o' raycissm and whi priblidge...

Sir Keir is the last person to express this crap. He's barely in control of his own party (ie Rayner). Starmer's the kind of man who ducks under a desk as Bond shoots a fire extinguisher to cover their escape.

As I've said innumerable times it was a major blow when Maibaum was gone. Since then I'd argue they only once had a writer who gave real and proper structure to a script-and that's the reason why the film still holds up. He had to fight for it, got thrown off eventually and was succeeded by two more writers who could only add to the script and enhance elements desired by the director, MGM and EON.
That would be Jeffrey Caine on GE. There's an outstanding interview I just stumbled across on the spyhards podcast:
https://www.spyhards.com/e/spymaster-interview-9-jeffrey-caine/

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Didn't say "black female Bond"? He's gonna burn for that little bit o' raycissm and whi priblidge...

He might have to 'take the knee' a few more times.

Hilly wrote:

Sir Keir

Based on some of his recent gender-related opinions, surely that should be Sir Vix...

hegottheboot wrote:

As I've said innumerable times it was a major blow when Maibaum was gone. Since then I'd argue they only once had a writer who gave real and proper structure to a script-and that's the reason why the film still holds up. He had to fight for it, got thrown off eventually and was succeeded by two more writers who could only add to the script and enhance elements desired by the director, MGM and EON.
That would be Jeffrey Caine on GE. There's an outstanding interview I just stumbled across on the spyhards podcast:
https://www.spyhards.com/e/spymaster-interview-9-jeffrey-caine/

Bookmarked for later, thanks! Nice to be reminded there's a series of Bond films before this current era.

So NTTD has exceeded weekend BO expectations and opened to a robust international total of $120m (conservative projections were 90m).

This is with limited showings still in effect at some markets (like South Korea), and no China until the end of October.

By next weekend this time, with the US opening weekend added in, I expect it to be over $300m....

Good to see cinemas bouncing back though I don't think it will cross $800m.

The #1 Box Office movie for a Hollywood movie for the year so far, is Fast 9 at $719m

(At #1 is some Chinese movie that makes buckets of money in China and nowhere else).

Anything in excess of $600m for NTTD would be considered a win in this pandemic climate.

900 mill for it just to break even was bandied about.