No Time To Die (spoilery reviews thread)

A female or gay Bond would be the flop of the century and kill the franchise.

Even when they create original characters with movies like Salt or Atomic Blonde they never seem to do all that well. If they try piggy backing off something as established as Bond they are cooked.

But, Sarai, it would be a different franchise. Remember, James Bond is dead. It would still flop, though, I believe.

I thought they already had a good idea of who they were casting next as James Bond and I don't see them flushing the franchise.
I'm sure they will just bring him back in some hamfisted way

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Nomi's relationship with Bond consists mostly of one-upmanship (womanship?) bantering, I was pleased to see. De Armas is a delight, and I wish she'd been in it more.

BUT ... this is maybe the most sexless Bond had ever been. They don't even have him try it on with Lynch and get rebuffed (could've had a bit of fun with it in the dialogue '007 tries to sleep with 007 ... it's true what they say about your ego!').

The idea of Bond teaming up with his replacement could’ve been a really good idea had they ditched Swann and let Nomi be a proper Bond Girl. There was some good upsmanship going on, but ultimately it goes nowhere when there’s no sexual tension. I think Nomi was also meant to be lesbian but that it was cut out in favor of Q’s “coming out” (which I called on these boards two years ago).

Quote :

And even allowing for the fact that Craig's films are their own self-contained arc and it was a bit of unused Fleming, BOND SHOULD NOT BE A PARENT.

Would’ve preferred he discovered he had a young adult son so that we could set him up as the next 007, but you know Babs is all about girl power (even at 4 years old).

Hilly wrote:

I just wonder what lies beyond. Another reboot, another introduction of classic villains etc.

Hopefully Amazon will have much to say on the matter and exert some influence on the direction. I think Barbara and Michael will sell. Gregg will stay on in a transitional role.

I foresee expanded universes and some streaming series to complement the feature films. I would like to see CFJ have a hand directing a Paloma series on Amazon Prime or have a say developing the future film series. He did very well considering what he inherited.

Sarai wrote:

I thought they already had a good idea of who they were casting next as James Bond and I don't see them flushing the franchise.
I'm  sure they will just bring him back in some hamfisted way

If so, we can only hope they do the period films I mentioned as a possibility. Probably too much to hope for.

AMC Hornet wrote:

I think Bond still had Mathilde's bunny tucked in his braces for a reason - instant recognition when this battered fellow with a different face is found on the beach in #26.

That might piss off all the people who viewed Bond's death as fitting as well as make those angry about Bond's death even more angry!

He Who Dares, Wins wrote:

The idea of Bond teaming up with his replacement could’ve been a really good idea had they ditched Swann and let Nomi be a proper Bond Girl.

It's not an idea that gets me on my feet but I think it's good enough to do something with, certainly more than they did here. I've only seen NTTD once so far but it seemed to be like Nomi had zero bearing on the story at all. I think I read that the kernel of the whole idea (female agent taking Bond's number) goes back to DAD. I can't remember if it was Miranda Frost (or Gala) or perhaps they were thinking of Halle even then? I don't know -- but that's a long time for an idea to sit on the shelf and be effectively wasted.

He Who Dares, Wins wrote:

Hopefully Amazon will have much to say on the matter and exert some influence on the direction.

I wonder what Amazon will do with their say in the Bond casting? I know we're all expecting a more "of the moment" choice to a certain extent (maybe even more so given it is Amazon) but depending on how NTTD does, if Amazon thinks Bond is at a vulnerable juncture, could that be enough for them to go for a more "traditional" choice?

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Erm ... see the last 3 lines of my post that kicked off this thread, Khanners.

An excellent article in line with my own feelings on them 'going there' by comedian/actor/presenter David Mitchell -

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/10/ah-mr-bond-i-was-expecting-you-to-entertain-me

Seems to me there are two possibilities that are most likely for the future of "Bond." Possibility number one, which I think is less likely, is that we get a series of James Bond period pieces, beginning in 1953, which is the year Casino Royale was published, and ending in 1961, which was the year prior to the making of Dr. No. If Eon did one for each year, that would be nine films. I would actually be interested to see how such "prequels" would turn out.

The second possibility, which I fear is more likely, is that James Bond is simply replaced by a 00 agent that is the very opposite of Bond. This figure will have at least one of the following identity characteristics: black, female, homosexual. And, it goes without saying, this character will be a crusader for Leftist causes. It will be the ultimate action figure for Leftist fanatics, which is what I believe Babs has wanted to create for a very long time, but feared she could not do with Bond himself.

A friend of mine reckons possibility 1 is where they're gonna go. They could do worse than adapt Horowitz's Forever And A Day for a start, if so.

The best counter-argument I've heard as to why they'd never do period pieces is that they wouldn't be able to do as much product placement. It doesn't sound like it'd be too big of a deal but the entire TND budget was covered through such deals. I don't think it's ever been quite as much since (not sure though) but it must still be a considerable percentage. Hard to walk away from that, I'd imagine.

NTTD has the usual lifestyle, tech etc brand tie-ins along with others I don't recall from previous films (DHL couriers, for example).

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Erm ... see the last 3 lines of my post that kicked off this thread, Khanners.

An excellent article in line with my own feelings on them 'going there' by comedian/actor/presenter David Mitchell -

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/10/ah-mr-bond-i-was-expecting-you-to-entertain-me

Seems to me there are two possibilities that are most likely for the future of "Bond." Possibility number one, which I think is less likely, is that we get a series of James Bond period pieces, beginning in 1953, which is the year Casino Royale was published, and ending in 1961, which was the year prior to the making of Dr. No. If Eon did one for each year, that would be nine films. I would actually be interested to see how such "prequels" would turn out.

The second possibility, which I fear is more likely, is that James Bond is simply replaced by a 00 agent that is the very opposite of Bond. This figure will have at least one of the following identity characteristics: black, female, homosexual. And, it goes without saying, this character will be a crusader for Leftist causes. It will be the ultimate action figure for Leftist fanatics, which is what I believe Babs has wanted to create for a very long time, but feared she could not do with Bond himself.

A friend of mine reckons possibility 1 is where they're gonna go. They could do worse than adapt Horowitz's Forever And A Day for a start, if so.

That would be fine with me. And based upon my theory, they could even make Bond films for the years in which Bond films were not released--for example 1966, 1968, 1970, 1972, etc. Every one of these films would have the year shown on the opening frame just to make clear exactly what's going on temporally.

Somerset wrote:

The best counter-argument I've heard as to why they'd never do period pieces is that they wouldn't be able to do as much product placement. It doesn't sound like it'd be too big of a deal but the entire TND budget was covered through such deals. I don't think it's ever been quite as much since (not sure though) but it must still be a considerable percentage. Hard to walk away from that, I'd imagine.

Yet again, capitalism rears its ugly head.

What if EON had always killed off Bond when they know their lead was retiring?
Connery would have gone up with Blofeld's volcano base in '67 (no living as a Japanese fisherman for you, mate), and Lazenby introduced without the 'souvenirs' scene. He and Tracy could have both gone down in a hail of bullets
Probably no Connery in DAF, and were he to return then Wint & Kidd's Bombe Surprise would have done its job.
Moore would have gone off the Golden Gate with Zorin (sparing us that cringe-worthy shower scene) and Brosnan and Jinx would have 'gone down together' after all.
Now, what sort of demise will B & W come up with for 007 #7?

If you kept killing him off, I think you'd have wound up with the Jerry Cornelius series rather than the Bond series. They only did one Cornelius film (LAST DAYS OF MAN ON EARTH aka THE FINAL PROGRAMME), but I remember thinking it felt like a hipper yet SciFi take on Bond, before I found it was based on a whole series of novels by Michael Moorcock that kind of play with multi-verse / quantum reality type thinking.

I went again. The things I didn't like ('daddy Bond' and his, Felix's and Blofeld's deaths, the overlength ... no Bond film should make us wait as long to see the 'main man', for example) I still don't. The plotting around the Heracles seemed slightly less convoluted second time around.

I do like around half-to-three-quarters of it, to be fair. But at times you have to remind yourself that this is a Bond flick (during the bits that play more like a moody Scandi crime/relationship drama, mostly).

To be fair, Fleming's Bond is a father if not a daddy. Kissy Suzuki (YOLT) is the mother.

Makes me wonder, had say they had done DAF as a revenge flick (Lazenby for arguments sake), would this have been transplanted to Tiffany? Bond's child that he will never know existed owing to his amnesia and trauma.

The red-haired stepchild no one talks about (or they'll get "a shot in the mouth!").

Perilagu Khan wrote:

To be fair, Fleming's Bond is a father if not a daddy. Kissy Suzuki (YOLT) is the mother.

Oh aye, and it's not even the only previously unused bit of YOLT in NTTD (the 'poison garden'). But maybe some bits should STAY unused ... Bond probably works best when his main/only responsibility is to his country, I'd say.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

To be fair, Fleming's Bond is a father if not a daddy. Kissy Suzuki (YOLT) is the mother.

Oh aye, and it's not even the only previously unused bit of YOLT in NTTD (the 'poison garden'). But maybe some bits should STAY unused ... Bond probably works best when his main/only responsibility is to his country, I'd say.  

He died a daddy, but in the future s/he/it presumably won't spy as a daddy/mommy/birthing person.

I thought much of the movie was weighed down by how seriously it took itself.
Which is probably why the sequence I enjoyed the most was the one which had the most levity in it, Cuba.
A side-note, but it's not immediately clear to me what sections of the film Phoebe Waller-Bridge spruced up exactly. There was very little of the dialogue that sounded like her work.
I would say the film as a whole is middling but it descends into being properly bad for large stretches of the third act. It's also not exactly the most original of Bond climaxes.
Craig's performance is at least better than in Spectre, if only because he actually manages to look somewhat interested in the work most of the time.

What direction EON will take this in now isn't clear to me. Possibly they might have been in better shape following the Brosnan era. With the Bourne films, there was a clear formula for them to follow - even though many of us didn't necessarily like that direction. There is no ready-made format for them to copy this time around.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

To be fair, Fleming's Bond is a father if not a daddy. Kissy Suzuki (YOLT) is the mother.

Oh aye, and it's not even the only previously unused bit of YOLT in NTTD (the 'poison garden'). But maybe some bits should STAY unused ... Bond probably works best when his main/only responsibility is to his country, I'd say.  

He died a daddy, but in the future s/he/it presumably won't spy as a daddy/mommy/birthing person.

Actually kind of amused that Bond became a dad around the same time as his animated & comedic counterpart Sterling Archer did.
Interestingly enough they dialed back on that story line a lot in the latest season.

I said I wouldn't but I watched it again last night. Interesting I found the first hour or so much, much better than the first time around so I felt hope for it. again those moments with Paloma ...very cool, action packed and had that Bond cool element to it
but not long after that it started to drag and still I was feeling OK about it thinking it would pick up again
no, by the end I was exhausted and absolutely hate this movie
it's so bad I don't feel like ever watching any of the other Craig films again between that and Spectre

it was incredible too just how boring and the total lack of any tension when he is out in the woods with Mad and the child during that so called action sequence

same with the end
looked like a generic Steven Seagal movie but Under Siege manages to look much better

Ms. Sheedy has such sharp and pointy fangs.