No Time to Die (Spoiler Heavy)

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peter
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No Time to Die (Spoiler Heavy)

Post by peter »

I repeat - this thread is for those who have already seen the film or have heard about the most significant events in it. My recommendation is that you see it before continuing on.

:bwave: :bwave: :bwave: :bwave: :bwave:


Now.


I saw this the other night and have some particular observations about how it seems to have lost its direction - or perhaps better, how what it did was simply - well - odd.

Firstly however, I thought that the film was good enough in its own way. I've not been a massive fan of Craig's Bond - I think it was too influenced by the Bourne films from the outset, taking away the humour and slightly camp 'over the topness' for which the film's had become famous. Gritty is all well and good, but with Bond you require more. But having said that, the film began well and kept me onboard for most of its 163 minute running time. I had a brief spell, in the latter part of the film where I felt it was becoming a bit 'by the numbers', but this was short-lived and soon left behind.

I thought that the main villain played by Rami Malik was a serviceable baddie, but was somewhat undermined by the odd presence of Ernst Stavro Blofeld languishing away (like Julian Assange) in Belmarsh Prison. Quite why this 'Spectre' element was included in the film at all I fail to get. For some reason our main baddie decides to kill off the entire group of previous Bond baddies in one fell swoop (achieving in the first ten minutes of the film what MI6 have failed to achieve with Bond and numerous other sidekicks in the last half century) - but leaving just Blofeld and one other thug alive. Why he decided to keep this last going is a mystery - excepting that he has one sort of mechanical eye that connects with a similar one that Blofeld has, that lends him a suitably Bondish 'weird villain sidekick' status ala Odd-job or the giant with the teeth.

The fantastic Christopher Waltz as super-villain Blofeld was criminally underutilized - I mean criminally! In the brief moments we spent in his time (after a suitably Hannibal Lector style entrance) his dialogue was banal, his makeup bad and neither Waltz's capabilities or the possibilities of the character he was playing were remotely touched upon.

But then we get on with the film. A pretty neutered Bond has fallen in love, knocked out a sprog (he suspects, but is not confirmed until used as one of the tear-jerkers at the end of the film), meets a couple of high-kicking girls (one, his replacement 007) neither of which he gets into the sack despite being effectively single, and then dies.

Yes dies. Bond dies. In this film - I repeat for those who's ears seem to be deceiving them - Bond dies.

It's all very emotional, the baddie played by Malik (who's name I can't remember, but has nothing of the ring of Goldfinger of Blofeld about it) has poisoned Bond so he can never touch his daughter, who (I think) he is about to kill along with the rest of humanity (have I got this right?) which seems a bit of a waste of time (the Bond poisoning I mean) with some kind of nanobot delivered super-disease. As a result Bond realizes that he has to die when the island on which all this transpires is blown up, which it has to be in order to save the world from the deadly disease (or a large part of it at least) - and so he elects not to escape, but rather to spend his last moments out on the surface of the island talking to his love (the mother of his child) in a schmaltzy exchange of heart string plucking, before going skyward in an explosion of thirty or so hypersonic missiles sent n by Q, or M (or some other letter of the alphabet).

And that's it After sixty odd years of films plus another decade of books, Bond is no more. You sit rooted to your seat as Louis Armstrong croons "We got all the time in the world" and the credits roll and as the tears sit behind your hyper-emotional lids or even roll down your flushed or popcorn stuffed cheeks they end.

And as you rise from your seat in the now near empty cinema. One final sentence flashes up on the screen. James Bond Will Return.

What the fuck!

You Bastards!

You put me through all of that tear jerking, all of that heart string plucking, all of that Bond going up in smoke stuff and then don't even show us the motherfucker escaping. I mean? What was the point of all of that non-Bond falling in love and getting a daughter and all, that emotional final telephone call when in fact the bastard was just planning how he would roll aside at the last moment, escape the blast of nine hundred megatons of high explosive landing next to him, dissapear into the shadows (neatly avoiding any child maintenance payments, and carry on shagging! It simply doesn't fit with that enigmatic sentence at the end; makes a mockery of the whole ending of the film!

In fact I think that should indeed be the title of the next film - Carry on Shagging - because that's what this ending made of the whole thing - a damn Carry On film!

(But one worth seeing. ;) )
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....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
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Post by peter »

Back in more serious vein, there really seems to be some kind of breakdown of cinematic logic in what transpired here; either this was meant to be a sentimental, heart-breaking end to the Bond mythos - or it wasn't.

The film played it for real....... and then sort of lost its nerve at the final cut. If this had been the first part of a two part Bond double......

But no - even that doesn't work. Craig would need to have been on board for the second part and the entire life-sacrificing end scene and telephone call would have been meaningless (as it was anyway, given that final post-credits line). But at least it would explain Bond's final comment to one of the aforementioned girls, who having been sent by Bond's office to aid him, pretty inexperienced and new to the job, who he tells, "You did well; until next time we work together!"

It's like they got afraid that if we all thought Bond had genuinely died, we'd loose interest and forget about him?.....or not bother to go to the next film?.......or would be in so much emotional shock we wouldn't be able to cope with it?......

None of it stacks up. Why would they play the Bond death for real, fill the last ten minutes of the film with tragedy and pathos, let the full credits roll - and then underwrite it with a single line of text telling us he survives? No - he doesn't! He said his goodbye to his family. He was blown up and dies. His wife tells his little daughter - who smile's for the first time in the film - "I'm going to tell you a story about a man called Bond." Make no mistake: he dies. Nothing short of a Bobby Ewing like emergence from the shower, the whole thing having been a dream (family et al) could change this. Not happening.

No; the inclusion of this post credit line was nothing to do with the story we had just seen concluded. It was a simple statement that, "We haven't finished with Bond yet; we think that there's a few more quid to be squeezed out of him yet, and so will contrive a way to overturn everything we have just shown you, everything you have been led to believe, in order to resurrect him." It had no connection to the story arc we had just seen.

I have absolutely no doubt that in offices somewhere, in Skype meetings and over brain storming sessions, much thought is being put into just how this illogical twisting can be pulled off. But it rankles with me. That they didn't have the good taste to even let us persist in our belief that what we had just been shown was the true Bond story even long enough to allow the paint to dry. A few months - a year. This was rank cowardice: deceptive to the audience and undermining of the unwritten rules, the contract of trust between the film maker and the audience who springs to see the product of his efforts.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard
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Post by Hashi Lebwohl »

Did you see his burnt, broken, and lifeless corpse? No? Then in a movie he isn't dead. We know Blofeld is dead--we can see it happening--and we know Malik is dead, but Bond? Just like Mr. Hinx--we saw him get pulled off the train but we did not see him *die*.

Or they'll just reissue the name and number to a new agent like they have done before.
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Post by peter »

But that's not the point Hashi; they had Bond himself running with the fact that he wasn't going to make it - to his partner and child (as well as the audience through the'fourth wall'), before going up in the middle of an explosion that took out an entire island; his partner (some period later) then tells her daughter about her father in the film's final scene. This wasn't overturned by anything - anything - that was actually filmed, spoken or whatever - merely by a single short statement on a black screen after the very final credit had rolled. There was not one iota of information, visual or auditory, to indicate anything other than that he was dead. Therefore to overturn this will require a host of tricksy twisting to be laid on a future audience, as I say, in the manner of a Bobby Ewing emergence from the shower. Not to mention that when this tricksy exploit is carried out, the individual doing it won't even look like the Bond who has just died/not died. That's a ridiculous amount of baggage to tie to a new Bond actor before they even begin the role. (And let's face it: a Bond with a wife and kid is not really a Bond is it? What will he be doing: changing nappies in between shooting baddies?)

In the Ewing case at least, we know that the makers decided to change their minds and resuscitate the series: what's the excuse in the Bond case if they knew that Bond didn't die? The audience should have been made aware of what was going on and the ending of the film made completely differently to reflect this. To me it's a bizare and illogical piece of film-making that will go down in cinematic history as one of the industry's great bloopers. It's like they did it just because they wanted to include a shmaltzy heart-string tugging scene - but then to write it off with a tittering behind the hand disclaimer at the end saying "normal service will be resumed in the next film".

Odd. Just plain odd.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard
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Post by I'm Murrin »

Or it's just an acknowledgement that everyone in the audience already knows they'll make another Bond film, probably as a reboot, and doesn't need to mean Craig's Bond isn't dead.
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Post by peter »

I watched a review of the 'controversy' by Mark Kermode and a Radio 5 presenter, in which the presenter took very much my position against Kermode's positive approach.

To him (Kermode) each Bond has to be seen as self-contained - not related in any way to the others in a continuous story arc - and this made what had been done perfectly okay. He conceded that it would be necessary to have a complete sweep of all of the cast, M, Q, Felix Moneypenny - in order for the break to work, and I suppose I can see where he is coming from. But to me, I just don't quite see the point of the way that this was done; why was the traditional Bond character eschewed for this brief outing into family territory, just to then kill him before he could enjoy the wonder of having a wife and daughter? If it could end in this self-contained way, what was the point of his death? It doesn't add anything to the story that a 'Bondesque' escape followed by a happy reunion could not have achieved (in fact the latter would have been more in keeping with what Bond's public would have expected and wanted). Craig could still have disapeaed into the ether and a new Bond popped up 'tabula rasa', as it were.

No. I'm going to take some convincing on this one.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard
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Post by Skyweir »

Yes that IS the bond Universe - multiple different Bonds each bringing something characteristic to the role - I love that abut the Bond Universe.

I enjoyed the movie ... Im interested in seeing what next .. cuz there is always more.
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Post by Wosbald »

+JMJ+
peter wrote:[…]

But to me, I just don't quite see the point of the way that this was done; why was the traditional Bond character eschewed for this brief outing into family territory, just to then kill him before he could enjoy the wonder of having a wife and daughter? …

[…]
What? Ya want to see him grow old in some intergenerational family drama?

Something like On Golden Bond?


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Post by peter »

In answer Wos........Yes I Do!

:lol:

Besides - what's so wrong with a happy ending? Perhaps it's just because I'm getting older and more cynical about the 'ways of the world', but I see no reason why our make-believe should not indulge in a bit of candyfloss over the rainbow fantasy?

Nah - if you're going to give Bond a family for this outing, then at least let him keep it.

;)

(Love the poster, by the way! :))
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard
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Post by Wosbald »

+JMJ+
peter wrote:[…]

(Love the poster, by the way! :))

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No Time to Die (Spoiler Heavy)

Post by Skyweir »

peter wrote: In answer Wos........Yes I Do!

:lol:

Besides - what's so wrong with a happy ending? Perhaps it's just because I'm getting older and more cynical about the 'ways of the world', but I see no reason why our make-believe should not indulge in a bit of candyfloss over the rainbow fantasy?

Nah - if you're going to give Bond a family for this outing, then at least let him keep it.

;)

(Love the poster, by the way! :))
I completely agree! I love a happy ending ~ lol 😂 and yeah the travesty of loss isn’t it.
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