Does NO TIME TO DIE have the best ending in the franchise?

SomethingThatAteHim

That’s the risk of shaking up the status quo with these films, isn’t it? You sort of run out of road. With the traditional “Bond gets the girl” the possibilities for the next film are always the limitlessness that comes with any Bond mission. But when you are taking the character on a big multi-movie arc that demands change and progr you run out of road eventually. Killing Bond was the only ending that really made sense for NTTD given how the Craig movies escalated to it.

mtm

I don't know if that's an argument against change and progression though. You're right that after the 'Bond gets the girl' endings the possibilities for the next film are limitless, but while they were doing those they pretty much stuck very rigidly to those limits! :)

They did run out of road eventually, but all stories do- and then they come to an end.

SomethingThatAteHim

I’m not against change and progression per say but Bond is essentially a pulp hero and to my tastes pulp stories work the best when they are a little hemmed in by a particular formula and stick to some degree of status quo by riding off into the sunset at the end of each relatively episodic chapter. I’m very glad we got the Craig movies and I don’t begrudge them for swinging for a bigger picture story, but I think it often did not work elegantly with the material’s pulp storytelling core.

echo

mtm wrote: »

Stamper wrote: »

I don't get the talk, I expected Bond to die at the end of Quantum Of Solace (and be resurrected in the next film).
The idea to kill the hero, which comes from Sherlock Holmes, was already in Fleming books like FRWL.
At the beginning of Skyfall, they do kill him and then he is back.
It wasn't about sticking it to the fans, it was always about being Flemingian.

Also, as I say quite often, there weren't many endings available to them really! He'd already appeared to die and taken advantage of his 'death' to disappear; he'd already found a love and retired from the service to go and live with her- I don't know if you can just do that again in the next film. I'm not sure what other endings there were for Bond- after retiring at the end of Spectre I'm not sure we would have bought him staying to be 007 forevermore. Does he become M?

This is a good point. There weren't many more directions for Craig's Bond's endings to go.

I suppose they could have done YOLT amnesia but (a) that would read in 2021 as Bourne in reverse, (b) it's almost as depressing as Bond dying so why not go all the way and kill him, (c) amnesia is a silly soap opera concept to begin with, and (d) amnesia for Craig's last film really would set up Bond #7 poorly by comparison.

I do think NTTD's ending is much braver than, say, The Dark Knight Returns, which is too clever, and too derivative, by half. Faking one's own death is almost as bad a cliche as the hero entering the witness protection program.

Eon chose the best of the options they had and killed off their hero heroically and made it personal to him. In a way, I bet Barbara knew. Michael is not young.

mtm

Yeah, I would be genuinely interested to hear thoughts on what else they could have done for his last film. Once you take out faked death, retirement, and continued employment, what could you have done with him?

I guess you could have him heroically take the blame for something or other to save MI6 in some way and sort of go on the run, never to be seen again? I guess that's sort of your witness protection thing :D
Agreed that amnesia is a bit too naff, although it does give a bit of the tragic ending. May as well just kill him for that though.
I guess you could do a variant of the happy ending thing and give him a knighthood? Bit cheesy? I guess having the daughter means you could perhaps have done the Spectre ending again but it would feel different enough, although would it be very Bond for him to go off and live with his family? I dunno. Interested to hear any thoughts for alternatives.

SomethingThatAteHim

I think the YOLT amnesia ending *could* work in a Bond movie (not Craig’s though) but the films would have to lean much harder into the romantic and surrealist aspect of Fleming’s Bond rather than a more gritty or grounded approach. I think it only works in the novel because that whole book is so out there and clearly a more metaphorical inward journey for Bond that having him literally lose his sense of self and is reborn becomes quite poetic.

But yeah I can’t think of a more fitting ending to NTTD specifically than killing Bond off. How they specifically did it there’s I think a lot of leeway and I might have gone down a different path but it felt inevitable as the conclusion

Daltonforyou

As far as killing Bond goes, I think theres a way to do it that leaves things a bit more to your imagination and open-ended like TDKR. I think I would've preferred that.

007ClassicBondFan

I’ve made my thoughts and feelings on NTTD and it’s ending quite clear so I’m not going to bug others. Needless to say I was not against the idea of killing Craig’s Bond off but after seeing how NTTD handled closing his era overall I think I would’ve preferred having SPECTRE as his swan song and Bond 25 be the debut of a new actor. I think killing Bond off did push EON into a corner that they didn’t know how to get out of and ultimately the time that was spent trying to come up with new approaches didn’t pan out thanks Ernst Stavro Bezos.

Not to say that having a new Bond for B25 would’ve yielded any different results as far as the Amazon takeover - but I do think it’s an interesting scenario to ponder.

As far as the best ending to the series - you can’t go wrong with OHMSS or CR but I don’t think the series should shy away completely from endings where Bond does get the girl just for the sake of doing something different. Give me a nice healthy balance of both and I’ll be happy.

mtm

SomethingThatAteHim wrote: »

I think the YOLT amnesia ending *could* work in a Bond movie (not Craig’s though) but the films would have to lean much harder into the romantic and surrealist aspect of Fleming’s Bond rather than a more gritty or grounded approach. I think it only works in the novel because that whole book is so out there and clearly a more metaphorical inward journey for Bond that having him literally lose his sense of self and is reborn becomes quite poetic.

Yeah you're probably right; I can't quite see it, but if they went Brofeld and "Die Blofeld, die!" it feels like there might have been a way of making something as out there work. Maybe have the nanobots established as eating the memory centre of the brain or something- that kind of works?

Ryan

I always thought the "crowd pleaser" ending might have been to cut away from Bond before the missiles hit. The rest of the film plays out - they all assume Bond is dead, M offers the toast, and so forth. Then, as Madeleine and Mathilde are driving, they pull up to the hotel. We see an Aston Martin parked out front. Madeleine smiles. Fade to black.

"James Bond Will Return"

Personally, I'm fine with Bond dying and love the film as is, but I suppose audiences coming off the pandemic who perhaps wanted less of a "downer ending" might have been served by that alternate reality.

Seve

echo wrote: »

This is a very good post. Most of the criticisms of NTTD come down to, "I didn't/don't want Bond to die." Okay, that's fair, but take that turn out and you have to pretty much rewrite the entire film from page one. Bond's death is built into the structure of the film.

The question on this thread is "does NTTD have the best ending in the franchise"
So for anyone who doesn't like the idea of James Bond being killed off, the answer will be "no". They will prefer the ending of almost any other movie in the franchise.

Stamper wrote: »

I don't get the talk, I expected Bond to die at the end of Quantum Of Solace (and be resurrected in the next film).
The idea to kill the hero, which comes from Sherlock Holmes, was already in Fleming books like FRWL.
At the beginning of Skyfall, they do kill him and then he is back.
It wasn't about sticking it to the fans, it was always about being Flemingian.

Hmmm, would Fleming have post scripted Bond's death with "James Bond will return"?

Fleming's FRWL ending was ambiguous and in the end he chose not to kill off Bond, then or later, nor did he go to the lengths that NTTD did to try and make the decision definitive and irreversible for those following.

In any case the question is about it being the best ending in the franchise, not the best ending for Craig-Bond, or the best ending for James Bond's career

Is the ending of NTTD better than that of OHMSS etc?

mtm wrote: »

Also, as I say quite often, there weren't many endings available to them really! He'd already appeared to die and taken advantage of his 'death' to disappear; he'd already found a love and retired from the service to go and live with her- I don't know if you can just do that again in the next film. I'm not sure what other endings there were for Bond- after retiring at the end of Spectre I'm not sure we would have bought him staying to be 007 forevermore. Does he become M?

Ending - Bond has saved the World but can never be with his family again, due to the nanobots. We see him lying on hilltop watching his family through binoculars from a distance. He lowers the binoculars and looks wistful, camera slow zoom out away up into the sky... (or similar)

SomethingThatAteHim wrote: »

That’s the risk of shaking up the status quo with these films, isn’t it? You sort of run out of road. With the traditional “Bond gets the girl” the possibilities for the next film are always the limitlessness that comes with any Bond mission. But when you are taking the character on a big multi-movie arc that demands change and progr you run out of road eventually. Killing Bond was the only ending that really made sense for NTTD given how the Craig movies escalated to it.

That's as may be, but it doen't necessarily make NTTD the best ending in the history of the franchise, or even the best ending in the Craig era

007ClassicBondFan wrote: »

As far as the best ending to the series - you can’t go wrong with OHMSS or CR but I don’t think the series should shy away completely from endings where Bond does get the girl just for the sake of doing something different. Give me a nice healthy balance of both and I’ll be happy.

Bingo

mtm

Seve wrote: »

mtm wrote: »

Also, as I say quite often, there weren't many endings available to them really! He'd already appeared to die and taken advantage of his 'death' to disappear; he'd already found a love and retired from the service to go and live with her- I don't know if you can just do that again in the next film. I'm not sure what other endings there were for Bond- after retiring at the end of Spectre I'm not sure we would have bought him staying to be 007 forevermore. Does he become M?

Ending - Bond has saved the World but can never be with his family again, due to the nanobots. We see him lying on hilltop watching his family through binoculars from a distance. He lowers the binoculars and looks wistful, camera slow zoom out away up into the sky... (or similar)

Yeah that's cool, I guess you have to give him a form of tragedy at the end as it just sort of fits the character in a way, and the family thing would work. Maybe work the story so that he has to fake his death from only them for some reason and they can't know he's alive? Not sure how, but I'm sure it could be written that way.

Ryan wrote: »

I always thought the "crowd pleaser" ending might have been to cut away from Bond before the missiles hit. The rest of the film plays out - they all assume Bond is dead, M offers the toast, and so forth. Then, as Madeleine and Mathilde are driving, they pull up to the hotel. We see an Aston Martin parked out front. Madeleine smiles. Fade to black.

"James Bond Will Return"

Personally, I'm fine with Bond dying and love the film as is, but I suppose audiences coming off the pandemic who perhaps wanted less of a "downer ending" might have been served by that alternate reality.

Yeah, I kind of still think it could have been more upbeat at the end, a bit like how OHMSS ends on that big version of the Bond theme even though Tracy's dead. I reckon you could have ended it on Madeline in the Aston telling her story about a man called Bond, James Bond- and then just actually cut to the story: a montage of Bond in his pomp doing loads of crazy Bond things, jumping off a mountain on skis, driving a tank through a city, piloting a mini jet, a jet boat.. y'know, loads of big Bond stuff with the theme blaring out. A bit like how the Spider Man films used to end on those big shots of him swinging through the city. So he'd be dead, but you'd kind of still be ending on a high.

TripAces

Ryan wrote: »

I always thought the "crowd pleaser" ending might have been to cut away from Bond before the missiles hit. The rest of the film plays out - they all assume Bond is dead, M offers the toast, and so forth. Then, as Madeleine and Mathilde are driving, they pull up to the hotel. We see an Aston Martin parked out front. Madeleine smiles. Fade to black.

"James Bond Will Return"

Personally, I'm fine with Bond dying and love the film as is, but I suppose audiences coming off the pandemic who perhaps wanted less of a "downer ending" might have been served by that alternate reality.

I was fine with it too (and still am, even more emphatically) because it worked on several levels:

1. The death of this version of the character, in an altruistic suicidal way, which is an element of heroism.
2. The symbolic death of the character, which has been hinted at many times over (YOLT, TMWTGG, and DAF, as well as SF). NTTD plays on this trope and takes it to a new level. No, Bond hasn't actually died....he'll be back in the next film. So is very "meta."
3. The mythic death of the character, which functions across #1 and #2. If you slow down the explosion, the image of Bond is split in two, a signifier of Bond's duality, in Jungian terms. Remember what Madeleine said in SP: "There are two of you. Two Jameses." Indeed. This version of Bond was the most Jungian of all.
4. More recently, the death of EON. This really seals it. In some way, I think DC, BB, and MW knew this was going to be the end of the franchise, as we knew it. Makes sense. 25 films. Boom. The end. It all works.

I am still not 100% pleased with the execution of #1. When Bond said in SF "Did I overcomplicate the plot?" who knew he'd be talking about the next two films. NTTD took directions it didn't need to. I never would have had Bond poisoned at the end. Instead, the decision to stay and make sure the doors remain opened, for the sake of his child and the human race, should have been his and not one he was forced into. But those are my two cents.