NO TIME TO DIE (2021) - First Reactions vs. Current Reactions

1174175177179180298

Comments

  • slide_99slide_99 USA
    edited November 2021 Posts: 648
    mattjoes wrote: »
    slide_99 wrote: »
    Yes. I have no intention of spending 3+ hours in a theater during a pandemic for a movie that I have no interest in seeing. I've read the plot rundown. I know what happens and I'm not interested in discussing stuff like cinematography and music.

    For a movie you have no interest in seeing, you sure have great interest in discussing it. I would think you would be a little curious to see it? A little? Just a bit? A teeny tiny little bit?

    Nope, not really. But I do like discussing the decisions that went into the Craig era.
    mattjoes wrote: »
    This latest twist about slide_99 is absolutely hilarious! (Grabs popcorn)

    Again, my first post here I said that I wasn't going to watch it. There's no revelation. I've been talking about narrative and continuity issues, not the particulars of the movie, which I don't really care about.
  • RC7RC7
    Posts: 10,512
    slide_99 wrote: »
    mattjoes wrote: »
    slide_99 wrote: »
    Yes. I have no intention of spending 3+ hours in a theater during a pandemic for a movie that I have no interest in seeing. I've read the plot rundown. I know what happens and I'm not interested in discussing stuff like cinematography and music.

    For a movie you have no interest in seeing, you sure have great interest in discussing it. I would think you would be a little curious to see it? A little? Just a bit? A teeny tiny little bit?

    Nope, not really. But I do like discussing the decisions that went into the Craig era.
    mattjoes wrote: »
    This latest twist about slide_99 is absolutely hilarious! (Grabs popcorn)

    Again, my first post here I said that I wasn't going to watch it. There's no revelation. I haven't commented at all on the movie itself, just the issues with narrative and continuity.

    Your comments are irrelevant until you’ve seen the film.
  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 8,255
    UGH @slide_99 … you’re criticizing a visual medium when you haven’t actually seen it. You’re like a visually impaired person criticizing the Mona Lisa based on “stuff” you’ve heard about it. This is absurd.
  • slide_99slide_99 USA
    Posts: 648
    peter wrote: »
    UGH @slide_99 … you’re criticizing a visual medium when you haven’t actually seen it. You’re like a visually impaired person criticizing the Mona Lisa based on “stuff” you’ve heard about it. This is absurd.

    What? I've never criticized or even commented on NTTD's technical aspects like acting, directing, cinematography, or music. I've never posted any kind of review of it whatsoever. This entire thread I've been talking about narrative and continuity issues arising from NTTD's ending and how it relates to other Bond movies.

    I know people who are fans of other series like Alien and Terminator, who haven't seen the recent ones, but they still talk about them. What's the difference?
  • 00Heaven00Heaven Home
    Posts: 573
    Dune 2 is a brilliant video game. The grandfather of RTS. What movie is dune 2 again?

    If you get this then get a beer on me.

    On another note. Saw nttd for the fifth and final time in the cinema tonight drunk on cocktails with a mate. It didn't help with emotions. Can still confirm it's a great movie.
  • DoctorKaufmannDoctorKaufmann Can shoot you from Stuttgart and still make it look like suicide.
    Posts: 1,261
    slide_99 wrote: »
    peter wrote: »
    UGH @slide_99 … you’re criticizing a visual medium when you haven’t actually seen it. You’re like a visually impaired person criticizing the Mona Lisa based on “stuff” you’ve heard about it. This is absurd.

    What? I've never criticized or even commented on NTTD's technical aspects like acting, directing, cinematography, or music. I've never posted any kind of review of it whatsoever. This entire thread I've been talking about narrative and continuity issues arising from NTTD's ending and how it relates to other Bond movies.

    I know people who are fans of other series like Alien and Terminator, who haven't seen the recent ones, but they still talk about them. What's the difference?

    Well, maybe that's just silly silly me, but before I join a discussion, be it a movie, a cd, a play, or a novel, is to watch it, listen to it, or read it. How about Father Christmas? Have you met him in person, woith his sledge and the reindeers? No? Well, then maybe Christmas does not exist at all. I have never met the real Father Christmas, who, BTW is an invention of Coca Cola. The one with rthe red clothes, that is.
  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 8,255
    slide_99 wrote: »
    peter wrote: »
    UGH @slide_99 … you’re criticizing a visual medium when you haven’t actually seen it. You’re like a visually impaired person criticizing the Mona Lisa based on “stuff” you’ve heard about it. This is absurd.

    What? I've never criticized or even commented on NTTD's technical aspects like acting, directing, cinematography, or music. I've never posted any kind of review of it whatsoever. This entire thread I've been talking about narrative and continuity issues arising from NTTD's ending and how it relates to other Bond movies.

    I know people who are fans of other series like Alien and Terminator, who haven't seen the recent ones, but they still talk about them. What's the difference?

    @slide_99 … I didn’t say you criticized the “technical aspects”, I said you’re criticizing a visual medium that you haven’t SEEN… and SEEING a MOVIE (which is short form for MOVING PICTURES), is paramount to film criticism.

    Give it a rest.

    Or go and see the film.

    I’ll forward you the $$ to see it.

    But until then, give it a rest.
  • Agent007391Agent007391 Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start
    Posts: 7,854
    slide_99 wrote: »
    peter wrote: »
    UGH @slide_99 … you’re criticizing a visual medium when you haven’t actually seen it. You’re like a visually impaired person criticizing the Mona Lisa based on “stuff” you’ve heard about it. This is absurd.

    What? I've never criticized or even commented on NTTD's technical aspects like acting, directing, cinematography, or music. I've never posted any kind of review of it whatsoever. This entire thread I've been talking about narrative and continuity issues arising from NTTD's ending and how it relates to other Bond movies.

    I know people who are fans of other series like Alien and Terminator, who haven't seen the recent ones, but they still talk about them. What's the difference?

    You don't truly get the narrative from a summary, and regardless, there are no narrative or continuity issues raised in relation to the four Craig films that preceezed it, the only films that matter toward the conclusion of this one. We saw this Bond rise, we saw this Bond fall.

    All you've done is criticise what you can't understand, which a song once said you shouldn't do. By all appearances, it seems you joined just to be critical about something you have no interest in and lord your opinion over those who've seen the movie.

    Do yourself a favor, watch the movie, form a real opinion. Wear a mask if you're afraid of catching Covid.
  • edited November 2021 Posts: 6,682
    Feyador wrote: »
    I'd say it's a combination of both. He had just barely enough time to escape before being shot and before needing to re-open the blast doors, but once he was injured and poisoned, he clearly knew there the chances were none.

    I think what helps make it all so moving is the knowledge, acceptance & consolation, especially, that if he is not going to survive - it is for the best given the implications of having been poisoned with the nanobots targeted for Madeleine & Mathilde.

    So it's not that he chooses to die, only that he embraces his imminent death in the knowledge of the above.

    Ultimately I think I agree with what you say. Bond didn't choose to stay when he could have escaped, or had a reasonable chance of escaping. He was going to die because his wounds would have slowed down his escape, or would have ended up killing him (as mentioned before, he drops to the floor in agony at one point). And knowing his survival would have endangered his family, he accepted his imminent death without any doubts or regrets, content in having saved them and having served a purpose in life.

    The scene could have played out in a different way: Bond gets poisoned but isn't shot, and then refuses to leave the island. Then, the message would have been absolutely clear: he chose death. Certainly, they didn't go in that direction because audiences wouldn't have liked to see Bond "quitting." It would have left the door open for audiences to question why Bond --despite Q's exposition that nanobots are "forever"-- didn't at least make an effort to carry on living and try to find a solution to his poisoning.

    Alternatively, Bond could have been shot, but not poisoned, and died from his wounds. But perhaps they didn't go with this option, because that would have meant Bond "failed", so to speak. The bad guy finally got him.

    So what does having both the wounds and the poisoning add to the scene? I suppose it's an attempt to give us the best of both worlds. The wounds suggest Bond didn't just give up on life and chose to stay when poisoned; he actually succumbed to them. And the poisoning suggests he didn't "fail" and succumb to those wounds; he actually came to accept he had to die for the sake of his family. And what does all of this mean? That Bond didn't give up, and he didn't fail. It's a middle ground. Does that make sense? I can feel smoke coming out of my brain.

    Of course, all of the above is an attempt to look at the ending from a functional point of view, trying to get into the mindset of the people who put the story together, and understand what they wanted to achieve when they made those choices.

    I still wonder if, in a way, this discussion betrays a lack of narrative clarity from the film, and if that lack of clarity is a negative. Whatever the case, it's clear to me is that the filmmakers must have talked the hell out of this ending.

    Edit: They could have also done this, which I believe was suggested in this thread before. Bond comes to the conclusion that someone needs to stay on the island and do something to hold the doors open for the missiles. So he stays and gets blown up. No wounds, no poisoning. It could have worked: Bond didn't quit, and didn't fail.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    edited November 2021 Posts: 23,449
    slide_99 wrote: »
    peter wrote: »
    UGH @slide_99 … you’re criticizing a visual medium when you haven’t actually seen it. You’re like a visually impaired person criticizing the Mona Lisa based on “stuff” you’ve heard about it. This is absurd.

    What? I've never criticized or even commented on NTTD's technical aspects like acting, directing, cinematography, or music. I've never posted any kind of review of it whatsoever. This entire thread I've been talking about narrative and continuity issues arising from NTTD's ending and how it relates to other Bond movies.

    I know people who are fans of other series like Alien and Terminator, who haven't seen the recent ones, but they still talk about them. What's the difference?

    Like the student who writes book reports on books he hasn't read apart from what's printed on the cover, your every attempt at claiming any qualification to even discuss the film's narrative is ludicrous.

    Let me say something that is probably going to stir up some controversy: to hate or to love a Bond film in a community of Bond fans (as opposed to, say, a community of Star Trek fans) is not the same thing. All opinions are welcome, but negative opinions will, inevitably, have to work harder to gather sympathy, unless there's an easy consensus (e.g. it's "easier" to get away with a negative comment regarding DAD versus a negative comment regarding FRWL.) A new Bond film is always a particularly sensitive subject in that way. Right or wrong is not the point: the new film is, by definition, hot material. Lovers will fight for praise, haters will fight for total and absolute demolition. Neither side is superior... but haters will have to work harder because that's how it usually goes with fans. A new baby was born, and if you call it ugly, you better state your reasons why.

    That makes these NTTD debates flammable, to say the least. For fans of the film, any negative comment feels like a violation of the film's virginal perfection. And to say something positive about a film is easy. "I like it." Clean and simple, and few people will take offence. But a hater will have to explain himself. To coin a phrase: a film is good until proven otherwise. I'm not saying this is the way it should be, I'm saying this is pretty much the way it is. This also explains why haters have a pretty hard time here and (correctly) feel like they are being targeted way more by lovers than the other way around. It's the nature of the beast.

    Hence, if someone were to say, "I haven't seen the movie yet, but I've read the wiki summary and I can call it a good film," most people will let that slide. If someone says, "I haven't seen the movie yet, and I won't, but I have read a plot summary and this film sucks!", get ready to be tarred and feathered.

    Is this balanced? Just? Fair? No, probably not. But that's the way it is. Come into my house and call my wife beautiful, and I'll shake hands with you. Come into my house and call my wife ugly, and you'll have to explain yourself. Come into a Bond fan community and call the latest film, with a substantial number of fans, terrible, you better prepare yourself for a few rounds in the ring. But if it then turns out you haven't even seen the film, yet spent dozens upon dozens of posts adamantly burning the film to the ground, forget about a fair fight in the ring, mate. That's just game over.

    If you had just stated once or twice, "I haven't seen the film and I don't intend to because I know what happens and I don't like the notion of it regardless of how the film plays out," that would have been cool. But the way you have been firing torpedoes at this movie with the relentlessness of a hunter and the ferocity of a predator, while not having seen the movie, that's not just "not cool", it means your entire rhetoric was built on quicksand. I'd be ashamed.
  • I think one of the biggest issues with the Craig era is the loss of ambiguity. Before the Craig era, things like a timeline or Bond's past were done in a mostly suggestive and implicit manner, allowing the viewer the freedom to interpret the references how they wished. Sequence of events from outside a particular film was not central to the plot.

    Now take the Craig era, where very definitive situations occur in a specific sequence of events across the films that plays into each plot (except SF, to be fair). When I took my parents to NTTD, I had to explain what was going and it really detracted from their experience.

    And then on top of that, they go out of their way to go into territory that I feel otherwise would have been left to the viewer's imagination. Bond's childhood. Bond death. It's all explicit. We are reminded of Bond being an orphan several times and we now cant get away from the fact that Bond is bros with Blofeld. Bond is definitively made dead.

    The one thing thankfully they've mostly managed to keep in the world of ambiguity is politics. Thank God for that.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,518
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    slide_99 wrote: »
    peter wrote: »
    UGH @slide_99 … you’re criticizing a visual medium when you haven’t actually seen it. You’re like a visually impaired person criticizing the Mona Lisa based on “stuff” you’ve heard about it. This is absurd.

    What? I've never criticized or even commented on NTTD's technical aspects like acting, directing, cinematography, or music. I've never posted any kind of review of it whatsoever. This entire thread I've been talking about narrative and continuity issues arising from NTTD's ending and how it relates to other Bond movies.

    I know people who are fans of other series like Alien and Terminator, who haven't seen the recent ones, but they still talk about them. What's the difference?

    Like the student who writes book reports on books he hasn't read apart from what's printed on the cover, your every attempt at claiming any qualification to even discuss the film's narrative is ludicrous.

    Let me say something that is probably going to stir up some controversy: to hate or to love a Bond film in a community of Bond fans (as opposed to, say, a community of Star Trek fans) is not the same thing. All opinions are welcome, but negative opinions will, inevitably, have to work harder to gather sympathy, unless there's an easy consensus (e.g. it's "easier" to get away with a negative comment regarding DAD versus a negative comment regarding FRWL.) A new Bond film is always a particularly sensitive subject in that way. Right or wrong is not the point: the new film is, by definition, hot material. Lovers will fight for praise, haters will fight for total and absolute demolition. Neither side is superior... but haters will have to work harder because that's how it usually goes with fans. A new baby was born, and if you call it ugly, you better state your reasons why.

    That makes these NTTD debates flammable, to say the least. For fans of the film, any negative comment feels like a violation of the film's virginal perfection. And to say something positive about a film is easy. "I like it." Clean and simple, and few people will take offence. But a hater will have to explain himself. To coin a phrase: a film is good until proven otherwise. I'm not saying this is the way it should be, I'm saying this is pretty much the way it is. This also explains why haters have a pretty hard time here and (correctly) feel like they are being targeted way more by lovers than the other way around. It's the nature of the beast.

    Hence, if someone were to say, "I haven't seen the movie yet, but I've read the wiki summary and I can call it a good film," most people will let that slide. If someone says, "I haven't seen the movie yet, and I won't, but I have read a plot summary and this film sucks!", get ready to be tarred and feathered.

    Is this balanced? Just? Fair? No, probably not. But that's the way it is. Come into my house and call my wife beautiful, and I'll shake hands with you. Come into my house and call my wife ugly, and you'll have to explain yourself. Come into a Bond fan community and call the latest film, with a substantial number of fans, terrible, you better prepare yourself for a few rounds in the ring. But if it then turns out you haven't even seen the film, yet spent dozens upon dozens of posts adamantly burning the film to the ground, forget about a fair fight in the ring, mate. That's just game over.

    If you had just stated once or twice, "I haven't seen the film and I don't intend to because I know what happens and I don't like the notion of it regardless of how the film plays out," that would have been cool. But the way you have been firing torpedoes at this movie with the relentlessness of a hunter and the ferocity of a predator, while not having seen the movie, that's not just "not cool", it means your entire rhetoric was built on quicksand. I'd be ashamed.

    He'll tell you he did mention "once or twice" (once) that he had no intention of seeing the film.

    But regardless of the current topic, this is a great post on the new-material dynamic in a fan club. Of course all opinions are welcome and debate is encouraged, but ultimately it's a fan club, not an objective film critique office. Not to say, of course, that you have to be a fan of every Bond film, but as you said, if you have strong negative opinions, arm yourself because no one here will save you.

    And not having experienced the material in question, you've brought a plastic butterknife to a gunfight. It's borderline insulting to the people you're engaging with.
  • Posts: 526
    We’ve all had our say, and know our side. Let’s see how history judges this film 10 years or so from now. That’s the true test: time.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,518
    We’ve all had our say, and know our side. Let’s see how history judges this film 10 years or so from now. That’s the true test: time.

    OHMSS only has three things on NTTD, and their names are Rigg, Savalas, and Fleming. In 10 years this film will be regarded up along with OHMSS.
  • Aziz_FekkeshAziz_Fekkesh Royale-les-Eaux
    Posts: 403
    Does anyone want to comment on how contrived it was for Bond to launch a missile strike on the island before getting off and thus create a forced "agains the clock scenario"? Presumably he did it to stop the enemy buyers from reaching the island but then why not just aim the missiles at these enemy buyers, then nuke the island after he had gotten to safety?
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,518
    Does anyone want to comment on how contrived it was for Bond to launch a missile strike on the island before getting off and thus create a forced "agains the clock scenario"? Presumably he did it to stop the enemy buyers from reaching the island but then why not just aim the missiles at these enemy buyers, then nuke the island after he had gotten to safety?

    It wasn’t just the buyers, it was the Japanese, Russians, and even the British Navy. It had to be destroyed before anyone knew what it was.

    No I don’t think contriving an “against the clock” situation was inappropriate for a Bond film.
  • Posts: 526
    We’ve all had our say, and know our side. Let’s see how history judges this film 10 years or so from now. That’s the true test: time.

    OHMSS only has three things on NTTD, and their names are Rigg, Savalas, and Fleming. In 10 years this film will be regarded up along with OHMSS.
    I think it will be exactly the opposite. More like Never Say Never Again. But, we shall see! If I’m wrong, I will gladly admit it.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,518
    See you in ten years! ;)
  • Posts: 526
    See you in ten years! ;)

    Sounds good my friend. Btw, I visited Vancouver about 8 years ago. Beautiful city! B-)
  • edited November 2021 Posts: 3,273
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    slide_99 wrote: »
    peter wrote: »
    UGH @slide_99 … you’re criticizing a visual medium when you haven’t actually seen it. You’re like a visually impaired person criticizing the Mona Lisa based on “stuff” you’ve heard about it. This is absurd.

    What? I've never criticized or even commented on NTTD's technical aspects like acting, directing, cinematography, or music. I've never posted any kind of review of it whatsoever. This entire thread I've been talking about narrative and continuity issues arising from NTTD's ending and how it relates to other Bond movies.

    I know people who are fans of other series like Alien and Terminator, who haven't seen the recent ones, but they still talk about them. What's the difference?

    Like the student who writes book reports on books he hasn't read apart from what's printed on the cover, your every attempt at claiming any qualification to even discuss the film's narrative is ludicrous.

    Let me say something that is probably going to stir up some controversy: to hate or to love a Bond film in a community of Bond fans (as opposed to, say, a community of Star Trek fans) is not the same thing. All opinions are welcome, but negative opinions will, inevitably, have to work harder to gather sympathy, unless there's an easy consensus (e.g. it's "easier" to get away with a negative comment regarding DAD versus a negative comment regarding FRWL.) A new Bond film is always a particularly sensitive subject in that way. Right or wrong is not the point: the new film is, by definition, hot material. Lovers will fight for praise, haters will fight for total and absolute demolition. Neither side is superior... but haters will have to work harder because that's how it usually goes with fans. A new baby was born, and if you call it ugly, you better state your reasons why.

    That makes these NTTD debates flammable, to say the least. For fans of the film, any negative comment feels like a violation of the film's virginal perfection. And to say something positive about a film is easy. "I like it." Clean and simple, and few people will take offence. But a hater will have to explain himself. To coin a phrase: a film is good until proven otherwise. I'm not saying this is the way it should be, I'm saying this is pretty much the way it is. This also explains why haters have a pretty hard time here and (correctly) feel like they are being targeted way more by lovers than the other way around. It's the nature of the beast.

    Hence, if someone were to say, "I haven't seen the movie yet, but I've read the wiki summary and I can call it a good film," most people will let that slide. If someone says, "I haven't seen the movie yet, and I won't, but I have read a plot summary and this film sucks!", get ready to be tarred and feathered.

    Is this balanced? Just? Fair? No, probably not. But that's the way it is. Come into my house and call my wife beautiful, and I'll shake hands with you. Come into my house and call my wife ugly, and you'll have to explain yourself. Come into a Bond fan community and call the latest film, with a substantial number of fans, terrible, you better prepare yourself for a few rounds in the ring. But if it then turns out you haven't even seen the film, yet spent dozens upon dozens of posts adamantly burning the film to the ground, forget about a fair fight in the ring, mate. That's just game over.

    If you had just stated once or twice, "I haven't seen the film and I don't intend to because I know what happens and I don't like the notion of it regardless of how the film plays out," that would have been cool. But the way you have been firing torpedoes at this movie with the relentlessness of a hunter and the ferocity of a predator, while not having seen the movie, that's not just "not cool", it means your entire rhetoric was built on quicksand. I'd be ashamed.

    Great post DD. I've certainly gone a few rounds in the ring on here due to my stance on the film, but that was to be expected on a Bond fan forum. All par for the course.

    And @slide_99 - just go and see the movie. You may actually like it, even though you think the plot sounds terrible.

  • matt_umatt_u better known as Mr. Roark
    Posts: 4,343
    So the most vocal detractor of the film never actually saw the film.

    135869-christopher-walken-james-bond-007-a-view-to-a-kill-james-bond-007-internazionale-film.gif
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    This might be peak internet-fandom. Well done, everyone.

    Especially @DarthDimi. That last post is a very insightful look into how places like this can function.
    mattjoes wrote: »
    Feyador wrote: »
    I'd say it's a combination of both. He had just barely enough time to escape before being shot and before needing to re-open the blast doors, but once he was injured and poisoned, he clearly knew there the chances were none.

    I think what helps make it all so moving is the knowledge, acceptance & consolation, especially, that if he is not going to survive - it is for the best given the implications of having been poisoned with the nanobots targeted for Madeleine & Mathilde.

    So it's not that he chooses to die, only that he embraces his imminent death in the knowledge of the above.

    Ultimately I think I agree with what you say. Bond didn't choose to stay when he could have escaped, or had a reasonable chance of escaping. He was going to die because his wounds would have slowed down his escape, or would have ended up killing him (as mentioned before, he drops to the floor in agony at one point). And knowing his survival would have endangered his family, he accepted his imminent death without any doubts or regrets, content in having saved them and having served a purpose in life.

    The scene could have played out in a different way: Bond gets poisoned but isn't shot, and then refuses to leave the island. Then, the message would have been absolutely clear: he chose death. Certainly, they didn't go in that direction because audiences wouldn't have liked to see Bond "quitting." It would have left the door open for audiences to question why Bond --despite Q's exposition that nanobots are "forever"-- didn't at least make an effort to carry on living and try to find a solution to his poisoning.

    Alternatively, Bond could have been shot, but not poisoned, and died from his wounds. But perhaps they didn't go with this option, because that would have meant Bond "failed", so to speak. The bad guy finally got him.

    So what does having both the wounds and the poisoning add to the scene? I suppose it's an attempt to give us the best of both worlds. The wounds suggest Bond didn't just give up on life and chose to stay when poisoned; he actually succumbed to them. And the poisoning suggests he didn't "fail" and succumb to those wounds; he actually came to accept he had to die for the sake of his family. And what does all of this mean? That Bond didn't give up, and he didn't fail. It's a middle ground. Does that make sense? I can feel smoke coming out of my brain.

    Of course, all of the above is an attempt to look at the ending from a functional point of view, trying to get into the mindset of the people who put the story together, and understand what they wanted to achieve when they made those choices.

    I still wonder if, in a way, this discussion betrays a lack of narrative clarity from the film, and if that lack of clarity is a negative. Whatever the case, it's clear to me is that the filmmakers must have talked the hell out of this ending.

    Edit: They could have also done this, which I believe was suggested in this thread before. Bond comes to the conclusion that someone needs to stay on the island and do something to hold the doors open for the missiles. So he stays and gets blown up. No wounds, no poisoning. It could have worked: Bond didn't quit, and didn't fail.

    I think you are spot-on there. Discussing this decision in such depth starts to make the seams appear more clearly and the more I think about it, the clearer I can see the writers and producers sitting around a table proposing and dismissing different scenarios.
    "He is shot to death by Safin!" "No, he can't lose to a villain."
    "He is poisoned with the nanobots!" "Same thing."
    "He is poisoned with nanobots targeted at M&M and decides to die!" "That's too defeatist and what if Q found a cure for them?" "We'll have Q say there is no possibility for a cure at all!"
    "So, he is shot and infected and we'll leave it vague which is worse, but how does he die then?"
    "How about a Royal Navy bombardment right on top of his head?" "Why would that happen?"
    "Well he calls it up to destroy the island?" "Why would he do that?"
    "I guess people are coming? I don't know, but this meeting is over now. We have some terrible hoodies to sell."

    This makes it sound pretty bad, but to me it's really well done. While seeing the film, I never felt like it was written by committee or something. It just pulled me along.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,459
    NTTD, the ending: It was definitely well done, beautifully acted, and I am thrilled it turned out that well. It so easily could have gone off the rails, but it didn't; it flowed with the whole story and the whole of this particular Bond. For me (and many others; though not all, obviously) the ending we got was the one that fit, and the path to it was laid out so very well.
  • AceHoleAceHole Belgium, via Britain
    edited November 2021 Posts: 1,727
    As I made quite plain in my review I wasn't thrilled with the conclusion and some of the writing in NTTD - but dear lord I didn't find it as problematic as some... I won't be disowning the series and it certainly didn't send me into a depression... :-?

    There is much to like about NTTD, and it at least offered a return to high-quality & well produced 007 adventures, ie. it actually left me more optimistic that Bondfilms to come will be qualitively high than the last few.

    I was, quite honestly, more 'depressed' after seeing Spectre... :|
  • DavidWebbDavidWebb Somewhere
    Posts: 20
    slide_99 wrote: »
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    @slide_99
    Who claimed that Craig defined the character "more" than the others? How do you even do such a thing? Craig re-defined the character, but only in the smallest of ways because the "definition" of Bond is pretty thin anyway. Every actor re-defined Bond to some extent. But to define Bond "more" than others? I guess when you get to do more films (e.g. Craig vs. Lazenby) and slightly more personal stories (e.g. Lazenby vs. Moore) you end up crawling under Bond's skin a bit more than the other guy. But "define more"? I can't tell you that much more about Craig's Bond than about Connery's, except for circumstantial details, i.e. things that have happened to him.

    What was the point of Craig's tenure? I'm sorry, I must have missed something. Since when is there a "point" to an actor's tenure? What was the point of Moore's? Of Brosnan's? What does that mean? They went from adventure to adventure, and we love them. Craig's Bond simply faced more bumps in the road by design. But let's be fair. If Dalton's films had been better received, they might have gone there too. He went from "M can fire me!" to "piss off, I'm just doing what I want!". Brosnan wishes (and so do I) that his stories could have been a little edgier too. (The "rogue" portion of DAD feels like a compromise.) Craig is the first Bond whose uneven loyalty to the system was embraced by audiences, enough to make it a staple of his films.

    That is part of the zeitgeist, by the way. The heroes of now operate for us, not for their masters (I have to kill a bombmaker and beat LeChiffre because I am convinced it's the right thing to do); they follow their orders but not unconditionally (we are a part of the State but the State doesn't own us). It's the culmination of fifty years of neo-liberalism; in the end, the individual will fight for itself rather than for the "status quo". Craig's Bond doesn't fit the ultra-loyal, no-questions-asked "Golden Generation mentality" because modern audiences wouldn't find that appealing. Craig's Bond is obedient but only on his own terms, the paradoxical way of thinking that many of us carry over to our job, community and other institutions every day in this day and age (there really is an "I" in the team of 2021). It's no wonder then that the "here's your assignment Bond, now go and do your job" formula doesn't work anymore. For England, James? No, for me.
    Craig was finished in 2015. Why on earth did they wait 5 years (not including the one-year delay) to bring him back for this? To give him a big sendoff? Why? Why does he need a sendoff? He's not the first actor to play Bond, he's the sixth, and while he may have revitalized the role in 2006 he certainly didn't define it any more than Moore, Dalton, or Brosnan did. It feels like they broke Cubby's rule of the actor becoming bigger than the character.

    They waited five years because that's how long it took to get this film made. Why is James Cameron taking 14 (!) years to give us another Avatar? Because that's how long it's taking him. Don't overthink this. We have followed the various stages of the film's development. No one decided to wait 5 years. That's what happened. There were setbacks they had to face: the suits were quarrelling, COVID happened, it didn't work out with Boyle, ... None of this was desirable, but it happened. There's no plan behind the five-year gap, only a linear sequence of events that led to this point.

    Why he needs a sendoff? He doesn't. They chose to give it to him. Craig is a popular Bond. And some folks felt that he definitely had one more Bond in him. If the rights to CR hadn't landed in EON's lap, Brosnan would most likely have gotten a 5th film. Could have been a symbolic sendoff to, in some shape or form. We don't know. Doesn't matter. Why did they keep Moore on, when some--not me!--were screaming he was getting a bit long in the tooth? Same thing. He was popular, he was reliable. Don't overthink it.

    It's all a culmination of events, my friend. Frankly, I think it's a victory they got this film made and released. It's cost them though, costs that will require years to recuperate. NTTD was birthed in a very difficult climate, arguably the most difficult of any of the Bonds so far. I applaud the fact that they finally got here. I'm confident that if they had known this is what was coming to them, NTTD wouldn't have happened. But all the struggles will lend the film some sympathy too. It will always be remembered, I'm sure, as the Bond film that had to fight for its life and barely made its money back, if at all, mostly because of a global pandemic that neither allowed the film to be shelved indefinitely, nor to be released with guaranteed financial success.

    So basically the response is, "They did it because they wanted to." Yeah, I get that. It's their franchise and they can do what they want with it.
    slide_99 wrote: »
    BlondeBond wrote: »
    Venutius wrote: »
    Safin didn't kill him. He didn't infect him with a virus that would someday kill Bond. Bond is totally fine. He could have accepted that Madeleine and Mathilde will someday soon die gruesomely due to him being alive, just like Vesper, M, Mathis and so many others have, but he wasn't able to. Safin didn't kill him. He just ("just") snookered him into a position, where Bond didn't want to go on.
    Good point, actually. Viewed like this, it removes the 'Bond gave up' complaints. Instead, you can say that Bond chose his own ending - that no one could stop him but himself and he chose to go out standing up and facing it. He didn't passively accept death - he actively chose it so that Madeleine and Mathilde could live. Men like Bond have died to protect women and children for millennia - so this was old-school positive masculinity to the end. Bond was a hero to the (literal) death. Good one, IG - this might be the start of my being able to reach an accommodation with all of this!

    Yep. It’s this, which is what makes the film so beautiful. In Jamaica, Nomi accuses him of nothing to live for, and he ends the movie with a reason to die. It also adds an incredible richness to his entire tenure, imo, that someday this Bond would make this choice for his family.

    I don't see how it adds richness to anything. Felix dies. Blofeld dies. Craig-Bond dies. Was there no other way for the filmmakers to give exits to these characters? And that's not even including Mathis and Dench-M. Reading the plot rundown on wikipedia, this movie comes off as a controlled demolition to me, just burning everything down so they can start fresh or whatever for the next "reboot" (ugh).

    Hold on, are you telling me you've been blowing up the forums about this and still haven't even watched the bloody film?

    Yes. I have no intention of spending 3+ hours in a theater during a pandemic for a movie that I have no interest in seeing. I've read the plot rundown. I know what happens and I'm not interested in discussing stuff like cinematography and music.

    Bloody Nora mate, this is a lot of writing to do instead of watching the film. Have a cup of tea and relax mate, I get not wanting to see the film in theaters but I know you can watch it for free with Amazon Prime Video. I'm guessing you have Amazon Prime, but if you don't then you can start a free trial to watch it.

    Why not watch it? There's no harm in doing so, and you would contribute a lot more to the conversation. No offense, of course, but it seems as though everyone else, including myself, agrees it is a bit inappropriate to not have so much as seen the movie and expected to be received well in this thread.
  • FeyadorFeyador Montreal, Canada
    edited November 2021 Posts: 721
    mattjoes wrote: »
    Feyador wrote: »
    I'd say it's a combination of both. He had just barely enough time to escape before being shot and before needing to re-open the blast doors, but once he was injured and poisoned, he clearly knew there the chances were none.

    I think what helps make it all so moving is the knowledge, acceptance & consolation, especially, that if he is not going to survive - it is for the best given the implications of having been poisoned with the nanobots targeted for Madeleine & Mathilde.

    So it's not that he chooses to die, only that he embraces his imminent death in the knowledge of the above.

    Ultimately I think I agree with what you say. Bond didn't choose to stay when he could have escaped, or had a reasonable chance of escaping. He was going to die because his wounds would have slowed down his escape, or would have ended up killing him (as mentioned before, he drops to the floor in agony at one point). And knowing his survival would have endangered his family, he accepted his imminent death without any doubts or regrets, content in having saved them and having served a purpose in life.

    The scene could have played out in a different way: Bond gets poisoned but isn't shot, and then refuses to leave the island. Then, the message would have been absolutely clear: he chose death. Certainly, they didn't go in that direction because audiences wouldn't have liked to see Bond "quitting." It would have left the door open for audiences to question why Bond --despite Q's exposition that nanobots are "forever"-- didn't at least make an effort to carry on living and try to find a solution to his poisoning.

    Alternatively, Bond could have been shot, but not poisoned, and died from his wounds. But perhaps they didn't go with this option, because that would have meant Bond "failed", so to speak. The bad guy finally got him.

    So what does having both the wounds and the poisoning add to the scene? I suppose it's an attempt to give us the best of both worlds. The wounds suggest Bond didn't just give up on life and chose to stay when poisoned; he actually succumbed to them. And the poisoning suggests he didn't "fail" and succumb to those wounds; he actually came to accept he had to die for the sake of his family. And what does all of this mean? That Bond didn't give up, and he didn't fail. It's a middle ground. Does that make sense? I can feel smoke coming out of my brain.

    Of course, all of the above is an attempt to look at the ending from a functional point of view, trying to get into the mindset of the people who put the story together, and understand what they wanted to achieve when they made those choices.

    I still wonder if, in a way, this discussion betrays a lack of narrative clarity from the film, and if that lack of clarity is a negative. Whatever the case, it's clear to me is that the filmmakers must have talked the hell out of this ending.

    Edit: They could have also done this, which I believe was suggested in this thread before. Bond comes to the conclusion that someone needs to stay on the island and do something to hold the doors open for the missiles. So he stays and gets blown up. No wounds, no poisoning. It could have worked: Bond didn't quit, and didn't fail.

    I keep hearing people say that Bond "gave up" at the end of NTTD. I heard it again repeated on a dedicated (but largely anti-Craig) James Bond podcast yesterday. But that is so clearly not the case I had to "give up" listening to it. One of the participants even acknowledged that while Bond had been shot "five or six times," in his words, Bond somehow still "gave up." I mean, what!?

    It's not even a question of interpretation because as I've outlined in an earlier post with specific detailed reference to the events & time frame of the conclusion, that's just not what happens. And when people get the chance to look at the last ten minutes of NTTD more closely, I think they will come to see that this supposed "giving up" is just not the case.

    Hmmm, you know ... I think I'm happy with the ending as it exists. And in the unlikely event that they never make another James Bond movie ever again, I would be content with this as closure for the entire series.

    I never fail to be moved by the conclusion of NTTD, especially after several screenings now. It has a lot of feeling and provides plenty to think about. And yet, it hardly matters how he died, why he died, or who he died for--it's enough for me that he died rescuing his family and helping to save the world "one last time." Yes, I know, while Craig-Bond may never have saved the world before, in presenting this particularly characteristic scenario it is connecting him to the earlier Bonds who have done so. And so the conclusion is not strictly about closure for the Craig era, as the film is also in a kind of dialogue throughout with the entire tradition of Bond films, which is why the OHMSS touches work for me.

    What did Moneypenny say once, "Same James, only different"? That's a line, or variation of it, that Madeleine might have used during their reconciliation in Norway.

    But as this is Craig-Bond, with all the relative degrees of "realism" that are present in his films, both psychological and otherwise, it is - I think - fitting that he does not survive his own storyline, which has largely been one of a tragic, deathward trajectory. And yet, I don't find that depressing in the least.

    Why? Because he died heroically ... rescuing his family & helping to "save the world," as it were.

    And Safin is right about one thing, "Life is all about what we leave behind." And so Mathilde functions both as a character in herself but also as the physical embodiment of Bond's legacy - just as our children may do for us.

    And for another, it ends with the Bond character literally passing into myth, like one of the heroes of the ancient world. Heracles, anyone? What does Madeleine say at the end, "I'm going to tell you a story." So in that sense, Bond very much does survive.


    Edit: Moneypenny actually says, "Same James, only more so." [OHMSS]
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,518
    DavidWebb wrote: »
    slide_99 wrote: »
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    @slide_99
    Who claimed that Craig defined the character "more" than the others? How do you even do such a thing? Craig re-defined the character, but only in the smallest of ways because the "definition" of Bond is pretty thin anyway. Every actor re-defined Bond to some extent. But to define Bond "more" than others? I guess when you get to do more films (e.g. Craig vs. Lazenby) and slightly more personal stories (e.g. Lazenby vs. Moore) you end up crawling under Bond's skin a bit more than the other guy. But "define more"? I can't tell you that much more about Craig's Bond than about Connery's, except for circumstantial details, i.e. things that have happened to him.

    What was the point of Craig's tenure? I'm sorry, I must have missed something. Since when is there a "point" to an actor's tenure? What was the point of Moore's? Of Brosnan's? What does that mean? They went from adventure to adventure, and we love them. Craig's Bond simply faced more bumps in the road by design. But let's be fair. If Dalton's films had been better received, they might have gone there too. He went from "M can fire me!" to "piss off, I'm just doing what I want!". Brosnan wishes (and so do I) that his stories could have been a little edgier too. (The "rogue" portion of DAD feels like a compromise.) Craig is the first Bond whose uneven loyalty to the system was embraced by audiences, enough to make it a staple of his films.

    That is part of the zeitgeist, by the way. The heroes of now operate for us, not for their masters (I have to kill a bombmaker and beat LeChiffre because I am convinced it's the right thing to do); they follow their orders but not unconditionally (we are a part of the State but the State doesn't own us). It's the culmination of fifty years of neo-liberalism; in the end, the individual will fight for itself rather than for the "status quo". Craig's Bond doesn't fit the ultra-loyal, no-questions-asked "Golden Generation mentality" because modern audiences wouldn't find that appealing. Craig's Bond is obedient but only on his own terms, the paradoxical way of thinking that many of us carry over to our job, community and other institutions every day in this day and age (there really is an "I" in the team of 2021). It's no wonder then that the "here's your assignment Bond, now go and do your job" formula doesn't work anymore. For England, James? No, for me.
    Craig was finished in 2015. Why on earth did they wait 5 years (not including the one-year delay) to bring him back for this? To give him a big sendoff? Why? Why does he need a sendoff? He's not the first actor to play Bond, he's the sixth, and while he may have revitalized the role in 2006 he certainly didn't define it any more than Moore, Dalton, or Brosnan did. It feels like they broke Cubby's rule of the actor becoming bigger than the character.

    They waited five years because that's how long it took to get this film made. Why is James Cameron taking 14 (!) years to give us another Avatar? Because that's how long it's taking him. Don't overthink this. We have followed the various stages of the film's development. No one decided to wait 5 years. That's what happened. There were setbacks they had to face: the suits were quarrelling, COVID happened, it didn't work out with Boyle, ... None of this was desirable, but it happened. There's no plan behind the five-year gap, only a linear sequence of events that led to this point.

    Why he needs a sendoff? He doesn't. They chose to give it to him. Craig is a popular Bond. And some folks felt that he definitely had one more Bond in him. If the rights to CR hadn't landed in EON's lap, Brosnan would most likely have gotten a 5th film. Could have been a symbolic sendoff to, in some shape or form. We don't know. Doesn't matter. Why did they keep Moore on, when some--not me!--were screaming he was getting a bit long in the tooth? Same thing. He was popular, he was reliable. Don't overthink it.

    It's all a culmination of events, my friend. Frankly, I think it's a victory they got this film made and released. It's cost them though, costs that will require years to recuperate. NTTD was birthed in a very difficult climate, arguably the most difficult of any of the Bonds so far. I applaud the fact that they finally got here. I'm confident that if they had known this is what was coming to them, NTTD wouldn't have happened. But all the struggles will lend the film some sympathy too. It will always be remembered, I'm sure, as the Bond film that had to fight for its life and barely made its money back, if at all, mostly because of a global pandemic that neither allowed the film to be shelved indefinitely, nor to be released with guaranteed financial success.

    So basically the response is, "They did it because they wanted to." Yeah, I get that. It's their franchise and they can do what they want with it.
    slide_99 wrote: »
    BlondeBond wrote: »
    Venutius wrote: »
    Safin didn't kill him. He didn't infect him with a virus that would someday kill Bond. Bond is totally fine. He could have accepted that Madeleine and Mathilde will someday soon die gruesomely due to him being alive, just like Vesper, M, Mathis and so many others have, but he wasn't able to. Safin didn't kill him. He just ("just") snookered him into a position, where Bond didn't want to go on.
    Good point, actually. Viewed like this, it removes the 'Bond gave up' complaints. Instead, you can say that Bond chose his own ending - that no one could stop him but himself and he chose to go out standing up and facing it. He didn't passively accept death - he actively chose it so that Madeleine and Mathilde could live. Men like Bond have died to protect women and children for millennia - so this was old-school positive masculinity to the end. Bond was a hero to the (literal) death. Good one, IG - this might be the start of my being able to reach an accommodation with all of this!

    Yep. It’s this, which is what makes the film so beautiful. In Jamaica, Nomi accuses him of nothing to live for, and he ends the movie with a reason to die. It also adds an incredible richness to his entire tenure, imo, that someday this Bond would make this choice for his family.

    I don't see how it adds richness to anything. Felix dies. Blofeld dies. Craig-Bond dies. Was there no other way for the filmmakers to give exits to these characters? And that's not even including Mathis and Dench-M. Reading the plot rundown on wikipedia, this movie comes off as a controlled demolition to me, just burning everything down so they can start fresh or whatever for the next "reboot" (ugh).

    Hold on, are you telling me you've been blowing up the forums about this and still haven't even watched the bloody film?

    Yes. I have no intention of spending 3+ hours in a theater during a pandemic for a movie that I have no interest in seeing. I've read the plot rundown. I know what happens and I'm not interested in discussing stuff like cinematography and music.

    Bloody Nora mate, this is a lot of writing to do instead of watching the film. Have a cup of tea and relax mate, I get not wanting to see the film in theaters but I know you can watch it for free with Amazon Prime Video. I'm guessing you have Amazon Prime, but if you don't then you can start a free trial to watch it.

    Why not watch it? There's no harm in doing so, and you would contribute a lot more to the conversation. No offense, of course, but it seems as though everyone else, including myself, agrees it is a bit inappropriate to not have so much as seen the movie and expected to be received well in this thread.

    It's not on Amazon Prime Video, is it?
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    Posts: 2,895
    It's not. I wish it was - I've only seen it twice and the dvd's not due til 20th December! What if Skylab falls on me before then?!
  • DavidWebbDavidWebb Somewhere
    Posts: 20
    DavidWebb wrote: »
    slide_99 wrote: »
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    @slide_99
    Who claimed that Craig defined the character "more" than the others? How do you even do such a thing? Craig re-defined the character, but only in the smallest of ways because the "definition" of Bond is pretty thin anyway. Every actor re-defined Bond to some extent. But to define Bond "more" than others? I guess when you get to do more films (e.g. Craig vs. Lazenby) and slightly more personal stories (e.g. Lazenby vs. Moore) you end up crawling under Bond's skin a bit more than the other guy. But "define more"? I can't tell you that much more about Craig's Bond than about Connery's, except for circumstantial details, i.e. things that have happened to him.

    What was the point of Craig's tenure? I'm sorry, I must have missed something. Since when is there a "point" to an actor's tenure? What was the point of Moore's? Of Brosnan's? What does that mean? They went from adventure to adventure, and we love them. Craig's Bond simply faced more bumps in the road by design. But let's be fair. If Dalton's films had been better received, they might have gone there too. He went from "M can fire me!" to "piss off, I'm just doing what I want!". Brosnan wishes (and so do I) that his stories could have been a little edgier too. (The "rogue" portion of DAD feels like a compromise.) Craig is the first Bond whose uneven loyalty to the system was embraced by audiences, enough to make it a staple of his films.

    That is part of the zeitgeist, by the way. The heroes of now operate for us, not for their masters (I have to kill a bombmaker and beat LeChiffre because I am convinced it's the right thing to do); they follow their orders but not unconditionally (we are a part of the State but the State doesn't own us). It's the culmination of fifty years of neo-liberalism; in the end, the individual will fight for itself rather than for the "status quo". Craig's Bond doesn't fit the ultra-loyal, no-questions-asked "Golden Generation mentality" because modern audiences wouldn't find that appealing. Craig's Bond is obedient but only on his own terms, the paradoxical way of thinking that many of us carry over to our job, community and other institutions every day in this day and age (there really is an "I" in the team of 2021). It's no wonder then that the "here's your assignment Bond, now go and do your job" formula doesn't work anymore. For England, James? No, for me.
    Craig was finished in 2015. Why on earth did they wait 5 years (not including the one-year delay) to bring him back for this? To give him a big sendoff? Why? Why does he need a sendoff? He's not the first actor to play Bond, he's the sixth, and while he may have revitalized the role in 2006 he certainly didn't define it any more than Moore, Dalton, or Brosnan did. It feels like they broke Cubby's rule of the actor becoming bigger than the character.

    They waited five years because that's how long it took to get this film made. Why is James Cameron taking 14 (!) years to give us another Avatar? Because that's how long it's taking him. Don't overthink this. We have followed the various stages of the film's development. No one decided to wait 5 years. That's what happened. There were setbacks they had to face: the suits were quarrelling, COVID happened, it didn't work out with Boyle, ... None of this was desirable, but it happened. There's no plan behind the five-year gap, only a linear sequence of events that led to this point.

    Why he needs a sendoff? He doesn't. They chose to give it to him. Craig is a popular Bond. And some folks felt that he definitely had one more Bond in him. If the rights to CR hadn't landed in EON's lap, Brosnan would most likely have gotten a 5th film. Could have been a symbolic sendoff to, in some shape or form. We don't know. Doesn't matter. Why did they keep Moore on, when some--not me!--were screaming he was getting a bit long in the tooth? Same thing. He was popular, he was reliable. Don't overthink it.

    It's all a culmination of events, my friend. Frankly, I think it's a victory they got this film made and released. It's cost them though, costs that will require years to recuperate. NTTD was birthed in a very difficult climate, arguably the most difficult of any of the Bonds so far. I applaud the fact that they finally got here. I'm confident that if they had known this is what was coming to them, NTTD wouldn't have happened. But all the struggles will lend the film some sympathy too. It will always be remembered, I'm sure, as the Bond film that had to fight for its life and barely made its money back, if at all, mostly because of a global pandemic that neither allowed the film to be shelved indefinitely, nor to be released with guaranteed financial success.

    So basically the response is, "They did it because they wanted to." Yeah, I get that. It's their franchise and they can do what they want with it.
    slide_99 wrote: »
    BlondeBond wrote: »
    Venutius wrote: »
    Safin didn't kill him. He didn't infect him with a virus that would someday kill Bond. Bond is totally fine. He could have accepted that Madeleine and Mathilde will someday soon die gruesomely due to him being alive, just like Vesper, M, Mathis and so many others have, but he wasn't able to. Safin didn't kill him. He just ("just") snookered him into a position, where Bond didn't want to go on.
    Good point, actually. Viewed like this, it removes the 'Bond gave up' complaints. Instead, you can say that Bond chose his own ending - that no one could stop him but himself and he chose to go out standing up and facing it. He didn't passively accept death - he actively chose it so that Madeleine and Mathilde could live. Men like Bond have died to protect women and children for millennia - so this was old-school positive masculinity to the end. Bond was a hero to the (literal) death. Good one, IG - this might be the start of my being able to reach an accommodation with all of this!

    Yep. It’s this, which is what makes the film so beautiful. In Jamaica, Nomi accuses him of nothing to live for, and he ends the movie with a reason to die. It also adds an incredible richness to his entire tenure, imo, that someday this Bond would make this choice for his family.

    I don't see how it adds richness to anything. Felix dies. Blofeld dies. Craig-Bond dies. Was there no other way for the filmmakers to give exits to these characters? And that's not even including Mathis and Dench-M. Reading the plot rundown on wikipedia, this movie comes off as a controlled demolition to me, just burning everything down so they can start fresh or whatever for the next "reboot" (ugh).

    Hold on, are you telling me you've been blowing up the forums about this and still haven't even watched the bloody film?

    Yes. I have no intention of spending 3+ hours in a theater during a pandemic for a movie that I have no interest in seeing. I've read the plot rundown. I know what happens and I'm not interested in discussing stuff like cinematography and music.

    Bloody Nora mate, this is a lot of writing to do instead of watching the film. Have a cup of tea and relax mate, I get not wanting to see the film in theaters but I know you can watch it for free with Amazon Prime Video. I'm guessing you have Amazon Prime, but if you don't then you can start a free trial to watch it.

    Why not watch it? There's no harm in doing so, and you would contribute a lot more to the conversation. No offense, of course, but it seems as though everyone else, including myself, agrees it is a bit inappropriate to not have so much as seen the movie and expected to be received well in this thread.

    It's not on Amazon Prime Video, is it?

    I read that you could watch it on Amazon Prime somewhere, that's my bad. My point about watching it still stands.
  • MinionMinion Don't Hassle the Bond
    edited November 2021 Posts: 1,165
    Wait, @slide_99 hasn't even SEEN the movie he's criticising?

    Are you kidding me? Is he 'aving a laugh?

    That reminds me of some old classmates of mine who would rattle off talking points from ThatGuyWithTheGlasses videos as their own opinions and when called out on whether or not they'd actually seen the thing they're criticizing they'd sheepishly admit they had not. That's you, @slide_99; you're the sheep.
Sign In or Register to comment.