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

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Comments

  • GadgetManGadgetMan Lagos, Nigeria
    Posts: 4,247
    I've seen it again. Apart from the ending which I'm still struggling to digest, I wanted them to allow Craig carry on with his serious attitude in Matera. Craig's Bond is at his best when he's serious.
  • edited November 2021 Posts: 1,215
    One of my favourite things about No Time to Die is the way it frames the entirety of Daniel Craig's run. I know there was a lot of criticism when Skyfall came out about how we go from rookie Bond to over-the-hill veteran from QoS to Skyfall. I've always felt there was an implied time jump between QoS and Skyfall where a significant portion of DC's Bond career happens off-screen, and it's somewhat supported in NTTD where it's implied Bond and Felix have done much more together than what we saw in CR and QoS.

    Nevertheless, we have the James Bond story broken into 3 distinct chapters;

    Early Career: Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace
    End of Career: Skyfall and Spectre
    Retirement and Legacy: No Time to Die

    It's an interesting perspective to take as the first 20 films is really Bond perpetually in his prime, but rather in DC's run we focus on the formative moments of his career where he isn't necessarily at the top of his game. It's a huge risk but one that is quite poigniant and really gave the character an arc.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,459
    Thoughtful, good post, @battleshipgreygt
  • 00Heaven00Heaven Home
    Posts: 573
    I like to think that Craig Bond took on a number of jobs between QoS and SF. I think that makes the most sense and as you say supported by NTTD a bit.

    I'm OK with that TBH. I think you could make that argument for any Bond but obviously more tangibly for Craig Bond.

    Hopefully that makes sense. I've been watching the footy and I'm well oiled!
  • edited November 2021 Posts: 12,243
    I'd like to believe it too, but it's almost certainly not canon as the implication from SP is that everything Craig's Bond face stemmed from Blofeld, and all was listed from the seen films.
  • Posts: 2,400
    FoxRox wrote: »
    I'd like to believe it too, but it's almost certainly not canon as the implication from SP is that everything Craig's Bond face stemmed from Blofeld, and all was listed from the seen films.

    I can get behind him having had a few years of separate missions. After all, the Bond of the books had a couple stretches of separated missions between all of the SMERSH/SPECTRE stuff.
  • FoxRox wrote: »
    I'd like to believe it too, but it's almost certainly not canon as the implication from SP is that everything Craig's Bond face stemmed from Blofeld, and all was listed from the seen films.

    I can get behind him having had a few years of separate missions. After all, the Bond of the books had a couple stretches of separated missions between all of the SMERSH/SPECTRE stuff.

    Even then, SP implies that everything Bond faces in the missions we see stemmed from Blofeld, meaning essentially the films cover the "Spectre" missions, but I don't doubt there could have been many non-Spectre related missions that occurred between films.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited November 2021 Posts: 2,895
    Early Career: Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace
    End of Career: Skyfall and Spectre
    Retirement and Legacy: No Time to Die
    It pretty much has to be this, with CraigBond's 'prime' being a series of unseen missions in the gap between QOS and SF. These are implied, both by Silva in SF ('Is there nothing of the old James Bond left?') and Bond himself to Felix in NTTD ('We've been in worse than this'). Silva can't just have been talking about CR and QOS, and Bond probably wasn't referring to the bar in Bolivia! So even just counting the actual gap between the release of QOS and SF, if CraigBond was like BookBond and had a mission two or three times a year, that's eight to twelve we're missing from a Prime of Career section. How I wish we'd seen at least two of them.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,459
    I cannot be the only Bond fan who has thought for many long years that Bond takes on all kinds of missions in between the films we see. C'mon now ... B-)
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    edited November 2021 Posts: 8,000
    Hell, Connery Bond was already ten years into his 00 career. I think that was more a cute meta reference to literary Bond having been around near ten years.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    I cannot be the only Bond fan who has thought for many long years that Bond takes on all kinds of missions in between the films we see. C'mon now ... B-)
    I took that as a given.
  • I cannot be the only Bond fan who has thought for many long years that Bond takes on all kinds of missions in between the films we see. C'mon now ... B-)

    Oh definitely, just that they weren't deserving of their own theme song.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,518
    I think ever since "Reflections on a Double Bourbon", it was understood that Bond did lots of things that we don't see / there aren't stories of.
  • DCisaredDCisared Liverpool
    Posts: 1,329
    00Heaven wrote: »
    Dou Dou's dead?!?!? NOOOOO!!!
    00Heaven wrote: »
    I like to think that Craig Bond took on a number of jobs between QoS and SF. I think that makes the most sense and as you say supported by NTTD a bit.

    I'm OK with that TBH. I think you could make that argument for any Bond but obviously more tangibly for Craig Bond.

    Hopefully that makes sense. I've been watching the footy and I'm well oiled!

    Up the reds B-)
  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    Posts: 13,879
    Craig's Bond did get a standalone mission between QOS and SF, more in tone with the former. See Blood Stone.
  • Posts: 372
    BloodStone, Goldeneye and 007 Legends (this one recycling old films as Craig missions though some of the choices make no sense with the continuity of the Craig films).

    I think 007 missions intent, was to fill in that gap, despite the complete lack of coherence, as it was released with Skyfall as extra downloadable content.

    It's too bad for that last one, because they could have just ditched some elements, and basically made them work with the Craig films.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    I totally wouldn’t mind a series of games set in that timeframe. It will never happen, but I think it would be a cool way to fill out that gap.

    I also would have loved Ash mentioning missions we have never heard of. He is supposed to be such a fan (or at least acts like it for their encounter), they could have put a couple of Easter eggs in there.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 5,921
    I totally wouldn’t mind a series of games set in that timeframe. It will never happen, but I think it would be a cool way to fill out that gap.

    Never say never die again.

    Forever.

  • GadgetManGadgetMan Lagos, Nigeria
    Posts: 4,247
    One thing I noticed about NTTD is, although Bond is travelling, but the travelogue element is not fully expressed. I always like to see Bond dressed in suit leaving an airport for a hotel.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited November 2021 Posts: 2,895
    I also would have loved Ash mentioning missions we have never heard of. He is supposed to be such a fan (or at least acts like it for their encounter), they could have put a couple of Easter eggs in there.
    Yes, that would've been good - Ash going all gushing fanboy in the bar, trying to get them to tell him about several past missions he's heard about and Bond and Leiter swatting him down and brushing it off. Even better if some of them had been references to unused incidents from Fleming.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    Venutius wrote: »
    I also would have loved Ash mentioning missions we have never heard of. He is supposed to be such a fan (or at least acts like it for their encounter), they could have put a couple of Easter eggs in there.
    Yes, that would've been good - Ash going all gushing fanboy in the bar, trying to get them to tell him about several past missions he's heard about and Bond and Leiter swatting him down and brushing it off. Even better if some of them had been references to unused incidents from Fleming.

    Could have really fuelled the theory that all of the previous 20 films happened in between QoS and SF. So maybe it’s a good thing they didn’t go there [-X
  • DraxCucumberSandwichDraxCucumberSandwich United Kingdom
    Posts: 208

    Could have really fuelled the theory that all of the previous 20 films happened in between QoS and SF. So maybe it’s a good thing they didn’t go there [-X

    Only if Felix was going round with a wooden leg
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    Posts: 2,895
    Ah, now that would've sucked. 'Bond, Bond, what about that time in the Ice Palace?' etc. M wouldn't have been the only one uttering a particular epithet...
  • matt_umatt_u better known as Mr. Roark
    Posts: 4,343
    I suggest to read this very good essay titled Faithful to Fleming? – Is No Time To Die the Closest Adaptation of You Only Live Twice That Will Ever Be?

    https://notperfectedyet.wordpress.com/2021/11/23/faithful-to-fleming-is-no-time-to-die-the-closest-adaptation-of-you-only-live-twice-that-will-ever-be/

  • edited November 2021 Posts: 988
    That's a good read.
    One thing that Craig's era has over the Brosnan era, is the Fleming nods. As far as I remember, in the Brosnan movies there were no mentions of Bond's literary background apart from Alex mentioning his parents death in a climbing accident.
    In the Craig era, we've had one full blown novel adaptation, and loads of references to his literary roots. Who would ever have thought we'd see Bond's parents graves, for example?
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    matt_u wrote: »
    I suggest to read this very good essay titled Faithful to Fleming? – Is No Time To Die the Closest Adaptation of You Only Live Twice That Will Ever Be?

    https://notperfectedyet.wordpress.com/2021/11/23/faithful-to-fleming-is-no-time-to-die-the-closest-adaptation-of-you-only-live-twice-that-will-ever-be/
    matt_u wrote: »
    I suggest to read this very good essay titled Faithful to Fleming? – Is No Time To Die the Closest Adaptation of You Only Live Twice That Will Ever Be?

    https://notperfectedyet.wordpress.com/2021/11/23/faithful-to-fleming-is-no-time-to-die-the-closest-adaptation-of-you-only-live-twice-that-will-ever-be/

    Really well written. Thanks.
  • Last_Rat_StandingLast_Rat_Standing Long Neck Ice Cold Beer Never Broke My Heart
    Posts: 4,382
    That was a good read. I did notice a good amount of similarities between NTTD and the YOLT novel
  • DonnyDB5DonnyDB5 Buffalo, New York
    Posts: 1,755
    I consider Bloodstone to be canon. It fits in perfectly between QoS & Skyfall.
  • Last_Rat_StandingLast_Rat_Standing Long Neck Ice Cold Beer Never Broke My Heart
    Posts: 4,382
    DonnyDB5 wrote: »
    I consider Bloodstone to be canon. It fits in perfectly between QoS & Skyfall.

    It definitely is. I also consider Everything or Nothing as canon as well.
  • Posts: 526
    QBranch wrote: »
    Craig's Bond did get a standalone mission between QOS and SF, more in tone with the former. See Blood Stone.

    Blood Stone would have been an incredible movie. Would much rather have seen it as a movie vs a game. What a missed opportunity.
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