Easter Eggs, Symbolism & Call Backs (Major Spoilers)

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  • FeyadorFeyador Montreal, Canada
    edited November 2021 Posts: 721
    Thank you for spotting it. Some of these references to previous Bond films are tenuous, but I think this one has legs.

    By the way, the scientist they kidnap at the start clicks his pen not once but twice while he's at his computer. A Goldeneye reference? Or am I pulling it out my arse?

    No, I think you're on to something: Obruchev = Boris in Goldeneye.

    As noted among the comments for the Pentex video, the similarities stretch "from the colleagues messing with each other, to the one somewhat antisocial russian collegaue who gets the most flack, who then goes on to betray his colleagues by letting in a group of operatives who massacre everyone they see, steal a weapon that requires two people to operate, and abduct the antisocial russian colleague."
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited November 2021 Posts: 2,897
    Obruchev felt to me like a stock fool left over from the Brosnan-era, so this's a good catch, I reckon.
  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 8,255
    Obruchev was my least favorite character in NTTD. After such a thrilling PTS and a mysterious and well filmed post title credit scene, when he was introduced my heart sunk and I prayed he didn't have huge screen time.

    Happily he did have some non-annoying moments-- but he was only slightly better than Boris. However, the filmmakers obviously know something more than I do: anecdotally speaking, my daughters loved this character and thought he was funny (something I was completely immune to was this character's "humour").
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,518
    Loved Obruchev.
  • matt_umatt_u better known as Mr. Roark
    Posts: 4,343
    Loved Obruchev.

    Me too.
  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 8,255
    @NickTwentyTwo and @matt_u -- lucky! I just felt he was too stock... It was a great film with a wonderful cast of characters... I just didn't get this character (not what he was doing- he was incredibly opportunistic- but his portrayal seemed more a caricature than A character).
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,518
    peter wrote: »
    @NickTwentyTwo and @matt_u -- lucky! I just felt he was too stock... It was a great film with a wonderful cast of characters... I just didn't get this character (not what he was doing- he was incredibly opportunistic- but his portrayal seemed more a caricature than A character).

    For me it was a good counterpoint to everything else that was happening around him. We could have had the film without him, but IMO it would have been overwhelmingly serious; I like that he acted as a sort of "palate-cleanser" in his scenes. Never got annoying for me, but I know some of the people I saw the film with didn't agree with me. ;)
  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 8,255
    I hear you @NickTwentyTwo ... I think you're correct that he was a device to take some of the edge off of the seriousness of the story.

    I just felt the humour so jarring and a throwback to a time I thought we had left in the past.
  • MinionMinion Don't Hassle the Bond
    edited November 2021 Posts: 1,165
    My wife’s comment about Valdo: “Russians are the only ones we’re allowed to broadly stereotype these days, huh?” My response, “Them, and Italians.”

    I’m with @NickTwentyTwo and @matt_u, I found him a fun inclusion. Some of his humor during the attack of Safin’s base didn’t land so I’d have probably toned that down a bit, but I think he’s great in the lab raid and Cuba sequences.
  • matt_umatt_u better known as Mr. Roark
    Posts: 4,343
    Minion wrote: »
    My wife’s comment about Valdo: “Russians are the only ones we’re allowed to broadly stereotype these days, huh?” My response, “Them, and Italians.”

    I'm Italian and my future wife is Russian.

    Yeah, it's a little bit frustrating... :D
  • FeyadorFeyador Montreal, Canada
    edited November 2021 Posts: 721
    peter wrote: »
    @NickTwentyTwo and @matt_u -- lucky! I just felt he was too stock... It was a great film with a wonderful cast of characters... I just didn't get this character (not what he was doing- he was incredibly opportunistic- but his portrayal seemed more a caricature than A character).

    Yes, definitely a caricature, but often a weirdly funny one, as in his diversionary nonsequitor on the phone with Safin, "Yesss ... I like animalsssss." The actor’s delivery there always gets a laugh. But as with Safin his "vision" for the value of Heracles itself is barely touched upon except as a measure of the character's intentionally deplorable, if funny arrogance. So, yes, a stock villain to some extent.
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    Feyador wrote: »
    peter wrote: »
    @NickTwentyTwo and @matt_u -- lucky! I just felt he was too stock... It was a great film with a wonderful cast of characters... I just didn't get this character (not what he was doing- he was incredibly opportunistic- but his portrayal seemed more a caricature than A character).

    Yes, definitely a caricature, but often a weirdly funny one, as in his diversionary nonsequitor on the phone with Safin, "Yesss ... I like animalsssss." The actor’s delivery there always gets a laugh. But as with Safin his "vision" for the value of Heracles itself is barely touched upon except as a measure of the character's intentionally deplorable, if funny arrogance. So, yes, a stock villain to some extent.
    So many characters provided comic relief in a good way.

    Primo. Ash. Nomi's petty interactions with Bond over the number in some non-existent competition, trying to needle him but pretty much failing and gathering some respect along the way. Paloma's enthusiasm in everything she did starting to undress Bond to move the mission along, chugging every drink presented to her whether she was ready or not, problem-solving how to get Valdo and picking up a cigar along the way. Safin had funny lines as well. Parents!

    Valdo was at once funny while horrifically vacant of morality, soulless. The most dangerous kind.

  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    Feyador wrote: »
    The modernist abstract painting prominently featured in the scenes set in M's office throughout NTTF is Paul Nash's 1944 "The Battle of Germany." It's owned by the Imperial War Museum and is especially noteworthy during the coda in which the MI6 crew toast Bond. The IWM, below, describes the painting as an "aerial view of a bombing raid on a city" and it may remind us of the preceding scene, which of course is the missile attack on Poison Island.

    The painting was probably chosen by NTTD set decorator Véronique Melery. Whether she borrowed the original for the film or had a reproduction made, I don't know ...

    https://iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/20104

    I'm sure I read somewhere that Fiennes actually selected the painting from a shortlist.
  • Hey everybody! I'm new here, but have been lurking for a little bit -- I've really enjoyed the discussions here around the release of No Time to Die and am excited to participate!

    Anyway, I was just reading Fleming's Moonraker, and I think I might have noticed a reference NTTD's ending makes to a bit of Bond's biography in the book. (I haven't seen this particular reference discussed in this thread, but my apologies if it's been examined elsewhere).

    (Spoilers for both NTTD and the Moonraker book:)
    Near the end of the Moonraker book, Bond considers lighting his last cigarette beneath Hugo Drax's Moonraker rocket to explode it (and thus sacrificing himself in the blast) before it has a chance to reach England. He smiles and tells a horrified Gala Brand, "The boy stood on the burning deck. I've wanted to copy him since I was five."

    Granted, Brand has a better idea for how they will thwart the Moonraker, so Bond's reference isn't explored further. However, I did a little digging on the internet, and the "boy on the burning deck" is a reference to a poem called Casabianca (discussed at length here: https://yamm.finance/wiki/Casabianca_(poem).html)

    The poem is an elegy for a young man who died in the 1798 Battle of the Nile, who died refusing to desert his post on a burning ship, and was apparently taught in elementary schools in the US and UK until at least the 1950s.

    The poem reads in part:

    Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
    As born to rule the storm;
    A creature of heroic blood,
    A proud though childlike form.

    and
    With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
    That well had borne their part—
    But the noblest thing which perished there
    Was that young faithful heart.


    Reading that part in the book (and then reading more about the poem on the internet), I thought it fascinating (and somewhat moving) that Craig's Bond should meet his fate in a similar way, refusing to abandon ship while the fire rained down -- a similarity that surely would have pleased the Bond of the books.

    The OTHER Easter Egg I noticed that I didn't see referenced yet in this thread is that, when Q and Bond first meet in Skyfall, Q boasts of the damage he could do while in his pajamas, while Bond argues for a man on the ground knowing when a trigger has to be pulled (or not pulled). Both men get to demonstrate their points at the end of NTTD, with Q providing support while clad in his pajamas, while Bond pulls (and doesn't pull) several triggers (and also opens the blast doors and sacrificing himself, something Q cannot do from his pajamas).

    Cheers!
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    Hey everybody! I'm new here, but have been lurking for a little bit -- I've really enjoyed the discussions here around the release of No Time to Die and am excited to participate!

    Anyway, I was just reading Fleming's Moonraker, and I think I might have noticed a reference NTTD's ending makes to a bit of Bond's biography in the book. (I haven't seen this particular reference discussed in this thread, but my apologies if it's been examined elsewhere).

    (Spoilers for both NTTD and the Moonraker book:)
    Near the end of the Moonraker book, Bond considers lighting his last cigarette beneath Hugo Drax's Moonraker rocket to explode it (and thus sacrificing himself in the blast) before it has a chance to reach England. He smiles and tells a horrified Gala Brand, "The boy stood on the burning deck. I've wanted to copy him since I was five."

    Granted, Brand has a better idea for how they will thwart the Moonraker, so Bond's reference isn't explored further. However, I did a little digging on the internet, and the "boy on the burning deck" is a reference to a poem called Casabianca (discussed at length here: https://yamm.finance/wiki/Casabianca_(poem).html)

    The poem is an elegy for a young man who died in the 1798 Battle of the Nile, who died refusing to desert his post on a burning ship, and was apparently taught in elementary schools in the US and UK until at least the 1950s.

    The poem reads in part:

    Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
    As born to rule the storm;
    A creature of heroic blood,
    A proud though childlike form.

    and
    With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
    That well had borne their part—
    But the noblest thing which perished there
    Was that young faithful heart.


    Reading that part in the book (and then reading more about the poem on the internet), I thought it fascinating (and somewhat moving) that Craig's Bond should meet his fate in a similar way, refusing to abandon ship while the fire rained down -- a similarity that surely would have pleased the Bond of the books.

    The OTHER Easter Egg I noticed that I didn't see referenced yet in this thread is that, when Q and Bond first meet in Skyfall, Q boasts of the damage he could do while in his pajamas, while Bond argues for a man on the ground knowing when a trigger has to be pulled (or not pulled). Both men get to demonstrate their points at the end of NTTD, with Q providing support while clad in his pajamas, while Bond pulls (and doesn't pull) several triggers (and also opens the blast doors and sacrificing himself, something Q cannot do from his pajamas).

    Cheers!

    WELCOME!!! Nice post!
  • chrisisall wrote: »

    WELCOME!!! Nice post!

    Thank you! Glad to be here!
  • Posts: 372
    About Paloma, what cracked me up is Bond asks her to turn around when he undress.
    She does, and as he takes his shirt off, he asks a question, she then immediately turn back answering looking straight at him LOL
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    Good post and good insights! The only quibble I have is that Bond isn’t aboard a Royal Navy vessel and there is no duty or honour binding him to the place, so that is a clear divergence. But the part about standing tall in the face of destruction rings true. Good find.

    And I love the part about the pyjamas and Bond having to be there to do a physical thing to make sure the mission succeeds. I personally think they could have made that connection a bit more obvious - in SF Bond says sometimes a trigger doesn’t have to be pulled. Apart from the ending of SP, which doesn’t work in this context, we never get back to that idea, I think - but it is still a fantastic touch.

    I don’t know if we mentioned it here already, but to me the scene where Bond is first opening the blast doors is a nod to the old Q scenes, where he starts to explain some complicated Gadget and Bond just instinctively knows how to use it. Doesn’t he even say something like „Now listen closely, 007.“?
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    Hey everybody! I'm new here, but have been lurking for a little bit -- I've really enjoyed the discussions here around the release of No Time to Die and am excited to participate!

    Anyway, I was just reading Fleming's Moonraker, and I think I might have noticed a reference NTTD's ending makes to a bit of Bond's biography in the book. (I haven't seen this particular reference discussed in this thread, but my apologies if it's been examined elsewhere).

    (Spoilers for both NTTD and the Moonraker book:)
    Near the end of the Moonraker book, Bond considers lighting his last cigarette beneath Hugo Drax's Moonraker rocket to explode it (and thus sacrificing himself in the blast) before it has a chance to reach England. He smiles and tells a horrified Gala Brand, "The boy stood on the burning deck. I've wanted to copy him since I was five."

    Granted, Brand has a better idea for how they will thwart the Moonraker, so Bond's reference isn't explored further. However, I did a little digging on the internet, and the "boy on the burning deck" is a reference to a poem called Casabianca (discussed at length here: https://yamm.finance/wiki/Casabianca_(poem).html)

    The poem is an elegy for a young man who died in the 1798 Battle of the Nile, who died refusing to desert his post on a burning ship, and was apparently taught in elementary schools in the US and UK until at least the 1950s.

    The poem reads in part:

    Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
    As born to rule the storm;
    A creature of heroic blood,
    A proud though childlike form.

    and
    With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
    That well had borne their part—
    But the noblest thing which perished there
    Was that young faithful heart.


    Reading that part in the book (and then reading more about the poem on the internet), I thought it fascinating (and somewhat moving) that Craig's Bond should meet his fate in a similar way, refusing to abandon ship while the fire rained down -- a similarity that surely would have pleased the Bond of the books.

    The OTHER Easter Egg I noticed that I didn't see referenced yet in this thread is that, when Q and Bond first meet in Skyfall, Q boasts of the damage he could do while in his pajamas, while Bond argues for a man on the ground knowing when a trigger has to be pulled (or not pulled). Both men get to demonstrate their points at the end of NTTD, with Q providing support while clad in his pajamas, while Bond pulls (and doesn't pull) several triggers (and also opens the blast doors and sacrificing himself, something Q cannot do from his pajamas).

    Cheers!

    Excellent post!
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    Posts: 2,897
    Yes, Q says both 'Now listen closely, 007' & and 'Don't touch that!' in NTTD. :D
  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 8,255
    @justanotherbondfan ... Amazing observations!!
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    Best first post ever, very welcome.
  • HildebrandRarityHildebrandRarity Centre international d'assistance aux personnes déplacées, Paris, France
    edited November 2021 Posts: 467
    If we consider symbolism in the film, it may have one of the strongest instances in all the franchise. It's quite simple, and the credits basically sum it up.

    The whole story is about the conflict between taking lives and giving life. It's seen from the point of view of a secret agent with a license to kill, who fixes things by killing people, even if he starts, at the end of Spectre, to realize that there may be more to life than this. Yet, in the PTS, because his life is threatened and he has just reminisced about Vesper's treason, he quickly switches back to "killer mode". He can't understand why Madeleine is acting like this, assumes she has also betrayed him (despite all evidence). When Blofeld makes him lose his temper during his confrontation, he once again wants to strangle him. When Madeleine tells him about Safin, he says something like, "There's a million reasons to stop this man, you just gave me one to kill him."
    And, of course, Safin stands out among other Bond villains as he has no goal besides taking lives. Of course, many of them have been insane, but they always had some kind of goal they wanted to achieve, an excuse to their madness. Blofeld wanted control... and to drive his foster brother crazy, regardless of the collateral damage. Safin considers that his legacy will just be how he reshaped the world by killing millions.

    Then, you have Madeleine, whose priority is to protect her child, something Bond totally misread when in Matera, as he assumed her behaviour and her silence were only due to him and Spectre. It's interesting to see that, as soon as he knows about Mathilde, he immediately realizes why Madeleine acted this way and it's obvious to him he was dead wrong. He doesn't even have to say it, Craig's body language conveys it. And in the finale, he embraces this point of view, as he's now ready to give his life even to protect a child he's hardly spent time with, just as Madeleine was ready in Matera to face Bond leaving her, as he wasn't ultimately fit to raise a child with her.

    Now, when we see the credits, it becomes even more obvious, with three main parts. We start with decaying statues and figures, including Britannia (the Psi symbol that Bond has during the mission on the island, I guess that Kleinman was quick to see the potential with this "trident thing" in the dialog for the credits), then we have DNA consisting of firing guns (a combination of Bond and Safin's weapons), but the last part is about plants and flowers growing. It may reference the poisons also cultivated by Safin, but the credits are supposed to end on an uplifting note, and the main image in this part is actually the foreshadowing of Mathilde, the flower that grows inside Madeleine.
    And ultimately, contrary to Safin, to Blofeld and even to Mallory (who was naive enough to assume that there was a thing such as perfectly targeted killing), something will survive Bond. And it's a positive legacy. He still made the world a better place, not just by killing enemies and bad guys, but by doing for a reason that even justified his own sacrifice.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    A+
  • Posts: 372
    AA+
  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    edited November 2021 Posts: 13,879
    deleted
  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    Posts: 13,879
    Feyador wrote: »
    The modernist abstract painting prominently featured in the scenes set in M's office throughout NTTF is Paul Nash's 1944 "The Battle of Germany." It's owned by the Imperial War Museum and is especially noteworthy during the coda in which the MI6 crew toast Bond. The IWM, below, describes the painting as an "aerial view of a bombing raid on a city" and it may remind us of the preceding scene, which of course is the missile attack on Poison Island.

    The painting was probably chosen by NTTD set decorator Véronique Melery. Whether she borrowed the original for the film or had a reproduction made, I don't know ...

    https://iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/20104
    Ralph Fiennes chose that painting for the office. Mark Tildesley asked Fiennes to add his own little touch to the set.
  • M_BaljeM_Balje Amsterdam, Netherlands
    edited November 2021 Posts: 4,416

    Jamaica when Bond enjoy peace and quiet, but not for long.

    War and Peace are returning theme in Daniel Craig era.

    In And around NTTD:

    When i watch trailers from the movie the first one i notice was
    1945 on seal boat Bond use on Jamaica. 1945 = No Time To Die.
    Quotes: History isn't kind for man playing God. Two qoutes about Something left Behind. Contuned element on You Know My Name and Writings on The Wall.

    In 2020 official plan release date
    1945 was 75 years a go
    and Another Way To Die the title song of QOS refer back a lot (including a line that refer to Mr White looking behind a wall to death Vesper). Corona: I understand a litle bit that people feels a bit a trowback with Corona.

    Anne Frank
    :

    Ana de Armas.
    Ana and Anne. There is picture of her where she looks like on this moost fames Kid.
    Books. Spot in trailers.
    Home theme.
    Refer back to hidden rooms of Mr White (Hidden places theme)
    Valdo comment why Nomi kills him.
    Bond is star in a room.
    Bond id card

    Tomorrow Never Dies reference:
    Music of the beginning sound like Devonshare intro after maintitles.
    War ships
    General is ask to launch the missiles.
    Bond have balls for his job
    Let the mayhem begin. Let party started.

    ---

    I always have two i have liked to see Universel be next to help MGM after Sony and Fox left (and for two movies). 1. Earth. The World. 2. The movie starts wit Universal logo changed in the dots. Universal be part of the plot include nice trowback to words of Mr White in QOS (Repeat in Spectre). It be his words and Chinees wall in QOS maintitle i must about The World and predict Bond 23 take place in China. One of biggest country in world. Then you have lyrics of Adele (Stand all together at Skyfall).

    Very happy there did Dots twist and as bonus it be in black & white. As symbol of grey zone (vague).
  • Posts: 500
    Don't know if it has been discussed in this thread yet, but Matera is such a wonderful "heaven"/paradise to contrast to Safin's island as "hell"/death. The city's rich history of being used as a stand-in for Jerusalem or the Holy Lands comes to mind — with how the filmmakers fill the city in the film (fires of new life, all sorts of funeral procession, a big purple sky of transformation) enhancing this even further.

    It makes that ending beat of the film: sunlight, smile, three balls of light into the tunnel/gun barrel all the richer!
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,518
    Really cool insights. I think there was some discussion earlier in this thread about all the symbolism in the particular funeral procession that was happening in the film, I think it went pretty deep.
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