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How should Bond die, if at all?

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  • ColonelAdamskiColonelAdamski UK
    Posts: 1,002
    George_Kaplan wrote: »
    I don't quite understand. In what way are you saying the Bond films have broken the limits of real world science?

    I'm saying they haven't. (I assume you're asking me, because you're quoting me?).

  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,797
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Since62 wrote: »
    I've already proposed and do so again: Since, according to the posters of messages on this site, so very many appropriate Bond actors, I suggest they use as many of them as possible, by killing off Bond at the end of each and every film for a while. One and done. Over and over. It'll be his new shtick.

    You really want WWIII, don't you? ;-)

    Sadly at the present time the prospect of an imminent World War III is no longer merely the preserve of fiction. :-S
  • George_KaplanGeorge_Kaplan Not a red herring
    Posts: 564
    ColonelAdamski wrote: »
    George_Kaplan wrote: »
    I don't quite understand. In what way are you saying the Bond films have broken the limits of real world science?

    I'm saying they haven't. (I assume you're asking me, because you're quoting me?).

    Sorry, I thought you were referring to something you said earlier about the idea of multiple continuities being inspired by science fiction and fantasy films and that this had somehow pushed Bond too far beyond the limits of a reality-based film series. That's what's confusing me.
  • 007HallY007HallY
    Posts: 2,886
    slide_99 wrote: »
    I think there's confusion about this because of how the Craig era panned out.

    Casino Royale was a reboot, yet it was made by the same people who made the previous Bonds, unlike most reboots. Even though Bond has just become 007 in 2006, it was still called Bond 21 as opposed to Bond 1, and it had the trappings of the original series like the gun barrel, song, and classic Bond theme. Very different from how Batman gets rebooted with different creative teams, different music, etc.

    Martin Campbell said that there was no original plan to make a series of connected Bond movies, it just happened with QOS due to the writer's strike forcing them to lean heavily on CR. With Skyfall it was almost as if they wanted to go back to the original style of making each movie independent of one another, then Spectre went back on that idea and connected all of Craig's movies into one continuity. NTTD was then made to close off that continuity so that the Craig era could be its own thing.

    It's not just that CR changed the rules, it's that the following 2 movies kept changing the rules until EON finally settled on a strict continuity with SP that really didn't work. Add to that the constant references to the non-Craig Bonds and the inclusion of Dench as M in the first three movies and it's no wonder that some people have issues with just what the Craig era is supposed to be, how we're supposed to view it in the context of the overall franchise, and how they're going to proceed from it.

    Definitely. There's a clear sense that they didn't have a mapped out plan for Craig's era (the fact that they switched the name of the main baddie organisation from Quantum to making it Spectre when they got the rights is indicative of this). Franchise films nowadays also rely more heavily on continuity - often throughout multiple films - so it was inevitable that this seep into the new Bond films. I suspect this sense of continuity is here to stay, with characters returning, ideas being developed throughout an actor's Bond tenure, but I'm not sure if every Bond actor will now have their own 'timeline' where they die at the end.
  • mattjoesmattjoes Kicking: Impossible
    Posts: 6,721
    Birdleson wrote: »
    I'll check out your channel!

    The Goldfinger music might be to your liking.
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 7,969
    ColonelAdamski wrote: »
    For me, the James Bond films worked best when they were individual adventures based around the same character, who was portrayed by different actors. Despite the 'other fellah' line, it was made pretty obvious in the OHMSS film that GL was playing the same character as the previous movies. Even down to his reminiscing in the office over past adventures. This approach ran right through to PB's last movie ("does this thing still work?"). And as I've said before, even though he should have been in his eighties by then, this floating chronology was inevitable in such a long running series. Still, there was always the wink to the audience that it was the same man. From Rog at Tracy's grave, to Tim's garter-catch, to Brosnan's shoe-sniffing. It was all the same screen character and the series was all the more fun for these little inclusions of continuity.
    But with CraigBond, and particularly the last movie, we're forced to accept the idea that Daniel Craig isn't portraying the same character as the previous movies. And although that's not a problem for some - perhaps most - people, I think for some people it's damaged the integrity of the series. I see the killing off of Bond as a real problem now with the series' credibility. It was, for me, a massive miss-step.
    And yes, I know all the arguments about his age jumping twenty five years, and how disbelief has had to be suspended a good many times during the 'main' series. But that was never a problem for me. They had to cast a new actor to keep the series going.
    Killing off Bond wasn't a proper screen death, you see. It wasn't Thelma and Louise driving off the cliff, or Sonny being peppered with gunshot at the checkpoint. It didn't matter because - 'James Bond will be back'. It was a sequence played out on screen with no weight behind it. It was a falsehood, because ten minutes later we are told the character we just saw blown to shit will be back. That's not how things work in movie series that are supposed to be based in the real world. Quint didn't re-appear in any Jaws films after being chomped to death, did he?
    The truth of the matter is the attitude to movie series has changed since the sixties. You couldn't have killed off a main character in a 60's movie series and expected the audience to shrug it off when they re-appeared in the next movie. I don't watch superhero movies, and very little sci-fi, but I think the whole idea of separate timelines and alternate universes comes from those genres. And as far as I'm concerned, it's really damaged the credibility of the Bond series that they've decided to go down the route of creating different Bond characters tied to specific actors, and we are now forced to accept each cinematic James Bond as 're-imaginings' of the same character. Now, he can die and come back as many times as they want. And in instead of each actor portraying James Bond, as they did in 1962-2002, now each actor will likely have their own self contained James Bond. It's the modern way, and it seems to work for the majority, so I suppose they've done the right thing in changing their approach. But that doesn't mean to say I have to like it.

    I don't agree, but I understand your point of view. But with dc's re-boot in cr they opened the door to his death as well. For me it works as a container, All the other Bond films are set between cr and nttd. Hence he can't die again. If they do that, I think it'll be the end for me and Bond.
  • SIS_HQSIS_HQ At the Vauxhall Headquarters
    edited March 2022 Posts: 3,390
    I'm fine with the ending that we've got
    But my idea to how Bond should die:
    Safin and Bond's fight should have been longer that it will consume the time.
    Bond never got infected, have him try to escape the island but he runs out of time, the missiles are already striking, the lair is crumbling, the passages has been blocked with giant debris that there's no way out.
    Bond sat at the corner of the tunnel and gives his farewell call to Madeleine and Mathilde, and after that, he saw Vesper Lynd, smiling at him and Bond smiles at her and the walls began to fall down and the lair has been crushed by the missiles, fade to white.
    At the end, Madeleine was shown visiting Bond's grave, buried behind Vesper Lynd at Matera.
  • LibrarianLibrarian
    Posts: 301
    MI6HQ wrote: »
    I'm fine with the ending that we've got
    But my idea to how Bond should die:
    Safin and Bond's fight should have been longer that it will consume the time.
    Bond never got infected, have him try to escape the island but he runs out of time, the missiles are already striking, the lair is crumbling, the passages has been blocked with giant debris that there's no way out.
    Bond sat at the corner of the tunnel and gives his farewell call to Madeleine and Mathilde, and after that, he saw Vesper Lynd, smiling at him and Bond smiles at her and the walls began to fall down and the lair has been crushed by the missiles, fade to white.
    At the end, Madeleine was shown visiting Bond's grave, buried behind Vesper Lynd at Matera.

    A terrible, terrible idea.
    I like the ending that we've got.
  • SIS_HQSIS_HQ At the Vauxhall Headquarters
    Posts: 3,390
    Librarian wrote: »
    MI6HQ wrote: »
    I'm fine with the ending that we've got
    But my idea to how Bond should die:
    Safin and Bond's fight should have been longer that it will consume the time.
    Bond never got infected, have him try to escape the island but he runs out of time, the missiles are already striking, the lair is crumbling, the passages has been blocked with giant debris that there's no way out.
    Bond sat at the corner of the tunnel and gives his farewell call to Madeleine and Mathilde, and after that, he saw Vesper Lynd, smiling at him and Bond smiles at her and the walls began to fall down and the lair has been crushed by the missiles, fade to white.
    At the end, Madeleine was shown visiting Bond's grave, buried behind Vesper Lynd at Matera.

    A terrible, terrible idea.
    I like the ending that we've got.

    Yes, I know as what I've said I'm fine with it, but I'm suggesting it for the people whose not a fan of the ending.
  • LibrarianLibrarian
    edited December 2022 Posts: 301
    MI6HQ wrote: »
    Librarian wrote: »
    MI6HQ wrote: »
    I'm fine with the ending that we've got
    But my idea to how Bond should die:
    Safin and Bond's fight should have been longer that it will consume the time.
    Bond never got infected, have him try to escape the island but he runs out of time, the missiles are already striking, the lair is crumbling, the passages has been blocked with giant debris that there's no way out.
    Bond sat at the corner of the tunnel and gives his farewell call to Madeleine and Mathilde, and after that, he saw Vesper Lynd, smiling at him and Bond smiles at her and the walls began to fall down and the lair has been crushed by the missiles, fade to white.
    At the end, Madeleine was shown visiting Bond's grave, buried behind Vesper Lynd at Matera.

    A terrible, terrible idea.
    I like the ending that we've got.

    Yes, I know as what I've said I'm fine with it, but I'm suggesting it for the people whose not a fan of the ending.

    Ok.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 5,975
    Honestly, I would have been okay with a vision of Vesper at the end.
  • 007HallY007HallY
    edited December 2022 Posts: 2,886
    If they'd decided to have Vesper feature in Bond's mind before his death, I suspect they would have used old footage from CR or rendered a weird CGI version of Green rather than getting her back for a single shot. I can see why they didn't. I think they wanted to keep the emotion of the moment (such as it is) focused more on Bond and Madeline.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,797
    007HallY wrote: »
    If they'd decided to have Vesper feature in Bond's mind before his death, I suspect they would have used old footage from CR or rendered a weird CGI version of Green rather than getting her back for a single shot. I can see why they didn't. I think they wanted to keep the emotion of the moment (such as it is) focused more on Bond and Madeline.

    Yes, that's it exactly. It doesn't do to over egg the pudding and also adding Vesper to the mix at the end would've been too much. Bond paying his respects at Vesper's graveside earlier in the film was sufficient.
  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 8,492
    The furthest thing from Bond’s mind on the doorstep of his death was Vesper.

    All that mattered to him at that moment was his daughter and Madeleine.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,025
    Given the pearl clutching by certain fans over Bond’s death, now I wish that his death had been even more disrespectful. Perhaps he gets shot in the back of the head by the new 007 and then she tosses a used tampon on Bond’s corpse, quipping “bloody hell”. It’s not necessarily an ending I want, but it is what those fans deserve. But maybe they’re better off with what we got, and Eon and Craig got to laugh their way to the bank.

    crying-wiping-tears-with-money.gif
  • 007HallY007HallY
    Posts: 2,886
    I will say that while I don't particularly like Bond's death as a creative decision (nor the way it was done in practice) they did at least commit to it and tried to do it in a way that felt emotionally satisfying for that particular story as well as the character in general.
  • LibrarianLibrarian
    Posts: 301
    peter wrote: »
    The furthest thing from Bond’s mind on the doorstep of his death was Vesper.

    All that mattered to him at that moment was his daughter and Madeleine.

    100% right!
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