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

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  • Jordo007Jordo007 Merseyside
    Posts: 2,483
    Creasy47 wrote: »
    Jordo007 wrote: »
    Looking back at NTTD, I'm shocked how much a big role Valdo, Logan Ash and Primo had in the film. I thought they'd all be in the first act and not much more

    The fights with Primo and Logan Ash were real highlights just wish they weren't so quick

    That'll always be one of my complaints I have: the good action bits are over way too fast. I'm also still upset how much they hyped up the Norway chase for how underwhelming it feels (though still beautiful looking) and quickly it's over. I think they showed most of it in the trailers.

    However, the finale certainly more than makes up for that. The tracking shot up the stairwell is brilliant, that's the sort of grit and intensity I'd been missing from the era since QoS.

    Yeah the one minor complaint I have with the action in NTTD is the momentum of it. In Casino, QOS and the PTS of Skyfall, its continuous and if it slows it's too build up the tension. In NTTD, it's like a flurry of action rather than continuous
  • GadgetManGadgetMan Lagos, Nigeria
    edited April 2022 Posts: 4,247
    In terms of action in NTTD, The Matera sequence and the bunker shootout are two of my favourites. I also thought that the Norway sequence was going to be extraordinary, but I was surprised when they drove into the forest so soon, because I felt they would be spending some extra time on the field, before entering the forest. I also thought they were going to be atop that nice-looking bridge for a little longer, doing some stellar stunts and spectacular driving.
  • Posts: 6,682
    Since you're talking about action scenes, when watching the film, I did wonder a bit about Bond giving the gun to Madeleine and choosing to carry Mathilde through the woods. I think it's a nice detail in terms of character --despite being told she's not his daughter, Bond is already protecting her as if she were, at one point even turning around to receive a bullet before her-- but in practical terms, it made more sense to me that he would let Madeleine carry the child and carry the gun himself. After all, Madeleine might know how to shoot but Bond does this for a living.

    I think the best action of the film is in the pre-title sequence. I like the other action scenes, but I feel the Norway chase and the stairwell shootout could have been more varied and inventive. The chase could have also been longer. I like seeing Bond pushing the vehicles toward the hills to take them out, but I think the scene could have gone on to other situations before coming to an end.

    At least the continuous take in the stairwell scene imbues it with a sense of immediacy and danger, and the fight with Primo provides a clever resolution in the use of the EMP watch. And the Cuba action, while admittedly a bit monotonous when it comes to gunfire, has more things going on, such as Bond stopping Valdo with the tray, Bond fighting the guy on the second floor, Paloma using the car, Nomi keeping the police at bay...
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited April 2022 Posts: 2,895
    mattjoes wrote: »
    but in practical terms, it made more sense to me that he would let Madeleine carry the child and carry the gun himself. After all, Madeleine might know how to shoot but Bond does this for a living.

    Even from being a kid, Madeleine's had a bad habit of always emptying the clip when she shoots at anybody, too...

  • JustJamesJustJames London
    Posts: 203
    We established in Spectre Madeline can handle a gun, and whilst she has more experience carrying the kid, Bond is just physically stronger. But that doesn’t matter, because you have already identified the character and story reason why it is how it is. It also makes sense in other ways… The attackers are not there for Bond, or even Mathilde, they are there for Madeline. Mathilde is actually, in this instance, safer with Bond. Aside from that, it demonstrates bonds of trust between the adults, and the child and the ‘new’ adult.
  • edited April 2022 Posts: 2,887
    JustJames wrote: »
    I would suggest that the underlying concepts of ‘male fantasy’ have changed in the last fifty years or so, and that Bond has *also* always been a ‘female fantasy’ at much the same time, in the films at least.

    Well yes, they've always been a female fantasy too, because the women in the audience appreciated seeing independent female characters who weren't housewives or wives, who weren't tied down by family and kids and home-life.
    JustJames wrote: »
    Parenthood itself, spending time with your kids… these things are actually aspirational for a lot of people these days.

    How is that any different than in 1962, when the family was arguably held in even more respect?
    The scene where he cuts the Apple is ‘Bond being Daddy’ and you know, there are plenty of Dads in the audience who will see themselves in that, some who would like to be that, and plenty of people who will find that attractive. That it also brings the character that little bit closer to human, less of a ‘superhero’

    And it's possible to give human touches to Bond without going down the drastic route of giving him a kid to be nice to, as the filmmakers and Fleming have proven on various occasions. This scene might have sentimental appeal to Dads in the audience, but it has little to do with what has been the core appeal of the series. Furthermore, I can view family drama in plenty of other places and films--Bond has been special and enjoyable because it was free of that stuff or any family values pablum. And it's not as if NTTD had anything profound or special to say about family life in the first place.
    I think the CR-NTTD run actually got more back to being ‘art’ and I think that is what makes me like it more now in retrospect. It’s just art for now, for this generation, in a way that Dr. No was trying to be way back at the beginning.

    Dr. No wasn't trying to be art. The filmmakers would have laughed at anyone who said that. What the crew wanted was to make a very well-done genre film, a great piece of entertainment. They succeeded, and the product didn't have the self-seriousness, self-consciousness, or occasional pretension of the Craig films.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited April 2022 Posts: 2,895
    Revelator wrote: »
    How is that any different than in 1962, when the family was arguably held in even more respect?

    To be fair, fathers didn't seem to be too fussed about spending time with their kids in the 60s. It just wasn't a thing - the mother dealt with the kids and the father didn't want to even be mithered by them, let alone actively spend time with them. I'm sure there were some who were different, but that was far and away the prevailing way in the working class North of England, anyway. I'm not sure parenthood in itself was seen as something to aspire to either back then - I'm not sure much advance thought went into it. People got married and banged out kids. It was just the way of things. Or maybe that's just the way it was on our street, I dunno! ;)
  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 8,255
    Well, in the end, I found it a damn beautiful film, a wonderful way of tying up this era, and the family dynamic, to me, certainly made this conclusion far more powerful. Obviously the stakes are driven up when you’re trying to save the people you love, and I wholly bought into this concept…
  • Posts: 1,394
    Creasy47 wrote: »
    @MI6HQ, I can agree with a lot of that. There's this almost casual nature to some of the action sequences in the last couple of installments that always bugs me. Like when Bond casually exits the bar in the film and starts gunning down goons up on the balconies in a super relaxing manner, no worries about cover or incoming fire. It feels too safe and unengaging.

    Yeah it was like he was playing a Bond video game on agent difficulty.
  • JustJamesJustJames London
    Posts: 203
    Revelator wrote: »
    JustJames wrote: »
    I would suggest that the underlying concepts of ‘male fantasy’ have changed in the last fifty years or so, and that Bond has *also* always been a ‘female fantasy’ at much the same time, in the films at least.

    Well yes, they've always been a female fantasy too, because the women in the audience appreciated seeing independent female characters who weren't housewives or wives, who weren't tied down by family and kids and home-life.
    JustJames wrote: »
    Parenthood itself, spending time with your kids… these things are actually aspirational for a lot of people these days.

    How is that any different than in 1962, when the family was arguably held in even more respect?
    The scene where he cuts the Apple is ‘Bond being Daddy’ and you know, there are plenty of Dads in the audience who will see themselves in that, some who would like to be that, and plenty of people who will find that attractive. That it also brings the character that little bit closer to human, less of a ‘superhero’

    And it's possible to give human touches to Bond without going down the drastic route of giving him a kid to be nice to, as the filmmakers and Fleming have proven on various occasions. This scene might have sentimental appeal to Dads in the audience, but it has little to do with what has been the core appeal of the series. Furthermore, I can view family drama in plenty of other places and films--Bond has been special and enjoyable because it was free of that stuff or any family values pablum. And it's not as if NTTD had anything profound or special to say about family life in the first place.
    I think the CR-NTTD run actually got more back to being ‘art’ and I think that is what makes me like it more now in retrospect. It’s just art for now, for this generation, in a way that Dr. No was trying to be way back at the beginning.

    Dr. No wasn't trying to be art. The filmmakers would have laughed at anyone who said that. What the crew wanted was to make a very well-done genre film, a great piece of entertainment. They succeeded, and the product didn't have the self-seriousness, self-consciousness, or occasional pretension of the Craig films.

    Hmm… the segue from the outline in the opening (three blind mice) alone shows that Dr.No was attempting to be art, especially for the time.

    I didn’t say the family was held in respect, I said it was aspirational. These days, being in a position to choose to have a family/time with them is as financially aspirational as an Omega or Rolex, possibly more so. (It was in part a tongue in cheek joke.)

    And I didn’t say the films were female fantasy, I said Bond always has been. It’s half of why Connery was cast, and I don’t think all the shirtless scenes were for — what at the times would have been called — the lads.

    As to Dads in the audience… I would never underestimate how much Bond was once seen as something passed down father to son. My Dad wore a submariner homage in much the way I now wear an Omega homage. Besides which, the whole thing was thematic to what they were putting on screen, and three out of five of the Craig films have dealt with parental relationships as key themes. This one was the logical end point. (Also, Bond had a kid in the books.)
  • edited April 2022 Posts: 2,887
    JustJames wrote: »
    Hmm… the segue from the outline in the opening (three blind mice) alone shows that Dr. No was attempting to be art, especially for the time.

    No, just well-crafted entertainment. People who made thrillers in 1962 didn't consider themselves artists and weren't considered as such. At the time even Hitchcock was still regarded as a great entertainer rather than great director.
    These days, being in a position to choose to have a family/time with them is as financially aspirational as an Omega or Rolex, possibly more so.

    Having a family certainly costs more these days, but the concept still involves "settling down" and that will never be as powerful a fantasy as being single and sowing one's oats in style. The average Rolex ad shows a handsome, well-off single man.
    And I didn’t say the films were female fantasy, I said Bond always has been.

    They're both. Women not only admired Connery, they lived vicariously through independent female characters who weren't tied down by domesticity (and who had the pleasure of making love with Connery).
    As to Dads in the audience… I would never underestimate how much Bond was once seen as something passed down father to son. My Dad wore a submariner homage in much the way I now wear an Omega homage.

    Yes, and in this case the link of tradition was a consumer good was the link of tradition--part of Bond's appeal as high-living fantasy, not family melodrama. Bond has been passed down from father to child for decades without any need for the films to bother showing family life. Explicitly thematizing this in NTTD was like putting a hat on a hat.
    This one was the logical end point. (Also, Bond had a kid in the books.)

    Who was never seen and was promptly forgotten about in the next book. And since Fleming never featured children as characters, I doubt Bond's kid would have played a major part in future novels. Fleming took Bond to the edge of domesticity but released him each time, because the fantasy had to continue. Vesper had to kill herself before Bond could propose; Tracy had to die before Bond could enjoy a full day of marriage; Bond had to recover his memory and leave Japan before he could learn he was a father.
  • JustJamesJustJames London
    Posts: 203
    I think most people working on the films would certainly consider themselves artists of some form. Without getting lost in the high art/low art argument.
    Personally, I think the films are better for having made a few decisions, and your ire is misplaced. The film wasn’t suddenly Spy Kids or The Railway Children, and it worked fine. Things still went boom. (And how do you know the Omega ads all feature single men? Didn’t think they had enough time to get into that… )
  • SIS_HQSIS_HQ At the Vauxhall Headquarters
    edited May 2022 Posts: 3,382
    AstonLotus wrote: »
    Creasy47 wrote: »
    @MI6HQ, I can agree with a lot of that. There's this almost casual nature to some of the action sequences in the last couple of installments that always bugs me. Like when Bond casually exits the bar in the film and starts gunning down goons up on the balconies in a super relaxing manner, no worries about cover or incoming fire. It feels too safe and unengaging.

    Yeah it was like he was playing a Bond video game on agent difficulty.

    My same thoughts exactly, I'm not the only one, the action scenes felt like a video game.
    The unrealistic action scenes really started in SPECTRE when Bond starts machine gunning those bad guys in Blofeld's crater lair before escaping.

    Then you have now Bond shooting Blofeld's helicopter using his little pistol.

    And it has continued in this film, the shooting scenes, Bond dodging the bullets, the car flipping and rolling very easily after Bond's little car touches them.

    The action scenes were beautifully shot (though it looks like a commercial already), but unrealistic.
  • BirdlesonBirdleson Moderator
    Posts: 2,161
    That’s my take.
    Revelator wrote: »
    JustJames wrote: »
    Hmm… the segue from the outline in the opening (three blind mice) alone shows that Dr. No was attempting to be art, especially for the time.

    No, just well-crafted entertainment. People who made thrillers in 1962 didn't consider themselves artists and weren't considered as such. At the time even Hitchcock was still regarded as a great entertainer rather than great director.
    These days, being in a position to choose to have a family/time with them is as financially aspirational as an Omega or Rolex, possibly more so.

    Having a family certainly costs more these days, but the concept still involves "settling down" and that will never be as powerful a fantasy as being single and sowing one's oats in style. The average Rolex ad shows a handsome, well-off single man.
    And I didn’t say the films were female fantasy, I said Bond always has been.

    They're both. Women not only admired Connery, they lived vicariously through independent female characters who weren't tied down by domesticity (and who had the pleasure of making love with Connery).
    As to Dads in the audience… I would never underestimate how much Bond was once seen as something passed down father to son. My Dad wore a submariner homage in much the way I now wear an Omega homage.

    Yes, and in this case the link of tradition was a consumer good was the link of tradition--part of Bond's appeal as high-living fantasy, not family melodrama. Bond has been passed down from father to child for decades without any need for the films to bother showing family life. Explicitly thematizing this in NTTD was like putting a hat on a hat.
    This one was the logical end point. (Also, Bond had a kid in the books.)

    Who was never seen and was promptly forgotten about in the next book. And since Fleming never featured children as characters, I doubt Bond's kid would have played a major part in future novels. Fleming took Bond to the edge of domesticity but released him each time, because the fantasy had to continue. Vesper had to kill herself before Bond could propose; Tracy had to die before Bond could enjoy a full day of marriage; Bond had to recover his memory and leave Japan before he could learn he was a father.

    And Tiffany split.
  • Posts: 2,887
    Birdleson wrote: »
    And Tiffany split.

    You're right, I forgot to include that. Bond's first flirtation with matrimony after Vesper and the first time (as far as we know) that he co-habited with a woman. Fleming wisely didn't bother showing us that--he skipped to a point after the breakup.
  • Jordo007Jordo007 Merseyside
    Posts: 2,483


    I rewatched this small teaser recently and it brought back really happy memories of my excitement for NTTD. The teaser came out weeks before the initial 2020 release date. This probably got me more excited than the trailers did

    In hindsight, I wish the film reflected more of what Cary was saying, Bond being a wounded animal, the race against time and how espionage was darker and more dangerous. They were the things that caught my attention, I wish they would have been explored more deeply
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    Posts: 2,895
    Yes, definitely. It's like that SP teaser that MakeshiftPython posted the other week that only contained low key, dark and noirish elements and really gave a different impression of what SP was going to be like.
  • Jordo007Jordo007 Merseyside
    Posts: 2,483
    Venutius wrote: »
    Yes, definitely. It's like that SP teaser that MakeshiftPython posted the other week that only contained low key, dark and noirish elements and really gave a different impression of what SP was going to be like.

    Yeah that's what it reminded me of. I enjoyed SP but the drastic change in tone from Skyfall was jarring to say the least. It was a bit of a disappointment given the trailer seeming to tease a darker retelling of Spectre as an organisation
  • BirdlesonBirdleson Moderator
    Posts: 2,161
    That SP teaser was excellent. It had me so excited. Yet, it's still my lowest ranked Bond film. Like with MR, my expectations were very high following the preceding entry and the return of the respective creative teams. Both were devastatingly underwhelming.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited May 2022 Posts: 2,895
    Yes, I loved that teaser too and really hoped that atmosphere was going to hang over the whole film. Ah, well. Fond hope and all that...
  • The Spectre teaser reignited my faith in the movie after the script leaks came out, but yeah like many dark blockbuster teasers it didn’t really reflect the full tone of the movie.
  • SIS_HQSIS_HQ At the Vauxhall Headquarters
    edited May 2022 Posts: 3,382
    To be honest, as an animal advocate, I'm a bit disappointed that they've used Faroe Islands as a Bond location.
    They've promoted the tourism of Faroe Islands.
    Beautiful, why not?
    But I really don't like their culture of killing and hunting dolphins, I'm really against that practice of theirs.
    It's like, EON supported and promoted this country, and the Killing of dolphins was something that they didn't condemned.

    I think White Cliffs of Dover (It's been used as a location in the Moonraker novel) would have been a much better location for Safin's lair and the final act in general.

    * I'm just voicing out my opinion on this.
  • LeonardPineLeonardPine The Bar on the Beach
    Posts: 3,985
    Revelator wrote: »
    JustJames wrote: »
    I would suggest that the underlying concepts of ‘male fantasy’ have changed in the last fifty years or so, and that Bond has *also* always been a ‘female fantasy’ at much the same time, in the films at least.

    Well yes, they've always been a female fantasy too, because the women in the audience appreciated seeing independent female characters who weren't housewives or wives, who weren't tied down by family and kids and home-life.
    JustJames wrote: »
    Parenthood itself, spending time with your kids… these things are actually aspirational for a lot of people these days.

    How is that any different than in 1962, when the family was arguably held in even more respect?
    The scene where he cuts the Apple is ‘Bond being Daddy’ and you know, there are plenty of Dads in the audience who will see themselves in that, some who would like to be that, and plenty of people who will find that attractive. That it also brings the character that little bit closer to human, less of a ‘superhero’

    And it's possible to give human touches to Bond without going down the drastic route of giving him a kid to be nice to, as the filmmakers and Fleming have proven on various occasions. This scene might have sentimental appeal to Dads in the audience, but it has little to do with what has been the core appeal of the series. Furthermore, I can view family drama in plenty of other places and films--Bond has been special and enjoyable because it was free of that stuff or any family values pablum. And it's not as if NTTD had anything profound or special to say about family life in the first place.
    I think the CR-NTTD run actually got more back to being ‘art’ and I think that is what makes me like it more now in retrospect. It’s just art for now, for this generation, in a way that Dr. No was trying to be way back at the beginning.

    Dr. No wasn't trying to be art. The filmmakers would have laughed at anyone who said that. What the crew wanted was to make a very well-done genre film, a great piece of entertainment. They succeeded, and the product didn't have the self-seriousness, self-consciousness, or occasional pretension of the Craig films.

    Good points that illustrate why the books and films have endured for nigh on 70 years.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 5,921
    Interesting that the idea of giving Bond a child came from the revered Boyle/Hodges collaboration.
  • Jordo007Jordo007 Merseyside
    Posts: 2,483
    echo wrote: »
    Interesting that the idea of giving Bond a child came from the revered Boyle/Hodges collaboration.

    Did it? I hadn't heard anything about the Boyle/Hodge script, other than Bond was going to spend a lot of the film in a prison/gulag
  • DoctorKaufmannDoctorKaufmann Can shoot you from Stuttgart and still make it look like suicide.
    Posts: 1,261
    MI6HQ wrote: »
    To be honest, as an animal advocate, I'm a bit disappointed that they've used Faroe Islands as a Bond location.
    They've promoted the tourism of Faroe Islands.
    Beautiful, why not?
    But I really don't like their culture of killing and hunting dolphins, I'm really against that practice of theirs.
    It's like, EON supported and promoted this country, and the Killing of dolphins was something that they didn't condemned.

    I think White Cliffs of Dover (It's been used as a location in the Moonraker novel) would have been a much better location for Safin's lair and the final act in general.

    * I'm just voicing out my opinion on this.

    I would have preferred Ring of Kerry. Anti-clockwise.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    edited May 2022 Posts: 5,921
    Jordo007 wrote: »
    echo wrote: »
    Interesting that the idea of giving Bond a child came from the revered Boyle/Hodges collaboration.

    Did it? I hadn't heard anything about the Boyle/Hodge script, other than Bond was going to spend a lot of the film in a prison/gulag

    Yes, the article is on the main page. It appears that the child from Boyle/Hodges got grafted onto the P&W script. I wonder if the original P&W script ended like the Fleming novel?
  • Jordo007Jordo007 Merseyside
    Posts: 2,483
    echo wrote: »
    Jordo007 wrote: »
    echo wrote: »
    Interesting that the idea of giving Bond a child came from the revered Boyle/Hodges collaboration.

    Did it? I hadn't heard anything about the Boyle/Hodge script, other than Bond was going to spend a lot of the film in a prison/gulag

    Yes, the article is on the main page. It appears that the child from Boyle/Hodges got grafted onto the P&W script. I wonder if the original P&W script ended like the Fleming novel?

    That's news to me thanks for the update mate. I wasn't excited to see a Boyle Bond film and I was relieved when he left, but I'd love to know what was in his script
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Jordo007 wrote: »
    echo wrote: »
    Jordo007 wrote: »
    echo wrote: »
    Interesting that the idea of giving Bond a child came from the revered Boyle/Hodges collaboration.

    Did it? I hadn't heard anything about the Boyle/Hodge script, other than Bond was going to spend a lot of the film in a prison/gulag

    Yes, the article is on the main page. It appears that the child from Boyle/Hodges got grafted onto the P&W script. I wonder if the original P&W script ended like the Fleming novel?

    That's news to me thanks for the update mate. I wasn't excited to see a Boyle Bond film and I was relieved when he left, but I'd love to know what was in his script

    Same here. We dodged a missile there.
  • edited May 2022 Posts: 2,752
    Jordo007 wrote: »
    echo wrote: »
    Interesting that the idea of giving Bond a child came from the revered Boyle/Hodges collaboration.

    Did it? I hadn't heard anything about the Boyle/Hodge script, other than Bond was going to spend a lot of the film in a prison/gulag

    It sounds very 127 Hours. Can just imagine Boyle integrating some weird sequences with Bond hallucinating and imaging people from his past or something. It would have been a bizarre film, especially with the added subplot of the child and Bond dying. Add to that the fact that it was meant to be set in Russia, which even in 2018 was politically questionable from a PR point of view. I can certainly see why the Producers and even Craig were getting twitchy.
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