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Comments
Exeunt.
Even the people that aren't opposed to Bond dying in theory, seem to find the ending unsatisfying. I think the lack of emotional weight is a direct consequence of the viewer being taken out of the film by thinking 'are they really going to kill him? Looks like they are, this'll be polarizing. So is this the last Bond film, or are they going to do a Marvel-style re-boot?' . . . and all those thoughts just take the viewer out the film.
Normally, when a viewer is expected to care that a character dies, it's within a movie that's self contained, and the character is gone for good. The idea behind Bond dying is just a mess, because half the audience are thinking the character's dead forever, and the other half just think 'there'll be a reboot', and to confuse matters even further, the familiar 'James Bond will return' tag at the end tells us he's not dead. Except he is, but he's coming back.
Killing off the cinematic James Bond after sixty years was just a monumentally bad idea.
The age old hypothetical question - can the producers have caved to Craig's demands if they agreed with the creative decision?
Not that it's going to be answered definitively anyway! Truth be told I'm pretty sure where the idea actually came from is a bit sketchy anyway.
Yeah, but if they wanted Craig badly... Remember, he was the billion dollar Bond.
Anyway, I understand why they killed Bond. What I don't like is the way they did it.
Speak for yourself
and me
There's only one thing I know when it comes to politics, gambling, and discussing James Bond...
None of us really know anything ;)
I'm being facetious of course (many people here are very knowledgable and have a lot of interesting things to say, and I mean that). But sometimes it's tempting to make biased claims like that one come off as factual when none of us were privy to how these ideas came about.
That’s exactly it, @007HallY – who is privy to Daniel Craig, or any actor, or any person’s contracts. These are legally binding documents that only a small team of lawyers worked on.
So anyone who states that Craig negotiated this is probably picking up this info from another outlet.
No one has access to this document, and if anyone leaked it to the media, well, it wouldn’t be too hard to discover who, out of a very small team, bound to privacy, released this info.
We may have an idea of what Craig makes because it’s long been known “approximately “ what a leading actor in a franchise makes, but the specifics, what they negotiated and so on, is very private and confidential.
It’s always been a ridiculous claim and it’s morphed over the last five years.
In other words: fake news.
Thanks. Not much meat there, but I must admit I am still a bit curious to see what Boyle would have done with Bond. I'm not certain it would have been great necessarily, but surely interesting.
So you don't think Danny Boyle was close enough to the action to have a pretty good idea what Craig was wanting in his contract?
Yes. I think so too. Whether it would have been great, is another matter entirely. But for sure, Boyle would have done something more interesting with Bond.
I think it's pretty common knowledge that any director/writer of NTTD was going to have to include Bond's death. I suspect it was the same for key components of the story - having a retired, mid 50s year old Bond being brought on a last mission, a big climax in a villain's lair with a world domination plot etc. That's just the film it was always going to be.
It's not, as far as we know, anything to do with Craig's contract (and I don't think Boyle has ever said it was). Just a creative foundation for the story that was decided upon. Similar to how TND was always going to be a story about a villain who was a news mogul, no matter what direction they ultimately took.
I think it's so hypothetical in the sense that the script probably wasn't fully complete yet (so many drafts and revisions to the point there'd be no 'definitive' version any party would be happy to release publicly in the vein of drafts of other Bond scripts, although that's just my theory without any basis!)
But if it had worked out I think the film would have been different, albeit with many very visible similarities to what we got.
@Seve
Just as Craig would have had no knowledge of Boyle's finalized contract, or what he would have negotiated, Boyle would have no knowledge, nor would he want knowledge, of what Craig had negotiated. These are private, confidential and legal documents.
It was clear that all the creatives, from financiers to producers, to writers, to the lead actor, and later, the distributors all agreed Bond would die.
A shooting script literally has to be signed off on by all parties.
I agree with regard to financial aspects, but a clause that includes the death of the main character as a condition is so unusual that I think it would be sure to be leaked. Details of confidential and legal documents in entertainment (and politics) are leaked every day by "unidentified sources" and gossip is the lifeblood of the entertainment media industry.
Yes, having worked together for many years, I agree that the Producers and Craig were probably on the same page from the get go and I don't believe Craig was acting as lone maverick. However I do think it's possible that the "Craig condition" story may have been used to provide some additional leverage, in order to get Financiers and others to agree, as I doubt they would have been keen on the idea of killing off Bond.
As per the previous link posted
Boyle had previously revealed his plot would revolve around a Russian villain, and would have included the death of Bond – as later eventuated in No Time to Die – as actor Daniel Craig had negotiated that finale as part of his contract.
To be fair I must have skimmed the article, but Boyle didn't directly say this was the case from that quote/the bit I read. And as @Peter said of course no one knows for sure what's in that contract. Even if Bond's death was a specified part of it, it would mean all parties involved would have to agree to this creative decision anyway. And there's a great likelihood EON would have thought this decision best for various creative reasons and wouldn't have done this film otherwise...
So it comes full circle ;)
Not really, other than that, whoever was most responsible for the decision, some of us liked it and some of us didn't, which has never been in doubt, and therefore it cannot be...
"...the best ending in the franchise"
Perhaps OHMSS doesn't need all that because the writing towards it is less obvious and contrived. Or perhaps modern filmmakers don't trust their audience to 'get it' and persist on making such scenes overly dramatical, which kills the real emotions.
Whatever the cause may be, OHMSS gets me everytime, even after several viewings, I think only two other films achieve that for me. NTTD, while it has other moments that do work well, has an ending that leaves me disappointed but hardly moved.
If Craig wanted Bond dead so much, Boyle had to know. He was the director, it's not something you can keep secret.
How are you going to write a script that will please Craig if you don't know that information?
It's pretty obvious.
I've heard many people say that the deaths of Tracy, and even Vespa, were more affecting than JB's bucket-kicking.
I think they did Vespa's death really well actually.
Even Kerim Bey.
Well Vesper's was well done I think, but already suffered a bit from the overly dramatical approach imo. Not too much, I still think it's good.
But Tracy's is much better, even Kerim's to be quite honest.
Personally, I feel tragic moments have a better impact when handled with restraint. It's in the little, more subtle, things that grieve is reflected most effectively. Not in bombastic sentimentality.
The way they did it, he dies saving his daughter, and the world. They really thought it through, but that doesn't make it any the less unconvincing and uninvolving.
I think they just didn't know how to do it.
To you, it works for me.
I haven't got much to add, but if everyone's going to repeat that they thought it was bad over and again, those of us who liked it should get to say so a few times as well.
Have you been watching The Dark Knight Rises? :p
Of course, it was not my intention to repeat my disappointment at nauseum, it just occurred to me what precisely made me more appreciative of OHMSS's ending because I just rewatched that one yesterday.
But if Bond's demise works for someone else, I am happy for that person. To each his/her own :)