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I'll never get tired of Craig's badass stairway battle and i love the nonchalant way he shoots Safin.
I always hark back to the Moonraker novel, when Bond surmises as a double 0 he probably won't live to reach his retirement age of 45.
I really like that and I felt the same in the cinema: the Bond villain is just an irrelevance at that point, to be quickly disposed of and barely thought about. There are much more important things to worry about, I thought that they dealt with that just right.
Yep. I love the way Bond doesn't even look at him when he fires. Ice cold!
That really is a great moment in the film. I also love Craig's little gun barrel pose on the stairway. The ending doesn't bother me either.
No, it didn't happen to Rocky...BUT...he did LOSE that match to Creed (in the original film). And I believe that made it a far more impactful film.
The original Die Hard and the original Rambo scripts had their heroes dying. Martin Riggs died in the original draft of Lethal Weapon 2. The reason why notable heroes didn’t get killed off in many cases was producer-driven (sequels equals monnnnnay).
Which is why the answer to the question posed by this thread is "No"
Because NTTD's ending polarises opinions
If the question was "Does DN have the best ending in the franchise?" there would be far less discussion, beacause that question would not be as controversial. Everyone might not agree that DN's ending was the "best", but very few, if any, would dislike it.
A more common denominator choice would likely draw more Yes responses, and be just as much opinion and supportable and valid. And I'm overthinking it.
So YES, NTTD has the best ending because it dared so much and carried it out so successfully with love and respect.
After specifying a very narrow definition of what "best ending" means to you, which is fine
But if I wanted to use the sum of all the subjective data in this thread to make a general conclusion as to whether NTTD had the best ending, when compared to all the other endings, the results would be "mixed" and thus the overall verdict would be "NO".
Which, to me anyway, is the last thing I want from a Bond villain
I want the villain to be massively consequential (which Safin was)
The death is based on technology that doesn't exist which therefore doesn't seem real. If Bond had been injected with a virus or something more tangible and real. After over 15 years of watching this character fight, claw and show resilience and yet he meekly accepts his fate and says bye to his girlfriend and child, it rings false to the character.
Then to supposedly have this Bond be a re-boot and to be stand alone from the main series, but we decide to bring in a song associated with another version of the character, to bring a saying that was used in a different context into this film seems...like a cheat.
Write a new damn song that sums up this Bond. Leave the saying with the character the first time. Don't cheat and bring it into this film. I almost resent them for doing this and I shouldn't feel that way.
I'm not too bothered with the references to earlier films, as I've always taken them as sagas, not true to time-and-place stories. But I agree with you on the nanobot plot. And hence the 'inconvenience' of the daughter. I know even Fleming's Bond had (well, was about to have a) child, but connecting Bond to the child was by definition going to be his death sentence.
Which I don't mind that much in itself, it just feels convoluted and as said, the means by which he is forced to be killed/have himself killed feels way too much purpose-set.
Btw, the best ending to the series is QoS, if you ask me. It's the most powerful emotional positive ending, without overtly being so.
Agreed. I guess the snow was the fourth element? Whatever, Forster.
You could say QoS was Bourne Again.
I think that's a bit harsh. Bond sticks to his job, dispite everything. Bourne does the opposite. Which is fair, because he can't even remember what his job was in the first place. But still.
And yes, I see the resemblance between those endings, but QoS's ending is no apology to Bond, or M, it's a confirmation of what we already knew. And a closure on Vesper. I find that very, very different indeed.
NTTD at least is something different.
My main issue with QOS is that they didn’t really have a strong story with Bond that needed telling. It’s sort of about revenge and how it’s not worth it, and about how M comes to trust him, but that doesn’t take up much of the film.
I disagree. in CR, Bond loses his love, after beeing betrayed, and M doubts he is capable of keeping going after that.
In QoS, it's Bond who's got his eyes on the assignment, and it's M who thinks he is so 'consumed by rage' he doesn't know what he's doing, at the end having to admit she was wrong, and Bond was far more professional than she held possible, without beeing the 'cold hearted bastard' she made him out to be. So, far from the same ending.
I thought telling the story of Bond keeping going and his focus on the job dispite everything - losing his love, losing M's trust, even beeing blamed for the death of those he cares about (Mathis, Fields) - is wort telling. He shows more character in this film than in any other.
Honestly, I agree with most of this (with the exception of Bond showing more character in this particular film, as I think he does more so in SF honestly). That's despite my criticisms of QOS! I remember watching CR and feeling like I needed more answers (ie. who the organisation actually is behind all this and how Vesper's death will impact Bond. Dramatically I think the latter would have felt odd not to see played out in some fashion onscreen, and I think this is why they revisited it after depicting it in this particular era).
Isn't the ending to the Bourne Supremacy Bourne listening into his superior's phone call with him through a window or something? Then Moby plays and Matt Damon makes a serious face as he walks off into a street with a backpack. I could be wrong. Doesn't seem like a rip off even if some similar sentiments are there.
I mean, I do like the idea that everyone thinks he's out for revenge and has gone rogue when in fact he's doing neither of those things; but even the way you put it here: that he's 'keeping going', isn't massively compelling. He just keeps going rather than really anything happening to him. It's more of an epilogue to the previous film, with him reflecting on the events of it, than a sequel to it. Camille probably has a more compelling story arc in it.
That is the very end, yeah; but we're thinking of the scene preceding that, where Bourne surprises a woman coming home to her rather modest flat in a brutalist, snowy Russian tower block, and instead of doing anything violent with the gun he brandishes as she first fears, breaks to her some shocking news which recontextualises her relationship with a loved one, and then leaves, and the scene ends as we watch him walking into the snow.
Obviously the story isn't the same so they're not saying the same things, but the scenes are easy to compare to each other and even look very reminiscent of each other. I get the feeling they set the Quantum one at night because they were trying to make it different to the Bourne one.
And in terms of doing a great sequel to a great spy movie and actually extending and adding to the story of the first, Bourne Supremacy does it so much better than QoS for my money.
Honestly, I'd need to watch both films again. I can acknowledge there's a lot of Bourne in QOS though. For what it's worth I found the Borune sequels a but underwhelming when I watched them, but maybe they're due for a revisit. The fight scenes I found really off putting (very bizarre with the heavily choreographed fighting and 'handheld' camera stuff and elaborate sound effects. QOS has that issue too but not quite as bad. Matt Damon really isn't a convincing fighter or tough leading man either).