No Time to Die [SPOILERS]

[CharlesPhipps]

Weird typo, I blame 5 in the morning.

Yeah, the Daniel Craig movies have always been their own continuity but I don't think that's a new hill to die on and has been pretty clear from the beginning. Even so, I have almost as many complaints about this movie as I do Spectre but it's at least lacking the horrendously unnecessary retcon re: Bond's "brother."

I just wish they'd made Safin into Doctor No as few could make lemonade out of those lemons better than Malick who is dreadfully underused.

[Jonathan101]

Weird typo, I blame 5 in the morning.

Yeah, the Daniel Craig movies have always been their own continuity but I don't think that's a new hill to die on and has been pretty clear from the beginning. Even so, I have almost as many complaints about this movie as I do Spectre but it's at least lacking the horrendously unnecessary retcon re: Bond's "brother."

I just wish they'd made Safin into Doctor No as few could make lemonade out of those lemons better than Malick who is dreadfully underused.

Yeah. I thought Malik and his character were good enough, but he seems hardly in the movie and he doesn't have the build up or dread of Dr No to make up for his lack of screen time, and his plan is not clear at all.

I knew that the Craig films were a NEW continuity, but what I meant was that this is particular continuity is now definitely closed off and they will have to do a reboot or something. Before the ending of this film, they could have done what they always did before and just cast a new actor and pretended he was the same guy...although, with all the phony retirements and "too old for this sh*t" crap that the Craig films tried to pull, I don't think Bond dying was much of a shock either.

[CharlesPhipps]

Yeah, Malik's character has, "Kill Millions" added on because someone presumably realized that Malik killing all of SPECTRE (human trafficking terrorists who also maybe funded 9/11) is not going to win the audience's hatred.

[Jonathan101]

Yeah, Malik's character has, "Kill Millions" added on because someone presumably realized that Malik killing all of SPECTRE (human trafficking terrorists who also maybe funded 9/11) is not going to win the audience's hatred.

That reminded me of Agents of SHIELD where all of the HYDRA leaders were killed halfway through season 2 because the writers got bored with them and wanted to do something else.

A war between Spectre and another villain could have been a movie in itself. The film almost feels like two movies taped together and the second film wasn't finished.

But really, make him a Doomsday cult leader or something (he seems partially inspired by Aum Shinrikyo already); give him a crazy reason for killing everyone if you have to- don't give us no reason AT ALL. It's a REALLY frustrating flaw when you have a problem in your script that could be cleared up by giving a character a five minute conversation.

It bugs me even more when you think back to all the classic Bond movies where "Bond Villain Explains His Evil Plan" was so commonplace it became a cliche.

[BBally81]

Heard some the spoilers for No Time To Die, not spoiling anything but I will say this,

God Damn It EON.

Bond better be back for the next film otherwise I'm going to have to eat crow.

[Jonathan101]

Bond better be back for the next film otherwise I'm going to have to eat crow.

End credits still say "James Bond will Return" (or so I've heard), so probably.

[clearspira]

To be fair, Ian Fleming killed James Bond twice. It just didn't stick because, like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, the character was bigger than the writer's control over him. That and Sir Ian noted that it was probably bad form to have James Bond dead when he had just gotten his movie deal (Doctor No and From Russia with Love were the only movies he lived to see).

Mind you, my feelings on the subject of the Craig series can be summarized as, "They really doubled down hard on the absolute shit of SPECTRE." I appreciate the attempt to tell a continuing story arc but the story was derailed from Quantum of Solace onward when they decided not to make Vesper's lover the main villain.

From what I understand, Fleming only ever thought of Bond as ''money''. Once Fleming became sufficiently wealthy (and sufficiently full of booze and cigarettes) he grew bored of it. Ironically, it was Sean Connery and the films that actually revitalised his love for the character somewhat, going as far as to make Bond canonically Scottish. I say ''ironic'' given how you will rarely find someone who hates Bond as much as Sean Connery does until he too wanted some money and did ''Never Say Never Again''.

[clearspira]

Killing James Bond isn't necessarily a bad thing as heretical as it sounds. It avoids the bullshit of 1964 Sean Connery technically being the same man as 2001 Pierce Brosnan. We all know that he's coming back one way or another. I just hope two things:
1) We don't need another origin story with the next Bond.
2) Its not an excuse to introduce a black, trans, Muslim, lesbian Jennie Bond with one leg.

One question as I haven't seen it: Do we actually see his body? Or are we in store for a ''that's not what cock-a-doody happened'' moment on the next film?

Tbh, I haven't rated the Daniel Craig movies all that highly. I liked Casino Royale. It was obviously Bourne inspired but Die Another Day was bloody awful so they needed to do something. But with every film they just became stupider and stupider. I think overall my scale would go thus:
Sean Connery.
Roger Moore.
Pierce Brosnan.
Timothy Dalton/Daniel Craig.
George Lazenby.

We don't see his body but it would be pretty unlikely for him to survive given how badly injured he was, how many missiles hit the island AND that he clearly was committing suicide.

It's not so much "that" he died, so much as his death felt pretty hollow and forced and was needlessly melodramatic.

They definitely will either a) reboot James Bond, b) bring him back through a b*llshit explanation or c) continue the series with a different character like the female 007 (I think this is unlikely and she didn't really do anything special in this film, but it is possible).

Moore was older than Connery, so if you imagine that Connery-Bond was just a little bit younger than he looked and Dalton-Bond just a bit older, most of the timeline works, even if Brosnan would just be a very good looking 60-something. But I do like the timelessness of "James Bond" , the sort of sliding scale that Marvel comics work off of.

There has been speculation that they might not only reboot Bond but reboot him to the 60s and make all future Bond movies a period piece- that "could" work, but it's a little bit imperfect.

Herm. I don't know how to feel about that. It was a plot point in Goldeneye that Bond is a man out of time - the ''Cold War sexist misogynistic dinosaur.'' And it is also not a secret that many spy thrillers suffered after the end of the Cold War both because there is no longer a monolithic enemy to fight and because technology has in many ways made the secret agent of old kind of obsolete. Pierce Brosnan after his Cold War themed first outing ended up fighting Rupert Murdoch, the oil industry and North Korea (because that was the closest to the Soviets they could get in 2002).

''From Russia With Love'' typically tops any list that doesn't have ''Goldfinger'' at Number One and I think its because it really is Bond at his finest. Its one man trying to retrieve some Russian version of the Enigma machine behind enemy lines whilst being hunted. Its really difficult in this era of mobile phones, satellites and and the internet to pull off a traditional spy story any more.

On the other hand... I do wonder if modern studio execs would be willing to pull off a true sixties man. The smoking, the drinking, the ''slap her ass because she loves it'' attitude to women. Sounds to me what we would actually get is ''2021 in 1960''. At which point I don't know why they bothered to try.

[TGLS]

On the other hand... I do wonder if modern studio execs would be willing to pull off a true sixties man. The smoking, the drinking, the ''slap her ass because she loves it'' attitude to women. Sounds to me what we would actually get is ''2021 in 1960''. At which point I don't know why they bothered to try.

I dunno, I'm pretty sure they could do James Bond by way of Mad Men if they wanted to. It'd probably be done greyer than the recent films though.

[CharlesPhipps]

I feel Mad Man worked for what it was but THE MAN FROM UNCLE reboot was enjoyable but not....well, good, compared to Bond.

And that was what they were going for.