The who did what when is definitely hard to follow
Indeed. Though I have to admit to me NO TIME TO DIE actually at improves SPECTRE which I now see as a prologue to Craig’s finale.
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Maybe Madeline was really attached to her step mum?
Or the nanny
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Same person?
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So my staff, all younger than and only one Bond fan, have all seen NTTD and loved it. In fact one is going again this week to see it with her mates. It seems to resonate with the general public.
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The minute I saw Hugh Dennis doing his chinny grin at the woman who taught Alan Partridge how to wash his hands, I had a horrible feeling that I wasn’t going to enjoy this film. My mistake and I shan’t be so quick to judge in future.
I’ve seen it twice now and I will absolutely see it again. It’s not perfect (not sure any Bond film is) but it is up there with the best of them. There were a couple of slow scenes and I’ve still no idea what it is that Safin wants, or why he’s so obsessed with Madeline, or what those people in hazmat suits were doing wading through poisoned(?) water. But truthfully I don’t care because the pros far outweigh the cons. It’s a good, solid action thriller and contains - gasp - moments of genuine tension and drama. The performances were outstanding, the action scenes were great, the cinematography was beautiful, and it’s got Johnny bloody Marr twanging the Bond theme. All of this makes me very happy!
I went in completely spoiler-free so the scenes with Felix, Mathilde and Bond’s death knocked me for six. Of course, it makes absolute sense for Craig’s films to end this way. I appreciate that it wasn’t enough to just have Bond die, it’s his own country - his own service! - that finishes him and only seconds after he learns that he’s fathered a child. Wow. I’m impressed that stuff like this is even discussed by the filmmakers, let alone written down and filmed! It was a perfect send-off for Craig and his epoch.
Daniel Craig was brilliant. Just brilliant. Love him or hate him, he’s gone above and beyond for these films and thoroughly deserves all the respect and plaudits and producer’s credits and honorary commanderships he gets. The boy done good.
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My take:
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Safin wants to decide which part of the population will live or die, he wants that power to dominate people who as he says don‘t want free will but someone who tells them what to do. Which is exactly what right wing extremists everywhere now actually want, hiding it behind the illusion of fighting for freedom.
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not killing Madeleine after being almost killed by her has created the impression in Safin that he is forever linked to her. When he visits her as an adult he remarks how attractive she is. So, erotic fascination is also part of it. And Bond getting in the way even creates jelaousy. On the whole, Safin wants to dominate and own her.
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Those workers are creating the toxins that are needed for the virus. When the scientist gets pushed inside you see the same skin reaction as with the other victims.
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This makes perfect sense. Safin’s speech about free will etc struck me as slightly hollow, maybe because, as you said, he’s not trying to repackage his ideas as a fight for democracy! It may have been Malek’s delivery but I did wonder if Safin was trying to be deliberately unpersuasive and perhaps there was some subtext there that I’d missed… but I am definitely overthinking now. 
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I think he is so narcissistic that he does not think he needs to persuade anyone.
He speaks as if he were just loudly thinking, amusing himself. And when he talks with Bond it´s as if he weren’t talking about mass murder or genocide but about a sound method to make the world a better place.
Very Dr.No-ish.
And I might add that Safin has this tendency to identify with others, as if he were seeking an emotional connection. He does it with Madeleine and even more so with Bond (“it´s like looking into a mirror” etc.).
Like so many (real life) villains, Safin wants to be liked. And when this does not work out he wants to destroy what he cannot have. Therefore he lets Mathilde go, knowing that he will make sure Bond cannot have her either.
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Yes, I took it as Safin having the capacity to wreak havoc / oblivion, without immediately acting upon it.
(There is a weakness in the theory (and is a bit weak in the film) about the off-sceen ticking clock of “boats approaching the island”; presumably added to ramp up the need to destroy it, leading to… the thing).
Safin is a threat to the whole world; Bond is a threat to his new little world. The father becomes poison, and Dr Swann would have had yet another poisoner father-figure in her life. The heroes and villains sort of got mixed up, there.
Man who starts the film rejecting his family (and having another one blow up in his face) is then abandoned so much by his artificial family that some of them think he’s dead, one of them does something he wouldn’t have done had Man been around and Man’s identity is even given to someone else by them, such is their rejection. Man is briefly “adopted” by another family, before that all ends in betrayal and tragedy and one “brother” dies and then Man kills another adoptive “brother”. Artificial family not that pleased to see Man, and welcome back is ambivalent at best. Menaced by Bloke with significant family trauma of his own, Man reaches prospect of potential happiness with a family - first time in his life, all the rest have been bastards or users or duplicitous or useless or dead (even the great unrequited love Moneypenny shot him) - but then finds himself in the position of being unable to touch them.
Sadism, that. Poor sod.
Take away the nanobots and product placement, film it in Finnish and give it a load of subtitles and by jim-jam it’s cruel and bleak.
Established from the off as an orphan, he reaches a point at last of having a proper family, and just as soon as he has them, he cannot have them. The Spectre/Broberhauser stuff was a blind (at least in one eye) towards the “unifying arc” of these five films; the real one (working, in passing, through the death of the conflicted surrogate Mother and destruction of the hated family home) was… this.
They went back to Fleming. They made it as cruel as Fleming.
We should have known he’d leave alone.
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I actually think that works credibly well because if Russia or Japan (or any other nation) is getting to the island with the factory intact it is very likely that they would say: We´ll take it (this weapon) from here…
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Yes, although perhaps half an hour’s filming of some conniving ethno-stereotype might have made that a bit more overt a scheme for five seconds of film. However, arguing against myself here, that we don’t really know who these folks are adds to the theme that we don’t really know who the villains are any more. Including the capacity to kill one’s own family at the slightest touch.
Look, the funny car has guns in it. Buy this wristwatch.
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Coriolanus (my favorite tragic hero in my favorite tragedy) certainly didn’t. I am not sure he even feared the consequences of his fate.
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Should have listened to his Mum.
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By the way: one of the funniest lines I thought was „another child?“
Now that would have sent facebook down as well.
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I kind of wish Skyfall was Craig’s final film so that his era wouldn’t have ended on such a divisive note.
But wouldn’t it have been very boring if we all had said: yay, one more film that appealed to everyone?
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The problem was that he kept listening to her: “Stand for consul. Wear the gown of humility. Show them your scars. Don’t sack Rome.”
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