It’s possible. Eva Green was only in her mid-20s when Casino Royale was released in 2006.
Those should have been his last words.
2 Likes
I should have remembered The Living Daylights, as that’s one of my favorite Bond films. Spectre, too. I trust you on the others, since I remember less about them. So I stand corrected. I should have called it a rarity, not a first.
But in For Your Eyes Only (another favorite), the “countess” is killed when she is run down on that beach where she was strolling with Bond. I guess it depends on whether you consider her a significant character. But she spent enough time with Bond that he was clearly saddened by her death.
1 Like
You’re right, I forgot about the Countess lol. And I’d say she is pretty significant as she is the reason Pierce became Bond.
2 Likes
Hello everyone. Was a member here years ago, dropped off for a while, coming back now after NTTD. Because you have to, right? Just a couple of things after first viewing last night.
-
it was an amazing film, beautiful even. But was is an amazing BOND film? I don’t know yet (second viewing required maybe).
-
does Bond die? I know the franchise has existed since the 60s, so obviously there’s no actual continuity. But has there been a kind of psychological continuity? How do you just go on to a new Bond, the character just died? Maybe the way they do it is kind of like what they did when Lazenby took over. Drop in a cool “This never happened to the other fellow” line with some PWB skill to it. That would be an interesting way of nodding to the Craig arch, but kind of winking too as if to say, “y’all know Bond doesn’t die. Of course he doesn’t die”
-
some of the tropes they went against in this film look interesting in a Bond film, but are cliches in any other movie… hero has a kid he didn’t know about… hero’s best friend dies… grows as a person… makes the ultimate sacrifice at the end… I don’t know what any of that means, just an observation
Look forward to reading more and figuring out where we go from here!
4 Likes
Welcome to CBn, @JCreath - make yourself comfortable and have fun discussing all aspects of Bond here!
Great point about no female characters dying for a change byline. I had predicted that Nomi would die and effectively return the 007 number to Bond and Bond would be back in business with his Licence Renewed at the end of the film and set up the next iteration of Bond to continue with the same M,Q, Moneypenny and Tanner…I expected that the new woke female 007 chatter that dominated the publicity of this film was just a clever marketing misdirect.
1 Like
AceRoberts and Tarl_Cabot, you are both so right about this. We have a large island populated with hundreds of enemy crew and MI6 sends in Bond and Nomi. Come on! You’d need a small army to take the place. Why has Bond got to do everything himself in the Babs and Mike G era?
GE - infiltrated a secret base with his girlfriend - I can just about live with this
TND - infiltrated a stealth boat with an accomplice spy - they kill almost everyone - where was the SBS or the Royal Navy? They just hung back on a warship twiddling thumbs.
TWINE - this one works, Renard’s force is quite small
DAD - this one works, the climax is on Graves’ command centre plane
CR - no problems here
QOS - again, Bond and an accomplice spy up against everyone else
SF - Bond with an old man and an old woman slowing him down, thwarts everyone
SP - a huge base in the desert and M doesn’t have the balls to send in the troops - Bond blew it up with unbelievably accurate submachine gun fire - one of the poorest big-bangs ever - even worse than Halle Berry’s joke.
Is it wrong to believe Bond might every so often need actual assistance and not simply kill everyone himself?
2 Likes
All of this after being tortured…
This reminds me of the one weak point of SF. The whole “held up in an old house using odds and ends to make booby traps for bad guys” has been done before. A few times. One of them was in an old I Spy episode. Didn’t they kind of do that in the Magificent 7 too?
Anyway SF was outstanding. That climax could’ve been better executed though.
Yes. In all the Home Alone movies. That said, in the moment on my first viewing I loved all of that and it wasn’t until later that the similarities were realized.
2 Likes
The only way the climax of SF even sort of works for me is to view it as an inversion of the traditional Bond ending. This time, an army of villains attacks Bond at his secret hideout. He even rigs up a “self-destruct” button.
6 Likes
I still plan to see it again before making a full review, hopefully very soon. However, after letting it settle and thinking about it, I’m coming around to just how much I love pretty much everything about this movie. And that includes the ending. I’d say the only detriment is the weak villain, but everything else works. Lea Seydoux is so much better than in SP when actually given good material to work with. Craig gives an Oscar worthy performance. Paloma is already one of my favorite characters int he entire series. Nomi kicks total ass throughout. The Matera chase is one of the best in the entire series. I love main titles and Eilish’s song is even better in the film. I love all of the references to YOLT, DN, and OHMSS. Bond getting a daughter and being killed even come from Fleming as he tried at least twice to kill the character off and does give him a child with Kissy Suzuki. The Norway sequence is excellent and his kill of Ash is one of the series’ coldest. Yes, Blofeld still sucks, but clearly they never really knew what to do with him. I don’t think Bond needs Spectre or Blofeld anymore. Bond’s death is suitably epic and even better when you see him at peace and know that he has already fallen in love with his daughter. All in all, it was pretty much the perfect send off for Craig.
6 Likes
A small thing, but I liked when Q called him James while urging him to get off the island. Effective.
I hated the ending but still appreciated those details.
3 Likes
Just saw it today and loved it. And by ‘loved it’ I mean hated it because it was a serious gut punch.
I didn’t have the issues some are having. Seems that some need an explanation about every little thing.
Saw it on IMAX at noon on a Saturday opening weekend and it was about 1/4 full.
Ana De Armas. Fantastic.
Stunts. Fantastic.
Score. Fantastic.
Love Madeline’s character so much more than in Spectre.
My heart skipped a beat seeing the DN dots.
Loved the brother/Felix line. Possibly one of my favorite franchise moments.
Absolutely loved the callbacks to OHMSS, my favorite Bond movie. So glad we got the full song during the credits.
Disappointed that so many of the stunts were shown in the trailers but I never would have had the willpower avoid them.
Surprised that EON was able to keep spoilers to a minimum with such a long delay.
The whole Craig era Bond movies are now different after NTTD. It will be interesting to revisit them now that we know where it ends.
Where does NTTD rank? Probably a Top 5 of the franchise and #2 among the Craig films. Hard to say with it being so fresh. I never loved CR as much as everyone else. I’ve always loved QoS more than most. I took my son to SF when he was 12 for his first Bond theater experience so that will always rank highly. He and I enjoyed Spectre so much we saw it again the next night. And today as I watched with my now 21 year old son next to me it was a gut punch…a complete and total gut punch.
10 Likes
Watching Casino Royale will be a lot sadder now knowing that every major character will be dead within five films.
8 Likes
I’m watching it now and one of M’s lines really hits, “I want you to take your ego out of the equation. I want you to judge the situation dispassionately.” Then the next four films were the exact opposite.
“I understand double Os have a short life expectancy, so your mistake will be short lived.”
Then later after the Miami airport scene, she says “I would ask you if you could remain emotionally detached, but that isn’t your problem, is it, Bond?”
I hadn’t realized that everyone in CR is now dead, but yeah, that whole cast of characters. Vesper, Mathis, M, White, and Leiter.
Bond’s response to losing a card game through ego…I think he possibly wasn’t listening
4 Likes
He’s not “Bond, James Bond” yet. Took him another film to learn his lesson. Though he was wrong about Mathis.
1 Like
Random thought:
Back in the cinema in 2006, I never would have guessed that an entire era of the Bond series would be defined by Bond’s connections to Mr White.
3 Likes