The ending of CR does imply he’s going to be an ongoing threat/presence, but him (essentially) being a rebooted Marc Ange Draco I’m sure no-one saw coming.
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I wonder whether that (and other elements) were indeed in the back of EON‘s mind from the start or whether it was Mendes who pushed for Mr.White being Madeleine‘s father.
Hello!
It has been much too long since I have posted.
I was reflecting on NTTD this morning and was reminded of the many fun exchanges and friendships that were born of this forum.
In the spirit of that thought, have Bryce, Zencat, or Athena weighed in on NTTD? I would love to hear their takes!
As for me, I have seen the film twice and plan on seeing it again next week. The first screening was in IMAX. The second screening was in Real 3-D.
I went to the 3-D screening out of sheer curiosity as Bond had never been given this treatment before. I went in extremely skeptical. To my great surprise, it was a wonderful presentation. Such depth! I highly recommend seeing it in 3-D!
And as for the film itself, I loved it. It has captured my imagination. I have been thinking about it constantly in ways that are akin my initial response to CR.
Someone very diplomatically stated in an earlier thread that NTTD is the right Bond for our time. I am in a agreement with this. James Bond cinema has somewhat consistently been mirror of or anecdote to our ever-evolving cultural attitudes and political climates. So too is NTTD. And I am more than okay with that. The somewhat radical storytelling choices piqued my interest and have without a doubt broadened the 007 tapestry.
And yes, I did tear up.
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I highly doubt it. I believe Mr White was supposed to die at the end of Quantum of Solace, but Marc Forster cut that final scene.
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Yes, well remembered.
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I’m guessing somewhere between the two? Mendes wanted the father/daughter relationship, EON thought Mr White being said father would bring it back round to the story they were telling in CR/QOS
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I agree completely. Yet what also brought me to tears was the realization Bond came to, in those last few moments of his life, that this is what life is really about. And he achieved at least a bit of it. Perhaps more than he’d ever dreamed he would. So in that sense, I think he felt his life was fulfilled in one of the most important ways a human being can do so. It’s hardly a “happy” ending … but it’s something. Something significant.
I think back to Bond’s phone conversation with M after Vesper’s suicide, and Bond’s radio conversation wtih Madeleine here, and am struck at the contrast in him. Then, he was shattered. Now, he is whole. That, he knows, is a life well lived. And this knowledge sustains him as he bravely faces his death.
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We also saw in 3D and were very impressed. At first, I noticed it a lot and was slightly distracted by it because it was so well done. Then it just became part of my viewing experience of the film.
I, too, have been thinking about this film a lot since our viewing Friday night. The only other Bond film that did that to me, to this extent, was Casino Royale. Fitting, I think, book-ending Craig’s Bond era as these two films do.
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(More of a brief gut reaction than review)
Saw the film today on a matinee showing. Simply put, I was saddened but was completely satisfied at the end. Once the end credits played “All the Time in the World” I bursted to tears. I was also proud of the fact that I managed to avoid online reviews, trailers and other spoilers that would have ruined the element of surprise. I was completely shocked, and it was one of the best finishes I ever experienced in a movie theater.
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Yeah, I managed to too. I didn’t think it was possible to avoid spoilers like that in this day and age.
It seems odd that EON wouldn’t have had a simultaneous release with a movie like that.
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Spot on @Vauxhall! And thanks @byline for drawing my attention to this excellent review, I had missed it at first.
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Spoilers will follow below. Hardcore Bond fan for the past 30 years. Saw this movie Friday night, still need some time to come to terms. Felt angry, disbelieving, disappointed leaving theatre. In summary, here are my main points that I hope I can come to terms with over time, but doubt it:
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Bond / Madeline relationship was never believable, but wow is it bizarre here. Initially he is madly in love. Then based on the words of Spectre agents he quickly dismisses her from his life and doesn’t turn back for FIVE YEARS, before his arch nemesis and master manipulator Blofeld vouches for her. At that point he falls madly back into love again and dies rather than living without her.
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Blofeld killed by accident, dies off screen. Ridiculously underwhelming way for the most important Bond nemesis to go. Even falling down a chimney was infinitely more satisfying.
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Bond pouring his heart out in speeches is not in character in the slightest
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After Bond got scratched, and Safin explained that he was now deadly to Madeline and his daughter, Bond instantly accepts the words at face value. Wouldn’t you think that even though you got scratched, that there may be a possibility that either the villain is bluffing, or that the scratch was not enough to infect you… at least to want to get tested at Q-branch and give Q a day or two while you are quarantined to EMP or otherwise disable the stupid nanobots before so quickly and happily deciding to end your own life?
The moment Safin told Bond that he was toxic, my initial reaction was not shock, or sadness, but “You’ve got to be kidding me”. Thinking back on the circumstances leading up: the revelation of his daughter being shoe-horned in; his 007 status being given back to him for no reason; it became clear that this was actually happening, and I watched him prepare to blow himself up and the remainder of the movie not with sadness but with a disbelieving smirk.
Bond has been around for nearly 60 years, escaping impossible situations, delighting us. He’s not supposed to die. And if he ever had to, it needed to be better than him deciding to give up and allow himself to be blown to smithereens by his own missiles.
Daniel Craig may have wanted / demanded that his final Bond correspond to the death of the character, but he is not bigger than the character.
We may have disliked a CGI surfboard or a Madonna cameo, a clown costume, or even a slide whistle in a previous Bond movie, but nothing that has ever happened in a Bond movie over the past 60 years has ever been as irreversible as the short sighted (and possibly selfish on the part of some) decision to depict Bond’s death. Can we watch any other Bond movie again without thinking of the circumstances of how he goes?
I hope that over the coming months my opinion will change and I can love this movie; but I am doubtful. I’m extremely surprised to see the positive fan reception that this film is getting from 007 fans - I remarked to my friend who i saw the movie with that “Bond fans are going to HATE this” - but glad that you don’t seem to feel as disappointed and disillusioned as I do right now.
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Sorry you are disappointed, I hope the film will grow on you eventually.
I agree that there are plot holes or shortcuts, as in any other Bond films, and that’s annoying is such superproductions. But I have learnt to accept them.
I do feel slightly annoyed myself that such an ultimate decision had to be made by Bond on the grounds of sci-fi level science, nanobots DNA-targetting viruses that sound cooked up by a conspiracy nutcase (just as it was disappointing to see gene therapy so ridiculously misrepresented in DAD). It’s odd, in an otherwise rather grounded tenure.
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Welcome to CBn, @CletusVanDamme!
Somewhere towards the beginning of this thread I wrote this:
To you and all the fans who don’t agree with the end - and that’s probably a number of people, both in hardcore fandom and among the casual audience - I’d like to share my take on it.
I used to be always on the sceptic side when such a theoretical possibility was discussed here. Every once in a while it popped up as a daring take but didn’t garner much support, simply because it didn’t lead anywhere - Bond dying is just the end. And few would have seriously bet on Eon going down that route anyway.
Now I came out of the theatre yesterday and, while certainly shocked even though I knew about it in advance, I was in fact at peace with this ending as it was written. Why?
Craig’s Bond was an incarnation that was from the start conceived as Bond as if he was real in his fictional universe. Mind you, not real in the drab sense of a George Smiley. But real in the limits of his world: starting out lacking expertise, ageing, showing signs of use and abuse, bleeding and hurt and not forgetting about his past. This was a character shown on a human trajectory.
For me the much more impactful scene was Bond confessing his love again, close to tears and the weight of all his wasted opportunities showing in every line. This is a character that doesn’t owe us as audience anything. This man owes it to himself to try to come to terms with his life. He’s jumping off the karma wheel of eternal invincibility for the little scrap of a chance to be, for once, human.
And therefore mortal.
NO TIME TO DIE’s massively controversial ending was always going to be a gamble. I would nonetheless not subscribe to the notion of it being about Craig being greater than the role of Bond. I think the opposite is the case here: Craig’s Bond reaches the humanity it takes to die - but Bond himself lives on. For us, for the general audience of casual fans and cinephiles around the globe. And even for Bond’s daughter in the world past NO TIME TO DIE.
The very fact this very ending was chosen in my view proves how much bigger the role is than the individual actor.
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Just to note that seen like that, it literally makes Bond a christic figure.
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Given the films ending, you could easily take it as Bond’s legend is more important than the actual man…or will Bond 26 be narrated by Lea Seydoux as Madeline tells Matilde a bed time story 
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Perhaps rather a mythical one with the added possibilities a fictional multiverse holds?
What I mean is, nobody reading of Superman’s death back in whenever that was done in comics really expects the figure to die. Or, closer to our theme, when that guy self published his plagiarised Bond fanfic in the 80s nobody reading it since claimed Bond was dead now and nothing could come after. Every fictional work constitutes its own world.
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After the attempt on his life in a moment when Madeleine has sent him to visit Vesper’s grave he obviously does not know whether to trust her. When he finds out that Blofeld set her up he knows that it was a mistake not believing her. And then he discovers that she has a daughter (and knows that it must be his child). So, not bizarre but very believable.
I, too, thought that it should have been on screen. Then again, we should not mistake this incarnation of Blofeld for the many other ones in the previous eras. Also, it is a very sardonic comment on that kind of evil that it is only the most threatening entity unless another one takes over. Then it becomes discarded like everything else. - And let’s be honest: until YOLT MovieBlofeld was only a hand stroking a cat, with the most limited dialogue. Even in YOLT Blofeld had very limited screen time. Only OHMSS and DAF had him as a major on-screen character. The Craig era actually chose to use him in a limited but decisive way. One can like it or dislike it - but one has to conclude that more Blofeld would not have fit in with what they wanted to tell.
These are not long monologues. And he only reveals himself to Madeleine. It´s a sign of his maturity.
Q immediately explains to him after Blofeld´s death (“How do you get it off?”) “You can’t.” Risking the world to be infected with the virus finding its way inevitably to Madeleine and Mathilde would have been foolish and not worthy of Bond´s intelligence.
Of course, since this is only the CraigBond who died. As for future Bonds, NTTD at least raises the stakes because now we know Bond might not always end up in a rubber boat with his current squeeze.
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In those final moments when Safin poisoned Bond I was thinking at that moment, “They’re really going to kill him this time aren’t they?”
Instead of being upset at that notion I commended the filmmakers (most likely Craig’s singular idea) to have the brass balls to make Bond die. That’s what I mostly liked about this film, weirdly enough. I would have walked out of the theater disappointedly if at least one major character didn’t die in the end.
It would have been a cop-out if Bond was miraculously saved out of nowhere by Ana de Armas in a helicopter and Q had the antidote to save him, thus reuniting him and his family and living happy ever after (blah, blah). It would have been another formulaic Bond ending for me.
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“Mommy, tell me that story again, when Daddy shot grandpa into his knee on their first meeting…” 
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