No Time to Die – Member reviews (Spoilers!)

Has this been pointed out before?

Craig’s tenure is bookended by stairwell fights (two of the greatest action scenes in the whole series).

But the NTTD fight is the inverse of the CR fight.

In CR, they were going down the stairs. In NTTD, they were going up the stairs.

In CR, the whole thing was hand to hand combat, a sword, fisticuffs, and kicks. In NTTD, machine guns were blazing, along with grenades and other high tech weaponry.

In CR, the fight ended when Bond strangled a guy with his bare hands, the most primal way of killing someone. In NTTD, despite Primo’s attempt at strangling Bond, the fight ended when Bond used the EMP in Q’s watch, a sophisticated piece of technology.

In a way these two fights symbolize Bond’s development – from a raw, human killing machine to a seasoned, veteran agent.

The more I think about it, the more this has to have been intentional. Thoughts?

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Hi all, this is my first post on this site, though I used to browse the old forums as a pre-teen back in the pre-Casino Royale days. That film was my first Bond film in theaters at age 12 and I don’t think a cinematic experience has ever topped it. Nowadays I find myself more interested in literary 007 but I remain heavily invested in the films.

Unfortunately, NTTD has left me feeling more emotionally drained than I ever expected a Bond film would. To be frank, it has put me in quite a depressive funk. I really cannot come to grips with them killing off the character and what that means for the continuation of other hallowed aspects of the genre.

Bond films are a genre of their own, and as such, are subject to certain rules. Chief among these is that James Bond does not die. His experiences are episodic, his list of villains endless, and he is irreplaceable in his ability to stop them. No single villain, certainly not one as half-baked and poorly written as Safin, is worthy of the pleasure of finally killing 007. His death should remain ineffable, subject to endless speculation and fan fiction, but nothing definite. I’ve equally found compelling the ideas of his death on a mission as well as in old age after retirement, but these ideas are only palatable insofar as they remain ultimately unknowable. A definite, canonical death simply does not sit right with me, as much as him forgoing his martini and tuxedo (we can forgive Live and Let Die) do not either. Yes, Fleming tried to kill off the character, but he ultimately never did, even when he was aware of his own mortality and had the perfect opportunity to give Bond a definitive ending in YOLT. The materialization of something that I have firmly believed should have remained unknowable is simply a massive disappointment.

Creative excellence in a genre is best displayed when works transform a subject while adhering to the genre’s rules. Put Bond in an 80s drug film, a blaxploitation, or kung fu film. Send him to space. Give him a wife or a child. Kill M or kill Felix, but do not kill Bond. It is really one of the few rules one could break that would make me argue that a film is not truly a Bond film and merely has the trappings and suits of one stamped onto it. Breaking such a rule is not bold or creative. It is lazy and patently intended to create contrived controversy. It would have been far more interesting to see how they could have creatively tied up the Craig arc without killing him. Unlike many others, I completely fail to see how this ending was “inevitable” or “what things were building towards”. The thought never once crossed my mind.

The visceral component of my reaction to this film is no doubt influenced by the pandemic. Being in healthcare, I have been separated from my loved ones for many months over the past year and half knowing that I could very well kill them if I were to visit, and this has at times driven me to the brink of despair. I’m sure many of you have been similarly affected. Perhaps the rationale for his death simply hit too close to home. All the more reason for society’s creatives to give us something a little more positive. The idea of all of this sacrifice leading to unfulfilled happiness is just too much to bear in a Bond film right now, which should have been an escape. I really did not need art to reflect life in this way when reality has been more horrific than fiction over the last 18 months. If I did, I have Dostoevsky next to Fleming on my shelf. I don’t need one to bleed into the other.

To compound my disappointment, I really was enjoying the film up until the end.

Bond’s death aside, they really swung and missed on the poison garden. Have at least one baddie fall into a poison bush!

This was simply not the Bond film I needed when I needed a Bond film the most. Oh well. Onto Horowitz 3.

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Welcome to CBn, @hoxa9 - sorry you didn’t agree with the end of NO TIME TO DIE. As you can see, the reaction among us fans, while often extremely positive, really covers a wide range. Please do vote in our survey.

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Thanks! I am looking forward to sharing future (hopefully more positive) thoughts about films and books to come!

Very well written and conveys my similar thoughts better than I could myself.

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As I’m sure you’re aware NTTD had the unfortunate timing of being in the can when COVID broke out. I agree, it was uncomfortable being so true to life but it was certainly not planned.

I doubt if EON would’ve gone with the storyline even 20 years after COVID had they already gone through it.

Bond is certainly escapism fun and this time we didn’t get to escape and it didn’t end fun.

I still liked it. Top 3 Bond.

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Of course, I would never suggest it was deliberate. But lack of intent does not excuse it for me. Especially when those who created the film materially benefit from exposing the masses just emerging from collective trauma.

In any case, the pandemic objection is probably secondary to my main charge that to kill Bond is incompatible with the genre itself.

It only works if you deliberately wink/nod to it as being outside the cannon at the beginning of 26. Something like the open to OHMSS. But yes, messing with the rules of the genre is uh … challenging, for the audience and for EON.

hoxa9 welcome!

So let me be contrary here. What exactly are these “genre rules”? Where does it say that you can’t kill your hero? Fleming did it in FRWL and changed his mind when the next advance came his way. Conan Doyle? Yep, he stuck it to Holmes. Spock. Dead. Various Star Wars people. Gone. Superman? Batman? Whenever DC Comics needs the cash those storylines roll out. Marvel? Cleaning house is our business! Shakespeare - I was doing it before any of you!

“Genre rules” are the purview of the creators (whether any of us like or not), that would be my argument.

I’ve got no problem that people don’t like the end of NTTD. Fully respect that and I get that it flies against what many in the fan base want.

But to accuse anyone of “breaking genre rules”…show me that rule book first. I’m just unconvinced it exists beyond any of our individual desires as to what we want this or any other series/character to be. :slight_smile:

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Welcome to CBn, @hoxa9 .

I strongly recommend a second viewing. It really helps a lot seeing it again when you know how it ends. Btw, maybe something to help the movie make enough money: many people want to see this one a second time.

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I fully admit the concept of rules is nebulous, more a case of being difficult to innumerate but recognizable when one sees one (or sees it broken).

In general I take exception to iconic character deaths that were not intended by the original author (I realize this also makes the deaths of M, Mathis, and Felix controversial, which I do believe, but of lesser degree than Bond’s). Again, Fleming tried to kill Bond but ultimately changed his mind. We can’t truly consider the end of FRWL a death because Dr. No etc. were written. Subsequent creators can of course kill off the character, but when they do it somehow feels inauthentic. I can’t speak to those other examples because I am not a part of those fandoms. It feels more like fan fiction than really carrying on the tradition of the author.

I suppose the films are, ultimately, glorified fan fiction, which does make me feel a bit better about it. So, thank you for your argument which led me to a…quantum of solace…of sorts.

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Back from the fourth viewing. This time with my father. My father really liked the film but was sad about them killing Bond.

One more random observation. The Spectre logo on the ceiling in Cuba is the old logo from the Connery era and not the Craig era logo.

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I’ll be taking my dad next weekend. The SPECTRE logo on the ceiling is one of those images that is seared into my mind. It’s very silly but in the best possible way.

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Agreed. It works for Craig’s version of Bond but I wouldn’t want this to become the norm. Killing Bond is something monumental and a very rare occurrence, which is why it has garnered this response. If you do something once it gives you permission to keep doing it, perhaps when you shouldn’t. Every Bond from here on dying could itself become an exhausting trope. I’d like the filmmakers to remember that going forward.

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I have no basis for this but I wouldn’t be surprised if Craig’s deal for coming back was him insisting that Bond die. He pulls a lot of weight, deservedly so.

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I believe the idea for Bond to die came from Craig.

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I’m hoping to take my 93 year old dad to it when I visit him next month.

There’s a lot to process here, and much I want to address after reading your comments, but first off let me just thank the members of quarterdeck.commanderbond.net for the sense of community and safe space to discuss the events of NTTD. After watching many toxic reviews on Youtube, I am grateful to the forum members for discussing the film respectfully, and logically, among our varied takes and opinions. It’s so great to discuss CR, QoS, SF and SP among this community! And now NTTD. Not many of my friends understand my Bond OCD, but you guys (and girls) do!

Rightly or wrongly, NTTD is associated with the pandemic. Just as WandaVision was a reflection on remorse for loss and lost loves, so too will NTTD be forever inextricably linked with the pandemic. Whether its story proves a perfect metaphor for it, or a poor plot choice of unfortunate timing, NTTD will be a Bond film that people will reassess over time, much like OHMSS and LTK.

Felix Leiter: For the first time, I felt the filmmakers captured the fun of Bond and Leiter out drinking and socializing as in the Fleming books. Having rewatched CR afterwards, the line from NTTD that resonates is, “I had a brother. His name is Felix.” Brilliant.

Some critics have pointed out this is a movie about Madeleine, and not Bond. In a clever way, EON has put Fleming’s The Spy Who Loved me onscreen. A Bond adventure from a female perspective. If only Mathilde were named Vivienne, that would have sealed it.

Every decade give or take a couple of years, EON makes a sequel/homage to OHMSS. In 1981, FYEO opens at Tracy’s grave and gives us an older Bond, matured with experience (not bedding the teen Bibi) in a revenge story that should have happened in DAF. FYEO was originally the title of the Bond movie for 1979 (which became Moonraker.) In 1989, EON gave us Licence to Kill, a revenge movie where Bond avenges Felix’s shark maiming and his wife’s death. Ten years later came 1999’s TWINE where the references to OHMSS are so subtle as to be ignorable if you wish (“Have you ever lost someone, Mr. Bond?”). Elektra has a similar ski outfit to Tracy, Renard looks a lot like YOLT’s Blofeld, the title, The World Is Not Enough, is taken from both the OHMSS book and film.

And now we have No Time to Die, the most on-the-nose homage, reinterpretation of OHMSS yet. It uses its music, including vocal “We Have All the Time in the World,” beautifully. It’s a first for a Bond film to reuse one of its vocal song themes. It includes scenes from the OHMSS literary sequel, You Only Live Twice. It finally gave us a definitive Blofeld death. Seeing an angry Bond attempt to strangle Blofeld onscreen was such a thrill for me because it was in the novel YOLT. Of course, Tanner has to step in and stop Bond when he comes to his senses, but by then the damage is done. I almost wish Safin was actually Guntram Shatterhand at this point, not a pseudonym for Blofeld, but a fleshed out character with a Fleming name.

NTTD was the Bond film I always wanted to write. It had a female 00 character (though a woman is sitting in the chair of assembled 00s in Thunderball), it included Bond’s child (in YOLT’s pregnancy and Raymond Benson’s short story featuring Irma Bunt), and it had the Garden of Death. I would have left the ending more open ended, but EON still has options here.

Imagine Bond 26 opening with a new actor washed ashore with no idea of who he is. The audience isn’t informed either. We get the TMWTGG amnesia story where a brainwashed Bond is sent to kill M. This is an older Bond with no memory of his missions. Tracy, Vesper and Madeleine could still be part of his backstory. This isn’t a young Bond, or CraigBond, but an older Bond who’s forgotten who he is. For this to work, the MI6 team has to be recast–M, Q, MoneyPenny, Tanner. Craig’s Bond films can be a figment of this Bond’s imaginations just as you can interpret 1962-2002 Bonds as being a figment of Craig’s. It’s the only way to make everything canon.

EON has done this before. It’s ambiguous as to whether Connery in DAF is the widower from OHMSS. It could just as easily be a prequel. Likewise, FYEO is more a sequel to TSWLM or OHMSS than Moonraker. Brosnan’s Bond might be the same as Dalton’s but clearly not Connery’s. And yet Dalton’s Bond is Lazenby’s, who is also Connery’s. The continuity is fluid now that M, Q and MoneyPenny have been portrayed by different actors. It’s not the same person, but it is the same character.

And really, when did Bond die? He should not have survived the PTS fall in Skyfall. The song starts “This is the end.” Spectre opens with the tag, “The Dead Are Alive.” Some argue CraigBond died in Blofeld’s chair in that film, and Cary Fukunaga even pitched that idea to the Broccolis when he signed on. Others argue he may have died in the Aston Martin DBS in CR when his heart stopped. You can argue that CraigBond died in at least four of his five movies. The brilliant twist in NTTD is that the sacrificial lamb in a Bond movie, rather than a fridged female or a loyal ally, is James Bond.

And yet…James Bond Will Return. Long live James Bond.

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This. I’m on board.

You just need a great writer and great director to pull it off.

Oh wait…

I’ve watched my share of horror sequels where the writers find a way for the bad guy to come back but didn’t we see Bond get vaporized?

Ain’t gonna happen.

As I said, it won’t be Craig Bond. But it could be a wizened grizzled Dalton or Brosnan Bond…or something else with a parallel continuity.