Minor edit: The name is Malek, Rami Malek.
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I watched NTTD with my 93 year old Dad over Thanksgiving. He stayed awake for the whole thing, which was a score! He didn’t remember Madeleine from the last movie, but he did remember Blofeld. He liked it. Was a little surprised that Bond had a child.
Every Bond film I watch with him I fear will be the last. I took him to Spectre in 2015, but we rented this one in his room at the assisted living facility. He took me to my first one in 1977 with The Spy Who Loved Me.
I had taken him to Skyfall weeks after my mom died (she died the day it was released, which was also my birthday.) But I’ll never forget when Bond meets Severine in the casino, my dad turned to me and said, “I’m in love again!”
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[edit]
Pretty much my favorite post ever, @cgebby 
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My father passed away before I ever knew him but my son and I have a close bond with Bond.
Thank you for sharing. You’re a good son.
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I can sympathize with you on this. That’s awesome that he was able to make it through such a long movie. Like you said, definitely a score there. Heck, I often struggle with making it through films these days, especially the ones that I really want to see for some reason.
My dad isn’t nearly as old but is in very poor health, so I know that NTTD is the last one I’ll get to watch with him. I’ve seen every Bond film since GoldenEye with him theaters, but we did this one on his 65-inch flatscreen via Amazon. I watched it with him and my mother, who is only a fan of Craig’s Bond films and really dislikes the rest of the films, and even she gasped at the end when they killed off Bond and she understood the gravity of it. I was expecting my dad to be pissed that they went that route. So when the credits started rolling, I asked him what he thought. His response was “what did I miss?”. He’d apparently dozed off right when Bond got to the island and had missed that whole section, so we went back and watched that whole bit again. He really enjoyed the movie, which for me was the most important part.
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Certainly not trying to make light of anyone’s situation but I think NTTD would be a great one to end with for me. Not that I hope it is.
We all lamented on this site that the last Bond film Warren Zevon saw was Die Another Day.
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Could Bond have survived Safin’s bullets? Well, we have to assume so since every action hero suffers terrible injuries but walks away alive.
Could Bond have gotten rid ofthe virus? Q explicitly states that is impossible. To rob it of any impact, of course, one might also assume that there could have been a last minute rescue for that, too.
Could Bond have escaped the island before the rockets hit (and then could he not have drowned before someone picked him up)? Again, only in an action film that could have been possible.
If one argues that Safin‘s bullets and the virus were enough to seal Bond‘s fate then this is true.
Still, Bond could have opted to survive and live in seclusion or in a high security clinic with scientists trying to find a cure for the virus.
But he would have risked the life of his family.
And this is what Bond decides against. Instead of clinging to a rescue that might easily have endangered his loved ones and the whole world, really, he made peace with his own demise. And since he was the one who ordered the strikes he actually held all the cards. He knew that if he did not get off the island in time he would die with it. What Safin did to him was on top of that.
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What Safin does to him is what causes that decision to be made. One does not happen without the other.
Regardless of whatever side of the fence one falls on, it’s Safin’s scheme that ultimately results in Bond’s death, whether one wants to say that Bond kills himself or Safin does, it’s still Safin’s actions at the end of the day that are the major causative event that results in Bond’s death. For me, having one of the franchise’s weakest villains be the ones that gets to wear that badge of honor, as it were, is bordering on shameful. That’s where I stand on it, and almost certainly always will because I don’t see some eureka moment coming that would cause me to “see the light” on Safin and discover some nonexistent brilliance in the character.
This will be the last point I’ll make on the matter. Quite frankly, I think most of us agree on most of what happens at the end of the film, and a lot of this has just gone in circles. I don’t really feel as though this film is really worthy of being debated to this degree or intensity anyway.
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Thanks for putting this list together!
As far as Craig finales go, I would put Skyfall lodge or the Venice house at number 2 (I lean slight towards Skyfall). I feel both of these are more representative of Craig’s iconic space than the island infiltration, which felt a bit like Craig dropped into a Brosnan film. I can totally understand wanting to include his demise towards the top though!
You mean M, right?
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Fantastic countdown with some great choices. Bravo!
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I’m actually with @sharpshooter on this one. I really like the Island Infiltration. Seeing Bond wear combat gear is a welcome sight that doesn’t happen very often. I rank his Island Infiltration get up right up at the top of some of Bond’s best outfits like the “tactile-neck” from Live and Let Die, the jungle fatigues in Goldeneye, even his outfit during the London finale of Spectre. To me, the whole sequence reminds me of the Island Infiltration in the Nightfire game. Honestly, I would really love to see Cary Fukunaga tackle a video game adaptation for a movie. Seeing his work on True Detective and now No Time To Die, I think he could do really well.
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Well, at the same time, Q is this idiot who plugged an enemy device into the MI6 mainframe and wondered how on earth he got hacked… I would not trust his medical opinion with my life.
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#Sickofexperts
?
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Saw the film again today.
Damn, I really was moved to tears. Again! And when Louis Armstrong begins to sing…
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I’m up to 9 times, 6 in the theater.
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Still haven’t seen it 
(holding out for iTunes purchase, not rental)