be interesting if it was a bit like we see with terrorist leaders who have been supposedly killed multiple times and then pop up in propaganda videos again after the fact - are they alive/dead etc… does it matter if their ideas live on?
Or Safin actually being behind the meeting and playing the recoded greetings…then after whatever goes down at that meeting (everyone being gassed - thereby taking out the top leadership - with Bond and Paloma left alive to be captured?) Bond visits Blofeld who says that wasn’t him
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Good for Craig. It’s a rare thing he’s getting to achieve here in terms of the Bond franchise - leaving on his own terms and in the way he envisioned it. I also feel like he does: SPECTRE would’ve served as a satisfactory ending for his era, but a fifth would’ve always been a lingering pang of regret. Much like how Brosnan feels about his tenure abruptly ending with DAD.
No Time To Die allows us all a proper sense of closure.
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Not if it’s pants! Just saying 
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I suppose with SPECTRE the idea of quitting only turned up once the whole thing started struggling against the Sony leaks and Craig’s injury. More like an afterthought that somehow grew wings without anybody actually saying so - until it really felt like a blessing that it was over.
Going into it now with the knowledge that this will definitely be it, come what may, is surely a much more focused approach that promises at least on page that the finished product will reflect the effort and the intention they had. After SPECTRE many viewers did not expect this to be end of Craig’s Bond - until the years went by and the signs became apparent in retrospect.
This will definitely not be the case with NO TIME TO DIE.
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Absolutely agreed. I hope that we will get more information on the making of SPECTRE one day, but it seems as if the immense pressure of delivering a film that will reach the box office heights of its predecessor poisoned the atmosphere - as it usually happens after a huge success.
Instead of analyzing the reasons why SKYFALL hit that box office jackpot and acknowledging that this does not mean every future Bond film can or needs to do that business, the money crunchers as always disregarded reason and kept on pounding home the fairy tale of “CONTINUING GROWTH”.
This led to the idea of getting Mendes back, waiting another year for him, and then being beset with a myriad of problems. That those did not spiral out of control, resulting in a production where a director was replaced or his work re-cut by others, is proof for the experienced and firm hand EON keeps. Nevertheless many sequences look compromised - the best they could do due to time, budget, weather, actors´ availability.
One major problem, however, seems to be that the ideas for a great story were there, and - as pointed out lots of times - the whole third act was so much better in those early script drafts. But SONY asked for bringing that budget down. Crazy if you consider that “GROWTH” so often is attempted by “REDUCING COSTS”, leading to the paradox of getting more for less money but asking for higher quality.
The upside really seems to be that on NO TIME TO DIE everybody knew that this is the last chance to deliver a great Bond film with Craig. Who knows what comes after that. A box office downturn might be expected as it happens for every once big franchise these days (if you’re not Marvel).
And it doesn’t seem that anybody tried to save money on NO TIME TO DIE by cutting locations or script ideas. Instead, it looks as if they all said: let’s go for it.
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Refresh my memory, how did the 3rd act go in the early script drafts?
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There’s also mention in the Empire article of an aerial stunt sequence filmed in Jamaica, which involves Bond flying a plane between cranes, and presumably culminating in the boat explosion we’ve seen.
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Q gets captured and abducted in Austria while Bond rescues Madeleine from Hinx
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After a Dr.No-ish dinner scene Bond is tortured without Madeleine and left to die in a solar furnace with Q while Oberhauser (here he calls himself Heinrich Stockmann) takes a helicopter with Madeleine to fly away
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with the exploding watch Bond and Q escape before being burned, and Q has to shoot a guard, with Bond commenting „Sometimes a trigger has to be pulled.“
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they blow up the control room by redirecting the energy
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Stockmann (having interesting dialogue with Madeleine about his insane psychological state he is aware of) goes to the old MI6 building to look for a file Bond has hinted at as a reveal of his connection to all the activities of the previous films, much more and better elaborated on.
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Madeleine fights with Irma in the derelict parts of the building in pounding rain, Bond approaches in a helicopter, joins the fight against Spectre henchmen
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At the same time Stockmann attends the big Nine Eyes celebration with C, while M, Moneypenny, Tanner and Q prevent the system to go online as planned, using it to reveal C and Stockmann to be terrorists
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Bond and Madeleine turn the tables on Irma, killing her
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Moneypenny shoots down the boat Stockmann is trying to escape in
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With roadblocks set Stockmann can only drive across Westminster Bridge, Bond is running towards him
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showdown on the bridge, Stockmann leaves the car with a machine gun against Bond who provokes him by saying that Stockmann‘s father knew about his son‘s mental illness and still loved him, but Stockmann killed him. Bond now is faster and shoots Stockmann. Afterwards he throws the gun into the Thames and responds to Madeleine‘s question: It was weighing me down.
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As in the film Bond wants one more thing from Q and drives away with Madeleine, with his last sentence being the one from OHMSS.
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Wow. First time I have heard about all this…
Thanks.
I really love the “ it was weighing me down” line. The nine eyes piece was never really going to take off but so much of that sounds great. I think we’ll be seeing some of it surface in NTTD.
I think the “we have the time in the world” line was in the final draft too, it was just cut from the film.
I get it, it would very much commit to a direct sequel that they might not have been able to deliver.
No Time To Die, now looks to be that direct sequel, so I suppose theres nothing stopping them from bringing that moment back.
From the look on Bond’s face in the trailer the moment he sees Swann in the corridor (probably the Blofeld detention facility), i’d hazard a guess that Bond thought she was dead.
So could Eon be trying to have their cake and eat it? Now that we know the Matiera sequence is directly after the end of Spectre, could she get (apparently) killed on their wedding day/honeymoon, a la OHMSS (in a way that prevents Bond seeing the body)? Craig gets his Lazenby moment, cue Titles.
Post title song (which could easily be Adele crooning/moaning a revamped We Have All The Time In The World) Bond has buggered off to Jamaica for a solitary retirement. Meanwhile, unbeknown to Bond, Swann’s been on the Mi6 payroll handling Blofeld for them.
That would set up great tension not only with Swann, but also M (unless he was also kept in the dark - doubt it, though).
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Cool it’s confirmed Bond is doing the flying - and I don’t think it’s set in Jamaica. Bond visits Q and inquires about a plane, and that’s AFTER he’s been in Jamaica.
I believe she gets on a train in Matera after the big chase and Bond leaves her behind. I think he could be surprised to see her working in the spy game again after he’s been retired and taking it easy in Jamaica. His life was on hold, but hers wasn’t.
Yep, I’m focused on sending Craig out in style because he deserves it. But I can’t deny the future is appealing to me, especially if they cast someone like Aidan Turner. If they get the right man, and perhaps retain Fiennes, Whishaw and Harris, the transition is almost seamless. But even if those three jump ship after NTTD that’s not a problem - a brand new era can also be a good thing.
I’d imagine the 3 supports would keep up their roles - it must be a nice little earner that comes round regularly, but not too regularly. It’s probably down to whom they snag to direct the soft reboot.
Yea, I think it’s more that he leaves her after Matera and hasn’t seen her for 5 years when he sees her in the hallway.
