No scenes of Craig driving the new Vahalla that I’ve seen, so your theories are still in play, IMO.
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That would be my guess too, with the DB5 presumably being destroyed in the chase they’re about to shoot. May well be wrong though. As Arbo says, there’s a blond guy in the seat so that might be wrong, but for all we know he’s just moving the car.
Lots of fellas from AM there, I wonder why there’s a guy in a Ford shirt though.
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An Aston employee who still had it from when Ford owned them?
Have we seen any Ford owned cars during filming at any point?
I’d agree if it were a small back-of-a-warehouse company, but I think they’re a bit more professional and slick than that. Maybe it’s something to do with Red Bull, although I thought they were more Honda-powered.
Not a fan of this whole “old school Bond” shtick
To be fair, that’s the way it’s always been. Bond is only really ever up to date when Q gives him a gadget. Otherwise right from the beginning Connery’s Bond dresses in classic tailoring, gets his orders from an old guy behind a massive ornate wooden desk in front of an oil painting of a 200 year-old sailing ship, he drives a 30 year-old old Bentley and lives in a chintzy Regency-style flat; whereas all of the bad guys wear Nehru-collared suits and live in bang-up-to-date modernist angled concrete future houses and press light-up buttons to do everything. Bond has always been the old-school fighting to preserve the status quo from the brave new world.
Would Bond have voted for Brexit I wonder… ? 
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And I think Fleming consciously saw Bond’s old school style in contrast to the villains’ more modernist approach: hence his naming of Goldfinger after the brutalist architect whose work he so despised. I think the films very consciously developed this approach through the genius of Ken Adam and Syd Cain.
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The ex-KGB agent and head of a huge corporation backed change to the status quo for personal gain…we know EXACTLY where Bond would stand.
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That’s what I think, too. Joseph Gordon Levitt was set-up to be the new Batman, or a Nightwing character, at the conclusion of The Dark Knight Rises. But everybody knew it was simply a coda and not the beginning of a new franchise.
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Me neither, but with Craig getting on a bit I prefer them to address the obvious, rather than pretend he’s still in his prime, as with OP and AVTAK.
However, making such points in broad strokes, such as possibly having Bond and Lynch in the DB5/Vanquish and Valhalla respectively is all about the skill and light touch of the writer(s) & director. It’s easy to make such moments incredibly cringey.
It’s been astutely pointed out above that a blonde stand-in/stuntman has been seen driving the Valhalla, suggesting Bond gets behind the wheel. But that doesn’t preclude it being Lynch’s car to begin with.
I can really see Eon loving such a broad strokes moment, oh so heavily making the old 007 / new 007 statement. They couldn’t resist such ‘shtick’ in SF with the ejector seat dialogue overplaying its hand, as did the 007 theme + crash zoom and mock-angry-Craigface when the DB5 blew up. And of course the Craig Bond all time low of the old couple dialogue when he jumped onto the tube train. But then one man’s cringe is another’s highlight.
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Great observation and absolutely correct imo!
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Well, I’m hoping her character serves the story, rather than corporate ambitions.
If her character continues through the plot past her sell by date, making pointless appearances in the story in an effort to sell her to the audience as a brand, then it will be painfully obvious and forever the Achilles heal of the movie, no matter how good it is.
I’m hoping that if she sticks around to the end it’s because she’s integral to the story (as in it’s established that only her character can play out the story beats she appears in) and her character arc/personality is fleshed out and developed throughout. And therein is the predicament - it’s a Bond movie, so I don’t really want him sharing the focus to that extent.
It wouldn’t surprise me if a sticking point in locking the script is the writers wanting to kill her off to serve the story and stakes and producers/studio wanting her to survive in case they can turn her into a future revenue stream. I know which I prefer.
The Rhythm Section is an EON Production, it is an espionage story with a female lead that could potentially lead to a series all it’s own. It has no links to Bond, so they don’t have to worry about MGM’s half of the series causing delay after delay whilst MGM go scrounging for money.
Why would they make work for themselves by creating a series with many a legal hurdle to deal with, and have it in direct competition with their own series that doesn’t have those particular problems?
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Sure if its strictly business like that - i dont personally see EON starting a whole other spy franchise unless its a TV show with Lashana Lynch but that is hypothetical. I think in the end, any version of womans death serving as motivation for the man (be it Seydoux or Lynch) is a pretty tired trope at this point and would very much undercut what theyre trying to do and cause Bond to continue to be seen as a relic by its naysayers - doesnt mean to say that they cant be in peril etc… but i think this is more a film of the old embracing the new learning from eachother so they can move forward stronger. I dont think Lynch living necessarily means its a purely calculated decision as if theres no other way to motivate Bonds actions but you may be right
Otherwise she’s just Jinx. Hey, let’s have this character that’s Bond’s equal. And them we might be able to spin off her own series…
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Exactly!
I wonder if TRS were on schedule and a success, if we’d now have a female 007 in Bond 25 at all.
Maybe it’s TRS’ production problems that led some execs to worry about their potential female spy franchise set to cash in on the zeitgeist and push for such a character in Bond 25.
I imagine a TV spin off in this late golden age of telly would please many at Eon etc. I bet they’d love to do that with Bond but are, thankfully, too smart to mess with the brand to that extent. But a whole new character in that world and a woman t’boot - how ‘woke’ is that? $$$
Indeed it is. But they can use it to raise the stakes without portraying Bond as the chivalrous avenger. As with Mathis’ death Bond can already be motivated and this event provide a moment of sardonic reflection and realism. That would up the stakes, without repeating the ‘dead woman’ trope. After all, she’s an agent, not a lover (if she’s a lover then that’s repeating probably the oldest trope of all - no woman can resist him).
But the execs on Bond are different than the execs on TRS. It’s why I don’t think they’d attach another series to Bond - They’ll surely be wanting less ties to MGM at the moment, not more.
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Oddly makes her more likely to die in this series - named lovers have made it out alive, named OO’s who arn’t Bond, have had a 100% death rate.
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