The driver of the hearse boat presses a button that causes the coffin lid to rise, which is Coffin Guy’s cue to act.
Maybe his is a reimbursement contract, and he is paid per kill. If he kills Bond first, the gondolier may jump into the canal, and Coffin Guy is out several thousand (1979) dollars.
My question is: if the coffin is too high to get under the bridge in the scene, how did it get under any other ones?
A true well of outrageousness.
I like it!
Yeah, maybe the assignment is “kill everyone in the gondola,” and the standing target is the easier one. Plus in theory a passenger should be powerless to escape whereas the gondolier could row like mad. Hey, this is coming together!
My question is: if the coffin is too high to get under the bridge in the scene, how did it get under any other ones?
Aaaand, it’s all out the window again. In fact, the funeral boat has to pass under a bridge to get to the assassination attempt and seems to have no trouble (though we cut away as it does so).
On the upside, at least the spilled coffin motivates that bystander to give up cigarettes. Maybe. Or maybe like our well-travelled wine drinker, he’ll be back on the wagon in short order. It’s a shame we never got to see a support group for traumatized witnesses to Bond’s shenanigans, with JW Pepper as President, Mrs Bell as VP and a membership including Venetian Cigarette Guy, Three-Time Alcoholic Vacationer Guy, assorted Sardinian beachgoers, bobsledders with sore necks and heartbroken brides and grooms from Louisiana to Paris. With the dog and parrot as group mascots.
There may be people who use my Bond fandom as a starting point for some small talk, but I’m under the impression that most of them consult me because they think I’m in the know. Which I’m certainly not, but I’m usually better informed and up to date about what’s going on or what to make of the latest tabloid rumours. 
Could also be that there are people who explicitly avoid asking me such questions because they know it’s going to be more than a brief one sentence answer, and that they might be none the wiser afterwards 
The passenger certainly would be powerless to escape for sure as he most likely wouldn’t know how to properly use the row and couldn’t even get ashore. But even with a gondolier rowing like mad, it shouldn’t be a problem to follow the gondola on foot
That’s a fair spin: maybe people are genuinely interested in the current state of Bond, just not quite interested enough to spend a lot of effort looking into it when there’s a handy geek in their orbit who can do that for them.
It’s also arguable that Bond is such a big deal, culturally speaking, that nearly everyone is a fan to some extent, and the only difference is one of degree. Although I’m not entirely convinced that’s as true now as it was in previous eras.
Could also be that there are people who explicitly avoid asking me such questions because they know it’s going to be more than a brief one sentence answer, and that they might be none the wiser afterwards
Sometimes I sense people ask me questions just for the entertainment of watching me go off on some nerdy tangent. Admittedly this is more true for Star Trek and comics than it is for Bond, but it’s almost like they decide, “Let’s wind the geek up and watch him go…”
I believe that’s exactly the problem.
Of course, with all the other entertainment choices which weren‘t there during the height of Bond, people will still watch a Bond but only a few still want more.
Which is why with every year going by and no new film arising the few total fans become even fewer.
My geek side would love to know how Bond film viewership was distributed over the years between: 1) Bond fan viewers; and 2) movie watchers who went to the latest Bond just because.
This is a valid point. When I was growing up, there really was nothing else like a Bond movie; they weren’t just movies, but rather huge events offering a unique cocktail of OTT plotlines, spectacular sets, wild stunts and a circus-like atmosphere that stressed entertainment above every other consideration. Now that describes…well, if not the majority of movies, then at least a lot of them. Between the Marvels, the Ryan Gosling/Ryan Reynolds/Rock type movies, etc there is no shortage of big-budget “romps” that stress spectacle and empty calories over all else, so where Bond use to offer escapism, now a suffocating surplus of escapist fare is what we want to escape from. In that light, maybe it makes sense that the Craig era leaned so hard into angst and gloom; it might have been the only way to differentiate it from all the many, many films doing what Bond alone used to do.
I used to compare the Bond films to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows; periodically they’d roll into dull, sleepy towns and offer the locals spectacle and grand adventure on a scale they could hardly imagine. Nothing else could compare. Now we get that kind of show every day of the week, so it’s hard to make a case for why James Bond is necessarily better or more satisfying than films and characters that go even bigger and wilder. In our day, Moonraker was thought to have taken the “entertain at all costs” ethos too far into the realm of the absurd; now Marvel and Dwayne Johnson say “hold my beer.” Bond can’t go crazier than something like the Fast and Furious series, but it also can’t pull back all the way to gritty realism and be the huge cultural phenomenon it once was.
Which is to say, I’m not at all sure the words “James Bond” carry the same weight with younger generations that they did with ours.
But he’s one of those guys who looks so sympathetic and nice.
I would love to have him in Bond. In any role. I still think it was a missed opportunity for him not to be back in Indy 5. But we can look forward to him in Zootopia 2 this year!
Now, here’s where things get interesting: I’m told Amazon/MGM have quietly locked in a May 20, 2027 release date for an untitled film. Could it be Bond? Maybe. But what’s more than a little intriguing is that the date just so happens to mark what would be Ian Fleming’s 120th birthday. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, something’s definitely brewing on the Bond front.
If there wasn’t some kind of presentable progress on BOND 26 by 2026, then it would be somewhat nebulous why Bezos spent all that cash on creative control when there’s no real vision at Amazon House what to do with it.
Inching forward to a release date without a script, director and star.
Congratulations, Amazon. You‘re now just like the big Hollywood studios!
I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt because they haven’t done anything yet. But I’ll be very nervous when real news starts appearing and I’m about to click the link. It will be very interesting to see how Amazon’s relaunch compares with what IO Interactive are doing, and what approach people end up preferring despite the difference in mediums.
Ian Fleming was born in 1908.
Still, an intriguing rumor nonetheless.
I just hope Amazon does not rush this before ironing out a coherent vision.
I hope so, too. But… fat chance.
Are we going to be this pessimistic all the way through production ?