Bond #25: NO TIME TO DIE

Because something will happen. But here's the story of the day:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/apple-amazon-join-race-james-bond-film-rights-1035539

The James Bond sweepstakes has taken an unexpected turn. While Warner Bros. remains in the lead to land film distribution rights to the megafranchise — whose deal with Sony expired after 2015’s Spectre — a couple of unlikely suitors have emerged that also are in hot pursuit: Apple and Amazon.

The tech giants are willing to spend in the same ballpark as Warners, if not much more, for the rights, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter. MGM has been looking for a deal for more than two years, and Sony, Universal and Fox also had been pursuing the property, with Warners and Sony the most aggressive.

But the emergence of Apple — which is considered such a viable competitor that Warners is now pressing MGM hard to close a deal — and Amazon shows that the digital giants consider Bond one of the last untapped brands (like a Marvel, Pixar or Lucasfilm) that could act as a game-changer in the content space. Apple’s and Amazon’s inclusion in the chase would indicate that more is on the table than film rights, including the future of the franchise if MGM will sell or license out for the right price.

a game-changer in the content space

hhnnnnnnggggghhhhhhhh

"Revaluated and IP-exploited, not stirred."

psyched for the bond/transparent crossover possibilities if amazon gets the rights tho

Everything is friggin' content and franchising now lol

A period take on Moonraker (the book) would be great, I think. I'd watch it anyway.

All I want to know is what does this mean for my James Bond theme park

A period take on Moonraker (the book) would be great, I think. I'd watch it anyway.

Yeah I've long thought this. A 50s Bond TV series directly adapting the books, and basically portraying Bond as the monster he is. Anyway the book Moonraker has my favorite Fleming sequence, the extended club/dining/gambling bit near the front.

gonna be a movie where Bond is mind-controlled using some kind of serum and does things like shoot Wimpy's employees and blow up politician's vehicles and then he manages to break free of the spell and realizes all the people he's killed and vows revenge against the mastermind, Spanish Flye

Xpost - Yes, amazing scene, and it's great spending all that time with M. I much prefer their relationship in the books - much less antagonistic and exposition-y.

MGM's sole reason to exist is to sell the rights to Bond movies.. they should sell so they can put themselves out of their misery

xpost -- It's a great portrayal of a quietly nervous mindset about the future, on top of it being an entertainment.

True! I only started reading the Bond books a couple years ago, and was very pleasantly surprised by how beautifully written and thoughtful they are (while still being totally weird, fun and lurid). .

i have been thinking about giving the books a go myself

maybe this year is my year...

MGM's sole reason to exist is to sell the rights to Bond movies.. they should sell so they can put themselves out of their misery

Steven Bach reckoned in Final Cut that owning Bond (and getting a distribution arm they ultimately couldn't use for a few years) was why MGM pounced on United Artists after Heaven's Gate crashed the company.

Xpost - They're really good! I'd try Casino Royale or Moonraker to start. Avoid Goldfinger - it's the only one where the movie is better. And has too much golf.

noted :)

Might as well start with Casino, yeah -- kick it off with the whole shebang. Live and Let Die is *really* fucked up, I'd almost say skip it -- when the racism is just one of the problems with it, well, there you go. (Similarly, Dr No is extremely hard going.) But Moonraker continues things from there well enough.

imo the man with the golden gun is more racist than live and let die, which is buoyed considerably by its blaxploitation vibe and in which the racist white sheriff is a long punchline. said racist white sheriff becomes a goofy but lovable racist sidekick in golden gun

oh fuck you're talking about the books, sorry lol

the books are super fucked up

Yeah I was about to say, let's not confuse our mediums here.

I will say that whenever people complained about how they changed things from the books, not only was it in many cases for the better, but in one case -- The Spy Who Loved Me -- Fleming explicitly laid down a condition that if an adaptation was made the only thing that could be used was the title, nothing else. So they just remade You Only Live Twice and made Moore's best 70s Bond film as a result.

why the condition for just the one book?

Due to its poor critical reception at the time -- also it's a very atypical book in all compared to the rest: first person narration, the 'me' being a woman who Bond eventually rescues. He doesn't show up until more than half way through it, IIRC!

It's a fun book if you're interested in a peak at Fleming's weird ideas, and well-written as usual. But yeah, very skippable. The movie's fun - maybe the only 100% successful Moore movie - but I don't consider it an "improvement" as it's effectively a different story with the same title. Goldfinger, otoh, seems to have been written by someone who understood exactly what was wrong with the book and how to fix it.

(peek, sorry)

Goldfinger screenplay co-written by an interesting writer and critic called Paul Dehn, who also wrote the screenplay for the The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and a number of the Planet of the Apes movies(as well as the lyrics to the faux folk song 'O Willow Waly' that features in the film The Innocents). Dehn's long-term partner was James Bernard, who wrote the music for most of the classic Hammer horrors.

http://variety.com/2018/film/news/bond-25-danny-boyle-directing-1202727654/

Ugh.

Cilliam Murphy is....

Bond

I'm gonna call it and say Danny Boyle will make a Bond movie that'll be better than the last three.

yeah i am willing to roll the dice with Boyle.

Boyle I think is good with dynamic action, the problem with Mendes was while he made everything look like a painting, his compositions I thought were a bit too "big" if that makes sense and for all the movement within the frames everything seemed very inert in a lot of ways bc he went oversized. I can't put my finger on it precisely idk. He wanted to do elegant vv pretty action and it was just DOA. He was trying to achieve the same end result as Bird and McQuarrie did with MI 4 and 5 and it just didn't work. Boyle I trust to actually achieve something a bit more in keeping with what Martin Campbell did in Casino Royale.

I agree with what you said about Mendes, but obviously John Logan was a major problem as well. The villains in the last two Bonds were shite, the plots messy, tonally they were all over the place, a mix of the blunt killer Bond of CR and QOS with silly Q-teasing Bond, featuring the old Bond cars and the old Bond cliches and the old Moneypenny (sort of).

Logan's gone, thankfully. Not sure if Purvis & Wade are working with Boyle and Hodge or if we get the first Bond since Tomorrow Never Dies not co-written by the pair.

Yeah definitely can't take away from John Logan's influence, I think there's a balance the best Bonds achieve between serious business and casual humor that the last couple especially failed at. They were trying to be very impressive and they were also the most glaring examples of a perfectly decent franchise trying to Dark Knight things up a bit. Okay the Cumberbatch Star Trek was probably worse actually.

Well, well

https://variety.com/2018/film/news/bond-25-danny-boyle-exits-1202911993/

Time to stop making auteur wishlists for the Bond director gig.. The Broccolis will always want to ghost direct!

there goes their shot at making this at least quasi interesting

Thought the revive would be about the rumours that Idris Elba is lined up to play Bond.

More interesting than the director is whether the script goes ahead without Purvis & Wade as planned

God, please

Danny Boyle would've made a fun Bond sure but I do still look forward to Ken Loach's take on the iconic spy

— Italian Alex Pareene (@pareene) August 22, 2018

Loach, Gareth Evans or Joanna Hogg, all fine by me

i know this never will happen and never would've happened but i would've liked to see a soderbergh bond

Don't know if Craig has any sway but as they worked on Logan Lucky together I wouldn't rule it out.

FWIW would love to see what Paul Verhoeven would do with it.

james gunn’s available iirc

Albert Brooks

Brad Bird

i was gonna say it's a little redundant but basically any m:i director not named jj abrams would've prob made a good bond film

Verhoeven doing a PG-13 action film would be a waste.

omar otm

Based on how well the fight scenes were staged in the last WHAS, I'd go for David Wain

i know this never will happen and never would've happened but i would've liked to see a soderbergh bond

https://resizing.flixster.com/Kngkfhcif-r24cJqI7_IaokXdHE=/206x305/v1.bTsxMTE3MzcwNjtqOzE3ODU5OzEyMDA7ODAwOzEyMDA

Just get a good cinematographer and stunt coordinator and a journeyman director.

that’s irrelevant unless the atrocious writers are replaced as you said before!

like, Boyle & Hodge wld have been meat & potatoes, but Skyfall was watery gruel with plaster in it & Spectre was a greasy turd with a paper umbrella stuck in it at a jaunty angle

still get angry when I think about Spectre.

maybe this is naive but I don't understand why you'd spend millions making a movie and not go to the trouble of making sure your screenplay isn't total garbage, how hard can it be?

bond movies are copyright-maintenance exercises where the scripts are product ads strung together with action setpieces

why bother thinking to hard about the scripts when showcasing jaguar and patek philippe or whatever is much more important

yes, sure, but is it actively more expensive/time-consuming to have a not shit script?

well, at the very least you gotta find a decent writer who wants to do it, can do it for the budget the broccolis are willing to pay, and is available to turn in a final draft for the date they need to hit in order to meet their release date, so it probably is, yeah!

the problem with the last pair in particular was the sense that they really wanted to make critically approved action masterpieces as opposed to making great Bond films. So they made them ponderous and weighty and full of all kinds of Nolan hand-me-downs w/r/t motivation and "the past haunting the present" and all that bullshit.

Quantum of Solace for all its faults was less a disaster than it was more of a throwback to the more mediocre (and yet still entertaining) Connery/Moore Bond films.

quantum is gorgeously filmed except for the action sequences which are nonsense. it v rapidly evaporates from memory but i really enjoy it when it's on

skyfall and spectre both suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

i have probably posted both of those opinions 10000x before

no Bond film should ever involve the villain appearing on one end of a very long room and taking a ten minute walk towards the camera while delivering a monologue, I'm pretty sure Torgo from Manos Hands of Fate walked faster than Silva in that scene.

Hahahah. But art!

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/sep/14/james-bond-25-007-writers-neal-purvis-robert-wade-rehired?CMP=share_btn_tw

ah ffs

Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli and Daniel Craig announced today that #Bond25 will begin filming at Pinewood Studios on 4 March 2019 under the helm of director, Cary Joji Fukunaga with a worldwide release date of 14 February 2020. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/Oyzt826sXd

— James Bond (@007) September 20, 2018

huh - had they announced before that fukunaga would be directing?

no, this is the announcement

WE GOT (working) TITLE

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/feb/22/shatteredhand-james-bond-working-title

...wait, what?

Shatterhand, wish in the other, see which fills up first.

shatterhand?

shitterhand morelike

that shatnerfist in full

https://i.giphy.com/media/wAhJF6wUMowy4/giphy.gif

tbf Daggermouth was already taken

In You Only Live Twice, published in 1964, Blofeld returns and Bond finds him hiding in Japan under the alias Dr. Guntram Shatterhand. He has once again changed his appearance. He has put on some muscle, and has a gold-capped tooth, a fully healed nose, and a drooping grey mustache.

The Shattered Hand clan (or simply the Hand)[2] was originally an orcish clan that dwelled in the Spires of Arak. Formed from outcasts and liberated Highmaul gladiator slaves, the clan was named after its gruesome self-mutilation practices. The clan was left behind on Draenor during the First and Second Wars, but later rallied under Ner'zhul's banner. Following Draenor's transformation into Outland, many Shattered Hand transformed into fel orcs, with their founder and chieftain, Kargath Bladefist, becoming the Warchief of the Fel Horde in service to the Illidari.

In the modern day, the Horde-loyal "Shattered Hand" refers to a secretive multi-racial organization of spies, assassins, and rogue trainers seemingly fulfilling a similar role as the Alliance's SI:7.

if this movie pits bond against an army of savage orcs, it’s a day one viewing for me tbh

Shat-In-Hand

ew

The clock is ticking and despite that pre-production has already bled over into some production—cameras have been rolling on “Bond 25,” though it’s all second unit photography without the principal cast—the gears keep on turning on the screenplay for the next 007 movie. The Observer reports that Phoebe Waller-Bridge has been hired to “liven up” the still as-of-yet-untitled ‘Bond 25’ screenplay.

Waller-Bridge might be best known by American audiences for playing the recalcitrant droid L3-37 in “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” but she is a critically-acclaimed artist, writer, playwright known for the creating and writing the critically-acclaimed BBC comedy “Fleabag,” and the currently-beloved BBC America black comedic spy thriller “Killing Eve.”

But Waller-Bridge recently announces that “Fleabag” has ended after season two, she’s no longer the showrunner of “Killing Eve,” and has delegated duties and apparently has a hole in her schedule. That’s enough for star Daniel Craig who has reportedly specifically requested her to bring her wit and quirkiness to the screenplay.

this is both very good news and very bad news imo

i think i know what you mean

Nobody good should have to waste their time making bond films

Or Star Wars films

Her character in the Solo movie was the best thing it.

high praise indeed

Craig sat in the same row as my flatmate to see the Fleabag play two weeks ago

sic’s flatmate to direct bond #26 imo

That Solo character was irritating. Chewbacca was the most entertaining aspect of that debacle.

So, we know more now:

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/bond-25-daniel-craig-rami-malek-1203197623/

Rami Malek as the bad guy, presumably battling Bond with a mustache and a questionable historical record. Further:

“We’ve got quite a ride in store for Mr. Bond,” promised producer Barbara Broccoli. She also left a few breadcrumbs about what that ride might entail, telling viewers that the film will start with Bond out of active service and on holiday.

“He’s enjoying himself in Jamaica,” said Broccoli, who added that the production has built an “extraordinary” house for the famous agent and his license to kill. The official log-line states that “[Bond’s] peace is short-lived when his old friend Felix Leiter from the CIA turns up asking for help. The mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology.”

Naomie Harris back as Moneypenny, plus:

Locations for the movie also include London, Italy and Norway, where some shooting has already taken place. The cast will include returning actors Lea Seydoux (Dr. Madeleine Swann), Jeffrey Wright (Felix Leiter), Ben Whishaw (Q), Rory Kinnear (Tanner) and Ralph Fiennes (M). Newcomers include Lashana Lynch, David Dencik, Ana De Armas and Dali Benssalah. The producers confirmed a Variety scoop that Billy Magnussen has joined the cast. Variety also previously reported Malek’s casting. The producers confirmed that the script will be written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Scott Z. Burns and Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

ahh, the ol’ post-oscar cash-grab

we love to see it don’t we folks, we love it

We got title, we got release date:

Daniel Craig returns as James Bond, 007 in… NO TIME TO DIE. Out in the UK on 3 April 2020 and 8 April 2020 in the US. #Bond25 #NoTimeToDie pic.twitter.com/qxYEnMhk2s

— James Bond (@007) August 20, 2019

even bond needs to turn the phone off and recharge, build some time into schedule to work on himself, and rejuvenate. if there is no time, we have to make time

you do have time to die, james. it starts with the idea that you do, in fact, have time.

a time to die, a time to choog

http://www.timdrussell.com/images/pythonstills9467916/no%20time%20to%20lose.jpg

https://ilarge.lisimg.com/image/3687607/1027full-no-time-to-die-artwork.jpg

tired: getting Phoebe Waller-Bridge to do "feminist" punchup
wired: casting Phoebe Waller-Bridge as the fist Bond girl to peg Bond

Nice Freudian slip there.

Also we got synopsis:

In No Time To Die, Bond has left active service and is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica. His peace is short-lived when his old friend Felix Leiter from the CIA turns up asking for help. The mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology.

Mysterio er wait.

wired: casting Phoebe Waller-Bridge as the fist Bond girl to peg Bond

BOND: Did she say I have a big asshole!?!?

Nice Freudian slip there.

oh there was no slip involved

felix leiter again huh. the most boring bond character.

leiter is good...

for feeding to a shark

How many times has Leiter died or been horribly maimed in the Bond series?

maimed in licence to kill. never killed. i looked this up even before your post.

Craig even looks like he can't be bothered in that 2-second promo clip

I like this daft film title

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqDwqdSF6Ec

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AnI-_Rplgw

felix leiter again huh. the most boring bond character.

― adam the (abanana)

But Jeffrey Wright is good.

Wasn’t D. Craig supposed to quit the role like 2 Bond movies ago !?

After his second one?

Eheh ok maybe one movie ago !
Wasn’t he supposed to quit before the previous one ? So with this one that would be 2 movies after he was supposed to leave.
Anyway, it seems like his successor has been discussed for years.

that's just part of being Bond or Doctor Who, ppl are always fantasy casting the next one as soon as the current one is announced

this has probably been amplified in Craig's case bcz iirc his Bond goes rogue and quits MI5 in every single movie, hence incel dipshits losing their minds over a lady temporarily having his locker number at the start of the next one

Oh ok. I thought he had made an announcement or something.

He was contracted for four films. Four days after the last one wrapped an eight-month shoot, while hungover first thing in the morning, he was asked if he was thinking about the next one at that moment:

Now? I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists. No, not at the moment. Not at all. That’s fine. I’m over it at the moment. We’re done. ...For at least a year or two, I just don’t want to think about it.

aka every comment Robert Smith has ever made about the current tour being the last one.

robert smith for bond or gtfo

BOND #26: CUT HERE

Ahah yeah R. Smith could be an interesting ott dark Bond. A lot of CGI action scenes to be planned !

BOND #27: A NIGHT LIKE THIS

BOND: Do you expect me to cry?
GOLDFINGER: No.

Bond Girl Elise Inmypantz

sting AND jack savoretti? wow pls stop you're spoiling us

Teaser Poster and Trailer for #NoTimeToDie are finished and about to be revealed to the world. Sting and Jack Savoretti in final talks to sing the theme-tune for the movie. pic.twitter.com/NCp6pdOfhK

— Marcos Kontze (@marketto007) September 26, 2019

Hollywood Liberalism is making environmentalists or Occupy or Antifa the villain instead of a Koch Brother because the Koch Brother would be too obvious and the other one is more narratively interesting but also you hate the Lefty activist for reasons you can't articulate https://t.co/E4e8CkPHrK

— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) October 27, 2019

Bond absolutely would have voted Leave.

Bond felt what almost amounted to contempt for the neverending wrangling of the politicians, media and public over the European Union. He knew the real events that governed the world took place beneath the surface, in another world, a world that few would see until it erupted onto their screens as an unexpected war, a politician’s disappearance, or the downing of a plane. A hapless or intrepid journalist might stumble on the edges of it, and wash up dead a week later on the shores of the South China Seas, in a Balkan ghetto, or in a rented room in Paddington. This wasn’t something controlled by public debate and rotten politicians. Behind those events were dangerous men. Shadowy, capricious gamblers who held the world’s fate between their thumb and forefinger. And in five minutes one of them was going to walk into the St James’ club where Bond was drinking a scotch and water, and ask if he had a light.

imo.

v good

x post BrahhhVOE, old man!

Well done!

ha, thanks - i just wanted to play out a hunch that Fleming wdve written Bond as outside grubby politics and slightly contemptuous of it all. Fleming himself - an Empire figure, and like many people of his age were they still around - would have been Brexit. And the silly patriotic eyebrow-ironically-raised bombast of the recent films is of course v brexity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3n9KRSmNSA

daniel craig lookin' leathery

enh

god almighty are they still doing "i'm too old for this shit?"

I'm getting too old for I'm getting too old for this shit

also is it just me or are there some very awkward beats in that trailer

This looks dope, I don't know what jaded ish y'all are on

Although I reserve the right to be extremely pissed when they kill the black female 00 to explore Bond's feelings

hoping that craig dies at the end and lashana lynch is the new 007 tbh

much more likely they gain a grudging respect for one another even as he sadly realizes he's no longer "fit to purpose" and respawns as....adam driver

This looks dope, I don't know what jaded ish y'all are on

― brigadier pudding (DJP), Wednesday, December 4, 2019 8:29 AM (thirty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

no longer watch the films but this trailer seems more promising than the last few, looks to have been scaled back into an actual spy movie

a vision of a better world

Julie Walters suggested herself as a possible female villain in this film, such as Rosa Klebb, while working with Bond producer Barbara Broccoli on Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017). Walters, admittedly, had not heard back as of July 2017.

The trailer has some mildly odd beats but trailer editing is usually misleading in ways good bad and neutral. It does look very good visually, the action seems a bit more dynamic which—as I’ll never shut up about—was the issue w/the Mendes Bonds, which made billions but also showed the risks of going with a high profile middlebrow hack behind the lens vs an action veteran (one reason Casino Royale was great beyond the script and the casting was the Martin Campbell factor). Still will be disappointed if they don’t deploy Craig’s extremely excellent sense of humor, which was used in a very natural and seamless and effective way in CR, only to cast it aside for grimdark chaos your past haunts you James stuff.

maybe they edited the repeated nutshots James takes over the course of the movie out of the trailer

Thanks for reminding me about the chair scene in casino royale

haha anytime

"Feeling fiery today, James?"

damn this looks much better than the last two. hope it is

I guess it probably doesn't help that I thought both Skyfall and Spectre were beautiful but boring, so this one looking nice doesn't excite me much on its own

i'm not necessarily just reacting to the look, but then it's ridiculous to make any judgments about a movie from the trailer etc.

regardless, feels like it has way more of an identity of its own than spectre, which was a rehash of old bond themes made 10000x worse

"we'll have a train fight, like from russia with love, except it won't be filmed half as well!" "we'll bring in blofeld, but he'll secretly be bond's brother!!!!"

hope waltz remains caged in glass for the runtime

I want to make an ortolan joke now but I can't get the formulation right

but then it's ridiculous to make any judgments about a movie from the trailer etc.

― american bradass (BradNelson), Wednesday, December 4, 2019 9:51 AM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

you do know this is ilxor dot com right

Waltz would have made a great Roger Moore-era Bond villain.

you do know this is ilxor dot com right

― gbx, Wednesday, December 4, 2019 10:13 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i do and i complained about the same thing in the knives out thread

This looks dope, I don't know what jaded ish y'all are on

I watched Spectre a couple of years ago and i'm still angry

"This looks dope, I don't know what jaded ish y'all are on"

no shit. I mean a Bond film has to be really, really, really shitty for me to not like it. I like all the Craig Bond films. This looks good too. I'm not expecting cinema I just want to be entertained and watch people shoot shit while speaking in english accents and wearing suits. Ana de Armas better have some lines though.

a bond film has to be really really really shitty for me not to like it too, and i hate skyfall and spectre, they're empty and cynical and negatively influenced by the nolan batmans

yup. even QoS, while incompetently directed, is more interesting than either of 'em

eh, I like them all

I'm getting too old for I'm getting too old for this shit

lol i watched the trailer with the sound off and his facial expression every single time is like CONFUSED OLD MAN DOESN'T KNOW WHY THESE PEOPLE ARE LOOKING AT HIM

it's pretty much the same with the sound on

god almighty are they still doing "i'm too old for this shit?"

haven't watched the trailer but tbf Craig is now the second-oldest Broccoli Bond, and only two years younger than Never Say Never Again Connery

a bond film has to be really really really shitty for me not to like it too, and i hate skyfall and spectre, they're empty and cynical and negatively influenced by the nolan batmans

yeah I think there are maybe three good Bond films but Spectre is the first one I didn't have fun watching & felt aggressively insulted by at the time (Skyfall took a few hours: saw it in IMAX with a group of dudes and we walked out enthusing. by lunch the next day I sent a group email formally recanting my enthusiasm and naming bad shit that bugged me. iirc the stalking & shootout scene at the end is well done in itself, but the dumb Burton / Nolan portentous daddy issues stuff is ladled onto the house so badly)

Connery's Bond in NSNA may have been older but he didn't look tired like Craig's Bond looks in this trailer. Connery put more effort into NSNA than Craig did in Casino Royale - he looked a bit tired then and that was supposedly 'young inexperienced Bond'.

hoping that craig dies at the end and lashana lynch is the new 007 tbh

^^^ her character is the only reason I might even bother seeing this movie.

i disagree so much, craig enlivens casino royale

Craig was IMO so outstanding in CR — I think the subsequent performances he’s given haven’t been bad per se it’s more that the OTT portentousness of the films themselves is an ill fit for Bond and while he gives it his best shot it’s tough to overcome and find his way to liven up the performances w/levity when every other character is darkly intoning about your painful past and others are bragging that they’re “the author of all your pain”.

CR was a perfect balance for him w/the humor and toughness mixed with a vulnerability that felt real and not narratively false (cf his breakdown at the end of Skyfall).

yeah I think that's one of the reasons CR is so good, tough/"gritty" Bond cuts satisfyingly against the relatively not-that-grim movie around him.

that and the setpieces are just so easy to follow

i will go on the same journey i have been on for the past x bond films ie remain IRRATIONALLY, EXCITABLY STOKED for everything until evidence proves otherwise

trailer looks great i am excite

:)

it’s more that the OTT portentousness of the films themselves is an ill fit for Bond

it's an ill fit for Craig too! the dude from Logan Lucky could bring so much to a late-Connery / Lazenby / early Moore style fun spy adventure

gonna see Knives Out tonight, hoping for notes of goofy Craig in that too

imo you will not be disappointed!

Connery's Bond in NSNA may have been older but he didn't look tired like Craig's Bond looks in this trailer.

It's been a while since I've seen NSNA but IIRC the entire plot is "lol, look how old and fat Bond is now, watch him get winded walking up stairs"

love Sean but

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BN2NlZDg5ODgtYjM0My00NzZiLTg5ZmYtYTVjMjk3M2YxOWFhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjUwNzk3NDc@._V1_.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqqYoLRTgI8
It's revealed immediately afterwards to have been a training exercise, and M chews out Bond for being out of shape, but really?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecu77iLGLBs

After the initial bit at Shrublands, Bond's supposed lack of fitness is never mentioned again, and he spends the rest of the movie kicking ass as good as he did in From Russia With Love.

all the grace and vigor of Ernest Borgnine in The Wild Bunch

yeah it's in the upper tiers of bond movies imo. the "lol vegetable shake???" stuff (to which Spectre, bafflingly, paid homage) is the weakest part of it. obv not the best connery bond but not the worst either.

NSNA is a solid flick though, when i was a kid i had zero idea about the chronology of where it fell in terms of Bond movies let alone the particulars of the rights issues but it's not like Connery or any of the Bonds were ever *not* a bit worn.

connery is more engaged in nsna than he is in diamonds are forever

I'm in danger of drifting off the thread topic, but I like how the villain Largo's motive in NSNA is that he's a bored billionaire who thinks it'll be a big laugh. Almost like Elon Musk.

back on topic: the logo for Bond #25 looks like a 70s action movie, possibly starring Charles Bronson or George Peppard.

i don’t like NSNA? - maybe bc I didnt see it until much later in life

idk

xpost yes! i like it too for tbat reason

also excited that we may get GUNFIGHTING IN THE SNOW - my fave

tbf Craig is now the second-oldest Broccoli Bond, and only two years younger than Never Say Never Again Connery

poss could have phrased this less distractingly by saying “ten years older than Connery was when he quit for the second time”

imo you will not be disappointed

ha ha yes

hopefully now that he is free of Bond he can start cracking out a Benoit Blanc mystery every three years

if Rian Johnson has to quit his trilogy of Star Warses to meet this pace, oh well

Amazing there will have been 3 Star Wars films and 2 spin offs since the last Bond.

that's one word for it, aye

all the grace and vigor of Ernest Borgnine in The Wild Bunch

― omar little, Wednesday, December 4, 2019 5:03 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is such a Morbsian comment I had to check it twice!

regarding the trailer: stop ruining movies, andrew lloyd webber

hoping that craig dies at the end and lashana lynch is the new 007 tbh

^^^ her character is the only reason I might even bother seeing this movie.

― just another country (snoball), Wednesday, 4 December 2019 19:02 (one month ago)

I'm going to go further than this and say that I hope Craig's Bond dies in the gun barrel sequence. Like Bond fumbles getting his gun out and gets shot by person whose POV we've been seeing all these years. Then the pre-titles scene is Ralph Fiennes' M walking into a conference room like Alan Sugar on The Apprentice. He sits down, points at an unseen figure across the table, and says "I want you to be my business partner the next 007!". And then the camera cuts to another angle and it's revealed to be Lashana Lynch's character. BOOM! roll Maurice Binder inspired title sequence.

Bond #25? No, time to die!

This song reminds me of this spiritual i sang in choir called "Ain't Got Time to Die"

Hm!

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-51112742

I'm going to go further than this and say that I hope Craig's Bond dies in the gun barrel sequence.

So... everything we've seen in the trailer would be part of the pre-credit sequence?

wait I just read Ned's link, what

I'm just going to assume, given that it's Billie Eilish, that entire song is about being too busy to kill yourself

I was kinda hoping for Michael Kiwanuka tbh

opening credits is just Rami Malek dancing to Bad Guy in a bunch of locations as Daniel Craig chases after him in the background

Best Bond yet.

I don't have time to die
And that's ok
And here's why

Should be noted that the actual score itself is by...

pic.twitter.com/6QseVK3iUL

— Hans Zimmer (@HansZimmer) January 14, 2020

thrilled that no sam mendes always means no thomas newman

Yeah Thomas Newman was a complete misfit

I was thinking through the last couple and it's dawned on me that the intense, brooding gravity given to family and legacy that Mendes seemed to revel in suffocated any hint of the playfulness that peeked through. The parodic goofiness of many of the Moore and latter era Connery films has been something the franchise has recoiled from, but it was an over-correction.

There's hardly anyone in Mendes's Bond movies who isn't a spy, master criminal, or family member of the above. Civilians appear fleetingly in crowd shots, if at all.

Fingers crossed that Fukunaga does better

Hopefully. Unfortunately Waltz' shitty Blofeld's still in it, as apparent in the trailer.

I thought that character had potential, in that they kept hinting at him being not only ominous but truly weird, but the weird part of his torture chair hijinks ("I'm going to selectively destroy parts of Bond's brain!") fell short and it just seemed like normal villain torture, they gave the cat no real acknowledgment, and the entire "I believe we're meant to be impressed" thing about the museum room with the meteor fragment fell flat. Mendes seemed to get that the villains should be eccentric but was too *serious* to lean into it to the point of being dismissive.

Let Blofeld get mocked for being a weirdo obsessed with his daddy loving Bond more. Is the cat his best friend? Does he sit around admiring his rock in a room? He's out there killing entire classes of people through Spectre -- give him some shit for doing all that only to sit alone with a cat in the middle of the desert!

Dunno - I miss Telly Savalas

i saw the torture bit of spectre while channel-hopping over the holidays and it's still weird and hilarious to me that blofeld threatens to use a drill to destroy the part of bond's brain that recognises faces, then fuckin' does it, and it's never entirely clear whether bond spends the rest of the movie suffering complete face blindness or not

at a minimum the rest of spectre takes place in bond's dreams during his post-op coma -- ideally he has not yet woken up for the entirety of the upcoming film and it ends with his death without ever waking up and everyone else too

There should have been a post-credits scene where Bond wakes up and he's actually Archer reviving from his coma

xp James' Ladder

Actually, now that I think about it, that would be a cool concept for a film, the dying dream of a super-spy

at long last the bond franchise is good thanks to me its arch-h8ter

Actually, now that I think about it, that would be a cool concept for a film, the dying dream of a super-spy

― may the force leave us alone (zchyrs),

An adaptation of Joe Haldeman's All My Sins Remembered would fit that bill iirc. (It's a shame that Haldeman's work hasn't been adapted widely.)

There were a couple of excellent episodes of The Leftovers which had that kind of vibe.

Saw the new trailer at IMAX ahead of 1917 last night and it got me more stoked than I would have anticipated for this film. It came straight after one for the woeful looking Birds of Prey, mind you.

Birds of Prey looks dope, too

hoping some of the smart decisions around this (craig bringing in pwb, billie eilish being tapped for the theme) really reflect the quality of the movie

Actually, now that I think about it, that would be a cool concept for a film, the dying dream of a super-spy

Change "super-spy" to "unstoppable criminal force of nature" and you've got Point Blank, the film that introduced the cockpunch to Hollywood.

After seeing the Daniel Craig/Ana de Armas duo in Knives Out, I'm really hoping them give them some good dialogue!

the funniest theory about the new movie, which... it's Bond, so it could be true

Rami Malek is playing a rebooted Dr. No

the title is horrible wordplay: "No, time to die!"

i’m okay with it as long as craig gets threatened with having his dick and balls lasered off

I'm okay with that as long as it actually happens

we've never been fully informed as to the state of his balls post-Casino Royale and that rope trick

it's the "origin story" for Bond, and there's a reason why there's never been a paternity suit subplot in any of the flix

No Time To Die refers to his dick and balls, which are canonically already dead, you see

No time to piss

#NoTimeToDie is currently listed at 163 minutes, which would make it the longest #JamesBond movie ever.https://t.co/aY1eGxr7Wa pic.twitter.com/ZD06lE9kQf

— Screen Rant (@screenrant) February 26, 2020

uuuuuugh

jesus god

In either case, Craig can lay claim to starring in both the longest and the shortest Bond films ever, with Quantum holding the latter title at 106 minutes.

I'm ready to strap in and watch this thing

damn, ohmss is twenty minutes shorter than this??? lol

The new one grinds to a halt halfway through thanks to a twenty minute discussion between M, Q and Bond about how Brexit has affected Q Branch's talent pool.

There's a scene where Bond is killing time in a safe house where they insert an entire episode of Rick and Morty.

A significant Act II chase sequence takes place in the line for Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure at Universal Studios Orlando.

Extended sequence of Bond taking his Aston Martin to a garage because the clutch keeps slipping.

No time to release this film QUITE yet.

MGM, Universal and Bond producers, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, announced today that after careful consideration and thorough evaluation of the global theatrical marketplace, the release of NO TIME TO DIE will be postponed until November 2020. pic.twitter.com/a9h1RP5OKd

— James Bond (@007) March 4, 2020

coronavirus situation worries re: Chinese cinemas, right?

Pretty much, there have been a lot of rumbling already, and if something similar happens here, well.

on the bright side, now I know I'll have a way to take my mind off of Trump winning for at least a few hours.

I can't think of another 'big' film being postponed so close to its release date. That may turn out to be the most memorable thing abt this movie.

There was that Arnold movie he had pushed back because of 9/11.

& what other 'big' films came out in the first two months of a pandemic?

There's Something About Malaria

Soderbergh is in town tonight to promote Frosé and hosting a "secret" screening of one of his movies first: really missing a trick if it's not Contagion.

I’m kind of suspicious that it’s not just a market issue. They brought Hans Zimmer in to do the score in January which seems like a little bit of a rush. No clue if this means they’re done editing and it’s going to sit there until fall or if this gives some breathing room on the work

I’m imaging some scenario where they saw the first cut with the complete score and it’s Zimmer doing the Moby remix of the Bond theme from the 90s with some orchestral flourishes

“Zimmer” meaning a flunkie from the Zimmer-haus obv

yeah, the speculation was Wallfisch, etc. would be on duty

Hang on.. does 'Zimmer' no longer mean he actually does the score? I'm obvs being real naive here.

like all great artists, he has a studio and signs his name on work

(he does credit collaborators)

youtube recommended billie eilish at some award show doing her new bond theme and it looked like zimmer was playing a synth with them for.. reasons?

Zimmer not a very good choice for Bond really - I can't think of any of his scores which have much in way of swagger.

I’ve decided doing donuts in the aston while firing the headlamp machine guns is the most ridiculous part of the trailer.

Right, we should link that new one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw2FOYjCz38

when I see this title, all I can think of is that spiritual we sang in All-State choir, "Ain't Got Time to Die"

is this ever coming out now? did they push it to next year?

I also wonder how many times Ana de Armas dropped the prop Uzi in that one pitch-and-catch scene.

xpost -- Still aiming for November.

jokes on you, it was a a real Uzi, and when it hit the ground, it fired and Brandon Lee got hit

it sure looks beautiful

oh man they have a shot of him shooting down a tunnel that intentionally looks like the opening crawl, sold

skeptical they're ever going to top Casino Royale in the modern Bond era, everything since that one has been frantic yet mediocre

I’m hoping Fukunaga delivers

hopefully they didn’t throw all the best action scenes in this new trailer because if there’s more of that in there... wow!

xp every future Bond will get a good debut and increasingly crappy further adventures

Matthew Lilard is

James Bnod

Throw in Bloomps as Bolfield and you've got a deal.

I don't expect Casino Royale to happen again. Skyfall quality would be enough.

All the car action in the trailer is a turn-off for me. Car action in movies after 1998 is either boring or incredibly fake.

rong

i mean a lot of car action is fake but Craig bond car action is great

like what are you even here for?

Bond card action. Baccarat games that last eight hours.

huit
BONK

post-Ronin, Bourne 1 had the best car action, other than that it's pretty dry

mission impossibles ALL have dope car sequences
john wick 1 2 and 3

Dur, DRIVE!

And, while Baby Driver can't stop patting itself on the back, the chases and general 'cars as destructive forces' moments are quality.

I want to know more about the crazy folding wing glider-submarine steel-throwing-star-looking thing

i was like O_O

IT LOOKS SO DOPE

James Bond in 2020 has to understand that he sucks and it doesn't matter to be relevant

Like, his best fung ku is overrun by Trump saying "fake news" so take it easy buddy

This definitely looks like the best/least self serious since CR.

163 minutes!

#NoTimeToDie Is Officially the Longest Bond and a Major Pain for ‘Venom’ https://t.co/hZ7ihn9gOS pic.twitter.com/9vnzlkg8yi

— IndieWire (@IndieWire) September 10, 2021

shit Bond's fighting Venom?

163 minutes? Sounds like ... plenty of time to die.

...but no time to watch.

You could watch the first 20 minutes, leave to go see "Venom," then come back for the last 20.

A View to a Die
No Time to Kill

The Craig-era doc/fancy EPK on Apple TV this week was pretty good -- just Craig, Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli in a rolling voiceover conversation covering the past fifteen years interspersed with/playing over a variety of clips, press appearances, behind the scenes stuff and so forth. Pretty smart idea too to get the 'here's the final scene he shot and the farewell to everyone' moment out there now.

oh i need to watch that. what’s it called again?

when the Bond is 163 minutes long

https://i.imgur.com/2Ue9Kk1.png

long movies are better simply because there's more movie to watch

as I was saying earlier, Bond 25 is actually Bond 26

oh i need to watch that. what’s it called again?

Being James Bond. Even if you don't subscribe I think you can just rent it.

thx!

No View to Finger Pussy Service

wtf

my bladder has shrunk since I went to theater movies last and I hope the new 007 is next to the restrooms, good bless

Still, all in for Fukunaga long-winded Bond times

Tickets on sale in the US at least. Seeya there, if you're so inclined.

def expressed this opinion here before but i really don't like skyfall or spectre but god every trailer for this is goddamn awesome, i can't wait, hope it's as good as it seems

Last movie I saw in a theatre was the third John wick, which was really enjoyable. Maybe time to go back to see this

def expressed this opinion here before but i really don't like skyfall or spectre but god every trailer for this is goddamn awesome, i can't wait, hope it's as good as it seems

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson)

I thought that before I found out about the length. Why on earth would a Bond film have to be that long? To allow room for all the subtle, nuanced character development?

the mission impossible movies are pretty long and they’re also pretty good so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

got a ticket for this

i guess this is a sign of the times/also a sign how often i go to big budget tentpoles but there are only like two screenings out of how many that are "regular" screenings, everything else is like Imax or "VIP 19+" or this new Screen-X thing (270 degree viewing experience sounds better on paper i bet), jesus

Or the “D-Box” where the seats move around with the action.

Not paying for “d-box” unless I’m going to see high life

it’s my d in a box

my favorite bond movie is ohmss, thus a long running time is actually promising to me

that movie also has a ton of character development. i realize we're many decades and several bonds removed from it tho

i went to one of those REgal 4D showings and it was really dope for Star Wars, but made absolutely no sense for Wonder Woman.

why should the seat rock unless you're in a vehicle or a sex scene like really. why does smoke appear for no reason

i went to see It Part 2 in 4DX and i don't know if it made the awful movie better or worse that the 4DX malfunctioned and everything started going off at once (scent, smoke, mist, seat rocking, etc.)

anyway, all of 4DX's "scents" going off at once is particularly pungent

lmao at "or a sex scene"

lol at all of the scents going off at once.

smellovision returns!

I want to smell the aroma of bobbi flekman's suite when they discuss smell the glove

no time to smell

Loved it. Flew by. Looked amazing; the colours were truly gorgeous. Not enough Ana De Armas.

Dan Craig era ranked;

1 Casino Royale
2 Skyfall
3 No Time To Die
4 Quantum..
5 Spectre

ok good to know. going Sunday :D

General agreement with piscesx, I might rank it 2 rather than 3 but yeah 3 out of 5 top notch Bonds is a good record for Craig easy; he had a great run. Very much flew by, Fukunaga is just a solid action director in combination with the overall production machine. Smartly front-loaded trailers they had in terms of what was from where in the film. My sis was with me and it's the first film she's seen in a theater since COVID hit -- loved both going back and the film, so hey!

I will say doing A Full Series Rewatch as we did over the course of last year and this (along with all the commentaries and special features and etc) served watching this well, there are several deep cuts. (And one utterly obvious one.)

title kind of misleading tbh

oh my god this was so fucking good

:D

Going in 45

best since casino royale easy while not quite as excellent (but cr feels like lightning in a bottle at this point)

the most visually striking bond film since… idk. the sam mendes films were often gorgeous but this one goes even further imo

and the hans zimmer score was mostly him on a tour through established bond themes but that’s exactly what i wanted to hear. hearing the strains of the ohnmss theme… what a dream

ohmss*

Yeah that was a series of nods I wasn't expecting. But I did love it.

there were a number of subtle tweaks that I hadn’t expected, and for all of the “oh no, it’s been script doctored to be funny” doomsayers about phoebe waller-bridge’s inclusion, I thought the dialogue was pretty crisp

what’s the record for longest intro sequence in a Bond movie before the title card and theme drop? this one seemed pretty long

The longest easily.

the new version of chekov's gun: if you remind people you're a commander in the royal navy...

taking my folks today. my dad's a huge Bond fan, first time we'll have seen a movie together since after he was hospitalized.

just gonna make sure he uses the bathroom before we go!

also good because by 1 am I was starting to doze last night. can't do the laties anymore.

Sooooo good

Seeing it tomorrow. How bad are we gonna regret doing it in 3D with moving seats?

during the opening scene u might puke

Ideal timing then with all the spacing they're doing now!

Could/should I take an 11 year old to see this?

hmm.

only one "fuck".

violence mostly not grisly or graphic, but there are young ppl in danger. lotsa car chases. one scene of Blofeld with no eye patch

There are approximately 90 minutes of footage of the hero firing machine guns into human beings

that describes just about every Bond film made in the last 30 years

the Ana De Armas cameo might have been my favorite bit about this. going from nervous and socially awkward upon meeting Bond and transitioning into smooth, assured, confident and in-charge as the mission begins and then shit starts hitting the fan.....she makes the best use of her short screen time.

THIS WAS GREAT

i enjoyed myself immsenely & look forward to many rewatches in the future

HOWEVER: good lord I don’t ever need to see Lea Seydoux’s snotty nose on a giant movie screen ever again

Lol my friend said EWW SHE GOTS A BOOGER

Charmingly realistic I thought.

I'm sure I'd be blowing nose bubbles all over the place. The problem I kept having was the preternaturally calm child.

as soon as Billy Magnussen showed up I knew he was gonna be a double agent because he always plays sons of bitches

just about EVERYTHING in Italy was gorgeous

was the missile silo a real location or a build?
it looked amazing

that describes just about every Bond film made in the last 30 years

i) not iirc
ii) I would not show an eleven-year-old Goldeneye, but I didn't ask

(also I saw the last movie and didn't remember all the continuity stuff; someone who was five years old at the time might be even more bemused)

196 people died in You Only Live Twice. suffice it to say people dying is a staple of Bond films.

they had a lot of guts

as a kid, dad had on For Your Eyes Only once and the murder of the Havelocks did upset me a bit.

mostly cos the dad never got to read his book

i was def too young to watch licence to kill when i watched licence to kill, the opening is so grim

plus a head explodes in that movie. rated r

and sharks!

License to Kill was unusually over the top violent, probably inspired by other movies of that ilk that were growing popular in the 80s.

I only saw it 5 or 6 years ago and, daaaaamn. definitely wouldn't have been ok with that as a kid.

Living Daylights not so bad.

of the many bond movies that no time to die echoed i really enjoyed the parts that reminded me of licence to kill. felix :(

The Living Daylights is a top ten Bond for me, despite Dalton giving the impression that martinis suck and he'd rather be in Twelfth Night.

for me too, prob my favorite cold open of any of them. also best suite of bond themes

Yeah it was the first one I saw in a theater -- up to that point it was cable or network TV -- and that combined with Dalton's approach means it'll remain a sentimental favorite, though as with all the John Glen-directed films his approach can best be called 'sturdy.'

Alfred weren't you the one in another Bond thread that said Dalton always played Bond like he was in a production of Othello?

(it was apt, I think I've stolen that IRL)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWrecLbn4KE

such a banger

Billy Magnussen‘s character being referred to as “the book of mormon” was a good quick laugh

haha yeah.

why do I have the suspicion that there was an internal debate on whether Blofeld would say “Hello, Clarice” when he’s moved in to have his face-to-face with Bond

Alfred weren't you the one in another Bond thread that said Dalton always played Bond like he was in a production of Othello?

haha probably!

I did like how they played with Bond's long-standing paranoia, particularly after Vesper. One might think his ditching of Madeline was abrupt, but the way they framed it seemed like it might be convincing. He gets bombed after she brings him to Italy, after he visits Vesper's grave, she mentions having secrets and tells him in the car she has something to tell him (which is probably that she's pregnant). but I think the big one is the bags being downstairs. He thinks she was trying to get the fuck out of town after selling out her husband, when in reality, he'd told her 'when I get back, tell us where we're going next', so she had probably just made those plans and was going to tell Bond where they were going when he got back.

creepy as shit all the machinegunned henchmen were basically silhouettes

the motion chair was a pretty good time btw

there were not nearly enough henchmen to kill in most of the recent Bond films imo

lots of time for them to die in this one

https://www.theguardian.com/film/datablog/2012/oct/05/james-bond-bodycount-deaths#data

re-posting since i accidentally posted it on spectre thread

fukunaga did an amazing job, whole thing looked amazing and was super varied in terms of color lighting

rami malek was terrible. not remotely scary, idiotic accent, everything he said was so groanworthy pretentious and vacuous (even by Bond villain standards), also for some reason his skin condition improved throughout the movie? by the end it just looked like mild acne scars

léa seydoux is insanely beautiful and every moment she was on screen i was jaw agog. however daniel craig and ana de armas have the best chemistry, wish she was in it more. havana scene was so fun

plot was so dumb. when ralph fiennes is like “we didn’t mean for this bio chemical weapon capable of exterminating entire races of people to become a WMD” lol

overall i loved it. i think italy was my favourite action setpiece (i was hooting and hollering in the movie theatre when he started motorcycling up stairs and flying over bridges) but they were all very entertaining

malek was less bad than i expected, maybe bc i was warned there was a possibly ineffective bond villain in this one

same thing happened with me and the world is not enough, which, i’m pretty sure i’m the only person who loves that movie

There was a lot of shooting up henchmen in a sort of … soulless, generic way - an empty way. And yes, these movies have probably always trafficked in that but this time it really leaped out at me

(I must be getting old.)

I appreciated a bunch of little Craig arc acts of symmetry they seeded in here. Poetic.

Agreed with everyone who said, above, that this movie was gorgeous, oh my gosh

The transition from the song/title sequence into the movie proper was just jaw dropping

The SPECTRE invasion of the lab ....I want a canvas print of that

re-posting since i accidentally posted it on spectre thread

fukunaga did an amazing job, whole thing looked amazing and was super varied in terms of color lighting

rami malek was terrible. not remotely scary, idiotic accent, everything he said was so groanworthy pretentious and vacuous (even by Bond villain standards), also for some reason his skin condition improved throughout the movie? by the end it just looked like mild acne scars

léa seydoux is insanely beautiful and every moment she was on screen i was jaw agog. however daniel craig and ana de armas have the best chemistry, wish she was in it more. havana scene was so fun

plot was so dumb. when ralph fiennes is like “we didn’t mean for this bio chemical weapon capable of exterminating entire races of people to become a WMD” lol

overall i loved it. i think italy was my favourite action setpiece (i was hooting and hollering in the movie theatre when he started motorcycling up stairs and flying over bridges) but they were all very entertaining

the close-quarters stairwell shootouts in the closing battle were fantastic even if they didn't feel very bond-like. overall bond seemed 'an old wreck' in this, grunting, sweating, looking winded by feats he might have once pulled off with insouciance.

craig is great, landscape photography great, but in general i didn't think this was very good. big doings are just barely acknowledged. 007 is a black woman? bond is fighting AGAINST her? the bioweapon was actually developed by MI6? bond finally gets the baddie? (several times?) any of these things could have been the organising principle for great moments of high leverage and difficult choices but they just.... happen.

the only exception to this is bond's sudden suspicion that the love of his life has betrayed him. this is based on a henchman telling him that swann's dad was in spectre. that's it. oh and somebody from spectre calls her phone. but that's enough. it sends him into a pout so deep he'd rather die in a bullet-riddled DB7 than live with the suspicions that this *checks notes* evil henchman has planted in his head. but at least it's something. at least there's some moment and gravity to it. at least he makes a choice based on his character that has consequences in the film. and really it is the sort of emotionally stunted response you'd expect from bond so it kind of works.

lashana lynch's character was deeply disappointing imo. lynch was great but she's given practically nothing to do except be jealous of bond's potency. in norway i was sure she'd show up in the woods to save bond's ass but, no? she's just tooling around? a minicab driver, essentially? poor.

everything everybody's said about malek, and his character, otm. his world domination plans are incoherent, the 'poison garden' incoherent, wtf are these workers doing in these acid baths, he's terrible, boring. the little girl is his leverage and he just lets her go? can't we at least give the little girl a neat scene where she gets the better of him, uses her smarts? the orientalization of the baddies really racist. malek's own ethnicity, the scars, but also the relentless easternizing of him, sitting cross-legged at a low table, etc - blow it into the sun

the only exception to this is bond's sudden suspicion that the love of his life has betrayed him. this is based on a henchman telling him that swann's dad was in spectre. that's it. oh and somebody from spectre calls her phone. but that's enough.

no, he suspects this because nobody but he and his wife knew where he was, and upon arriving at Vesper Lynd's grave, he is almost blown up and then almost shot to death. given Vesper turning on him without him even detecting, I don't think it's that farfetched that he assumed that she gave him up rather than Blofeld simply giving his henchmen a standing order to be on standby in case Bond ever visits her grave.

the other bit of suspicion is that their bags are already downstairs when he returns to the hotel. Now, this is because he told her earlier "when I return, let me know where we're going next", and clearly she's chosen another vacation destination to go to, but in the height of the moment, he thinks she had the luggage brought down so she can peace the fuck out now that Bond is dead.

the "Blofeld sends his regards. she is daughter of SPECTRE, she is daughter of SPECTRE" plus the phone call from Blofeld were an attempt to make him think she'd betrayed him - Blofeld even said "your father would be so proud of you" to her on the phone, insinuating she gave him up.

he suspects this because nobody but he and his wife knew where he was

ok, except this turns out not to be true - somebody else did know

i get the logic, but i think it's a little bizarre that he trusts the word of "no fade" (my son's nickname for bionic eyeball guy) over the love of his life

i guess what i'm saying is that actually i DO think this part worked because it shows bond as a flawed character willing to give in to suspicions planted by baddies; his 'trust no one' past can't really ever be shaken off etc. i do think he is being very dim here and hot-headed (even for bond) but that's okay, it fits the plot and his character and the movie gives this misunderstanding the weight it deserves

other seismic events just slide by

Blofeld didn't know though! when Bond is interviewing him, he said he just knew by instinct that Bond would eventually visit her grave. and he apparently was paying his stooges to be on standby in case he ever showed up.

After the bomb explodes, Bond goes into the building next to the cemetery, finds the employee who helped him to Vesper's grave no longer there, with the phone off the hook, and the young boy that showed him to the grave smiles at him knowingly, as he's in on it too (he knows the cars are about to come up the hill, I am guessing). So presumably the cemetery employee called SPECTRE's local stooges as soon as Bond showed up, then ran away to avoid being caught up in a shootout.

Of course it's farfetched but not within the Bond world - that's very much in line with other Bond films, SPECTRE has people on standby who can show up in minutes to gun down Bond as soon as someone calls to alert them.

listen, blofeld’s plot in ohmss, the best bond movie ever, is silly and doesn’t make any sense

comes with the territory

Of course it's farfetched but not within the Bond world - that's very much in line with other Bond films

definitely. but bond blames his wife

otoh I agree that think Safin's plans weren't all that clear - what is obvious is that his list has millions of people on it, to target with the killer nanobots, so he does plan to kill/subjugate millions of people, but for what purpose is unclear. the Wikipedia summary surmised it as "create a New World Order", but I suspect he's just sociopathic based on his whole family being killed rather than having plans to create a one government planet in which he is the ruler.

xpost because in his mind, Blofeld (who is new in this universe, and not a long-established nemesis) was less likely to be angry/bored enough to pay people to live near a cemetery in Italy in case Bond ever showed up as opposed to Occam's Razor saying his wife sold him out. esp since his previous girlfriend practically did the same thing (although not so much getting him killed, she just absconded with the money and pretended to be in love with him).

this movie probably did have the best 'bond. james bond' moment ever tbf

i guess i can talk in detail about this movie now, one of the things i really loved is the opening shot bringing to mind the severnaya levels of goldeneye 007

also whenever the action got roger moore ott, that was my shit

Did the movie explain how Safin could afford to build the secret base and have an army of henchmen (who didn't bleed when shot because PG-13)? I must have glazed over when that bit of exposition happened, in whichever movie it occurred.

he was an early investor in Bitcoin

One thing I've been turning over in my mind would be comparing the reactions in the alternate universe between the 'engineered plague is unleashed out of East Asia' plot between if this had been the last big movie out before worldwide lockdown -- which it almost was by just a couple of weeks -- versus now.

yeah the “accidentally killing someone by touching them” thing vibrated weirdly

i was like damn they filmed this two years before covid and it’s got intense covid themes

SPECTRE is now out, so they will be replaced in next film by the Socialist Humanist Autonomist Radical Troops

4th film: ... a division of SPECTRE Enterprises

Nah it'll be some sort terror plot via radioactive NFTs.

Anyway my favorite 'where the fuck IS this' moment was the first shot of the coastal island highway and then when the film revealed it was Norway I was all "Oh...that makes sense."

yeah that highway was wild

i wanna ride it
oh my fjord

the one downside to Billy Magnusson being in any movie is you always know if he's playing a good guy he's going to wind up being an actual bad guy.

007 is a black woman? bond is fighting AGAINST her?

Actually, Commander Bond gave her the lead, sir

that was a CIA vs MI6 thing and Bond only took the CIA's side because he was appalled at M allowing the development of the nanobot techonlogy

i know. but in the film it’s just a plot mechanic. seems like it would merit more “wtf”ness, deal-making, atonement… something

something else about these (that i'm sure i'm not the first to mention) is that they nearly always seem to want to put about 5 movies worth of location and circumstance into the same movie. the boat, the red lights, the short, ugly fight, felix... all that was beautiful and incredible. santiago, the vibe there, the federales, the rooftop escape, ana de armas.. man i would have liked a whole movie of that.

the running bit of every female spy going “no, I am NOT trying to seduce you, Bond!” was subtle enough that it played, imo

the running bit of how we should care what his agent number is was dreadful

so dumb. especially the "I bet you thought they'd retire it." uhh yeah he thought he was so great that they would permanently reduce their entire workforce by 11% in order to... make up for not having him anymore?

cute enough 1 time but they returned to it a bunch of times lol

idk i feel like there are plenty of numbers xp

it's not necessarily 11% there's an 0012 mentioned in one of the books

tho, ngl, i was annoyed not to know Bond's new, temporary number

0069

oh hell yeah

“No fade” is a great nickname for that guy xp

ty mark - turns out this was 0011, in Moonraker

I hated this but loved Ana De Armas

do they ever determine if there was any time to die?

Around 2:45pm EST

big doings are just barely acknowledged. 007 is a black woman? bond is fighting AGAINST her? the bioweapon was actually developed by MI6? bond finally gets the baddie? (several times?) any of these things could have been the organising principle for great moments of high leverage and difficult choices but they just.... happen.

i couldn't disagree with this more. i hate it when movies dwell on big doings, i really appreciated how they just kept this one moving along like its nbd

yeah same. especially in Bond

lol guys i’m not talking about making everything weepy and “meaningful” like skyfall i’m talking about basic dramatic techniques for generating suspense and interest

nope sorry yr overruled

lol

I saw this last night and really enjoyed it. My first theater experience since Invisible Man. I rank it just below CR in the Craig Bond canon.

I do have some nitpicks to mention:

- The ineffective bomb followed by the ineffective assassins -- another of Blofeld's harebrained schemes I guess. Too similar to the random hotel assassins they added to the Connery/Moore movies for my taste.

- Lucifer Boat's plan changing from the thematic targeting of families, to being a standard Bond villain.

- Bond conveniently running into a dangerous place instead of spending a few extra seconds to walk around it.

- The movie saying it's really Bond's child around 3 times, and expecting it to be a big reveal the third time.

i forgot to mention another thing my 12-yo said that i had to stifle a laugh at. at the beginning where we see lea seydoux and bond in the water, at the beach, we pull out for a wide shot and he goes “wow, great colour grading”

Another nitpick: the Swann/Safin connection didn't amount to anything. Bond already had the Foxdie in him from the birthday party.

i thought that was a different strain cooked up by obruchev on safin’s orders that just killed spectre agents (not sure how the dna part of that is supposed to work unless spectre is all related to each other…)

Foxdie

Thank you I was thinking about this the whole time

looking forward to watching this on my phone and complaining about the dialogue

ffs they showed the little nano bot programming rig being loaded with all the spectra agents’ profiles (after a not too subtle switch from the one containing only Bond’s profile) when our socially inept Russian scientist was in cuba

the one red herring that went nowhere was the kid, at the beginning of the scenic auto chase, saying something about mosquitos. I was thinking for a minute “wait, is the kid actually Blofeld’s or a spectre agent’s? is she going to get sick because she’s Mr. White’s granddaughter?” but that went nowhere

so russian guy put every spectre member on it, except for blofeld? why

Blofeld was in prison and wouldn't be at the party. They had a separate plan for Blofeld and it worked

xpost yeah mh i thought the mosquito bite meant she’d been poisoned - maybe they took out that storyline bc too dark or something

Just finished it. I don’t know. Did this feel like a Bond film, really? Even taking the Craigverse into account? I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I kinda feel it just playacted as one.

I thought it was a great one. Though I had the feeling you describe with Skyfall, which felt more like The Dark Knight or something.

It was the most Bondy of the Craigs in some ways - gadgets, quips, villain with ridiculous lair.

finally got to this last night, liked it...okay. didn't really feel the length, which is something. agreed that it was well-directed and looked great. the story was somewhat disadvantaged by my multi-year efforts to forget I watched SPECTRE and my general disinterest in the forced continuity of these films. all pathos relating to Vesper (how long were they even together???) and Madeleine was thus wasted on me. i also just tune out all these nano-bot/magic blood/database-of-everybody plot elements. i've seen em all and man they're all the same.

all of the Bond grunting at M about his bad decisions etc etc, the new 007 character, etc, all seemed like filler almost. like they're all gonna end up on the same side in like 15 minutes, so it seems kinda pointless. but i'm kind of a classicist, and my expectation is that M doesn't need a storyline; M is the person who sends Bond on a mission and chuckles/rolls eyes when Bond celebrates victory with a tryst and a double entendre.

Malek was extremely generic despite all the makeup and the barely-used mask gimmick. he should have tried harder to have an over the top voice or mannerisms... like kept wanting him to talk like Eddie Redmayne in Jupiter Ascending. his poison factory lair was a little too vague spatially to work for me as a setting tbh, though i liked the individual spaces a lot. couldn't Q have walked the team thru a 3D model of the island, gesturing at visible things --- "this tower, here, was used to control the blast doors when this place was a missile silo..." a line of dialogue making clear that the Hercules nanobots are carrying little drops of this "farmed" poison might have helped... felt like they couldn't really commit to this concept. also if they are nanobots wouldn't they be vulnerable to things like a wristwatch EMP?

I, too, could have done with a little less killing, or at LEAST less machine-gunning at random in public places. i want my heroes to try and lead the fight out of town to protect people, or at least acknowledge that the bad guys are endangering bystanders by starting a shootout. aside from that, the opening battle in Matera (i believe?) was fantastic and definitely the highlight of the film for me. Havana was also great, though a little harder to follow. i would have appreciated one more big action scene in a beautiful location, rather than all the office tension with M.

funniest action movie logic moment: two bad guy cars are coming to find Bond at Madeleine's childhood home. they see him pass them and turn around; at some point he swerves off the highway and leads them way off on a dirt road chase; after some high speed driving in the woods, he's defeated these two cars, and then instantly like three more plus some motorcycles burst out of the woods and race downhill at them. um... were those guys just waiting up there in case this happened? if only Bond had picked a different random road to turn off on, the entire kidnapping scenario could have been avoided...

so what worked for me? um... the visuals, for sure. craig's intense, battered, convincingly exhausted performance. most of the action scenes. i like Whishaw as Q even though i'm so over movies like this having to do "hacker" scenes. i like Harris as a spy even though being Moneypenny doesn't give her much to do. i like James Bond movies.

What's with all the booze all the time? Are all Bond movies like this and I'm forgetting?

That seemed like it was written to contrast Bond's boozeshaming of M with his own constant boozing, but then not presented onscreen as the two being related in any way

Bond has always been a heavy boozer! It's just in recent films that it's been commented on as a flaw.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/12/13/250474378/if-you-drank-like-james-bond-youd-be-shaken-too

Dr. Indra Neil Guha, a liver specialist, and his colleagues at Nottingham University Hospital in England spent a year poring over Ian Fleming's James Bond books and tabulating how many drinks the suave spy drank a day.

Their conclusion? Even just steadying his Walther PPK might have been difficult for Bond.

On average, Bond consumed about 45 drinks a week, or six to seven a day, the authors wrote Thursday in the Christmas edition of BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal. That's way more than the amount considered risky for men by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

It wasn't just chronic drinking that roughed up Bond's liver. He also went on some mean benders. In Casino Royale, Bond knocked back nearly 20 drinks before going on a high-speed car chase, getting in a wreck and then spending two weeks in the hospital. "We hope that this was a salutary lesson," the authors wrote dryly.

"This man clearly consumed what are considered to be harmful amounts of alcohol," says psychiatrist Peter Martin, who directs the Vanderbilt Addiction Center. "There are data that show that drinking like this, about 100 grams of alcohol a day, is highly likely to be associated with liver cirrhosis and also cognitive deficits." It would also be likely to increase risks for depression and sexual dysfunction, conditions that would not be very Bondian.

nonsense, surely Ian Fleming drank like that, and he lived to the wise old age of *checks notes* fifty-six

never mind

James is so drunk and delusional he just runs out in public and stalks and shoots civilians each day, but in his mind they all appear as agents of SPECTRE so he is unaware of his depravity

https://www.brooklyncomicshop.com/BCS/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Daredevil-169-Signed-Charlie-Cox-Brooklyn-Comic-Shop.jpg

p sure it was the chain-smoking as much as the booze that did for Fleming

james bond would never smoke

xposts to dr casino - rewatching SPECTRE gave me a much better feeling towards madeline, it may not make you like NTTD more but might at least give it a bit more stakes? i think it holds up better in light of the new movie.

i rewatched NTTD tonight and cried during the ending this time, after being pretty much emotionless watching it in the theater

it's funny, in my mind i remember hating SPECTRE, but if i look back at my comments on the relevant thread, they're pretty mixed but not super mad at it. i definitely liked the action scenes. then if you scroll another year down in the thread, i've reached my present day point of remembering it as a terrible movie i have no interest in rewatching. hmmm.

DO IT

The Being James Bond doc/promo thing is now up for a free watch on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oZdJrph3RA

i’ve been on a mythology kick lately & while I was refreshing my memory of the 12 labors of Heracles, came upon the recounting of his death

from wiki:

This is described in Sophocles's Trachiniae and in Ovid's Metamorphoses Book IX. Having wrestled and defeated Achelous, god of the Acheloos river, Heracles takes Deianira as his wife. Travelling to Tiryns, a centaur, Nessus, offers to help Deianira across a fast flowing river while Heracles swims it. However, Nessus is true to the archetype of the mischievous centaur and tries to steal Deianira away while Heracles is still in the water. Angry, Heracles shoots him with his arrows dipped in the poisonous blood of the Lernaean Hydra. Thinking of revenge, Nessus gives Deianira his blood-soaked tunic before he dies, telling her it will "excite the love of her husband".[40]
Several years later, rumor tells Deianira that she has a rival for the love of Heracles. Deianira, remembering Nessus' words, gives Heracles the bloodstained shirt. Lichas, the herald, delivers the shirt to Heracles. However, it is still covered in the Hydra's blood from Heracles' arrows, and this poisons him, tearing his skin and exposing his bones. Before he dies, Heracles throws Lichas into the sea, thinking he was the one who poisoned him (according to several versions, Lichas turns to stone, becoming a rock standing in the sea, named for him). Heracles then uproots several trees and builds a funeral pyre on Mount Oeta, which Poeas, father of Philoctetes, lights. As his body burns, only his immortal side is left. Through Zeus' apotheosis, Heracles rises to Olympus as he dies.

This is now available free to subscribers on Amazon Prime, which is what I was waiting for to finally watch it.

In the UK, that is. No idea about elsewhere.