Bond 25 - "No Time to Die" (2021) (1 Viewer)

[Osato]

Good trailer.

we shall see if it’s a good bond film.

looking forward to 26 and a new start!

any news on the other films on UHd Blu Ray in April?
Rumor that France is getting single releases of the Craig films. I bought the Craig UHd box set already.

 

[Bernard McNair]

Really enjoyed the trailer; hopefully a great end for Daniel Craig’s time as Bond.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I hope the next iteration of Bond gets assigned MI6 missions by M, and then goes out and accomplishes them. I'm sick of every movie being personal to Bond, or Bond going rogue.

I do think it looks better than SPECTRE, though.

I think this franchise and the Mission Impossible movies are suffering from that same flaw in every film for far too long. I want to see these top professional agents sent out to do a job, and then watch with satisfaction as they complete it. Every James Bond movie and every M:I movie for decades puts the hero in the position where, despite years of faithful service, suddenly his bosses don’t trust him and he must go rogue to save the world. Even if the movies don’t start out there, that’s where the inevitably go. And it’s become so boring.

It worked well for Bond in Licence To Kill because he had been a team played for 15 prior films and it meant something that he was saying “not this time.” Likewise, with the first M:I, forcing the best agents to go rogue was a novel way of introducing the characters and showing how good they were. It’s worth doing once. Not every time.

The whole thing is ripe for parody. I’d love to see a comedy sketch where Bond goes to present his resignation and starts launching to a detailed explanation of why, and M just yawns, hands him an untraceable gun, and says “see you in two weeks after you’ve saved the world.”

I think Craig is the best Bond we’ve had since Connery, and Casino Royale is at or near the top of films in the series, and they’ve just squandered all of that potential. You had Casino setting him up as a young, inexperienced agent, and then by the last shot of the movie, he’s the Bond we know, finally ready to go off on grown up missions...

...and then Quantum begins and it’s two minutes after Casino ended and all of the implied character development and maturation is negated as Bond is placed back into an emotional and erratic state that Casino already showed him getting over. But fine, he goes on his revenge mission, grows up, and at the end, he’s ready to be the Bond we know and ready to go out on missions...

...and then Skyfall begins and he’s suddenly gone from being too young like a week ago to being far too old, over the hill, past his prime, ready to be put out to pasture. He fails at his mission, but faces the demons of his youth that were vanquished in the previous films and goes through the same emotional through-line again, and when the movie ends, finally he’s the Bond we remember and ready to go on a mission...

...and then Spectre begins and M:I6 is outdated and Bond is a relic and has to go rogue and discovers that every enemy he ever had was secretly working together all part of an elaborate plot to kill him because Stepbrother is jealous that Stepdaddy loved Baby James more than Baby Blofeld, or something.

What do all of these films have in common? Purvis and Wade. It seems like each time, the producers hire a new writer to pull them out of that same rut, and then get cold feet when the writer delivers and run back to Purvis and Wade, who return to the same well again and again.

 

[Matt Hough]

Well said, Josh, and the problem has infected TV action series, too. On NCIS, Mark Harmon's Jethro Gibbs has been solving puzzles and achieving the impossible for almost two decades, and even with that astonishing record of success, he gets barked at almost every week by Rocky Carroll's Leon Vance to "Get this off my desk yesterday or you and your team are through!"

Absurd!

 

[Sam Favate]

What do all of these films have in common? Purvis and Wade. It seems like each time, the producers hire a new writer to pull them out of that same rut, and then get cold feet when the writer delivers and run back to Purvis and Wade, who return to the same well again and again.

Exactly. Those two are the weakest links in the Bond films, going back 20 years now to The World Is Not Enough. Casino Royale had moments of brilliance, which I attribute to Paul Haggis, but the film, upon multiple viewings, doesn't hold up because of all the complicated twists and turns that Purvis and Wade make. Craig, and Brosnan too, were robbed of good writing in their tenures. The fact that Purvis and Wade are listed as the head writers for NTTD makes me a bit queasy.

 

[Jeff Flugel]

I hope the next iteration of Bond gets assigned MI6 missions by M, and then goes out and accomplishes them. I'm sick of every movie being personal to Bond, or Bond going rogue.

I do think it looks better than SPECTRE, though.

Agree 100% with all that.

 

[Jeff Flugel]

I think this franchise and the Mission Impossible movies are suffering from that same flaw in every film for far too long. I want to see these top professional agents sent out to do a job, and then watch with satisfaction as they complete it. Every James Bond movie and every M:I movie for decades puts the hero in the position where, despite years of faithful service, suddenly his bosses don’t trust him and he must go rogue to save the world. Even if the movies don’t start out there, that’s where the inevitably go. And it’s become so boring.

It worked well for Bond in Licence To Kill because he had been a team played for 15 prior films and it meant something that he was saying “not this time.” Likewise, with the first M:I, forcing the best agents to go rogue was a novel way of introducing the characters and showing how good they were. It’s worth doing once. Not every time.

The whole thing is ripe for parody. I’d love to see a comedy sketch where Bond goes to present his resignation and starts launching to a detailed explanation of why, and M just yawns, hands him an untraceable gun, and says “see you in two weeks after you’ve saved the world.”

I think Craig is the best Bond we’ve had since Connery, and Casino Royale is at or near the top of films in the series, and they’ve just squandered all of that potential. You had Casino setting him up as a young, inexperienced agent, and then by the last shot of the movie, he’s the Bond we know, finally ready to go off on grown up missions...

...and then Quantum begins and it’s two minutes after Casino ended and all of the implied character development and maturation is negated as Bond is placed back into an emotional and erratic state that Casino already showed him getting over. But fine, he goes on his revenge mission, grows up, and at the end, he’s ready to be the Bond we know and ready to go out on missions...

...and then Skyfall begins and he’s suddenly gone from being too young like a week ago to being far too old, over the hill, past his prime, ready to be put out to pasture. He fails at his mission, but faces the demons of his youth that were vanquished in the previous films and goes through the same emotional through-line again, and when the movie ends, finally he’s the Bond we remember and ready to go on a mission...

...and then Spectre begins and M:I6 is outdated and Bond is a relic and has to go rogue and discovers that every enemy he ever had was secretly working together all part of an elaborate plot to kill him because Stepbrother is jealous that Stepdaddy loved Baby James more than Baby Blofeld, or something.

What do all of these films have in common? Purvis and Wade. It seems like each time, the producers hire a new writer to pull them out of that same rut, and then get cold feet when the writer delivers and run back to Purvis and Wade, who return to the same well again and again.

Preach on, brother!

 

[Atari]

The rogue agent trope has been overused for quite a while. It would be nice to go back to a little less convoluted plot. I've found a lot of the new villains to be unmemorable and the stories overly complicated. Although Roger Moore used to be my least favorite Bond, I could use a little more humor in my Bond films.

I'm still looking forward to seeing this and will probably start going through all the bond movies in January leading up to the release like I'm doing with Star Wars currently.

 

[Worth]

I think one of the worst things to happen to the series was Michael Wilson taking on a creative role. The Bond films used to be simple - this is who the villain is, this is his plan, add set pieces. As soon as Wilson came on board as a writer, the movies became needlessly convoluted, with multiple villains and subplots - Octopussy and The Living Daylights don't even make any sense.

Although he hasn't been credited as a writer for some time, you can still feel that impulse to over complicate things. It's one of the reasons I don't rate Casino Royale nearly as highly as some do - the performances are way better than in previous Bonds, and the writing is better scene-to-scene (though there's still some awful dialogue), but structurally, the movie's a mess.

 

[Osato]

Great points and discussion!!

 

[Gary Seven]

I had high hopes for this franchise after Skyfall, as it seemed that movie brought the franchise full circle to classic Bond. But then I was disappointed with Spectre as the writers completely ignored Fleming's character, Blofeld, and invented their own. While the action to the trailer looks great, I do not have high hopes for this movie. I read that Cubby's final advice to Barbara was that if you find trouble in developing a Bond movie or developing Bond further, go to the books. They ignored that as well, apparently.

And while I never felt Craig was right for Bond (looks a bit too thuggish), I could have gotten past it if the writing and characterizations were more spot on.

 

[Worth]

I'm keeping my expectations in check, but I think it's a positive sign that Scott Z. Burns and Phoebe Waller-Bridge were brought in to rewrite the script.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Here is the trailer. It looks cool. I'm not sure how different it seems from the last few films though.

I liked it. Two things stand out for me: 1) the motorcycle stunt and 2) the customs agent pausing for Bond to do his "Bond...James Bond" bit.

 

[Cranston37+]

2) the customs agent pausing for Bond to do his "Bond...James Bond" bit

He's a security officer at MI6. The gag is that Bond thought he would be known by his last name but he had been gone so long the guy had no idea who he was.

 

[Johnny Angell]

He's a security officer at MI6. The gag is that Bond thought he would be known by his last name but he had been gone so long the guy had no idea who he was.

Ok, I get it. I still think it’s funny that Craig used the classic cadence saying his name in a new situation. Ah the youth these days, no respect for their elders.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Because they just couldn't get it to the finish line without a little more drama, Hans Zimmer has taken over as composer and will have to finish by mid-February to make the release date in April. I don't envy him that time crunch.

https://variety.com/2020/film/news/hans-zimmer-james-bond-composer-no-time-to-die-1203458908/

 

[Josh Steinberg]

When you hire Zimmer, for most of his projects, you’re actually hiring a team of composers overseen by Zimmer who are expert at taking his rough sketches and fleshing them out into full compositions based on his style. I imagine they could do this in their sleep.

I wasn’t a big fan of Thomas Newman’s scores for 007 which often seemed tonally wrong for the material. I’m hoping Zimmer can better hit the mark and be less cautious in his use of the classic theme.

 

[Worth]

I'm not a huge fan of the Zimmer factory, though I liked his Sherlock Holmes score and most of his work with Nolan. No one has really nailed Bond musically since Barry left, in the same way that no one has captured the look of Bond since Ken Adam moved on.

 

[Tommy R]

I’m just glad it’s not David Arnold.

 

[Greg.K]

Wow, that seems pretty late for this kind of change. How much impact can he have in that short of a time? Obviously can't rescore the whole thing.