007-25 No Time To Die

[JasonPratt]

Could be good; trailers lie, of course.  ::) Six writers does not bode well.

The overarching theme would be better if the producers hadn't immediately gone to "Bond is old and broken down and needs to retire now" after his own origin story duology (Casino Royale / QoS). This will be the third film in a row with that premise; they've now been doing this for officially the majority of Craig's run as the character. That is literally insane.

Is that supposed to be Vesper Lynde back?? {checking IMDB} No, guess not, that's a character named "Paloma" played by Ana de Armas. (Currently co-starring with Daniel Craig + ensemble in Rian Johnson's "Knives Out" which is getting good reviews.) Amusingly, she tops the list of the cast on the IMDB page for the film, thanks to being sorted by the "IMDb STARmeter" (tm) (r). 

I appreciate the attempts at continuity.

Lashana Lynch's character Nomi aka the new 007, sucks the air completely out of the room, in her only spoken lines for the trailer, which minimizes her inclusion -- maybe that's a good thing? She is not called 007 in the trailer, only another 00. This seems choppily edited, so I'm sure the information is still in the film. It makes sense in the story context that MI6 would give the license to someone else after Bond retires, so that isn't a problem. The problem of course is the meta-context, leaned on by the producers, and by Lynch, in marketing, that we are required to like her regardless of any other factors because she's a black woman and if we don't that's only because we're white males or something. The well-deserved backlash after that marketing debacle explains her reduction in the trailer, but her performance of those few lines isn't encouraging. Hopefully her performance was accidentally handicapped by trailer editing, and it's much better in the film.

The new villain is treated as a completely disposable non-character, which is also not encouraging, though understandable with Christopher Waltz's new Blofeld still around and Lectering things up in security confinement. His reveal (I think the character's name is Safin?) is treated as something important in the trailer, but there's zero context for it, suggesting he's supposed to be a legacy character recognizable to fans. I sure didn't recognize him -- and still don't. I honestly thought his lines in the trailer were supposed to be Blofeld's, but IMDB reports otherwise (perhaps by accident since often the information isn't officially provided)?

[Huw the Poo]

I agree 100% with your analysis Jason, and I have to say there was absolutely sod all to get me excited in that trailer.  Casino Royale aside, Craig has really been given a crap series of films - although I gather he's a producer himself and has been increasingly one of the bigger decision makers, so he can blame himself as much as anyone else I guess.

Also, if I cared more about this film I wouldn't have watched the trailer.  I feel like there were at least a couple of pretty big reveals in there, or at least the kind of spoilers that would irritate me if I was more invested.

[SirAndrewD]

Yeah, I'm a huge Bond fan and at this point the Craig films just look tired. 

I hope after this one they get bold and do a really big reboot of the whole thing.   If I'm in their shoes I cast Richard Madden and start the next series with James Bond 1944, showing his first days in the OSS.  Then you can get into some cool period cold war stuff with Bond driving his original Bentley and using the pre-PPK Beretta going up against SMERSH. 

[Sir Slash]

I'd watch that. Back to the David Niven days!  O0

[JasonPratt]

I'd be one hundred percent on board with that: Bond vs Nazis and then maybe really lean into the (now trashcanned) fan theory that "Bond" is a code name borrowed from the original as a legacy title, and have a new "Bond" intentionally taking up that title and history for the early Cold War period.

They could keep Fiennes as the new M easily -- they already kept Judi Dench's M in a total continuity reboot, and Desmond's Q, too, come to think of it! So bringing the current Q (Ben Winshaw) back would be just as doable. Moneypenny might ring weird for period casting, but maybe not -- Britain was a worldwide Commonwealth after all; and it would give the writers some fodder to chew progressively on if they wanted to. ;) Or just recast Eva Green as an extended honorary cameo: she was essentially set up as the original Moneypenny anyway in Casino Royale, as M's doomed accountant assistant Vesper from the original book. ("You're the money?" "Every penny." That quip exchange COULD NOT HAVE POSSIBLY been more pointedly on the nose.  )

Despite its ongoing problems, I really do like the Daniel Craig run, and each of the films after CasRoy have grown on me (even Spectre which I refused to see in the theaters). I'll be sorry to see him pass the torch on, but I hope there will be better writing going forward.

[JasonPratt]

Incidentally, Bond directors can definitely do period pieces.  ^-^ Sam Mendes is helming 1917 which releases this week.

[JasonPratt]

Understated theme this time; curious how/if it will be juiced up for the opening credits.

I like it better than the "writing on the wall" theme from Specter, which I mocked pretty hard for a theme supposedly finishing the Bond origin by introducing Specter. In a different context it might have worked better. Then again, I just like women singing soprano more than men, so I'll admit to some aesthetic preference there.

For comparison:

Orchestration's good on it, to be fair!

The Specter theme should have been this!

[JasonPratt]

Then again this would make a much more badass NTtD theme and basically fits the plot from the trailer: