22 replies to this topic

[FlemingBond]

So I don't think this has been a topic, but I was wondering what people thought about how the Craig movies end. Craig's Bond -in 3 movies so far-has never ended the movie with the girl. Interesting if you think about it. We are use to Bond, from Dr. No right at the beginning 'getting the girl'

 

In Casino Royale Vesper commits suicide. In Quantum of Solace Camille and Bond don't have a romantic relationship. He ends the movie capturing the man responsible for Vesper's fate.

In Skyfall, much the same, Bond doesn't really have a true romantic interest. M is 'the girl' in a way, and she dies at the end of the movie. Sort of a pattern in  a way.

Personally I like it. Fleming's Bond did not always get the girl. As often as not his novels ended in a bittersweet way.

Thoughts?

 

[tdalton]

I'm okay with it.  It adds a sense of unpredictability to the end of the films (provided that they don't use it over and over again, as they have the personal vendetta angle), whereas it used to be more or less the same scene ending each film for the most part.

[AMC Hornet]

I think it's time for him to end up with a girl in a life raft, with M and/or Moneypenny nearby.

[Binyamin]

Indeed.

Also, it would be nice if this time he wasn't in constant angst.

[sharpshooter]

I think it's time for him to end up with a girl in a life raft, with M and/or Moneypenny nearby.

I too would like this type of ending for Craig, at least once. Maybe for his very last outing. The show always goes on, but for that face at least, it's his 'retirement', just as Moore Bond setting off into the sunset with Octopussy could've been a great lasting image for him.

[tdalton]

 

I think it's time for him to end up with a girl in a life raft, with M and/or Moneypenny nearby.

I too would like this type of ending for Craig, at least once. Maybe for his very last outing. The show always goes on, but for that face at least, it's his 'retirement', just as Moore Bond setting off into the sunset with Octopussy could've been a great lasting image for him.

 

 

Agreed.  That would be a good end for Craig's Bond, especially after the emotional wringer that they've put him through thus far and will most likely continue to put him through over the course of the next two films.  I just hope that if, and when, they decide on that kind of an ending, that they find something new to do with it rather than it simply being a tacked on moment following some kind of mission debriefing by M.

[sharpshooter]

A Moonraker type ending would suit Craig's Bond to a T. Dumped by the Bond girl for another and left standing in the rain.

 

If he gets a 'Bond gets the girl' type ending, perhaps it can come full circle to Mallory's comments in Skyfall about "staying dead".

[tdalton]

A Moonraker type ending would suit Craig's Bond to a T. Dumped by the Bond girl for another and left standing in the rain.

 

If he gets a 'Bond gets the girl' type ending, perhaps it can come full circle to Mallory's comments in Skyfall about "staying dead".

 

They definitely do need to adapt the ending of Moonraker for the screen.  As you said, it would fit in rather well with the MO of the Craig films thus far.

 

As for the second idea, I think it's brilliant.  It would give a great closure to Craig's Bond and leave the writers with some interesting options as for how to introduce the next Bond.  They could either have it be that Craig's films are their own contrained story and they're starting anew (not my preferred choice, but it could work somehow if the next film wasn't an full-on reboot) or they could have Bond lay low for a while and have something happen that draws him back into the fold. 

[Turn]

I actually really like the way the Craig era has handled Bond's female relationships. Was there anything more clichéd than the finale with Bond and the girl in his arms and a really bad pun to send us into the credits? Fleming's Bond didn't always end up with the girl at the end, he was often in hospital or cradling her corpse in his arms or seeing her walk away, as mentioned.

 

It's hard enough to find a reason for a female companion in the story, but those in the Craig era have made sense. If we'd gotten one more female Bond equal I may have given up. Vesper speaks for herself. Bond just doesn't jump into bed with Camille, and when he does with Fields you see the repercussions.

 

I've been surprised to read criticisms of Bond's relationship with Severine, about mistreating a woman who was a sex slave and then coldly using the "waste of good scotch" line after her death. It's not about having to shoehorn the woman into the script anymore because that's tradition. Although that's kinda' how I feel about the Moneypenny character. Bond needs another plaything, although an agent type. Now let's surprise everybody with who she really is. It's one of the less successful aspects of SF for me.

 

I look forward to see what does result in Bond 24 in the next step of Bond's relationship with women.  

[tdalton]

I actually really like the way the Craig era has handled Bond's female relationships. Was there anything more clichéd than the finale with Bond and the girl in his arms and a really bad pun to send us into the credits? Fleming's Bond didn't always end up with the girl at the end, he was often in hospital or cradling her corpse in his arms or seeing her walk away, as mentioned.

 

Agreed.  If/when then do go back to the "Bond gets the girl" ending, I really hope that they do it with a bit more originality and a bit more class than some of those types of endings.  During the Moore Era, those types of endings were OK as they fit into the kind of films that Moore was, for the most part, making.  They really went off the deep end with these endings, though, in the Brosnan Era, with his last two films ending on moments that were so juvenile and pathetic that it really had to make on wonder how anyone could have thought that such endings were fit to be put on the screen.  Luckily, I can't see Craig going along with the nonsense that were the endings to The World is Not Enough and Die Another Day.

[AMC Hornet]

Are there really so few people out there who recognize that the 'waste of good scotch' line wasn't Bond expressing an uncaring nature, but rather a way of momentarily disarming Silva and his men - convincing them he was not about to do what he did?

 

"You bastard!" would have kept them on high alert. Appearing uncaring relaxed their guard just long enough for him to move.

 

I understood that straight away, just as I understood Silva's maternal fixation on M, Bond's counter-taunting of Silva with 'what makes you think this is my first time?' and that Bond and M didn't really go back in time.

 

Logan wrote a lot of psychology into Skyfall beyond the word-association sequence. The film is a lot easier to understand if you don't take everything literally.

[Turn]

Apparently, a lot of fans don't get it as I've read numerous criticisms on various fan sites of his "using" Severine. I got the line and intention immediately and found it a classic Bond moment. It's a line I can't imagine any other Bond actor saying convincingly.

 

Compare it with Brosnan's "I never miss" after shooting Electra in TWINE. Personally, I thought that moment would have been more effective with just silence and a look. Not to knock him or that line. Connery also stood out in his era when discovering a female he couldn't protect, such as Jill and Tilly Masterson in GF or Paula in TB, often just a look and internalizing it while knowing he can't dwell on it.

 

The Bond-Silva relationship stands out as a highlight of SF. That's been missing from so many of the films. A villain was there and we were meant to hate him because he is going against Bond. Boo, hiss, taunt, he's dead, the end.

 

I would have liked one more confrontation with Silva at the end, one more mind game to throw him off rather than just the quick death. Such a standout villain should have been treated in a different manner. It's part of why I find SF weak in its finale.

[Guy Haines]

Given Craig-Bond's track record with women in the past three films -four deaths (five if you count M as a sort of "Bond woman") and two platonic relationships, it would be nice for him to end a film with a lady intact and in his arms. What's the betting, though, that such a finale to a future Bond film would throw in an extra twist? Bond dumped, as in the novel Moonraker, as pointed out above? Or the happy ending tragically interrupted as the girl is shot dead by a surviving villain, as in OHMSS?

 

I agree with some of the comments above. I think, if he does have a happy ending it will come in Daniel Craig's "retirement" movie, and if he was to carry on for some while yet, we may have a bit of a wait for it.

[SecretAgentFan]

I agree.  It would almost be subversive to have Craig-Bond end up happily with the film´s main Bond girl.

[AMC Hornet]

Makes you look forward to Craig's replacement, and hopefully some good ol' formula missions.

[Colossus]

Yep

[Major Tallon]

Nope

[glidrose]

They definitely do need to adapt the ending of Moonraker for the screen.

"I think he's attempting re-entry, sir."

Ah, the book ending. I see.

[Darthyan]

Bond is pretty damaged in Craig's version. He just hides it behind a mask (remember when Greene says that everything he touches withers and dies and Bond's response to Camille is an uncomfortable "lets get the hell out of here" as well as his shock and fear when he hears the gunshots during the Perlas de le Lunas battle). I think he could potentially start a relationship but end it because he's simply too damaged to have long term commitment.

 

Hell I'd even love it if the big bad of one of the films is a woman (we may have had one in Electra King but honestly it's sometimes hard to tell who was the big bad, her or renard).

[Zen Razor]

I understand what you mean but what better way to finish off the a Intelligent Villian with a good old hunting knife. I mean the whole films was about OldvsNew. It's why Bond wanted to prove a point that with all that technology Silva had he was still able to defeat him in a old mansion with just a few explosives and guns.

Edited by Zen Razor, 11 March 2014 - 08:22 PM.

[Darthyan]

Bond pretty much lost though. M dies, his old mansion is destroyed, and even killing silva was a failure since m wanted him to rot in jail. Skyfall is pretty much the only film where bond has completely been defeated. I still think that at some point Bond should be forced to finally face his inner demons (he has a ton

 

a.) Severine

b.) Vesper

c.) M

d.) Solange

e.) Fields

f.) Mathis) and be forced to finally forgive himself (in Quantum Mathis's final words are "forgive yourself.")

Edited by Darthyan, 12 March 2014 - 01:38 AM.

[Guy Haines]

The author of "The James Bond Encyclopaedia", Steven Jay Rubin, once described Timothy Dalton's 007 as "the suffering Bond". One wonders what he'd call Daniel Craig's 007? There's no question that Craig's Bond has been wrung through the mill. Torture at the hands of Le Chiffre, and loss of a woman he loved in CR. "Looks like you've lost another one!" taunts Dominic Greene in QoS - another two, really, in Strawberry Fields and Rene Mathis. And then the death of M in SF.

 

For Bond personally, as the song goes, "Things can only get better"? I dare say we'll see in Bond 24.

[Turn]

A way you could think about that, though, is given all the pain and all that he's been through, the Bond we knew from previous films is easier to understand. Looking back at criticisms he's a cold killer and mostly unemotional about it, when you consider where he's been it's more understandable. He kills, he sees those close to him sometimes killed, but he keeps a professional distance because otherwise it would break him.