No Time To Remember

Oh, No Time To Die, I apologize, I forgot you were there.

I honestly forgot this film is premiering in two months. It seems EON has forgotten as well, or at least aren’t sure if or how the film will be released on the appointed date.

Didn’t we have something important happening soon?

Case in point here we are ten weeks from the U.S release date of No Time To Die and all they’ve done to reignite the bazillion dollar promotional campaign is drop a rehashed trailer and the album cover art for the theme song’s single. Remember at the start of the year when EON spent big bucks on a Super Bowl advert costing in the neighborhood of $5 million three months before the scheduled release? Or, when they advertised during the Academy Awards broadcast? How about when they bought time during the All-Star Basketball game?

Ah those halcyon pre-Covid days when the world was a much simpler place! You were allowed to go outside, and films weren’t pushed back indefinitely.

Now EON, seemingly a bit gun-shy from the aborted film launch are taking a restrained tack, quietly debuting their new promo online, fearing yet another setback. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did push back another six months or more, half the world is still shut down from the virus and the half that isn’t is only permitting 25% occupancy in theaters. Hardly the recipe for cash stew!

Pictured: Cash Stew

Well what can we learn from the few bits of this trailer that hadn’t been seen before?

Trailer number 2, how appropriate

Straight away, I must say Craig’s skin is looking a healthy shade of putty!

 

His hair also seems to be changing colors throughout the film:

Apparently they ran out of Just For Men and had to resort to shoe polish

Not only are the laws of nature getting violated with that hair color, but it seems the laws of physics as well:

This flat two foot tall slab of concrete… 

Which is more than half the height of this vehicle…

Caused this, rather than…

This.

We’ve seen Craig dive off the bridge in the last trailer:

Oooo, the Russian judge only gave him a 7.5, that’s going to hurt his medal chances!

We hadn’t seen the aftermath however:

Tarzan yell anyone?

Watch out for that treeeeeee!

After his George of the Jungle impression, Craig slumps to the ground like a sack of potatoes:

Apparently after hitting every branch of the ugly tree on the way down.

Smash cut to Lea Seydoux:

Mirror, mirror on the wall who’s the frumpiest of them all?

For some reason Ralph Fiennes is standing in Aston Martin’s wind tunnel:

Do you feel a draft?

The two shadowy figures blasting their way into an office building in the previous trailer are actually a trio:

So not Craig and Lynch storming the villain’s lair, but rather the kidnapping of “the scientist” from the synopsis.

A bomb is dropped:

Not one of Craig’s F-bombs 

Resulting in an office building’s window getting blown out.

Swann and Safin will be having a little tete-a-tete:

Must be a lot of dust in the room, to have such red watery eyes.

Craig and Seydoux will be in a darkened room:

I wonder if this is another secret room in a hotel suite

Craig visits a grave:

And burns a note:

“Forgive me” let me guess, scribbled by Vesper on the hotel stationary two minutes before she leaves to sell out democracy.

Bond is reduced to being a visitor in his own film:

By the looks of him a visitor from beyond the grave 

98 pound Ana De Armas single handedly kicks the crap out of 3 large, armed men:

No suspension of disbelief required

Craig needs saving on a balcony, guess who’s going to save him:

No, not John Boyega

Job done.

Craig makes a phone call to M:

“I met your new 00, she’s a rather disarming woman.”

So we can bet Lynch takes Craig’s gun away, probably right before the “stay in you lane, shoot you in the knee” scene.

Greaaaaaat!

Crag runs around in tactical suspenders:

Commando Granddad!

At one point Lynch says to Harris:

“I see why you shot him.”

And Harris replies:

“Everyone tries at least once.”

So James Bond the suave, sophisticated gentleman agent, the international man of mystery, the man so charming super villains invite him to cocktails and dinner before trying to eliminate him, has been reduced to an insufferable pain in the ass whom all his co-workers fantasize about shooting in the back?

Says it all

Remember this rant when I jokingly said this:

“So that folding “Swiss Army Knife” plane is also a boat now?! Hey, maybe it’s a submarine too!”

Well guess what?!:

It is!!!!!!

Look, I have absolutely no problem with this philosophically, but when the neo-fans were crabbing about the invisible car, I have to wonder why they aren’t calling this out?

Q turns up in his pajamas to launch the Swiss army sub:

I couldn’t be bothered to change.

Finally we’re treated to this:

Are we sure about this?

Since everything about this film is a conclusion, Bond’s bachelorhood, having a child, Craig leaving, etc. I wonder what the “big change” that is “beginning” in this film could be?

Coming sometime in the next decade or two, Lashana Lynch as Agent 007 in No Time To Die 2: No Time To Care

 

On to the album cover. This is a rather odd depiction of the Craigster, it reminds me of the promo shots of Roger Moore from the 70’s. Except like most of what nu-EON produces, inferior to the source material:

 

Some other odds and ends. Funko has released some new “Pop” characters from this film:

Great, some cheap crap to collect dust on my shelves and remind me of what a crap film this is!

in case your fanatic murder room was lacking in kitsch.

Plenty to go around.

This can’t be Craig, the face is too smooth.

 

Something I missed a few months ago, EON posted this to Twitter:

Note the caption, “The return of old friends.” How does that song go from the children’s program Sesame Street?

 “One of these things is not like the other.”

Let’s see, M, Leiter, Q, whoops Craig-Bond’s nemesis Brofeld is an old friend now? I guess they overcame his daddy issues!

And off topic while farming for the above images on the internet I found this:

Which made me realize Craig’s ugly shirt in Casino Royal is actually an homage

You’re welcome!

 

 

 

  6 comments for “No Time To Remember

  1. The car stunt looks true to form for a Craig Bond film.
    Rather like Skyfall’s flipping over motorbike that creates it’s own gravitational field, or CR’s Aston Martin that “falls over” while avoiding an obstacle (such as a mediocre French actress) in the road. Because, of course, Aston Martins do that, which is why well-heeled driving enthusiasts (such as that Youtube knob) buy them.
    Absurdities that are acceptable, even welcome in a “frivolous” escapist film, but stick out like a sore thumb in anything that regards itself as “gritty” or “serious”
    Two words I’ve grown to despise…

    P.S. RIP Michael Lonsdale…

    • Yes sir, so much flashy gilding to distract from the fact this “gritty” film has no substance, so just throw in some “badassery” for those who unironically use that term.

  2. Well, the Bond Series ended with a whimper not a bang. Because Babs had to schedule everything around Craig most likely NTTD will never see the Cinema but go to streaming. The latest moving of the date of the movie has brought a poetic end to the Craig era. Cubby always had a Bond in waiting in case the actor in the role was giving him a problem. Between every movie during the Moore era from Moonraker forward they would test potential leads. Barbara has killed the golden goose (gun) because she wanted to curry favor with liberal Hollywood, so she could have her Daniel. Wow, just wow.

    • Indeed sir, though I’d say this film was whimpering from the start, nobody was excited about another Craig outing. I doubt NTTD will go to streaming, EON has a hard time adapting to the times, what with their print media promotion and incessantly repackaged trailers, they’ll keep putting of release until the crisis is over or theaters go bust whichever happens first.

      BTW, were you able to join the forum?

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