RUMOR CONTROL...THESE ARE THE FACTS

[Captain Russ]

I would like a moratorium on terms like “dour, grimdark, and boring” to describe much more nuanced issues with established characters being taken for a ride into the graveyard of creativity, but I will undoubtedly find a way to see this latest Broccoli sodomy session as it sounds like it had a hell of an adventure on the way to the public screen.

That said, Craig had one very solid outing and lesser and lesser ones in the wake of colossal expectation for more of what that initial return to the origin point seemed to indicate (shame to see that cut short by the writer strike).

I still laugh at the casual stroll of an action scene when he escaped Blofeld’s base in Spectre. If anything could visually articulate a better summation for the dire state of the series, I don’t know how it could achieve more by caring less than that last one.

[FilmNerdJamie]

Craig is Dalton if Goldeneye happened in 1992 and he got to make more movies. You might have gotten another hit, but it was going to be a lot of poor scripts and zero committal to direction. For those that don't know, at one point Whoopi Goldberg, Anthony Hopkins and a robot were part of Goldeneye.

And by the time it finally got going circa 93-94, very few filmmakers among those approached wanted Dalton. He was viewed as damaged goods.

It was such a sticking point that caused MGM to put pressure on the Broccolis to start over (AKA: finally lock down Brosnan).

[Matt]

I think every Bond actor has been good to varying degrees, even Lazenby and Moore. I have an extreme fondness for Moore as he was 'my Bond' when growing up and three of my favorite Bond films belong to him.

The big whiff, as far as I'm concerned, is Dalton. His take was ten years too early, and John Glen did him a disservice in terms of direction. I wish he'd gotten a 'good' film out of his run instead of an ok entry and a pile of dogshit.

I'm a fan of Craig overall as he's pretty convincing in his fighting scenes (especially when compared to Brosnan and Moore) but he's really only had one GREAT entry, and that was his first one. It's been downhill from there. My hope is that NTTD is a sufficient enough capper that I can say that his run was 'good'.

[Anderson]

GIMME THAT WHAT IF EPISODE.

Production was set to start in 1990 in Hong Kong, for a release in late 1991.^[14] It would have featured a terrorist attack on a British nuclear facility in Scotland threatening to cause World War III, Bond traveling to East Asia to investigate corrupt businessman Sir Henry Lee Ching along with jewel thief Connie Webb, and Bond fighting his former mentor Denholm Crisp. It also would have featured the Chinese Ministry of State Security.^[11][15][16] The script was further rewritten by William Osborne and William Davies. After the Gulf War, they moved the opening scene from a cyberattack on Scotland to Bond failing a mission in Libya. The film then would have focused on a high-tech stealth fighter being stolen by a Chinese People's Liberation Army general, a British industrialist, and American mobsters in order to stage a nuclear attack and coup d'etat against Mainland China while leaving the industrialist in control of Hong Kong.<sup>[11]

More.</sup>

A 17-page plot synopsis was written for what would have been Dalton’s third outing as James Bond. The plot involved high-tech robots which were going to be designed by Walt Disney Imagineering. Anthony Hopkins, a friend of Dalton’s would play the main villain. And Whoopi Goldberg, who was dating Dalton at the time, was involved as well.

The first draft of the script that would become GoldenEye was written by Michael France. In the original script, the villain was an older man named Augustus Trevelyan. He had been the head of MI6 instead of a double-0 agent. Through flashbacks we learn that Bond passed up a chance to kill him which resulted in the death of two other agents. So he had a score to settle with his former boss.
France’s script also includes a different plan. Trevelyan still utilizes a satellite which fires a magnetic pulse. But in the original script his target was the World Trade Center instead of London. This version of the script was written before Dalton had left the project. When Brosnan was hired, several rewrites followed.

[Matt]

it is rather shocking that we never got Hopkins in one of the Bond films.

[FilmNerdJamie]

Hopkins got something like $5M to appear in M:I 2. Back when it was territorial and if you did Bond, you couldn't be in Mission: Impossible or vice versa.

Then again he was Nolan's first choice for Alfred. So you can't win them all.

[Matt]

I completely spaced on the fact that Hopkins was in MI2. That makes sense.

[Martin]

Wtf happened here?

Craig was indeed the best Bond since Connery. Mind you, I still haven’t seen Spectre.

[BillyG]

Wtf happened here?

Craig was indeed the best Bond since Connery. Mind you, I still haven’t seen Spectre.

Spectre is a bad movie. It's WAY worse than Quantum.

[Abraham Smashington]

Wtf happened here?

Craig was indeed the best Bond since Connery. Mind you, I still haven’t seen Spectre.

nah. One good movie does not a good Bond make.

[Anderson]

Over a week later, No Time to Die is easily Top 5 worst Bond films. It also features one of the worst songs. Not in quality, but because it doesn't set the mood.

Shitty cinematography, shitty sets (which is like having shitty FX in a Star Wars movie), shitty villain, continued shitty female lead, multiple attempts to force side projects that will never happen and generally wasting Ralph Fiennes (again).

[Abraham Smashington]

BUT BUT BUT DANIEL CRAIG CAN DO NO WRONG

[Matt]

I see it tomorrow night.

[Anderson]

Other spoilers.

  Spoiler: I'll keep it in here. 

Michael Waldron leaving Rick and Morty for Marvel will probably end up being the nerd entertainment steal of the decade. There's a reason why he's getting to rewrite everything, dude is getting a budget finally to get weird.

Doc Strange 2 post rewrites is fucking insane.

Here's a list of what to expect:

Ultron drones
Multiverse Illuminati
Wanda killing Alternate Marvel Heroes and having it shot Evil Dead style
Mordo biting off more than he can chew.
Lovecraftian Shuma Gorath.
Multiple Professor Xs
Film is running super long
Currently has an Army of Darkness style opening to explain away WandaVision in under a minute
Takes place after Spider-Man: No Way Home

[Abraham Smashington]

DUDE.