THE Ending
NO TIME TO DIE’S SHOCK FINALE
AS DANIEL CRAIG’S swan song hurtles towards its finale, 007 seems, as ever, about to triumph. But then… well. Rami Malek’s Safin infects him with nanobots and, facing eternal misery thanks to the virus leaving Bond unable to touch his wife and child ever again, he accepts his fate, going out in a hail of missiles. Here, Team Empire thrash out 2021’s most heart-stopping cinematic conclusion.
Beth Webb (Contributing Editor): I’d been pretty tired of the franchise, so the fact that it had this really emotional pay-off was really rewarding. I like Bond at his most vulnerable anyway. I liked him in Casino Royale, naked and bound to a chair. Daniel Craig has continued with that vulnerability throughout, and with this, he wasn’t a Bond that was afraid to die. Chris Hewitt (Executive Editor): It’s bullshit! You can’t kill Bond.
John Nugent (News Editor): Counterpoint: yes you can. There are characteristics that are absolutely integral to the character. Including invulnerability. Austin Powers made jokes about the fact that bullets seem to fly off him. So it does feel weirdly out of character, but that for me was what was so exciting. Because it did feel like a swing. To do something so different and unprecedented takes some real balls.
Ben Travis (Deputy Online Editor): Yes, you had that moment when you realised that he wasn’t going to get out of it.
Sophie Butcher (Social Media Editor):
Yeah, “Oh — they are killing him!” It wasn’t super-emotional for me, but I was pleasantly surprised. I liked that they wrapped it up.
Beth: There were stronger emotional stakes, and with the introduction of the daughter, he had something to live for now — and also something to die for, other than Queen and country. And it’s a franchise that can benefit from being burnt down and built back up again.
Chris: I’m such a dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist, it took me a long time to get my head around the idea that they were going to kill James Bond, which I just think is a big no-no. The character’s been commendably modernised over the past few years, but this is a step too far. I just think he’s one of the mythic heroes you don’t kill. For me, he’s a great untouchable.
Alex Godfrey (Acting Features Editor): People like doing mythic wrap-ups, though. Christopher Nolan didn’t quite kill Batman, but he retired him and replaced him after three films.
Ben: I think that’s part of what makes the myth.
The more different iterations of stories you have, the more it becomes a mythology. So for me it adds to the mythology of Bond, that we had a Bond that began and definitively ended.
John: It doesn’t pass the Alan Partridge test. I could definitely hear Alan saying, “Stop getting Bond wrong!” when it happened. But I don’t subscribe to the idea that heroes should be immortal or invulnerable. Kill them all. It’s an old-fashioned idea that there’s an invulnerability to heroes. A modern way of thinking is that people have flaws and weaknesses and... everyone dies. Facing mortality is very human.
Chris: Well, this ending is clearly inspired by what they did with Wolverine in Logan. You could even argue that it’s inspired by what happened with Tony Stark in Avengers: Endgame. And I’ve been thinking about why this movie didn’t move me like that did.
Alex: Because you’re cold-blooded and have no heart.
Chris: I’m cold-blooded, I don’t have a heart, and obviously I work for SPECTRE so I’m delighted to see James Bond being killed. But I didn’t grow up with the idea of James Bond being a character to get emotionally tethered to. He was a cool guy going around the world doing cool things with cool gadgets and having cool relationships with cool ladies. He never learned anything at the end of each movie. And then along comes Craig going, “No, you have to love this character.” But I still don’t feel I know that character emotionally. So at the end, when the movie’s desperately saying to you, “Feel! Cry! Because James Bond’s going to die!”, it left me a little bit cold. Maybe that’s on me.
Beth: I cried. It played for your heart. Him having to say goodbye to the daughter he just realised he had, they wanted to strum at your heart-strings.
Alex: Is it immediately undermined by the credits then saying, “James Bond will return”?
Ben: It’s always gonna come back anyway, so fuck it, why not? There will clearly be more James Bond movies. Kill him! We know he’s going to be back. So we get that closure — they’ve killed James Bond. Good — do something radical with it. Another reboot was never in question.
Sophie: It gives a cleaner slate to the next person.
Alex: I was kind of shocked. And then you’re left sitting there when the film ends, going, “James Bond just died.”
Beth: It’s a weird thing to say out loud. James Bond died. And very much died.