People Think No Time To Die Plot Was Changed Because Of Pandemic

***WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS***

The latest James Bond film No Time To Die was finally released last week, after being continually pushed back because of Covid-19.

But after feasting their eyes on the long-awaited movie, some viewers reckon the plot itself may have been affected by the pandemic.

At 163 minutes, the film is the longest Bond movie ever, and yet, lots of people think certain aspects of the storyline were conspicuously undercooked.

Universal Pictures

In a James Bond thread on Reddit, one user wrote: "This might be me being a complete conspiracy theorist, but does anyone else get the feeling that Safin's motivation for wanting to kill millions was deliberately cut because it hit too close to home with the pandemic?

"I've only watched it once, but I genuinely don't think he said why he wanted to release the nanobot plague on the world.

"I kept expecting him to start talking about overpopulation or something, but it never came."

Another wrote: "I think Heracles was originally a virus. For these reasons:

1. They only say 'nanobots' three times in the film, each time it's off-screen. This is typical of ADR.
2. These films tend to tackle the zeitgeist -- e.g. Andrew Scott's character's surveillance plan in Spectre. I think CRISPR bioweapons are increasingly in the public consciousness.
3. Are they meant to be producing nanobots in that pit of acid with the light rods in it? Wouldn't it be more like a factory production line?
4. A virus which can target genes makes much more sense than a robot which can. If the robots can last your whole life, how are they powered? How do the robots replicate? How do they sample your DNA? A bioengineered virus makes more sense."

A third speculated: "It could've been too expensive to reshoot that much of the movie since so much of it involved the nanobot plan.

"They just had to make do with what they had and cut any part that included a man trying to justify the deaths of millions at the hands of plague."

Universal Pictures

Some interesting theories, I'm sure you'll agree. However, director Cary Fukunaga said back in April last year that he wouldn't be tinkering with the final cut, despite the release date being successively delayed.

Asked on Instagram whether he'd be 'trimming and polishing' the film, he replied: "Some people have asked me this and although more time would have been lovely, we had to put our pencils down when we finished our post-production window, which was thankfully before Covid shut everything else down.

"Although Bond is a big movie, we still have to weigh cost with value.

"And like anything, you could tinker endlessly. The movie is great as it is, hope yall will feel the same too when it comes out."

So unless there was a U-turn since last year, it seems the theories are unfounded.

Topics: TV and Film, James Bond

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey