SPECTRE leaked documents -- MAJOR SPOILERS

I thought it would be best to start a separate thread and keep the massive spoilers out of the others. Read at your own risk, friends.

EDIT: I removed the link, just in case. I'm sure the documents can be found rather easily if you do some digging.

Look, Mendes has made elements that I thought wouldn't work work before (Bond holding M's dying body, for one), so I'm not writing off the film. But there's stuff there that's pretty questionable. I'm not sure how they could possibly make that enormous conspiracy hold water, particularly if Blofeld's motivation is what it appears to be (note that one of the comments seems to be that Blofeld's motivations need to have larger scope than they do in that draft; let's hope they remedied that).

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It's from Sony's ongoing back-and-forth with EON about the shape of the screenplay. Some of it seems to refer to an early draft, some of it seems to refer to later drafts (note the name changes for some of the characters). I'd wager the finished draft isn't far off, at least in terms of the big stuff.

There's also bits not here (but reported by CNN) from email exchanges fighting over SPECTRE's cast due to the projected budget. It seems that Ejiofor was to have Scott's role, but he cost too much money.

If you've been following the Sony leaks, then you know that Sony's employees' grasp of the English language is questionable. To say the least.

I began to read it...then hissed like hot water was just thrown on me....

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I agree there's plenty that's interesting and promising there (vibrant locales, intriguing setpieces), but it's overshadowed a bit by the curious way in which it seems this film will be tying all three of the preceding films into one giant megastory. I'm still trying to get my head around that.

About

Spoiler:

I remember this was one of the many possible endings of QOS before they settled with just Bond assuring "I never left".

My thoughts after reading through it a couple times...

• The elephant in the room is obviously the plot that SPECTRE was secretly behind the events of all the previous films, and that it was started by Oberhauser because his father preferred Bond over his own son. I don't know...it seems like it's a pretty huge stretch to connect the dots to an overall story that was (probably) never conceptualized that way in the first place. I prefer the notion that SKYFALL was a "soft reboot" and just forgoes CR and QOS all together. And then there's the element of Oberhauser's daddy issues and his jealousy of Bond, which could very easily turn into a trainwreck. However, as Harms pointed out, there were things in SKYFALL that sounded terrible on paper, but Mendes was able to somehow pull-off tactfully and intelligently.
  
• Tanner committing suicide is probably the most "WTF?" part of this whole thing. I wonder what that's all about.
  
• Very happy that Felix is back, at least in these notes. I hope they were able to retain his character and somehow court Jeffery Wright back for this film, because I always thought he was cool as Felix.
  
• Not sure what to think of the "smart blood" thing. Can MI6 track Bond through his blood?
  
• Sounds like Mr. White starts talking shit to Bond again. I assume they're going to play up the "slippery, annoying bad guy who always gets away" angle with him, so it should be a nice payoff when he finally bites the dust.
  
• It appears Q is in the field again, possibly a reference to LTK. They had good banter in SKYFALL, so this should be fun the second time around. We also get a train fight with a henchman, an exploding watch, a scene in a spa and some kind of solar machine. It would definitely appear that they want to continue with the homages in this one.
  
• I'm still not clear on the Bond girl roles. Which one is good and which one is bad? In one photo, they are referred to as Charlotte and Kaja, and it seems Bond kills Charlotte for some reason.
  
• Everything pointed out by the person writing in ALL CAPS is pretty spot-on, I think (especially the bits about increasing the stakes and SPECTRE needing to exist for a larger purpose than just to destroy Bond and framing him for a murder). I wonder who wrote that analysis?
  
• The part about the photograph and octopus mural sounds really neat. Can't wait to see that.
  
• I like the idea of Bond tossing his gun aside and "quitting" the service. Should be interesting seeing the film end on an uncertain note, sort of like the FRWL novel.
  

Overall, I think everything sounds pretty good. There does appear to be quite a lot going on (I suppose I can see why they wanted two films instead of one) and the parts about Blofeld's motivation could easily come off as too melodramatic if not handled correctly...but, after SKYFALL, I trust in Mendes' guidance and I think they'll end up doing the right things. Craig did, after all, say that he think they have a better script this time around than they did with SKYFALL.

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Here is the CNN article that Harms was referencing.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/10/technology/security/bond-movie-budget/index.html?source=zacks

A few new things mentioned...
- lesbian bad lady
- dramatic finale in the rain
- Andrew Scott's character is named "C". This was supposed to be Ejiofor's role.
- budget is currently at $300+ million, and MGM wants it closer to $250 million
- MGM president is trying to dramatically cut costs, but Babs will not compromise
- they have a huge deal with Heineken and are getting paid to film in Mexico

Wasn't SKYFALL the most successful film in UK history? Curious that MGM wouldn't have more faith in these guys after that.

The idea of making SPECTRE a personal thing gives me pause, but then again what makes that organization different from other villains is that they did have an impact on Bond personally. I guess they didn't want to just simply repeat the whole thing with Tracy again, so they're looking for a new angle that still makes SPECTRE a personal thing for Bond. That's fine with me, I just hope they pull it off.

dr. strangelove wrote:

[*]Not sure what to think of the "smart blood" thing. Can MI6 track Bond through his blood?
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I'm guessing it's something in Bond's blood that can measure his physical state and make a reading, a bit like that those armbands they use to check your blood pressure, and fitness trackers. Could be in his watch.

dr. strangelove wrote:

[*]I like the idea of Bond tossing his gun aside and "quitting" the service. Should be interesting seeing the film end on an uncertain note, sort of like the FRWL novel.

[/list]

[*]

It's very MARATHON MAN. Hope it's not another cue for the gunbarrel though - would like it if they had the title theme kick in again, as with GOLDFINGER, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER etc. Especially if it's a ballad. OHMSS and QUANTUM OF SOLACE  showed us the Bond theme is inappropriate for sombre codas.

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dr. strangelove wrote:

EDIT: I removed the link, just in case. I'm sure the documents can be found rather easily if you do some digging.

Yep, just tried and it popped up...but I'm not reading it.

I removed the link from the generic SPECTRE thread, but it's still quoted in bitchcraft's reply.

Harmsway wrote:

I removed the link from the generic SPECTRE thread, but it's still quoted in bitchcraft's reply.

Fixed.

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Harmsway wrote:

Though it does fill us in a bit on what role Mexico plays in the story: a PTS set during the Day of the Dead.

Is it specified somewhere that the Mexico sequence is the PTS? I must have just overlooked that note.

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Harmsway wrote:

The pages mentioning Kaja as one of the Bond girl would seem to be from the early draft with the Scandinavian girl. I would wager that the information in those pages is the most unreliable, when it was still in its early stages (Felix and the CIA was in the draft at that point, but was apparently excised later, since Wright is apparently not involved in SPECTRE). So the stuff with Tanner might be off the mark.

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I realize that the Tanner-betrayal thing bugs me the most out of all of it. I think everyone has grown tired of that angle, quite frankly. Plus, I think it would be more effective to show that SPECTRE is working towards world domination through various means. There isn't as much tension when the film is saying "Surprise! We already control the world and have informants everywhere". So, I hope that's a plot point that doesn't make the final cut.

Gah! I want to read it, but I don't want to read it!

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Blofeld's motives seem so forced, and ... uhh ... lame. And after all this time, we're now seeing that Quantum was a part of SPECTRE? I don't know that we've earned that payoff; that it was all Ernst Fuckin' Stavro Blofeld's SPECTRE's behind this whole time. It's all very Lost-esque in the sense that it seems like they're making things up as they go.

It seems like things are really going to hell here. Tanner offs himself, Blofeld dies (one-and-done Blofeld? All right ...) and Bond quits at the end — the stakes are enormous. But where does the franchise goes after this?