SPECTRE: Predictions and Speculation (SPOILER FREE ZONE)

To be fair, there is very little about the post-Connery era I take all that seriously. Dalton's first movie (LTK is a terrible distortion of what Bond should aspire to imho). I enjoyed Goldeneye. The rest of the Brosnan era is a travesty. QoS was perhaps the most intellectually insulting Bond movie ever made.

There are bits of the Moore era I find amusing, but only in a juvenile Carry On way. I certainly can't sit through an entire film from his era.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Makeshift Python wrote:

I find it pretty incredible how much the film has been embraced in such a way despite being so different from the rest of the market. Clearly they got something that really connected with audiences.

Skyfall breaks all the rules. The protagonists are middle-aged and over for starters, and it features a James Bond who's betrayed and broken by his own side simply as a matter of routine. I find it absorbing, adult and completely different from any other Bond film, despite its lip service to the series' conventions. However, I've no idea why that connected with a new audience.

On that note, I found this forum's lack of interest in Skyfall's multi-layered story to be disappointing. Though that might be expected from a forum where some take the Brosnan era seriously, in the end our implosion was caused by just one member's mental illness. A sore that was allowed to fester.

I found it more disappointing that many Bond fans complained about the plot holes in Skyfall, without noticing the many positives, like the ones you mentioned above.

Which member had a mental illness...?

Check your PMs, Jetset.

Salomé wrote:

To be fair, there is very little about the post-Connery era I take all that seriously. Dalton's first movie (LTK is a terrible distortion of what Bond should aspire to imho). I enjoyed Goldeneye. The rest of the Brosnan era is a travesty. QoS was perhaps the most intellectually insulting Bond movie ever made.

Can any Bond be taken seriously? They are all fantasy, juvenile, childish even. That's the fun about it for me as an adult, I get an adventure that's appealing to the child in me. But I don't have to hand in my brains entirely, at least not with the better ones. SF was the most serious with its story, true. But overall still a work of adult fantasy where we get a Western dressing up as Bond film.

Makeshift Python wrote:

Whatever they do, I'm really hoping they finally use Blofeld's Garden of Death. I think Mendes has what it takes to pull that off.

I think the Garden of Death has a few problems with it that any production would need to overcome.

First, it's very much set in Japanese culture, and it very much addresses aspects of it that may alienate Western audiences - particularly the idea that suicide is considered an honourable means of redeeming oneself of their shame. If the film got that right, it would be taken as horrifying; if the film got it wrong, then it could be accused of being insensitive or exploitative. None of those outcomes bode well.

Still, I think the Garden of Death might work as a physical location. Get rid of its cultural context, and instead model it as a courtyard to a castle filled with venomous creatures and plants commonly associated with death. Better yet, synthesise it with Dr. No's endurance course so that when Bond infiltrates it, it's a physical challenge.

I would also be inclined to move it away from Japan entirely, and instead place it somewhere like Nepal. The original Garden works because it plays on the idea that Blofeld represents such a great evil that Bond must pursue him to the ends of the earth (which is what I think QOS was aiming for, but could not have missed more completely if it tried). I don't think Japan fits that bill anymore. The Garden needs that ethereal, otherworldly quality to it, and Fleming was really trying to ground it in Japanese culture and architecture. So I think a Himalayan nation would work well because the cultures are esoteric without being alienating - you catch a glimpse of it, and even though you don't understand it, you find yourself drawn deeper into the mystery of it. And there is the ends-of-the-earth element to it as well; beyond there is the world's tallest mountain range, then the Tibetian Plateau, the Gobi Desert, then steppes through Mongolia and eastern Russia, and finally Siberia. It's the least-densely populated area on the face of the earth.

A to-the-point title, a returning director who turned in one of the series' best entries to date (which was pleasingly also its most financially successful), a superb cast and an Aston that confirms Clarkson's summation that they are 'basically pornography' ... SPECTRE looks extremely promising.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

A to-the-point title, a returning director who turned in one of the series' best entries to date (which was pleasingly also its most financially successful), a superb cast and an Aston that confirms Clarkson's summation that they are 'basically pornography' ... SPECTRE looks extremely promising.

All it needs now is a good theme and I hope it's not that Sam Smith bloke although he's already yearning for it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/30327733

Blunt Instrument wrote:

A to-the-point title, a returning director who turned in one of the series' best entries to date (which was pleasingly also its most financially successful), a superb cast and an Aston that confirms Clarkson's summation that they are 'basically pornography' ... SPECTRE looks extremely promising.

Boom.



Agreed.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Makeshift Python wrote:

I find it pretty incredible how much the film has been embraced in such a way despite being so different from the rest of the market. Clearly they got something that really connected with audiences.

Skyfall breaks all the rules. The protagonists are middle-aged and over for starters, and it features a James Bond who's betrayed and broken by his own side simply as a matter of routine. I find it absorbing, adult and completely different from any other Bond film, despite its lip service to the series' conventions. However, I've no idea why that connected with a new audience.

I liked that there isn't anything to cheer about at the end. Every character in the film completely failed at what they were trying to do. Bond couldn't even save his own boss's life.

With CASINO ROYALE, Bond came out on top and dispatched White. At the end of QUANTUM, he found Vesper's lover and that situation was handled (supposedly "found solace", although Forster & Co. did a shit job of convincing us). At the end of SKYFALL, London's been attacked, Bond barely stopped the villain and his boss was dead.

It was an interesting way of doing a Bond film. And, more than ROYALE and QUANTUM combined, it brought a very human element to James Bond--a character that had been transformed into a comic hero since 1995. On top of all of that, it was entertaining. I've seen it quite a few times now and never get bored of it. Everything (from the cast, to the music, to the camerawork, to the story) just works.

Hilly KCMG wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

A to-the-point title, a returning director who turned in one of the series' best entries to date (which was pleasingly also its most financially successful), a superb cast and an Aston that confirms Clarkson's summation that they are 'basically pornography' ... SPECTRE looks extremely promising.

Boom.



Agreed.

Time to get The Stig in the driver's seat with a John Barry Bond album in the CD player.

I'm really hoping that if SPECTRE returns, then everything is all planned out - even if we only see a glimmer of it. To my mind, that was the problem with Quantum: they were really just making it up as they went. We know that they were high-powered businessmen and women with political connections, but that was the extent of it. Anything else was just thrown in to fit the demands of the script.

When Fleming created SPECTRE, there was a definite structure to it, and I think that's what the film needs as it will create the sense the they exist beyond what we see in the film. But I'm curious to see how they handle it, since Craig has said Mike Myers ruined the traditional concept for them.

Control wrote:

I liked that there isn't anything to cheer about at the end. Every character in the film completely failed at what they were trying to do. Bond couldn't even save his own boss's life.

At the end of SKYFALL, London's been attacked, Bond barely stopped the villain and his boss was dead.

I like to think of it as Bond accomplishing his ultimate goal (taking out Silva), but that it came with a price. Bond and M knew the risk, but thought it was worth it just to put an end to the chaos that Silva was bringing to London. M died, but it wasn't for nothing and I liked that when she died she accepted it, having no regrets and telling Bond she was right about him. Despite the loss, it's what helps rejuvenate Bond at the end when entering the new MI6 office. It's a bittersweet kind of victory, something I'm not surprised a lot of Bond fans elsewhere don't seem to understand or appreciate.

Control wrote:

I liked that there isn't anything to cheer about at the end.

Don't know about that. I came away with the feeling that MI6's losses had been high, but the future was in good hands.

Δ

Largo's Shark wrote:

Erica Ambler wrote:

Control wrote:

I liked that there isn't anything to cheer about at the end.

Don't know about that. I came away with the feeling that MI6's losses had been high, but the future was in good hands.

One of SKYFALL's great masterstrokes is how it leaves you on a high that betters CR's epilogue, despite Bond failing his mission to protect M.

It demonstrates the point of epilogues beautifully. The ending is true to the story - M must die - but then there's the very classical coda of the king is dead long live the king. (Well, all right, Queen is dead.) Skyfall is the best Bond screenplay, though perhaps one has to be a writer to see that.

There's certainly a heightened emotional resonance ... sure we've seen plenty of Bond's allies get killed but rarely (if ever) any of the 'backroom staff', let alone his boss. And 007 moved to tears as a result (for only the second time since the end of OHMSS, if memory serves) as the agent 'takes a back seat' to the human being for a moment only adds to that.

Then in short order we have Bond surveying a safe-again London, Moneypenny re-established, Fiennes established as the new 'M' in the Dr No-echoing office, the theme and the gunbarrel. Superb ... I certainly left the cinema 'buoyed up'.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

There's certainly a heightened emotional resonance ... sure we've seen plenty of Bond's allies get killed but rarely (if ever) any of the 'backroom staff', let alone his boss. And 007 moved to tears as a result (for only the second time since the end of OHMSS, if memory serves) as the agent 'takes a back seat' to the human being for a moment only adds to that.

Heightened is the word. M was the nearest thing to a mother Bond had yet betrayed both him and Silva even if it was for the greater good. Bitter sweet, indeed.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Then in short order we have Bond surveying a safe-again London, Moneypenny re-established, Fiennes established as the new 'M' in the Dr No-echoing office, the theme and the gunbarrel. Superb ... I certainly left the cinema 'buoyed up'.    

Plus the British bulldog, of course. The passing of the baton.

Brilliant stuff.

And then there's painting - when Bond and Q are in the galley, they're observing a painting of an old ship being salvaged, but when Bond meets M in his office, the painting is of a ship (I'm not sure if it's the same one) that is not only seaworthy, but in all its glory.

Again, notice that everyone at the press conference except for Waltz is introduced by both character name and professional name. They're being coy about who Waltz is playing. Why? I'm guessing they've got an unnecessary trick up their sleeve, but we'll have to wait and see. A lot of people are speculating that Waltz' character takes on the Blofeld persona after starting off playing a different character. Could have stolen someone else's identity?

I'm leery of one of the women being a red-herring. First instinct tells me Bellucci should be a villainess in her own right; a rival of Blofeld, or the wife of Blofeld. But what if Madeline Swan is in some way part of the villain's plot?

I just think we've seen too much lately of the female characters turning against Bond...whether it's Elektra turning out to be the one who manipulated Renard, or Miranda Frost being the one who betrayed 007, or Vesper being a double agent....maybe it's time to move on from that twist for a while.

I'd prefer a straight up storyline where Bond is a one-woman-man in this movie (with Lea Seydoux) and has to topple Blofeld and Lucia. But I suspect it's going to be more complicated than that.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

But I suspect it's going to be more complicated than that.

Yep, here is Mr. Complicated himself.

Possibly more Mr. Complication than Mr. Complicated. He doesn't look very conflicted.

Bautista, Seydoux and Waltz looked like the only excited actors at the press conference.

The others looked like they didn't want to be bothered to get out of bed that day.

There's been a lot of talk that SPECTRE will be some kind of TWINE or OHMSS remake, and I honestly don't see it. Eon have repeatedly said that they have no interest in remaking films. And Sam Mendes has repeatedly said that he was interested in the film for the direction it was going; I honestly doubt he would be content with a straight remake. I think the stuff Ambler and Blunt Instrument have been discussing above are very much the result of Mendes' influence, so simply remaking a film seems like a major step down from that.

FYI I haven't said that it's gonna be a TWINE or OHMSS remake.

Other boards have been bringing up the remake thing, which is what I'm assuming PM is referencing.