New Digs

I have a feeling I've asked before but why not, repetition seems to work.



MI6/SIS HQ yesterday on a grotty Sunday. Looking a touch grotty itself.

Skyfall damaged it, Spectre demolished it.

Will NTTD do a classic ignore previous and we'll see SIS HQ magically back as was? Or do we get a brand spanking new shiny SIS HQ, indeed continuing in the 'new digs' locale of St. Barts?

I think pretending Spectre diden't happen is a continuity oversight too far in this case.

silvertoe wrote:

I think pretending Spectre diden't happen is a continuity oversight too far in this case.

Unfortunately.

Yeah, seeing as it's obvious that NTTD has continuity from SPECTRE it's hard to imagine that HQ as pictured will be back.

Oh boy, I keep forgetting that they demolished MI6 HQ in Spectre, it's so dumb that my brain always tries to erase it from my memory. Is there anything actually good about that movie? Besides Seydoux's looks?

Walecs wrote:

Oh boy, I keep forgetting that they demolished MI6 HQ in Spectre, it's so dumb that my brain always tries to erase it from my memory.

Why?

It just feels too unrealistic for them to blow up for good a real life building. It feels like a step too far, as it creates a crack too wide between Bond's fictitious world and our own. In my opinion, of course. I can accept silly things such as invisible cars and impossible action pieces, but demolishing a real building... I don't know, it reminds me more of Roland Emmerich's movies than Bond films.
It also makes no sense in the context of the movie. Blofeld blows up MI6 because... why, exactly? So he can give sense to his metaphorical "Everything you've ever stood for, everything you believed in, a ruin." speech?
I don't know, it feels as if it was an action piece made for sake of doing some spectacle.
But maybe I'm just too harsh because I always tend to lose any interest in the movie at some point during the scenes at Blofeld's lair.

Walecs wrote:

It feels like a step too far, as it creates a crack too wide between Bond's fictitious world and our own.

Boom. As someone who isn't a Brit it's a little jarring. I can't imagine what it's like to step outside from watching Spectre and then see that the building still exists.

Actually scratch that. It looked so ridiculous in the movie that it's very easy to believe it's fake.

Walecs wrote:

It also makes no sense in the context of the movie. Blofeld blows up MI6 because... why, exactly? So he can give sense to his metaphorical "Everything you've ever stood for, everything you believed in, a ruin." speech?

Yeah, like much of how the narrative develops in and across CR, QOS and SP, it's all so contrived. Setting is so important in telling a story, but for the most part it's been so misguided in the last 15 years.

Walecs wrote:

But maybe I'm just too harsh because I always tend to lose any interest in the movie at some point during the scenes at Blofeld's lair.

You're too generous. I lose any interest when the bomb goes off in the PTS.

Walecs wrote:

It also makes no sense in the context of the movie. Blofeld blows up MI6 because... why, exactly? So he can give sense to his metaphorical "Everything you've ever stood for, everything you believed in, a ruin." speech?

Tanner explains early in the film that the building was already rigged to be demolished "in a week", because it was cheaper to knock it down than renovate it. Blofeld simply pressed the switch earlier than it was supposed to. Funnily, enough time has passed that you could actually present the real SIS building in NTTD as having just been rebuilt.

I don't mind real life locations being used in that fashion like in SP. After all, Piz Gloria got blown up at the end of OHMSS and it still stands today. The world of James Bond is essentially its own thing.

I think it's different with the likes of Piz Gloria... It's isolated even within Switzerland (never mind the world) and requires much effort to get there. Vauxhall Cross HQ is something that can be seen daily.

That's made me think ... pre-Vauxhall Cross/Brozzer era, was the location of 'HQ' in the movies pure speculation on EON's part?

Fleming always described it as “a building near Regent’s Park” but EON always went with shots of Whitehall as a shorthand.

Ah yes ... red double-decker bus going down the road, camera pans across to the 'Universal Exports' sign.

I miss the proper usage of Universal Exports or UNIVEX. Maybe one day we might even get a Transworld Consortium name drop.

hegottheboot wrote:

Maybe one day we might even get a Transworld Consortium name drop.

Yeah. Would have been a nice little nod in DAD or SF... though we did get Universal Exports in the former.