Best Villain Lairs From The Brosnan & Craig Eras
Colonel Shatner
Chavtastic Bristol, BritainPosts: 597MI6 Agent
The bad guy abodes and facilities from the more bygone era of the Connery, Moore, etc, films are bit done to death in fan discussion (even if Atlantis and Piz Gloria still look magnificent many decades later), we can shift the focus of Bond film locations in more recent decades. Here are my favourite bad guy lairs continuing the legacy of Ken Adam:
- Janus Cuban Radio Dish Facility - A cavernous command and control facility that had its roots in the Cold War but also had tons of gadgets, furnishings, and computer equipment heavily hinting at the New Millennium soon to come. Topside is equally impressive mixing a real life location (a radio telescope) and model work.
- Safin's Island - A really creepy and atmospheric throwback (and what can go wrong with a rocky ocean island locale?) with massive endless concrete chambers and passages bearing the deep scars of WW2 & the Cold War, a collapsed submarine pen, a high tech doomsday laboratory, and cryptic living spaces (matching a cryptic villain).
- Stealth Boat - A mobile paramilitary lair that will be hard to top, with a missile launch rig, unique sea drill, an armoury capable of destroying a small navy or air force, and a broad command deck. But the action packed finale onboard was kinda confused and outstayed its welcome.
- Crater Base - One of SPECTRE's main global nerve centres disguised as a science space observatory in the Sahara desert, with the meteor crater walls adding an extra layer of defence and seclusion, complete with all the trappings of a crimelord who had access to the latest technology and unlimited resources (with a luxury villa and pool, a sprawling spy operations centre, planetarium, support hangars, a clinical torture chamber, and a cliff side helipad). Self-destructed a bit too easily.
- Ice Palace - Overly gaudy and kitsch, so matched the general tone and trajectory of Die Another Day. The palace itself was ultimately really a spectacular guest and party venue for a rogue North Korean general posing as an English industrialist playboy, with the domed jungle section connected at its rear being Grave's real compound for doing villain stuff (well utilising the RL Eden Project and hopefully we can see it being used again).
Honorable mentions - Silva's Island (vaguely creepy high tech den hidden in ruins, but we didn't see enough of it or stayed long enough), Janus Soviet Armoured Train (again a bit underused and it had muddled TARDIS like dimensions), Maiden's Tower (it had some interesting gothic or baroque decor, matching the vibes of Elektra King).
'Alright guard, begin the unnecessarily slow moving dipping mechanism...'
Comments
I'm quite fond of the crater base: it's not as eye-catching design-wise as many of the others, but somehow it does evoke reading a Fleming book more for me. It's got a sort of stark, simple 50s modernism to it. I'm very fond of Silva's island too, and I like how both of those bases have a backstory to them: in fact the backstory of Silva's island and how he made everyone leave is really more about establishing his character and powers more than it is about the base itself.
I like the idea of the Ice Palace, but it just ends up looking a bit like blue plastic. And oddly small-seeming inside too.
Although speaking of TARDIS-like dimensions, I think the Stealth Boat is another candidate! 😄 I get especially confused by the central area where the missile is, because apparently it's open below (where Bond and Wai Lin fall into the sea at the end) and yet no one sees or hears them drive a little motorboat under there when they arrive?
Great point about the Stealth Boat! I've never managed to get my head around the dimensions of it.
I broadly agree with Shatner's list, but I would rank the ice palace higher. The movie wasn't good, but the lair was great.
I do like the tasteful late 50s/early 60s American inspired architecture for Blofeld's private residency (based on a real N. African estate) and the interconnected umbilical passage ways for the main SPECTRE computer command centre (I always wondered where the SPECTRE technicians were living, though I headcanon they were on temporary shifts and flown to the remote complex on a ex-Soviet troop transport plane, and later on the control room was mostly empty when it blew up; protecting SPECTRE's satellite uplink to their Nine Eyes network).
Carver's stealth boat seemed a little too easy to infiltrate, but their main chamber area had bomb bay type blast doors to protect the sea drill and the maintenance/access gantry ways had CCTV cameras (the Carver mook on duty was asleep instead of watching them).
CR and QOS don't really have one (except for the desert hotel but that's more like Medrano's lair, not Greenes).
So I will rank the remaining 7:
1 - The Poison Garden (NTTD) - The main reason why NTTD ranks as high as it does for me. The lair, island, everything was brilliant here. My only criticism is that they should have made the actual poison garden bigger, much bigger.
2 - Cuban Satelite Dish (GE) - Love this, and the sequences here are my favourite moments of GE. It's a pity that the real-life location of this is no longer there.
3 - Ice Palace (DAD) - One of the best things about DAD. Some people hate it and think it's too cartoony, but I'm personally all for this Ice palace lair as it's whimsical and memorable.
4 - Maiden's Tower (TWINE) - It was good, but not enough time spent there.
5 - Crater Base (SP) - Again, pretty good. One of the stronger things about an otherwise weaker bond film IMO.
6 - Silva's Island (SF) - Not enough screen time, otherwise it's eerie and cool.
7 - Stealth Boat (TND) - The idea is good, but it's a moving vehicle and so technically hard to rank among non-mobile locations. And this is coming from someone who loves boats. The interior I find to be dull.
1 - Moore, 2 - Dalton, 3 - Craig, 4 - Connery, 5 - Brosnan, 6 - Lazenby