How to fix SPECTRE - a discussion
Number24
NorwayPosts: 23,697MI6 Agent
To start what i hope will be a good discussion I post this video:
Number24
NorwayPosts: 23,697MI6 Agent
To start what i hope will be a good discussion I post this video:
Comments
Interesting.
I liked that he recognised and identified how to solve the "beyond the grave" mission which doesn't fit the film at all, focusing more on the destabilising of MI6 by an upstart international surveillance authority, covertly SPECTRE. Not giving Bond a clear mission is one of the film's failures.
From there Ryan repeats himself a lot. He rather skips over the brother-Blofeld issue, but I take that as an indication he considers it redundant if we have point (1) above. Which we would.
His point about how Bond & Madeleine meet is interesting as I had not considered their frostiness an issue. Bond and Tracy was def frosty. So too, Vesper. I agree though that the torture scene and the opportunity for Madeleine to save 007 is wasted.
Disappointing he doesn't address the completely unnecessary London based ending which, if his revisions about 9 Lives are taken, becomes superfluous. He makes s good point about Bond disposing of his gun, but I always thought he did it because he saw Madeleine on London Bridge and she thus influenced his decision. However, all this could have been played out in the SPECTRE base with SAS commandos battling SPECTRE dudes around them.
Overall, it is a well thought out video and I enjoyed listening while I watched the snooker.
I think he's right about many things. He doesn't address "brothergate" and the tension free Rome car chase as much as he should. My suggestion is cutting the foster brother thing completely or reverse it. Instead of being known as Oberhauser and revealing with great dram that he's BLOFELD ( a name that means nothing to bond at the time and little to many modern audiences they could've used the name Blofeld from the start and let him reveal that he's Oberhauser to Bond. That would mean something to Bond. We would also have avoided the stupid "I'm not Blofeld" silliness from Waltz in interviews.
The car chase? I say cut out Moneypenny, have more people and other cars on the streets and cut/film it in a more exciting way.
He doesn't actually reveal the Blofeld name with great drama though, does he? He just says it.
I guess one issue with the Oberhauser thing is that Bond doesn't actually care: he doesn't hold a grudge about his mentor being killed or have any strong feelings at all really that we see about the Oberhausers. Not caring is kind of in character for CraigBond, but should he care a little more? Fleming's Bond does in the same situation in Octopussy. Would that help the film if he did hate Blofeld more for what he had done? Or would it bog it down even more in motivations?
It's such an odd film, I can't actually tell what's wrong with it. There's little things, like the 'author of all your pain' stuff which feels unconvincing, but those aren't the reason why the film falls apart a bit.
But if you wanted to remove the issue of the foster brother thing feeling a bit trite, you could have it that Franz actually is dead, but Blofeld (who is a different person), having become interested in Bond after he has foiled his previous schemes, has discovered the story and wants to torment Bond with it, and leaves hints that Franz is actually alive to make Bond come after him- in this version Bond does actually care and bears a grudge.
I think the movie tries to make a big thing of Oberhauser saying he's Blofeld, not the character. I think your solution is too complicated.
You are right @emtiem in that the film falls apart for numerous reasons, and as Ryan says, probably too many to list. He's done a conservative job by focussing on only 3 main issues, but the film struggles with narrative pacing - itself a problem of the convoluted plotting - and IMO scenic pacing. The SPECTRE meet in Rome for instance is so long winded and dull, all those entries for all those people, the stupid Mickey Mouse joke, the cuckoo jibe, it needs to be snappier. Sam Mendes directs SPECTRE as if he's making James Bond's Road to Perdition and that simply isn't James Bond.
When Ryan addresses Blofeld, he really ought to drop in something about the brother-Bond issue. The reason is it doesn't work is as you say: why doesn't Bond care enough about this? and why does Blofeld care so much?
I also intensely dislike the scene at the London restaurant where M insists they don't help Bond in his hour of need - oh, come on, can you imagine Dame Judi or Battleship Bernard putting up with that? Send in the troops! M had certainly changed his tune by No TIme To Die, to the point he nuked his best agent !!!
What annoys me about SPECTRE is that in essence it should be the most straightforward movie of CraigBond's tenure. It has all the makings of a traditional OO7 film - big villain, big set piece hideout, henchman, good photography, globe trotting, decent basic plot, fights, car chases, interesting romantic motivations - and yet, and yet, it just doesn't come out right. I mean killing the henchman half way through is just bizarre and the less said about the ludicrous London coda the better...
Well he’s Blofeld: he is a big thing by his nature. In your version the movie would have made a big thing of him too.
the funny thing is on paper I think the way they handled Blofeld actually looks quite good. The reason he is Bond’s nemesis in the books is because he killed someone Bond cared for: Tracy. So here they’ve made it so he killed someone else close to Bond- his mentor. And they’ve combined that with the story from Octopussy about Bond tracking down Oberhauser’s killer; it’s actually quite a clever bit of adaptation from Fleming. It just doesn’t quite taste right to the audience once you give them that ‘brother’ line, it’s too much to swallow.
Yes, but the movie tries to make a big revelation out of him being Blofeld. Most of the audience knew already.
It’s just not played that way. There’s no big dramatic reveal, music cresendo; no big closeup on his face as he turns to camera; it’s not played for drama. It’s an ‘aha!’ moment at most because, as you say, the audience have been made to expect it. Those who have never heard of Blofeld won’t even notice because it’s not played as anything dramatic. He just gives his new name and Bond scoffs at it.
Maybe it's just me remembering it wrong. I think the fosterbrother thing was a bit silly anyway.
With SPECTRE I think you have to start with this: Eon worked for years to get back the rights to Blofeld and the SPECTRE organization (as they should have done). But it seems like they didn’t have a plan about what they wanted to do with these elements from a narrative standpoint, especially after SKYFALL moved away from Quantum as a quasi-SPECTRE group. The massive success of SKYFALL didn’t just raise the financial stakes for the franchise, which introduced new complications, but it really cemented the “personal” storyline as an essence of the Craig era. Imagine 007 being freed from these constraints. We could have had SPECTRE as Bond on a mission. The scriptwriters wouldn’t have to contort themselves into so many awkward positions.
Already at the time I thought that Blofeld and SPECTRE should wait until the next bond actor when they could slowly build up the character and his organisation over several movies.
As I say though, the personal angle in this film is adapted from Fleming, and Blofeld is the one villain who is a personal white whale to Bond, in the books and films.
Also: what is so ‘personal’ about Skyfall? He gets sent on a mission in that and has no connection to the bad guy he becomes personally entwined and emotionally involved in it as the film continues… what’s wrong with that? That’s a perfectly valid way of making a film as I see it. He doesn’t even fall in love in it, as he does in most films/novels! 😁
I can see the argument for seeding him over several films, but also I think they should always be throwing everything they have at the film they’re making at the time. Spectre looked to be Craig’s last film at the time, there’s not always something to be said for deferred pleasure. If they had waited in that fashion it would now have been over ten years and we still wouldn’t have had a new Blofeld.
Oh here's one instant fix which I think would have improved it immeasurably (and it wasn't my idea but I absolutely love it, I think maybe Quentin Quigley on here came up with it..?) : get Helen McCrory back from the last film to play C.
She would have been an amazing baddie (yes I know she was a minister and he was civil service but I'm sure it could be fudged), so much better than Scott, and a little bonus would have been that you'd have seen Blofeld's fingers getting into the British government from the previous film.
I think that's a really interesting idea!
Agreed. A very good angle of intrigue.
This is an inspired idea.
I wonder if M's line "Now we know what C stands for" would have been used in this alternative universe? 😁
She was so good she would have absolutely nailed being a Bond villain; but also it's about time we had another female baddie, for variety more than anything else. She was pretty impactful even in her small role in Skyfall.
Agreed also. She was a terrific villain in "Penny Dreadful",
seen here seducing James Bo... er, Timothy Dalton.
Not having Silva's escape being based on coincidences would be nice.
To me the personal element of SKYFALL was all the heavy-handed mommy stuff. It wasn't just Silva who saw her as a mother figure. Bond did too. He even cries at the end for her loss. I doubt Roger would have shed a tear for Robert Brown.
You're right: Blofeld killing Tracy is certainly the epitome of personal! And if Eon had chosen to reboot or rework that storyline, it might have been interesting. It seems like the writers worked hard to find another reason to make Blofeld into Bond's white whale. I just wish they hadn't gone the cuckoo route.
I very much would have loved seeing Helen McRory as C because I loved Helen McRory.
To me the personal element of SKYFALL was all the heavy-handed mommy stuff. It wasn't just Silva who saw her as a mother figure. Bond did too. He even cries at the end for her loss. I doubt Roger would have shed a tear for Robert Brown.
Which is Bond caring for the leading lady - again, this happens in pretty much every Bond film. Is TSWLM 'personal' because he goes into Atlantis to rescue Anya? Yes, they've integrated the drama better than in most Bond films (see Goldfinger where M has to dress down Bond because he's getting too angry about Jill being killed and taking it too personally: then Bond's feelings simply disappear, never to be seen again) but I'd say Bond always gets emotionally involved. That Roger wouldn't have cried over Brown's M doesn't feel like a failing of Skyfall to me to be honest. If it were Lazenby and Hill's M then, yeah, actually I can see Bond fighting for M and becoming emotionally involved: there is a sense of a bond between them I'd say. Not so much with Connery as I'd say his Bond is probably the most two-dimensional.
You're right: Blofeld killing Tracy is certainly the epitome of personal! And if Eon had chosen to reboot or rework that storyline, it might have been interesting. It seems like the writers worked hard to find another reason to make Blofeld into Bond's white whale. I just wish they hadn't gone the cuckoo route.
Yeah, it definitely has problems. Like there's not really much in the way of drama developed from the situation: as we said above, Bond doesn't really care. I don't think he even ever mentions Hannes Oberhauser, does he? We never get to hear what he thought of him, even. Did he even like Hannes?
Maybe Blofeld's childhood obsession with Bond should have been actually spoiling SPECTRE's big evil plan: if C had been telling him to ignore Bond and concentrate on the Nine Eyes takeover- make Blofeld less calm and more ranty and obsessed with Bond. Maybe Blofeld should have been needed to launch the Nine Eyes thing but he's to busy tormenting Bond in the old MI6 building, and C is getting desperate too. Then maybe you have the cuckoo situation actually paying off a bit more.
Perhaps, instead of rescuing Madeline (which is a bit naff damsel stuff) Bond and M agree that Bond goes after Blofeld to effectively distract him because they know he's obsessed with 007, or maybe Blofeld has some vital bit of tech for launching Nine Eyes or something.
now its been mentioned, if you gotta work with what you got: an already introduced Blofeld dramatically announcing he's actually Bonds long lost foster brother Oberhauser would have worked better than the other way round. Oberhauser announcing he is now called Blofeld is meaningless to anyone except in the audience, CraigBond certainly doesnt know the significance.
The "cuckoo" scene would have to be rewritten though, since in the film we got Bond recognises him right away (and thatd be a shame since its one of the better scenes in the film, where Christoph Waltz gets to demonstrate his softspoken creepy voice superpowers)
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chevarian said: I doubt Roger would have shed a tear for Robert Brown
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well thats BrownM. he's uniquely forgettable amongst the actors whove played M. Barely gets a word in over four films. even in in his office scenes theres usually three or four other characters, all of whom get more dialog than he does. The only film where he really gets a moment is when he revokes DaltonBonds License to Kill.
now if itd been LeeM who had a dramatic death scene at the end of a film, MooreBond mightve raised an eyebrow to indicate grief.
The plane chase scene has been controversial for some. From what I understand bond was placed in a plane happened because Craig didn't want to ski. I would've liked it if EON said: "You're getting paid millions, Daniel. Learn to ski!". We haven't had a ski scene since the 1990's and it was time. An alternative is something I've "mentioned" before: Snowmobiles. As far as I know there are no really good snowmobile chases and stunts in action movies and it would be great to see. I imagine Madeline gets taken away in a car just like in the movie, but Bond chases the car on a snowmobile. The villains has several cars, but also their own snowmobiles. A snowmobile vs cars/snowmobile chase could've been great!
One more point is the title song. I am one of those who don't like Sam Smith's entry. I think we got too many ballads in Craig's movies, and I find Adele and Billie Eilish both made songs that are better for the movie they're in and better in general. "Writing's on the wall" sounds to soppy and self-pitying. I think we needed a more up-tempo and energetic song, probably a rock entry. Noel's Gallagher's entry or something along the same lines would've been much better I think:
I think the idea of Bond steering the remains of a sliding plane was pretty Bondy to be honest, I liked it.
Agreed about the song: I'd like to find a fan edit which replaces the song with Radiohead's and also trims out the foster brother stuff (which I think actually wouldn't affect the film much at all).
There isn't much a civilian car can do about a car, especially when the car is driving in a mountainous landscape. The movie is proof enough of this I think. Crashing a wingless plane into the car works very well, but what comes before doesn't in my opinion. Snowmobils are much lighter and dynamic, not to mention ground based.
There isn't much a civilian car can do about a car, especially when the car is driving in a mountainous landscape
If a car can't do much about a car then a snowmobile certainly won't be able to do anything. Snowmobile chases have been done before, it could be fun, but the plane is more spectacular and original. I also don't believe the Craig skiing story, a lot of nonsense gets pinned on him ('can't drive stick') whereas he filmed a great deal of this one with a broken leg, so I call into question anything which suggests he lacks commitment.
From a snowmobile Bond could take out Hinx's snowmobile escort. Bond could shoot at the car ( he could from the plane too, but from a snowmobile Bond could get much closer so he could avoid hitting Madeleine and get more "effect on target" for the other people). They certainly could've made the chase far more exciting using snowmobiles!
What movies has done really good snowmobile action scenes? I'd really like to know.
There's a snowmobile chase in Die Hard 2, I wouldn't say it's really good though. I have seen it done elsewhere but can't think off the top of my head. I dunno, plane though building just sounds more spectacular to me, maybe there's a new and interesting way snowmobiles could be used.
Although I generally like the score, I did try and pump the plane chase up a bit as it is a moment which needs a bit of Bond theme I think:
There's a snowmobile fight in Die Hard 2, that's right. There is also a tiny blitt of snowmobile action in one of the Jonny English movies and snowmobiles are briefly used in DAD and AVTAK, but they only scratch the surface of what can be done.
Here are some videos that show some of the possibilities: