Discussion: How can Safin be made into a better character?
Number24
NorwayPosts: 23,697MI6 Agent
I don't agree 100% agree with this video. For example I actually think Liutsifer Safin is a great villain name. But the video raises some good questions and suggests some interesting solutions.
What do you think? if you like Safin - why? If you don't, why and how could this be fixed?
Comments
Enjoyable even if the vocal styling mimics the legendary Calvin Dyson.
I suppose I agree but it's a truism that the writers were boxed into a corner on this one, having to tie up lose ends and deal with the previous film's happy-ever-after finale. Maybe Safin was off camera for a lot to mimic Dr No, it's said he was meant to be the villain at one point and yes No gets his own speech doesn't he at the dining table. Modern movies don't allow time for that to happen necessarily.
Was it even Mercury in the pre-credits? Was that a mask to allow for the fact it wasn't the actor? Were they re-writing as they went?
'Lazy writing' is a bit unfair, they were up against the clock but yes it has a tick-box, by the numbers feel to it for a lot of the time.
Re Blofeld, he's not trying to be nice though I agree they're doing it for a plot device - he's trying to be nasty to Bond, to hurt him in person. He's spelling out that Bond has lost the last five years of his life unnecessarily and it's not like he's going to get that back. Traditionally Blofeld never looks too pissed off at Bond in their meetings, as critic John Brosnan pointed out; only a bit of 'mild sneering' when Bond eventually meets Blofeld in YOLT.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
The writers were told that Bond had to die at the end, so this limited their options. but I think they could've solved it better anyway.
I liked the video's solution for the relationships between Safin, Bond and Madeleine better than the movie. But I think Blofeld should be should be the main villain in any movie he is in. My solution would probably be that Safin worked for SPECTRE and Blofeld all the time. Safin was a SPECTRE hit man who turned into their poisons and science chief. In Cuba Blofeld's plan is to use the nanobots to kill Bond at the party. but Bond catches Waldo early. Bond forces Waldo to use Heracles to kill the SPECTRE leaders who are at the party instead. Felix Leiter doesn't die.
When Madeleine visits Blofeld in the prison the poison kills all the guards except one who has to help Blofeld escape because if he doesn't SPECTRE will kill his family.
Blofeld's plan with Heracles is to kill his enemies (and their families?) and sell tailor made Heracles dose to criminals and governments, but only if it works with SPECTRE's goals.
Nomi dies an heroic death on the island (if her character is needed at all). Blofeld strangles Blofeld on the island after learning Blofeld has infected him with the virus that can kill Madeleine. Bond uses the line "Die, Blofeld! Die!" when killing Blofeld. Mathilde isn't born yet, but late in the movie Madeleine tells Bond he is the father. Before she is kidnapped, when Madeleine leaves the island or on the walkie talkie in the finale.
In short, Safin can be a better villain by being a SPECTRE henchman and not the villain.
It's said that they tried to sideline Blofeld in this one because of the backlash about him being Bond's stepbrother, you sense they'd have preferred to have dropped him altogether.
I read that Ralph Fiennes offered pushback on the idea of his being the villain, or Blofeld even, during Spectre's pre-production, saying this wasn't meant to be like the Mission Impossible movies. But I'm surprised he had that much leeway; it seems to me Skyfall was setting him up to be a villain of some kind, and his could have come to fruition in the next one, going for broke in the one after that. In any case, Fiennes does seem somewhat villainous as M anyway in that one, and he makes more impression that Safin does.
A snag with the entertaining clip is that while the reviewer points out the cliche of having Safin suggest that he and Bond are 'not so different, you and I' when they don't have much in common, as a rule this sort of thing doesn't play in a Bond movie. I think it only applies to three villains in a long history - Scaramanga, Alec Trevelyn and Rodriguez in SF and you can certainly imagine the actors swapping roles - certainly the other two as hitman Scaramanga, for instance, and Lee could have had a bash at the other two, though for Rodigrez he have to adopt the mournful, self-pitying tone of one of his Hammer zombies.
And maybe the North Korean villain in Die Another Day is an alter ego - he tries to suggest it at one point - thing is, I don't like any of these villains.
He says that a test of a good villain is whether than can not simply be interchanged with the others - I suppose you wouldn't swap No for Goldfinger, that couldn't work but you could swap No for Blofeld in YOLT, or Drax in Moonraker and so on, or Zorin in AVTAK. Many are not Bond's alter ego but rather a variable father figure, authoritarian teacher or dictator - someone to challenge, someone older. I don't think they're meant to be anything like Bond at all - though they tend not to have mates, and nor does Bond, and they are often witty, but they don't have a sex life, they're not terribly mobile, they don't have a cool set of wheels, they're not State operatives, they have connections but not work colleagues and so on.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I agree with the video that "we're not so different you and I" is a clishe that doesn't fit Safin. I think Scaramanga, Trevelyan and Silva all are good villains, even very good, and that angle fits them far better. I think the main problem with Safin as a character is his confusing motivations and goals. A more focused character or even explaining his actions better would've helped.
I just had an idea. It's not really about Safin, Maybe a better use of Nomi would be if she went to China instead of Norway and the island. She she isn't of much use in Norway. On the island she fights very well, but Bond could do that solo or together with Felix Leiter. In the movie Nomi leaves the island with Madeleine and Mathilde. To me it makes little sense for a 00 agent to leave before a very important fight. After all Madeleine is probably capable of steering the boat herself. Earlier I've suggested that it would be better if China (or Russia) launches the missiles that kills Bond. They have good reason to do so, since a criminal non-state actor is making weapons of mass destruction just off their coast. Nomi finds out in China that the country will launch missiles at the island at a specific time, most likely from a contact. She warns MI6/Bond of this, so we have a very good ticking clock. Now Nomi has a real reason to be in the movie other than bantering with Bond. I think a better ticking clack and a better reason for Nomi to be in the movie is important. The only downside to me is that Nomi survives. I'd rather have her die to shut up the idi .... the people who think Nomi will be "the next James Bond".