James Bond 24: SPECTRE.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 1:28 pm

Yay, they're back!

Quite excited about this, not only are they a long overlooked (thanks to the legal issues) major part of the film series- Blofeld was in six of the first seven films after all- but Blofeld himself has never been done properly by the films.

There's an interesting character in the three books he's in, the SPECTRE trilogy is basically a Megatron in Dark of the Moon look at what is actually the affect of constant defeats on a super villain. He starts off as a clam almost anti-Bond figure (no interest in sex or vices) and become increasingly insane- and with smaller scale plans each time though I can't imagine them going for that with the movies- as the series goes on.

All that fantastic Doctor Shatterhand stuff in You Only Live Twice has never been used in the films (the suicide garden is- along with the octopus fight in Dr. No- one of the few Fleming set pieces not to be touched. Even the hotel fire/rape stuff made from Spy Who Loved Me wound up in Quantum of Solace), it'd be fantastic to build up to that.

Interesting that they've not announced a Blofeld despite the title seemingly giving the game away, so presumably it's be a small cameo like his early film roles or we're in for a Surprise Blofeld (in which case I'm going to say it'll be one of the women, it'd actually be nice not to have a middle aged white European guy as the baddy this time).

Dead Man Wade · Post by **Dead Man Wade** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 3:41 pm

I'd heard that Christoph Waltz was to be Blofeld, but I can't remember where I'd happened across that.

EDIT: Okay, apparently it's purely speculative. Waltz is appearing, but his being Blofeld has not been confirmed.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 4:37 pm

His announced character name is that of Bond's childhood ski instructor from the prose version of Octopussy (he might be mentioned in the two lines in the film that cover the original plot), that and the Austrian location suggests they might be borrowing from the flashback parts of that story.

Dead Man Wade · Post by **Dead Man Wade** » Sat Dec 06, 2014 8:28 pm

Yeah. The article I found about it was saying that his being Bond's old ski instructor was likely to be a red herring, and that he'd wind up being Blofeld. My confusion seems to have been jumpstarted by another article that stated it as fact. Not being a huge Bond afficionado, it barely registered, and certainly not enough make me do anything crazy like look into it at all.

Frankly, I don't know that I necessarily believe it, as it seems kind of far out of the way to go for a reveal like that. Seems like the kind of thing that's a little to obvious for the first movie reintroducing SPECTRE, and I can't help but wonder what the point would be. Did he change his name to Blofeld at some point, because Ernst is the type of name that just gets all the women worked up? Was he living under an assumed name for years to further SPECTRE's goals, and if so, how does teaching children to ski accomplish that?

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 7:35 am

Interestingly (and something I hadn't noticed when recording the below video), he actually has a different first name to the Octopussy character, creating speculation he's going to be the son of the original. Either way, the films don't usually grab a name from Fleming if there's absolutely no connection between the characters (and indeed, they changed Gala Band to Miranda Frost in Die Another Day as they felt as the scripting process had gone on she'd moved too far from the Moonraker girl) so presumably they'll be some sort of link, however tenuous.

The other thing I hadn't spotted despite it being really, really, really obvious is that the poster doesn't just reflect the SPECTRE octopus logo, it's a homage to the final shot of On Her Majesties Secret Service.

My rambly and full of mispronunciations thoughts on the announcements:

Cyberstrike nTo · Post by **Cyberstrike nTo** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 4:47 pm

My Dad who is a BIG James Bond fan is really excited about Spectre and so am I.
He said in one of the James Garder Bond books (which he said some of the early ones are good some of the later ones not so much) that brought Spectre back introduced Blofeld's daughter as a foe.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Dec 12, 2014 4:35 pm

Yeah, Nina Blofeld is the baddy in For Special Services, though oddly having spent a lot of time setting her and the new SPECTRE up, Gardner just has her eaten by a snake at the end.

One advantage of a female lead villain is it would give something back that's been lost with the departure of Dench: A major female character who is there for sex/flirtation with Bond.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 4:03 pm

First teaser trailer:

Mr White!

Another one that follows straight on from the previous film (well, either that or MI6 are shit at fixing their headquarters, there's not even scaffolding)!

Unabashed teasing of Blofeld!

A SPECTRE ring!

I like.

Cyberstrike nTo · Post by **Cyberstrike nTo** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 9:16 pm

I like the teaser although it did remind me of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo a little bit.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 9:33 am

Full trailer, looks pretty solid and

OH MY GOD THEY USED THE MAIN THEME FROM ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by **Denyer** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 7:20 pm

Looks better than the last one. Only watched the first minute, would like to keep some of the surprise factor.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 7:28 pm

I'm hoping the OHMSS theme makes it into the film itself rather than just the trailer (it'd be in keeping with Newman using some David Arnold music from Casino Royale in Skyfall), it certainly adds to the feeling this is, at least spiritually, the long awaited proper follow up to that film that Diamonds Are Forever wasn't.

Speaking of Majesty's, if any of you get the chance to see it on the big screen do take it. Of the 9 old Bond films I've seen so far at the cinema this year that probably looked the most lush (with You Only Live Twice and its stunning volcano sized volcano set coming second, only let down by the model work having dated quite badly and the entire cinema breaking out in hysterics at Connery's Japanese disguise), gorgeous cinematography.

Man With the Golden Gun (as is the case with all the Guy Hamilton directed ones) felt more like an overblown episode of The Saint than a film in places, but it was nice to see Christopher Lee on the big screen. And Sir Rog is much better at being a completely pissed off bastard Bond than people give him credit.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 6:41 pm

Probably the best thread for this, I made a Youtube video talking about the For Our Eyes Only event and meeting Roger:

And my pictures:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... af22827874

It was nice to see Rog was so amazed about meeting me, he's done nothing but go on every single TV and radio show he can to talk about it all week.

Cyberstrike nTo · Post by **Cyberstrike nTo** » Mon Sep 28, 2015 8:43 pm

Watching Roger Moore in the 50 American Western TV show Maverick as James Garner and Jack Kelly's British cousin is always a riot (although he was only in episode with Garner and Kelly playing a different character he was basically brought in to replace Garner after he left the show and while Jack Kelly was good he lacked the natural charisma of Garner and Moore). Jack Kelly and Roger Moore had good chemistry but not quite as good as Garner and Kelly did.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 7:08 pm

Out now and seen!

Non spoiler thoughts:

I really liked that, I’m not sure why it’s getting more mixed reviews than Skyfall as I’d say it gets all the same things right and fixes a lot of the structural problems. The plot actually comes as close to making sense as Bond ever does.

Whilst I’m reasonably sure Craig will do at least one more despite all his moaning I actually would prefer it if he didn’t. Not only would that avoid the risk of him going out on a A View to a Kill, but this actually felt like a grand finale to his era.

Main no spoiler complaint: M has turned into Rigsby from Rising Damp and started walking like Peter Cushing as Dr Who.

SPOILER! (select to read)
The main area I felt it improved on Skyfall was in Blofeld having two distinct plots going on. In the previous film Silva only wants to kill M and goes about it in an increasingly counterproductive and silly way. Here though Blofeld has his day job villainy with the security services thing (which doesn’t stand up to huge scrutiny—try to imagine America and China genuinely sharing every single thing they know. Good on Terome for South Africa holding out though) which he goes about professionally and sensibly.

Then there’s his private vendetta against Bond where he just enjoys being a complete and utter dick to him, hence him being really contrived there as he enjoys sticking the knife in. You get the sense that if Bond hadn’t brought things to a head by coming to him Blofeld would have cheerfully gone on for years just messing with him. The “Brothers” thing was a little contrived, but works by just being a detail Bond himself is happy not to talk about.

I also really liked how they handled the reveal. It could have gone down the Into Darkness “I AM KHAN” route, but instead it’s a throwaway “and after I faked my death I changed my name” detail that’s not obtrusive to anyone who doesn’t have a clue who Blofeld is. And they totally went there with the cat!

All the action scenes were great fun, the MI6 regulars were well used, the humour worked and the injokes wouldn’t be too intrusive to non-fans (Swan working at what is basically Piz Gloria). Bond actually getting the girl and driving off into the sunset (as Q will apparently fix your classic car with tax payers money. No wonder they wanted to shut MI6 down) was a nice welcome change for the Craig era. The bizarre moaning I’ve seen on forums about what happens next is just something I don’t get, do they not remember when every Bond film used to end like that and you’d still never see the girl again?

Great use of the real MI6 building at the end, especially like how a lot of the interior matched up to its look in the Brosnan’s. Weird how they firmly, finally, destroyed it though. A tiny bit of verisimilitude that started in Goldeneye quietly put to rest.

As I’m not hugely familiar with that part of the Thames I couldn’t decide if the building Shit Moriarty was working from was real or CGI, I’d assumed the latter (“Hello, we’d like to hire your building as the source of all evil in the world. Oh, you don’t want to do that?) but it did look as if they were filming inside a real place at the end. If it was all fake it was well done.

Niggles:

It was never explained how Dench M got the information that set Bond on the trail of SPECTRE, nor why she didn’t use it when she was alive (I did like how down to business she was in the recording though, a nice avoiding of sentimentality).

Why did Mr. Hinx try and kill Bond on the train when Blofeld seems to have wanted him to come to tea? Did Ernst just think that having failed twice already Hinx would just screw up again and it would be good shits and giggles? Bond missed the chance for a “Well hung” gag at the end there as well. Or “I gave him both barrels”.

And yay! The gun barrel was back where it belonged. But the iris didn’t open into the first moment of the film. (:

Post by **Hound** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 8:45 pm

I'm really looking forward to this new movie when it finally comes out here. I like Craig a lot and don't want him to go really but agree that I also don't want him to hang around too long and have a rotten movie be his last one like all the other Bonds have,

Post by **Warcry** » Thu Nov 12, 2015 6:59 am

I dunno, it was fun and all but even by Bond standards it really stretched credulity. I mean, I know that's par for the course in the older films, but they usually don't take themselves seriously when they're building secret outer space colonies, having Nazi supermen use their vast resources to cheat at horse races or destroying downtown St. Petersburg with a tank chase. The Craig-era films have always tried to portray themselves as "above" that, even in Skyfall where every second scene was a throwback to the 60s golden age of the franchise.

(Speaking of throwbacks, I got a good chuckle from Bond cosplaying as Baron Samedi at the start...)

And so much to Dalek's probable chagrin, that means I'm going to complain like this was a MTMTE thread!

M'eh to spoiler tags though, because it's been out for a few weeks now and there's no way I'm separately spoilering every quote...

inflatable dalek wrote:Whilst I’m reasonably sure Craig will do at least one more despite all his moaning I actually would prefer it if he didn’t. Not only would that avoid the risk of him going out on a A View to a Kill, but this actually felt like a grand finale to his era.

Well then he's going to have to make another one for sure, because this one was nonsense.

But seriously though, I wouldn't mind another Craig movie but I wouldn't mind seeing a new lead either, if they took the chance to move the series in a slightly less serious direction.

The fact that all of the bad guys from all of the past three films were all secretly working for this film's baddie is complete and utter nonsense, since two of them were tied up in a different super-secret conspiracy group that had actively worked to screw over another (i.e. Quantum blackmailing Vesper into stealing the poker winnings that Le Chiffre needed to keep from getting killed) and the last of them was a mad dog. Making Blofeld into Bond's super-secret step-brother was beyond even that level of silly. And the leap from "the members of the organization never meet!" to "super-secret desert base staffed by a small army" really made it feel like two completely different plots slapped together. Altogether, it's just a bridge too far.

Also, um...what exactly did Q do with the ring that let him magically tell that all those people were related? That bit went completely over my head.

There were also a few scenes where I couldn't help but shake my head at the complete lack of police response to what was going on. Maybe it's because we just rewatched Skyfall last night and the police are everywhere in that one, but the fact that Bond could pull off the shit he did in the helicopter in the opening without getting intercepted by the jet fighters that would have definitely been scrambled after a terrorist attack blew up a city block really pulled me out of the movie (the fact that the officers that are there just let the festival go on about it's business after the bombing was insane, too). Likewise, Bond manages to get into a twenty minute long car chase with Bootista, leaving a trail of carnage in their wake and deliberately slamming into an old man, and there's no blue lights anywhere in sight at the end? I dunno, for a film with the message of "surveillance is everywhere and THEY see everything you do!", The Man sure seems to be slow on the uptake when the plot needs it.

Can't say I cared much for the continued focus on British intelligence politics either. It probably would have worked better for me if the previous film hadn't done the same thing already, but better and with a character we cared about a whole lot more. While it worked wonderfully in Skyfall as part of Silva's campaign against M, it's impossible to care here as much here because it feels like a bit of a repeat and C is so transparently evil right from the start that they should cast the actor on Gotham.

inflatable dalek wrote:The main area I felt it improved on Skyfall was in Blofeld having two distinct plots going on. In the previous film Silva only wants to kill M and goes about it in an increasingly counterproductive and silly way. Here though Blofeld has his day job villainy with the security services thing (which doesn’t stand up to huge scrutiny—try to imagine America and China genuinely sharing every single thing they know. Good on Terome for South Africa holding out though) which he goes about professionally and sensibly.

Then there’s his private vendetta against Bond where he just enjoys being a complete and utter dick to him, hence him being really contrived there as he enjoys sticking the knife in. You get the sense that if Bond hadn’t brought things to a head by coming to him Blofeld would have cheerfully gone on for years just messing with him. The “Brothers” thing was a little contrived, but works by just being a detail Bond himself is happy not to talk about.

I'd actually lean the other way. Silva only had one straightforward plot that he went about...well, like a Bond villain, sure. But his plot made some overcomplicated sense and so did his motivations. He wanted to ruin M, then kill her. But what the hell is Blofeld trying to accomplish here? His claims of trying to ruin Bond would seem to fall flat when he only actually takes credit for exactly two things, one of which (Bond falling for Vesper) was completely chance, and the other (Silva killing M) would have happened with or without whatever alleged aid that SPECTRE gave to him. Meanwhile he wants to create a single massive global intel network because, uh...reasons? I mean, C wants it because he's a fascist who thinks that turning the world into an Orwellian nightmare is a good thing, but SPECTRE is a for-profit operation and he's just eliminated nine of his biggest potential customers. I don't think Hans Landa thought that one through at all.

By the way, damn was Christoph Waltz wasted here. He barely chewed the scenery at all!

inflatable dalek wrote:And they totally went there with the cat!

Best part of the movie!

inflatable dalek wrote:the MI6 regulars were well used

But seriously though, this is the best part of the movie. Between this and Skyfall, Mallory has about ten times as much personality as Admiral Hargreaves and whatever the heck Bernard Lee's M was named. He's not as awesome as Judi Dench was in the role but surprisingly close. And Moneypenny is an actual person now, which is great (the fact that I now immediately think of her as a black girl shows just how forgettable all the previous ones really were).

I mean, shit, even Tanner gets something to do! I was only dimly aware he was even a recurring character with a name before now.

Q was probably the only one of the lot with a single character trait to his name in the old stuff, and while nobody will ever be Desmond Llewelyn, the new guy's cool too.

inflatable dalek wrote:Why did Mr. Hinx try and kill Bond on the train when Blofeld seems to have wanted him to come to tea? Did Ernst just think that having failed twice already Hinx would just screw up again and it would be good shits and giggles? Bond missed the chance for a “Well hung” gag at the end there as well. Or “I gave him both barrels”.

The quips are definitely something I've missed from Craig's Bond in general.

Honestly, after failing twice I suspect he was sent out a third time specifically so that Bond would kill him and spare SPECTRE the bullets. They don't exactly suffer failure gladly. Though honestly Bond brought it on himself. A few movies ago he would have shot the guy in the head after the plane/car crash to make sure he wasn't going to get up and cause more trouble.

In spite of my bitching I did enjoy it, but it's full of holes just like a lot of other mediocre Bond flicks. It's not really that bad, but it's nowhere near as good as two of the last three were. It certainly didn't blast its' way to the top of my "favourite Bond films" list the way Skyfall and Casino Royale did.

Cyberstrike nTo · Post by **Cyberstrike nTo** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 12:35 am

Warcry wrote:Can't say I cared much for the continued focus on British intelligence politics either. It probably would have worked better for me if the previous film hadn't done the same thing already, but better and with a character we cared about a whole lot more. While it worked wonderfully in Skyfall as part of Silva's campaign against M, it's impossible to care here as much here because it feels like a bit of a repeat and C is so transparently evil right from the start that they should cast the actor on Gotham.

My problem is that having the guy that played C (Is it Andrew Scott? I don't play attention to actor's names as much as I should) on Sherlock as Moriarty I was half expecting to see Benedict Cumberbatch pop up and arrest him because I felt that C was what Moriarty would be if he was on proper medication.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 4:37 pm

Warcry wrote:I dunno, it was fun and all but even by Bond standards it really stretched credulity. I mean, I know that's par for the course in the older films, but they usually don't take themselves seriously when they're building secret outer space colonies, having Nazi supermen use their vast resources to cheat at horse races or destroying downtown St. Petersburg with a tank chase. The Craig-era films have always tried to portray themselves as "above" that, even in Skyfall where every second scene was a throwback to the 60s golden age of the franchise.

I don't know, I thought it was very much in the spirit of the earlier silly films. After one film of Bond becoming Bond; one of him inexplicably still becoming Bond and one of him being portrayed as old and past it, we finally get Craig getting to be Bond in his imperial phase. Effortlessly cool and riding a wave of silliness.

Plus stylasitc shifts between films in the series isn't uncommon. From Russia is basically a "Straight" spy film followed by a movie about a man who paints women gold and wants to blow up Fort Knox.

And so much to Dalek's probable chagrin, that means I'm going to complain like this was a MTMTE thread!

Warcry! The man with the making every thread unfun touch!

M'eh to spoiler tags though, because it's been out for a few weeks now and there's no way I'm separately spoilering every quote...

Well why don't you go ruin the film for our many Australian posters then.

The fact that all of the bad guys from all of the past three films were all secretly working for this film's baddie is complete and utter nonsense, since two of them were tied up in a different super-secret conspiracy group that had actively worked to screw over another (i.e. Quantum blackmailing Vesper into stealing the poker winnings that Le Chiffre needed to keep from getting killed) and the last of them was a mad dog. Making Blofeld into Bond's super-secret step-brother was beyond even that level of silly. And the leap from "the members of the organization never meet!" to "super-secret desert base staffed by a small army" really made it feel like two completely different plots slapped together. Altogether, it's just a bridge too far.

I think you're misremebering the plot of Casino Royale, Quantum (or SPECTRE as we should say now) weren't trying to screw over another super-secret conspiracy group. Le Chiffe was working for them, they killed him after they realised he'd lost the money he was laundering for their client. There wasn't any other group involved.

in fairness to the retcon here, Quantum of Solace already retconed the plot of Casino Royale quite badly (Craig's first film makes sense if they grabbed Vesper's genuine boyfriend right after she was assigned to Bond. The reveal that he was really a honey trap for spies set on her months or even years in advance is nonsense because she wasn't a spy, she was a banker!), so another shift here was something I was fairly numbed to.

Plus, Quantum as described in Solace, is exactly like SPECTRE are in the books (which was never quite clear in the films because their original first appearance was adapted fourth and they replaced the Russians as the villains in Dr. No and From Russia) before Blofeld really loses his shit. Apolitical, selling to the highest bidder and only in it for the money. Making them a subset of SPECTRE once they got the rights back makes sense, it was basically either that or completely ignore the second Craig (which is really what I was expecting and wouldn't have minded) as they've been made redundant by the return of the original.

Silva being made part of it actually neatly deals with one of my issues with Skyfall. How his operation works before he goes after M is described as being basically exactly the same as Quantum (again, apolitical, works for anyone for the money). It never made sense to me to introduce a new recurring group of villains and then have a standalone baddy who works in the same way. I suspect there was at least one draft along the way where he was the leader of Quantum before they realised how shit the previous film was.

Now he's properly connected that's not going to annoy me so much the next time I watch that film.

The main shift is the downgrading of what Quantum was, you'd be forgiven from watching this film to think it was just Mr. White and when the name comes up Bond doesn't even think for a second Quantum might be the villains behind all this.

Also, um...what exactly did Q do with the ring that let him magically tell that all those people were related? That bit went completely over my head.

Yeah, it's garbled. From the flash of DNA on Q's screen I assumed it was supposed to be the case they'd all touched the ring (either when they did their secret handshakes or because whoever inherits a person's position in SPECTRE gets their old ring, I think Silva is the only one for whom the villains couldn't have taken it off him after he died) at some point.

Though apparently Mendez claims in the current Empire podcast that the ring is made of a special metal that left traces on all their fingers that showed up in autopsies. I suspect he's taking the piss with that.

I like the idea that James Bond Radio suggested: Q just looked up the Facebook page of the bloke from the start and we were getting his friend list.

There were also a few scenes where I couldn't help but shake my head at the complete lack of police response to what was going on. Maybe it's because we just rewatched Skyfall last night and the police are everywhere in that one, but the fact that Bond could pull off the shit he did in the helicopter in the opening without getting intercepted by the jet fighters that would have definitely been scrambled after a terrorist attack blew up a city block really pulled me out of the movie (the fact that the officers that are there just let the festival go on about it's business after the bombing was insane, too). Likewise, Bond manages to get into a twenty minute long car chase with Bootista, leaving a trail of carnage in their wake and deliberately slamming into an old man, and there's no blue lights anywhere in sight at the end? I dunno, for a film with the message of "surveillance is everywhere and THEY see everything you do!", The Man sure seems to be slow on the uptake when the plot needs it.

Ah, but it's the British police who are everywhere in Skyfall (none turn up to the train disaster in Istanbul, nor when a man gets thrown out of a tower block in China), as they are at the end of this one. Our police are just better!

Can't say I cared much for the continued focus on British intelligence politics either. It probably would have worked better for me if the previous film hadn't done the same thing already, but better and with a character we cared about a whole lot more. While it worked wonderfully in Skyfall as part of Silva's campaign against M, it's impossible to care here as much here because it feels like a bit of a repeat and C is so transparently evil right from the start that they should cast the actor on Gotham.

The current British government is actually trying to stop all internet encryption so they can see everything you do online, without any thought about how that would be a Very Bad Idea for things like shopping and... well everything. So it might be a bit too much ripped from the headlines but it felt worryingly plausible.

I'd actually lean the other way. Silva only had one straightforward plot that he went about...well, like a Bond villain, sure. But his plot made some overcomplicated sense and so did his motivations. He wanted to ruin M, then kill her. But what the hell is Blofeld trying to accomplish here? His claims of trying to ruin Bond would seem to fall flat when he only actually takes credit for exactly two things, one of which (Bond falling for Vesper) was completely chance, and the other (Silva killing M) would have happened with or without whatever alleged aid that SPECTRE gave to him. Meanwhile he wants to create a single massive global intel network because, uh...reasons? I mean, C wants it because he's a fascist who thinks that turning the world into an Orwellian nightmare is a good thing, but SPECTRE is a for-profit operation and he's just eliminated nine of his biggest potential customers. I don't think Hans Landa thought that one through at all.

Presumably SPECTRE would have used all the gained information to sell to other interested parties (terrorists, unfriendly foreign powers), presumably it wasn't intended to be a long term thing--unless they were just hoping no one would notice how many holes there were in the net--just a massive grab of useful data before the thing got quickly shut down.

By the way, damn was Christoph Waltz wasted here. He barely chewed the scenery at all!

Well he's obviously set up to recur though. It's just a question of whether he breaks out of prison at the start or if he has to team up with Bond to stop the even worse new people running SPECTRE.

But seriously though, this is the best part of the movie. Between this and Skyfall, Mallory has about ten times as much personality as Admiral Hargreaves and whatever the heck Bernard Lee's M was named. He's not as awesome as Judi Dench was in the role but surprisingly close. And Moneypenny is an actual person now, which is great (the fact that I now immediately think of her as a black girl shows just how forgettable all the previous ones really were).

"And now we know what C stands for" seems to be the standout line of the film (and I love how Bond just decides to start calling the guy C and within minutes everyone is doing it!).

I'm not really a Fiennes fan generally and thought he was doing his usual very mannered and slightly forced performance in Skyfall, but here he seemed to get it much more. Plus it was nice to see him getting the same shit he put Dench's M through.

They did oddly seem to forget he's supposed to be the head of all of MI6 though rather than just the 00 section though, he even introduces himself as such to a policeman near the end.

I mean, shit, even Tanner gets something to do! I was only dimly aware he was even a recurring character with a name before now.

I still think Colin Salmon, playing a last second replacement for the Tanner from Goldeneye under a different name, is far more like the actual "Bond's best friend" character from the books than any of the slightly podgy dull middle aged men who have played actual Tanner.

Honestly, after failing twice I suspect he was sent out a third time specifically so that Bond would kill him and spare SPECTRE the bullets. They don't exactly suffer failure gladly. Though honestly Bond brought it on himself. A few movies ago he would have shot the guy in the head after the plane/car crash to make sure he wasn't going to get up and cause more trouble.

This is his first indestructable henchman though, he's not used to that sort of thing. I would totally expect Hinx to show up in the next one.

Oh, and Dominic Greene was found dead at the end of Quantum with two bullet holes in him... and Hinx has a double barrelled gun! See, it all conects!

Cyberstrike nTo wrote:My problem is that having the guy that played C (Is it Andrew Scott? I don't play attention to actor's names as much as I should) on Sherlock as Moriarty I was half expecting to see Benedict Cumberbatch pop up and arrest him because I felt that C was what Moriarty would be if he was on proper medication.

I know what you mean. My own inability to cope with actors playing roles other than what they are most famous for meant I kept expecting Lea Seydoux to get completely naked and start fingering Miss Moneypenny.

Post by **Warcry** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 7:10 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:I don't know, I thought it was very much in the spirit of the earlier silly films. After one film of Bond becoming Bond; one of him inexplicably still becoming Bond and one of him being portrayed as old and past it, we finally get Craig getting to be Bond in his imperial phase. Effortlessly cool and riding a wave of silliness.

That's sort of the problem, though. The script was highly silly but nobody seems to have informed the actors or director of that fact, as they seem to have done their absolute best to take the thing 100% seriously. Craig himself is a big part of the issue, because he does a great job of making Bond a brooding, world-weary hollow shell of a secret agent but his portrayal of the man just doesn't fit in a movie where he slaloms down a mountain in a wingless plane or deploys flamethrowers from a sportscar.

inflatable dalek wrote:Plus stylasitc shifts between films in the series isn't uncommon. From Russia is basically a "Straight" spy film followed by a movie about a man who paints women gold and wants to blow up Fort Knox.

I don't know if I'd really call From Russia With Love all that different from the movies on either side of it. It was a touch more serious, but it also featured Bond spying on the Russian embassy using a hidden parascope, magic rubber masks that make the wearer look exactly like Bond, poisoned shoe-knives, comedy Gypsies, etc.

The early Connery films do the best job of balancing the serious with the silly, IMO. Most of the ones that came later (including a few of his own later movies) tend to go too far towards one extreme or the other.

inflatable dalek wrote:Warcry! The man with the making every thread unfun touch!

Oh, don't pretend you don't love it.

inflatable dalek wrote:I think you're misremebering the plot of Casino Royale, Quantum (or SPECTRE as we should say now) weren't trying to screw over another super-secret conspiracy group. Le Chiffe was working for them, they killed him after they realised he'd lost the money he was laundering for their client. There wasn't any other group involved.

I never got the impression that Le Chiffre was a member of Quantum, though. Did they say that in QoS?

He worked for them in the same way that he worked for the African lunatic with the machete, I thought, laundering and investing their money. But it felt like he was an independent contractor rather than a part of their group. That's the only way the plot of the movie makes sense. They arranged for Bond and Vesper to go there under the assumption that they'd win and Quantum could make off with the cash, then killed Le Chiffre for his initial cockup that lost them their money to begin with.

If Le Chiffre was one of their own, then the whole thing winds up being a very overcomplicated scheme that ends with them burning one of their own operatives for failing at a plan that they actively ensured couldn't succeed.

inflatable dalek wrote:Silva being made part of it actually neatly deals with one of my issues with Skyfall. How his operation works before he goes after M is described as being basically exactly the same as Quantum (again, apolitical, works for anyone for the money). It never made sense to me to introduce a new recurring group of villains and then have a standalone baddy who works in the same way. I suspect there was at least one draft along the way where he was the leader of Quantum before they realised how shit the previous film was.

Honestly, that's been a problem with almost all of the post-Cold War Bond films ever since Goldeneye was brave enough to stand up and say "Hey, we might not actually be relevant anymore, but dammit we're going to try." If every villain group are apolitical mercenaries just out for the cash, then who is actually paying them to do anything? Especially since they don't want to jump on the Muslim Extremist Baddies bandwagon (to their credit IMO since it's really overdone at this point).

A part of me hopes that after Craig is done, they'll stop with the whole "updated for the modern world" thing and just make a bunch of period films set in the 1960s. Complete with evil Russkies, sinister SPECTRE agents and the whole shebang.

inflatable dalek wrote:Yeah, it's garbled. From the flash of DNA on Q's screen I assumed it was supposed to be the case they'd all touched the ring (either when they did their secret handshakes or because whoever inherits a person's position in SPECTRE gets their old ring, I think Silva is the only one for whom the villains couldn't have taken it off him after he died) at some point.

I'd assumed the same thing, that the ring had had all of their DNA on it. But that doesn't make any sense, since several of those men died nine years ago now and I'm pretty sure the guy Bond killed would have washed his hands a few times since then.

inflatable dalek wrote:Ah, but it's the British police who are everywhere in Skyfall (none turn up to the train disaster in Istanbul, nor when a man gets thrown out of a tower block in China), as they are at the end of this one. Our police are just better!

Makes as much sense as anything, I suppose. Especially since this movie tells us that your country is an Orwellian police state!

inflatable dalek wrote:The current British government is actually trying to stop all internet encryption so they can see everything you do online, without any thought about how that would be a Very Bad Idea for things like shopping and... well everything. So it might be a bit too much ripped from the headlines but it felt worryingly plausible.

Seriously? That would be hilarious if it wasn't so backwards and wrongheaded. But then again, it is the same country that decided it knew better than it's people what pornography they should be allowed to access.

Hmm...maybe the police state thing isn't so fictional after all?

inflatable dalek wrote:Presumably SPECTRE would have used all the gained information to sell to other interested parties (terrorists, unfriendly foreign powers), presumably it wasn't intended to be a long term thing--unless they were just hoping no one would notice how many holes there were in the net--just a massive grab of useful data before the thing got quickly shut down.

Right, but all the major foreign intelligence services were already represented in the group, so anybody they could sell intel to would be small-time groups with minimal cash to spare compared to the groups they're stealing from.

C seemed to think it would be a long-term plan, but we never really figure out if he was an important part of the organization or just a patsy.

inflatable dalek wrote:Well he's obviously set up to recur though. It's just a question of whether he breaks out of prison at the start or if he has to team up with Bond to stop the even worse new people running SPECTRE.

Well, if he does recur I certainly hope he shows a bit more interest in what's going on than he did in this movie. He was practically sleepwalking through it.

inflatable dalek wrote:I'm not really a Fiennes fan generally and thought he was doing his usual very mannered and slightly forced performance in Skyfall, but here he seemed to get it much more. Plus it was nice to see him getting the same shit he put Dench's M through.

It would have been nice if they'd waited a movie or two before reusing that particular plot, though.

Fiennes does a good job in the role I think, because M is generally pretty mannered and stiff and that fits pretty well with the actor's typecast persona. Even here, when shit hit the fan he still managed to be very "stiff upper lip" while holding his boss at gunpoint.

inflatable dalek wrote:They did oddly seem to forget he's supposed to be the head of all of MI6 though rather than just the 00 section though, he even introduces himself as such to a policeman near the end.

I noticed that too.

They also seem to have forgotten that he was the chairman of a parliamentary committee, and thus an elected MP. I suppose he may have resigned when he took over MI6, but he was still bound to be a very powerful, connected man.

inflatable dalek wrote:I still think Colin Salmon, playing a last second replacement for the Tanner from Goldeneye under a different name, is far more like the actual "Bond's best friend" character from the books than any of the slightly podgy dull middle aged men who have played actual Tanner.

You're talking about Robinson, right? He was cool enough as a background guy but I don't remember him ever actually doing anything. I only know his name because he was in one of the old N64 games.

inflatable dalek wrote:This is his first indestructable henchman though, he's not used to that sort of thing. I would totally expect Hinx to show up in the next one.

Fair enough, he deserves a chance to learn that lesson.