James Bond: 007 - Spectre - Part 10

[Frodo]

The way some people talk, though, you'd think this film was attempting to be an over-the-top comedic romp, when in actuality, there are but a few moments like that. The audience I saw the film with seemed to react well to each of them.

Yeah. On other hand i've seen it criticized for being too serious and not enough humor, so I guess its a individual taste issue.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

That being said, if Skyfall garnered all the "Too Dark Knight" criticisms, I could definitely see people drawing the connection between this and Winter Soldier. Food for thought.

I can see that. Though the similarities to Rogue Nation are more apparent just because it's closer between release.

 

[Octoberist]

Also while i liked the title sequence, that Sam Smith song..is like he's using it as an anti-crescendo weapon against the world of music.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

As much as I liked Skyfall, I think Mendes' direction was wrong here. Take the meeting scene. It's a very old school, Connery-esque scene.I mean it has a guy killing another dude nonchalantly to promote himself and nobody says anything. It's silly as hell. Yet Mendes shoots it with seriousness, complete with very dark cinematography like you would see in a Godfather film. That scene should've had a more cheeky, self aware atmosphere. If you write a silly scene, the direction should be aware of the silliness.

I think the film would've been a lot better served directed by someone like Matthew Vaughn.

I think that is completely ignoring the script issues though. Maybe Vaughn could have pulled off the film better and maybe he couldn't, I think the script needed to be more in order though. Dump the secret Brothers angle and hell make Monica Bellucci Blofeld instead of just getting Waltz to do a lesser version of his usual shtick. I stole the Bellucci idea from someone.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

It reminded me of Dragon Tattoo. But instead of Iphone charger wires they used tentacles.

 

[Octoberist]

I think that is completely ignoring the script issues though. Maybe Vaughn could have pulled off the film better and maybe he couldn't, I think the script needed to be more in order though. Dump the secret Brothers angle and hell make Monica Bellucci Blofeld instead of just getting Waltz to do a lesser version of his usual shtick. I stole the Bellucci idea from someone.

By dumping the brothers angle you automatically eliminated maybe 15-20 minute from the film.


Hell, we still don't know how Bond feels about Blofeld or their 'father'. It's pointless.

 

[Octoberist]

It reminded me of Dragon Tattoo. But instead of Iphone charger wires they used tentacles.

That one is superior due to the tempo and energy that was given thanks to Karen O.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

Hell, we still don't know how Bond feels about Blofeld or their 'father'. It's pointless.

Yup. They are both pretty ho hum about it. So what was the point? If you're gonna go all melodramatic on it, then at least go all the way. It was a bad compromise, like the rest of the film.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

By dumping the brothers angle you automatically eliminated maybe 15-20 minute from the film.


Hell, we still don't know how Bond feels about Blofeld or their 'father'. It's pointless.

And the film certainly needed to lose some of it's bloat.

Bond and the film just seemed to shrug off the revelation which is particularly strange for the darker and more emotional Craig era.

 

[Black Narcissus]

Well, I bought the Bond nato watch strap.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Weird thing about this movie was that I remember reading an interview with Mendes before Skyfall where he said flat out that the film had no connection to Quantum and it was totally it's own thing and shouldn't even be seen as a sequel. It seemed that after QoS received a so-so response, they wanted to distance themselves from it. But now Mendes comes back and directs a film that claims that Skyfall was part of this whole overarching story. It's obviously a retcon, but it just makes me wonder why they went this route at all. Did they run out of ideas? Did they force this on Mendes? Did they suddenly decide QoS wasn't so bad after all and wanted to connect all four movies? It's just strange. I don't have an issue with it, I'm just wondering why the director and studio seemed to do a 180 after Skyfall (which was, I believe, the most successful Bond film to date).

 

[ThePhantasm]

they finally got the rights to spectre / blofeld and wanted to use him, and it made sense to tie him into quantum

 

[Rowsdower!]

Ah, I see.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

I'm fine with them connecting it but as I've made perfectly clear I wish they had left Silva out of it.

 

[ThePhantasm]

someone mentioned that it makes sense for silva to be a part of it

mr. white
dominic green
raoul silva (silver)

all color-based names or pseudonyms

i don't know if that was planned but its an interesting theory

 

[Iceman]

I think I would have really liked this link if it had been planned from the start and made sense.

 

[Roose Bolton]

It's kind of hard for them to plan it from the start when they weren't legally allowed to use spectre or Blofeld at the time. Kevin McClory died only 4 days after Casino Royale came out, and then his estate held onto the rights for a good long while. It prevent long term planning, when it came to Spectre's role within the franchise.

 

[godisawesome]

*stab*
oh so sorry
*stab*
don't worry i'll clean it up
*stab*
please just take a seat
*stab*
you look like you could use a lie down
*stab*

Hey, you combine all that with maybe one quick, pre- or post fight with Bond where Hinx talks like a sportsman talking to another competitor ("Before we do this, I think you should know I've been looking forward to this. You're really quite good at this business, you know? Guys like us are rare, and actually getting a chance to see who's better? I mean, damn man, it's to die for.") and maybe have Batista say "Well, ****." in his death, and I think you've got a far more memorable villain.

 

[Frodo]

It's kind of hard for them to plan it from the start when they weren't legally allowed to use spectre or Blofeld at the time. Kevin McClory died only 4 days after Casino Royale came out, and then his estate held onto the rights for a good long while. It prevent long term planning, when it came to Spectre's role within the franchise.

True. And as for the Spectre vs Hydra comparisons , Spectre was created in the 50s or early 60s by Fleming and McClory. They weren't trying to copy Marvel comics. They've always been what Spectre the film portrayed them as. They had connections to organized crime, multinational corporations, terrorism, extortion , spy agencies, governments etc. You only have to watch the DN,FRWL, TB, YOLT, and OHMSS to see those ideas pre-date CATWS.

The debates and controversy over mass data collection was around long before, the MCU even came into existence, and proceeded CATWS ,so those arguments floating around that Spectre was stealing or copying that aspect of CATWS, or that they're a rip off of Hydra, is nonsense .

 

[Zantera]

If you can't plan it, then don't tie it together. Seriously. That would have been better than some lazy retcon. Did it really add anything to Spectre? I didn't mind seeing Mr. White again and him being linked to Spectre, but seeing the big bad guys from the previous 3 films all of a sudden just being weak pawns in a bigger puzzle.. it almost hurt those films. You could keep Spectre as a massive organisation, just not mention Silva or the other villains and it wouldn't have affected the movie for the worse. But they did a silly retcon, and it did make things worse.

Plus, how silly was the "reveal" that Blofeld's father took care of James? It had zero impact on the story and James didn't seem to care about finding that out at all.

 

[Frodo]

I think as far as the retcon goes , either you except it or you don't. It didn't really matter how the retcon was executed because there were gonna be people who had an issue with it regardless. As far as CR and QOS , its alot easier to connect them to Spectre given that the through line was that there was a secret organization that was behind Le Chiffe, Vesper, and the villains in QOS. It was fully established a group existed and the storyline wasn't ever resolved. Having Spectre be that group really isn't that far fetched and its really a matter of opinion and or taste whether the retcon should have been done or not.

I don't have an issue with it because it really doesn't diminish the villains in those films. Le Chiffe owed money to the organization and wasn't some great mastermind, Vesper forced to do was what she was doing because she thought she was saving her captured boyfriends life, the guy from QOS was working for quantum to manipulate a dictator , he wasn't some master mind. Silvia is a hard sell I would agree.

Other than Silva , its not as if Bond had faced independent villains who weren't accountable to someone else. They were part of the shadowy organization anyway so I don't see how those characters are diminished.

 

[The Guard]

Are you kidding me? In this movie's case it totally is poor writing.



Clever? This is not Nolan's Inception. This movie is as straightforward as you can go. You're trying to give credit where it's not due. The script was poorly written which leads YOU to try to fill gaps in and try to connect dots where they're aren't present. There was nothing clever about this. Unnecessary retcons and trying to connect things ended up bringing down the film a lot.

Ambiguous writing is not necessarily "poor writing".

Sometimes being ambigious, can in fact, be clever. I have explained why I feel this is. You are welcome to your opinion.

And the unnecessary retcons and trying to connect things ended up ultimately being a minor part of the film and having very little impact, it was certainly not enough to bring the film and its own plot down.

 

[The Guard]

As much as I liked Skyfall, I think Mendes' direction was wrong here. Take the meeting scene. It's a very old school, Connery-esque scene.I mean it has a guy killing another dude nonchalantly to promote himself and nobody says anything. It's silly as hell. Yet Mendes shoots it with seriousness, complete with very dark cinematography like you would see in a Godfather film. That scene should've had a more cheeky, self aware atmosphere. If you write a silly scene, the direction should be aware of the silliness.

I think the film would've been a lot better served directed by someone like Matthew Vaughn.

Nobody says anything because that's apparently how they do things. Several of the people there are uncomfortable with it.

Why is it silly? A man is being brutally murdered for his failure. What's inherently silly about that? That, and what SPECTRE was discussing, seem very serious.

You wanted a cheeky, self-aware scene about sex trafficking and terrorism?

 

[godisawesome]

I think as far as the retcon goes , either you except it or you don't. It didn't really matter how the retcon was executed because there were gonna be people who had an issue with it regardless. As far as CR and QOS , its alot easier to connect them to Spectre given that the through line was that there was a secret organization that was behind Le Chiffe, Vesper, and the villains in QOS. It was fully established a group existed and the storyline wasn't ever resolved. Having Spectre be that group really isn't that far fetched and its really a matter of opinion and or taste whether the retcon should have been done or not.

I don't have an issue with it because it really doesn't diminish the villains in those films. Le Chiffe owed money to the organization and wasn't some great mastermind, Vesper forced to do was what she was doing because she thought she was saving her captured boyfriends life, the guy from QOS was working for quantum to manipulate a dictator , he wasn't some master mind. Silvia is a hard sell I would agree.

Other than Silva , its not as if Bond had faced independent villains who weren't accountable to someone else. They were part of the shadowy organization anyway so I don't see how those characters are diminished.

Here's a quick scenario I'd like to run by you; would it have been a retcon if they had done something more linear to explain the connection? Something like:

- Quantum, which already connects Le Chifre and Greene, was mortally wounded as an organization by Bond after Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.
- We find out that Silva had support and networking with another organization in Skyfall, not that he was working for anyone, but that they supported him logistically so he could move up his timetable.
- Bond kills the guy in the opening, and escapes the Rome meeting to find Mr. White.
- Mr. White reveals that one of Quantum's surviving members managed to steal the remaining resources from White by allying himself with numerous more mundane criminal enterprises, and supplied Silva with aid for the sake of damaging and distracting MI-6. Thus, the Spectre of Quantum was born.

Because that kind of scenario seems like a way to retcon a connection between Skyfall and the rest but keep it more logical, with the escalation of damage between the participating parties leading to the Bond-Bloefeld feud, as opposed to trying to make all previous players chess pieces of a spiteful step-sibling.

 

[The Guard]

Lot of armchair quarterbacking going on, much of it over some pretty minor elements. We're nitpicking Craig's Bond sarcastically waving at someone now?

There's lot being made of "classic Bond elements" somehow making this film less than it could have been, and I think that's been overstated a bit. There's really not that much classic Bond, beyond a few visual nods to previous films and some very minor plot points and design influences. The tone of the film is still fairly serious. It's not, as another poster pointed out, like this suddenly became a silly, campy story. What they presented was classic Bond reimagined, with a new tone and approach. It's not like suddenly Daniel Craig is cracking jokes every two minutes.

Could they have done more with the supporting character Hinx? Sure. They could have done more with any character. Any movie could. That goes without saying. But they clearly conceived Batista as a silent, unstoppable force. And whether he's trying to gain favor or take over someone else's spot, he's still the archetype of a henchman, and he's obviously meant to fill the "henchman" role within the film. And his actions scenes are fantastic. I don't think he was really underutilized. He had two extended action sequences. That's pretty decent exposure for that type of role.

Why is Bond being in love with Madeleine, or at least her being in love with him, ultimately any less believeable than Bond being in love with Vesper? It's a movie. People fall in love quickly in movies, and they went through a heck of a lot together. Lea Seydoux wasn't an AMAZING Bond girl, but she was very good in her role. She had a good deal of screen presence, matched up nicely with Craig, was subtle and efficient in her performance, and she had enough character depth and relevance to the story not to be forgettable. She's more of a "normal" person than we've seen from Bond girls, even though she could take care of herself to an extent, and I appreciated seeing that for once. She's clearly there to represent the normal life Bond didn't think he could have prior to this film, and that's what she wants and questions him about as well.

People are saying the previous films had more coherent stories, but I don't see how this story isn't coherent. It was a pretty straightforward mystery/adventure. The one major leap storywise was the Spectre ring being hacked. What exactly doesn't make sense about it?

James Bond's seductions have always been a bit creepy. There's a misogynistic edge to it most of the time, often done purposely, but that doesn't make it any less creepy when you think about it. Daniel Craig seems to understand this. He's not trying to be sexy or seductive in the popular sense. He's trying to play alpha, devil-may-care Bond, and let the women who fall for Bond fall for him.

The question "why did they bother to tie SPECTRE to previous films?" keeps coming up. The answer should be fairly obvious. Because 2 out of the 3 previous films featured a shadowy organization that was causing chaos around the world, and this has obviously been an important concept for filmmakers and something they wanted to do with the franchise. By adding this retcon element, it simply gives a better idea of the kinds of things SPECTRE is capable of, aside from what we see in the film. If an organization like SPECTRE had been operating for a while, it makes perfect sense that they'd have been involved in the types of events in previous films.