I’m enjoying all this speculation, very thoughtful and entertaining. My only hesitance is the closeup of the actor standing between scenes. His face on the exposed side (non mask) appears to be traumatized from a prior incident. This would rule out a young Blofeld or White, unless they had an amazing plastic surgeon afterwards. I could be over analyzing, a fault I admit to on occasion.
Exactly! Nothing like a little retrofit to dig you out of a hole. The talented folk will usually find a way of turning such problems into virtues, which is exactly what they’ve done by using such a creepy mask. Bravo to whomever thought of it.
I’m guessing the mask will be on the whole time. If we do see the face they may (budget allowing) CGI a younger version of Blofeld/White over this actor’s.
Stylistically, it’s brilliant statement of intent, very excited !
No need to show the face, save some money for something else instead of throwing it out of the window for some crappy CGI. Thing is, Bond geeks know that in an early draft of the script, Blofeld was ment to be one of the men who came to that house. Outside of Bond fandom, no one knows about it (or cares).
And “officially”, Madeleine doesn’t know either.
If they have Waltz/Blofekd back, he’s likely to go after Bond and especially Madeleine after a possible escape. And to let her know that the game’s afoot, he sends her a similar mask (or even the original one), which triggers the flashback. And then she understands what was going on all the time, why Blofeld was after her father and herself. Guess it’ll be too late…
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Maybe for a tsunami surfing scene 
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Technically Madeline did remember “a man” coming to her house to kill her father, as when she was telling Bond on the train about the Beretta 9mm under the sink with the bleach. But she probably didn’t know it was Blofeld himself. But absolutely that mask looks as creepy as hell and I am really stoked to see this sequence played out! 
That definitely looks like a young Jesper Christiansen.
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So the one thing that no one has mentioned is, why did EON let Splashnews on the set to take photos and video? Unless I’m mistaken, these do not appear to be taken from a secret location using a super zoom lens. Is this their way to let everyone know filming has begun in lieu of a press conference?
I’m sure we’ll still be getting the press conference very soon now, Ace… If EON did indeed okay this footage and pics from Splashnews, then perhaps it was “only intended to whet our appetites…”
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I like this a lot. If Blofeld is back, I could justify a flashback of this type.
What are the odds that Madeleine will be around for a significant portion of the movie as opposed to just a glorified cameo early on?
Striking imagery. Can imagine quite a haunting sequence here. Great to see something to show we’re really getting going.
For what it’s worth, I reckon this will be the second hitman rather than Mr White. Especially as the original leaked scene description was : “A child shoots an intruder. She is chased by a 2nd intruder and runs onto a frozen lake.”
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I have to agree. From the footage we’ve seen, there really is a lack of urgency in the way the girl is running. Frozen lake or not, if a masked man with a machine gun is after you, you’d being off like Far Lap.
If he wanted to catch her, he could shoot the ice near her and cut off any path of escape, then grab her.
They may be tasked to take her not kill her - which would explain him not trying to kill her and possibly save her
Narratively, that would make sense.
Thanks for rembering that description. It seems perfectly clear then that this is the 2nd intruder. And I’m guessing the masks are indeed to explain why Maddy didn’t recognise Blofeld in SP.
I’m really not liking the sound of any of this. It seems all but confirmed that we have a flashback scene of a young returning Bond girl doing something that was mentioned in a previous film but I’m certain, when that original scene was written, it was never the intention to, for some reason, show it in a later film.
It seems that the days are gone when a smart standalone thriller story passed for a Bond film. Now we have retconning, flimsy character relationships and pointless undercooked ‘personal’ interests all over the place. If done well it could have been an enhancement to the expected formula but retrospectively linking the previous three films to Spectre and now linking this final one to it, it just doesn’t work for me. It sounds a mess. And messes take a lot of exposition and too long a runtime just to make it make sense, let alone blow anyone’s socks off.
Oh well, I had high hopes for Spectre and it disappointed. Maybe if I have low expectations for this it might surprise me.
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Well, the retconning obviously is a reaction to the way narratives are presented now.
What did not work well in SPECTRE (because it felt tagged on) might be successful in BOND 25, however, since they probably started the story as a sequel to that film, hence Madeleine´s return.
And I said it before, if BOND 25 manages to bring the whole Bond-Blofeld arc to a satisfying conclusion it could also turn SPECTRE into an exposition which gets better since all the moments that felt underdeveloped would appear just as a tease for something deeper to come.
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It’s definitely possible that Bond 25 could in retrospect improve on Spectre’s shortcomings. To me, Spectre always felt like a part 1. The most obvious reason bein g Bond not killing Blofeld.