Whilst it is baffling why Moneypenny, now expressly not a field agent and helping Mallory “with the transition”, then turns up in Macau, she and Bond… well, it’s not “will they, won’t they?” but “oh they definitely did, hopefully they paid to steam clean the carpet and… how many salamanders, did you say?”
The man in Moneypenny’s bed in Spectre is C. This improves the story and its character relationships considerably. Her boss even kills him at the end, providing Moneypenny with plausible deniability of the relationship.
Complicit in Mallory’s Heracles scheme - or at least, criminally neglecting many opportunities to stop him - it dawns on Moneypenny that Bond can still touch her, stroke her, undress her. She is about to tell Bond this when Mallory threatens to staple her nostrils to his ever expanding desk. Accordingly, she doesn’t bother and, not fully appreciating this, Bond decides to bid for oblivion instead. Moneypenny’s intervention could have prevented it. Puts the cow in “coward”.
Either the second or third option would have greatly improved their respective films. Spectre needed to have a traitor coming from the ranks of characters that the audience was familiar with in order to have some semblance of a surprise that the film is set up for. Having it be a character with a long history in the franchise like Moneypenny, as opposed to Mallory (who it originally was supposed to be), could have given Spectre something of a jolt that it so desperately needed.
Having Moneypenny in on the Heracles debacle would have also made the film vastly better. In fact, get the entirety of the crew in on it as well, with Q having helped lead the way in the development of the project, with all of them fully on board with it and supporting it without hesitation. Then bring Bond out of retirement by Felix, as in the film, and instead of politely competing with his former employer until their paths merge and they begin working together again, in this version, Bond fully goes to war with his former colleagues in an effort to shut down their rogue operation. This would have been a vastly more interesting and worthwhile story to watch unfold as opposed to the film that we ultimately got with No Time to Die.
In this version of NTTD, we could potentially have gotten some kind of adaptation of the beginning of Fleming’s TMWTGG, except with the twist of it being a moment where Bond is actually confronting the film’s villain.
Today, I would vote for all three options, with tdalton‘s fourth option topping even them.
Having to choose, the SPECTRE idea would have been perfect.
Although I still hate Fiennes nixing the idea of being the big traitor. Actors who want to remain sympathetic are a huge problem. And I had always thought Fiennes is one of the good guys, not caring about how he comes across.
I actually kind of come down on Fiennes’ side when it comes to Spectre. I think it might have been more about having M turning out to be a traitor immediately after assuming the job would have been a bit much. Especially when you consider that it would retroactively make the final scene of Skyfall quite ludicrous, with its on-the-nose resetting of the Bond universe back to its Connery-era roots with Moneypenny and Q in place as well as a Bernard Lee-esque M in place behind the desk in a very similar-looking office.
Tanner would have been the one I think they should have had working with C in Spectre. Or Moneypenny, which could work considering she’d already shot him in the previous film. That could have put a different spin on that moment in Skyfall had she turned out to be the traitor in the next one.
On the other hand, an era so focussed on moles would have presented the ultimate twist if the new M actually had turned out one of Blofeld‘s puppets. The smart blood could have been a method for M to stay informed where Bond is (instead of introducing it and immediately deactivating it). And the whole finale could have been about Blofeld watching delightedly how he has turned M against Bond, letting them fight it out while escaping.
The C character should have been M, and Bond should have realized that M actually wanted to control him but never to do anything that would have endangered Spectre.
Got my vote since it made me laugh out loud when I read it.
Please no. Along with “going rogue,” the traitor trope needs to be put on a long, if not permanent, hiatus.
That is an understatement.
As if it weren’t already so. Mommy is dead, and son is reporting to his new Daddy in a spanking new/old Daddy office. The Orphan Trilogy neatly tied up with a bow.
So there would two competing rogue antagonists. Double your pleasure, double your fun.
Much better would be seeing C in bed with Q at some point, and in the final confrontation, Q reveals that he knew all along about C’s treachery, and coated parts of his anatomy with a tasteless, colorless, odorless, slow-acting poison, which is activated when it mixes with saliva and gastric juices. C, after initially being stunned by Q’s outing him, starts to stiffen as the poison takes effect. His gun drops to the floor, and his face freezes into a look of aghast incredulity, his eyes wide and mouth agape.
I don’t disagree, but the entire film is set up for a twist that never comes. The moment we meet C, it’s clear that he’s a villain. Same for Oberhauser, yet the film plays up this mystery about their identities that’s solved in the first act, yet saves the “reveal”, as much as you can call it that, for the moment that essentially kicks off the climax of the film.
Spectre is a film that treads water for most of its run time, sending Bond around solving a mystery the audience has already solved not long after the title sequence is over. Its reveal, which is largely the point of the film, is anything but. It means absolutely nothing to the people who don’t know who Blofeld is and those that do know who he is had it figured out before they even sat down in their seats. In order for the mystery, as presented, to have any payoff, there has to be something there to surprise the audience. Having Tanner helping C and Oberhauser behind the scenes could achieve that. Having Lucia actually be Blofeld and Oberhauser is a decoy could achieve that as well. The film needs something, though, because as presented, it’s a lifeless affair that introduces a non-mystery in the first act and then simply treads water for an hour and a half until it decides to reveal what the audience either already knew or didn’t care about in the first place.
Spot on. Arguably though, if we look at MOONRAKER, one of the favourites from the ‘classic’ Broccoli/Eon era, they set up a ‘mystery’ with the Moonraker hijack - and Bond is sent to the manufacturer and right there and then the whole mystery is solved; no other strand of investigation is even explored (as far as we get to see). Maybe Eon and Mendes felt they could get away with a non-mystery - although then they should have introduced more of a Bond/Drax cat-and-mouse. As is, neither C nor Bloferhauser are really used to any great effect.
For us CBners this is still stuff for countless discussions because we know about the background of Oberhauser and Blofeld and their literary uses. But for an audience entirely new to Bond (maybe even coming aboard only with SKYFALL or SPECTRE) this is a problem. Bond sitting sulking in his gloomy home, later being identified by whoever it is he’s after. And when they finally meet an hour later there’s supposedly a whole backstory that’s bad enough for Bond to plainly state he’s only here to kill this guy. How is that going to sit with an audience who hasn’t read the entire Fleming canon and watched every Bond film? Who thought this was a good idea? When the entire evidence for it the audience gets is a few lines of exposition dialogue?
I’ve never been one for the “traitor” trope as MrKiddWint and others have pointed out. And as for Fiennes - M is a bit of a sacred cow for me, so I tend to be with him on the whole “not doing it” if he’s a traitor line.
On the other hand, having not missed Q or Moneypenny for a couple of films, while I think her return was done well in SF, there was a definitely an opportunity there to do something from a dramatic perspective, though I’m sure there’s a whole load people who would object for the same reasons I wouldn’t have want to see M in other fashion that than the four variants (even 5 as I don’t mind Fox’s unfortunately one-note performance) we’ve had.
As for our options - SP needs the help and that might have made (some) difference.
Where Moonraker succeeds on that front and Spectre fails is that Drax is a villain that commands the screen. Even if he’s not constantly on screen, his presence is felt. He also has a grandiose, world-ending plan that captures the audience’s attention. Oberhauser, on the other hand, doesn’t really impact the story of Spectre all that much, nor is he a particularly commanding presence. The story of Spectre is a mystery that attempts to tie up loose ends that the audience knows aren’t really related to what’s going on in the film and trying to set Oberhauser up as the architect of everything that had happened in the past decade, all the while barely giving him any time on screen. He wasn’t around for all of the bad stuff that he said he "author"ed while also being absent for massive chunks of the film that is supposed to set him up as the big bad of the entire franchise, while also just coincidentally being Bond’s long lost foster brother.
Also we don’t get to see him actually doing any villainy stuff. At the Spectre meeting he’s just listening to reports, entirely impassive. Hinx killing that other operative is simply everyday dog-eat-dog in Spectre House; Oberhauser has no hand in it.
When they finally meet in the desert Oberhauser just acts like a real estate broker or used cars salesman: smarmy, somewhat shady. Hardly in the world threatening way even some third rate politicians today manage easily. Even torturing Bond he does 10 steps removed from the action at some weird console. Bloferhauser never really acts evil.
There’s also that C is the one out there doing most of the villainous work, as much as there is in the film anyway. Oberhauser spends most of his efforts just trying to get back at Bond and taunting him about all of the pain he’s caused. Oberhauser basically operates as his own private tech company, with the sole focus of making one man’s life miserable.
There could have been something good there if they’d had C there, at least initially, as someone who genuinely seems interested in remaking the secret service into something that’s better and more effective, but just has ideas about doing so that Bond and/or M don’t agree with. They clash politely at times but genuinely seem to be working towards the same goal. Maybe in this C is actually Blofeld, but he points Bond in the direction of Oberhauser to keep him busy and inflict some more pain on him so that he can go behind the scenes and begin assembling his surveillance state while Bond is busy with Oberhauser’s dealings.
Another problem with it is the title itself. A different title that is in no way related to the SPECTRE organization could have allowed them to keep both the reveal of the organization and the reveal of Blofeld himself a surprise so that at least fans of the franchise might have gotten something out of the return of the character. It could have even been a cool moment, especially if they’d had it later in the film, when Bond uncovers the Spectre meeting and we see him walk in. If we hadn’t known that was coming, realizing in real time what Bond is stepping into could have been a cool moment for longtime Bond fans.
The dark and seedy and cruel and probably needy deeds of Miss Moneypenny continue.
Crazed with envy, Moneypenny has Dr Warmflash struck off by the General Medical Council, for incompetence, inappropriate relationships with patients, stealing pencils, smelling of moistened spaniels and being an all-round moss-chewer.
Given that there’s no other way Necros can know that Bond and Saunders will meet in Vienna, there must be a mole in British Intelligence leaking their whereabouts. Who could it be? She has a history with Saunders; unwisely he told her on their third date (Kielder Water Bird of Prey Centre) that he preferred classical to Manilow. Revenge was mandatory.
Not that she’s told anyone but when at the races to spy on Zorin, Moneypenny puts the entire 00-Section pension scheme on a horse that comes so last it’s already in an instant lasagne before the end of the race. This is why they are all so, so old; they have to keep “working”.