My take: Blofeld is overused and has lived out his welcome.
He was the villain of the novels and of the Connery era - and resurrecting him for SPECTRE only proved how difficult the one main mastermind is to pull off in today’s times.
Therefore: let’s drop Blofeld and invent new villains who can be taken down film by film.
There’s a little idea for Blofeld that I’ve been playing with:
Imagine a pre-title sequence that follows a highly skilled operative as they infiltrate a maximum security prison. This operative evades/ takes out the guards until they come face to face with their target; Enrst Stavro Blofeld*. The operative then proceeds to execute Blofeld and escape.
Then Bond’s mission is to locate the operative and find out who they’re working for…
*Most likely not played by Christoph Waltz but someone who approximates his appearance and has the scar.
My idea is to turn the ‘code-name’ theory on its head:
Whoever is #2 in SPECTRE uses the cover name Blofeld, so Oberhauser was Blofeld for some time, but now someone else is. Bond could spend several films defeating one ‘Blofeld’ after another, all the while trying to run down the shadowy real Blofeld operating behind the scenes.
Nooooo! In today’s world, Blofeld is more relevant than ever. Think about Osama Bin Laden: secret organisation, check: operatives all over the world, check: secret underground lairs, check… tbh Blofeld and Spectre have never felt more relevant and it’s high time Eon used them to their potential!
The interesting thing is that in DAF Blofeld uses an American billionaire industrialist’s empire as cover for his villainy–and it went undetected. So in some ways Willard Whyte was the first American Bond villain.
Blofeld as chameleon villain was always interesting to me.
Is Mr. Big not already an American villain?
Or Sanchez? And Drax (the movie version)?
Yes, no, no.
Notice that in DAF, yes, there all the trappings of SPECTRE, but the name is never mentioned. TSWLM was designed as Blofeld and SPECTRE of course as the agreement with McClory was running out, but it was changed and all the orange jumpsuits which was partially done for artistic reasons with the Liparus set. Needed to set the baddies from the crews but done more out of the politics of Bond at the time.
What about a modeling a villain after a guy like Elon Musk? Not necessarily American, but a guy using America as a platform to birth and house his own sinister version of a space program.
So…Moonraker?
If you say so!
Just no laser guns or disco.
Moonraker II - This time there’s no disco!
But I want the disco… and the flared trousers… and the laser guns… I want it all!!!
“…if you don’t samba…”
I never thought that an American villain was new ground for the series, just that the current climate lends itself naturally for one.
I’d also like to add that this thread was started a year ago and my opinions have shifted somewhat. I’m still open to an American villain and still consider the 3 actors I mentioned to be strong candidates. However I’ve decided that using Trump as an influence wouldn’t be a good move for the series. He just seems to much of an easy target and doing so would feel less like taking inspiration from current events and more like riding a bandwagon.
Besides, we’ve already had a Trump-esq villain (see what I mean at 2:55).
I do agree that it’s probably time we had an American villain, and some kind of rich industrialist/capitalist seems logical;
Actors;
Ed Harris as mentioned would be great
William Hurt
Aaron Eckhart
Dennis Haysbert
Sam Neill
and for someone younger
Jeremy Renner, Michael Ealy or Casey Affleck
There’s also three other actors I’ve always wanted to see play Bond Villains;
Ben Kingsley
Ciaran Hinds
Gary Oldman
I think it is high time they just bite the bullet and have Dafoe come in for one.
He’d be damned good.
Everything Or Nothing not count? Getting Dafoe was quite a coup for that game
It’s hard to believe he’s never done it.
The older he gets the better he will be for a Bond villain!