News on NO TIME TO DIE (no spoilers)

They can certainly do that and the average cinema goer won’t notice, nor care.

However, as a fan of Spectre (the awful final act not withstanding) i too am for a continuation of that story.

Sure they can move on with a brief exchange in dialogue to explain Maddy’s absence. But i’d much prefer a YOLT adaptation, with the epilogue of OHMSS as the prologue and inciting incident of Bond25 in the PTS.

I think it’s a shame not to do this when it’s all been set up. Just because they got things wrong in Spectre doesn’t mean that the only way to correct that with Bond25 is to throw the whole storyline out; it’s the easier option, but not imo the right one. In fact having a movie in which they can see what didn’t work is the perfect preparation for a better stab at it now.

They can recast Blofeld if they want - plastic surgery after an escape makes perfect sense, or ignore the face change just as they’d virtually ignore Spectre if Bond25 is a new story.

Personally i’d like to see Waltz back - he’s a fine actor who’s expressed a desire to do it better next time (not that i personally thought he was bad last time - his restrained performance in the cabalistic spectre meeting was perfectly pitched imo). The character he then built was a creepy sadist in the vein of the great Grimm fairy tail villains that Fleming excelled in (just look at the Kiddy Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang).

Waltz’s Blofeld demonstrated an authentic joy in the pain he inflicts, from the psychological to the physical - wheeling back and forth playfully in his dentist chair while torturing Bond. Another actor may have hammed it up more and made him a cartoon villain. Imo Waltz was just plain creepy and believable.

Sadly for Waltz the added sibling rivalry complicated the character to a point that can’t be adequately fleshed out in the few scenes he had. Without that family baggage playing a major part in his performance he could do even better work as Blofeld next time out.

They should now place the step brother story far in the background. It’s been played out and now needs no more than an allusion or two where it’s pertinent.

What’s more, the end of YOLT (as i’ve bored you all with at length before) provides a fresh and exciting way to intro a brain-washed Bond 7 with the opening 2 chapters of TMWTGG.

EDIT: just seen that you’ve had the same thought:

Absolutely - wonderfully put.

4 Likes

I’m not necessarily advocating this route, Mr Hinx. But rather illustrating what they could do if a stand-alone was their preference.

1 Like

Problem is: they really wrote themselves into a corner with SPECTRE.

The apparent goal was to use Blofeld, give Bond another personal motive for his mission, and end on his “shocking” decision to symbolically throw away his gun and leave the service - after retconning every other CraigBond film to be part of a larger arc.

Instead of an emotional rollercoaster ending with raised stakes, the budget-wise downsized finale let the air out of this, unfortunately. But I believe EON was happy to make it to the finish line with SPECTRE after all the problems that had arisen. And with Craig not enthusiastic about returning, they probably thought: okay, this is it, and we have dealt with that storyline.

Then Craig returned. I imagine that the long phase of indecision also led to an impasse where to take the story next. CraigBond would certainly have to address the ending of SPECTRE. A new Bond would not. But they did not find a new one and/or were forced to accept/hoping for DC to do one more film.

If they decide now to drop any Blofeld connection and to hold off on a true YOLT-adaptation, there basically is only one way to do it: use the time that has passed and show Bond really having dropped out of the service.

Then he gets tangled up in a new threat, and either he is called back or he goes it alone from the start, getting torn between his own agenda as a solo assassin and HMSS.

This would stay true to CraigBond always being the rogue agent, a misfit, someone who thought that working as a 00 would be the right path, then deciding he cannot do this any longer, while still opting to confront the villain in his way.

Simply stating “I’m back, Madeleine got boring or bored with me” would be a flimsy premise to start off, IMO. After all, this is no country club, 007.

By the way, thinking about the ending of SPECTRE - his decision not to kill Blofeld actually is perfectly in line with his duty, isn’t it? He wasn’t ordered to kill him. M is standing nearby. Police officers are around. Not to do it is what is expected of him here, right? Apart from that: character wise it is nothing new. By not killing Vesper´s boyfriend Bond already proved that he can distinguish between personal feelings and professional objective. The only really new thing for CraigBond here is that for the first time he gets the girl.

11 Likes

If they pull that off, the as-yet-unknown director and P&W would have to add on to their homes to accommodate all of the awards they’d win for pulling off that miracle.

The odds are against BOND 25 from the start, and history would suggest that it will be an underwhelming entry. No Bond actor who has done more than two films has gone out on a high note. I doubt Craig will end up reversing that trend.

1 Like

Have we mentioned Drew Goddard’s name in this thread? His Bad Times at the El Royale has the first-rate look and feel that EON might be looking for. And his name is high on the list of hot directors.

2 Likes

He’s an excellent writer-director. Cabin in the Woods is a real blast - a surprising genre mash up.

He looks set for X-force which sounds like a franchise, so he’s probably not available for 25. But after that i’d love to see him have a stab at Bond.

I must admit, on the surface I would tend to agree. Especially if the longer term Bond fans are still present and alive, and are coming to this with some inherent long term association with, and expectations for, the Blofeld character.

But (!), bearing in mind Craig’s era is absent of history, for the newer Bond fan, Blofeld means about as much as Dominic Greene.

Also, we do have the much better, and more relevant, and (more than likely) better realised sequel of M:I-5 and M:I-6. I am not sure there would be any point in taking that sequel smash head on.

That said, I would be completely ready to be surprised. I did love SPECTRE for all its bombast and confidence. More of the same would be welcome.

2 Likes

You don’t buy back the rights to Blofeld and SPECTRE only to use them once.
I’m sure they’ll be back but there’s no hurry now -they’re not going anywhere (except possibly Dartmoor).

3 Likes

With Duncan Jones, even if the plot is on the nose, the execution will not. He shares his fathers approach to art.

Well…C has been spotted there…

image

Perhaps they could give it the Arkham Asylum treatment with Dartmore being filled with undesirables whom are most desirable to Blofeld’s network. Bunt and Hinx break out Blofeld along with a few choice prisoners to fill the ranks of a new spectre.

The prisoners’ names are Rosa Klebb & Red Grant, Goldfinger and Odd Jobb, Largo, Wint & Kidd, Scaramanga, Mr Big, Stromberg & Jaws, Drax, Dr No, etc…

That would give Eon Bond stories for many years to come.

Also, setting up a world in which all of these villains are on the loose allows the potential of a shared universe with some villains getting spin offs like the forthcoming Joker movie.

I’d love to see the crises briefing with all double 00s around a table being allowcated villains to track down by M. Match cut this with these villains around an equally big table (as in Spectre) being allocated missions by Blofeld; Klebb’s honey trap for; Fort Knox; stealing a nuke; taking diamond mines; assassination; drugs; biological ware fare; commando sleepers in Dover! Etc etc…

Frustratingly for Bond he’s not given Blofeld to hunt down, but instead cut out of it all because he’s seen as compromised by the Home Office due to the family connection. Instead he’s sent to japan to help with the very recent rumours of a Garden of Death circulating around a Dr Shatterhand and located in the ‘forbidden zones’ of Fukushima (a little inspiration from Tarkovsky’s Stalker is never a bad thing).

EDIT: in the Spectre meeting best not too show these characters directly, since that would force casting them all now. Just show them from behind, silhouettes, iconic body parts and items: Metal teeth, bowler hat, gold lighter igniting a fat cigar, golden gun, prosthetic hands… etc.

2 Likes

I do like the concept of Blofeld’s escape, which brings Bond back into circulation where he is sent to investigate the disappearance of several prominent figureheads. That sends him in the direction of Shatterhand and the Garden of Death.

2 Likes

That sounds like an awesome video game, I would try it, and support it.

2 Likes

It was an awesome game series when Batman did it. Goldeneye Rogue Agent demonstrated it doesn’t fit Bond quite as well…

Hmm - that would tie every upcoming film together and give Blofeld the No.1 villain role again for decades…

Let’s rather not. Reboot Irma Bunt, yes. I would love Lucia (Monica Bellucci) be revealed as Bunt - that would give her small SPECTRE scene new weight. But leave the other classic villains in their era.

BOND 25 can/should end the Craig arc with Blofeld. But BOND 26 should throw off those shackles and start fresh with new evil masterminds.

5 Likes

I’m of two minds. I really want EON to double down on Blofeld and deliver Spectre 2 but I can also understand them wanting to keep him in their back pocket for Bond #7. Sort of an “In Case of Emergency Break Glass” situation. Bring Blofeld back every three or four films like the Joker in the Batman series. He returns to menace every Bond actor going forward then he’s jailed for awhile until he returns again.

If brought back for Bond 7 he should be rebooted, at least lose the family connection.

3 Likes

I’m of the opinion that Blofeld should never have been brought back, he was very much a product of the 60’s and has already appeared in more film than books. I can’t help but feel that the Joker is a part of the problem; there’s a line in The Dark Knight where he says “we’re destined to do this forever” and this seems to have been projected onto every hero/nemesis dynamic.
Because of the nature of comics Batman is locked into a seemingly eternal battle against the Joker and the rest of his Rogues Gallery as he faces them again and again across the decades. But the Bond series worked very differently, for the most part it was one villain per book who’d be dispatched by the end. Blofeld became the known as Bond’s nemesis by virtue of being the only villain he faced in multiple stories and striking the greatest blow against Bond by being responsible for the death of his wife. As such the dynamic was entirely different.
I feel that Sherlock Holmes’s Moriarty (arguably the originator of the nemesis trope in popular fiction) has much the same problem. Despite only appearing in a small number of stories and being killed after his first appearance every recent adaptation of Holmes has revolved around the character.
In this age of the reboot numerous other franchises are seeking to resurrect classic villains (Star Trek’s Khan springs to mind) but they very rarely have the same impact the second time round.

So where to go from here? I’d rather Blofeld be absent from Bond 25, I feel his reintroduction into the series was poorly handled and missed what made him so fascinating the first time round. He’s still out there though so I don’t think he should be swept away completely. What I’d do is have Bond 26 be a stand alone adventure to establish the new Bond and then have Bond 27 end with a final stinger of a SPECTRE ring, revealing that the organisation is still out there.
Then Bond 28 begins with a pre-title sequence that follows a highly skilled operative infiltrating a maximum security prison and then executing Blofeld. Bond’s mission is to locate the operative and find out who they’re working for, setting up a new mastermind for the future.

5 Likes

The idea of a hero having one central nemesis is a sensible tradition. Bringing back Blofeld after finally getting the rights was IMO good and possibly unavoidable.

The stepbrother angle was not necessary but could have worked if it had been the center of SPECTRE. Instead they opted for making Blofeld a mystery which never was mysterious.

They should have come out right from the start, promoting SPECTRE as Blofeld‘s big return. The retconning was not necessary for that either. Just focussing on Bond‘s biggest enemy would have been enough.

Should Bond 25 bring back Blofeld I hope that it will not be treated as a secret again but made an essential part of the film and the PR.

3 Likes

They could put him front and centre of the teaser trailer like Mr White was for QOS, and to a degree, SPECTRE

3 Likes

Both of these post! Carry on what Spectre started and keep celebrating the icons that made Bond: SPECTRE, Blofeld, the white Turkish Angora cat and especially not tolerating failure!

3 Likes