And even old plot devices are back from the grave… Maibaum’s original idea to have Spectre wiped out by rogue terrorists. I love that they used this.
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Me too. Terrorism is unfortunately here to stay. But I like the idea with SPECTRE completely eradicated, and Bond joining them, that the world Bond inhabited loses its colour and becomes business and usual boring. The likes of Blofeld and Hinx become fewer and far between without Bond’s presence drawing them in anymore. There’s a fitting beauty that the hero and his villains reach an equilibrium.
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Confession: I watched SPECTRE again last evening. And guess what? (No, not that.)
There are three cars in the chase scene: the one with the old man listening to opera; a glimpse of another one; and the truck Bond swerves to avoid, thereby sending him down the staircase to the Tiber. There are also plenty of parked cars on the streets! (As if you did not know, I love what D.A. Miller calls “too close reading” of art works. I know the plot of SP so well, that I can redistribute the part of my mind usually concerned with narrative among other the formal elements).
Also: in the PTS, Bond and his lady friend walk against the crowd, visually establishing at the outset the existence of two narratives/flows in the movie.
Sudden/spectral appearances: Bond behind the men sent to kill Lucia; Bond in the airplane; Mr. Hinx on the train; Q at the Hoffler Klinik; Bond on the water leading to Mr. White’s hideout.
I also noticed how the score provides both bridges between scenes, and structure in support of the surreal/horror stylings. Admittedly, I am very weak in the area of musical experience/knowledge, so this observation is limited.
Just as the characters are haunted by events from their pasts (which go toward determining their present actions), so the film itself it haunted by Bond films of the past, with eruptions of these past movies determining the mise en scene of the present film.
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I have come to believe that SPECTRE is one of the most underrated Bonds in the series.
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You would be correct.
There is a depth to Spectre that few Bond films can come close to. It’s a tiny series of stories about death told on an Operatic scale.
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Still wonder whether the stuntwoman was seriously hurt in this…
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Isnt filming that bit how Craig broke his leg?
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Yep
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That is what I am finding. There is my old standby, Robot Bond, to whom we can add Frankenstein Bond in a horror reading–an assassin built out of various parts, and programmed to kill.
More horror: the birds in Mr. White’s house, and their pecking at his corpse. Are they ravens? Crows?
On last night’s viewing, I gave myself over to a surreal reading (thanks @Dustin, and also to everyone for their readings), and it was not only enjoyable, but carried me through the entire length of the movie.
Paying more attention to the score (or trying to) enhanced my sense of the film’s operatic scale. I have always enjoyed the film’s operatic images, and with this viewing, I gave myself over to them, which probably allowed me to experience/understand how the score supported/deepened them.
Thought: the sequence of tiny scenes of death leads at the end to a new dawn/rebirth, as Bond and Madeleine drive off into an unknown, but promising future.
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A future destroyed, momentarily by Bonds inability to let the past die. If he had then be would have known his daughter.
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Also I’m struck by the deaths of CraigBonds female allies throughout the series, he brings death upon these women. Solange, Fields, Severne even M. But in Spectre he is an Angel of Death to men and an angel of protection to women. Lucia survives because of his intervention and is left with the protection of light, Felix Leiter, the literal circle of fire that protects Mina from the Brides of Dracula in Stokers novel.
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Excellent observation. It never occurred to me, but I bet that I registered this fact on some level, which contributes to my love for the film.
Last night, I gave some attention to Bond’s sexual relations, and both Lucia and Madeleine seem desirous of the activity from the start of the encounter. In both cases, an extremely traumatic incident finds a release valve in consensual sexual acts.
And the interactions Bond has with Moneypenny and Q convinced me yet again that canoodling had gone on between them previously–the spectre of past connubial bliss informing present interactions.
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I’m glad Spectre is being seen in a better light. I’m guessing NTTD will get it’s due in another six years.
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I‘m all in. And in years to come we will remember them as the gold standard.
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I’m sensing a move towards that already.
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It’s often the case that the things we initially dislike strongly become things we stronly appreciate and like.
I don’t know how many foods I used to “hate” that slowly grew on me until they became favourites (hello mushrooms), or albums that I initially didn’t like that became favourites in an artists discography.
The same applies to films, and certainly Bond films. Things that initially challenged expectations become what’s attractive. I think QoS is my personal biggest example of this, but SP has began to move up my rankings (I think my Craig rankings are currently CR, QoS, NTtD, SP, SF), and these are two films I initially strongly disliked and ranked quite low.
The key is to revisit things and to give them a chance. The fun of the Bond series and this forum is that every film has its champions to offer new perspectives. The fact we haven’t (yet) had films or shows in a Bond “universe” every six months allows time for revisits, rewatches, and reappraisals.
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I look forward to your and others’ too-close-readings of NTTD.
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I stand / wobble by every syllable.
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I’m not sure how much of this will be new to people here, but I learned a few things and thought it was worth sharing. I’ve been following this channel for a while. They do a lot of these ‘Original Plans For…’ videos, and I find it really interesting to see what the film was going to look like at various stages of development.
There are quite a few of the alternate ideas that I like:
Tilda Swinton as Blofeld is an interesting proposition, I’d rather have seen her in the role that Waltz, who always came off as the predictable choice.
Bond finding the decoded message with the name ‘Blofeld’ early on would have given the reveal a little more weight.
The solar oven sounds like a more compelling death trap, with Q being there, upping the tension.
Bond saving the girl from drowning would have been a nice callback and brought this era full circle.
On the other hand, I’m glad we didn’t get the reveal of Tanner as the mole or M gone bad.
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Thanks for sharing, @Vanya!
Many of these ideas seem promising, especially in comparison with the underwhelming third act of SPECTRE. Seems always difficult to cook something up that’s effectively various parts of different plot lines and make it seem as if it was one coherent story from beginning to end. I would have vastly preferred a strong script they only change in minor places.
Perhaps they should not have used Blofeld at all and just teased Spectre as a private service provider the government thinks about outsourcing its 00 needs to. Bond could have been transferred to the diplomatic section and from there uncover a plot that leads back to Spectre, without revealing more details and leaving the mastermind for another Bond to battle.
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