Renewed appreciation for Spectre

Ouch…!

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As for my renewed appreciation for SPECTRE I will admit that it has great, even magnificent moments which put it into that group of Bond films which just do not realize their obvious potential.

For me that includes these films:

  • DAF
  • AVTAK
  • TND
  • TWINE
  • DAD
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That’s a good appraisal I think.

A nice way of looking at it.

If I may I’d split these into two further subcategories:

Those that are mostly bad, but have great moments, or aspects… AVTAK and DAD.

And those that are good, but let down by poor moments, or aspects…

DAF is a decent bond movie until the highly anti climatic finale (you once kindly explained that this was due to the set being destroyed before the cameras rolled, if I remember correctly) .

TND is a great second movie with one of the most exciting PTS sequences, dr Kaufman is superb and the soundproof booth punch up is nicely gritty.

But I find Price too panto (Ant Hopkins was originally cast). The use of Hollywood slo-mo saps the tension from a few important moments. The finale goes too Steven Seagal; for some reason an uzi doesn’t suit bond. And I have to fast forward the Paris Carver-hotel bedroom seduction as it’s painfully cringey; you could cut that scene into an episode of cheesy 80s soap Dynasty and it wouldn’t be at all out of place. A real shame, since the waiting with a vodka and silencer moment that precedes it is vintage bond.

TWINE is a brilliant conceit (and actor) in a villain who cant feel pain, but then the script doesn’t really know what to do with that novel gimmick - it’s all but wasted. With Apted’s vastly different style to Armstrong’s it suffers the worst tonal inconsistency in the franchise. And it’s Poseidon adventure finale is dull dull dull. Like TB there’s something about Bond and underwater sequences that really drags (hoping Bond25 isn’t in Jamaica to utilise it’s Caribbean depths). And then there’s Christmas Jones…

But TWINE has a good villainess; a novel action sequence with the airborn buzz saws; a story that presents an admirable attempt to allow Brossa to act. There’s also an excellent action sequence in the subterranean nuclear whole in the ground (whatever that place was) it’s final moment with Carlisle and Brossa eye to eye after the bullet proof glass protects Renard has great tension. And “I never miss!” Is a very nice line.

I’d place Spectre in this last category more firmly than any of the above. For me it’s a really good Bond movie badly let down by it’s strangely amateurish London finale.

There’s a lot of class to be found in Spectre; a great thriller with a wonderfully foreboding pace and the feeling of a gathering storm that’s nailed by Mendes et al. The PTS are spectacular, the funeral scene is perfect and the Spectre meeting/reveal of Oberhauser is cleverly understated making it far more sinister than it could’ve otherwise been. Plus I really like the staging and Waltz’s performance in the torture scene; his playful-dentist routine is very Brothers Grimm and that’s exactly what a great Bond villain should be (Bardem nailed that throughout SF). Best of all is the rescuing of Belucci From the 2 assassins all to an uncannily bond theme-alike piece of opera. Its perhaps my favourite scene in the whole franchise.

Btw, for obvious reasons QoS would also be in this latter category. It’s a magnificent Bond movie that almost happened. Had they been able to finish writing it, it could’ve been a very nuanced story. However it would still have been let down by its appallingly realised large action set pieces; the docks and airplane sequences.

Forsters crazy camera technique worked at times; the opening car chase is edge of the seat visceral, but for the more complex set pieces he seriously underestimated the audiences desire for geography. With 2 cars we can join the dots, but with more moving objects on two planes of dimension (rather than the flat surface of a road) the audience can easily lose their bearings. If we don’t know what we’re looking at then we don’t care about what we’re looking at and all tension is lost.

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I haven’t rewatched SPECTRE recently, so ‘renewed appreciation’ is probably not the exact thing I feel towards it. But there are indeed things in SPECTRE that stick, and actually in a positive manner.

It’s the imagery of the film - not the photography, mind you - that strikes me as fascinating: Bond in a bizarre costume, without really good explanation other than he’s blending in with a likewise bizarre event (and I would have loved if Bond hadn’t changed into the suit so fast); the surreal Rome part with the cemetery, the hut somewhere in the outback, that other surreal scene in the train where ‘civilians’ suddenly disappear once the fight unfolds.

For a large part of SPECTRE, extras are absent. And when they appear they are more a nuisance than anything else. I wonder what the film might have looked like had it entirely dropped the extras and events had unfolded completely in sceneries devoid of other people - if all the goons and Spectre personnel had only been shown in shadows or without faces and the bizarre volume had been turned to eleven.

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“Good evening Mr Bond…
We have control of the vertical.
We have control of the horizontal.
Welcome to the SPECTRE Zone…”

I’d watch that!

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I recommend re-watching it.

It also had some great lines/scenes:-

  • “He went to school with the Home Secretary”
  • “Of course he did!”

“You’re right sir, you do have a tricky day ahead”

Q preventing Bond from playing with the gun in the Q Lab - like old times!!

“No thanks, I’m not staying”
“That’s a shame!”

“Can’t you see I’m grieving”
“No”

"- May I get you an aperitif?

  • “I’m not sure. It gets me into trouble. Makes me do crazy things…”
  • “Well, we can’t have that

“Nothing can be as painful as listening to you talk”

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Perhaps the best line in the movie.

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When I watched the SPECTRE teaser and the trailer again today I noticed how much tighter and more threatening the whole plot was laid out: the revelation that everything leads back to Bond here actually appears to be quite shocking.

I love the teaser which has a very sinister vibe to the proceedings, almost like a horror film.

As many teasers/trailers those also contain scenes or takes that were not used in the final film. The way Bond answers the question where it all leads - “to me” - appears, IMO, to be much more filled with fear than the final version.

Maybe BOND 25 does retcon SPECTRE and really picks up on many things hinted at, thereby giving it a satisfying conclusion. If it doesn’t, I would love to see someone re-edit SPECTRE, maybe even doing away with the whole finale, turning it into a lean, at many times surreal thriller.

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Yes. Unless I totally misheard it, in the trailer he says: me.

He does. Definitely preferred that version too.

Totally agree! The teaser was great and you’re bang on to say it plays more like a horror. This is a layer that I think the combo of Mendes and Newman brought; a foreshadowing that never really existed in Bond before them.

That foreshadowing allows them to build on a tonal bed of suspense and fear that again is fresh to this action franchise.

I absolutely love this about their work and the moments it’s allowed, such as Spectre’s funeral scene. Newman and Mendes’ teamwork makes that “Can’t you see I’m grieving?” “No” work on an artistic level unheard of in Bond (except for perhaps QoS’ wonderfully muted shoot out in the opera house kitchen).

For me the biggest teased and unresolved element of Spectre’s teaser is the use of Barry’s OHMSS theme… I hope that’s a clue to Spectre’s sequel. And if that sequel is along the lines of YOLT, then there’s no better material to continue this developing tone of surreal thriller than that. Also, no better a director for it than the man that gave us the surreal thriller True Detective.

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Don’t know where else to post this…

Bond screenwriter wins award: Tony Awards 2019: Northern Irish drama The Ferryman wins best play. The production, penned by James Bond co-writer Jez Butterworth, tells the tale of a former IRA man in Co Armagh during “The Troubles.”

Butterworth also did uncredited work on Skyfall.

I rewatched SPECTRE today for the first time in a while and enjoyed my time with it. It’s not without issues, but I still think it’s one of the better Bond films for the most part. Looking back at this thread, I think odd_jobbies captures my opinion well:

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I’m able to watch and enjoy SPECTRE right up until Blofeld enters his control room in Africa. From there on I just don’t care about anything that takes place and I usually switch it off. Everything before that though? Very enjoyable, if a bit slow.

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I’m honoured :nerd_face:

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Maybe I’ll give it a stab at some point. I’ve already tinkered with a version to reduce the yellow hue… But overall SP could benefit from a significant tightening of its belt. So many wasted frames and, as you say, some alternate takes in the trailers that could make it a subtly different experience.

However I’d consider it unfair to recut SP without also recutting QoS - and that’s virtually impossible without access to the raw footage. Unlike SP, QoS doesn’t have enough frames…

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How I’d recut Spectre (without rewriting/reshooting anything):

Remove the yellow filter,
Remove the cuckoo lines,
Take Bond’s convo with Moneypenny over the pale king out of the chase and make it it’s own scene,
Get rid of the entire C subplot,
Remove any reference to Bond and Blofeld being brothers leaving the line: “you interfered in my world, I destroyed yours” being Blofeld’s motivation to killing Bond,
Remove Silva being connected to SPECTRE,
Removing the first half of the London finale (everything to do with the destruction of the Vauxhall building)

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Imho it’s impossible to fix in the edit without pick ups being shot. Ideally one would remove everything after the destruction of Blofeld’s lair and come back in on Bond picking up the rebuilt AM from Q. But with Bond’s too easy escape from the lair that would be as underwhelming as the current final act is ill conceived. We’d need far more jeopardy, fisticuffs and obstacles to make it a satisfying finale.

Many of the other trims mentioned above would improve the ride. Though, controversially i’d leave in the evil step brother scenario, as i quite like it; i like the haunting undertones that are evoked by digging into Bond’s past via a Fleming canon character. Sure it shouldn’t have been Blofeld that they used for this, which clearly jumped the shark, but Oberhauser allows us a spooky, Hitchcockian Bond movie and that’s no bad thing in my book.

But, having said that, it would all work very well without the step brother angle - without Oberhauser - and with Waltz simply as Blofed.

EDIT: This all reminds me of Highlander 2’s Renegade Cut. After the cinematic version received dire reviews a director’s cut appeared several years later (the Renegade Version). It removed all reference to the sequel’s half-baked alien back story for the immortals (the Planet Zeist) in a vain attempt to recapture the mystery at the centre of Highlander 1’s plot.

Personally i found the alien idea interesting and only at fault for being half-baked. This was mostly due to the dollar crashing while they were shooting the movie in Argentina, causing the movie’s budget to just about vanish over night. In came the studio suits to take over the production and wrap it asap.

So all thing’s considered i think the Director, Russell Mulcahy did an heroic job and while not even approaching the awe struck reverence in which still hold Highlander 1, the sequel is fun and visually stunning; he has such a great eye and knows how to make an epic camera move as well as anyone in the business.

I digress, perhaps we’ll indeed see a fan’s Spectre: Renegade Version appear somewhere one day. In what online venue one can do that without Eon/MGM suing the pants off everyone i’ve no idea - any suggestions?

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