Bond #24: SPECTRE

such a COLDfinger

always wakes me right up

omg I forgot that line

It'll be interesting to see how much SPECTRE sticks to the semi-plausible villain schemes of the Craig films.

So far we've had:
Casino Royale: off-screen puppetmasters implied, but the main plot is about the money man for international criminal enterprise (plausible), it's personal for Bond in that he falls in love
Quantum of Solace: leads in from last film, group of villains is introduced and main plot is about manipulating the water market in south america for profit (semi-plausible, maybe boring?). Ties up Bond's love dying.
Skyfall: detours from vast conspiracy to have a one-off villain that is a magical global hacker type (very of the moment, much less plausible). Personal for Bond in that it ruminates too long on his "family" (dead parents, surrogate mother in M).
SPECTRE: who even knows the real plot yet, trailers seem to be all about secret group behind all villain groups who are VERY PERSONAL to Bond. Maybe a plausible threat to counter that?

The movies always veered away from any realism to give giant secret bases (esp in late Connery/Moore films) but the scope of things probably hit the top ridiculous point in "A View to a Kill" when a _single_ evil capitalist was going to sink part of California... to corner the microchip market!

which probably means the new film is going to jump all sharks and have Bond's long-lost cousin/brother/bff nuke scotland off the map to kill one man (Bond, naturally)

will there be cat stroking?

I think Waltz could definitely pull that off

"Franz Oberhauser"?

There's going to be a scene where he sez "Mein name is ECKtually...!" Right?

Interesting angle would be Bond peeling back the curtain and finding out about this powerful conspiracy only to be convinced to help them defeat some second group

...which is a group of American industrialists that were founded post-WW2 after infiltrating the rebuilding of Europe. They're known as "the basterds"

it's the old innkeeper & he would have gotten away with it too if it werent for you kids

have we polled best Bond theme on ILM? probably a shitshow like all song polls, but maybe an entertaining one

― μpright mammal (mh), Monday, September 28, 2015 2:57 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

can't believe you forgot Chris Cornell beating Carly Simon on this poll:

What's the best Bond theme?

Unfortunate, but the real scandal here is All Time High scoring 0.

that's the least scandalous scandal ever

we really need a ranking-style poll instead of pick one :/

yeah I mean the real travesty of that poll is For Your Eyes Only getting goose-egged

I get confused when seeing results as what _should_ be a ranking and then I realize, no, some people really think they chose the best one

lame

first ever Bond theme to go UK number 1. baffling stat that.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34425299

they didn't count streaming before 2014.

Just watched the trailer for this. Still interested in seeing what they do with it but mannnnn is the digital coloring on this ugly to look at. I'm sure in the theater my eyes will adjust but I don't remember Skyfall being nearly this bad.

god i hated skyfall

i hated the pretty lights too

I liked Skyfall in the theater but it didnt hold up to rewatches, it's not great

It suffers from a lack of exposition (action, not dialogue -- plenty of dialogue) with the main villain, while the subplot that is supposed to pull us into Bond's character has a lack of development.

Or maybe too much development, when it comes to dragging Judi Dench around the countryside

Skyfall was awesomely colored! The fire and dusk in final sequence was one of the best uses of teal and orange in last few years. Spectre trailer doesn't have anything like that, but it could still very well be the same good mixture of beautiful feverish nonsense.

Skyfall is beautiful to look at, esp the Scotland stuff

DP this time is Hoyte Van Hoytema (Let the Right One In, Her, Interstellar)

haven't rewatched quantum or skyfall since seeing them in the theater but iirc they were both a letdown after casino royale, even if bardem was way better a villian than that dude with the asthma inhaler in casino

idk casino royale was way more fun than either quantum or skyfall. those tried to be too serious. i hope spectre is fun

casino royale is so good

hoyte van hoytema is a v fun name to say out loud

let the right one in is gorgeous, havent seen the other two

i hated skyfall in the theatre than watched it again and liked it, i really don't think bond films need to be veering off into his backstory as a person or whatever. the parts of that movie that are just bond doing bond things rule.

i hope spectre is fun

no chance. Looks like it's doubling down on the unnecessary Bond backstory

some speculation suggests it may loosely follow the On Her Majesty's Secret Service storyline

Telly Savalas > Christoph Waltz

mikkelsen>>>>>bardem

altho i tried to watch OHMSS on TV a few years ago and whenever Diana Rigg wasnt on i was bored out of my skull

trailers have all had me wondering re OHMSS

i don't gaf anyway, Bond is awesome, Bond is emo, Bond is po-faced, the only way to fuck up a Bond film is to have him played by that gurning clown Roger Moore and turn it into a fucking Cannonball Run spin-off

scrotal torture > i kidnapped Mommy

xp

not even close imo. le chiffre was a great charming villain w/the right amount of sadism and desperation at the end. bardem was a cartoon and not in the great bond villain way, but in a generic way that was ripped off from countless recent movie villains. that said bardem was "good".

i've said it elsewhere but the sooner we move away from potentially great movie villains whose sole goal is "chaos" the better

i should say RUINED because their sole goal seems to be chaos

altho i tried to watch OHMSS on TV a few years ago and whenever Diana Rigg wasnt on i was bored out of my skull

I saw it in the cinema two months ago and it is definitely the best Bond film, so well-edited that the Moore films should be embarrassed to have ever existed

but the script and Lazenby, ye gods

Batbale has a lot to answer for

xp

i didn't mind it when it was the joker so much, primarily because it fit the character to a degree. but that motivation was such bullshit for khan and silva, and using it to mask true motives was so lazy imo.

villains intent on mere chaos a symptom of a timid post-Cold War industry trying to maximize markets?

surely somebody wants to step up with the Islamophobes' Red Dawn?

Christensen > Mikkelsen

xp's

the parts of that movie that are just bond doing bond things rule.

the sooner we move away from potentially great movie villains whose sole goal is "chaos" the better

OTM to both of these points. my complaints in sub-par bond movies are almost always that bond is not doing sufficiently bond-ish stuff. (roger moore is of course the worst offender here, movie after movie. brosnan could be smug but he almost always seemed to be doing, like, spy stuff or action stuff, not jsut shuffling around and talking to people.) and yeah bardem's villain had this awesome creepiness/bond-villain-vibe face to face, but his actual plan was just a huge ripoff of the dark knight and not really much to get excited about. pretty sure you could cut a quarter of that movie's running time by axing the "he got captured on purpose! now he's heading for M's big hearing! they've got to stop him!" sequence and it would be a stronger film. would keep the showdown at the old house because it was badass, but would not have it be bond's actual old house - did not need that one bit.

i didn't see casino royale til after skyfall so was pleasantly surprised (i did like a lot of things about skyfall) to find it a leaner, pacier-feeling film despite actually being one minute longer. so there's still some dragging parts and again there's a tacked-on feeling to the way the last sequences (the venice stuff) play out. but i thought the key set pieces - the opener, the airport, the car chase - were spectacularly thrilling in a way very few entries in the series actually have been despite the fact that seemingly each and every movie when it came out was praised for supposedly signature thrill-packed excitement. (reading the box of for your eyes only had me lolling the other night, after watching this incredible tepid and hokey affair to hear it described as "A Terrific, Non-Stop Romp!" with "non-stop action" and "unforgettable characters.") thought le chiffre was fantastic - just the kind of menacing, well-connected guy that Bond would take on as antagonist. my favorite line in the film was bond's stubborn i can beat this man. he was the right size villain for Bond to think that about and possibly be wrong.