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The more you say it, the more it becomes reality.
THE INCESSANT HELLFIRE
I'd say he's pretty harmless.
@Milovy, I've had ideas like this in the past but I also run into the same thing you seem to be grappling with: is it too dark for a Bond film?
I really like the Most Dangerous Game kind of villain you're speaking of. I think it'd be really interesting if Bond were sent to a remote island inhabited by the villain (perhaps for the finale) where he must survive against the guy's traps as they both hunt one another in sudden death. It would be the Scaramanga face-off bumped up to eleven with more jungle like surroundings than the sandy island and house of "games."
I think there's a lot of really subtle ways to note things about a villain without doing too much. Like showcasing a villain's power and need for control in a scene where he meets Bond and he has a troupe of helpers who feed him, get him a drink and hold it to his lips, etc. They basically did some of this with Blofeld in SP, and I found it very disconcerting how his control was visualized. I could see an elite kind of villain having that kind of team he controls, but I don't know what scheme he'd have.
I like your idea of pitting Bond against an assassin who is "hunting" him. I did also enjoy how much Blofeld's presence seemed to control the room in SP. Wish they had kept some of the other dark stuff, like the cannibalization backstory.
https://www.mi6community.com/discussion/18094/operation-ruthless-part-1-2-2018-and-2019
I think that time has passed now. CR was 10 years ago. Think about that. 10 years after Moonraker we got License to Kill. 10 years after Die Another Day we got Skyfall.
It's not very often that the same tone of Bond is maintained for that length of time.
You have a point, but it might be worth noting that the two beats I mentioned (torture and suicide) were featured in Spectre as well.
There was also a neon light that said...The End.
For me SP could go either way with the ending, and they've done this on purpose. If Craig doesn't comeback, the end of SP bookends his tenure.
If he does, then we carry on to the next adventure.
My copy just cuts to black...
When Craig himself refers to the ending as "to be continued," I have my reasons for believing (as I did when I left the theater) that his return would bring a continuation of that story.
I don't think it's a nutty notion to ponder that the next Craig film would pick up with
Blofeld getting back at Bond, since the look in his eyes while lying on the bridge couldn't be any more clear. Dan by all accounts wants to continue telling that story, and has shown interest in it when questioned. It's the only logical step to go from it. People that think EON are just going to scrap Blofeld after one film and the story that the conclusion leads up to to tell a standalone film are bonkers. It goes against sense and the template of all that the Craig era has been to this point.
If there's a Bond they could tell a last story with, it's Dan, as he can bring the kind of performance that would be needed for that particular kind of film where all bets are off. They can hold on to him even longer if they want, as his so-called replacements are absolutely tragic. The fact that people think a big name is going to be Bond #7 is amusing enough, but some of the ones being suggested? Heavens.
The ending was particularly rushed, and it has been documented that the entire thing had to be rewritten on the fly. It feels like a producer driven ending, not part of an artistic vision. The decisions being made, like shooting down Blofelds helicopter but leaving him alive, feel like someone frantically trying to hedge their bets and mitigate any potential backlash. The ending with Craig and Madeline feels so tacked on, even prefunctory, that I feel it was just the quickest, cleanest ending they could think of. There's no proper resonance or emotional impact, which leads me to think it was a slapdash decision on the part of Barbara and Micheal. The fact there is no dialogue in that final bit is telling, I think, that it wasn't written that way to begin with. The ending certainly feels unnatural, and perhaps thats what you mean when you say they were signposting a "to be continued" 2 parter. Ultimately though, I think that unnatural feeling is more down to incompetence and the rushed script edits before production. I don't think it was intentional, put it that way.
As for the finale, I can't comment on its lapses as I actually enjoy it. I think there is a "to be continued" element to it by how they leave Blofeld with revenge on the mind and how they are setting up a settled and "happy" Bond so that all his ideas of a post-MI6 life are torn away. In my head he doesn't really want to settle anyway, and is simply acting as he thinks he's expected to, as he did with Vesper, but that's a discussion for elsewhere.
But anyway, back to what I was saying about technology. I don't really see the need for Bond to address advancing technology head on, as I've never really seen how the two collide conceptually speaking. I mean, Casino Royale was a story about a card game, completely analogue, and did anyone feel that the film was dated? I didn't.
The main draws of Bond are the suspense, action, gambling, sex, luxury, etc. I don't think technology is on that list. Rather than making modern stories, or plonking Bond back in the 1950's as some members would like to see, why not just focus on telling a story that is timeless? I think that's where Bond as a figure of iconicism resides.