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For that matter Mendes did mess up with the villains in both of his movies, a great opening and then gradually they lost their menace and ended up like slapstick one dimensional baddies. Poor writing or just poor directing, the jury is still out.
I want M to be in exactly one scene in the next film, like GE. Judi Dench was only there for one scene but she made more of an impact there than Fiennes in his ten in SP.
I agree.
Introduce Blofeld. Maybe ending the film with a big reveal, leading us in to
The next Bond adventure.
That's what it should have been.
Well I suppose that is debatable. To me it seems like a background plot that is not strictly necessary and should have been dispensed with - in that respect similar to the horses arc in AVTAK.
This was what I was hoping for.
I think the problem with Waltz is that they just came up with the idea "Christoph Waltz as Blofeld", which does sound brilliant on paper, but then thought the actor and character would be enough and didn't really write him a really compelling part.
Having said that, I still enjoyed Waltz in the role. Not the best villain ever by any stretch of the imagination but the best Blofeld by a wide margin imo. He didn't really live up to the hype but the way they built up his character was really good imo. When he first spoke at the meeting I got goosebumps. Same with the Blofeld reveal, he played that perfectly. Understated but still menacing and not underselling it. I also love the laugh he does after rigging MI6 to explode, it's like be cracks for a second and gives us a glimpse of just how insane he is. I just wish the writers had made his motivations a bit clearer.
Also disagree on the villains of the Brosnan era. 006 is up there with Silva, Elektra and (the best of all) Sanchez for me as one of the best in the series. Carver is a step down but Pryce is clearly having so much fun in the role it's hard not to enjoy his campy performance. Renard is a solid menacing villain with a great gimmick who surprisingly becomes a tragic figure, I thought that was well done. Elektra is to me one of the best villains of the series. I love how cold and manipulative she is, Sophie Marceau gave an amazing performance.
The only villains of the Brosnan era I wasn't a fan of are those featured in Die Another Day. Moon was great but only features in the PTS. Graves is an interesting idea (a villain modelled on Bond) and has a couple of good moments (love his exchanges with Bond during the fencing sequence) but overall falls flat because the concept behind him, the gene therapy, is just too dumb, and while Toby Stephens does his best nobody could have pulled off the robosuit. Zao is bland, forgettable and again the idea is dumb (why wouldn't he have taken the diamonds out?). Miranda Frost was a decent femme fatale but overall the villains are pretty terrible.
Re: Waltz - I am firmly of the belief that he was the wrong actor for the role. He was too well known for one definitive Oscar winning villain role in particular before, and in order for his Blofeld to really work, we needed 'ace' script and dialogue, which is something Waltz thrives on, as well as a more animated performance. Anything else was always going to be a 'poor man's Landa'. In a way, it was inevitable, sadly.
With Bardem, the opposite was true, because his Silva was far more animated and charismatic than his near silent, Oscar winning turn as Anton Chigurh.
You may be onto something there. Bardem was able to distance himself from his previous iconic villain role in a way that Waltz didn't. Waltz did have monents where he was allowed to shine imo, I just wish there'd been more of them. Overall though I can't say the villains are a weakpoint in SP to me. I enjoyed Waltz as Blofeld, Hinx was a great henchman and C was a good slimy government type, someone easy to hate ("now we know what C stands for" got the biggest laugh of the film in my cinema, wish they'd cut away after that though instead of including the "callous" line after, maybe they had to do that cause it was a 12a but that sort of deflated it).
Scott as C was a let down for me though. Slimy no doubt, but very predictable. Again, it was the dialogue in his scenes that was cringe worthy. "A license to kill, is also a license not to kill". "It's the future.......and....you're not". Yuk.
Sanchez is a top 10 villain for me too. Excellent performance by Davi.
For me, The World Is Not Enough is the dullest.
Couldn't agree more. It's the dullest by a incredibly wide margin. I just find it amazing how a film that takes that much money, effort, and time to make can have so little life to it.
I hope EON doesn't pull anymore of this keeping it a secret nonsense. It's all to clear that hardly any blockbuster can keep things under wraps and this one was out the bag as soon as Waltz was being speculated as the then Bond 24 villain.
All fairness to Waltz he can only work with what he was given and that script was at times bloody awful. As I said enhancing his relationship with Mr White could have done his character wonders.
He got nothing like Bardem was given, his intro was iconic and memorable, ESB should have been a series highlight instead one of his for hire lackeys upstaging him. Some say he was subtle more like half asleep at times. Silva will go down as one of the greatest villains of the series despite what BJB006 says and Waltz will rightly be looked at as one of the biggest missed opportunities.
The only way this can change is if DC signs up for another one or two, Waltz comes on board as ESB and they give us an entry that disreagrds the childhood past malarky and just has 007 Vs ESB with no baggage, just a kick arse Bond flick.
I'm still working on my version of SPECTRE but the more I get into to it and read those of us who were just not impressed with many aspects of SPECTRE, I just get infuriated that a film with such a flimsy concept and dodgy script got made when it could have been so much better with some adjustments.
I'm no script writer and have no desire to be one but I think I've got something considerably better than what was on the screen last fall and that's not an example of my talent that is more a case of what a slack arse job Bond 24 was.
No it's not DAD level awful by a long shot but as far as potential and what it could have been for me it's the biggest disappoinment of the series.
I know some have said I bang on about it loads but seriously the posts I had to endure saying SF was the worst thing ever when I was a big fan well now you know how I felt if you think SPECTRE is a masterpiece.
I'll post my version and you can see how I think it could have worked and feel free to tear it to bits if you like.
No offense, but I think I prefer SP for soundtrack. I love the cue when Bond first arrives in Rome, plus during the car chase when the choir is singing. And you have to admit, it was a very bold decision to hold on 'the Moors' for such a long time at the end.
That is the musical low point in the franchise. 5 minutes of the exact same 10 seconds cue played over and over again. That simply does not cut it for a final climax in a Bond film, especially after what Barry provided for more than 10 films. It's impossible to defend this soundtrack from Newman at times. Pity, it started so well in the PTS.
But it did give the ending a certain subdued, rhythmic quality. I thought it suited the scenes of Craig getting dragged out and taken to MI6 HQ.
This is all I'm going to say.
I'm clearly not Arnold's biggest fan but it certainly makes you appreciate his efforts. CR I had issues but his QOS score was for me the best of the DC era and his best full stop.
If only Mendes hadn't been able impose his choice on proceedings, Campbell & Forster never got that option.
After QOS it really felt like DA was starting to develop without having to cue up the JB theme too much.