Was SPECTRE a disappointment?

RichardTheBruce

I think NTTD did okay in Cuba and other moments.

CrabKey

I watched SPECTRE again last night. I don't dislike the film, but why didn't Bond make sure Blofeld was dead? How much time has elapsed since the desert lair blew up and Bond enters the old MI6 building? Not much time judging by how fresh Blofeld's wound looks. How was the final trap planned and orchestrated? Who pasted the pictures on the wall and hung all the red string? Why let Madeleine walk down a dark, deserted London street alone? Why does Q keep rebuilding that car? Why did the Land Rovers veer off the road to an uphill cut off? Where were they going?

echo

mtm wrote: »

NoTimeToLive wrote: »

mtm wrote: »

007HallY wrote: »

I suppose we tend to forget that the implication is that they only knew each other for a few months (if that). They’re not actual step brothers or anything like that. It’s seemingly a coincidence that they even get involved with each other this far down the line.

It’s a bit strange as the dialogue plays up the ‘author of all your pain’ stuff so it plays up their connection (at least on Blofeld’s side). There’s also his comments about his father taking in Bond etc. which I guess would imply to many that Blofeld dislikes Bond because of this. It’s never quite specified why he kills his father if I remember correctly. I think it’s a case where what’s on the page isn’t quite gelling with the story. Honestly, I actually think them not knowing each other is more impactful, especially if Blofeld was the puppet master behind what is essentially Vesper's death. I think there was plenty already there.

Yes, you can edit the foster brother stuff out (it really is only a couple of lines here and there and just the plot reason for Bond recognising him) and the film would be the same. I can see why they did it: in the books Bond holds a grudge against Blofeld because he killed someone he loves- it's fair enough to try and adapt that (and fitting it to the plot of Octopussy is quite clever), but it doesn't go anywhere.

The weirdest thing about it is that the foster brother stuff was totally unnecessary. Bond already knows Blofeld is responsible for deaths of Vesper and Mathis, and he finds that out long before he actually finds out that Blofeld had killed Hannes. Even Blofeld's involvement with M's death is revealed long before the Oberhauser reveal.
Bond already had a personal reason to go after Blofeld, and that resonated with the audience more than the Hannes thing ever did.

Yes, excellent points, especially about how the audience care more about people we've seen than people we haven't.
I can't quite remember though, what's the involvement in M's death you mean?

I wonder if her videotape cameo could have more explicitly tied Spectre in with Silva and her death, or if that would have been a bit too much continuity to ask the audience to remember.
I guess the thing is though, if you could have written it so that part of the main plot is that Blofeld had found Silva and manipulated his grudges to try and expose MI6 and bring down M so that he could install his puppet C in place and take control of the intelligence forces, that's actually quite decent, matches up with everything in both films and doesn't really retroactively spoil anything in Skyfall (other than maybe taking away a bit of Silva's agency I guess). If they'd just concentrated on Silva and made it a sequel to SF without trying to hint that Greene or whoever was involved too, I wonder if that would have made it a bit stronger.


Even something like that bit where Q (inexplicably) connects the rings to the old baddies, if there had been screenshots of Vesper and M with 'deceased' splashed across them also on his screen, and a flash of anger from Bond, there's a bit of motivation right there.

As you say, clever though it is, foster brother goes nowhere. Funnily enough it could be an example of wanting to put some Fleming in there and it actually getting in the way of the story.

For a moment I thought you were talking about the Vesper tape that he casts aside. The Bond of QoS would have watched it, but Bond has moved on. Although I can see a Vesper tape being 10 times more emotional than, say, the Elektra video.

And why are there two tapes in SP, M and Vesper? And double kidnappings of Bond and Madeleine? All this overheated plotting and it just went nowhere.

The script needed someone to take a hatchet to it and cut out at least 20-30 pages. Even if the resulting shorter film made less sense in parts, like the Q gondola scenes.

mtm

Which bit did you think I was talking about the Vesper tape?