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Personally, what I think really worked well with Blofeld was the mystery of the character in his first two films, FRWL and TB. In those films, I think the man wasn't as cheesy yet as we portray him. yes, he had a cat. But it was the entire way of Anthony Dawson's/Eric Pohlmann's acting. His behavior foremost. The parallel with the Siamese fighting fish is very much comparable to Silva's tale of the rats. The way Blofeld reacts after Kronsteen gets killed "One day we have to invent a faster working venom" isn't that far off from Silva's reaction after he kills Severine. The analogies are there.
But the thing with Blofeld is, that he keeps hiding in the shadows until YOLT. His identity is secret until YOLT. And the way he leads SPECTRE so tightly. His employees, his henchmen and henchwoman, are basically prepared to die for him. How the hell did this almost holy brotherhood exist? It really adds to the menace of the character.
So as I said before.......I don't want Blofeld to be just "there" as the leading villain. I don't want to compare him at this stage already with the likes of Warren Buffet or the Koch Brothers. Introduce him slowly, preferably as a tiny cameo in the end of "Bond 24" that shows it's not just about Blofeld, but it's about that "mysterious menacing brotherhood operating in the shadows".
I already have an idea for such a cameo. Like Le Chiffre in CR, also the leading Bond villain in Bond 24 could be killed. Perhaps in an even more groce way. We saw how Bond was tortured in CR. And we saw how Severine was physically and mentally tortured in SF before Silva killed him. Now let's torture the villain at the end of Bond 24, and let him die because of this torture. In a way that make audiences disgust. And than let that "nameless faceless character" walk in, and let him utter some nasty psychotic lines over the villain's dead body.
I'm not talking about this Blofeld-like character to push buttons like a gay Dr Evil. Let people see the horror of this brotherhood. Cut of his little finger, or his hand, in real. Let the people see some blood flow (some terrorist organizations post online beheading videos, but I don't want to go that far). Then let this failed leading villain panic on screen, and then let him die very slowly on screen because of blood loss. Missing out the entrance of a hospital by an inch.....
Who needs to play him? Perhaps an unknown actor? Perhaps someone with a distinct deep authoritarian voice? Perhaps someone whose vocal chords have been destroyed in the past by a secret agent? So that he needs to use a voice computer, and that he always needs to be dubbed? Just some ideas. But it isn't even necessary to compare him with other real-life persons at this stage.
A cameo would suffice in Bond 24. Then perhaps in Bond 25 some larger cameos.
For me the cheesiness of the character Blofeld really kicked off during YOLT and DAF. They should have kept Anthony Dawson and especially Pohlmann's voice. Because Donald Pleasence was never convincing for me. And later as Dr Evil in Austin Powers. So please, can someone delete those portrayals of Blofeld from my memory?
Just a quick list of my favourite Bond villains:
--> Doctor No ("East, West, two spots on the same compass Mr Bond!" Shakespearian)
--> Blofeld in FRWL ("One day we need to have a faster working venom." utterly suave and sinister line. The parallel with the Siamese fighting fish)
--> Rosa Klebb (A henchwoman, yes, but IMO the most psychotic, authoritarian henchwoman in the franchise. Actually, the only real female Bond villain for me)
--> Auric Goldfinger (His final fight with 007. The look on his face. priceless!)
--> Telly Savalas as Blofeld ("Those pervert British")
--> Fransisco Scaramanga (the dinner at Scaramanga's villa)
--> Max Zorin (the way he nods to his henchmen when they want to throw the KGB agent in the pulverizer. Wunderful)
--> Le Chiffre (the whole frikkin poker game)
--> Silva / Thiago Rodriguez (the Tell game. And, like Blofeld, another wonderful parallel with animals. This time rats!)
All other past villains? They don't near the psychoticism of the above villains in the slightest. So now....let's get on with Bond 24. Let's have a splendid leading Bond villain. We know the actor who will play him on December 6th. BUT let's look to the long-term, and let's develop Blofeld again....for a possible reveal in Bond 26 or 27....
There's a reason why Blofeld is ironic in the first place. And my point is, Bond belongs to a genre and obeys to some of its tropes. A nemesis is part of it and done well (yes there are risks, look at how Khan turned out) it makes Bond's world richer.
There's a reason why Blofeld is ironic in the first place. And my point is, Bond belongs to a genre and obeys to some of its tropes. A nemesis is part of it and done well (yes there are risks, look at how Khan turned out) it makes Bond's world richer.
Blofeld was Iconic for two things SPECTRE and Killing Tracy and changing his face. Nothing that special consider it's technically happened! And I disagree. It doesn't make Bond's world richer, It makes it smaller. Oh look Blofeld's back, looks like he's going to be fighting him in three or so movies. I prefer a good stand alone film that takes Bond on a fresh new mission taking on a new baddie. We've already had a linked story with CR and QoS and look how that went. I'd rather see the Spang Brothers finally given be given some spotlight as they are pretty much the only villains in Flemings canon that haven't been touched.
What good does bringing Blofeld back do anyway? Remake his story arc from the 60's films? EoN isn't about do overs. It's about keeping with the times and catering their stories to current events. This isn't the 60's anymore.
You bring Blofeld back, you have to bring Tracy back, because the only reason Blofeld is so special is because he caused the Death of Tracy, his wife. And I don't think any of us want to see OHMSS redone as it was a wonderful film in it's own right.
There are ways to recreate this antagonism without even remaking OHMSS: Blofeld could be among the members of Quantum, hence instrumental to Vesper's breakdown and suicide, for instance. But his resilience as a villain is enough to feed the antagonism. The Joker did not have to kill Bruce Wayne's parents to become a nemesis. And let's not forget that Tracy's murder happened at the very end of the second novel featuring Blofeld, just like in the movies it happened much, much later in the series, when the antagonism was already established. Her murder was Blofeld's consecration as Bond's archenemy, not the trigger. Both in movies and novels, he actually had a life before.
And that too.
But Blofeld wasn't instrumental to Vesper's breakdown and Suicide. Mr. White was! People tend to forget that. If anything, He's more of a modern Blofeld. We have no idea where in the chain of power Mr. White is in Quantum. He could be a lacky, or a leader who blends in with the lackies to hide the identity of the leader. He's more interesting. Stick with the cards you have before reaching in to get the wild card.
@Gustav_Graves, @Ludovico I know it's a reboot. But wasn't the franchise rebooted to wipe the slate clean and tell new adventures without being bound by the past? Revisiting an old villain seems to contradict that. I'd rather Bond move fowards and do something different rather than step backwards and doing something we've already seen many times over. One could argue that Blofeld never died since We've seen Stromburg who was originally supposed to be Blofeld. Drax who's a Blofeld clone with a space station and same outfit. Kamal Khan. Who was like a combination of Blofeld and Dr. No. (wearing the same outfits. Heck even 006 and Elliot Carver were similar to Blofeld and wore black versions of his outfit. I think we've see enough Blofeld in many of the villains. Let's finally break the mold. Silva was refreshing because he was unique and not another Blofeld clone.
This thread keeps going in circles and I've made my point dozens of times. No use beating a dead horse. Some fans want Blofeld back and others don't. I'm one of them and nobody is going to convince me otherwise. Throw your Joker and Moriarty references all you want. They don't sway my opinion, nor do I care.
Let's agree to disagree then :-).
You are so wrong about it. Bond owes a lot to Sherlock Holmes. Of course they are different characters, but Conan Doyle influenced Fleming like he influenced, directly or indirectly, crime fiction and other genres after him. Heck, Blofeld owes A LOT to Moriarty. but that is for another topic. Moriarty, by the way, was not used much by Doyle himself: he was used in one novel and especially one short story, and mentioned in other ones. In fact, Blofeld was far more developed in the three novels he was featured in. There is far more to build on from the source material. Because yes, I also mentioned over and over again that I am all for the return of Blofeld if they go back to the source material. And there is worse to do than go back to Fleming to bring fresh ideas. Trying to understand your logic, it is ok to use Moriarty in a Holmes adaptation, because Moriarty was developed outside the canon established by Doyle, but that would be wrong with Blofeld, who is far more developed in the source material than the movies and far more developed than Moriarty... because?
As for the Vesper connection, it is of course entirely hypothetical. Being part of Quantum would be enough to make him a guilty party, just like in the novels, Bond had a supplementary grip against SMERSH, not a particular individual, when vesper committed suicide. That said, yes, it does not matter. Because Blofeld did not exist solely to kill Tracy. This was the icing on the cake, but not the cake itself. Which you fail to acknowledge. Talk about beating a dead horse.
Blofeld owes far more to Moriarty and Dracula than any spy genre villain. And Dr Evil was a caricature of the movies' Blofeld. NOT the novels'. It is like saying Dracula was ruined as a character was ruined for any subsequent adaptations because of Count Chocula.
It's been covered many times, but some people choose to actively ignore it and continue to suggest endless lists of generic bald men as potential Blofelds.
Ironically, it means people against the return of Blofeld have the same vision of him a good number of people for his return.
I suggest when we debate about who should be cast as Blofeld, we disregard all bald actors. Maybe even balding ones.
I want to see some fresh originality not rehashes or retreads. 8-|
Good if they can be smarter than I perceive, so they can make the difference between the spoof and the original character, if he is revamped and adapted.
Blofeld was adapted fine in FRWL, TB and OHMSS. But in the first two, he remained a minor character, in the last one, he still lacked a lot of the grandeur of the novels' Blofeld. In YOLT, he was already a petulant dwarf and a far cry from the source material, or the earlier incarnations.
Too young, too associated with the Khan debacle. Not that it was his fault, but he was miscast. As a psycho, he is fine. As a charismatic leader of men, he is still lacking.
He first appears in a minor role as the leader of SPECTRE in the 1961 novel Thunderball. The plot that he formulates is carried out by his second-in-command Emilio Largo. Blofeld is described physically as a massive man, weighing roughly 20 stone (280 lb; 130 kg), has black crew-cut hair, black eyes (similar to those of Benito Mussolini), heavy eyelashes, a thin mouth and long pointed hands and feet. He has violet-scented breath from chewing flavoured cachous (breath mints). A meticulous planner of formidable intellect, he seems to be without conscience but not necessarily insane, and is motivated solely by financial gain. Blofeld's lifestyle is described in one chapter in Thunderball: "For the rest, he didn't smoke or drink and he had never been known to sleep with a member of either sex. He didn't even eat very much."
Now to me I first image I see is of Danny Huston
He's tall, large, crew cut, and as an American he could pull of being a ruthless businessman. However, despite playing Col. Stryker in Wolverine, he's not great at menacing villain acting, and after all, Blofeld is supposed to be Polish, although that is a part of his back story that could be flexed.
Then I think maybe Jean Reno
He is large, can be very ruthless and evil, while bringing the European feel that I think Blofeld should have. However, he is far too old not I think to play, but he would have done well as a Bond villain.
Than I think about someone like Vincent Cassel
He has the right amount of evil, class, and fitness that I think we'd all want in a modern Blofeld. The only problems I can see are that he is rather small, and I'm not sure he can come off as anything other than French, which isn't all bad.
How do the other pro-Blofelds feel about my line of thinking here? I still don't think I've found a great candidate but its defiantly a new direction...
When I'm home I will copy/paste the description of Blofeld from TB
I've saved you the job. A few highlights...
Blofeld’s own eyes were deep black pools surrounded - totally, as Mussolini’s were - by very clear whites. The doll-like effect of this unusual symmetry was enhanced by long silken black eyelashes that should have belonged to a woman. The gaze of these soft doll’s eyes was totally relaxed and rarely held an expression stronger than a mild curiosity in the object of their focus.
There was no sign of debauchery, illness, or old age on the large, white, bland face under the square, wiry black crew-cut. The jawline, going to the appropriate middle-aged fat of authority, showed decision and independence. Only the mouth, under the heavy, squat nose, marred what might have been the face of a philosopher, or a scientist. Proud and thin, like a badly healed wound, the compressed, dark lips, capable only of false, ugly smiles, suggested, contempt, tyranny, and cruelty. But to an almost Shakespearean degree, nothing about Blofeld was small.
Blofeld’s body weighed about twenty stone. It had once been all muscle - he had been an amateur weightlifter in his youth - but in the past ten years it had softened and he had a vast belly that he concealed behind roomy trousers and well-cut double-breasted suits.
Blofeld’s hands were long and pointed.
He didn’t smoke or drink and he had never been known to sleep with a member of either sex. He didn’t eat very much. So far as vices or physical weaknesses were concerned, Blofeld had always been an enigma to everyone who had known him.
It could work, as an OHMSS type Blofeld. He certainly has the voice.
He's especially suitable for an intellectual Blofeld who reappears in a few movies, with a # 2 thug played by someone else who's killed off, i.e. like what they did in Thunderball with Adolfo Celi's Largo
I really like this idea.
I guess it all depends on how Blofeld would look like: the TB Blofeld, the OHMSS Blofeld or the YOLT Blofeld. I would rather start with a TB looking Blofeld (so heavy, strong and brutish), then at a later date you have an OHMSS looking one (tall, lean and somewhat vampiric). So someone like Mark Addy, Simon Russell Beale (with the right makeup of course) for a first movie with Blofeld and in subsequent ones someone like Hugo Weaving. Although all those I mention may be too British (I know Weaving isn't, but still).