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SP could have been broken apart into 2 good movies. I don't mean a two-part arc, I mean two standalones.
1) Remove the 'nine eyes' subplot and C character from SP and the film is tighter and more focused. The movie is just about Spectre and Blofeld and we have a bit more breathing room for locations, character development, and maybe even justifying or rethinking BrotherGate. Maybe even introduce Les Spectres du Sable to stretch out Mr.White's involvement.
2) Create a separate movie about Nine Eyes and C. It's the ultimate "enemy within" plot. Tight, small-budget, and more thriller than actioner. You could start it in, say, South Africa with Bond being present for the Cape Town bombing alluded to in SP. He finds a few clues and follows some leads that take him back to London and C. The scooby gang help out and C's defeated.
Together it's too much. Neither plot is totally bad, but both are underdeveloped in SP and make for a film that's both a bit bloated and a bit rushed.
Good point. I agree.
The title sequence isn't anything to write home about, but I think it gets the job done. I also think "AWTD" does a good enough job of nailing the propulsion that is QoS. It's certainly one of the livelier Bond themes, and is unrepentantly loud.
Interesting point. What would have been the scheme for SP1 though?
Sounds good.
Hmmm. As I think of it, I'm not sure you'd need some specific catalyst. I'd be happy enough if it started with Mexico and spectre there, through to the Rome meeting via a posthumous tip from M, and then onward - literally just snip out the C/nine-eyes parts and the remainder is still mostly coherent. Spectre remains as a group bent on some sort of surveillance scheme, though you might want to fine-tune that to give it more bite.
You might need to re-jig some aspects of the final act - does the demolition of the old MI6 building still fit? Does the burning of agents and the retreat to the Hildebrand warehouse still make sense? Possibly not, but no great danger there - easy enough to fix. And again, I feel it's a net positive with the 15-20 minutes of running time that are freed up. Spend a few minutes on exposition for the new plot, and fully 5 or 10 more on fleshing out characters, and you'd have a better, richer movie that's still shorter than SP!
https://www.google.com/amp/s/io9.gizmodo.com/people-have-no-idea-what-they-want-from-james-bond-acc-1830590090/amp
I would end it at the crater base and leave part 2 open. Make the final act be there. There would be some fleshing out to do in that area, but I'd eliminate the London finale all together.
Its the closest to Fleming's novels along with OHMSS,so its hardly Hitchockian.
Well, an entire scene is lifted from North by Northwest.
Since when is "too Hitchcockian" a bad thing?? :-D
Exactly.
Without wanting to put that label on FRWL, with films such as The 39 Steps and North by Northwest Hitchcock has made some of the best spy films ever. If a spy franchise film is a bit too much like those films I don’t think that is bad thing. If anything, films such as Die Another Day and Spectre would have been a lot less frustrating.
I still think the movie needs a scheme, or else you have a villain constantly on the defensive, which is not great to his aura of menace. Even in revenge stories like LTK and QOS they gave the villain something else to do than wait for Bond to show up. I guess in SP they could have just made the global terrorist attacks the main thing, although the aim would not be to implement Nine Eyes. Maybe SPECTRE would be doing it as mercenary work: some dictators and criminal political groups pay them a high price for organising and executing large scale terrorist attacks.
And I'm fine with that. FRWL is Hitchcockian enough. In fact it's Hitchcockian like James Joyce's Ulysse is Homeresque. It's part of what makes it good.
I don't disagree with you, but it's not a problem for me.
Not sure how I was misunderstood here: I responded to a weird claim of FRWL being "hardly Hitchcockian" by referring to the most blatant example of the film borrowing from Hitchcock. Don't really need it explained to me!
Sure. Or, just snip out Spectre as the organization. Fundamentally Blofeld's reach and actions in SP weren't really different from Silva's in SF. So why not give Waltz's character a different name and make him the guy who's trying to take over Quantum in a palace coup? The young upstart who's more savage than the measured, careful old guard like Mr. White? Then you've got some more dynamics there to play with.
Argh... every time we do this I feel like we come up with about 10 movies on the back of a napkin that would be more interesting than the one we actually got!
@octofinger I do like SP, but it has its share of flaws.
I said this before somewhere, but Spectre is an odd duck in that while I absolutely love it, I agree with about 90% of the criticism of the film.
Hear hear. I actually like it, and think certain aspects will age fairly well. I'd offer that it's probably the best looking Bond film, on screen.
My main complaint is probably about wasted potential. Given the talent and the budgets involved, the rights to Spectre finally secured, and etc., it could have been better. A lot better.
I gotta learn to avoid trailers....!
On another (related) note, if Reznor and Ross do the score for B25 like someone hinted in the production thread, we're getting a similarly experimental score and I would be so here for it. I'm sure they'll be able to work with the established sounds of Bond while also offering something unique. Despite the hate it gets Serra's score still has very Bondian tracks.
But now since we've been through the bland factory of Newman's scores, it sounds that much better.
But in a universe where John Barry music exists nothing Serra did on GE comes close.