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An Idea to Improve Safin's Plan
On the whole, I enjoyed the film and think it is the best Bond since Casino Royale. I'd rate it 7 out of 10, if asked.
Yet this is just a scribble of an idea I had in an effort to change some things about the story I didn't think quite worked. Like the series, this post is just a harmless way to spend a few minutes and is only meant to entertain.
(Minor spoilers ahead - mainly to previous Craig-Bond films)
First off, it seems to me that the theme of the Craig era is grief and the illogical impulses this gives people: from Vespa's death at the end of Casino Royale, which defined Bond through Quantum of Solace; to Skyfall in which Silva grieves for his years of imprisonment and thereby causes the death of MI6 operatives and eventually M too. Not to mention Bond's visit to the graves of his parents in Scotland. In Spectre, you have Madeleine's reacting to her father's suicide, and Bond coping with M's passing by following her last instructions.
So to No Time to Die. I feel a problem with the story is Safin's lack of motivation in wanting to make the world "tidier" by killing millions of people. This has no connection to his crusade to avenge his family's death by killing Blofeld. In this respect, the genocide plot is very tacked-on to the film. An after-thought. It's almost as if Safin has just remembered he's a Bond villain and must have an evil plan.
Another issue is that he didn't kill Mr White - the actual person who killed Safin's family - in the thirty or so years before White's suicide in 2015.
Also, I feel that Bond's death was less a grand sacrifice than a weary admission that he was going to die anyway of the gunshot wounds.
Maybe a better idea would be to combine these issues in the following way:
It's unlikely that anyone other than MI6 and Spectre knew of Mr White's death. Maybe Safin still thinks he's alive somewhere. Say that Safin has been searching for him unsuccessfully for years (White is, after all, an agent of a large criminal organization that is so elusive that its very name suggests ghost-like intangibility).
Safin becomes so insane with grief that he finally decides to slaughter everyone in the world because he knows that White may still walk among them. He steals the nanobots.
(In this version, these don't need to be programmed with specific strands of DNA, though the physical effects and ability to kill is the same as what we saw in the film).
Safin loads the nanobots into missiles and sets them to launch on those cities. This will cause a global wipe-out.
"Every war has casualties," he says dismissively. The only survivor will be himself, alone, on his family's island.
After the song and credits, we still open with Bond in Jamaica, looking out at the water. He's alone, contemplative. And the rest of the film is the same, pretty much, until the last act.
Then Bond infiltrates the island and meets Safin.
Safin explains his wish to kill Mr White. Bond is surprised as he knows White is already dead. He saw White's suicide video in Spectre. He tells Q to upload the video to his phone and shows it to Safin.
Safin realises that his plan is without purpose - yet the launch of the missiles has already been set.
Bond and Safin must work together to stop this attack. For the first time ever, Bond and the bad guy will be working together on the same side.
Safin almost manages to prevent the strike but perishes in the attempt. Bond takes over, yet the only way to stop the genocide altogether is to detonate the missiles where they stand. This, however, will mean that the nanobots will attach themselves to Bond instead. It means, if he returns to land, he will be a walking weapon - a blunt instrument that will kill everyone.
On the phone, he tells Madeleine what he will do and what it means.
"I've had enough of destruction," he tells her. "Give me a license to prevent killing. So there can be a future. For my daughter. For everyone else. For all the reasons they have to live. This is no time to die."
He makes the detonation, becomes infected with nanobots.
The film ends with Bond on the island, unable to leave it, with only the prospect of air-dropped supplies for survival. Like his retreat to Jamaica after the title song near the beginning of the film, we see him staring at the ocean, thinking of all he has lost.
And the sun sets over him.
.......
This is probably crappy fan fiction, but there we go. The film we got, in my humble little view, is better than the last three and the first hour, in particular, is among the finest in the whole series.
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Comments
Doesn’t matter this stuff is still fun.
I’ll give it a read later; I have my own idea as well!
The idea I had is as follows:
Safin was born into a particularly large family, living in a particularly impoverished part of Japan. Perhaps his family had migrated there from Russia out of necessity, for some such reason.
A well dressed man visits this family. "Hello, my name is Mr. White, I work for a very large international organization, that is focused on helping people, such as yourselves. We're prepared to offer you a home, food, ample space for your family, everything you need."
Suspicious of this man's motives, but unable to refuse due to their current situation, they agree. Mr. White brings the family to an island compound, not far from Japan, and gives them everything he's promised; the island is free to them to live on an explore, there is more food and drink than they could have asked for, and the family is elated.
But the ultimate cost they pay for living this new life on this island is slowly revealed.
The organization behind Mr. White, Spectre, is building a weapon. It's biological in nature, and targets it's victims based on genetics. Not enough is it for Spectre to kill one person, but rather their entire bloodline. Heracles is it's name, and it is in the final stages of development. All Spectre needed, now, was a family, a large family, with which to test the genetic-targeting capabilities of the weapon.
Perhaps a large family in a perilous situation, so that they couldn't question, and only accept their help.
One day, Safin and his family were eating in the games room of their new island home. Several men suddenly walk in, and stand, silently, around them. One of them approaches Safin's father, and tells him, they're so happy to have them on the island, and if there's anything at all else they need, to please let them know. Startled, but appreciative, Safin's father thanks the man and says they have everything they need.
A handshake.
Nearly instantly, Safin's father collapses. His family all jump up and run over to try and help him. One of these new men says he's a doctor, drops down to try and help. Some of the other men crowd in to console the family members.
In that same moment, the rest of Safin's family fall victim to whatever his father had. Collapsing, inability to breathe, skin melting. And then Safin felt it happen to himself, and he collapses.
Then men are now standing in a room with Safin's entire family, collapsed on the ground, dead. They calmly check one another and themselves for any similar symptoms, and once they are satisfied, they leave.
Safin comes to as he and his family are being trucked out to the coast of the island. He is barely conscious but sees as one of the men from the room hauls the first of his sisters off the island and into the water below. A few more, and then Safin himself is thrown off. He is able to regain more of his consciousness, and is able to now see the bodies of his family, floating around him in the cold water.
Safin begins to swim.
It has a nice "once upon a time" feel to it, a traditionally told story, with a sting at the end. Gosh, wish they'd done that, or something very much like it. Thinking about it, we didn't really need the child-Madeleine scene when it told us what we already knew from SP.
No collateral damage, if you’re lucky enough to not being targeted.
Heracles is his legacy and its production a way to pay omage and “resurrect” his family heritage.
Agreed. I just think my background rounds out Safin's motivation against Spectre/Mr. White, as well as his desire to make the world a less populated place/tidy things up.
I think he sees himself as a victim, filled with hate, and overcomes it by being an "invisible god" for others.
Anyway that was a cool read your post above. Safin is certainly a fascinating character…
I did read over it, it was definitely interesting, and great that someone was able to translate it.
Thanks!
Maybe Safin should have been a Spectre agent who wanted to capitalise on Blofeld's imprisonment by mounting a takeover bid. That could be the reason he wanted him dead. The victims at the party could have been all the other agents who were hoping to succeed Blofeld.
Honestly in a perfect world, there would be no Safin at all and Blofeld would have been the villain of this film.
I maintain that a "post-credits" scene of Spectre, or even maybe a final scene before Bond comes to pick up his car from Q, should have been guards escorting Blofeld to Belmarsh, and then having the camera close in on one of the guards wearing a Spectre ring. Instead of the Safin part of the PTS, we could have had Blofeld escaping.
Having Blofeld get arrested and sent to prison where he dies is such a crime against the character!
It's certainly a shame that Blofeld wasn't the main bad guy in this film. All the waiting throughout the decades to get the rights back to that character and yet no sooner does he get his scar than he's caught and dies!
I know he'll come back in future films played by a different actor and all, but there's going to be quite a gap until they use him again.
Really, I think the whole way they handled Blofeld in the Craig era was wrong-headed.
Even putting aside the foster brother thing, you don't reveal him in the Bond actor's fourth film because there isn't much time to follow that up in subsequent films. Craig might well have not come back. Better, perhaps, to have kept the rights under wraps before using them more comprehensively later on.
I’d be fine if they brought them both back even in the next Bond film, but in an extremely background kind of way; a faceless Blofeld, and only the briefest mention of the shadowy organization. Anything else at this point would be too much.
Under this more about Blofeld very much inspyred by OHMSS and DAF. Lucia always be part of it. But Hinx return in this set up later in movie, not working for Blofeld.
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Imagine Bond 26 wil be OHMSS, DAF and FRWL.
Blofeld is back with DAF element. Some people mabey remember i said Spectre should have end when Bond shoot on glass at Mi6 and some tears of blood changed in end gunbarrel. The guy there was not same Blofeld.
No Time To Die
Real villian behind Safin plan is somebody left from Quantum (You Know My Name).Blofeld is just pain for them with his own plan. Mr White never worked for Spectre. Hinx was send to Spectre meeting by that Quantum left over. Just using the fact we don't know why Hinx was there. Hinx wil be back when the refeal wil happen.
Who wil bring Mi6 back on this story, you know my name...
No Good About Goodbye over the end credits. Maintitle score with trowbacks to Quantum of Solace and later.
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Fans no longer denie it you know who is