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As for Bond's future, I think a possible ally that EON could bring back is Tiger Tanaka. He's been reused successfully in 3 literary stories: The Man With The Red Tattoo, Felix Leiter and Double Or Nothing. It's a good chance that EON would bring him back.
Because EON apparently thought Blofeld and Spectre would bring more people to the theater. Not too mention Christoph Waltz himself.
It somewhat loses its power when bits of it are cherry picked and relegated to dialogue relayed exposition. As others have said on a very basic plot level if you were to cut that backstory then little, if any of SP changes.
The movie said the same basic thing but I don't buy it. Bond only gets assigned to the LeChiffre mission because he's "the best card player in the service." Unless Blofeld somehow manipulated Bond into taking up gambling, he couldn't possibly have been the author of Bond's pain. And what a woeful line.
It’s an example of why the personal connection between Bond and Blofeld makes things unclear. Strictly speaking Blofeld couldn’t have known Bond would get involved in the events of CR/QOS so I suppose the ‘author of all your pain’ line was never meant to be an actual revelation that Blofeld is some sort of puppet master manipulating things against Bond... it is, however, written to evoke the idea that fate brought them together and Blofeld is responsible for Bond’s misfortunes. Their personal connection heaped on top of that muddies the water in the sense that this Blofeld seems to simultaneously be an ambitious super criminal in it for the money/power, and a petty man jealous of Bond for reasons that are also quite unconvincing and a bit vague.
Like I said, in some strange way Bond not knowing Blofeld prior actually opens up a lot of interesting dynamics between them. Bond of course is a man who has thwarted Blofeld’s plans on more than one occasion, and Blofeld is the head of SPECTRE, the organisation that manipulated Vesper, leading to her suicide (and again, Bond’s chance at a normal, happy life). It’s a dynamic more similar to the novels, and if we’d had the ‘author of all your pain’ line with this context then it might have been clearer, more poignant, and certainly more in-keeping with ‘the past returning’ theme of the film.
Despite my objections to Bond being killed, I too have reached that point. Put a bullet in it, bury it, and reboot it. And next time a villain is cast, cast the role with a larger than life, scene stealing, gregarious actor whose villainy is fun to watch.
Introduce Waltz as Blofeld and have the reveal be he was Franz Oberhauser, let that be the reveal. I still don't like it to be honest, but perhaps it's a bit more palatable
If they'd done this Safin could have been Blofeld and No Time To Die might have avoided a weak main villain.
I rather like that idea. I would say you could even replace Felix with him, but I guess ultimately it's likely that Bond will interface with the CIA at some point.
I like this idea, although in a way I could see it working that Bond recognises Blofeld as his childhood 'brother' but Blofeld has absolutely no recollection of him; Bond tracking him down through that - Blofeld having crossed this man's life twice without even knowing it, leading to his downfall.
Or do the Moriarty thing with him: Bond has beaten so many of his schemes now that Blofeld comes after him personally.
I wonder if it would have been possible if Oberhauser and Blofeld were separate baddies; Blofeld having found Oberhauser and used him to lure Bond in.
This is my speculation: They see Blofeld as being more than just another Bond villain and wanted to somehow emphasize that. With Fleming, Blofeld became Bond's arch nemesis by killing his wife. It was the moment that it went beyond just another mission, it became personal. I think the filmmakers wanted to tap into that personal aspect, but instead of giving Bond a wife that gets killed by Blofeld they decided to make them estranged brothers. Blofeld obviously couldn't be made blood related, so they used the Oberhauser connection to make him a foster brother.
Keep in mind, Craig was seriously considering leaving after SP. If it were to be the last film with him, that's why they wanted to go with that angle especially if Blofeld was Craig's final Bond villain. He's the man who was not only behind the curtain from the beginning of CR, but extended further back to Bond's upbringing. I can see why the filmmakers would be temped and assume fans would like this new take on the character.
Would it have worked if they had a better script at hand? I actually can't discount that. It's always about execution. There were things in Star Wars that I absolutely would have objected to just on the basis of an idea alone. I hated the idea of Ben Solo getting a redemption story because that just stunk of rehashing Anakin Skywalker's story. And yet, in spite of TROS being a dumpster fire of a film, I was actually sold on the conceit of Ben Solo's redemption just from Adam Driver's performance alone. He managed to sell me on something I thought I would have been a total hardliner about, and I was especially pissed that they ended up killing him and any potential stories there could have been mined of following a character trying to atone for something he never can. If those filmmakers could succeed at that, I would have liked to see an alternate universe where they actually were successful over the foster brother angle.
However, SP did a terrible job with the idea because it ultimately amounted into nothing. The fact that you could easily snip it out and not change the plot really illustrated how pointless it was. By the time NTTD rolls around, the fact that they had a past as foster brothers seems completely irrelevant.
But, something tells me the producers wanted Blofeld to be played by an Oscar winner like Bardem in the previous movie. After all, these are prestige movies now, with tons of Oscar-tier talent involved (but for some reason doesn't result in them making better movies). And of course they ironically repeated the same mistake in NTTD, sidelining an established villain for an entirely new villain whose origin requires tons of expositional dialogue to explain, with a grand scheme that was years in the making. I get the sense that the Bond producers are making the exact same movie over and over.
This is astute. I just think that, if we were destined to have Bond and Oberhauser-Blofeld, that it all would have worked better if Bond just bumped into Oberhauser and then discovered his evil scheme and his identity as Blofeld.
It's the notion that Blofeld planned all of this against Bond over several missions that is ludicrous. Couple that with the tired sibling rivalry lines they gave Blofeld and it's just too, too much.
They had their proto-Blofeld in plain sight. Of course I'm speaking of White. (shakes head)
Blofeld wasn’t planning against Bond throughout the movies.
What I always liked about Bond movies; you could basically choose any movie and watch it with your friends, an explanation about prior events wasn't needed.
In the Craig era, only CR and SF worked as standalone movies, and a lot of the connections in the other movies felt forced.
However, I fear they will try to connect the next movies even more.
Goes with the nature of how media is consumed these days. It made sense that the older films were standalone for their time because accessibility to films, particularly during the 60s to late 80s, was not good. If it was 1977 and you wanted to watch every Bond film made up to that point, that would be difficult, especially for titles like OHMSS. You’d have to wait and hope for a re-release somewhere.
Cut to 2023, film and television has never been more accessible. That’s partly why so many films and TV is more serialized than it was in the 20th century because people can easily catch up by just streaming whatever they need to see at home. If Eon goes back to standalone films that would have to motivated by a desire to go that route. Right now, there’s no reason not to do serializations since that has become the norm.
There can be a healthy middle ground. STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS is refreshingly episodic, though it still has an undercurrent of continuity flowing.
Good points!
Bond working for the same organization and surrounded by a familiar network of support is continuity enough for me. No question streaming and access have changed the game, but Bond films are released every two to three years which drags out a story arc a very long time. CR was released 15 years before NTTD. Every Bond fan has an opinion as to whether the wait was worth it or not. The enjoyment of the early films was seeing where Bond went next. Hopefully the new series will figure out what Strange New Worlds did.
I really liked the linked narrative before Spectre, but since Spectre it's frustrated me a bit.
It feels like the writers and producers are obsessed with giving every person a past and link to previous characters. Which makes it more unbelievable and ultimately Bond's world smaller and smaller.
True, and a criticism you could probably level at Fleming as well.
As mtm has insinuated for a while now, the novels are quite interlinked. They always have a main plot that largely works on its own, but the Bond of YOLT has clearly gone though everything in the previous books. And I would bet that is what P&W thought they were doing with SP and NTTD.
That's absolutely right mate
Me too. I don’t blame Waltz at all. I’m happy that he did the part. I blame the writing. And the art house-ness that the producers and directors have been aiming for lately. And somewhat trying to be like the MCU. It works for as they make multiple stories and characters at once with decades of material. EON got the rights to Blofeld and Spectre not even two years before Spectre. Should have maybe waited.
As for Bond’s future, I’m not opposed to a long story arc or two. Just write, direct and edit the movies to feel like they are in the same world. Marvel actually does this well.