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ar. Only one thing is certain. BOND WILL RETUIRN. (Thank heavens).
Blofeld in the novels is a strange character. Not only does his appearance radically change due to the plastic surgery he puts himself through, but his character as a whole has an odd development. On the surface, in TB he's basically an ambitious criminal. He's not ideological but simply wants to extort Governments for money using the stolen warheads. There are traces of megalomania in there with how he conducts the SPECTRE meeting though (even going as far as to kill one of his members because they rape a kidnap victim. If I recall correctly it upsets him to the point where he gives back the ransom money).
In OHMSS, SPECTRE has more or less been downsized. Again, it seems Blofeld is simply an ambitious criminal using his Angels of Death to hold Britain to ransom, however even more of his increasing insanity and ego is made apparent. He seems hell bent on attaining the Count De Bleuville title (which is in a sense his downfall) and seems noticeably more snobbish.
By YOLT, SPECTRE has been completely disbanded. He's set up what is essentially a suicide garden, himself the King of this strange, hellish dominion. He believes he's a great man on the same level as Napoleon and even justifies his previous criminal enterprises as being potentially good for humanity. By this point it's obvious he's gone completely mad.
That's really the key to Blofeld. He's not a super villain but a man who wants to be great and over the course of the novels loses everything (including his own sanity).
The only regret is that we didn’t get Waltz as much as we should have across two films.
I’m sure that Blofeld will be back, though - imo the producers are desperate for headline-grabbing concepts to compete in today’s market, and the obvious move for them to make in the new iteration of Bond is to bring in a female Blofeld.
I would like to see Gillian Anderson as an antagonist, though, she’s always very good.
Bizarrely enough, the closest they come to acknowledging it is in the plastic surgery of DAF. But even that would have been better with a throwaway line like, "I'm so glad to have gotten rid of that scar...and wow, look at these hair transplants!"
Considering how silly DAF is, it is surprising that a line like that wasn’t used! I suppose the next Blofeld could say “It’s not like we’re brothers, or anything.”
https://bleedingcool.com/movies/when-blofeld-was-a-woman-in-spectre-sony-leaks/
I always thought Charles Grey was closest to Fleming's OHMSS description of Blofeld. He just needed the chrome contact lenses.
But for me, I'd like to see Blofeld and SPECTRE shelved for a bit.
I guess I have to agree, it is just a shame that they were handled so poorly after such a long wait, which leads to another long wait being the best option.
"...By this point it's obvious he's gone completely mad...."
Hmm, rather like the time we got to see Dr. Evil yet again. As Austin Powers said, "I always thought you were crazy, but now I can your nuts !"
And, no, I did not misspell "your."
She could have mentioned so many things about the direction they want to go but instead she mentions the emotional weight of the character. It almost seems like it's the most important thing for the producers.
Do we really need a Craig 2.0 ? It's getting incredibly boring if every film is about Bonds personal issues and emotions. Where's the fun, the adventure? Shouldn't they focus on an interesting story first?
I don't need a new MR or DAD and I'm not against emotional and personal stories like LTK or CR, but if every film goes in that direction, it's getting boring. I think at least sometimes a more lighter movie can't be that bad.
Could they not have both though? An entertaining, adventure filled film with an interesting story, in which Bond has some form of conflict or even development (however minor)?
I mean, the vast majority of movies - and usually all successful ones, including Bond films -have both an interesting story and this sense of character (or at least try to).
The emotional weight of the character is what everyone loved about CR. So she's right.
Yes, and that's why many people still loved Goldeneye.
Just because the concept of a personal Bond wasn't handled with enough intricacy or impressive enough writing in Craig's later films, doesn't mean a flat follow up would be successful, I actually suspect quite the contrary. There aren't that many actors, especially today, that can salvage an impersonal story with sheer presence like Connery & Moore anyway.
I'm glad they didn't went that route of remaking, for what? To have Madeleine Swann be a substitute for Tracy? No way, man, no way! :-O
They could reinvent Blofeld in so many ways (without using the old formula), but they've failed.
Well, Bond in that film has 'emotional baggage'. The whole second half of that film is him having to face the scenario of killing his former colleague and friend. There are references made to the death of his parents and how MI6 tend to recruit orphans as field agents (much like SF). Heck, there are subtle hints in the film about Bond's relevancy in the post Cold War era.
I'd say people loved Goldeneye at the time (and I guess still now, although I don't think it's quite as popular among general audiences as CR and SF) because the story was engaging and it was done well. Not because Bond was a flat, one dimensional character.
I broadly agree. To be honest, I don't suspect there are many general viewers outside this fandom who really pine for a Bond without any sort of character. Like I said, most films have a lead character with some sort of conflict, and it's a major part of what engages audiences. It just depends on what they do and how they do it.
I remember when I first read the Fleming novels in between DAD and Casino, I was shocked that Bond didn't enjoy being a 00 and almost resented the title. I think it was in Moonraker he even mentions looking forward to a desk job. It appeared to be the polar opposite of Pierce's Bond.
I think it was a love/hate thing. Didn't Fleming also write that the missions Bond enjoyed the most were the dangerous ones? (I can't remember the book).
But yes, he's also often jaded in the novels, and Horowitz picked up on that too, particularly in the last book.
Yes, the 'reluctant 007' is a Fleming thing. Even in Casino Royale, Bond wonders if he's actually doing the right thing, who the good and bad guys are and whatnot. Craig (and to some extent Dalton and Peter Hunt) didn't "invent" the doubting or slightly insubordinate Bond. These guys read Fleming and went with it. That's part of the reason why I hate political discussions with people who never read Fleming and merely assume that the Craig Bond is a modern invention, all "woke" and whatnot, a thing of the "now". In fact, just yesterday someone told me that Bond not getting the girl (in QOS) was very "unbondian". A certain Fleming book comes to mind...
The Bond from the books did indeed like danger/adventure, and was certainly prone to bouts of melancholic boredom during his downtime in London. At the same time he was highly cynical about the politics behind his job and outright hated killing in cold blood (hell, he seemed to dislike killing in general and begrudgingly viewed it as a 'kill or be killed' thing despite also having melancholic bouts whenever he did have to carry out a brutal kill).
I always got the sense that Fleming's Bond was a man who really couldn't do anything else with his life. He enjoyed the danger of his job too much and yet also had a strong sense of duty so would always be pulled back. Even when he tried to settle down, fate would lead to him having to return to the Service. It's something I did see in Craig's Bond. Fleming's character certainly couldn't hold down a long term relationship, and would often indulge in drink, gambling and sex simply out of that boredom. Again, it's something we've seen hinted at in the films and perhaps heavily adapted in various forms, but I don't think any cinematic Bond has quite had that dynamic to them.
I had been showing Bond films to my friends who hadn’t really gone through the movies before, and they were surprised when Bond and Camille part ways without doing the deed. But they were pleasantly surprised by that development. After over 20 films, you come expect some adherence to a formula but every now and then the movies go a different route and I think that’s become necessary for the sake of variety.
This is why I’ll never expect a “classic” old school Bond movie from the Connery/Moore era again unless Eon and the filmmakers actually want to do that. We have a dozen of those films already that we can watch any time at this point. So when Bond actually dies in one of them I see that as an inevitability. If Craig wasn’t going to be the one suggesting it, someone else would have. It’s a 60 year old franchise and everyone is going to want to do something different down the line rather than make the same movie over and over.
Exactly; you are correct as usual, @MakeshiftPython. We've had a Thunderball, a Goldfinger, a The Spy Who Loved Me. What's even better is the fact that we can rewatch them as often as we like. No point in remaking them. And it is not just the films but, as you say, the eras too. '80s Bond was already vastly different from '60s Bond. Well, 2020s Bond will probably be different too. Nostalgic desires can be powerful, but also powerfully misleading. A more-of-the-same Bond might leave us (and general audiences) unsatisfied. Every Bond film must have "those things" that typify Bond, while also doing something different. That is the only way to keep the series fresh and bring in new fans (even if it is at the risk of losing some of the older ones.)