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Main villain's name?


45 replies to this topic

#31 Mr. Blofeld

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Posted 12 January 2012 - 06:17 PM

Noh Hecahnt

#32 Captain Tightpants

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 01:09 AM

Very funny, you lot.

But something of actual relevance has just occurred to me: a lot of trains will be featured in SKYFALL. There are the train sequences planned for Turkey, and another sequence set in London. Since Bond villains are usually industrialists, I wonder if Javier Bardem isn't playing some kind of cargo entrepeneur, with his main source of income being train transit.

#33 coco1997

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 01:22 AM

Dankii Bombshell.

#34 Pussfeller

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 01:49 AM

Very funny, you lot.

But something of actual relevance has just occurred to me: a lot of trains will be featured in SKYFALL. There are the train sequences planned for Turkey, and another sequence set in London. Since Bond villains are usually industrialists, I wonder if Javier Bardem isn't playing some kind of cargo entrepeneur, with his main source of income being train transit.


There is a tendency in Bond films for the villain to be a mogul of some industry which he secretly attacks, so that some harumphy elderly character can turn to Bond and demand, "Why would he blow up his own fizzlemajigs?" And then Bond has to find out why, but for heaven's sake be discreet about it.

#35 Captain Tightpants

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 02:09 AM

There is a tendency in Bond films for the villain to be a mogul of some industry which he secretly attacks, so that some harumphy elderly character can turn to Bond and demand, "Why would he blow up his own fizzlemajigs?" And then Bond has to find out why, but for heaven's sake be discreet about it.

I don't really recall that in QUANTUM OF SOLACE, though. Dominic Greene ran Greene Planet, a utilities company that did some environmentally philanthropy. It gave him the perfect cover for the Tierra Projects.

I was actually thinking more along the lines of Bardem being part of some stay-behind force, like the Ergenekon or Counter-Guerrilla. If he were some kind of cargo transport baron, his trains would give him the perfect cover to move large stocks of weapons about undetected.

#36 univex

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 02:16 AM

I was actually thinking more along the lines of Bardem being part of some stay-behind force, like the Ergenekon or Counter-Guerrilla. If he were some kind of cargo transport baron, his trains would give him the perfect cover to move large stocks of weapons about undetected.

True, and interesting enough. Well done.

#37 Pussfeller

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 02:30 AM

In principle, I could imagine such a villain. But Bardem doesn't strike me as somebody who can play an industrialist. There are four kinds of Bond villain that I think are suited to Bardem: super-gangster, macho playboy, renegade military officer, and master assassin. (Other varieties of Bond villain, which I can't imagine Bardem playing: terrorist, evil businessman, mad scientist, turncoat spy, crooked politician.) In the context of this film, I'm betting on military renegade.

#38 Captain Tightpants

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 02:36 AM

A military renegade would fit Counter-Guerrilla/Ergenekon, but I simply noticed that there are a lot of trains in SKYFALL, and that controlling the trains would enable the villains to move shipments of weapons around unmolested. Especially if Bardem used his military influence to make sure they were never touched by outsiders.

#39 Pussfeller

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 02:52 AM

Freight trains certainly, but the London Underground? Is there any possibility at all that the London Underground is doubling for somewhere else in Europe? I could imagine a Turkish villain having some pull with a public transit authority in Germany, and therefore access to most of continental Europe. But the UK has little connection to Turkey, and not much connection to German institutions either. It's like, you know, an island or something. The Bond films have never had any trouble involving the UK with exalted affairs on the world stage - just remember that meeting of the three superpowers in YOLT - but my puny brain has a hard time connecting the UK, Turkey, and China in a way that makes sense and isn't either random or contrived.

And if Bardem isn't playing a Turk, that just makes it harder to figure out.

#40 Captain Tightpants

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 03:03 AM

We can speculate all we like - but none of it really counts for anything without knowing Bardem's motives. That's the one thing that I have no theories about.

#41 Pussfeller

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 03:13 AM

What are Bardem's motives? I wondered the same thing after Eat, Pray, Love.

#42 Captain Tightpants

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 03:24 AM

That's the thing: we have no idea what the motives of Bardem's character are in SKYFALL. He's the primary villain, which implies that he attacks MI6. But why does he attack MI6? My theory is that the eight dead bodies are somehow connected to one another, and that the connection is "Skyfall". But that doesn't explain why Bardem wants them dead in the first place, and that is going to be the major plot driver in the film.

#43 Mr. Blofeld

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 04:13 AM

Howard Roarque?

#44 Pussfeller

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 04:47 AM

But that doesn't explain why Bardem wants them dead in the first place, and that is going to be the major plot driver in the film.


One possibility is that he kills them merely to incriminate M. The tidbit about "M's past" has been interpreted as a reference to something buried deep in the mists of the Cold War, but it might be something more recent. Suppose "Javier" is a foreign ally of MI6, somebody they armed to the teeth and gave loads of cash, ostensibly to work against a mutual enemy. But it's all been a sham, and Javier is really setting up a scheme to blackmail the government itself. Suppose this: When the bombs start going off and the country is in chaos, M personally arranges to fly Javier and his friends out of the country, bypassing the police, the air traffic lockdown, etc. Only later does she discover that she thereby provided the perpetrators with safe passage out of the country. She is now an accomplice in a heinous act of terrorism against her own country, and as long as the government fails to remove her from her position, they are complicit as well. Meanwhile, Javier and friends are planning another act of terrorism, as a way of increasing their leverage over MI6. What is Javier's motivation? It could be anything. Money, asylum for his associates, political influence for some pet cause, you name it. In fact, his motivation would be something of a mcguffin. The important thing is that he has M by the short hairs, as the scheme threatens to bring down the government. (Perhaps "Skyfall" is MI6-talk for the sudden collapse of the current government.)

#45 Captain Tightpants

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 04:47 AM

That does sound interesting.

I could also see him trying to escape with the entire MI6 active case roster, so rather than plot another terror attack, he could hold MI6 to ransom by selling off all their case files to the people they are investigating unless MI6 do him a "favour" - maybe sending Bond to China to take out someone who poses a threat to him. Along the way, Bond starts working out the idea that M has been compromised, thus bringing the questioning-his-loyalty into play.

#46 Pussfeller

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 05:28 AM

Whatever else happens, I'm sure there will be a scene where Bond confronts M and asks if he can trust her.

And the more I think about it, the more I doubt that she'll die, though I can imagine her being fired or suspended and having to assist Bond unofficially. At the end of the film, I imagine that her fate will be left ambiguous, like Q's in TWINE. The producers know that she might not do another one, but they'll want to leave themselves open to the possibility. Even if someone like Fiennes is presented as her successor-in-waiting, they may prefer to introduce him gradually, a la Robert Brown.