162 replies to this topic

[Walecs]

 

I think the ending of SPECTRE is left deliberately ambiguous. My belief is that Bond retired and he and Madeleine are driving off into the sunset. This could allow a fresh start for the next actor should Craig not return. I could see him just being on holiday, but the way that Bond throws his gun away it really seems that he is choosing Madeleine over the service. Therefore, I think it's more likely and makes more narrative sense, for Bond to have retired. Then in Bond 25, Madeleine is killed by Blofeld which prompts Bond's return.

 

I would only want to see Madeleine killed if Craig is in the next installment. If he's not going to return, then leave it with them driving off into the sunset as Bond has done many times before in past installments.

 

 

So do I. There's no point in picking up SPECTRE's storyline if Craig's not coming back.

 

And I personally hope Craig won't return. I love him as Bond, but I like to think his Bond got his long-deserved happy ending.

[Eskyfall]

I wouldn't mind Craig's Bond finally riding off into the sunset. However, I just feel the story isn't finished.

[Surrie]

I think that's the problem. I wouldn't mind that either, in fact, I think it's a brilliant ending - but it does feel unfinished. Maybe this is down to the production, and having to chop and change the story line of SP so dramatically last minute. I think if Craig did intend on returning there would be more of a story to tell, but if he changed his mind throughout shooting this might be why we got the ending we did... which is leaving us thinking there was supposed to be more, and it almost lingers at other possibilities. EON leaving their options open. 

[Odd Jobbies]

In lieu of a commitment to 25 from Craig and therefore endeavouring to manage the overall arc to suit either outcome SP's final shot would appear to be a pretty genius move - leaving the door open for Craig's return, or wrapping up his tenure. 

 

However, with all the rumours of a mis-managed script during SP's production i think it's a stretch to suggest 'genius' played any part in it and this fortuitous ending was probably pure luck.

 

Im guessing the script always ended this way (before the doubts over Craig's return). I think they are 100% going for the OHMSS storyline, with Blofeld's escape and Maddy's death (why else would they have so archly inserted the OHMSS theme into the trailer for SPECTRE?)

 

What they definitely couldn't do was end SP with Maddy's death a la OHMSS as it could only come off as a poor copy of the original's ended (which is pretty highly regarded), or make the original seem less masterly if SP's version were better. They had to do it differently; the obvious solution is instead ending a movie this way, start the next movie with this inciting incident. This also avoids 24 & 25 having the same segue-structure as CR & QoS.

 

Now of course that arc is stuffed if Craig is finished, which is a shame as imo it would've worked well. I can certainly see BB being incredibly peeved with Craig if he's threatening to scupper those plans. But at least the ending of SP does indeed work either way. I imagine we'll find out the truth on the 4K SE of SP once we''re well into the tenure of Bond 7

[Surrie]

In lieu of a commitment to 25 from Craig and therefore endeavouring to manage the overall arc to suit either outcome SP's final shot would appear to be a pretty genius move - leaving the door open for Craig's return, or wrapping up his tenure. 

 

However, with all the rumours of a mis-managed script during SP's production i think it's a stretch to suggest 'genius' played any part in it and this fortuitous ending was probably pure luck.

 

Im guessing the script always ended this way (before the doubts over Craig's return). I think they are 100% going for the OHMSS storyline, with Blofeld's escape and Maddy's death (why else would they have so archly inserted the OHMSS theme into the trailer for SPECTRE?)

 

What they definitely couldn't do was end SP with Maddy's death a la OHMSS as it could only come off as a poor copy of the original's ended (which is pretty highly regarded), or make the original seem less masterly if SP's version were better. They had to do it differently; the obvious solution is instead ending a movie this way, start the next movie with this inciting incident. This also avoids 24 & 25 having the same segue-structure as CR & QoS.

 

Now of course that arc is stuffed if Craig is finished, which is a shame as imo it would've worked well. I can certainly see BB being incredibly peeved with Craig if he's threatening to scupper those plans. But at least the ending of SP does indeed work either way. I imagine we'll find out the truth on the 4K SE of SP once we''re well into the tenure of Bond 7

 

Couldn't agree more with this. If this were EONs plans then I'd be pretty p****d is Craig doesn't return either, as it's an arc I'd really like to see!!

[Dustin]

We're still counting too much on things like 'arcs' and 'plans' here, I afraid. That's not Eon's MO for the most part. They are never very specific about anything else than the current film - and each current film ends in a way that leaves most of the doors open.

As far as we can tell they have at best a hazy vision of further affairs, simply because that gives them the best options to react on past criticism. What arc there is - or what we perceive as arc - is just what develops as they arrange their building bricks. If there was a greater scheme to begin with they would go about their business quite differently.

For SPECTRE that would have meant they can pick it up with the next film or let it sleep for a time. We mustn't forget Blofeld and/or Madeleine could have been very unpopular; in that case I doubt we'd have heard of them again. Always bearing in mind here that neither character is essential for the casual audience; it's only the minority of us fans who know about their significance and expect a certain outcome.

[Odd Jobbies]

We're still counting too much on things like 'arcs' and 'plans' here, I afraid. That's not Eon's MO for the most part...

Which is why BB would be particularly peeved if in this case it was.

 

Perhaps they used the OHMSS theme in the SP trailer just because they could, but seeing how this movie ended just short of the love interest being assassinated in the OHMSS, i think it's fair to opine that this could very well have been one of those rare cases in which continuity was intended.

 

After all, wasn't Lazenby supposed to pick up on the revenge trail in his second movie until he unexpectedly quit? To happen once is bad luck, but to have your actor walk while trying to follow through that very same story might be called careless and definitely jinxed. Peeved indeed, perhaps!

[Dustin]

I think what we're seeing is not so much a possible plan for SPECTRE and SPECTRE + X, it's a repeat of a previously successful recipe, to remake TMWTGG novel and film with elements of YOLT. They gave the main part of Bond to Silva, made him to an earlier version of Bond and let him try to kill M while also causing the deaths of numerous fellow agents. Silva's part is an amalgamation of the brainwashed Bond of the novel and film and novel versions of Scaramanga. It worked surprisingly well, so their next venture was to do a remake of OHMSS with mixed roles - and that didn't work at all story-wise. But other than having the option of using Blofeld again I doubt there was a greater plan to it.

As for the original post-OHMSS plans with or without Lazenby - that was from a time when they still had a number of scripts juggling in the air. It was the same with OHMSS; that one was so often pitched as being the next they had almost as many scripts for it as McClory had for his own Bond project.

[Odd Jobbies]

I can see how you could read Silva as TMWTGG's Bond in SF, but i think if they next had Bond as TMWTGG's Bond no one would call it a rehash of SF.

[Professor Pi]

The only way she will be back, to garner a motivation for Bond returning to MI6 or the service - which, if I was M, I wouldn't let him as he's quit twice in 10 years over a woman - is her death.

 

And that's basically the story in the novels too--Casino Royale published 1953 to On Her Majesty's Secret Service exactly 10 years later in 1963.  Indeed, in 1964's YOLT, M is reluctant to send Bond on a real mission and worries that his use as an agent is over.

 

EON's miscalculation was they basically used TMWGG's beginning in Skyfall, thereby reversing the narrative chronology of Bond returning to service.  And not the first time they've squandered this opportunity either (filming YOLT before OHMSS, for example.)

 

But it sure doesn't feel like Craig's Bond has ten years worth of missions.  CR/QoS takes place over the course of a couple of months, and it appears Skyfall/SPECTRE does as well, following on the heals of M's death.  What happened all those years in between? 

 

Still, however they progress with Bond 25, it won't be as incongruous as the Licence to Kill to GoldenEye segue.

[Surrie]

 

Still, however they progress with Bond 25, it won't be as incongruous as the Licence to Kill to GoldenEye segue.

 

 

Let's hope not.

[Tiin007]

 

The only way she will be back, to garner a motivation for Bond returning to MI6 or the service - which, if I was M, I wouldn't let him as he's quit twice in 10 years over a woman - is her death.

 

And that's basically the story in the novels too--Casino Royale published 1953 to On Her Majesty's Secret Service exactly 10 years later in 1963.  Indeed, in 1964's YOLT, M is reluctant to send Bond on a real mission and worries that his use as an agent is over.

 

[...]

 

But it sure doesn't feel like Craig's Bond has ten years worth of missions.  CR/QoS takes place over the course of a couple of months, and it appears Skyfall/SPECTRE does as well, following on the heals of M's death.  What happened all those years in between? 

 

Exactly. You Only Live Twice was Fleming's twelfth novel, and there had been a short story collection. 

 

But in Craig's Bondiverse, he had resigned twice over a woman, been stripped of his double-0 license once, disobeyed orders and gone rogue twice, and gone off the grid (beginning of Skyfall) once. Too much, too quickly. 

[Odd Jobbies]

Imo there's only vague correlations between SF and TMWTGGs beginning. That being an ex-MI6 agent tries to kill M.

 

In SF there's no brainwashing; Silva is simply a disaffected agent with an axe to grind who attempts an over-ellaborate public assassination of M 3/4s of the way into the story.

 

In TMWTGG Bond is brainwashed and used as a weapon to kill M in the opening act.

 

You could say Eon may have been inspired by the idea M being killed by one of his own, but that's about it. There's plenty of scope to still use this opening of Fleming's TMWTGG as a pre-titles for B26 without it feeling at all similar to SF.

 

Though i absolutely agree that Eon have a shameful track record of squandering great stories by cherry picking from Fleming.