33 replies to this topic

[Dustin]

I suppose Waltz as Blofeld was not really that inspired a choice. After INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS seeing Waltz on the cast of a Bond film titled SPECTRE left most fans with little doubt who he was going to be. It's a bit sad he didn't have a different part, a Largo figure or even the part of a dubious ally, somebody playing both sides.

His Blofeld is supposedly emotionally motivated, yet there is only very little emotion shown on his side. Contrast to this Silva's part, that has emotional instability in spades and buckets. The impression I got from Waltz' interview is that he would likely want to improve on this side of the character. Provided he gets a chance to.

That said, I would for some reason prefer if BOND 25 picked up several years after SPECTRE, if there was a visual and tonal gap. Be bold and make it a decade, explain little and only hint at what exactly became of the players.

[SecretAgentFan]

That actually might be the logical step: have Bond and Madeleine really go dark for a few years.  And then start anew with Bond being called back into the service.

 

By the way, for us Germans, the idea of Christoph Waltz as the go-to-baddie is kind of old hat anyway since he always played the shady, smirky excentric on tv.  

 

Personally, I even thought Tarantino casting him again in "Django unchained" already was a bad idea and a rehash.  And Mendes, for my taste, went twice for "been there, done that" when he first cast Javier Bardem after his stellar turn in the Coens´ "No country for old men" and Christoph Waltz after his two Tarantino movies.  

 

However, Bardem actually surprised me and proved he could be very different from role to role - while Waltz is basically always Waltz.

 

I would have preferred Mendes to find an unknown, and the theatre world which he inhabits has plenty of much better character actors to offer.

[Trevelyan 006]

Reading this hurts me, but I also don't blame him.

 

Let me tell you, when Waltz was announced as Franz Oberhauser, I was ecstatic. We were finally going to get a villain with a name borrowed from the novels again that they could really color with any brush they chose. As much as time when on and it was apparent that Waltz was ultimately going to be Blofeld, I was kind of bummed out. A guy like Waltz, I think, needs room to breath as himself in a character. With a role such as Blofeld, much like others have suggested in this topic, it should've gone to an actor not immediately recognizable from current hit films. Like others have suggested, Waltz is Waltz. Trying to have him be anything else was a waste of his talent. There was no Waltz written in that script. He had to have been promised a stake and instead was served a tv dinner. 

 

The fact is, Christoph deserved better than to be pigeonholed into just Blofeld. With that name, comes a preconceived notion. With what was written for him (with what seemed to be no real input from himself), the character was destined to be less than desired. 

 

After Craig's era is said and done, Christoph Waltz's Blofeld will be one of the its most disappointing aspects... And that's criminal. 

[thecasinoroyale]

I agree Trevelyan.

It was only the other week Waltz was being intereviewd over here to promote some work, I think it was a chat show too, and the host introduced him to a wider audience with something like:

"Christoph, you've played some memorable parts in your career, notably with Quentin Tarantino in 'Django Unchained' and 'Inglorious Basterds'..." and went off.

Nothing was said about 'SPECTRE' or his role as Blofeld, supposedly one of the best movie villains out there.

To me that was sad, and proved that his version was un-memorable and wasted here in 2015 for a big 'return' to form.