Was SPECTRE a disappointment?

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  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    slide_99 wrote: »
    The finale should have been a Die Hard-type scenario with Bond evading/fighting SPECTRE agents in their base, with the gas explosion being a ticking timebomb to add tension, not just a meaningless fireworks display after Bond and Madeline are already safe. Bond and Madeline escape just before the base goes up (maybe Bond does something clever to shield himself and Madeline from the blast). Blofeld and his entourage are escaping in their vehicles. Madeline and Bond gave chase in the chopper. Also, the filmmakers missed an opportunity for Bond to use the meteorite in some clever way, or at least as a visual gag. Like the base explodes and the meteor lands on one of Blofeld's cars or some Glen-type gag like that.
    They need YOU in on the script fine-tuning, clearly. That's so *perfect*.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited February 2022 Posts: 2,897
    GBF wrote: »
    I really wonder how the writing process took place. Has the third act the way it was made always been their first choice? Or had there been a version in which they focused entirely on the crater base?
    There's a lot of stuff from the leaked Sony emails in this, with plenty of background and insight into the writing of SP and all the different ideas they had for it. Well worth a look:

    https://bleedingcool.com/movies/when-blofeld-was-a-woman-in-spectre-sony-leaks/
  • DenbighDenbigh UK
    Posts: 5,834
    I really wish they'd kept Charlotte King. It would've been great to have been great to have finally had a female henchwoman/villain in the Craig-era.
  • I wonder if this "Charlotte King" was a placeholder name given that there was one Elektra with that last name.
  • DenbighDenbigh UK
    Posts: 5,834
    I wonder if this "Charlotte King" was a placeholder name given that there was one Elektra with that last name.
    We did end up with Franz Oberhauser when we had Franz Sanches so I suppose not.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 5,921
    It's interesting to see the bits of the SP drafts that were picked up for NTTD...the eyeball, the masked death ball, etc.

    That Oberhauser/Blofeld are the same person made no sense then and makes no sense now. They should have been two separate characters, Oberhauser basically the Largo to Blofeld.

    Also interesting that someone thought Madeleine could be working with Blofeld. I think the female Blofeld idea has merit, but probably would have made more sense with Lucia.
  • slide_99 wrote: »
    .....Bond and Madeline escape just before the base goes up (maybe Bond does something clever to shield himself and Madeline from the blast). ....

    I like all that.

    Of course, 'Danny Bond' is more likely to stand there and smile at the explosion with a cuddly toy, rather than try to escape. But I like your version better.
  • DenbighDenbigh UK
    edited February 2022 Posts: 5,834
    I've always wanted to see Hannes Oberhauser be used in the films in some way, and it's a shame it had to be in the way Spectre used him.
  • BirdlesonBirdleson Moderator
    Posts: 2,161
    Denbigh wrote: »
    I've always wanted to see Hannes Oberhauser be used in the films in some way, and it's a shame it had to be in the way Spectre used him.

    That is one of the worst aspects, that the character was not properly used.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,000
    He’s barely a character at all in the Fleming story.
  • DenbighDenbigh UK
    Posts: 5,834
    He’s barely a character at all in the Fleming story.
    Of course, but even so, the character has a lot of potential to be used in a way more interesting way.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,000
    How? It could only be a flashback with Bond as a child, unless they keep the character alive for Bond’s adulthood.
  • DenbighDenbigh UK
    edited February 2022 Posts: 5,834
    How? It could only be a flashback with Bond as a child, unless they keep the character alive for Bond’s adulthood.
    I'm not really saying he should an actual living breathing character for most of the story, but to just better adapt what was there. The story of Oberhauser and Dexter Smythe was a really interesting one (to me anyway) and to have that replaced with his jealous child being Ernst Stavro Blofeld just feels like a waste.

    And if the concept only works with his child as the villain, then let that concept breathe and work on its own because trying to make that the motivation behind Ernst Stavro Blofeld just doesn't work.

    I personally quite liked what the comic adaptation did by introducing a daughter for Oberhauser.
  • BirdlesonBirdleson Moderator
    Posts: 2,161
    I would certainly love to see that entire Dexter Smythe/Oberhauser story shown in flashback. Fleming gave us a lot of detail in those few pages.
  • DenbighDenbigh UK
    edited February 2022 Posts: 5,834
    Birdleson wrote: »
    I would certainly love to see that entire Dexter Smythe/Oberhauser story shown in flashback. Fleming gave us a lot of detail in those few pages.
    Imagine that whole sequence with the same level of execution as the opening of Inglorious Basterds.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,000
    Would be cool if EON produced short films based off those FYEO/OP&TLD stories.

    Benedict Cumberbatch would have been a great Philip Masters 14 years ago or so.
  • BirdlesonBirdleson Moderator
    Posts: 2,161
    Would be cool if EON produced short films based off those FYEO/OP&TLD stories.

    That could make for a great television series, throwing in TSWLM as written, as well. It's basically reads like an extended Fleming short story.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,000
    Full circle considering they started they started off as outlines for an episodic TV series.
  • BirdlesonBirdleson Moderator
    Posts: 2,161
    Yes, maybe we can even get the five unused treatments (MURDER ON WHEELS, RUSSIAN ROULETTE, and three unknowns) to finally be filmed in some fashion.
  • DenbighDenbigh UK
    Posts: 5,834
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Yes, maybe we can even get the five unused treatments (MURDER ON WHEELS, RUSSIAN ROULETTE, and three unknowns) to finally be filmed in some fashion.
    Where can I find information on those treatments?
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,518
    Murder On Wheels is included in a Horowitz novel (but maybe only a certain edition of it?) I think. Russian Roulette I'm not as sure.
  • BirdlesonBirdleson Moderator
    edited February 2022 Posts: 2,161
    @Denbigh MURDER ON WHEELS was the basis for Horowitz's TRIGGER MORTIS, and RUSSIAN ROULETTE was the basis for his FOREVER AND A DAY. Most of the television treatments were adapted to create the short stories that were published as the FYEO and OP collections. The five that weren't have not been made available to the public, but Horowitz was granted access to them. There are special editions of both of his first two Bond novels that contain copies of Fleming's actual treatments.
  • DenbighDenbigh UK
    Posts: 5,834
    Ah i see, I'm yet to take time out to read the Horowitz ones.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    edited February 2022 Posts: 5,921
    Birdleson wrote: »
    @Denbigh MURDER ON WHEELS was the basis for Horowitz's TRIGGER MORTIS, and RUSSIAN ROULETTE was the basis for his FOREVER AND A DAY. Most of the television treatments were adapted to create the short stories that were published as the FYEO and OP collections. The five that weren't have not been made available to the public, but Horowitz was granted access to them. There are special editions of both of his first two Bond novels that contain copies of Fleming's actual treatments.

    Interesting that Glidrose/the IFF didn't sell these to the public long ago, like right after Fleming died. I wonder if there are/were rights issues, as with CR, MR, etc.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,000
    Perhaps Fleming didn’t give them a short story treatment being his passing?
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Birdleson wrote: »
    @Denbigh MURDER ON WHEELS was the basis for Horowitz's TRIGGER MORTIS, and RUSSIAN ROULETTE was the basis for his FOREVER AND A DAY. Most of the television treatments were adapted to create the short stories that were published as the FYEO and OP collections. The five that weren't have not been made available to the public, but Horowitz was granted access to them. There are special editions of both of his first two Bond novels that contain copies of Fleming's actual treatments.

    I wish they had been incorporated in the film series, or better yet collected and published as they are, instead of giving it to a hack writer like Horowitz.
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 7,948
    How? It could only be a flashback with Bond as a child, unless they keep the character alive for Bond’s adulthood.
    Venutius wrote: »
    GBF wrote: »
    I really wonder how the writing process took place. Has the third act the way it was made always been their first choice? Or had there been a version in which they focused entirely on the crater base?
    There's a lot of stuff from the leaked Sony emails in this, with plenty of background and insight into the writing of SP and all the different ideas they had for it. Well worth a look:

    https://bleedingcool.com/movies/when-blofeld-was-a-woman-in-spectre-sony-leaks/

    Thanks for that. Seems the 'suits' of mgm and Sony had some sensible ideas, and as @pierce2daniel so aptly describes in his opening post, not all issues were resolved in the final film.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 5,921
    Particularly Hannah Minghella, the daughter of Anthony. Seems she knows a thing or two about storytelling.
  • Posts: 2,753
    I'd say yes, Spectre was a disappointment. My biggest issues with it were that while there's some interesting stuff in it it feels like an early draft of a script that needed another rewrite or two. Bond and Blofeld being foster brothers, for example, feels like an early concept that I should be reading about on IMDB trivia, not seeing onscreen. Scenes like when Madeline watches her Father's death and Bond randomly tries to tackle Blofeld seem a bit odd too/doesn't feel earned or ironed out enough to work dramatically... To be honest Bond just seems to go a bit daft for no reason... much like when he strangles Blofeld in NTTD come to think of it.

    It's also too self-referential to work. Blofeld and Spectre needed something different about them in this universe. Instead we got Waltz sleepwalking through his performance, the usual 'SPECTRE kills its own agent' scene in the board meeting, Blofeld getting the Pleasance Blofeld scar at the end.
  • BirdlesonBirdleson Moderator
    edited March 2022 Posts: 2,161
    SP was the most disappointed I have ever felt coming out of a new Bond film. MR was almost as bad an experience (based on my expectations vs the reality of what was presented), but I do admire it quite a bit more than SP. In both instances you have the same team carrying on from the previous dynamic entry (TSWLM, SF), learning the wrong lessons, and falling woefully short.

    I probably would have felt more disappointed upon leaving NTTD, but I had been spoiled to the point that my expectations were already shot (I was actually bummed out the whole time knowing they were going to kill him off, which prevented me from genuinely enjoying any of the many parts of the film that do work).
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