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James Bond franchise--the return of SPECTRE and Blofeld?

My guess is that Monica Bellucci is Blofeld.

As interesting as that would be, that would also ape The World Is Not Enough and The Dark Knight Rises. I'm not saying that's not a legitimate creative choice -- it absolutely is -- but I could see audiences and critics not responding well to that twist because it's familiar.

The world is not enough was 16 years ago no normal person would give a shit and Bond films are pretty much critic proof.
Die Another Day would disagree.
 
As interesting as that would be, that would also ape The World Is Not Enough and The Dark Knight Rises. I'm not saying that's not a legitimate creative choice -- it absolutely is -- but I could see audiences and critics not responding well to that twist because it's familiar.

The world is not enough was 16 years ago no normal person would give a shit and Bond films are pretty much critic proof.
Die Another Day would disagree.

Not sure how? Given its the 4th or 6th (adjusted for inflation) highest grossing Bond film.
 
Die Another Day was also fucking awful.

Right - but the point was that the plot twist would impact the box office partly because of critics reaction - Die Another Day shows that isn't the case.

Even if it was, this film is coming off the back of the most successful Bond know so the idea that making Blofeld a woman would lead to massive problems seems a little far-fetched to me...
 
Die Another Day was also fucking awful.

Right - but the point was that the plot twist would impact the box office partly because of critics reaction - Die Another Day shows that isn't the case.

That wasn't why I brought up the idea of aping TWINE or TDKR. It was just to say that the twist of the the apparent villain is actually the henchman and the real villain is one of the hero's love interests has been done recently in a major genre film that Spectre's audience will be familiar with and in this particular film series. It's an unoriginal idea, and I don't think audiences or critics would respond positively to it.

I suspect that Spectre is pretty much immune to a box office hit due to critical indifference, much as the Marvel films are at present. At worst, such a twist might lead to a consensus on this film that this is one of the lesser entries in the franchise. I don't think that it will underperform significantly because of it.
 
One of the Gardner books already had a female Blofeld (Ernst's daughter, FWIW)

"For Special Services", his second, and far from his best outing. Also featured the daughter of Felix Leiter. Thinking about it, the plot kinda was like bad fan fiction. The story behind the title was the best thing about that one.

On the "love interest turns out to be the real main villain" twist, I think at this point it would be more original to just have a female main villain without making it a twist.
 
Die Another Day was also fucking awful.

Eh, for me it only really gets awful once the story shifts to Iceland in the second half. Before that the movie's actually got a pretty dark and interesting old school feel about it (with Bond being tortured, and going undercover in Cuba, and that great fencing scene with all the different swords...).

In any case, I still find it a helluva lot more watchable than most of the dull and dreary Bond movies of the 70s and 80s.
 
Agreed.

Personally, I think the first act is still the best single Bond act of the last 35 or so years.

It's the other 2/3 that stink to high heaven.

There's such a shift in tone and scope that it almost seems like the parts were written/directed by different people.
 
I respectfully disagree. Die Another Day was an abomination. And I absolutely would never in a million years think to rank it ahead of Casino Royale, The Living Daylights, or For Your Eyes Only. Even Tomorrow Never Dies is better than Die Another Day!
 
I actually like DaD. But then, I'm not a fan of the Craig-Bonds, so I don't think my opinion carries much weight around here.
 
I respectfully disagree. Die Another Day was an abomination. And I absolutely would never in a million years think to rank it ahead of Casino Royale, The Living Daylights, or For Your Eyes Only. Even Tomorrow Never Dies is better than Die Another Day!

I was definitely not saying it was better than Casino Royale (hell it doesn't even come close), and I also said it was better than "most" of the 70s and 80s Bonds, so for me Daylights and Spy Who Loved Me would probably be a couple of the exceptions (not so sure about For Your Eyes Only though).

And after a rewatch I actually think Tomorrow Never Dies is pretty darn underrated too. The only Brosnan movie that's a bit of a dud in my opinion is World is Not Enough (despite the great parking garage scene).
 
The only Brosnan movie that's a bit of a dud in my opinion is World is Not Enough (despite the great parking garage scene).

I can't understand the hate on that one at all. I thought it was innovative without straying too much from the formular.

But I don't quite remember any parking garage scene in TWINE. Are you confusing TWINE with Tomorrow Never Dies?
 
TWINE is my least favourite Brosnan flick.the colour scheme is all so muted, Denise Richards would be OK if only she wasn't supposed to be a nuclear scientist, Carlyle is a touch bland (surprisingly) and the film lost me from the pretitle sequence. Smuggling the exploding money into MI6 is great, but having cigar girl sat on the Thames in a boat bristling with guns makes zero sense.

Sadly most of the Brosnan films are a tad samey. I've been ranking the Bonds on my blog (go check it out and be shocked at my least favourite bond) but I make the point that all the Brosnan films follow the same template in many ways (especially with regard to the good/bad girl combo).

I actually don't mind DAD up to the Antonov bits, an invisible car I can deal with, but a villain in a robot suit? Nah.plus I really wanted Miranda Frost to kill Jinx.

Brosnan made one great film with Goldeneye, the rest are so/so although TND is worth the price of admission if only for the pretitle sequence and the aforementioned parking lot scene...oh and Dr Kauffman!
 
I really enjoy the Brosnan films, but I would never try to argue against any of the criticisms people are throwing around here. Because quite frankly they're all bang on target. It's just that I enjoy the films despite all that.

Now with that said, I'm so glad they're doing the Craig films the way they are. Looking at how the films are being made now, I almost feel cheated that we got the four Brosnan films we did that added nothing new to the franchise, and were just cookie cutter action films for the most part.
 
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