New SPECTRE Trailer Reboots The James Bond Iconography
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With the end of Skyfall having left Daniel Craig's rebooted James Bond at effectively the same point in his timeline where his predecessors started, the latest trailer for SPECTRE, set for release in the UK on October 26th and the rest of the world on November 7th, sets up much of the series' most famous iconography for a spectacular return.
Most notable for fans will be the remix of John Barry's On Her Majesty's Secret Service theme, a piece of music somehow even Bondier than the main Bond theme and an important signal for the direction we can expect the SPECTRE plot to take. On Her Majesty, of course, was the movie which saw Bond get married before his bride was cruelly murdered by supervillain, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. That this trailer showcases not only the OHMSS theme but also plenty of snowy mountain action and heavy hints at Blofeld's return - check out Christoph Waltz rocking that Nehru jacket - suggests now would be a very good time to revisit George Lazenby's only outing in the series... not least to reappraise the Australian actor's hugely underrated performance.
The trailer contains plenty of other nods to the series' heritage. The SPECTRE meeting recalls Thunderball. Bond on a train brings back memories of From Russia With Love, while his white dinner jacket - let's hope he's in slightly warmer climes than the mountainous region glimpsed earlier to avoid a satorial faux-pas - marks the return of a classic Bond look. The sitting back in a white-shirt-with-holster combo is pure Dr. No and also referenced in Tomorrow Never Dies. Monica Bellucci gets a similar unzipping - if lacking a certain magnetism - to Miss Caruso in Live & Let Die, while the return of Mr. White directly connects the movie to two of Daniel Craig's previous Bond adventures, Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace.
Of course, as Star Trek Into Darkness so ineptly proved, a reboot cannot thrive simply by rearranging its history. The trailer shows off some cool new stuff as well, not least a jaw-dropping barrel roll from a helicopter (just in time for Starfox Zero!), some gorgeous cinematography, Ralph Fiennes' M getting his first opportunity to be grumpy in an office, and an endearingly hammy villain line from Waltz ("I am the author of all your pain"). Less encouraging is Bond going rogue yet again, his unforgivable collar pin (Tom Ford, sigh), snippets of clichéd dialogue ("Right now, I'm your best chance of staying alive.") and a few scenes which feel a little too close to similar moments from Craig's three previous movies. Making such a direct connection to OHMSS also threatens to hugely raise the stakes for Léa Seydoux's Madeleine Swann if she's to go head to head with Diana Rigg's Teresa Di Vicenzo, aka Bond's missus and the series' most fully rounded female lead.
Regardless, it's a new Bond film and therefore excitement was mandatory even before that exquisite OHMSS theme kicked in. Having read a fairly recent draft of the script, there's one major narrative problem which needs to be sorted out, but if it can overcome that, the result could be a fitting successor to the hugely enjoyable Skyfall. I wasn't mad about the Casino Royale script when that leaked either, so there's a positive precedent here at least. Anyone looking to bone up on their Bond lore ahead of time might want to check out all the movies listed above - hell, just watch all of them - plus the OHMSS novel and Octopussy short story.
Warren Ellis To Write New James Bond 007 Comic Series
Dynamite Entertainment has revealed that Warren Ellis is to pen an ongoing James Bond comic book series launching this November. The series will see Bond returning from an assignment in Helsinki to follow up a mission which resulted in the death of a fellow Double-O. Ellis, one of the most esteemed writers in the comic medium and veteran of such classics as Hellblazer, Transmetropolitan, Global Frequency and various superhero series for Marvel and DC, will be teaming up with artist Jack Masters, of Marvel's Wolverines, to mark Bond's return to the format after an absence of over twenty years.
The series is a result of a partnership between Dynamite and the Ian Fleming Estate, announced nine months ago, which is rumoured to also include adaptations of the original Bond novels. Ellis described his delight at the opportunity to 'tell visual narratives with the original, brutal, damaged Bond of the books', a welcome and reassuring recognition for fans that Fleming's character was considerably more melancholy and troubled than the one-dimensional superhero depicted in most of the movies. The 'brutal' description is an interesting one, as while Fleming's Bond was undeniably cold and professional in his duties, part of the damage that Ellis describes stemmed from a clear awareness of the ugly nature of his work and the cost it exacts on his soul. Daniel Craig's Bond has picked up on Fleming's unironic violence without, post-Casino Royale anyway, delving much into how it has shaped Bond's personality and outlook.
Even Bond's attitude towards women is rooted in his troubled relationship with his profession. He indulges his appetites with the voraciousness of a man who doesn't believe he will live to see the following morning - in the Moonraker novel, Bond describes how he never saves money, believing it pointless - but is also something of a frustrated romantic, genuinely falling in love with several of his Bond girls even though it invariably ends in tragedy. Ellis is a hugely accomplished character writer and it will be fascinating to see which elements of Fleming's character he chooses to employ in his own interpretation. It will also be interesting to compare it to how Bond is depicted in SPECTRE, the movie scheduled for release in the same month which promises to delve into the character's past.
[via Comic Book Resources]
Bond 24 Officially Titled SPECTRE, Cast Unveiled
The title of the 24th movie in the James Bond series has been revealed as SPECTRE, with Christoph Waltz, Monica Bellucci, Léa Seydoux, Dave Bautista and Sherlock's Andrew Scott confirmed to have joined the cast. Alongside the returning Ralph Fiennes as M, Naomi Harris as Moneypenny and Ben Whishaw as Q, Daniel Craig's Bond will also get a new car in the shape of the slightly arousing Aston Martin DB10.
Andrew Scott will be playing a character called Denbigh, described by director Sam Mendes as a new member of the MI6 family, while Bautista will be playing Hinx, Monica Bellucci's character is Lucia Sciarra, Lea Seydoux is Madeleine Swann and Christoph Waltz is Franz Oberhauser. London, Rome, Mexico City, Morocco, Tangier and Austria were cited as locations for the movie, which has already begun shooting in Italy.
The movie will be written by John Logan and Bond veterans, Neal Purvis & Robert Wade. Hoyte van Hoytema is the Director of Photography and Lee Smith will be on editing duties. Production Designer, Dennis Gassner returns along with Costume Designer, Jany Temime and Composer, Thomas Newman. Action Specialist, Alexander Witt is the 2nd Unit Director. Stunt Coordinator is Gary Powell, SFX Supervisor is Chris Corbould, and Visual Effects Supervisor is Steve Begg.
[SPOILERS FOLLOW] The Bond producers will once again be frustrated that the entire cast was leaked ahead of time, while the title has been heavily rumoured over the past few days. Calling the movie SPECTRE would also seem to be confirmation of another lingering whisper, that Bond's arch-nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld is set for return - said to be played by Christoph Waltz, whose character will supposedly masquerade as Oberhauser, son of a father figure from Bond's youth whose name is taken from author Ian Fleming's Octopussy short story. That would certainly tie into the official plot synopsis, as follows:
A cryptic message from Bond’s past sends him on a trail to uncover a sinister organisation. While M battles political forces to keep the secret service alive, Bond peels back the layers of deceit to reveal the terrible truth behind SPECTRE.
Rumours say a car chase will be taking place in Rome, while Bond will return to the ski slopes in Sölden, Austria.
The allegiances of Léa Seydoux and Monica Bellucci remain a mystery, though given Bellucci's penchant for playing bad girls, it seems a reasonable bet that her Lucia Sciarra could be a decidedly sexier version of Irma Bundt, Blofeld's main squeeze and the person who actually killed Bond's wife in On Her Majesty's Secret Service prior to the Casino Royale reboot. Léa Seydoux's Swann therefore seems likely to be on the side of the angels, though early casting rumours hinted she had auditioned for a character whose allegiances were not so set in stone. Andrew Scott's Denbigh, on the other hand, has been marked out as a traitor ever since his casting leaked.
Dave Bautista's Hinx could go one of two ways, with the most likely being that he is the movie's main henchman. However, fans may have reason to suspect a double bluff: while all rumours point to Christoph Waltz playing Blofeld, Bautista is actually a much better fit for Ian Fleming's description of the character as "a massive man (6'3), weighing roughly 20 stone, has black crew-cut hair, black eyes, heavy eyelashes, a thin mouth and long pointed hands and feet". In other words, much closer to Bautista than the 5'8 Waltz. It would be an awesome, if admittedly unlikely, trick to pull with all eyes on Waltz.
Craig's Bondiverse seems primed to acquire second major evil organisation, taking over from the hastily aborted Quantum from Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace. Or maybe, given how hastily the Quantum storyline was abandoned following Solace's mixed reception, one organisation will feed into the other? Seems unlikely given previous comments on the matter, but it would certainly help tie up a few loose ends.
SPECTRE will return... I mean, be released globally on November 6th 2015. The first teaser poster, below, recalls the famous closing shot (quite literally) of On Her Majesty's Secret Service as well as SPECTRE's octopus logo. You can watch the live stream announcement below as well.
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