I had fun with "Spectre" but with a cliche' twist of Bond & Blofeld being "brothers" and the easiest escape in Bond history, "Spectre" goes down as being an unfortunate botch in this new series of films. That's where I come along and I posit the notion of What if "Spectre" was good? No, like really good. What if I can do it better? Let's dive in and see what we see, shall we?
So following the events of "Skyfall" James is on a warpath, not only was his childhood home destroyed but M was killed and James and MI6 want answers. "Skyfall" left a lot of unanswered questions that "Spectre" answered and didn't at the same time. "Spectre" attempted to link Silva as a member of SPECTRE but failed to make it work. So I'm making "Spectre" a direct sequel to "Skyfall" where James basically wants to tear down Silva's entire network. Now let's be clear Silva is the ONLY operative I'll directly link to SPECTRE. "Spectre" attempted to link all the previous Craig Era films and make it appear as if Blofeld has been the big bad all along, and it just doesn't work. While "Casino Royale" did hint at a bigger fish that bigger fish was addressed (poorly) in "Quantum Of Solace", so no Silva is the only connection to Blofeld and I'll explain why in a bit.
Anyway, the film opens with James kicking ass and taking names, literally, each person gives him the name of the next person until James kicks open a door and shoves a gun in someone's face and demands a name and getting the final name, "Blofeld", much to James's surprise and cue opening credits. You see Blofeld doesn't need to be a secret, it's not a surprise nor a twist the film is called "Spectre", Blofeld is the leader of SPECTRE, any James Bond fan half paying attention would find this obvious. So I feel no need to hide the fact that Blofeld is in this movie. But the twist comes a little later and I'll spoil it for you here. Franz Oberhauser is Blofeld, I'm keeping that and I'll explain why later. But let's move on.
One of the most unexplored facets of the James Bond mythos is that Bond was in the Royal Navy, not only in the Royal Navy but he enjoys the title of Commander and you don't get that title by riding a desk. So obviously James has seen some action during his time in the navy. So why not explore that? We then find James at a shipyard where he meets an old friend Quarrel, if we're introducing Moneypenny, we can introduce Quarrel and in this incarnation, he's an old friend from James's navy days. James ask Quarrel about a mutual friend of their Franz Oberhauser who was investigating a man named Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Quarrel tells James that Franz was accused of being dirty but nothing was proven. Before his death, Franz was looking into Ernst Stravo Blofeld. James tells him Blofeld's name came up and he needs an in, Quarrel gives him a name "Largo."
We then set Largo up to be the Mr. Hinx of the film, not exactly a physical force but a force to be reckoned with. James will have his first meeting with Largo at The SPECTRE meeting, but instead of Oberhauser saying "Welcome, James." it'll be Largo instead. The film still needs to tease Blofeld out and while that scene is amazing in the movie, it effectively blew its load right then and there. Blofeld needs to be in the shadows and I'll explain why later. Anyway, Largo matches James tit for tat, they are nearly equal with Largo being largely more ruthless than Bond, but Bond being Bond ultimately gets the upper hand, and yes we can keep the whole bit about Madeline, that's fine. But instead of her being a loose end, she'll be the only person who can positively identify Blofeld.
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| Time to redeem your marksmanship scores. |
As James bests Largo, a helicopter descends upon them, guns are drawn and Largo is promptly executed for his failure. James is captured and then brought before the man himself, Franz Oberhauser, Madeline identifies him as Blofeld and here is where I explain everything: Franz Oberhauser was a member of the Royal Navy and he was dirty selling secrets for money, after learning how lucrative the black market is Franz decided to he needed to cover his tracks, after years of earning the trust of black markets dealers, Franz gained influence and wealth all of which he couldn't use as Franz Oberhauser, so he created a fiction, an enemy so fierce and so powerful no one would dare touch him, he created Ernst Stavro Blofeld (His mother's bloodline). And to solidify this fiction Blofeld would claim Franz Oberhauser as his first victim. Franz died so Blofeld could live. But Franz was still alive...and so Franz would live as a ghost or as a spectre. Franz tells James "I wasn't investigating Blofeld, I was building him.".
He goes on to explain how Largo was supposed to be Silva. Blofeld explains how he lobbied The Chinese to hand Silva over to him after his failed suicide attempt. Think about it for a second, Silva never explained how he escaped from China, he merely said he survived. And how did Silva gain all his influence and computers? Blofeld bankrolled him, gave him a taste of all that could be his, even gave him the wet list as a signing bonus. Silva was happy but ultimately couldn't get past his revenge against M. Blofeld was content to let him go because Silva would serve a purpose and he had found Largo.
Think about it for a second, Silva had so much but how would a failed MI6 agent left for dead and effectively tortured to the point of suicide be waltzing around in fine suits and drinking 50-year-old Whiskey? And how did he go about effectively changing his name? His name was Tiago Rodriguez, did he just get a hold of a computer? No, Blofeld lent him the infrastructure to do all of that for the sole purpose of using him as a weapon against MI6. Blofeld knew Silva was going beyond his brief so why not make an ally out of someone who was betrayed? That's how Silva is connected to Blofeld. Blofeld tells James he didn't think James would survive because in his eyes James is a failure, the James he knew was an optimist, pinnacle of strength and was always her majesty's good little lapdog, the James he sees now is a washed-up pessimist who only serves the crown out of some sense of duty.
And here we have another dark mirror, while James is the in your face kinda person who takes immediate action, Blofeld chooses to remain in the shadows and plays the long game. James serves The Crown, Blofeld serves himself. The movie makes it clear that James could easily become Blofeld with everything he knows about MI6 and all the black market dealers he knows it'd be easy for James to slip into that lifestyle, especially now that he's older and near retirement age. This Blofeld's goal is essentially to profit from terrorism. He privately funds dictators while funding the efforts to stop them. His goal is to corner the market on terrorism, be it extortion, slavery, any kind of atrocity he seeks to profit from it. He claims MI6 does the same thing only if it's in the name of The Crown it's fine, and he notes the hypocrisy of the entire system.
You see "Spectre's" Blofeld was a childhood sociopath who sought to kill his father and somehow years later amassed an entire criminal empire that later collides with his adopted brother...and that's bullsh*t. Children don't think that long and he had to have had some good memories of his father. In "Spectre" Blofeld's motivation stems completely from jealousy. No, my Blofeld is essentially Raymond Reddington, a criminal who built his empire on the backs of larger criminals until he no longer needed them and then killed him and stole their power. You see Blofeld had an epiphany when he was in the navy, so many of the terrorists and people they fought had a creed, something they would not violate and in order to break a man, in order to penetrate a man's soul you need to find what he loves. Blofeld found he loved nothing but power and decided to take it. Not only did he like power but he liked wielding power over the entire world and no one knowing it. He just finds what a person loves and offers it to them, a bribe, sex, revenge, it doesn't matter.
Ultimately, James manages to escape (much better than how he did in the actual movie) and comes to the final confrontation between him and Blofeld but it doesn't end in a fistfight or Blofeld escaping in a helicopter, it ends with Blofeld being caught in an explosion and James believing him to be dead only for the film to reveal he now has his iconic facial scar, his empire now partially exposed but still intact he decides its time to show the world what he's capable of, thus leading us into the next film where Blofeld will seek to instigate WWIII thus bringing us back to original James Bond fair of a scheming arch-villain and we get to redo the plot of "You Only Live Twice" but this time in a reference to Blofeld and you can call the film "No Time To Die" as a reference to Blofeld's survival and James's ongoing work in MI6. Anyways that's how I'd redo "Spectre" let me know what you guys think and I'll catch you guys later!
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