Spectre

[kindkit]

I saw Spectre today.

Parts of it were fun. I liked the opening scene, I was bemused and amused by the tentacle porn in the credits, I liked the car chase through Rome (mostly because of the cars), I liked every moment of Q and Moneypenny and Mallory, I liked seeing Andrew Scott even as a villain, and to my surprise I mostly liked Bella Madeleine Swan as a character even though the romance was pasted on and she had to hold the Idiot Ball at the end to make to make the climactic scene possible. I liked that there was some small attempt at thought, both about the surveillance state and the use of violence.

Nevertheless, Spectre didn't have the depth of Skyfall. I recognize that not every Bond movie can be Skyfall, but I approach them not as a fan of the Bond franchise per se, but as someone who thinks the Craig-era grittier, gloomier Bond is interesting. (Also as someone who thinks Daniel Craig is extremely sexy, especially when he's bruised and bleeding, and how did he come through every fight scene in this movie with hardly a scratch anyway? I am both skeptical and disappointed.) Returning to the point, I liked Skyfall because of how much it wasn't a typical Bond film. Spectre, in contrast, larky and silly and not much concerned with plausible emotions, felt like a typical Bond film

At least until the ending, when Bond throws away his gun and quits his job and rides off into the sunrise with the new love of his life. The first thing I did when I got home was look up whether this was meant to be the last Bond film ever, because that ending felt quite . . . ending-y. Apparently the studio isn't saying. But my search did turn up Darren Franich's theory, which I like a lot and will now choose to believe, because it not only fills the plotholes but brings back the melancholy and elegiac quality of Skyfall.

Mind you, I also want all the Bond/Mallory AUs, and at least some of the Bond/Q ones.

Comments

[starlady]

Oh my god, that EW article is amazing. I am definitely seeing Spectre this week.

ETA: I am sure James Bond will return, but I really doubt Craig is going to come back.

[kindkit]

I'd like to think Craig can do a lot of better things with his talent, though I'm sure the money he makes from the Bond movies is very appealing. I'd love to see him play against type, as someone sort of timid and bookish and unphysical.

I'd be curious to rewatch Spectre now with the EW article in mind, but I'll wait for the DVD, I think.

[lilliburlero]

Bond/Mallory, oh yes. My theory is Mallory is basically Robert Nairac escaped the IRA and this is what he did with the rest of his life but I've never seen that in fic, perhaps mercifully.

[kindkit]

Mallory gets a surprising amount of time and character development in Spectre, enough to get me interested in the pairing beyond just wanting to see Ralph Fiennes and Daniel Craig kiss.

There's also some stuff I think you'll find interested in relation to what you said in your post about imperial nostalgia, so I'm eager to hear what you think once you've seen it.

[cesperanza]

The name Madeline Swann gives a lot of support for the theory - it's a Proust joke, surely? Madeline is the trigger for a daydream in proust, so why should that ending not be a long sense memory?

[kindkit]

Ohhhhh. Yes. I'd thought that her surname might be a Proust reference (though I wasn't sure if it was spelled Swann or Swan in the movie) but failed to make the "madeleine" connection.

This tips me from thinking it's a clever fan theory to thinking that it might have been intentional.

OT: This Little Pig-Ghee

[executrix]

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