![]() How did M know about Sciarra?Įarly on, Bond is grounded by M’s successor for his antics in Mexico City, where he killed a hitman named Sciarra, who was planning a devastating terrorist attack on a stadium. Some reviewed Craig’s first three films in advance of watching SPECTRE, but it’ll now be more interesting to see if the quartet holds together now that we’ve learned that SPECTRE was apparently the Big Bad all along. No up to Diamonds Are Forever), Skyfall‘s standalone status has also been revoked as part of the retcon. While some of us assumed that Silva would be to SPECTRE as Goldfinger was back in the day (as the only film with no mention of the organisation during the early run from Dr. More unusually, it also brings Silva’s actions, who seemed to be on a deeply personal vendetta against M in the last film, under the umbrella of SPECTRE too. ![]() Where Quantum was clearly intended as a 21st century answer to SPECTRE (the digital version to its analog, to use a turn of phrase that’s particularly pertinent in this film), there’s some judicious retconning to wipe away any callbacks to Craig’s difficult second outing. ![]() While the previous three films all wrapped up neatly and left things open for the next adventure, each successive film has gone back over previous plot threads, even when they weren’t necessarily dangling.Īlthough Quantum Of Solace is largely left to one side here, we’re to take it that Quantum, the criminal organisation behind Le Chiffre and Greene in the first two films was just one tentacle of an even larger criminal cabal. One criticism that could be levelled at the Craig era of what has traditionally been a series of standalone adventures is that his films don’t know a clean break when they see one. How was SPECTRE involved in the events of Casino Royale, Quantum Of Solace and Skyfall? Opening on “The dead are alive” could be seen as shouting the subtext a bit, but it does strike a tone that resonates throughout Spectre. Even the villain himself turns out to be someone he has long thought dead, back to haunt him once again. Notably exempt from this mini In Memoriam reel for the Craig era are Strawberry Fields, Dominic Greene, René Mathis, Elvis the shit-wigged henchman and basically anyone who kicked the bucket in Quantum Of Solace.īut over the course of the film, the villains take perverse pleasure in reminding Bond that every woman in his life, from his mother to Vesper and, most recently, M, winds up dead. But after a barnstorming opening sequence through, around and above the festivities, the rest of the film is suffused with this thematic statement.ĭaniel Kleinman’s reliably epic opening title sequence also sets the tone, showing dearly departed faces such as Vesper Lynd from Casino Royale, Raoul Silva from Skyfalland Judi Dench’s M, as Sam Smith wheedles on about “a million shards of glass that haunt me from my past” in his theme song. ![]() ![]() To our knowledge, this is the only Bond film ever to employ an opening epigraph – “The dead are alive.”įrom this message, we smash cut to a Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City, which suggests an obvious and immediate parallel with the spiritually oriented national holiday in which revellers remember friends and family members who have passed on. Many have celebrated the return of the famous gun-barrel sequence to its rightful place at the beginning of the film (the last two films did it before the end credits and Casino Royale only paid homage before its title sequence) but we’re interested in what immediately follows. All the same, it will be a spoilery one, so if you haven’t seen Spectreyet, be wary of that beyond this point. Hopefully this won’t be a nitpicky article, because a lot of our genuine quibbles are part and parcel of the series’ conventions. ![]()
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