In Spectre gadget: six things we learned from the James Bond title announcement
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Version 0 of 1. On Thursday morning, in what might have been one of the most hyped 11-minute press conferences in world history, it was announced that the name of the new James Bond film will be Spectre. One word. Seven letters. An overwhelming sensation of obligation from all involved. You sense that this didn’t happen with Octopussy. And yet, if you were to look closely enough, you would have been able to glean all manner of important facts about the new film. So here, if the announcement was any indication, is what we can expect to see in Spectre. The name Considering that alternative titles were rumoured to include Exposures and The Hildebrand Rarity, the fact that the film is called Spectre comes as something of a relief. It’s a name steeped in 007 lore, and it appears to set Bond up against the legendary global terrorist organisation of old. Which, frankly, given that some of James Bond’s more recent foes have included Rupert Murdoch, Bosnian Hamish Macbeth and a guy who cries blood whenever he throws a tantrum, is no bad thing. However, is it too late to change what Spectre stands for? After all, Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion actually spells Sefcitrae. So let’s make it an acronym that stands for Super Pissy Enemies Can’t Trap Robot Elephants instead. Because, come on, James Bond has already out-surfed a space-laser on the bonnet of an invisible car. A couple of robot elephants aren’t exactly going to strain anyone’s credulity at this point, is it? The baddies New arrivals for Spectre include Christoph Waltz and Andrew Scott from Sherlock. Waltz, even though he had a full head of hair in the announcement, will almost definitely play Blofeld. Meanwhile, Scott has been billed as a member of Whitehall staff. That said, he’s bound to end up being evil, because Tumblr would probably implode and take the rest of the internet down with it if he didn’t. The girls All 007 films feature two girls – one who Bond immediately has sex with and then dies, and one who Bond eventually has sex with and then probably dies about three seconds after the credits when Bond gets drunk and realises that he actually hates all women. This time, the girls are Monica Bellucci and Lea Seydoux. It goes without saying that Monica Bellucci will play the first girl, because what could possibly be more disgusting than the thought of James Bond having any sort of meaningful romantic liaison with an age-appropriate woman? Bleurgh. The song Adele’s Skyfall was the most successful Bond theme in years precisely because it referenced the film’s name in its own title. Therefore, the Spectre theme song should do the same. In fact, assuming that it has the same tune as Skyfall (which it probably will), I’ve already written the chorus: “Here comes Spectre/ They’ll neglect yer/ They’d like nectar/ If they were birds/ Here comes Spectre/ Wear an eye-protector/ Because they’d peck yer/ If they were birds, but they’re not/ They’re Spectre”. Product placement A large portion of the Spectre conference was handed over to the reveal of the new Bond car, which is an Aston Martin of some description. However, only revealing one piece of product placement from the new film seemed like a terrible own-goal, since Bond movies are historically dripping with the stuff. Sam Mendes should have been surrounded by hundreds of cloched plinths, and torn around the soundstage yelling things, like “Here’s the official Spectre phone! It’s a Sony Experia Z3!” and “In Spectre, James Bond will wear an Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean wristwatch! Hey buddy! I give you good price!” before dressing up as a giant Heineken bottle and singing a jaunty song about his silky taste, affordable price-points and desirability as an aspirational brand while doing the can-can as energetically as possible at someone from Total Film. The announcement I hope Sam Mendes and EON don’t take this personally, but Thursday’s announcement was so short that it probably didn’t need to happen at all, especially since Alex Zane’s introduction to the announcement was about three times longer than the announcement itself. For Bond 25, let’s maybe gee things up a bit, like Marvel does with its announcements. Get a room, pack it full of screaming fanboys and wind them up until they pop. Maybe get the cast to abseil onto the stage, or have Daniel Craig combat-roll up and down the aisle pointing his fingers at people like they were guns. Either that or just email everyone the title. |