With the imminent release of the 24th official James Bond film just around the corner, here are some talking points and things that I'm hoping to see in the film I've been waiting three long years for.
1. The Gunbarrel Sequence
Fingers crossed that the iconic and symbolic gunbarrel sequence will be back at the start of the film rather than the end.
For all three Daniel Craig 007 outings now, the gunbarrel sequences have been... untraditional, to say the least.
We had the cool sequence in Casino Royale (2006) where it had relevance to the plot, the very rushed and mediocre one at the end of the worst Bond adventure in recent memory, Quantum of Solace, and the so-so one at the end of 2012's magnificent Skyfall.
With the trailers and TV spots promising a return to classic Bond, I'm hoping it comes with a traditional gunbarrel sequence right at the start of the film.
2. The opening title sequence and song
It was announced not too long ago that multiple Grammy Award-winning artist Sam Smith had recorded the new Bond song, "Writing's on the Wall".
Personally, I am a huge fan of the track.
I feel that it has a classic Bond flavour reminiscent of songs like "Thunderball" with its big and brassy orchestration, with a slight modern twist.
As with every song, there will be haters, and I was actually rather surprised at how many didn't like the song.
Initial response was mixed to poor, with many calling it "untraditional" or just simply bad.
Honestly, Sam did himself no favours by saying in an interview that he wrote the song in just 20 minutes.
When the film is out, though, I'm hoping that the song will be paired with a gorgeous opening title sequence by Daniel Kleinman.
In my opinion, the opening titles are just as important as the song, and in a way, make or break the track.
For example, when I first heard Adele's "Skyfall", I wasn't too impressed.
When I heard it in the film, however, I fell in love with the song.
Thus, I'm hoping that Kleinman's visuals will do Sam Smith many favours when SPECTRE is out.
3. Is the character of Franz Oberhauser really just Bond's nemesis, Ernst Stavro Blofeld?
The moment double Oscar-winner, Christoph Waltz was announced as the new Bond baddie, the speculation that he was actually just playing Bond's old foe, Ernst Stavro Blofeld just started coming and coming.
To be fair, the film is titled "SPECTRE" and to those who have some knowledge of the Bond series will know that Blofeld is the head of terrorist organisation, SPECTRE.
Hence, speculation was always expected.
However, what if he's not Blofeld after all?
Perhaps they just wanted to do away with the Persian-cat-stroking criminal mastermind archetype, since Mike Myers parodied it so brilliantly with his character of Dr. Evil in his Austin Powers movies.
There is also a significance in the surname - Oberhauser.
If my facts are accurate, a man by the name of Hannes Oberhauser took care of Bond after his parents had died in a rock climbing accident in the mountains.
Could Franz Oberhauser be somehow related to Bond?
Maybe they grew up together after Bond's parents had died.
Whatever it is, I can't wait to find out when SPECTRE is released in Singapore on November 5th.
4. Comparisons with Skyfall
Let's face it. SPECTRE is more than almost certain to be compared with the brilliant previous Bond outing, Skyfall.
It was met with critical acclaim and broke box office records, earning over $1 billion worldwide.
Hence, the pressure of SPECTRE not living up to Skyfall's standards is astronomically high.
What the filmmakers have done is to try and make SPECTRE bigger and better in every way, and rightfully so.
By just looking at shots in the trailer, it is clear that SPECTRE is on a much larger scale than Skyfall.
The film has a car made just for the movie, damn it. That's the extent of how much bigger this one is.
Bigger, however, does not always equate to the film being better.
Take 1965's Thunderball, for example.
Back then, it was a similar scenario.
Goldfinger was released and was met with critical acclaim, and it smashed box office records.
The pressure to make Thunderball bigger and better was massive too, and although Thunderball went on to gross a lot more than Goldfinger at the box office, it wasn't exactly a great film.
I'm hoping SPECTRE won't make the same mistake in focusing too much on making the film bigger, and I hope that at least it will be on-par with Skyfall.
It's not good to have such high expectations going in to it, though, hence I'll be setting my bar lower than Skyfall just to avoid disappointment.
If I'm proved wrong, however, then hurrah. We'll have the very best Bond film of all time.
5. Its runtime
At 148 minutes long, SPECTRE is officially the longest James Bond movie in the entire official series.
I'm happy it is, too. I would have been very disappointed if it were any shorter.
With so many interesting characters like Léa Seydoux's Dr. Madeleine Swann and Andrew Scott's mysterious Max Denbigh, it would be a shame if they didn't have adequate screen time.
148 minutes should be enough screen time to feature all the major characters fairly, and I hope the film won't be too draggy (if not, it'll feel like another Titanic).
So there you have it. These are my talking points as we head into the biggest movie event of the year (in my mind).
SPECTRE will be out in 10 days time, and meanwhile, I will try my best to avoid spoilers which are littered all over the Web no thanks to some total arseholes who have no regard for those who want to be surprised.
I will be posting both a spoiler-free review as well as a spoiler-talk post when the movie hits local theatres, and till then, stay awesome.
- Mike
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