Honestly, i think Mr.Elliot should not give up and become a villain in Bond's movie. He is way better being Elliot + Mr.Robot + The Mastermind in his own kingdom. He looks like a half ass villain in this movie
This is so upsetting because I absolutely adore Rami malek and his outstanding performance in almost every movie/tv show he does. This movie really doesn’t do him justice and it’s a shame
Yeah, it should be his big role (it's a James Bond movie after all!) but they really didn't write a good villain unfortunately. He had not much choice to portrait that anyhow good.
I honestly think his performance here was as bad as the writing. Whether that was down to directing or his choice I don't know. His character felt like a bad parody. Safin would have been much better if Rami had played him more naturally and dropped the silly accent.
I think there are two ways to fix Safin. Either expand on his motivations and backstory or do the exact oposite. Why not keep him as the creepy masked guy? A villain of few words, who is mysterious but also intimidating, would have worked well in a personal Bond centric story. Maybe if he got his facial scars when encountering Madeleine in the begining and wants revenge for it? It could have been that simple.
His entire character often feels like someone who could essentially oversee the facility in the end and is more about Bond not getting his rest than himself, like a collective the multiple different villains blending together to form a symbol for the the undying nature of evil and Bonds never ending battle with them, a man who essentially does what Bond couldn’t, destroy Spectre and establishes his evil as bigger than himself, kinda like the Joker who symbolizes more than just his own personality and is very much opposed to le chiffre as the fundamentally grounded opponent. I think the issue is that they had too many different schools of thought in this movie. Anyone of them would have worked. The very personal motivation, the evil of technology, the evil of ideology overall - it’s not that you can not combine these things but the issue is that this needs time. I wonder how much of this movie ended up being cut or was deemed unnecessary because they were still debating what kind of story they actually wanted and decided to just go with what they had in cutting. Also, the pandemic. I am sure that messed drastically with a lot of their abilities especially for such a big project.
That would make a great henchmen but not a main villain, in my oppinion. But then nttd has so many problems a good villain would actually be wasted here.
I originally saw him as a "spectre has fallen, screw basically global organization crime, going to do whatever I want." A "some just want to watch the world burn" type. It would've been solid to give daniel Craig bond that to face. Instead he sounds asleep half the film and hes got evil flowers and magic viruses.
They could basically go comic book with him, here's what I mean: keep the wanting revenge motivation and the weapons dealer motivation and weave them together. Lets make it so he was a child when he parents died and they died in front of him, but it was the repeated failure of the people around him to help that ultimately sets him on his path. He hates people, he was ignored and mistreated repeatedly, so he wants to settle the score. He'll do that by selling the weapons, the reason is he knows if he can get powerful enough weapons into the hands of the right people in the right amounts he can cause world war 3. His ultimate goal if he succeeds will be to cause the extinction of the human race and die on a planet devoid of humans because he blames not just the people responsible for his parent's death but for humans in general for everything that happened to him. Make him cunning as well so the people he's selling weapons to don't know his real motivation for selling weapons, they just think he's greedy, he then takes his money and funds the rise of the right people to the right positions and hires people to cause unrest or kill the correct people to instigate violence so it can escalate to war by then also arming both sides of the conflict.
@@planescaped The real problem: No amount of cooks in the kitchen matter when the producers come in and change the menu to what they want when they want.
This Bond series was so sloppy with it's evil organizations. "The big bad is Quantum, and they are everywhere and unstoppable... but still not as bad as Specter, who is the same but more so... but are actually really easy to destroy."
People say this latest film has its flaws but THIS is the stuff that really got me mad. They just made stuff up as they went along and it cripples the arcs of what should have been fantastic characters.
Yeah. They could have made it a sour grapes situation: 'You don't want to be my friend, little girl? Fine. Go wander into my poison garden and die.' If they'd shown Safin being angry or upset about her 'rejecting' him it would have worked better .
Actually it didn't bother me at the time, as i assumed there would be some reason for it, that it was a trap or whatever. Same as I thought there must be some reason why bond didn't trust his partner. I think viewers want to give films the benefit of the doubt. Only gradually did I realize this movie was just a bunch of plot points that will never be explained / resolved.
The "we are not so diferent" line in no time to die is made even worse when you consider that In skyfall they already had that character. And its even worse because despite being infinitely more similar to bond, Javier bardems character didnt have to say it. It was inplied very organically.
The best part of Sylvia in Skyfall is there are times that you think his reasoning is working in Bond. Like You see bond agree with Him at times (internally Craig does a great job of showing it in his face) but he’s not willing to destroy Mi6 and M bc of it. That’s why he works so well, because it genuinely feels like Bond is two bad days away from being sylva.
@@syedhassany9683 for sure man, if things had taken a slightly worse turn bond could have easily ended up just like sylvia. Luckily bond seems to cope by getting drunk in mexican beaches instead of masterplanning the desctruction of MI6 lol
11:15 Bond has been betrayed countless times in these movies. His initial reaction to the betrayal even reinforces this a bit, as he very quickly realizes and accepts the betrayal, and even maintains focus and self control in spite of it. I feel like the twist is good because it gives Bond immense guilt. He realizes how much pain she must’ve felt being falsely accused, and regrets completely ignoring her when she tried to plead her innocence. I appreciated how it deviated from the typical Bond tropes like that. At the same time though, I feel like they should’ve acknowledged that more and took actions to show that their relationship would never be the same when they finally did reunite.
That plot twist was fine, I mean predictable but ok. The real problem is where does the villain, the drive of the story fit into that conflict. And he isn’t really connected nor does he have clear and consistent motivations, which is poor character writing. At the end of the day the audience doesn’t care about him at all, and why would they. A hero is only as good as his villain and this one is just not up to snuff for a huge franchise final movie.
The problem these days with a villain having one motivation..... is that there have been plenty of villains that already have had the same motivations and in turn it becomes a cliche. So i don't mind that there are multiple motivations for a villain... all that really matters is execution.
Safin has no motivation he just wants to kill people. Like a serial killer who is cold. Look at the video: what pretending to be crazy looks like. They show a person who is actually crazy and it's scary to see how empty he is and how much details he simply tells to the officer questioning him. He looks empty of anything
that's why in my opinion we should encourage more blurred and subtle stories and characters. I mean, we could drop the anciet hero vs villain scheme and finally concentrate on stories that depict people with different objectives, with their faults and qualities instead of white/black personality, unpredictable outcomes (protagonist could lose, all lose, everybody wins but not in the way they expected etc) Maybe I haven't seen enough movies in my life and there's plenty of content that does things like this, I don't know
A unique motivation isn't super important, honestly a simple one is usually more effective. But what they DO about their motivation is what needs to be unique.
Good storytelling isn't about pure uniqueness. Just about every story, motivation, character, plot has been done before. "Wanting revenge for slain family" is a very common motivation for both heroes and villains, because when done right it's very compelling and can make the audience empathetic. Safin and Zemo both share that same motivation, but Zemo is so much more commanding and memorable as a villain because the writers simply wrote him better: better dialogue, actions, reactions, personality, protagonist chemistry, etc. Zemo drove the plot forward in a linear and calculating manner, making him a powerful force within the movie, whereas Safin was simply a plot device to move the film from one meandering scene to the next, even if that meant stupid and contradictory actions and motivations at any given time, thus ruining his character.
@@manicmuffin Yeah, it's not about uniqueness, it's about determination, it's about motivation, it's about what lengths the character will go to. It's about...it's about.... IT'S ABOUT DRIVE ITS ABOUT POWER WE STAY HUNGRY WE DEVOUR💪💪💯💯
@@sbinotto3780 I thought it was ultimately M who killed bond, by allowing bad guys to develop a super bio weapon while trying to keep it hidden. If the boring villain haven't gotten involved, bond would have been dead a long time ago. He ultimately got to live a little bit longer and realize he had a daughter.
To think that Bardem didn’t even play a part in the death of Bond, but yet he felt like he did 20x more damage & with more impact than Maleks character did. I know it’s not Maleks fault but sheesh. To think that Bond survived Silva and La chiffre, but went out to Rami Malek ? Definitely pretty insulting imo.
The worst dialogue of the movie was when that Russian comic relief guy poisons Spectre - and he says something like “Haha yes - Only Spectre are all dying” or something to that effect.. literally spelling out the plot - when the audience was confused as to what was happening.
It could have been so simple: Safins father was the original founder of SPECTRE but Blofeld killed him and everyone else in SPECTRE didn't care or speak up. Now he feels like they betrayed him and he needs to take revenge.
This video gets a lot of things right except the Blofeld part. He had two pretty good reasons to tell Bond that Madeleine was innocent. Firstly, it would break Bond's heart to know that he lost 5 years of his life because of his inability to trust. Secondly, it would make it much clearer for Bond who the real enemy is. Mind you, Bond didn't kill spectre, Rami Malek did. So now Bond could chase the main guy rather than trying to figure out if Madeleine cheated on him
Third, even outside of hurting Bond, it was also a way for Blofeld to lord his power over Bond. He's revealing that he ruined Bond's life because he's gloating. It wasn't even all that hard, since he knew Bond didn't trust easily. I'm a little surprised this point was missed in this video, since I felt it was pretty obvious and keeping with the character. But hey, one swing and a miss isn't bad when the rest of the critiques hit.
I always got the impression that Christoph Waltz's portrayal of Blofeld is the most petty person ever as he seems to not really care about his plans for world domination as it's just a rouse for making Bond's life miserable. and it really shows here in this film that despite losing his organization, Blofeld is more contempt with telling James that he was responsible for what happened in the opening scene
But at the same time he told bond about Madeline when they reconcile they can’t even be together coz u got the nanobot disease thing that can spread and forces him to stay away from them anyways which I thout was why blofeld did what he did, I haven’t really watched the other movies religiously so I might be off on that analogy
I felt sorry for Rami too, because you've got Christop Waltz as Blofield, a developed character. I think Rami's character was a filled in (ie last minute) for the story.
Daniel Craig said in an interview that they got lucky getting rami in when they did so for his short screen time too I assumed it was last minute to add to the cast and fan excitement or rami had another project to do so had to split time between them
Actually they filled him in because initially polish actor Tomasz Kot supposed to be the main villan in No time to die but Daniel Craig has some objections against it (probably because of Kots height in opposition to Craigs')
I found walz the worst blofeld, in the books he is much more unemotional and he found manners inefficient. In you only live twice, you see the intended blofeld. Rami indeed got bad luck with the script.
Bad guys walking up to heroes when they have guns pointed at them, is a hugely annoying cliche in general. It happens in far too many films. Steven Seagal’s films are chock full of it.
Ikr? They could have made it ambiguous how badly Safin shot Bond. We could see Bond collapse after Safin shoots him, then lying in the water not moving. Safin cautiously approaches him, perhaps we see him lower his gun, then raise it, unsure whether Bond's dead or not, perhaps remorseful that he might have killed him instead of getting to toy with him more. THEN Bond makes a grab for him and beats him down. It's not great but it would have added some suspense to the scene (sh*t did he just kill Bond??) and made Safin seem a bit less dumb.
It's also something that only happens in movies. In movies, there is physical spectacle and you can make something more 'cinematic' by having it play out in an open space. If the same scene had played out in the hallways they were just in it would be so much easier to have that scenario make sense but since it's the 'hero kills villain' scene it has to be in the open garden that was earlier established.
Sky fall is 2 hours and 17 mins long and silva shows up exactly 1 hour and 10 mins into the film and is still a FANTASTIC villain!!! Introducing a villain into a story more that half way through can still work if executed well 💯
Metal gear rising: revengance does that too. Most of the bad guys get like 10 to 15 minutes of screentime and their instantly memorable. Other than the 2 you encounter in the opening every other boss is introduced right before their boss fight and in 10 minutes they become memorable.
I disagree.. I thought No time to die had a pretty good villain.. His acting was superb and chilling.. He may not be the best villain in cinematic history, but I'd say it was a good job done and I don't see how he was boring.. You want a boring villain ? Take Sandman in spiderman 3..
I think Blofeld was great in that scene. He made Bond realise he lost 5 years with the person he loves the most on earth all because of him. That is pretty evil imo.
I think that would be the writer's argument, but it would be more evil to deny Bond that love forever. If he was angry and blurted it out to gloat it would make sense, but he was so measured it seemed like he was doing Bond a kindness.
I agree. Also, this video repeatedly says that Bond killed off all of Spectre, which isn't true. The scientist hijacked Spectre's plan to kill Bond and then used it to kill Spectre instead. This was likely Safin's orders, and thus completes his quest for revenge on Spectre. The movie then starts to spiral out of control with his focus shifting to wanting Madeline, but the interrogation scene with Blofeld is one of the best in the entire film. Everything else in this video is pretty spot on though.
Unrelated to the villain, but I really felt James' apology and reconciliation with Madeline should have been at the very end just before he dies. I feel the whole arc of the Craig Bond has been an emotionally closed off person gradually letting people in, and I think it would have been more powerful to hold off on fully letting Madeline in again until the very end, apologizing and telling her he loves her right before dying.
This really is a film that had a villain just because it needed one. Honestly I think they wanted to make a story about just Bond and his arc but needed something
I just watched this film last night, and I can definitely agree that his motives were rather cliche, and nowhere near as compelling as those of the villains from either Casino Royale or Skyfall. However, I found that No Time To Die was far more about Bond’s personal journey rather than his connection to the antagonist so I didn’t mind that Safin was used more as an obstacle to overcome than a truly deep antagonist.
I really like your change for improving the villain and the plot overall. But a simpler change in the plot, without any major changes throughout the script, could be that only a select few leaders of SPECTRE died in Cuba and Safin didn't have enough information about all the members at that point of time. And later he is trying to kill the remaining members all over the world. But since his method can cause a lot of collateral damage to relatively innocent relatives of the SPECTRE people, MI6 and Bond decide to stop him. An additional wrinkle can be added that since he doesn't have enough dna info or whatever, he is doing it a bit too crudely and so even more innocent people are likely to die.
That's an interesting idea. If Safin can't get the DNA of a SPECTRE agent, he could still kill them if he's got the DNA of a blood relative. Only the whole family will die as well. That's definitely the kind of evil plot that Bond is meant to foil.
@@Kevin_Street Exactly, but even relatives of Spectre members that died in Cuba, also died attending their funerals. That's actually a small scene. Not my idea. As far as I remember.
That could be the thing that turns Bond against Safin (since we're going on the idea in the video that they initially team up to destroy SPECTRE) - the knowledge that Safin is going to kill the family of every SPECTRE agent, including Madeleine Swann, just like they killed his family. That could potentially be thousands of people. It wouldn't be an accidental side effect but the intended function of the nanobots.
@@Kevin_Street Yeah, that's good storytelling. But my change is regarding the original movie script. The closer look changes need to be made extensively from start to finish. Mine would be simply a few dialogue changes.
The main takeaway from this video is how great Dr.Evil's theme is. It not only captures the feeling of a James Bond theme, but it is also completely over the top and hilarious.
Could you do an analysis on Arcane as well? I found Silco and Sevika's struggles definitely atypical amongst villains and, personally, I've found them one of the best villains I've seen in a long time.
10:40 I interpreted it as blofeld rubbing in the fact that he got Bond to ruin his relationship with Madeleine over nothing, like “haha I got you to make yourself miserable for no reason lol”
Glad someone else said this! I see it as Blofeld flaunting his “superior scheming” over Bond’s brute strength. And that Bond blamed Madeline when it was his fault all along for his unhappiness
@Tony Scimeca I agree to much of the critique about the plot, it wasn't a well written movie. But I also interpreted the confrontation with the imprisoned Blofeld the way you did. His reveal was the only payoff he would probably be able to get: It wasn't sure Bond would pay him another visit, his plan to kill him failed and it wasn't completely of the charts that he already made him destroy his relationship to Madeleine to a point where it couldn't be fixed. So this reveal gave him a face to face opportunity to see Bond realising he lost years and hurt a loved person due to a false suspicion created by Blofeld. The last ace up his sleeve. That made perfectly sense I think. The video is a bit too one-sided about this scene.
A bigger cruelty would be never revealing it to Bond so that his relationship continues to be ruined. By revealing his machinations Blofeld is giving Bond the impetus to apologize and reconnect with Madeline. It only makes sense for Blofeld to reveal what he did if there is no possible reconciliation between Bond and Madeline, say if Blofeld had her killed. Revealing it when there is the distinct likelihood they will then get back together and be happy is just stupid and sloppy writing.
@@scottcarroll9201 blofeld clearly wants the satisfaction of bond knowing he is responsible for bond's suffering, which is why he goes on a long spiel about that in spectre. it may be crueler, but he wants the satisfaction of taking credit for what he has done
Listening to your revised plot, I hope that someday some big exec watches your videos and realizes how genuinely satisfying your revised plots are. Keep up the good work.
I only saw this movie for Rami and they gave him barely any screen-time. I felt catfished. I would have liked to see more of his obsession with Lea’s character
I've always been a lot more interested in character foils; when the hero and villains' differences are highlighted by the narrative rather than their similarities. This makes them even more fun to read and write about, as the villain can master skills that the hero lacks, giving them the advantage until the hero's unique traits gives them the advantage in the final showdown. I've actually come up with a story idea where the villain's differences to the hero make them more successful in their goals. I'm going to put it in a book I'm writing.
There's an implicit motivation with Safin that I think describing as a "crush" with Madeleine does a disservice to admittedly already poor character. By attempting to be with Madeleine, he's trying to compensate for his loss of family and has a twisted savior complex with her after killing her family. Like him, she's spared -- just as he was. Safin is a psychologically twisted person who's trying to reconcile with his childhood trauma through Madeleine. I don't think it's a coincidence we're reintroduced to Safin when he's being psychoanalyzed by Madeleine. That being said, his character was still written poorly, but I think you missed the only interesting part of his character.
Yeah that’s clearly what they’re going for, but they just don’t give it enough time. Safin could’ve been a much more sympathetic villain, and it feels like a waste of Rami Malek’s talents.
@@SaberRexZealot Yeah. they should have properly developed the idea that Safin was a desperately lonely loon who wanted to make Madeleine and Mathilde his substitute family. And possibly tied that in with his god-plan to kill off vast swathes of people: only his chosen family are worthy to live or something.
"We're not so different, you and I" is also a 100% valid, in-universe, character-driven thing for a villain to say, almost always. Most people wrapped up in evil are at least kind of aware that it's wrong, so being able to drag someone better than them down to their level, and rob them of their moral high ground, is a satisfying thing if they can pull it off. Even if that's done by telling a lie and counting on it to stick.
As we speak, I'm writing my third action adventure novel in a series. I want you to know I watch your videos with keen interest because one, you're passionate about storytelling and two, you're right about everything. I'll happily add this to my rewatch list as a friendly reminder to write better villains. Blessings!
Thanks Robert. Although I wouldn't say I'm right about everything, in fact I'm acutely aware of a few things I got wrong in this video now it's out. Everyone says stupid things, and no one is right 100% of the time. But good luck with the novel. I hope it goes well!
@@TheCloserLook Such as it was a Spectre raid on the laboratory, not Safin's? Seriously, a tiny point and I love your stuff. I will seek out the Nebula originals.
Excellent breakdown, analysis and suggestion. Such a pity that No Time to Day spent months on the shelf before release rather than having that time in pre-production to write a better (shorter) story.
While watching the movie, it felt like they had no dialog for Safin during his monologue and just made Malek improvise incoherently for several takes and just cut the thing together in editing.
I had the idea while watching this film that if Craig's Bond villains were all meant to be something of a reflection of him, starting off we had the criminal, the mastermind, the ex-agent, and the criminal spy master. What do you add to that? How do you top that list? The anti-spy assassin. A child of an assassin family, who trains himself to become an assassin, slowly takes revenge for his family's massacre, and finally decides he can use his skills and knowledge to kill every spy, intelligence organization, and criminal mastermind in the world. I like your idea as well, but I thought I'd share this in case people found it interesting.
my issue with Safin was that he was the outsider to the Spectre family, which made up Craigbond's antagonists throughout his movies. Chifre, Green, White, Blofeld, all make up this organized faction, while Safin is almost better suited as an antihero to help Bond take them down. Silva was not a part of Spectre, or at all connected, but was interesting and charismatic enough to stand alone. No Time To Die was like the writers had finished the Spectre arc but wanted to squeeze one more story out of it. This was the dregs of Craigbond, no more.
My issue with the Craig-Bond cycle of films is the clumsy attempt to link them all, in Spectre, as being parts of some gigantic "master plan" to "torture Bond" that they clearly were not. In fact, I find the saving grace with Waltz' Blofeld is in imagining that it's all just a story Blofeld makes up to try to hurt Bond more... even though the idea of them knowing each other in their youth is right out of Austin Powers anyway.
@@Malt454 It would have been so much better and more believable without Spectre and Blofeld at all. Keep Quantum the shadowy organization Bond chases throughout his run with Silva and some other anagonists acting as unrelated 'villains of the week.' There should be no personal motive for Quantum to go after Bond. He's just a spanner in their works who exposes them and unravels some of their plans, because that's his job (and because they drove Vesper to her death). He's just one MI6 agent among many, not a superhero at the centre of the universe. He doesn't need an arch nemesis. All the convolutions made it silly and unbelievable.
@@katemara667 - You make a lot of good points. Casino Royale represented a clean slate and a possible new direction for the franchise that was largely just fumbled away. What would later be identified as Quantum seemed, at the outset, to be a much more realistic entity than Spectre - an organization of criminals with personal gain first and foremost rather than a criminal organization bent on "world domination". "Destroying" Quantum would have been impossible because it was intentionally nebulous and decentralized. Quantum would have had no need of any "objective" to hijack or destroy MI6 because Quantum and its members would always be playing for limited rewards with limited risk, with Bond occasionally just getting in the way. Then again, both Spectre and Quantum can also be looked as concessions to marketing from the outset - giving Bond an enemy without real-world political implications that might sour the box office in foreign markets. One thing you're NOT going to see these days is anything like Goldfinger or (the original) The Manchurian Candidate, where the Chinese are portrayed as taking an active role in subverting or damaging the West (LOL!!!). Smaller stakes were always the key to the better Bond films as well. The best ones tended to be those where he's actually sent on a definable mission (From Russia With Love, For Your Eyes Only, Casino Royale) with real intelligence value, rather than just being turned loose to investigate something until someone tries to kill him. Most of the weaker Moore films followed the latter pattern, with Moore apparently "uncomfortable" with the idea of playing an assassin instead of a freebooting troubleshooter like The Saint. If one looks at the list of "missions accomplished" in the franchise, Bond has helped to avert a possible World War III a few times and has just outright saved the world at least twice. Beyond making Bond a superhero, it's also left the series with no way to top itself after repeatedly jumping the shark. The series never had the potential, or the interest, to be anything like le Carré, but its writing could certainly do with some improvement.
@@Malt454 I never watched Casino Royale around the time it released, but I watched it last year just to see what all the hype was about. After the shock of realizing how old the movie was (there was a scene where Bond pulled out a flip phone or something), what I loved was how small scale it was. Bond is just a dude and even though he's an exceptional agent, he doesn't have all the answers immediately and he's prone to messing up throughout the movie. He was competent enough to be a cool badass when necessary, but those flaws and mistakes ensured that the tension was sky high the whole way through. Like, watching a card game was so much more intense than many of the bombastic doomsday plots most of the Bond films have, and between rounds there were times where it seemed like Bond could legitimately die because Le Chiffre outplayed him...but Le Chiffre isn't some all-knowing hyper genius, so it feels like two fairly even minds going back and forth.
@@slvrcobra1337 - Yeah, I think the smaller scale/smaller stakes movies have tended to be the best ones, certainly as films in general. I also don't think that it's any coincidence that two of them (Casino Royale and From Russia With Love) are based fairly closely on Fleming novels instead of just wild scripts with huge set piece endings. It doesn't make the more extreme parts of these movies any more "realistic", but it does help to place their stories somewhere in the real world, sort of like the Bourne series does.
It's a shame. I absolutely adored Rami in Mr. Robot and he easily became one of my favourite actors. Therefore, I was so excited to see him playing a Bond villain role, it seemed perfect. It's so disappointing they messed up his script.
I think Ernst Stavro with his cat is easily one of the most iconic villains in cinema's history that he becomes an archetypical villain that has been parodied or influenced in pop culture. This leads to where Dr. Evil from _Austin Powers_ and the guy from _Evil Genius_ game took the inspiration from. Ernst is way ahead of his time.
I think the problem with the villain's motivation isn't so much that it's too many motivations, it's more that the three motivations have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Like, if he wanted to be an arms dealer, it'd make more sense for him to have extra motivations that connect to that in some way, like for example he could want to help another villain with one of their goals in exchange for some of the villain's supplies to help his arms dealing motivation. Or if he wanted to be with the girl he's in love with, he could have the extra motivation of trying to clean up a certain area of crime and disease and whatnot, so that he could live in peace with the girl and her daughter. You can't just have three motivations that don't connect in any way.
The best way to make a villan in the movie is not to make a villan but an antagonist. Your 'villan' of the story doesnt even have to do anything inherently bad as long as they are the antagonist to the hero (given them and their relationship are compelling enough). In no time to die the writers put too much effort into making the villan 'villanous' or evil than making him a good antagonist
Worse, they put an antagonist in the movie that isn't the villain. Blofeld is still in the movie, he's still the antagonist despite being locked up, and even after his death - it seems as though he's still a step ahead of James & MI6. And then the antagonist dies, and you're left with a very anticlimactic villain.
10:20 Wow, you totally got Blowfeld's motivation wrong. He told Bond he wasn't betrayed by Madeline because he was laughing at him for destroying his own relationship. It's like when Thomas Jane's Punisher was taunting Howard Saint "Made you kill your best friend.. Made you kill your wife..". Blowfeld was taunting James and drinking in the irony that James's inability to trust the love of his life caused him to cast her aside and leave her defenseless and alone.
When I saw this movie I seriously thought I missed something about the villain because I couldn’t remember what his motivations were. Glad I wasn’t crazy 😂
I was so disappointed for the same reason. I thought I must have drifted off at some point and missed a key plot point. His motivation to kill Spectre was all fine... Then "oh, I've killed the bad guys I hated, time for some... **checks to-do list** genocide. Ok, genocide, why was that on the list again? Oh never mind, I'm sure it'll come to me later."
This channel is phenomenal. Whether it be for storytellers, story enjoyers or just people who want to be entertained. You make informative and amusing content very consistently. Keep doing what you do my guy 👍
Personally I feel like he had a super interesting start in that he was clearly trying to take down spectre. Imagine if he was an ex MI5 agent who went rogue and is trying to use the Nano Bots to kill every member of spectre at once, however because it also targets family members potentially thousands of innocents would get caught in the crossfire. Then you have a proper ideological battle in which Bond has to decide whether to let thousands of innocents die in order to destroy Spectre or kill Safin even though it means protecting the organisation he has trying to take down for decades. You could also get a super interesting dynamic because you could easily use this setup to force Bond and Blofeld to work together in order to take Safin down.
Great video but I respectfully disagree with your assessment on the Blofeld scene. The way I interpreted the scene was that Blofeld absolutely wasn’t revealing the truth as an act of kindness, but out of spite. Through the way he delivers his speech and mocks Bond throughout, it’s made fairly clear that, by telling Bond Madeleine was always loyal to him and that Blofeld tricked him, he’s also revealing to Bond that those five years he spend depressed and alone were his own fault for falling for it. We then see with how he snaps and throttles Blofeld that this revelation does some serious physiological damage to him, just as Blofeld had intended. So I don’t think he acts uncharacteristically at all.
Hmm maybe. That's a thing I didn't consider making this. But he would also surely know he's giving him a chance to reconcile with her here? Like his plans actually ruined bond's relationship with her, and in revealling that... he is letting them get back together, ruining the fact his plan went off so well. idk, it still feels like bad writing to me
@@TheCloserLook The intent behind both of Safin and Blofeld's characters in this movie seems to be that they will do anything for the sake of performative, pointless cruelty. That's probably why they're so unbelievably stupid - because the decisions here aren't made based on treating the villains like people at all, but as devices to trigger emotional responses in the viewer as expediently as possible. Safin intentionally approaches Bond because rather than wanting to kill him he just wants Bond to never be able to see his family, or something. Blofeld gives up the game because he wants to guilt trip Bond in that moment, even though it screws his plan over. This is kind of the Last Jedi problem again. What happens when a film is built around emotional low blows.
@@TheCloserLook I personally think it's one of the few good things about No Time to Die. Yes he is giving Madeleine and James a chance to reconcile here, but here, not only did Blofeld unveil that to James out of spite, but he got Madeleine here as well, he made it so that the woman James wounded so badly is not only here and in his presence, but also it's clear James and Madeleine have feelings for each other, even after all this time. So while I can understand your thoughts, I personally disagree with you and I think this is good writing in the midst of a movie with poor writing
15:57 To be fair, villains not killing Bond right away when they have the chance is pretty much a James Bond tradition. It happens in Goldeneye, License to Kill, The Spy who Loved me, Moonraker, Live and Let Die and probably more that I haven't thought of.
@@discountmorty213 Ego boost, that's why he doesn't simply kill him right away. That's why I didn't bring that one up here because his main motivation in that movie is to be the assassin who bested James Bond.
21:34 Magneto moment (a moment where the hero and villain work together to achieve a common goal because they agree that the threat they face together is bigger than the threats that either of them is to each other) you implemented into this alternative version of the film.
"we are not so different you and I" is a phrase that needs to be used with characters that were in the same place but made different decisions or with characters that are so different that they become alike.
i was under the impression that blofeld's motivation telling bond about madeline was to simply salt the wound a little more; he genuinely thought that bond and madeline were beyond reconciliation, and so he thought he'd twist the knife a little more by making sure bond knew it was him and bond's own paranoia that ended their relationship. really dig into bond's self loathing by further proving that bond can't have anything good in his life without ruining it.
To be fair when i heard his motivation i thought the screenwriter deliberately made his character such a cliche as a some sort of homage to the old Bond villians but yea. The villian wasnt the selling point of NTTD.
If that's true it's a terrible idea, as it drags down the whole film, wastes Rami's talents, and means Bond gets cheated by being taken down by a lame villain. I think it was just bafflingly bad writing.
The recent Dune film did a great job of this with the Baron...we see very little of him in the actual first half of the film, but in the very few glimpses we do get early on his presence is absolutely menacing
I never watched this movie but the storyline you made up towards the end actually sounds like something i would have loved watching. I discovered this channel yesterday and all your points about these movies are amazing, glad to find a youtuber that doesn't spread hate and talk about things in a constructive way
Villain appearing at the beginning of the movie: think how it would have ruined Apocalypse Now. There we feel the villain approaching like a malignant force of nature, like a disease. The reveal is perfect. Of course it requires real mastery to pull off, but properly done it's really great.
Hmm he was a great one to compliment this Bond. But yes *he* was lackluster especially compared to the absolute great villains we previously had in movies/shows.
@@TheCloserLook I love Blofeld (in all Bond's) and Silva they're portrayed soo well by the actors it's just scary how good they are but, Mr. White is up there as well. No Safin without White/Blofeld, which is quite weird.
I wonder if the writing was intentional since Bond's character is opposite. I do agree with you. the writing for this vilian isnt great since we have so many memorable ones
Blofeld's actions make sense to me. He thinks it's too late for Bond and Madelene to make up: Bond's reaction to her perceived betrayal hurt her too much for her to forgive him. By telling Bond that she _didn't_ betray him, it removes Bonds hatred for her, but makes him feel deep regret and guilt for pushing her away. The pain you caused to yourself is worse than that inflicted on you by others, Blofeld's reveal makes bond aware that he was the agent of his own unhappiness. So Blofeld is not helping repair the protagonists relationship (which after so many years of mulling over injuries ought to be unrepairable, despite what happens in the plot), but twisting the knife as an act of revenge. A great take on inner turmoil IMO, better portrayed by a villain who delivers it with a sinister smile than one full of rage.
Absolutely absolutely agree here. I liked his motivations but there was not enough substance to the character. Having him kill one of the bigger villains in the bond franchise was great and help set him up for something greater but at the end there was no true payoff to any of that. You can never call something like this always but the potential was never truly actualized., ✌🏾✌🏾👀
IMO, the problem with both No Time to Die and SPECTRE was that the filmmakers felt that they had to make everything super-significant, to one-up all the previous films. Like, in SPECTRE, it's not enough for Blofeld to be the head of a criminal organisation, he has to be Bond's adopted brother and SPECTRE has to be behind everything that's happened to Craig Bond. Madeleine can't just be this film's Bond girl, she has to be The One. Lucifer Satan or whatever they called him can't just be a villain, he has to be the greatest villain Bond ever faced. Except it's all totally unearned and feels forced. A whole lot of backstory gets dumped on us to try to retroactively convince us that everything's been building up to this moment. And it all feels contrived. If I were writing it, I wouldn't try to make Safin the greatest villain ever who has all these connections to Bond and all these forced similarities. I'd just aim make him a pretty good villain who happens to be the one who takes Bond out. An actual recurring theme in the Craig films is that Bond's job is dirty and dangerous and he's probably not going to have a happy ending.
Joker also says "You're just a freak. Like me." so it is possible to get the "We're not so different you and I..." line in there without it being cheesy. But its got to be true. The Joker and Batman have a connection whereby something traumatic in their past drove them to become what they are. One is completely incorruptible and believes in justice, the other in pure chaos and anarchy. So they're complete opposites but mirrored in many ways. Bond and Safin aren't remotely similar, other than crushing on the same girl.
I remember getting to the climax of this film and realising I have no idea what this villains name is? His motivation? And his plan? I really enjoyed the opening scene of this film but the rest of it was just so boring
The worst part about the lazy writing is that the movie production was postponed for almost 2 years. The writers definitely had the time to fix the script and improve on it.
While watching the movie, my family and I realized we didn’t actually know the villain’s name (during the forest chase)! So we named him Max Verstappen since we only sorta heard his name in the film itself
Awesome Bond villain name! “The party's over Verstappen. Let the girl go.” “Ah...Mr Bond. So kind of you to join our little soiree. Though I regret your stay won't be a long one..." *strokes fluffy white cat^
I love this channel and these essays, they have created my love for story telling and has been teaching me so much since this channel started, hands down faiv creator keep up the grate work
In general, most of these new & young aspiring writer do the biggest mistake: Writing characters, that serve the plot. Drinker describes that perfectly, when he says "so that the plot can happen". But its the heroes and villains need & wants, motivations and so that creates these dynamics and the plot...
The characters will always be more important than the plot. Let the characters get in the way of plot. YOU do the legwork as the writer, not the characters. Is it hard to pull off? Get over it - it's your job. Writing good stories isn't easy. I can see I've discovered another Critical Drinker fan 😌
Story is by 3 people. Ones 44 the two others are 60. It's not as simple as just a bad writers there are time constraints, extreme studio interference (especially with the films drinker talks about which are literally only big studio blockbusters). Critical Drinker is a hack who complains about politics interfering with films despite the fact that he lets his own politics interfere with his reviews and interpretation of film. Proof of this is his review of midsommar. He completely misinterprets the ending as female empowerment despite the fact that it supposed to be a dark and disturbing ending showing the main character has now been fully indoctrinated into a cult. It wouldn't even take that much effort to even look up the ending and the directors explanation. He lets his own politics blind him from understanding movies and in this case it led to him completely misinterpreting the film. I wouldn't take screen writing advice from someone like him that screams about wokeness and Hollywood being ruined while only ever watching blockbusters and nothing else
@@bobsandwich3431 I think the Drinker's point was less about he personally interpreted the film and more about how many mainstream film critics interpreted the film - at least that's what it seemed like from my viewing.
I kinda liked Zorin (A View to A Kill) and Sanchez (Licence to Kill) because they were just fairly normal looking psychopaths who were simply driven by greed and not strange looking people who were driven by world domination.
Yeah, the issue as was pointed out is that Safin gets revenge and his whole motivation sort of changes to world domination, presumably because the writers wanted to raise the stakes and have a bigger climax. The whole 'you and I are not so different' schtick is overused in Bond, but I noticed that Safin also used this line when talking to Madeline (he counters her claim that he's damaged by saying she is too as she had Bond's child... which is completely non-sensical and is in no way comparable to his goals). Could have been interesting to have Bond actively reject this idea perhaps? I mean, I sort of got the sense that Safin was simply trying to justify his horrific actions to himself anyway and is a bit of a gaslighting b*stard, which could have been interesting to see played out. Shame as he could have been a cool, sympathetic villain if fleshed out (I actually like Malek's performance). I liked your rewrite.
Blofeld's reaction of telling Bond all the truth he knew makes actually a lot more sense than just having him shut up or lie to him when you think about it. So I disagree with what you say about him. Blofeld lost everything in just a fews seconds because of another villain, he has more reason to hate that other villain than Bond. He has every reason to tell Bond the truth and hopefully set him on the path of killing that other villain for him. There is no sympathy building up or forced narrative, it's all meant for his personal gain. And when you think about it, it is actually even the more mature choice to make rather than "I am the villain who hates you so i will tell you nothing because I don't like you"
Blofeld wanted to fuck with bond by having him realize what he had done........I thought the villians were great in this movie...they are not super hero villians like how most of the examples that are brought up in this analysis are.....The villians in 007 are always different....that is why they get so much flack haha
Hmm. Disagree. Blofeld had no reason to help Bond, he hates his guts since Skyfall time. This scene made the audience realise the writers thought they were stupid.
@@falconeshield hate or no hate, when you think about it telling the truth makes sense, because this sets the path for Bond to meet the main villain and it can go in three ways : 1. Bond kills the villain and Blofeld is avenged for his more recent losses 2. Bond is killed and he is avenged for the prior events 3. Both die like in the movie and Blofeld is the winner. Or he could just go like an immature villain and say "screw you I hate you so I won't tell you anything" and gain absolutely nothing out of it
@@texanplayer7651 But that's it. Without Blofeld being nice, the story would've ended there. The writers wrote themselves in a corner and that's on them. They're the pros not us.
@@falconeshield Did you understand any of the things that I wrote to explain why it makes sense scenaristically for Blofeld to tell the truth? And that it is in fact NOT due to lazy writing? I think you completely miss the point here.
I think you should do a deeper analysis into these types of antagonists with "elaborate plans" like Zemo, The Joker, and Lex Luthor. I never thought that Zemo at least ever had a convoluted and elaborately of getting to his goal. His objective was simple; to acquire proof that The Winter Soldier assassinated Stark's parents to divide Steve and Tony and thus the Avengers. When the HYDRA agent died with the proof, he resorted to more violent means and adapted as the circumstances changed accordingly such as seeing the news in the Siberian airport. Maybe you do an essay topic on all three of their plans and see whether any of them are coincidental or just adapting to new circumstances.
Eww no, the Joker has been coopted by extreme right wing nazi nationalists. Better to just ignore that crap. Even the writers regret making it bc it's inspired them.
@@BoleDaPole lol what? Which Nazi nationalists have been inspired by the Joker? And that's reason enough to ignore the character? Your name suits you. The Joker from TDK has inspired more memes than Nazis.
This is exactly how I felt, the story of this movie was so half baked, it felt like it was going in an interesting direction and then everything it was setting up was just scrapped and it became a generic mess
Your alternate take on Safin's motive, teaming up with Bond, and overall rewrite sounds amazing and I wish we had seen that. I didn't hate Safin but he could have been so much better and felt cliche and just there rather than a full villain.
Can you make a video on The Italian Job or Ocean’s 8? They’re some of my favorite and I’d like to see what you think about heist movies like those. I know you prefer to make videos about more recent movies, but maybe you could make an exception?
The Italian Job's ending leaves the audience more questions than answers and that's where the term "cliffhanger" make sense in the context. (wink wink)
I got out of this movie and spent the car ride back home talking to my mum about how terribly Safin was written, and how absolutely confused I was about his whole deal. Only after the movie. I too had forgotten his name by the next day.
Can't believe it took me so long to see this, the villain of this film is such an interesting topic of conversation. I really like Safin up until Spectre is completely wiped out, as you said up until then his character generally made complete sense but after that I genuinely couldn't tell what he wanted to do. I still didn't mind him as a villain after that, he was serviceable at the very least, and I liked all the classic Bond villain aesthetics with the lair, the hazmat suits and the poison garden (which Bond definitely should've thrown him into at the end to kill him, although I did like the bluntness of just unloading the clip into him). Here's my pitch for reworking his motive without too many drastic changes: I think they should've made it clear that after killing Spectre he gets a big ego boost, he's done what no world government was able to do, he wiped out the biggest terrorist organization on the planet and he's not done yet. They should've really leaned into the idea of Safin seeing himself as the hero of the story, scrap him being in love with Madeleine Swann and purely focus on this mindset of the world he has. The opening where he kills Madeleine's mother but when given a chance to kill Madeleine instead chooses to save her could've been used to explore this idea of him seeing himself as a hero. In that scene he's on a mission for revenge against Spectre, to him like many people they're the bad guys, but when he sees this girl helpless under the ice he realizes that whilst yes Spectre is evil it's not enough to wipe them out, there's innocents in the world who are helpless and need protecting (there could probably be more done to flesh that out in the film itself). He has that line about 'wanting to be a bit tidier' which I really think is what they should've solely focused on, have his plan be to send the nanobots around the world, and with his infinite resources he plans to spend the rest of his life studying the population and whenever he deems a person or group to be a threat or a potential future threat he takes them out. He'd be 'playing God' much like Bond says to him in the film, but in Safin's mind he'd be able to justify it. In his eyes who'd be better to protect the world than the one who wiped out Spectre, he could even throw in Bond's face that it was his own government who created it in the first place, which combined with all the atrocities they've done that Bond himself has partaken in over the years, Safin could easily see himself as better than all of them seeing as again, killing Spectre was a greater achievement than anything they've done. I think the aspects like him killing people to protect the world has an interesting parallel to Bond, however unlike Bond Safin knows (in his own twisted way) why he kills every person he kills, Bond just followed orders most of the time, there's something that could be explored there. To me this was a villain with just a few integral ingredients missing, which was frustrating because you could've made it work. Bond villains are known for having motifs or gimmicks, so I really liked Safin having poisonous plants, that's perfect Bond villain material, but there's not a huge amount of focus on it. They really could've given us some fun stuff with that and again, would've made for a grizzly and appropriately ironic death for him if Bond dropped or threw him into them. Plus the whole idea of the film starting with the traditional Bond vs Spectre scenario, then this third party showing up is just really fun and unlike anything we've had before, but that aspect also didn't get much focus.
We already have Bond villains and henchmen that are reflections of Bond in some way: Red Grant, Scaramanga, Trevalyan, and Silva. They were handled better than Safin.
Malik, was very similar acting wise to Freddie Mercury movie. He’s a good actor yeah. But, when I watched bohemian there’s a lot of similarities in the two performances.
In contrast to this villain, I recently finished Netflix's Arcane which by far has THE BEST written villain I've seen in a long time! If you want a really compelling antogonist, Silco is up there on my list.
11:57 or if Blowfeld had a tactical reason for doing it. we keep hearing how bond is a blunt instrument and that Blowfeld isn't that. If it was a way to either make bond suffer a little more, screw with him, or give blowfeld something in return. then it would have worked much better.
The reason why Dr. Evil saying "We're not so different, you and I" to Austin Powers is great is because they're the same actor.
… how did I not know that they were the same actor til now
@@anomienormie8126
Power of makeup and voices I guess.
@@anomienormie8126 you’re kidding right?
How can they possibly be the same actor?!!!! No way. 😏
Honestly, i think Mr.Elliot should not give up and become a villain in Bond's movie.
He is way better being Elliot + Mr.Robot + The Mastermind in his own kingdom.
He looks like a half ass villain in this movie
@@keenkingjames I'll throw you a frigging bone here... plus, they practically have the same, farth-zer... (little Goldmember, err, slipping in, there)
This is so upsetting because I absolutely adore Rami malek and his outstanding performance in almost every movie/tv show he does. This movie really doesn’t do him justice and it’s a shame
Worded my thoughts perfectly. I wholeheartedly agree.
its not even his fault too
Yeah, it should be his big role (it's a James Bond movie after all!) but they really didn't write a good villain unfortunately. He had not much choice to portrait that anyhow good.
They completely wasted Christoph Waltz in this and Spectre too. A shame. Both really talented guys in roles that don't utilize their potential
I honestly think his performance here was as bad as the writing. Whether that was down to directing or his choice I don't know. His character felt like a bad parody. Safin would have been much better if Rami had played him more naturally and dropped the silly accent.
I mean…it’s rami Malek ffs…give him a decent script
Tis a shame
Exactly… to waste that kind of talent is really not cool lol
That kid from War at Home 😂
@@robadob55 did you actually laugh out loud when you wrote that ?
Or maybe he’s not as good as you think he is…
I think there are two ways to fix Safin. Either expand on his motivations and backstory or do the exact oposite. Why not keep him as the creepy masked guy? A villain of few words, who is mysterious but also intimidating, would have worked well in a personal Bond centric story. Maybe if he got his facial scars when encountering Madeleine in the begining and wants revenge for it? It could have been that simple.
His entire character often feels like someone who could essentially oversee the facility in the end and is more about Bond not getting his rest than himself, like a collective the multiple different villains blending together to form a symbol for the the undying nature of evil and Bonds never ending battle with them, a man who essentially does what Bond couldn’t, destroy Spectre and establishes his evil as bigger than himself, kinda like the Joker who symbolizes more than just his own personality and is very much opposed to le chiffre as the fundamentally grounded opponent.
I think the issue is that they had too many different schools of thought in this movie.
Anyone of them would have worked. The very personal motivation, the evil of technology, the evil of ideology overall - it’s not that you can not combine these things but the issue is that this needs time. I wonder how much of this movie ended up being cut or was deemed unnecessary because they were still debating what kind of story they actually wanted and decided to just go with what they had in cutting.
Also, the pandemic. I am sure that messed drastically with a lot of their abilities especially for such a big project.
That would make a great henchmen but not a main villain, in my oppinion. But then nttd has so many problems a good villain would actually be wasted here.
Yep
I originally saw him as a "spectre has fallen, screw basically global organization crime, going to do whatever I want." A "some just want to watch the world burn" type. It would've been solid to give daniel Craig bond that to face. Instead he sounds asleep half the film and hes got evil flowers and magic viruses.
They could basically go comic book with him, here's what I mean:
keep the wanting revenge motivation and the weapons dealer motivation and weave them together.
Lets make it so he was a child when he parents died and they died in front of him, but it was the repeated failure of the people around him to help that ultimately sets him on his path.
He hates people, he was ignored and mistreated repeatedly, so he wants to settle the score.
He'll do that by selling the weapons, the reason is he knows if he can get powerful enough weapons into the hands of the right people in the right amounts he can cause world war 3.
His ultimate goal if he succeeds will be to cause the extinction of the human race and die on a planet devoid of humans because he blames not just the people responsible for his parent's death but for humans in general for everything that happened to him.
Make him cunning as well so the people he's selling weapons to don't know his real motivation for selling weapons, they just think he's greedy, he then takes his money and funds the rise of the right people to the right positions and hires people to cause unrest or kill the correct people to instigate violence so it can escalate to war by then also arming both sides of the conflict.
He unironically wrote an amazing plot for no time to die, a better one than an entire team of professional script writers
I genuinely love the idea of the alternative plot he described
"An entire team of script writers"
Therein lies your problem. Classic too many cooks in the kitchen.
@@planescapedFacts.
He always does this it’s really impressive
@@planescaped The real problem: No amount of cooks in the kitchen matter when the producers come in and change the menu to what they want when they want.
This Bond series was so sloppy with it's evil organizations.
"The big bad is Quantum, and they are everywhere and unstoppable... but still not as bad as Specter, who is the same but more so... but are actually really easy to destroy."
“Worldbuilding? What worldbuilding?”
People say this latest film has its flaws but THIS is the stuff that really got me mad. They just made stuff up as they went along and it cripples the arcs of what should have been fantastic characters.
But they killed Spectre in 5 minutes. Then let Bond die. Very poetic, but can you imagine Coke putting poison in its soda just for the fun of it?
Lol yall expected a good Bond film..
Goldeneye was the last great Bond film
@@BoleDaPole Goldeneye was a masterpiece.
I agree it was quite odd when he let the daughter go for essentially no clear reason.
Yeah. They could have made it a sour grapes situation: 'You don't want to be my friend, little girl? Fine. Go wander into my poison garden and die.' If they'd shown Safin being angry or upset about her 'rejecting' him it would have worked better .
truly a WTF moment.
I thought the same thing, that shit made no sense.
Actually it didn't bother me at the time, as i assumed there would be some reason for it, that it was a trap or whatever. Same as I thought there must be some reason why bond didn't trust his partner. I think viewers want to give films the benefit of the doubt. Only gradually did I realize this movie was just a bunch of plot points that will never be explained / resolved.
Maybe it was because he never really wanted her in the first place, and he still had the vial with the nanobots to use as potential leverage...?
The "we are not so diferent" line in no time to die is made even worse when you consider that In skyfall they already had that character. And its even worse because despite being infinitely more similar to bond, Javier bardems character didnt have to say it. It was inplied very organically.
The best part of Sylvia in Skyfall is there are times that you think his reasoning is working in Bond. Like You see bond agree with Him at times (internally Craig does a great job of showing it in his face) but he’s not willing to destroy Mi6 and M bc of it. That’s why he works so well, because it genuinely feels like Bond is two bad days away from being sylva.
Honestly this was what I was thinking watching the film
@@syedhassany9683 for sure man, if things had taken a slightly worse turn bond could have easily ended up just like sylvia. Luckily bond seems to cope by getting drunk in mexican beaches instead of masterplanning the desctruction of MI6 lol
🐀🐁
totally agree
11:15 Bond has been betrayed countless times in these movies. His initial reaction to the betrayal even reinforces this a bit, as he very quickly realizes and accepts the betrayal, and even maintains focus and self control in spite of it. I feel like the twist is good because it gives Bond immense guilt. He realizes how much pain she must’ve felt being falsely accused, and regrets completely ignoring her when she tried to plead her innocence. I appreciated how it deviated from the typical Bond tropes like that. At the same time though, I feel like they should’ve acknowledged that more and took actions to show that their relationship would never be the same when they finally did reunite.
That plot twist was fine, I mean predictable but ok. The real problem is
where does the villain, the drive of the story fit into that conflict. And he isn’t really connected nor does he have clear and consistent motivations, which is poor character writing. At the end of the day the audience doesn’t care about him at all, and why would they. A hero is only as good as his villain and this one is just not up to snuff for a huge franchise final movie.
The problem these days with a villain having one motivation..... is that there have been plenty of villains that already have had the same motivations and in turn it becomes a cliche. So i don't mind that there are multiple motivations for a villain... all that really matters is execution.
Safin has no motivation he just wants to kill people. Like a serial killer who is cold. Look at the video: what pretending to be crazy looks like. They show a person who is actually crazy and it's scary to see how empty he is and how much details he simply tells to the officer questioning him. He looks empty of anything
that's why in my opinion we should encourage more blurred and subtle stories and characters. I mean, we could drop the anciet hero vs villain scheme and finally concentrate on stories that depict people with different objectives, with their faults and qualities instead of white/black personality, unpredictable outcomes (protagonist could lose, all lose, everybody wins but not in the way they expected etc)
Maybe I haven't seen enough movies in my life and there's plenty of content that does things like this, I don't know
A unique motivation isn't super important, honestly a simple one is usually more effective. But what they DO about their motivation is what needs to be unique.
Good storytelling isn't about pure uniqueness. Just about every story, motivation, character, plot has been done before. "Wanting revenge for slain family" is a very common motivation for both heroes and villains, because when done right it's very compelling and can make the audience empathetic. Safin and Zemo both share that same motivation, but Zemo is so much more commanding and memorable as a villain because the writers simply wrote him better: better dialogue, actions, reactions, personality, protagonist chemistry, etc. Zemo drove the plot forward in a linear and calculating manner, making him a powerful force within the movie, whereas Safin was simply a plot device to move the film from one meandering scene to the next, even if that meant stupid and contradictory actions and motivations at any given time, thus ruining his character.
@@manicmuffin Yeah, it's not about uniqueness, it's about determination, it's about motivation, it's about what lengths the character will go to. It's about...it's about....
IT'S ABOUT DRIVE ITS ABOUT POWER WE STAY HUNGRY WE DEVOUR💪💪💯💯
It’s also quite frustrating to have him be the one who kills Bond after all the other way more impressive vilains he has defeated
Its not the villian who kills bond
Its his job and the struggles that come with being 007
@@sbinotto3780 I thought it was ultimately M who killed bond, by allowing bad guys to develop a super bio weapon while trying to keep it hidden.
If the boring villain haven't gotten involved, bond would have been dead a long time ago. He ultimately got to live a little bit longer and realize he had a daughter.
Bond technically killed himself lol.
To think that Bardem didn’t even play a part in the death of Bond, but yet he felt like he did 20x more damage & with more impact than Maleks character did. I know it’s not Maleks fault but sheesh. To think that Bond survived Silva and La chiffre, but went out to Rami Malek ? Definitely pretty insulting imo.
no its the other way around , to hame him to destroy Spectre easily
Some of the most cliche dialogue for a villain in a big film in some time IMO.
If that's only some of, what *the* most!?
@@Zarmdthecoolest Dr. Evil!
The irony is that saying so is by itself becoming a cliche.
The worst dialogue of the movie was when that Russian comic relief guy poisons Spectre - and he says something like “Haha yes - Only Spectre are all dying” or something to that effect.. literally spelling out the plot - when the audience was confused as to what was happening.
@@firstlast9846that whole Cuba scene was Scooby Doo level dialogue.
It could have been so simple:
Safins father was the original founder of SPECTRE but Blofeld killed him and everyone else in SPECTRE didn't care or speak up. Now he feels like they betrayed him and he needs to take revenge.
This video gets a lot of things right except the Blofeld part. He had two pretty good reasons to tell Bond that Madeleine was innocent. Firstly, it would break Bond's heart to know that he lost 5 years of his life because of his inability to trust. Secondly, it would make it much clearer for Bond who the real enemy is. Mind you, Bond didn't kill spectre, Rami Malek did. So now Bond could chase the main guy rather than trying to figure out if Madeleine cheated on him
It wasn't Rami Malek's fault. He's a great actor, watch Mr. Robot for proof. Script is just shit.
Third, even outside of hurting Bond, it was also a way for Blofeld to lord his power over Bond. He's revealing that he ruined Bond's life because he's gloating. It wasn't even all that hard, since he knew Bond didn't trust easily. I'm a little surprised this point was missed in this video, since I felt it was pretty obvious and keeping with the character. But hey, one swing and a miss isn't bad when the rest of the critiques hit.
Agreed, nothing felt out of character for Blofeld’s interrogation.
I always got the impression that Christoph Waltz's portrayal of Blofeld is the most petty person ever as he seems to not really care about his plans for world domination as it's just a rouse for making Bond's life miserable. and it really shows here in this film that despite losing his organization, Blofeld is more contempt with telling James that he was responsible for what happened in the opening scene
But at the same time he told bond about Madeline when they reconcile they can’t even be together coz u got the nanobot disease thing that can spread and forces him to stay away from them anyways which I thout was why blofeld did what he did, I haven’t really watched the other movies religiously so I might be off on that analogy
I felt sorry for Rami too, because you've got Christop Waltz as Blofield, a developed character.
I think Rami's character was a filled in (ie last minute) for the story.
Daniel Craig said in an interview that they got lucky getting rami in when they did so for his short screen time too I assumed it was last minute to add to the cast and fan excitement or rami had another project to do so had to split time between them
Blofeld is a pathetic villain as well. He fails to kill bond so many times in so many stupid ways it's hilarious
Actually they filled him in because initially polish actor Tomasz Kot supposed to be the main villan in No time to die but Daniel Craig has some objections against it (probably because of Kots height in opposition to Craigs')
Craig verse Blofeld is weak-written villain too. Waste of Waltz talent
I found walz the worst blofeld, in the books he is much more unemotional and he found manners inefficient. In you only live twice, you see the intended blofeld. Rami indeed got bad luck with the script.
Bad guys walking up to heroes when they have guns pointed at them, is a hugely annoying cliche in general. It happens in far too many films. Steven Seagal’s films are chock full of it.
Ikr? They could have made it ambiguous how badly Safin shot Bond. We could see Bond collapse after Safin shoots him, then lying in the water not moving. Safin cautiously approaches him, perhaps we see him lower his gun, then raise it, unsure whether Bond's dead or not, perhaps remorseful that he might have killed him instead of getting to toy with him more. THEN Bond makes a grab for him and beats him down. It's not great but it would have added some suspense to the scene (sh*t did he just kill Bond??) and made Safin seem a bit less dumb.
@@katemara667 that makes so much more sense lol
It's also something that only happens in movies. In movies, there is physical spectacle and you can make something more 'cinematic' by having it play out in an open space. If the same scene had played out in the hallways they were just in it would be so much easier to have that scenario make sense but since it's the 'hero kills villain' scene it has to be in the open garden that was earlier established.
Sky fall is 2 hours and 17 mins long and silva shows up exactly 1 hour and 10 mins into the film and is still a FANTASTIC villain!!!
Introducing a villain into a story more that half way through can still work if executed well 💯
Metal gear rising: revengance does that too. Most of the bad guys get like 10 to 15 minutes of screentime and their instantly memorable. Other than the 2 you encounter in the opening every other boss is introduced right before their boss fight and in 10 minutes they become memorable.
I disagree.. I thought No time to die had a pretty good villain.. His acting was superb and chilling.. He may not be the best villain in cinematic history, but I'd say it was a good job done and I don't see how he was boring.. You want a boring villain ? Take Sandman in spiderman 3..
@@aditya6201 because the main villain is venom, mostly
Or Dr No he only shows up in the last 20 minutes.
@@aditya6201 sandman was way better than Safin and apart teaming up with venom his motivations make sense
I think Blofeld was great in that scene. He made Bond realise he lost 5 years with the person he loves the most on earth all because of him. That is pretty evil imo.
I think that would be the writer's argument, but it would be more evil to deny Bond that love forever. If he was angry and blurted it out to gloat it would make sense, but he was so measured it seemed like he was doing Bond a kindness.
@@TomDestry Yeah that is true
I agree. Also, this video repeatedly says that Bond killed off all of Spectre, which isn't true. The scientist hijacked Spectre's plan to kill Bond and then used it to kill Spectre instead. This was likely Safin's orders, and thus completes his quest for revenge on Spectre. The movie then starts to spiral out of control with his focus shifting to wanting Madeline, but the interrogation scene with Blofeld is one of the best in the entire film. Everything else in this video is pretty spot on though.
I hate the scene because of Daniel's line "Die Blofeld die!". Apparently it is from the books, but irl it sounds ridiculous and made me cringe.
tbh it was just the actor who sold it
Unrelated to the villain, but I really felt James' apology and reconciliation with Madeline should have been at the very end just before he dies. I feel the whole arc of the Craig Bond has been an emotionally closed off person gradually letting people in, and I think it would have been more powerful to hold off on fully letting Madeline in again until the very end, apologizing and telling her he loves her right before dying.
This really is a film that had a villain just because it needed one. Honestly I think they wanted to make a story about just Bond and his arc but needed something
I just watched this film last night, and I can definitely agree that his motives were rather cliche, and nowhere near as compelling as those of the villains from either Casino Royale or Skyfall. However, I found that No Time To Die was far more about Bond’s personal journey rather than his connection to the antagonist so I didn’t mind that Safin was used more as an obstacle to overcome than a truly deep antagonist.
Sad they also had to end Bond’s journey on a sour note.
I really like your change for improving the villain and the plot overall. But a simpler change in the plot, without any major changes throughout the script, could be that only a select few leaders of SPECTRE died in Cuba and Safin didn't have enough information about all the members at that point of time. And later he is trying to kill the remaining members all over the world. But since his method can cause a lot of collateral damage to relatively innocent relatives of the SPECTRE people, MI6 and Bond decide to stop him. An additional wrinkle can be added that since he doesn't have enough dna info or whatever, he is doing it a bit too crudely and so even more innocent people are likely to die.
That's an interesting idea. If Safin can't get the DNA of a SPECTRE agent, he could still kill them if he's got the DNA of a blood relative. Only the whole family will die as well. That's definitely the kind of evil plot that Bond is meant to foil.
@@Kevin_Street Exactly, but even relatives of Spectre members that died in Cuba, also died attending their funerals. That's actually a small scene. Not my idea. As far as I remember.
That could be the thing that turns Bond against Safin (since we're going on the idea in the video that they initially team up to destroy SPECTRE) - the knowledge that Safin is going to kill the family of every SPECTRE agent, including Madeleine Swann, just like they killed his family. That could potentially be thousands of people. It wouldn't be an accidental side effect but the intended function of the nanobots.
@@Kevin_Street Yeah, that's good storytelling. But my change is regarding the original movie script. The closer look changes need to be made extensively from start to finish. Mine would be simply a few dialogue changes.
I like that idea. The movie definitely needed to explain why he all of a sudden wanted to kill millions of people.
The main takeaway from this video is how great Dr.Evil's theme is. It not only captures the feeling of a James Bond theme, but it is also completely over the top and hilarious.
I love your rewritten version because it shows Safin can be a wonderful foil. Bond learns to forgive those close to him while Safin refuses.
Could you do an analysis on Arcane as well? I found Silco and Sevika's struggles definitely atypical amongst villains and, personally, I've found them one of the best villains I've seen in a long time.
I might look into it. I have been watching the show and it's great, I just can't think of anything fresh to say.
arcane fans everywhere lol
@@junkferrous2821
To be fair, arcane it's a pretty good show
I have to say Arcane was way better than I thought it would be for a LoL property and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was
@Clippy
People will see the flaws over time. They gush now because it's new.
10:40 I interpreted it as blofeld rubbing in the fact that he got Bond to ruin his relationship with Madeleine over nothing, like “haha I got you to make yourself miserable for no reason lol”
Same. I saw it as him calmly and coldly explaining he barely had to try to ruin Bond’s relationship and life for 5 years.
Glad someone else said this! I see it as Blofeld flaunting his “superior scheming” over Bond’s brute strength. And that Bond blamed Madeline when it was his fault all along for his unhappiness
@Tony Scimeca I agree to much of the critique about the plot, it wasn't a well written movie. But I also interpreted the confrontation with the imprisoned Blofeld the way you did. His reveal was the only payoff he would probably be able to get: It wasn't sure Bond would pay him another visit, his plan to kill him failed and it wasn't completely of the charts that he already made him destroy his relationship to Madeleine to a point where it couldn't be fixed. So this reveal gave him a face to face opportunity to see Bond realising he lost years and hurt a loved person due to a false suspicion created by Blofeld. The last ace up his sleeve.
That made perfectly sense I think. The video is a bit too one-sided about this scene.
A bigger cruelty would be never revealing it to Bond so that his relationship continues to be ruined. By revealing his machinations Blofeld is giving Bond the impetus to apologize and reconnect with Madeline. It only makes sense for Blofeld to reveal what he did if there is no possible reconciliation between Bond and Madeline, say if Blofeld had her killed. Revealing it when there is the distinct likelihood they will then get back together and be happy is just stupid and sloppy writing.
@@scottcarroll9201 blofeld clearly wants the satisfaction of bond knowing he is responsible for bond's suffering, which is why he goes on a long spiel about that in spectre. it may be crueler, but he wants the satisfaction of taking credit for what he has done
Listening to your revised plot, I hope that someday some big exec watches your videos and realizes how genuinely satisfying your revised plots are. Keep up the good work.
Thanks Richard. I'm glad you like them!
Couldn’t agree more. Keep up the amazing work!
I only saw this movie for Rami and they gave him barely any screen-time. I felt catfished.
I would have liked to see more of his obsession with Lea’s character
Exactly, they could’ve hired a nobody with similar results
A dog turd would do a better job and looks less creepy
Rami Malek is such a bad actor it's kind of funny
@@fivehourdelay watch mr robot
@@ethandonaldson4306 I think that's an example of a role being perfectly suited for an actor with a very specific way of acting/screen presence
I've always been a lot more interested in character foils; when the hero and villains' differences are highlighted by the narrative rather than their similarities. This makes them even more fun to read and write about, as the villain can master skills that the hero lacks, giving them the advantage until the hero's unique traits gives them the advantage in the final showdown.
I've actually come up with a story idea where the villain's differences to the hero make them more successful in their goals. I'm going to put it in a book I'm writing.
There's an implicit motivation with Safin that I think describing as a "crush" with Madeleine does a disservice to admittedly already poor character. By attempting to be with Madeleine, he's trying to compensate for his loss of family and has a twisted savior complex with her after killing her family. Like him, she's spared -- just as he was.
Safin is a psychologically twisted person who's trying to reconcile with his childhood trauma through Madeleine. I don't think it's a coincidence we're reintroduced to Safin when he's being psychoanalyzed by Madeleine.
That being said, his character was still written poorly, but I think you missed the only interesting part of his character.
Yeah that’s clearly what they’re going for, but they just don’t give it enough time. Safin could’ve been a much more sympathetic villain, and it feels like a waste of Rami Malek’s talents.
@@SaberRexZealot Yeah. they should have properly developed the idea that Safin was a desperately lonely loon who wanted to make Madeleine and Mathilde his substitute family. And possibly tied that in with his god-plan to kill off vast swathes of people: only his chosen family are worthy to live or something.
WE’RE NOT SO DIFFERENT, YOU AND I! 😂 That made me laugh too much!
Reminds me of naruto
Rowe you and I are not so different we like commenting on RUclips
Seriously, at this point they should find the most creative ways work around this quote
That remind me of Green goblin
See! I did say that.
I just remember watching this movie and going "but why was he the villain?" and being so disappointed because they 100000% wasted Rami Malek's talent.
"We're not so different, you and I" is also a 100% valid, in-universe, character-driven thing for a villain to say, almost always. Most people wrapped up in evil are at least kind of aware that it's wrong, so being able to drag someone better than them down to their level, and rob them of their moral high ground, is a satisfying thing if they can pull it off. Even if that's done by telling a lie and counting on it to stick.
You rewrites always make me feel and you just said "This and that could happen" i cant imagine how amazing that would have been in the movie.
As we speak, I'm writing my third action adventure novel in a series. I want you to know I watch your videos with keen interest because one, you're passionate about storytelling and two, you're right about everything. I'll happily add this to my rewatch list as a friendly reminder to write better villains. Blessings!
Thanks Robert. Although I wouldn't say I'm right about everything, in fact I'm acutely aware of a few things I got wrong in this video now it's out. Everyone says stupid things, and no one is right 100% of the time.
But good luck with the novel. I hope it goes well!
@@TheCloserLook Such as it was a Spectre raid on the laboratory, not Safin's? Seriously, a tiny point and I love your stuff. I will seek out the Nebula originals.
Excellent breakdown, analysis and suggestion.
Such a pity that No Time to Day spent months on the shelf before release rather than having that time in pre-production to write a better (shorter) story.
While watching the movie, it felt like they had no dialog for Safin during his monologue and just made Malek improvise incoherently for several takes and just cut the thing together in editing.
Please never stop making videos. I really enjoy the quality of your presentations and your very own way of doing so.
I had the idea while watching this film that if Craig's Bond villains were all meant to be something of a reflection of him, starting off we had the criminal, the mastermind, the ex-agent, and the criminal spy master. What do you add to that? How do you top that list? The anti-spy assassin. A child of an assassin family, who trains himself to become an assassin, slowly takes revenge for his family's massacre, and finally decides he can use his skills and knowledge to kill every spy, intelligence organization, and criminal mastermind in the world.
I like your idea as well, but I thought I'd share this in case people found it interesting.
my issue with Safin was that he was the outsider to the Spectre family, which made up Craigbond's antagonists throughout his movies. Chifre, Green, White, Blofeld, all make up this organized faction, while Safin is almost better suited as an antihero to help Bond take them down. Silva was not a part of Spectre, or at all connected, but was interesting and charismatic enough to stand alone. No Time To Die was like the writers had finished the Spectre arc but wanted to squeeze one more story out of it. This was the dregs of Craigbond, no more.
My issue with the Craig-Bond cycle of films is the clumsy attempt to link them all, in Spectre, as being parts of some gigantic "master plan" to "torture Bond" that they clearly were not. In fact, I find the saving grace with Waltz' Blofeld is in imagining that it's all just a story Blofeld makes up to try to hurt Bond more... even though the idea of them knowing each other in their youth is right out of Austin Powers anyway.
@@Malt454 It would have been so much better and more believable without Spectre and Blofeld at all. Keep Quantum the shadowy organization Bond chases throughout his run with Silva and some other anagonists acting as unrelated 'villains of the week.' There should be no personal motive for Quantum to go after Bond. He's just a spanner in their works who exposes them and unravels some of their plans, because that's his job (and because they drove Vesper to her death). He's just one MI6 agent among many, not a superhero at the centre of the universe. He doesn't need an arch nemesis. All the convolutions made it silly and unbelievable.
@@katemara667 - You make a lot of good points. Casino Royale represented a clean slate and a possible new direction for the franchise that was largely just fumbled away. What would later be identified as Quantum seemed, at the outset, to be a much more realistic entity than Spectre - an organization of criminals with personal gain first and foremost rather than a criminal organization bent on "world domination".
"Destroying" Quantum would have been impossible because it was intentionally nebulous and decentralized. Quantum would have had no need of any "objective" to hijack or destroy MI6 because Quantum and its members would always be playing for limited rewards with limited risk, with Bond occasionally just getting in the way.
Then again, both Spectre and Quantum can also be looked as concessions to marketing from the outset - giving Bond an enemy without real-world political implications that might sour the box office in foreign markets. One thing you're NOT going to see these days is anything like Goldfinger or (the original) The Manchurian Candidate, where the Chinese are portrayed as taking an active role in subverting or damaging the West (LOL!!!).
Smaller stakes were always the key to the better Bond films as well. The best ones tended to be those where he's actually sent on a definable mission (From Russia With Love, For Your Eyes Only, Casino Royale) with real intelligence value, rather than just being turned loose to investigate something until someone tries to kill him. Most of the weaker Moore films followed the latter pattern, with Moore apparently "uncomfortable" with the idea of playing an assassin instead of a freebooting troubleshooter like The Saint.
If one looks at the list of "missions accomplished" in the franchise, Bond has helped to avert a possible World War III a few times and has just outright saved the world at least twice. Beyond making Bond a superhero, it's also left the series with no way to top itself after repeatedly jumping the shark. The series never had the potential, or the interest, to be anything like le Carré, but its writing could certainly do with some improvement.
@@Malt454 I never watched Casino Royale around the time it released, but I watched it last year just to see what all the hype was about. After the shock of realizing how old the movie was (there was a scene where Bond pulled out a flip phone or something), what I loved was how small scale it was. Bond is just a dude and even though he's an exceptional agent, he doesn't have all the answers immediately and he's prone to messing up throughout the movie. He was competent enough to be a cool badass when necessary, but those flaws and mistakes ensured that the tension was sky high the whole way through.
Like, watching a card game was so much more intense than many of the bombastic doomsday plots most of the Bond films have, and between rounds there were times where it seemed like Bond could legitimately die because Le Chiffre outplayed him...but Le Chiffre isn't some all-knowing hyper genius, so it feels like two fairly even minds going back and forth.
@@slvrcobra1337 - Yeah, I think the smaller scale/smaller stakes movies have tended to be the best ones, certainly as films in general. I also don't think that it's any coincidence that two of them (Casino Royale and From Russia With Love) are based fairly closely on Fleming novels instead of just wild scripts with huge set piece endings. It doesn't make the more extreme parts of these movies any more "realistic", but it does help to place their stories somewhere in the real world, sort of like the Bourne series does.
It's a shame. I absolutely adored Rami in Mr. Robot and he easily became one of my favourite actors. Therefore, I was so excited to see him playing a Bond villain role, it seemed perfect. It's so disappointing they messed up his script.
I think Ernst Stavro with his cat is easily one of the most iconic villains in cinema's history that he becomes an archetypical villain that has been parodied or influenced in pop culture.
This leads to where Dr. Evil from _Austin Powers_ and the guy from _Evil Genius_ game took the inspiration from. Ernst is way ahead of his time.
He’s way overrated. No actor has nailed the role 100%
@@IdiocyShow And the word "overrated" is considered to be overrated.
@@poweroffriendship2.0 I guess
I think the problem with the villain's motivation isn't so much that it's too many motivations, it's more that the three motivations have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Like, if he wanted to be an arms dealer, it'd make more sense for him to have extra motivations that connect to that in some way, like for example he could want to help another villain with one of their goals in exchange for some of the villain's supplies to help his arms dealing motivation. Or if he wanted to be with the girl he's in love with, he could have the extra motivation of trying to clean up a certain area of crime and disease and whatnot, so that he could live in peace with the girl and her daughter. You can't just have three motivations that don't connect in any way.
The best way to make a villan in the movie is not to make a villan but an antagonist. Your 'villan' of the story doesnt even have to do anything inherently bad as long as they are the antagonist to the hero (given them and their relationship are compelling enough). In no time to die the writers put too much effort into making the villan 'villanous' or evil than making him a good antagonist
Worse, they put an antagonist in the movie that isn't the villain. Blofeld is still in the movie, he's still the antagonist despite being locked up, and even after his death - it seems as though he's still a step ahead of James & MI6. And then the antagonist dies, and you're left with a very anticlimactic villain.
10:20 Wow, you totally got Blowfeld's motivation wrong. He told Bond he wasn't betrayed by Madeline because he was laughing at him for destroying his own relationship. It's like when Thomas Jane's Punisher was taunting Howard Saint "Made you kill your best friend.. Made you kill your wife..". Blowfeld was taunting James and drinking in the irony that James's inability to trust the love of his life caused him to cast her aside and leave her defenseless and alone.
"I'm a writer, and you're a stage magician. We're not so different, you and I."
When I saw this movie I seriously thought I missed something about the villain because I couldn’t remember what his motivations were. Glad I wasn’t crazy 😂
Time for No Time To Die 2.0
I was so disappointed for the same reason. I thought I must have drifted off at some point and missed a key plot point.
His motivation to kill Spectre was all fine... Then "oh, I've killed the bad guys I hated, time for some... **checks to-do list** genocide. Ok, genocide, why was that on the list again? Oh never mind, I'm sure it'll come to me later."
This channel is phenomenal. Whether it be for storytellers, story enjoyers or just people who want to be entertained. You make informative and amusing content very consistently. Keep doing what you do my guy 👍
Personally I feel like he had a super interesting start in that he was clearly trying to take down spectre. Imagine if he was an ex MI5 agent who went rogue and is trying to use the Nano Bots to kill every member of spectre at once, however because it also targets family members potentially thousands of innocents would get caught in the crossfire. Then you have a proper ideological battle in which Bond has to decide whether to let thousands of innocents die in order to destroy Spectre or kill Safin even though it means protecting the organisation he has trying to take down for decades. You could also get a super interesting dynamic because you could easily use this setup to force Bond and Blofeld to work together in order to take Safin down.
Great video but I respectfully disagree with your assessment on the Blofeld scene. The way I interpreted the scene was that Blofeld absolutely wasn’t revealing the truth as an act of kindness, but out of spite. Through the way he delivers his speech and mocks Bond throughout, it’s made fairly clear that, by telling Bond Madeleine was always loyal to him and that Blofeld tricked him, he’s also revealing to Bond that those five years he spend depressed and alone were his own fault for falling for it. We then see with how he snaps and throttles Blofeld that this revelation does some serious physiological damage to him, just as Blofeld had intended. So I don’t think he acts uncharacteristically at all.
Hmm maybe. That's a thing I didn't consider making this. But he would also surely know he's giving him a chance to reconcile with her here? Like his plans actually ruined bond's relationship with her, and in revealling that... he is letting them get back together, ruining the fact his plan went off so well.
idk, it still feels like bad writing to me
@@TheCloserLook The intent behind both of Safin and Blofeld's characters in this movie seems to be that they will do anything for the sake of performative, pointless cruelty. That's probably why they're so unbelievably stupid - because the decisions here aren't made based on treating the villains like people at all, but as devices to trigger emotional responses in the viewer as expediently as possible.
Safin intentionally approaches Bond because rather than wanting to kill him he just wants Bond to never be able to see his family, or something. Blofeld gives up the game because he wants to guilt trip Bond in that moment, even though it screws his plan over. This is kind of the Last Jedi problem again. What happens when a film is built around emotional low blows.
@@TheCloserLook I personally think it's one of the few good things about No Time to Die. Yes he is giving Madeleine and James a chance to reconcile here, but here, not only did Blofeld unveil that to James out of spite, but he got Madeleine here as well, he made it so that the woman James wounded so badly is not only here and in his presence, but also it's clear James and Madeleine have feelings for each other, even after all this time. So while I can understand your thoughts, I personally disagree with you and I think this is good writing in the midst of a movie with poor writing
15:57 To be fair, villains not killing Bond right away when they have the chance is pretty much a James Bond tradition. It happens in Goldeneye, License to Kill, The Spy who Loved me, Moonraker, Live and Let Die and probably more that I haven't thought of.
the man with the golden gun lol I never understand why he need to show off that weapon to bond happily
@@discountmorty213 Ego boost, that's why he doesn't simply kill him right away. That's why I didn't bring that one up here because his main motivation in that movie is to be the assassin who bested James Bond.
@@torkelsvenson6411 When I watched it I always felt that it wasn't very bro of bond to sabotage lol
Having him be Dr. No like everyone theorized would have honestly been preferable to the hot mess we got
21:34 Magneto moment (a moment where the hero and villain work together to achieve a common goal because they agree that the threat they face together is bigger than the threats that either of them is to each other) you implemented into this alternative version of the film.
"we are not so different you and I" is a phrase that needs to be used with characters that were in the same place but made different decisions or with characters that are so different that they become alike.
i was under the impression that blofeld's motivation telling bond about madeline was to simply salt the wound a little more; he genuinely thought that bond and madeline were beyond reconciliation, and so he thought he'd twist the knife a little more by making sure bond knew it was him and bond's own paranoia that ended their relationship. really dig into bond's self loathing by further proving that bond can't have anything good in his life without ruining it.
To be fair when i heard his motivation i thought the screenwriter deliberately made his character such a cliche as a some sort of homage to the old Bond villians but yea. The villian wasnt the selling point of NTTD.
If that's true it's a terrible idea, as it drags down the whole film, wastes Rami's talents, and means Bond gets cheated by being taken down by a lame villain. I think it was just bafflingly bad writing.
The recent Dune film did a great job of this with the Baron...we see very little of him in the actual first half of the film, but in the very few glimpses we do get early on his presence is absolutely menacing
It’s really not imo. His „menacing glimpses” felt more like unnecessary breaks in an already painfully slow story
Not only how his expression but the music choice in the background! So subtle yet so beautiful.
I never watched this movie but the storyline you made up towards the end actually sounds like something i would have loved watching. I discovered this channel yesterday and all your points about these movies are amazing, glad to find a youtuber that doesn't spread hate and talk about things in a constructive way
Villain appearing at the beginning of the movie: think how it would have ruined Apocalypse Now. There we feel the villain approaching like a malignant force of nature, like a disease. The reveal is perfect. Of course it requires real mastery to pull off, but properly done it's really great.
It all depends on the context of the movie.
Hmm he was a great one to compliment this Bond. But yes *he* was lackluster especially compared to the absolute great villains we previously had in movies/shows.
Le Chiffre and Silva bae
@@TheCloserLook I love Blofeld (in all Bond's) and Silva they're portrayed soo well by the actors it's just scary how good they are but, Mr. White is up there as well. No Safin without White/Blofeld, which is quite weird.
I wonder if the writing was intentional since Bond's character is opposite. I do agree with you. the writing for this vilian isnt great since we have so many memorable ones
Nice timing!
What a lovely Christmas gift.
You're welcome. Merry Christmas!
Blofeld's actions make sense to me. He thinks it's too late for Bond and Madelene to make up: Bond's reaction to her perceived betrayal hurt her too much for her to forgive him. By telling Bond that she _didn't_ betray him, it removes Bonds hatred for her, but makes him feel deep regret and guilt for pushing her away. The pain you caused to yourself is worse than that inflicted on you by others, Blofeld's reveal makes bond aware that he was the agent of his own unhappiness. So Blofeld is not helping repair the protagonists relationship (which after so many years of mulling over injuries ought to be unrepairable, despite what happens in the plot), but twisting the knife as an act of revenge. A great take on inner turmoil IMO, better portrayed by a villain who delivers it with a sinister smile than one full of rage.
“You could replace Safin with Dr. Evil and nothing would change” is absolutely hilarious
Wow, you also think the villain in No Time To Die was forgettable?
WE'RE NOT SO DIFFERENT, YOU AND I!!!
I love your alternate version of Safin!
Would have made the movie way better
Glad you liked the changes, Mutaz!
Absolutely absolutely agree here. I liked his motivations but there was not enough substance to the character.
Having him kill one of the bigger villains in the bond franchise was great and help set him up for something greater but at the end there was no true payoff to any of that.
You can never call something like this always but the potential was never truly actualized., ✌🏾✌🏾👀
IMO, the problem with both No Time to Die and SPECTRE was that the filmmakers felt that they had to make everything super-significant, to one-up all the previous films. Like, in SPECTRE, it's not enough for Blofeld to be the head of a criminal organisation, he has to be Bond's adopted brother and SPECTRE has to be behind everything that's happened to Craig Bond. Madeleine can't just be this film's Bond girl, she has to be The One. Lucifer Satan or whatever they called him can't just be a villain, he has to be the greatest villain Bond ever faced.
Except it's all totally unearned and feels forced. A whole lot of backstory gets dumped on us to try to retroactively convince us that everything's been building up to this moment. And it all feels contrived.
If I were writing it, I wouldn't try to make Safin the greatest villain ever who has all these connections to Bond and all these forced similarities. I'd just aim make him a pretty good villain who happens to be the one who takes Bond out. An actual recurring theme in the Craig films is that Bond's job is dirty and dangerous and he's probably not going to have a happy ending.
Joker also says "You're just a freak. Like me." so it is possible to get the "We're not so different you and I..." line in there without it being cheesy. But its got to be true. The Joker and Batman have a connection whereby something traumatic in their past drove them to become what they are. One is completely incorruptible and believes in justice, the other in pure chaos and anarchy. So they're complete opposites but mirrored in many ways. Bond and Safin aren't remotely similar, other than crushing on the same girl.
Legit what i thought aswell
Such an incredible actor wasted
Yeah rami has such a massive range, from Freddie mercury to Elliot he was phenomenal
It’s not just that he is boring. They did nothing to age him. He is supposed to be a lot older than the Bond girl but he looks the same age.
I remember getting to the climax of this film and realising I have no idea what this villains name is? His motivation? And his plan? I really enjoyed the opening scene of this film but the rest of it was just so boring
The worst part about the lazy writing is that the movie production was postponed for almost 2 years. The writers definitely had the time to fix the script and improve on it.
outstanding upload The Closer Look. I crushed that thumbs up on your video. Maintain up the exceptional work.
While watching the movie, my family and I realized we didn’t actually know the villain’s name (during the forest chase)! So we named him Max Verstappen since we only sorta heard his name in the film itself
Awesome Bond villain name!
“The party's over Verstappen. Let the girl go.”
“Ah...Mr Bond. So kind of you to join our little soiree. Though I regret your stay won't be a long one..." *strokes fluffy white cat^
@@katemara667 I'm hearing Max's voice as I read this, haha. 🤣
So you are a Hamilton fan😂
I love this channel and these essays, they have created my love for story telling and has been teaching me so much since this channel started, hands down faiv creator keep up the grate work
Thanks so much for that Lewis. Have a nice christmas, and good luck with the writing!
@@TheCloserLook oh my god u replied, thank u 2 merry Christmas mate 🎄
In general, most of these new & young aspiring writer do the biggest mistake: Writing characters, that serve the plot.
Drinker describes that perfectly, when he says "so that the plot can happen".
But its the heroes and villains need & wants, motivations and so that creates these dynamics and the plot...
The characters will always be more important than the plot. Let the characters get in the way of plot. YOU do the legwork as the writer, not the characters. Is it hard to pull off? Get over it - it's your job. Writing good stories isn't easy.
I can see I've discovered another Critical Drinker fan 😌
critical drinker knows his stuff 💯
Story is by 3 people. Ones 44 the two others are 60. It's not as simple as just a bad writers there are time constraints, extreme studio interference (especially with the films drinker talks about which are literally only big studio blockbusters). Critical Drinker is a hack who complains about politics interfering with films despite the fact that he lets his own politics interfere with his reviews and interpretation of film. Proof of this is his review of midsommar. He completely misinterprets the ending as female empowerment despite the fact that it supposed to be a dark and disturbing ending showing the main character has now been fully indoctrinated into a cult. It wouldn't even take that much effort to even look up the ending and the directors explanation. He lets his own politics blind him from understanding movies and in this case it led to him completely misinterpreting the film. I wouldn't take screen writing advice from someone like him that screams about wokeness and Hollywood being ruined while only ever watching blockbusters and nothing else
@@bobsandwich3431 I think the Drinker's point was less about he personally interpreted the film and more about how many mainstream film critics interpreted the film - at least that's what it seemed like from my viewing.
I kinda liked Zorin (A View to A Kill) and Sanchez (Licence to Kill) because they were just fairly normal looking psychopaths who were simply driven by greed and not strange looking people who were driven by world domination.
Yeah, the issue as was pointed out is that Safin gets revenge and his whole motivation sort of changes to world domination, presumably because the writers wanted to raise the stakes and have a bigger climax. The whole 'you and I are not so different' schtick is overused in Bond, but I noticed that Safin also used this line when talking to Madeline (he counters her claim that he's damaged by saying she is too as she had Bond's child... which is completely non-sensical and is in no way comparable to his goals). Could have been interesting to have Bond actively reject this idea perhaps? I mean, I sort of got the sense that Safin was simply trying to justify his horrific actions to himself anyway and is a bit of a gaslighting b*stard, which could have been interesting to see played out. Shame as he could have been a cool, sympathetic villain if fleshed out (I actually like Malek's performance). I liked your rewrite.
Love video critiques where it’s half critique, half “let me insert my fanfic”.
Blofeld's reaction of telling Bond all the truth he knew makes actually a lot more sense than just having him shut up or lie to him when you think about it. So I disagree with what you say about him.
Blofeld lost everything in just a fews seconds because of another villain, he has more reason to hate that other villain than Bond. He has every reason to tell Bond the truth and hopefully set him on the path of killing that other villain for him. There is no sympathy building up or forced narrative, it's all meant for his personal gain. And when you think about it, it is actually even the more mature choice to make rather than "I am the villain who hates you so i will tell you nothing because I don't like you"
Blofeld wanted to fuck with bond by having him realize what he had done........I thought the villians were great in this movie...they are not super hero villians like how most of the examples that are brought up in this analysis are.....The villians in 007 are always different....that is why they get so much flack haha
Hmm. Disagree. Blofeld had no reason to help Bond, he hates his guts since Skyfall time. This scene made the audience realise the writers thought they were stupid.
@@falconeshield hate or no hate, when you think about it telling the truth makes sense, because this sets the path for Bond to meet the main villain and it can go in three ways :
1. Bond kills the villain and Blofeld is avenged for his more recent losses
2. Bond is killed and he is avenged for the prior events
3. Both die like in the movie and Blofeld is the winner.
Or he could just go like an immature villain and say "screw you I hate you so I won't tell you anything" and gain absolutely nothing out of it
@@texanplayer7651 But that's it. Without Blofeld being nice, the story would've ended there. The writers wrote themselves in a corner and that's on them. They're the pros not us.
@@falconeshield Did you understand any of the things that I wrote to explain why it makes sense scenaristically for Blofeld to tell the truth? And that it is in fact NOT due to lazy writing? I think you completely miss the point here.
Lol forgot Mr Robot ended for a second. I was like "what did Elliot get himself into now"
why did it have to end…. Fuuuuuck
@@Vivivofi because it would’ve outstayed its welcome. Not many shows get to end as well as Mr. Robot did.
@@SaberRexZealot true… i just miss it my friend, it was a seriously beautiful and exciting experience
I think you should do a deeper analysis into these types of antagonists with "elaborate plans" like Zemo, The Joker, and Lex Luthor. I never thought that Zemo at least ever had a convoluted and elaborately of getting to his goal. His objective was simple; to acquire proof that The Winter Soldier assassinated Stark's parents to divide Steve and Tony and thus the Avengers. When the HYDRA agent died with the proof, he resorted to more violent means and adapted as the circumstances changed accordingly such as seeing the news in the Siberian airport. Maybe you do an essay topic on all three of their plans and see whether any of them are coincidental or just adapting to new circumstances.
Eww no, the Joker has been coopted by extreme right wing nazi nationalists.
Better to just ignore that crap. Even the writers regret making it bc it's inspired them.
@@BoleDaPole the joker is still good though
@@BoleDaPole lol what? Which Nazi nationalists have been inspired by the Joker? And that's reason enough to ignore the character? Your name suits you.
The Joker from TDK has inspired more memes than Nazis.
yeah no Zemo was a terrible villain and ruined the movie. Civil War would have been 100 times better without that plot thread
You do the best job with sponsorship ads of anyone I watch. Really considering getting Nebula because of you.
The thing that No Time To Die lacks is Safin believing he is in the right. The one thing every great villain shares is their perspective on the plot.
This is exactly how I felt, the story of this movie was so half baked, it felt like it was going in an interesting direction and then everything it was setting up was just scrapped and it became a generic mess
Your alternate take on Safin's motive, teaming up with Bond, and overall rewrite sounds amazing and I wish we had seen that. I didn't hate Safin but he could have been so much better and felt cliche and just there rather than a full villain.
that hot fuzz cut away was perfect
This is really helping me write my book, especially with giving me ideas to connect earlier parts of my plot to my antagonist
I’ve been writing a script and you’ve helped me like hell with all these videos
Can you make a video on The Italian Job or Ocean’s 8? They’re some of my favorite and I’d like to see what you think about heist movies like those. I know you prefer to make videos about more recent movies, but maybe you could make an exception?
Ocean’s Eleven, I think you mean.
The Italian Job's ending leaves the audience more questions than answers and that's where the term "cliffhanger" make sense in the context. (wink wink)
I got out of this movie and spent the car ride back home talking to my mum about how terribly Safin was written, and how absolutely confused I was about his whole deal. Only after the movie. I too had forgotten his name by the next day.
"It'll be interesting to have a villian you don't see for the first half of the movie" a big reason why skyfall was so great
'Bloody... Freddy Mercury over there' had me in creases. Well played dude
Can't believe it took me so long to see this, the villain of this film is such an interesting topic of conversation.
I really like Safin up until Spectre is completely wiped out, as you said up until then his character generally made complete sense but after that I genuinely couldn't tell what he wanted to do. I still didn't mind him as a villain after that, he was serviceable at the very least, and I liked all the classic Bond villain aesthetics with the lair, the hazmat suits and the poison garden (which Bond definitely should've thrown him into at the end to kill him, although I did like the bluntness of just unloading the clip into him).
Here's my pitch for reworking his motive without too many drastic changes:
I think they should've made it clear that after killing Spectre he gets a big ego boost, he's done what no world government was able to do, he wiped out the biggest terrorist organization on the planet and he's not done yet. They should've really leaned into the idea of Safin seeing himself as the hero of the story, scrap him being in love with Madeleine Swann and purely focus on this mindset of the world he has.
The opening where he kills Madeleine's mother but when given a chance to kill Madeleine instead chooses to save her could've been used to explore this idea of him seeing himself as a hero. In that scene he's on a mission for revenge against Spectre, to him like many people they're the bad guys, but when he sees this girl helpless under the ice he realizes that whilst yes Spectre is evil it's not enough to wipe them out, there's innocents in the world who are helpless and need protecting (there could probably be more done to flesh that out in the film itself).
He has that line about 'wanting to be a bit tidier' which I really think is what they should've solely focused on, have his plan be to send the nanobots around the world, and with his infinite resources he plans to spend the rest of his life studying the population and whenever he deems a person or group to be a threat or a potential future threat he takes them out.
He'd be 'playing God' much like Bond says to him in the film, but in Safin's mind he'd be able to justify it. In his eyes who'd be better to protect the world than the one who wiped out Spectre, he could even throw in Bond's face that it was his own government who created it in the first place, which combined with all the atrocities they've done that Bond himself has partaken in over the years, Safin could easily see himself as better than all of them seeing as again, killing Spectre was a greater achievement than anything they've done.
I think the aspects like him killing people to protect the world has an interesting parallel to Bond, however unlike Bond Safin knows (in his own twisted way) why he kills every person he kills, Bond just followed orders most of the time, there's something that could be explored there.
To me this was a villain with just a few integral ingredients missing, which was frustrating because you could've made it work. Bond villains are known for having motifs or gimmicks, so I really liked Safin having poisonous plants, that's perfect Bond villain material, but there's not a huge amount of focus on it. They really could've given us some fun stuff with that and again, would've made for a grizzly and appropriately ironic death for him if Bond dropped or threw him into them.
Plus the whole idea of the film starting with the traditional Bond vs Spectre scenario, then this third party showing up is just really fun and unlike anything we've had before, but that aspect also didn't get much focus.
We already have Bond villains and henchmen that are reflections of Bond in some way: Red Grant, Scaramanga, Trevalyan, and Silva. They were handled better than Safin.
Malik, was very similar acting wise to Freddie Mercury movie. He’s a good actor yeah. But, when I watched bohemian there’s a lot of similarities in the two performances.
In contrast to this villain, I recently finished Netflix's Arcane which by far has THE BEST written villain I've seen in a long time! If you want a really compelling antogonist, Silco is up there on my list.
11:57 or if Blowfeld had a tactical reason for doing it. we keep hearing how bond is a blunt instrument and that Blowfeld isn't that.
If it was a way to either make bond suffer a little more, screw with him, or give blowfeld something in return. then it would have worked much better.
And such a good actor too, his performance in Mr. Robot is unforgettable