Spectre and The Bond Universe
If you’re here for a review, here it is: Spectre, as a film, isn’t horrible. Sure, it’s no Skyfall, but it’s also no Quantum of Solace. What it has done, however, is completely change the entire Bond universe so far.
If you look at Bond chronology, it’s a mess. It is. There’s nothing concrete to tie any one Bond actor to another, and even within one Bond actor’s tenure there are discrepancies. But there is a theory that no two actors are the same Bond. The theory states that just the same as the iconic number, the name “James Bond” is a code name given to whichever poor guy steps into the previous Bond’s shoes. An oft-cited line supporting this idea comes from George Lazenby’s Bond, who said that “This never happened to the other fellow,” reinforcing the fact that when Bond dies or goes missing they’re just replaced. This theory also goes a long way to explaining most of the issues the Bond universe has — why Bond never seems to get older than forty, the big incongruities between films, and why they never seem to learn from any of their mistakes. Sure, there are still plot holes — Bond’s wife, for example, marries Lazenby but is mourned and avenged by Moore — but if we’re arguing for a theory that makes the most sense, then Bond being a code name is it.
Which is why Spectre makes things a little difficult. See, for the concept to make some kind of sense, the Bonds have to go in chronological order to both keep with the times and keep the bits of in-world continuity that are there sensible. Spectre takes this continuity and just eats it.
It’s generally accepted that the Brosnan Bond and Craig Bond, thanks to dame Judy Dench, are also chronological, linking the supposed reboot of the Craig era to the previous eras. Craig Bond even mentions that previous Bonds had a “Short shelf life,” again allowing the theory to flourish. Even Skyfall, so far the most problematic film to fit to the time line, fits into this theory without any hassle, with popular theories including brainwashing, training orphans to believe they’re all James Bonds and even the Skyfall home being part of the Bonds’ character, a concrete part of the role they play. Then comes Spectre and Blofeld.
The Blofeld villain is born, lives and dies all in the continuity of the classic films. It’s even established how he got his iconic scar — a fencing accident. Blofeld was a fully rounded, complete villain that came and went and could easily be brought back without any issues: all the audience sees of his death is him falling into a chimney stack. If the studio truly was so set on bringing back Blofeld for fan points, then they could’ve gone full cat-petting, scarred, chair-spinning megalomaniac with absolutely no ill effect on the plot at all. All of the backstory about Bond and Franz Oberhauser/Blofeld could be completely stripped from the plot, again with no ill effect, and Oberhauser could be given a far better reason for hating Craig/Bond than sibling rivalry. But all of this could easily be explained away through one innocuous phrase in the Blofeld Wikipedia: “[Oberhauser] took on the name Ernst Stavro Blofeld from the bloodline of his mother.” Oberhauser, then, fitting with the chronology, could just be the heir to the Blofeld title. If only it wasn’t for the scar.
At the end of Spectre, after one or another fight scenes, Blofeld has his eye ripped open. Later in the film, we see Blofeld with the scar which has become so recognisable since the sixties. The possibility of Blofeld senior and junior having the exact same scar are minute, so the assumption can be made — against all of the theory I’ve discussed — that there is only one Blofeld. This begs the question; where does Spectre fit? If, previously, the Bonds were chronological, then Spectre just threw that out of the window. So the only thing I can think of that would fit every single Bond film is that Spectre wraps around in some kind of circle, in between Dr. No and From Russia With Love, screwing with the entire continuity. On the other hand, maybe there was some kind of weird self-mutilation that we, the audience, didn’t see.
Or maybe I’m just reading too deeply into some films that are just about a man running around and shooting things.
