00-7 questions from the ‘SPECTRE’ trailer

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The spectre of SPECTRE looms that little bit closer now, and crumbs, doesn’t it look stylish?

All ice and varnished wood and danger, like a Swedish furniture store with a licence to kill. This time James Bond is on the trail of the Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion, and the acronym heavy organisation now seems to have ties to his past.

Impressively for a modern trailer, SPECTRE‘s first glimpses managed to give nothing important away, but still convey a sense of caps lock level excitement that will have Bond fans like ourselves here at the sadly acronym-free organisation CultBox (but I’m working on it) in high anticipation for October.

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So with that anticipation surging through our veins like a digitalis-spiked martini, here are 7 questions we’ve got after the teaser trailer…

 

The first Bond quadrilogy?

SPECTRE

With the MI6 headquarters still in bits, and Bond being handed items recovered from Skyfall, clearly SPECTRE isn’t set that long after Skyfall, making SPECTRE a sort of tenuous sequel. While Skyfall felt like a break from the Quantum plot of Craig’s first two movies, the return of Quantum’s top cackler Mr White now means that SPECTRE is tied to Casino Royale and its sequel Quantum of Solace.

All of which would suggest that, by design or serendipity, the entirety of Craig’s tenure as Bond has now been one massive quadrilogy of international conspiracy and buffness.

 

Is that Bond’s apartment?

SPECTRE

In Fleming’s books, and then in John Gardiner’s further adventures, when 007 wasn’t shooting and shagging his way around the world he was often thinking about his flat; a small but luxurious affair just off the King’s Road in Chelsea, attended by a redoubtable Scottish housekeeper named May (possibly the best Bond character not yet seen on screen).

The only time we’ve seen Casa Bond on screen since Dr No has been in Live and Let Die, where we and M are given a quick tour of its ‘70s Seventies interior, fancy coffee maker and all. Now though, it looks like he’s either moved or just doesn’t keep as stylish a gaff as ol’ Roger did.

Does he even have a half-naked Italian agent in his closet? Of course, it might not be his house. Whoever’s place it is though, they need to get around to hanging those pictures up.

 

What secrets?

SPECTRE

We’re headed deeper into Bond backstory than ever before now, as we look at guardianship documents mentioning a Master Bond, 12 years old. And there’s a picture with James Bond Jr. and a man who looks like he’s meant to be Christoph Waltz, aka Oberhauser.

What secrets from Bond’s past will we uncover? Will the movie stick to the traditional tale of Mummy and Daddy Bond dying in a climbing accident? Will Franz Oberhauser’s role have been as neo-parental as it is in the novels? Or will it – now more likely – be that Oberhauser and SPECTRE played some part in the death of the late Andrew Bond and Monique Delacroix-Bond?

 

Whose funeral is it?

SPECTRE

Is that M being buried? Is it Mr. White? What’s Monica Bellucci doing there? Will there be tea and sausage rolls served afterwards in someone’s lounge? These are all important questions, people. Do you know that James Bond has never eaten a sausage roll? #BondFact.

It should be noted that SPECTRE is a movie so stylishly produced that even a funeral looks like a cover-shoot for Vogue. This is going to be the most gorgeous and fashionably-designed Bond movie since Quantum of Solace.

 

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