They shouldn't have called it Spectre - SPOILERS

Absolutely_Cart

By calling it Spectre, everyone expected Franz Oberhauser to be Blofeld from the start, ruining the twist. Had they picked a different title and kept the return of Spectre secret, the events of the movie would have been more of a suprise.

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In my opinion, they should have called the movie "Nine Eyes". Instead of showing the Octopus ring from the beginning (and instead of having Bond meet Franzfeld Bloberhauser early), they should have built up suspense and then during the Mr. White scene, discover who was truly behind it.

Matt S

I completely agree! Do you have a suggestion for a title?

Absolutely_Cart

Nine Eyes?

James Suzuki

But Spectre itself is a selling point.
Calling it spectre and showing the Octopus symbol ensures Box Office Success

eric7064

I'm 100% fine with the title.

Absolutely_Cart

James Suzuki wrote:

But Spectre itself is a selling point.
Calling it spectre and showing the Octopus symbol ensures Box Office Success

but also actual disappointment when you realize they literally did nothing with the concept.

Matt S

James Suzuki wrote:

But Spectre itself is a selling point.
Calling it spectre and showing the Octopus symbol ensures Box Office Success

It only ensures success from the people who are fans of the 1960s films. I've met a lot of people who became fans of Bond because of Daniel Craig and have no interest in what came before. And to those people, the move back towards the 60s might turn them off. I dragged a friend of mine to the film who thought the whole concept he got from the trailer was disappointing, and then after seeing the film he wasn't into it either.

Napoleon Plural

I know, thing is they are also hollering to have the gunbarrel back at the end...

perdogg

Absolutely_Cart wrote:

By calling it Spectre, everyone expected Franz Oberhauser to be Blofeld from the start, ruining the twist. Had they picked a different title and kept the return of Spectre secret, the events of the movie would have been more of a suprise.

How about "Ghost Nation" ?

MrZareba

perdogg wrote:

Absolutely_Cart wrote:

By calling it Spectre, everyone expected Franz Oberhauser to be Blofeld from the start, ruining the twist. Had they picked a different title and kept the return of Spectre secret, the events of the movie would have been more of a suprise.

How about "Ghost Nation" ?

Ghost Protocol + Rogue Nation = Ghost Nation? XD

perdogg

MrZareba wrote:

perdogg wrote:

Absolutely_Cart wrote:

By calling it Spectre, everyone expected Franz Oberhauser to be Blofeld from the start, ruining the twist. Had they picked a different title and kept the return of Spectre secret, the events of the movie would have been more of a suprise.

How about "Ghost Nation" ?

Ghost Protocol + Rogue Nation = Ghost Nation? XD

yes )

caractacus potts

I think they could have left the organizations name as QUANTUM, and left the villains name as Oberhauser, and the plot would have worked just as well, really only about one minutes dialog was needed to establish each of those two points within the film and both were ultimately irrelevant
same with the Goldmember plot twist, edit out a minute or two of dialog, the big baddy is no longer Bonds halfbrother, and the story stills works exactly the same
much like editing the firetruck chase out of a View to a Kill, a couple of lines of dialog could be edited out of this new one, to remove the most annoying aspects, and the story would still make complete sense without them

77007

No, they dont need to pull what Star Trek did and try to hide that it was a Wrath of Kahn reboot.

The secret wouldve been out with one look at the trailer anyways. Obvious Blofeld from the beginning of production for anyone that cares about the franchise.

HowardB

EON finally got the rights back to use SPECTRE and Blofeld and were surely hot to use them. If at the time of CR they would have secured the rights from the McClorey Estate it may have been SPECTRE instead of Quantum. Even if they didn't title the film SPECTRE it would have been both easy to figure out and the worst kept secret in history.

Absolutely_Cart

I actually thought Quantum was more terrifying because it was more believable, more practical and less cartoonish.

I see the return of the Spectre IP as a gift and a curse.

Matt S

I would have called the film "The Dead Are Alive" since it's a much more interesting title, and it would have eliminated the disruptive title card after the gunbarrel. "The Dead Are Alive" could have made a great title for a song too.

I also like Absolutely_Cart's suggestion of "Nine Eyes".

I've considered "Writing's on the Wall" for the title, but it really doesn't fit the film (same as the song's lyrics).

Loeffelholz

I like the title 'SPECTRE' quite a bit, despite it's being 'on the nose.' Very Fleming (or McClory/Whittingham, depending on whose side you're on, LOL). It's iconic, and the Bonds are all about iconography.

caractacus potts

could somebody summarize how and when the producers regained rights to the names SPECTRE and Blofeld?
I assume its all been discussed elsewhere, but theres a lot of threads in this subforum

I remember one megamedia conglomerate traded another the rights to SpiderMan in exchange for the rights to Casino Royale, that was well publicized a decade ago, but I missed the resolution to the whole McClory saga

presumably Brocolli & Saltzman had the rights to those names through the 60s (but why? they were using them well before the Thunderball coproduction, as well as after), and lost them sometime between Diamonds are Forever and the Spy Who Loved Me, and then McClory had rights to enough intellectual properties to remake Thunderball

what else did MClory get that the series producers now have back again? is the cat intellectually copyrighted? anything else? and how did McClory get to use the names Bond, M, Q and Moneypenny? (come to think of it, Feldman did get to use all those names too)

(come to think of something else, they didnt actually use the name Blofeld in Thunderball, did they? only in films that werent called Thunderball, thats weird)

I know its a long and sordid story, but I feel like I'm missing some key info behind this new film, so itd be swell if some kind volunteer could fill me in, and I bet some other folks have missed those details too

Barbel

As you say, it IS a long story and has had at least one entire book written about it http://jamesbond.ajb007.co.uk/still-battling-over-bonds-legacy/. It unfolds over more than 50 years and even now some of the facts are in dispute. There are many threads here dealing with this subject, which I hope answer your questions- here are a few:

http://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/26837/what-exactly-was-nsna/ (especially Willie Garvin's reply)
http://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/41572/where-im-still-confused-with-mcclorys-properties/
http://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/28884/the-battle-for-bond-coming-on-18-june-2007/
http://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/45208/the-whole-fleming-mcclory-thing/
http://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/44430/real-villains-of-the-james-bond-series/
http://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/29701/kevin-mcclory/
http://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/28885/kevin-mcclory/

And a very brief coda: a few years after McClory's death in 2006, Danjaq came to a deal with his family.

caractacus potts

thanks for all those links, some well researched posts in amongst them
some contradictory stuff, but I gather McClory himself passed away some time ago, and it was just 2013 his estate decided to settle with the young Brocollis
(so the new movie was the immediate result, not part of a longterm game plan in the Craig films)
seems like a sad wasted life pursuing that one claim to the exclusion of all else, I sure hope as co-producer he was getting some royalties from Thunderball

of course now I have other questions...

for e.g., someone said Moonraker was one of the titles Brocolli/Saltzman did not originally have rights to, first time I heard that
is that true? I always thought it was weird that that Fleming story was left so late for adaptation, as its one of the most cinematic type thrillers Fleming wrote ... they left it til after the much weaker DaF and tMwtGG, the potentially racist LaLD, the title-only-but-not-the-story tSWLM, and almost did a book of short stories first ... but they did incorporate elements of Moonraker in a couple of the earlier films instead of just doing a proper adaptation
so is there a story about Moonraker rights?

Number24

I've never thought of it before, but calling the movie "Nine Eyes" (or some other good title) and hiding most of the hints about Blofeld and SPECTRE from the trailers would have been better. The way it is now, anyone with a passing knowldege of the series saw the great twist in the story beforehand.

Barbel

Fleming did do a deal re MR (no film resulted at that time) but the rights were back with him before he met Broccoli and Saltzman.

Virgil37

I wholeheartedly agree with Absolutely_Cart. And if they still wanted to use SPECTRE it should have been a matter of who Blofeld really was, build the whole plot around that idea, and come up with a surprise ending (C is really Blofeld, for instance, and Oberhauser is really an ally infiltrated in the organization). In any case don't show Waltz dressed in a Nerhu jacket in the teaser. I thought to myself "this is a distraction, he can't be Blofeld, it can't be so obvious...".
But all those Sony emails back and forth saying "we must find something for Blofeld to do" spelled disaster for the third act from day one, really. It's not an umitigated disaster, but a great opportunity lost.

zaphod99

At the big reveal moment I found myself thinking this is both completely predictable and who cares? (Apart from die hard Bond fans) As soon as I saw the title I thought ' oh no'. I was surprised that the film was as good as it is as my expectations were very low. The title added nothing and undermined any suspense in my view.

MR-9

Virgil37 wrote:

I wholeheartedly agree with Absolutely_Cart. And if they still wanted to use SPECTRE it should have been a matter of who Blofeld really was, build the whole plot around that idea, and come up with a surprise ending (C is really Blofeld, for instance, and Oberhauser is really an ally infiltrated in the organization). In any case don't show Waltz dressed in a Nerhu jacket in the teaser. I thought to myself "this is a distraction, he can't be Blofeld, it can't be so obvious...".
But all those Sony emails back and forth saying "we must find something for Blofeld to do" spelled disaster for the third act from day one, really. It's not an umitigated disaster, but a great opportunity lost.

Agree. I really misses those great one liner as title like You Only Live Twice, For Your Eyes Only, From Russia with Love, Live & Let Die, Die Another Day, Tomorrow Never Dies.

Considering the story line or dialog in the movie, I'd suggest the following ones...

Blast from the Past

Death Wears a Familiar Face

Kite Dancing in a Hurricane

The author of Your Pain

Living in the Shadows

A Hard Man to Kill

S for S_ _ c _ _ e [ ) ]

Lady Ice

Number24 wrote:

I've never thought of it before, but calling the movie "Nine Eyes" (or some other good title) and hiding most of the hints about Blofeld and SPECTRE from the trailers would have been better. The way it is now, anyone with a passing knowldege of the series saw the great twist in the story beforehand.

I can see why they called it Spectre because it gets people through the door. Of course once the film has been seen and the secret's out then the drama is dissipated but there's at least initially the possibility of a twist. Even those unfamiliar with SPECTRE will have heard from others roughly what it is and that it was a big part of the old films.

I quite like Nine Eyes; it's a little odd as a title but is very visual. And I do miss the titles of more than one word; maybe the one-word title is because audiences are deemed too lazy to remember anything longer and you don't want people to forget the title of the new film (Quantum of Solace is not an easily memorable title). There's no reason why they couldn't have cobbled together a more than one word title; all they need to do is find some decent keywords ('shadow' seems to be a big keyword in the Craig era, then you have a death-related keyword and to mix it up a bit, maybe add a romantic keyword- though not so it sounds like an erotic thriller) and then link them together. Good titles make a promise (for example, A View To A Kill guarantees that there will be an assassination) whereas weaker titles don't sound like they make a promise of something fun (would you see a film for the promise of 'solace'?).

Money-related titles I think would work quite well for upcoming films; something that promises luxury.

mr jenzie

initially story wise it was about "ghosts" from bond's past, and had no relation to the organisation itself

Blood_Stone

No, it was the right call in order to introduce millennial fans to SPECTRE. Besides, nobody was 100% sure Blofeld would be in it or not. Not even me.

Remington

How about The Eye That Never Sleeps for a title. It fits with the Nine Eyes plot and its from Fleming.