The latest trailer for Spectre is out and I couldn't be more excited about the prospect of getting my analytical teeth into this film! I am keeping a close eye on the themes that are coming through in the marketing and pre-release material for the film and I await Spectre's arrival in cinemas to see how these themes then pan out in the film itself. My findings will be presented at IAFOR's concurrent conferences on Media & Mass Communication and Film & Documentary in Kobe, Japan in November.
So far it seems that the filmmakers have decided to build on some of the successful components of Skyfall such as the revival of classic Bond tropes - the gadget-laden Aston Martin, aerial shots of the iconic London landscape, a range of exotic destinations, several Bond girls and a good talking down to by the now male M. Spectre itself is a revival of the group of villains that were central to the plots of the early Bond films. However, it is the idea of Bond linking the Spectre villains and the return of Mr. White from Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace that I find most interesting - this sort of feels like a return to the ideas those films were setting up: that Bond's greatest enemy is actually a lot closer to home, with the possibility of some more Western corruption, rather than being a distinct foreign threat. This is a complete turnaround from Skyfall, which sought very much to celebrate a Great Great Britain thwarting the attempts of a psychotic foreign terrorist - an idea that sat nicely in the year of the London Olympics and the Queen's Jubilee. Now I am interested in the socio-political context that may have affected the turnaround for Spectre... and this is what I will be presenting in November.
Click on the image to watch the latest trailer for Spectre:
