Dissecting the new SPECTRE TV spot

Bond fans received a welcome surprise on 9 June when, during Game 3 of the NBA finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors, viewers were treated to a new TV spot for SPECTRE. The TV spot began with footage used in the first teaser trailer before showing approximately 30 seconds of brand-new, never-before-seen footage.

Your humble correspondent, after watching this TV spot a dozen times in a row and jumping up and down in excitement, put together a quick frame-by-frame breakdown of the new SPECTRE footage shown in the last half of this TV spot. Once again, if you are averse to speculative rumours and are trying to remain as spoiler-free as possible for the movie, then please do not read any further!

Alright, now that we’ve got the disclaimers out of the way, let’s get started.

The TV spot starts with what is essentially an accelerated version of the teaser trailer, preserving most of the dialogue (albeit with all the dramatic pauses in-between removed). We get to see Moneypenny tell Bond about his personal effects from Skyfall again, along with Mr White’s “kite dancing in a hurricane” line, and Franz Oberhauser being menacing in the shadows. Then the good stuff begins.

The first new images we see are of Bond taking down some nameless foes in a snowy location (presumably Austria). This is not exactly new footage since we saw him doing the same thing from another angle at the very end of the Austria videoblog – but it’s a nice quick scene to begin the new footage.

Next we get a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot of Bond standing in what appears to be a place that’s under construction. Some kind of long red ribbon/tape stretches out in front of him, and the dirt wall has ropes and other long objects trailing down its length. There’s also a light which is flashing unsteadily somewhere in front of Bond.

Here’s Bond running through a crowd of people dressed in colourful costumes. This is very likely happening during the Day of the Dead pre-title sequence set in Mexico City, judging by the apparel of everyone apart from Bond. Who’s he chasing?

This guy – Alessandro Cremona, portraying Marco Sciarra according to IMDb. Note the surname, which he shares with Monica Bellucci’s character, Lucia (we’ll talk about her later). Also note the very serious head wound he seems to have in this scene; that’s quite a bit of blood.

Overall, I was reminded of the opening foot chase in Siena between Bond and Mitchell from Quantum of Solace when watching this part of the TV spot; both take place during some sort of parade/festival, both have Bond and his quarry running through a crowd, and they even seem to utilize the same sand-like colour scheme. Hopefully this one will be edited a bit more coherently, though.

Ben Whishaw as Q makes a brief appearance, in which he does the familiar trailer trope of turning around dramatically and looking at something in the distance with a concerned facial expression. The scene with him only lasts for a second but quickly pressing pause on the TV spot allows us to read the code on Q’s computer screen, namely the huge “FIREWALL BREACH – SYSTEM SHUTDOWN INITIATED – SECURITY ALERT” dialog in the middle. Will SPECTRE perhaps follow in the footsteps of its predecessor and have another scene where the villain(s) hack their way into MI6?

Q and his hacking is followed by some cool shots of the Aston Martin DB10 (presumably driven by Bond) zooming along a road somewhere, looking very sleek and aerodynamic. There’s a stunt where the DB10 goes over and through the roof of another car before landing smoothly again, which is neat. The surrounding buildings and cobblestone roads lead me to believe this is likely part of the Rome sequence, but we’ll see about that.

The first of our two obligatory “Bond getting intimate with a woman” scenes now occurs, between Bond and Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux). Bond clutches the sides of Madeleine’s face with his hands, and her hands caress his neck and the front of his shirt. Maybe she’s trying to tell him he’s too sexy for his shirt.

Interestingly enough, the lighting of this scene switches from darkness to dim light and back again at least twice, which implies that either the room itself is shaking or the scene is taking place on something that’s moving (since Bond and Madeleine are standing still). My guess is a train, since there were reports some time ago of Mendes and Craig filming scenes on a train in Morocco. It would also be fitting given all the other times Bond has gotten romantic with women on trains.

Bond and Madeleine’s pose here also reminds me of this scene from The Living Daylights between Bond and Kara Milovy. Even the way Seydoux’s hair is styled resembles that of Maryam D’abo’s, in a way. Perhaps it’s a subtle hint at the nature of their relationship in SPECTRE – or perhaps I am just reading far too much into this almost-kiss.

Now we get an extremely fast montage of stunts. I won’t break them all down since some of them are (for lack of a better word) generic, but there are a few I’d like to draw your attention to. The first is this one, in which somebody (could be Bond, but there is no way to tell at this point) jumps off a balcony for some reason. It looks like it’s the same room/building in which Franz Oberhauser (and all of his cronies) addressed Bond at the end of the teaser trailer, though.

Bond in a cockpit! Daniel Craig doing his best “intense piloting” acting here.

We also get to see the plane which Bond is flying, away from an explosion somewhere on a mountain. Presumably this is also taking place in Austria.

We get our first quick glimpse at just how badass Mr Hinx (Dave Bautista) can be as he apparently mauls somebody’s face before violently throwing them onto a table. Note the bloody thumb of Hinx; only his thumb is bloodied and not the rest of his hand.

We get another glimpse at the Aston Martin DB10, now being chased by the Jaguar C-X75. Their licence plates are hilariously uncreative. I was genuinely surprised though when the DB10 suddenly ejected fire from its exhaust ports and engulfed the C-X75 in flames. Hopefully we get to see more of what the car can do in the film.

Another blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot of Madeleine in the backseat of a car, looking behind her with great concern. It’s not the first time a shot like this has been used, either.

Note also the presence of Hinx in the background, sitting directly in front of Madeleine in the car. We know it’s Hinx because of this still featured in Empire Magazine sometime ago.

More stunts flash past our eyes in quick succession.

Nothing says James Bond like half of an airplane sledding down a snowy mountain. This could potentially be yet another callback to The Living Daylights although I surmise it won’t be as comedic.

The TV spot concludes with an exchange between Bond and Lucia Sciarra, portrayed by Monica Bellucci in all her glory. “If you don’t leave now, we will die together, Mr…?”

Bond delivers his famous introduction to Lucia as he presses her up against a full-length wall mirror. The delivery of “Bond, James Bond” this time around is extremely drawn-out, though, with very pronounced pauses in between each word for dramatic – or seductive – effect.

The usual title card finishes the TV spot, complete with octopus-shaped bullet hole.

Some final thoughts from your humble correspondent:

• This TV spot was a lot more globe-trotting than the teaser trailer. We got brief glimpses into what may be happening at each of the locations the production has filmed at so far (except Morocco, where filming is due to begin after filming in London concludes).
• If you ignore the first 30 seconds of the TV spot (namely, the destroyed MI6 building at Vauxhall Cross, and Mr White), then there is nothing in the new footage which indicates that SPECTRE has anything to do with Skyfall or the other Craig films. Perhaps it may be more of a standalone adventure than was previously assumed.
• We still haven’t seen Franz Oberhauser’s face yet. Maybe EON is saving that for the first full trailer.
• We also haven’t seen anything from Andrew Scott’s Denbigh. To date, he has not appeared in any of the promotional material or leaked set photos, aside from one still of him taken at the press conference in December 2014.
• It is still unclear which of the Bond “girls” – Madeleine Swann or Lucia Sciarra – is the primary Bond girl, based on the teaser trailer and this TV spot alone. Sciarra (probably because she’s played by such a famously beautiful actress) seems to be featured slightly more prominently in the trailers but that is not a reliable indication of how much screentime an actress will have in a Bond film. Compare Berenice Marlohe’s presence in the promotional material for Skyfall with the amount of screentime her character eventually ended up with.

Stay tuned to JBR for Tom’s (and possibly Chris’) reactions to the new TV spot. As always, don’t forget to tune in to the podcast and join the conversation on social media – we’d love to hear your reactions to new trailers as they are released.

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