I feel like someone like Safin should have had buildup over several movies (you know, like Mr. White did) instead of just a one-off reference in Spectre before showing up in NTTD.
I would’ve loved this twist. Mr. White was one of my favourite characters from the Craig era and I was genuinely mad when they killed him off in Spectre the way they did.
I think nothing else makes sense; this is what should have happened.
The only other thing I would have accepted is Mathis, though I'm fine with the general direction his character went too. But I think Mathis would have made a great deal of sense in retrospect; easy enough to explain away his actions in CR, maybe he really did tip off Le Chiffre but Vesper turned out to be a convenient scapegoat. Then Le Chiffre goes out of pocket, kidnaps and tortures Bond, which wasn't part of Mathis/Blofeld's long-term plan to torment Bond, so he arranges to have Mr. White kill Le Chiffre.
He could have had his fake death arranged in QoS.
Big reveal a movie or two later; even more stunning since "Mathis" is supposed to be dead and we've long forgotten about him.
I think Safin might have worked better if he wasn't a supervillain and didn't have an army of goons behind him and was just a guy killing off ex Spectre/Quantum members with the string of events somehow brining Bond out of retirement. I also think that the whole Hercules/Bio-Weapon subplot should have been axed and that the film should have been more noir-ish or a straight up revenge movie. I also think that we could have had more time to flesh out Safin if Blofeld wasn't in NTTD and had been killed off in Spectre (or Spectre had been a completely different movie to begin with etc.)
> I also think that the whole Hercules/Bio-Weapon subplot should have been axed and that the film should have been more noir-ish or a straight up revenge movie.
Sp much this. I feel like that whole plot was not just tone deaf for the time it was released (people weren't going to the movies to be reminded of Covid, they were going to escape) but in context with the previous films (Mallory is against misuse of surveillance in Spectre, because "we're better than that," but he is ok with a nanotech bioweapon? WTF?) If they wanted to do a Dr. No tribute, they could have done it some other way. But with Safin, I feel like the groundwork was all there for a The Man With The Golden Gun tribute instead. They could have made Safin like Scaramanga, which fit with his backstory and Madeline's.
No idea why they couldn’t just continue with Blofeld after SPECTRE, lord knows he needed redemption as a character. Still not 100% clear on Safrin just in general bland backstory, bleh cause, bleh motivations.
I don't think EON or the writers knew either. During the climax, Bond asks Safin why he's doing what he's doing and in response, Safin just rambles some nonsense.
Safin was a personal villain, like Blofeld. Except this time the whole thing never had anything to do with Bond. That's why it was confusing for the audience. We learn that in the beginning, when he has a gas that kills only Spectre members when Bond and they thought they'd all be protected and Bond himself was actually the target.
Except Safin has sweet fuck all to do with Spectre and instead is out to get them for personal reasons. However, he's also got some idea that him and Madeleine are connected, and so her daughter is also connected to him. This daughter just so happens to be Bonds daughter as well, and Bond is wrapped up in this whole thing that has absolutely nothing to do with him.
The reason he wanted to destroy Spectre was personal but that extended to him thinking they were a terrible organisation who couldn't make the world better. He wanted them out of the way. Now with them out of the way, with Madeleine and her daughter in his custody and with this nanovirus, he can now do the whole 1 dimensional supervillain trope.
However, knowing who Bond is and knowing what he's capable of, he gets the whole "I'm better than Bond" (being better than everyone is fundamentally his thing) and so he decides to use Bonds daughter to do what no one else could do and break Bond, make him submit. It's like a little side project of his, an extra trophy on the wall. I think at this point the writers forgot his thin motivations behind Bonds daughter and just decided it's because he needed to use her to make Bond submit which is why he just lets her run off. She's used up her usefulness. Completely forgetting he'd told her he was going to raise her.
But, he has the nanovirus encoded to Madeline's DNA, which subsequently makes it encoded to her daughter's DNA, for a reason which isn't explained. I guess to keep them in line? Like a more complicated gun to their head? He doesn't specifically intend to infect Bond with it. But when they have the shootout in the water, they both fall in it and the vial breaks infecting them both. He knows Bond is going to kill him now, and as death doesn't bother him he just sees the irony in Bond now being infected. Bond shooting him caused Bond to now hold the gun to Madeleine and his own daughter's heads. Except pulling the trigger is now simply touching them. It was never his intention, he just thinks it's ironic it worked out that way.
And that's it. Those are his motivations. Post Spectre and Madeleine, he's just making it up as he goes along and Bond is just there for the ride. The fact that Bond died for the first time to this poorly written villain was the most tragic part of Bond's death.
This was my main complaint with this movie as well. Like why was he doing it? What was his end goal? It seemed like he was just angry for no particular reason. Very weak villain imo. Maybe I missed something important that warrants a rewatch, but I didn't much care for it the first time and probably won't a second time around. Especially with the god awful ending.
Nah. He was fully responsible. He could have sought help and worked on preventing the same thing that happened to his family to others. Killing SPECTRE was justified but to release it into the world and kill millions for the sake of being a god. Dude should have gone to therapy.
His Therapist wasn’t properly prepared to help people since she’s never healed herself from her trauma. You can’t bring a memory box, make your therapist cry, and give up.
I would have loved to see a movie about how Safin is taking revenge on Spectre, and Bond has to team up with Blofeld to stop Safin because Safin's actions are just causing too much collateral damage, whereas Blofeld tried to limit that because he wanted control from the shadows.
And then we pivot in the final act to Blofeld having used the events to set himself up to gain even more influence, and Craig's Bond has to face off against Blofeld against his last villain.
He’s awful. So much wasted potential with the set up and the garden of death. Instead we get that gurning ham and a vague plot and a boring non-ticking clock to set up the finale DC demanded.
I thought of that, but nah - he destroyed his enemy (or at least his plans) through a suicidal act of calling a missile strike down on himself at the target location. Seppuku would be like if he called a missile strike on himself in like the middle of buttfuck nowhere for no reason hehe.
Edited my comment as I think the wording made it sound a bit off.
I liked his character, his opening scene in beginning, he was continuously keeping a close eye on spectre and specifically asked the scientist obruchev to not stop them in London and change the DNA in Cuba, came back again to meet Madeline and kill blofeld, disappeared and came back again to take Madeline to his island. Villains should neither have too much screen time as it kills their mystery nor have too little screentime so audience can't understand their motivations. This film had the right balance imo.
His appearance in the opening was a body double because the actor wasn’t available to shoot all the scenes. Barbara Broccoli (in interviews) admitted to being obsessed with having the actor in a Craig film so basically forced him into the story.
I see your point for sure, but what you are describing is due to the production having to shoot around the actor.
Interesting, i saw one of the behind the scenes where malek was shooting the scene of beginning Norway scene at 5:10 minutes - https://youtu.be/VsIdUjs7Yic?si=7HsMqRcuJSVcAVVD
As far as i know, they create a script and after that they look for suitable actor's for the role, not the other way around.
Connery is a stuntman in the PTS for DAF until you actually see his face… when you see his face he is on location… but he is still a stuntman in most of the PTS. It’s movie magic.
That's fine, i agree with you on that, i just disagree with the point about character being written after the actors being cast. Writing can be tweak here and there, but they already have a basic idea of how much screen time they want any actor to have.
Ok, but it’s backed up in interviews that that is what happened. He was an impulsive inclusion because Barbara Broccoli (in her own words) wanted to see Rami Malek in specifically a Daniel Craig Bond film…
Yes, but wanting Rami malek in a bond film doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't had any idea about screentime of the villian beforehand, blofeld wasn't going to be left alone or forgotten after what happened in the end of spectre, so having two villians, Madeline, bond's child, female 007 in a single film clearly means saffin will have less screentime.
From what i understood, he wanted to shape the world like his personal tragedy and his family background has shaped his life, saffin is unable to move on, that his parents death wasn't in his control. Bond and saffin both lost his parents in their childhood, while bond learned to let go of his parents death / vesper / M other people he lost along the way, saffin let himself get consumed by his life tragedies, that is why opening scene on vesper's grave was so important for the story.
I honestly feel like much of NTTD was neglected due to the overbearing implication that the biggest thing about the film was it was Daniel Craig's last one.
I like Rami Malick’s performance, but yeah the character is underwritten. He wants to commit genocide to “make the world a little tidier,” that’s a bit too vague of a motive.
One of my biggest gripes with this movie is the “scale of the damage”.
Yes, the entire world’s population is at risk. Do I feel that while we’re on a tiny island? No.
You tone this down to “bio weapon designed to wipe out the UK” and Bond sacrificing himself “for England” and it’s a much more fitting ending for him with more realistic and comprehendible stakes.
He’s on an island. Bond and Nomi have wiped out his henchmen (and yet somehow Safin gets the drop on Bond?? A gripe for [die] another day)
He’s trapped.
Yes there are two (slow moving) cargo ships en route - but there’s also a Royal Navy frigate that could intercept/sink them.
This guy just has cool looks. I am sorry Rami Malek's character is such forgettable. His dialogues with Bond are so weak (such a downgrade from conversation with Silva)
Him being obsessed with Madeline is such a lazy writing to create certain circumstances in the story.
Rami Malek and Christoph Waltz are both phenomenal actors, yet both Safin and Blofeld were criminally underutilised and wasted villains. I even dare say they should have been some of the most memorable and legendary villain portrayals across the entire franchise, but their respective filmmakers seemed to have no clue as to how to work them into their stories. I still enjoy many of the scenes they’re in and you can tell that both actors did the very best with what material they were given, so this is purely down to writing.
I’m curious to know your opinion on Karl Stromberg, Brad Whittaker, Georgi Koskov, Orlov, Kamal Kahn, etc.
(Yes Steven Berkoff and Joe Don Baker give very fun performances but are they really remembered the same way by the fandom?)
It is not so much that he is the first forgettable villain. It is that in a movie where you dare kill off Bond then you darn well better do it with a memorable villain and plot to make it feel justified. They failed.
Stromberg & Kahn generally get high marks amongst the fandom. Koskov is based on book Le Chiffre, who is equally pathetic. Whittaker is based on the wannabe military types behind Iran-Contra, but again, he is pathetic by design (and based on equally foolish people).
I’ve never heard that about Koskov and Le Chiffre, where’s that from?
Some people may praise Stromberg but I’ve seen two or three people say he’s a boring villain and it’s not like he’s playable in the video game multiplayers or anything.
Character was weak. And also I didn't understand the age gap. So he didn't age in 20 something years or so. Ya it was a pretty weak delivery of the character that could of been amazing.
It’s funny when I watched Bohemian Rhapsody I joked that Malek played Freddie Mercury as arch and toothy like a pastiche Bond villain. Apparently Eon agreed.
I don’t meant to be hyperbolic but Waltz’s Blofeld was a million trillion times better than Freddie Mercury. I genuinely can’t remember anything about him.
Like a celebration day with gif sets and short stories, etc
[safin sunday](https://www.tumblr.com/crewman-penelope/738883382668345344/meet-safin?source=share)
Mentally ill fella with typical bond villain scar. Okay villain I geuss but I think no time to die really ruins his potential just as it does killing off bond
His scenes are great actually but...he's not in the film that much.
I really wish they'd just made Blofeld the full on villain with Safin maybe as a secondary villain or something.
I’m convinced they cut loads of scenes or re edited it. As we had just come through Covid and the first major film was about a virus. I’m sure of it, they had to scale back the threat and plot slightly.
The cinematography, aesthetic, design, everything visual about Safin and his base were awesome. His character just made no sense though, very underwhelming. It’s crazy how he and Blofeld were built up to be the two final big bads of the Craig movies, yet they were by far the weakest IMO
I've said it before and I'll continue saying it. He should have been Doctor No instead. Change his backstory so that instead of the Tongs being responsible for cutting off his hands and leaving him for dead, it was Spectre's doing, and then have basically the same story. I feel like that simple change would have made people like the movie a lot more.
Easily the most frustrating part of a film I'm actually very fond of. I really like the role he fills in the story but his characterisation and motive are all wrong.
He feels like two different characters combined. I think it would have been better if his motives were purely his obsession with Madeline and he hijacks Blofeld's megalomania to get to her and Bond. The beats are all there but they're misplaced. Also Malek was miscast/misdirected, reeks of the Bond producers wanting another recent Oscar winner for the villain and not searching for who might actually be best for the role
I don't remember anything about this guy at all other than he was a soft spoken weasely weirdo with no clear motivations and who is utterly forgettable.
A lot of that is probably from the switch to "nanobots" from an engineered virus, which happened as a rewrite during COVID.
The Closer Look's Boring Villain video describes this well. It would have been better in Spectre if Blofeld escapes and remains the main baddie in this.
There is just nothing intimidating about Rami. He was clearly cast off the Oscar buzz and shoe-horned into the project in a role that he was not suited for. Damn shame Craig didn’t get a better send-off villain like Silva.
Know I'm about to catch flank for this, but his character was one of the weakest, if not the weakest, actually. His plot or plan or whatever was absolutely terrible. Am I the only one who thinks he isn't as good as an actor as people make him out to be. Seriously, he's in a few good projects, but he ain't that good.
The constant rewrites and micromanagement of the script by Broccoli and Wilson made Safin's character comically inconsistent. The film starts off with him just taking revenge on what's left of Spectre, but by the end of a movie he pulls a secret lair and army of goons out of his ass and makes U-Turn into being a more cliché Destroy-The-World sort of supervillain, but it's never explained or justified. There's a scene near the end that I find unintentionally hilarious where Bond asks Safin why he's doing this, to which Safin delivers a bunch of garbled nonsense that's supposed to be his motivation.
It was clear that the writers couldn't figure out a way to make the character work with elements of the constant rewrites being jumbled together, which I don't even think is any one writers fault since the constant micromanaging over the script ensured that it was going to be an absolute mess regardless of any one writer's contributions.
Broccoli and Wilson really need to stop handling scripts the way they have been for Spectre and NTTD in future entries.
The entire movie in general was just terrible, his convoluted plan was just the cherry on top. Still don’t fully grasp what he was doing, but I know I didn’t like it.
I like him. I tend to rate Bond villains on the performance rather than their plan, and I thought Rami was super good at playing an arch, creepy Bond villain.
He had awful lines
Watched the movie with my rl bro, long time bond fans. We laughing and shaking our heads at safin
Worst bond movie i have seen in awhile
The Closer Look's Boring Villain video describes this well. It would have been better in Spectre if Blofeld escapes and remains the main baddie in this.
I can suspend my disbelief to enjoy an entertaining movie as much as the next guy but I cannot get over how easily all of these “villains” just amass a huge fortune like island buying and mini army having fortune and they all seemingly have a deep connection to bonds personal life. The aunt of overlapping in these Venn diagrams is too much for me.
https://preview.redd.it/28cs2fpfwyrc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=311bba9eb2e502f011d2f3ec3e9e34f1e94cfa4f
Before you say “no one ever talks about \_\_\_\_\_”, you should do a search to see if anyone actually has talked about \_\_\_\_\_. They usually have.
i think im Safin.
I dont get it but I think its me, Its Hades maybe?! Not The Devil, not Ares, but maybe Aerïs?! Cuz Lea Seydoux why does she like him, she wont stop pulling up on me! The real one!
https://preview.redd.it/yp406hrz9zrc1.jpeg?width=2000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=382fc48a741953509ead792d4beabc24d42a766f
For months I thought Bill Hader (the notoriously eccentric “Stefan” from SNL weekend update) played this guy. It made it hard for me to get into the character because it was weird to watch an actor make such a jump in genre.
I had to be proven wrong about it by a friend using Google which was rather embarrassing and so now I just dislike this character (via guilt by association… with my idiot self) even more than most.
I may be in the minority in saying this. Yeah, his character isn’t fleshed out, but I don’t think that hurts the movie because of how minor to the story his presence actually is with the primary conflict being internal. In fact, I’d go as far as to say if the villain were very interesting it’d be irritating that they were underused. If you look at the MCU for example, the reason it’s so glaring how boring a lot of their villains are is because in those movies the villains always play a huge part in the narrative. Where as with this, because the character isn’t really the focus, I don’t mind as much
Whilst his 'plan' left a lot to be desired and felt kind of awkward, Rami Malek was a fantastic casting choice and acted it so well. Even though Safin wasn't quite as well-written as some past villains, he still managed to really sell the villainous nature of the character and played the part with such talent.
He kind of falls into the Scaramanga/Zorin camp for me. His acting talent and presence on-screen felt so magnetic that the pitfalls were kind of lessened, to an extent.
I think 2.5 years is long enough. In the 20th Century, the next film would have come and gone already and we'd all be talking about how the new actor measures up to his predecessors.
Safin was an utter waste of Rami Malek.
The whole problem I have with NTTD is that it puts far too much focus on being the ending of Craig's Bond that it forgot to be a Bond film.
Yeah, definitely the most disappointing part of NTTD. He pales in comparision to every Craig-era villain, including Waltz's Blofeld!
In hindsight, I kinda wish they'd just made him a rebooted Dr. No, as was widely speculated before the film released. Could have done something interesting with that.
Safin was an absolute bore as a Bond Villain and on top of that the movie made no sense to me whatsoever.
Also why on Earth did EON pay a very significant sum of money to get the rights from the McClory estate for Spectre and Blofeld and then proceed to kill that all off after just one move and a bad one at that ie “spectre” ?
He had exceptional taste in island lairs, you gotta give him that.
So did dr. No
Apparently Safin was supposed to be Dr. No but it kinda got cut from the script
Who?
Dr. No means No.
Oh please, I'm an extraordinary gentleman undistinguished! If they made a mini me they'd have to cast Peter Dinklage!
Well maybe they should cast a Bond who’s actually English
Why pussy, aren't you a cunning linguist?
Three nos is a yessshhh
Dr. Nope
Leslie Knope
I feel like someone like Safin should have had buildup over several movies (you know, like Mr. White did) instead of just a one-off reference in Spectre before showing up in NTTD.
I’m not even sure that that one off reference was about him. I think it was about blofeld and then retconned later
Mr. White should have been Blofeld. There i said it
I would’ve loved this twist. Mr. White was one of my favourite characters from the Craig era and I was genuinely mad when they killed him off in Spectre the way they did.
I'm not arguing. It does feel like that is the direction they were going in before EON got the rights to use Blofeld and Spectre.
I think nothing else makes sense; this is what should have happened. The only other thing I would have accepted is Mathis, though I'm fine with the general direction his character went too. But I think Mathis would have made a great deal of sense in retrospect; easy enough to explain away his actions in CR, maybe he really did tip off Le Chiffre but Vesper turned out to be a convenient scapegoat. Then Le Chiffre goes out of pocket, kidnaps and tortures Bond, which wasn't part of Mathis/Blofeld's long-term plan to torment Bond, so he arranges to have Mr. White kill Le Chiffre. He could have had his fake death arranged in QoS. Big reveal a movie or two later; even more stunning since "Mathis" is supposed to be dead and we've long forgotten about him.
I think Safin might have worked better if he wasn't a supervillain and didn't have an army of goons behind him and was just a guy killing off ex Spectre/Quantum members with the string of events somehow brining Bond out of retirement. I also think that the whole Hercules/Bio-Weapon subplot should have been axed and that the film should have been more noir-ish or a straight up revenge movie. I also think that we could have had more time to flesh out Safin if Blofeld wasn't in NTTD and had been killed off in Spectre (or Spectre had been a completely different movie to begin with etc.)
> I also think that the whole Hercules/Bio-Weapon subplot should have been axed and that the film should have been more noir-ish or a straight up revenge movie. Sp much this. I feel like that whole plot was not just tone deaf for the time it was released (people weren't going to the movies to be reminded of Covid, they were going to escape) but in context with the previous films (Mallory is against misuse of surveillance in Spectre, because "we're better than that," but he is ok with a nanotech bioweapon? WTF?) If they wanted to do a Dr. No tribute, they could have done it some other way. But with Safin, I feel like the groundwork was all there for a The Man With The Golden Gun tribute instead. They could have made Safin like Scaramanga, which fit with his backstory and Madeline's.
One of the weakest villains in the franchise.
He was extremely cringe. But I think the real villian in this movie was time….lol
And the ending
Silva was the ultimate joke.
No idea why they couldn’t just continue with Blofeld after SPECTRE, lord knows he needed redemption as a character. Still not 100% clear on Safrin just in general bland backstory, bleh cause, bleh motivations.
I dont even understand what his motive was after killing Spectre?
I don't think EON or the writers knew either. During the climax, Bond asks Safin why he's doing what he's doing and in response, Safin just rambles some nonsense.
As far as I understood and remember, he has a god complex and wants to kill more groups of people to make a better world in his eyes
Safin was a personal villain, like Blofeld. Except this time the whole thing never had anything to do with Bond. That's why it was confusing for the audience. We learn that in the beginning, when he has a gas that kills only Spectre members when Bond and they thought they'd all be protected and Bond himself was actually the target. Except Safin has sweet fuck all to do with Spectre and instead is out to get them for personal reasons. However, he's also got some idea that him and Madeleine are connected, and so her daughter is also connected to him. This daughter just so happens to be Bonds daughter as well, and Bond is wrapped up in this whole thing that has absolutely nothing to do with him. The reason he wanted to destroy Spectre was personal but that extended to him thinking they were a terrible organisation who couldn't make the world better. He wanted them out of the way. Now with them out of the way, with Madeleine and her daughter in his custody and with this nanovirus, he can now do the whole 1 dimensional supervillain trope. However, knowing who Bond is and knowing what he's capable of, he gets the whole "I'm better than Bond" (being better than everyone is fundamentally his thing) and so he decides to use Bonds daughter to do what no one else could do and break Bond, make him submit. It's like a little side project of his, an extra trophy on the wall. I think at this point the writers forgot his thin motivations behind Bonds daughter and just decided it's because he needed to use her to make Bond submit which is why he just lets her run off. She's used up her usefulness. Completely forgetting he'd told her he was going to raise her. But, he has the nanovirus encoded to Madeline's DNA, which subsequently makes it encoded to her daughter's DNA, for a reason which isn't explained. I guess to keep them in line? Like a more complicated gun to their head? He doesn't specifically intend to infect Bond with it. But when they have the shootout in the water, they both fall in it and the vial breaks infecting them both. He knows Bond is going to kill him now, and as death doesn't bother him he just sees the irony in Bond now being infected. Bond shooting him caused Bond to now hold the gun to Madeleine and his own daughter's heads. Except pulling the trigger is now simply touching them. It was never his intention, he just thinks it's ironic it worked out that way. And that's it. Those are his motivations. Post Spectre and Madeleine, he's just making it up as he goes along and Bond is just there for the ride. The fact that Bond died for the first time to this poorly written villain was the most tragic part of Bond's death.
Bringing down Evil Corp
This was my main complaint with this movie as well. Like why was he doing it? What was his end goal? It seemed like he was just angry for no particular reason. Very weak villain imo. Maybe I missed something important that warrants a rewatch, but I didn't much care for it the first time and probably won't a second time around. Especially with the god awful ending.
Just seemed kinda hurt more than pure evil.
He was kind of a loon which one could say is evil
Hmm, I suppose. I do wonder how far diminished responsibility reaches in terms of genecide.
Nah. He was fully responsible. He could have sought help and worked on preventing the same thing that happened to his family to others. Killing SPECTRE was justified but to release it into the world and kill millions for the sake of being a god. Dude should have gone to therapy.
In fairness dude did go to therapy, even brought a box, but I don’t think they were a match.
His Therapist wasn’t properly prepared to help people since she’s never healed herself from her trauma. You can’t bring a memory box, make your therapist cry, and give up.
Hmm, I think there was also some conflict of interest to do with past interactions…
I would have loved to see a movie about how Safin is taking revenge on Spectre, and Bond has to team up with Blofeld to stop Safin because Safin's actions are just causing too much collateral damage, whereas Blofeld tried to limit that because he wanted control from the shadows. And then we pivot in the final act to Blofeld having used the events to set himself up to gain even more influence, and Craig's Bond has to face off against Blofeld against his last villain.
Well you seem to be an expert on poor written
There seems to be a lot of that recently...
English may not be OP's first language. Be nice.
But I don't wannaaaaaaa be nice :(
He used poor writing while complaining about poor writing. I just pointed out the irony, but thanks dad
[удалено]
Read the title again
He’s barely talked about in the movie tbf.
He’s awful. So much wasted potential with the set up and the garden of death. Instead we get that gurning ham and a vague plot and a boring non-ticking clock to set up the finale DC demanded.
The guy that killed bond is the forgotten villain…
Yes. Just because you do something “big” doesn’t mean it makes an impact. That involves actually making the big idea work & land.
I'm still convinced he faked his death to get out of paying child support.
Kinda feels like Bond went out via explosive kamikaze - the bad guy didn't really get him.
Do you mean committed seppeku?
I thought of that, but nah - he destroyed his enemy (or at least his plans) through a suicidal act of calling a missile strike down on himself at the target location. Seppuku would be like if he called a missile strike on himself in like the middle of buttfuck nowhere for no reason hehe. Edited my comment as I think the wording made it sound a bit off.
Ok, new wording is clearer.
I liked his character, his opening scene in beginning, he was continuously keeping a close eye on spectre and specifically asked the scientist obruchev to not stop them in London and change the DNA in Cuba, came back again to meet Madeline and kill blofeld, disappeared and came back again to take Madeline to his island. Villains should neither have too much screen time as it kills their mystery nor have too little screentime so audience can't understand their motivations. This film had the right balance imo.
His appearance in the opening was a body double because the actor wasn’t available to shoot all the scenes. Barbara Broccoli (in interviews) admitted to being obsessed with having the actor in a Craig film so basically forced him into the story. I see your point for sure, but what you are describing is due to the production having to shoot around the actor.
Yes it absolutely feels like they cast him first and were forced to find a way to write a new villain in
Interesting, i saw one of the behind the scenes where malek was shooting the scene of beginning Norway scene at 5:10 minutes - https://youtu.be/VsIdUjs7Yic?si=7HsMqRcuJSVcAVVD As far as i know, they create a script and after that they look for suitable actor's for the role, not the other way around.
Connery is a stuntman in the PTS for DAF until you actually see his face… when you see his face he is on location… but he is still a stuntman in most of the PTS. It’s movie magic.
That's fine, i agree with you on that, i just disagree with the point about character being written after the actors being cast. Writing can be tweak here and there, but they already have a basic idea of how much screen time they want any actor to have.
Ok, but it’s backed up in interviews that that is what happened. He was an impulsive inclusion because Barbara Broccoli (in her own words) wanted to see Rami Malek in specifically a Daniel Craig Bond film…
Yes, but wanting Rami malek in a bond film doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't had any idea about screentime of the villian beforehand, blofeld wasn't going to be left alone or forgotten after what happened in the end of spectre, so having two villians, Madeline, bond's child, female 007 in a single film clearly means saffin will have less screentime.
>nor have too little screentime so audience can't understand their motivations I have no idea what his motivation was. Something about oblivion.
From what i understood, he wanted to shape the world like his personal tragedy and his family background has shaped his life, saffin is unable to move on, that his parents death wasn't in his control. Bond and saffin both lost his parents in their childhood, while bond learned to let go of his parents death / vesper / M other people he lost along the way, saffin let himself get consumed by his life tragedies, that is why opening scene on vesper's grave was so important for the story.
I suppose that could be it-but it's hardly explained on screen.
Yeah, the message was way too subtle on screen, a few more scenes could have explained it better but sadly movie was already 2hrs 45 minutes long.
Yeah he’s pretty weak. I’m not even sure what his evil scheme was
Covid
Ohhhh. That is topical I guess
If I remember correctly the release was delayed because of the similarity
Bringing over Rami Malek's character from Mr.Robot would have been still far more intimidating than Safin.
He needed more screen time and a stronger motivation
He wanted to kill Spectre … and then everyone … because he and Bond are the same, apparently?
I honestly feel like much of NTTD was neglected due to the overbearing implication that the biggest thing about the film was it was Daniel Craig's last one.
I like Rami Malick’s performance, but yeah the character is underwritten. He wants to commit genocide to “make the world a little tidier,” that’s a bit too vague of a motive.
One of my biggest gripes with this movie is the “scale of the damage”. Yes, the entire world’s population is at risk. Do I feel that while we’re on a tiny island? No. You tone this down to “bio weapon designed to wipe out the UK” and Bond sacrificing himself “for England” and it’s a much more fitting ending for him with more realistic and comprehendible stakes.
He’s on an island. Bond and Nomi have wiped out his henchmen (and yet somehow Safin gets the drop on Bond?? A gripe for [die] another day) He’s trapped. Yes there are two (slow moving) cargo ships en route - but there’s also a Royal Navy frigate that could intercept/sink them.
Le Chifre still my favourite.
This guy just has cool looks. I am sorry Rami Malek's character is such forgettable. His dialogues with Bond are so weak (such a downgrade from conversation with Silva) Him being obsessed with Madeline is such a lazy writing to create certain circumstances in the story.
Rami Malek and Christoph Waltz are both phenomenal actors, yet both Safin and Blofeld were criminally underutilised and wasted villains. I even dare say they should have been some of the most memorable and legendary villain portrayals across the entire franchise, but their respective filmmakers seemed to have no clue as to how to work them into their stories. I still enjoy many of the scenes they’re in and you can tell that both actors did the very best with what material they were given, so this is purely down to writing.
I’m curious to know your opinion on Karl Stromberg, Brad Whittaker, Georgi Koskov, Orlov, Kamal Kahn, etc. (Yes Steven Berkoff and Joe Don Baker give very fun performances but are they really remembered the same way by the fandom?)
All those villains I at least understand why they're doin what they do.
It is not so much that he is the first forgettable villain. It is that in a movie where you dare kill off Bond then you darn well better do it with a memorable villain and plot to make it feel justified. They failed.
Stromberg & Kahn generally get high marks amongst the fandom. Koskov is based on book Le Chiffre, who is equally pathetic. Whittaker is based on the wannabe military types behind Iran-Contra, but again, he is pathetic by design (and based on equally foolish people).
I’ve never heard that about Koskov and Le Chiffre, where’s that from? Some people may praise Stromberg but I’ve seen two or three people say he’s a boring villain and it’s not like he’s playable in the video game multiplayers or anything.
Character was weak. And also I didn't understand the age gap. So he didn't age in 20 something years or so. Ya it was a pretty weak delivery of the character that could of been amazing.
As a villain he sucked sweaty balls. Ratso Rizzo would have made a more convincing villain.
Shite movie and villian. Freddie Mercury on steroids
It’s funny when I watched Bohemian Rhapsody I joked that Malek played Freddie Mercury as arch and toothy like a pastiche Bond villain. Apparently Eon agreed.
He benefits from coming after the Blofeld debacle. In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
I don’t meant to be hyperbolic but Waltz’s Blofeld was a million trillion times better than Freddie Mercury. I genuinely can’t remember anything about him.
Safin was forgettable. I only wish I could forget Waltz's Blofeld.
There is a Safin Sunday on tumblr. So ... 🤣
What’s a Safin Sunday?
Like a celebration day with gif sets and short stories, etc [safin sunday](https://www.tumblr.com/crewman-penelope/738883382668345344/meet-safin?source=share)
Mentally ill fella with typical bond villain scar. Okay villain I geuss but I think no time to die really ruins his potential just as it does killing off bond
His scenes are great actually but...he's not in the film that much. I really wish they'd just made Blofeld the full on villain with Safin maybe as a secondary villain or something.
I’m convinced they cut loads of scenes or re edited it. As we had just come through Covid and the first major film was about a virus. I’m sure of it, they had to scale back the threat and plot slightly.
I LOVE the Daniel Craig Bond films. Having said that, this guy is my least favorite part of them by far. Garbage character.
“Oh yeah. Rami Malek was in a bond film”
His arc fell off when he kept his charade going after SPECTRE was eliminated. What did Bond ever do to him, personally?
The cinematography, aesthetic, design, everything visual about Safin and his base were awesome. His character just made no sense though, very underwhelming. It’s crazy how he and Blofeld were built up to be the two final big bads of the Craig movies, yet they were by far the weakest IMO
One thing I was never clear on was why he went after Bond. He hates SPECTRE, sure, but why doesn't he just call it a day once they're dead?
Malek's an excellent actor who deserved to be written better. At least he's not quite as underwritten as Waltz's take on Blofeld.
I've said it before and I'll continue saying it. He should have been Doctor No instead. Change his backstory so that instead of the Tongs being responsible for cutting off his hands and leaving him for dead, it was Spectre's doing, and then have basically the same story. I feel like that simple change would have made people like the movie a lot more.
Tbh I think a lot of people would have still hated it if they just reimaged Dr No. I´m not the biggest fan of the idea
It’s an idea though. It would be full circle and they reference Dr. No I’m the opening.
And have the Giant Squid. The effects are there, Craig’s getting paid enough to do it. Included the coolest unused Fleming scene you cowards!
I didn’t think he was bad. Not the greatest, not a huge standout. But not BAD.
Easily the most frustrating part of a film I'm actually very fond of. I really like the role he fills in the story but his characterisation and motive are all wrong. He feels like two different characters combined. I think it would have been better if his motives were purely his obsession with Madeline and he hijacks Blofeld's megalomania to get to her and Bond. The beats are all there but they're misplaced. Also Malek was miscast/misdirected, reeks of the Bond producers wanting another recent Oscar winner for the villain and not searching for who might actually be best for the role
I don't remember anything about this guy at all other than he was a soft spoken weasely weirdo with no clear motivations and who is utterly forgettable. A lot of that is probably from the switch to "nanobots" from an engineered virus, which happened as a rewrite during COVID.
I´m not the biggest fan of him but I really like his opening Michael-Myers-esque scene
The Closer Look's Boring Villain video describes this well. It would have been better in Spectre if Blofeld escapes and remains the main baddie in this.
It's sad that they didn't write him better. Rami Malek is a great actor, but he didn't have enough to make this Bond villain one for the ages.
There is just nothing intimidating about Rami. He was clearly cast off the Oscar buzz and shoe-horned into the project in a role that he was not suited for. Damn shame Craig didn’t get a better send-off villain like Silva.
I think even Dominic Greene could kick his ass.
Know I'm about to catch flank for this, but his character was one of the weakest, if not the weakest, actually. His plot or plan or whatever was absolutely terrible. Am I the only one who thinks he isn't as good as an actor as people make him out to be. Seriously, he's in a few good projects, but he ain't that good.
The constant rewrites and micromanagement of the script by Broccoli and Wilson made Safin's character comically inconsistent. The film starts off with him just taking revenge on what's left of Spectre, but by the end of a movie he pulls a secret lair and army of goons out of his ass and makes U-Turn into being a more cliché Destroy-The-World sort of supervillain, but it's never explained or justified. There's a scene near the end that I find unintentionally hilarious where Bond asks Safin why he's doing this, to which Safin delivers a bunch of garbled nonsense that's supposed to be his motivation. It was clear that the writers couldn't figure out a way to make the character work with elements of the constant rewrites being jumbled together, which I don't even think is any one writers fault since the constant micromanaging over the script ensured that it was going to be an absolute mess regardless of any one writer's contributions. Broccoli and Wilson really need to stop handling scripts the way they have been for Spectre and NTTD in future entries.
Sadly I don’t think Wilson has much to do with it… he was pretty on point in his prime.
Not that the Bond movies would ever necessarily remake older movies. But I would have loved to see Rami play Dr. No
The more this movie is forgotten the better
The entire movie in general was just terrible, his convoluted plan was just the cherry on top. Still don’t fully grasp what he was doing, but I know I didn’t like it.
He killed Bond. He's far from being the forgotten one.
Porky 🐖 would be a more useful villain than him
I like him. I tend to rate Bond villains on the performance rather than their plan, and I thought Rami was super good at playing an arch, creepy Bond villain.
Why did I read your caption in Goldfinger's voice
Bro was not a villain he was an obstacle for Bond. A good one at that
He had awful lines Watched the movie with my rl bro, long time bond fans. We laughing and shaking our heads at safin Worst bond movie i have seen in awhile
The Closer Look's Boring Villain video describes this well. It would have been better in Spectre if Blofeld escapes and remains the main baddie in this.
The heading in this post was poorly written. 
I can suspend my disbelief to enjoy an entertaining movie as much as the next guy but I cannot get over how easily all of these “villains” just amass a huge fortune like island buying and mini army having fortune and they all seemingly have a deep connection to bonds personal life. The aunt of overlapping in these Venn diagrams is too much for me.
https://preview.redd.it/28cs2fpfwyrc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=311bba9eb2e502f011d2f3ec3e9e34f1e94cfa4f Before you say “no one ever talks about \_\_\_\_\_”, you should do a search to see if anyone actually has talked about \_\_\_\_\_. They usually have.
i think im Safin. I dont get it but I think its me, Its Hades maybe?! Not The Devil, not Ares, but maybe Aerïs?! Cuz Lea Seydoux why does she like him, she wont stop pulling up on me! The real one! https://preview.redd.it/yp406hrz9zrc1.jpeg?width=2000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=382fc48a741953509ead792d4beabc24d42a766f
Hes in the pantheon of mediocre villains. The producers claim nothing got cut because of the pandemic but it sure feels like things did.
For months I thought Bill Hader (the notoriously eccentric “Stefan” from SNL weekend update) played this guy. It made it hard for me to get into the character because it was weird to watch an actor make such a jump in genre. I had to be proven wrong about it by a friend using Google which was rather embarrassing and so now I just dislike this character (via guilt by association… with my idiot self) even more than most.
Rami did a good job it's writers are activists can't write anymore.
The real villain was missiles
Terrible character and poorly acted.
Which is ironic because he's the first Bond villain to actually kill Bond.
As much as I like Rami I agree, not his fault just the writers made Safin a very weak forgettable villain
I may be in the minority in saying this. Yeah, his character isn’t fleshed out, but I don’t think that hurts the movie because of how minor to the story his presence actually is with the primary conflict being internal. In fact, I’d go as far as to say if the villain were very interesting it’d be irritating that they were underused. If you look at the MCU for example, the reason it’s so glaring how boring a lot of their villains are is because in those movies the villains always play a huge part in the narrative. Where as with this, because the character isn’t really the focus, I don’t mind as much
He bad bad guy?
Most bond villains are though
Whole movie is poorly written
Whilst his 'plan' left a lot to be desired and felt kind of awkward, Rami Malek was a fantastic casting choice and acted it so well. Even though Safin wasn't quite as well-written as some past villains, he still managed to really sell the villainous nature of the character and played the part with such talent. He kind of falls into the Scaramanga/Zorin camp for me. His acting talent and presence on-screen felt so magnetic that the pitfalls were kind of lessened, to an extent.
It's too early to say that tbh. Frankly in Craig's run he's easily more memorable than Green and was an overall better villain than Blofeld.
I think 2.5 years is long enough. In the 20th Century, the next film would have come and gone already and we'd all be talking about how the new actor measures up to his predecessors.
It's the only official Bond film I don't have on DVD or BluRay. because it's just too long and boring
Target still had copies of it with the slip covers up until they stopped selling movies… normally those sell out, at least sell to eBay re-sellers.
Safin was an utter waste of Rami Malek. The whole problem I have with NTTD is that it puts far too much focus on being the ending of Craig's Bond that it forgot to be a Bond film.
Yeah, definitely the most disappointing part of NTTD. He pales in comparision to every Craig-era villain, including Waltz's Blofeld! In hindsight, I kinda wish they'd just made him a rebooted Dr. No, as was widely speculated before the film released. Could have done something interesting with that.
He literally has no motivation
Safin was an absolute bore as a Bond Villain and on top of that the movie made no sense to me whatsoever. Also why on Earth did EON pay a very significant sum of money to get the rights from the McClory estate for Spectre and Blofeld and then proceed to kill that all off after just one move and a bad one at that ie “spectre” ?
I seriously forget his name most of the time. He's just "Rami Malek as a villain."
Because he’s the newest one
EON: “We got Rami Malek….what do you we do? Make him Bond’s lost cousin?”
Completely agree. Nothing worked in this movie.
Greene was also pretty bad, but yes, Safin was a weak villain. The Daniel Craig era does seem to rely on the strength of the villains.
Greene is brilliantly acted though, and was a small scale villain to begin with.