10 James Bond Screenwriting Lessons You Can Learn From Spectre

10. Reintroduce A Classic Villain In A New Way

It wasn't much of a surprise when Christoph Waltz's Franz Oberhauser was revealed as Bond€™s archnemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld (the movie is titled Spectre, after all), but you have to applaud the approach. For decades EON Productions were unable to use Blofeld or his SPECTRE organisation in the movie series because of legal issues. But the Blofeld of the 1960s movies was a mysterious criminal mastermind who was brilliantly parodied in the Austin Powers movies with the character Dr. Evil. In other words, despite Blofeld being a classic Bond character there wasn€™t much substance to him in the original movies. The surprise of Spectre wasn't that Oberhauser is really Blofeld, it's how Blofeld was introduced to the Bond movies of the 21st century. By reintroducing Blofeld to James' life using a bait-and-switch trick akin to The Usual Suspects, the writers provided the villain with personal motivation to hate Bond in a way that hadn€™t been established in Blofeld€™s previous incarnations. Being boyhood acquaintances with Blofeld makes Bond feel conflicted toward killing him, and adds richness to the conflict between Bond and Blofeld.