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It's "things will not be the same."
Watching OHMSS recently I noticed in the early scene where Bond and Tracy are in his hotel room and she asks him something and he replies along the lines of 'I know a little about women'. I'd never thought about it but I assume this is a reference to the very similar line when Largo asks Bond about guns and women in TB. The filmmakers were trying to make another little connection to the Connery films?
I must be thick as well as I've always thought he said, "Alligator...." Duh!!!!!
In my defence it's not a film I watch very often..
:-S
A moment in the Bahamas is paralleled visually in Miami. When Dimitrios enters the Body Worlds exhibit to lay the supplies for Carlos to get, he stops in front of an exhibit where humans are set up playing cards while another human is positioned far from the gambling table with their face resting on their hand, wearing a sad expression.
The exhibit is set up like Bond and Dimitrios' card game in the Bahamas, where the men were playing poker at a table while a woman (Solange in this case) was off to the side with the same dejected expression and her face resting on her hand in the same way as the exhibit.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sx5P4cWdblU/maxresdefault.jpg
Whenever I watch SF, I notice that the film, as an anniversary entry, is a wonderful combination of scenes from prior Bond entries. The latest one I noticed was Bond chasing someone in a bulldozer/crawler. He was in one in CR, and survived Mollaka's shots at him without incident. In SF however he does get shot, by Patrice.
White is seen in QoS strapped to an IV, and that's how he appears in SP.
In QoS Bond orders a Vesper martini on the plane as he did in CR, but then acts like he forgets the name of the drink ("The Vesper") when Mathis asks him about it.
Bond's conversation with Madeleine on the train in SP where she mentions his choice to do something else is exactly and almost word for word what Vesper tells him after he wins the game in CR.
Bond yells at Moneypenny in SF for touching ear Carter-style in the casino.
The opening shot of SF is a recreation of Bond's entrance into frame during the end of the CR opening titles with the same shadow casting over him.
In CR Mathis tells Bond that you can still be useful when dead, and in QoS Bond uses Mathis' body to stage a crime to mask his trail.
There are so many clever little callbacks in the scripts of CR to SP. I could go on all day about them. Part of the reason why I love all of them is that when taken together they truly feel like a comprehensive, collective journey for Bond.
My dream would be for Bond 25 (or whatever is Dan's last) to address and conclude all that Bond's story has been to this point. From the very beginning of CR the films have been building to something, and I think the last film of the era will be quite powerful and conclusive, unlike any Bond film before.
Le Chiffre "your people would welcome me back with open arms because they want what i know."
Bond "the big picture"
Clearly in 2006 'the big picture' wasn't Spectre, but, despite the ret conning to make it so, I really felt that small, almost insignificant line made it a little more authentic. I enjoyed the thought that within that scene/film Spectre and Blofeld where lingering around in the background.
Nice photo!
To me, it really makes no sense, going from CR to SP, that Bond's focus on the big picture leads him to a water consolidation plot in Bolivia, a honeypot in Russia, an ex-MI6 agent who wants to kill his boss, and then Bond's old step brother. That's it? That's the big picture? It is a depressingly little picture. Then Bond retires. What bunk.
Well, think about it. To get Quantum, Bond had to take any leads he could and focus on their most recent plot to try and find out more about them. Following Le Chiffre's poker game Bond got barreled into Greene's plot simply to uncover how Quantum infiltrated MI6, and he also uses that opportunity to find out the truth about Vesper. Throughout the mission he gets a look at Quantum hierarchy and realizes Vesper was a tool like he was. Quantum then go underground, without any hints of their operations being known, which Blofeld probably ordered to ensure they didn't blink their plans again for Bond to come unfurl. SPECTRE then chose to fund a third party in Silva after that to shake the Brits just ahead of his surveillance plan that was to next, and because Silva was so independent nobody would expect the involvement of the organization as a minor sponsor in his plan. It's a win-win; Blofeld gets to annoy the government with a chance at taking out a spy chief and makes sure there's fear of attacks in Britain so that Denbigh's plan to join the intelligence streams is accepted by the representatives when it's presented.
The Quantum and SPECTRE plots are simply the kinds of things you would expect organizations of their kind to do in a more grounded world. Of course they would help set up coups to gather land and control resources as valuable as water where they can control the price and exert their control. Of course they would have agents set up honeypots with representatives high up in government (like Vesper in the treasury) so that they could use those powerful individuals at the drop of a hat by faking a kidnapping and ransom of their faux lover (as Yusef orchestrates). And of course they would get involved in schemes that would create an envelope of fear over a nation to near guarantee that their next plan, essentially an anti-terror initiative, goes through with flying colors and at the same time balloons their control as an organization (that's the whole point of SF and SP).
That's not very small picture to me. Control of the most valuable natural resource, the corruption of government agents through bribery and threat, the funding of terrorism on a grand scale and the use of a fear initiative to ensure your organization has all the data of major intelligence agencies at their fingertips are terrifying things to comprehend.
Yes, well done. One of the best scenes in QoS is when Mr. White tells M that "we have people everywhere" and M is legitimately frightened. I like the notion that Quantum/Spectre is destabilizing/manipulating various governments (Bolivia obviously but also the bombings in South Africa, etc. in SP).
I do think that QoS would have benefited had they gone into the infiltration of MI6 more, Guy Haines and all that. The challenge would have been to make it international and not totally London-based but it would make sense that an organization like Quantum would set up base in a non-obvious place like Bolivia (or later, Spectre in Morocco).
I also think that we needed a bridge film in which we saw Spectre take over Quantum, maybe in a similar way to the Burgess script from TSWLM. They also could have worked in White/Blofeld's back story, which frankly was a great idea!
It'd be a very plausible and real world issue, as those kinds of plea deals question if justice can ever truly exist when criminals are more useful to law enforcement blabbing their mouths about their operations and contacts than languishing behind bars.
"Sh*t on it!!!"
He's brilliant in that isnt he ? cracks me up ..."Ooh a lovely bit of squirrel !"
Then Bond seemingly forgets all about Quantum and Mr. White, who is the "hand that holds that whip" in CR. Or at least I assume MI6 does no further investigating, as Mr. White continues his activities for years afterwards.
You do a good job of connecting the dots, better than the writers bothered to do, but literally none of this is explained in Spectre. You ever write any fan fiction? Perhaps you should write a "novelization" of the film and fill in the holes? I'm sure it would be more satisfying than the film.
I have no problem with the water plot or honeypot agent as schemes of Quantum's. My problem is that these are relatively small schemes for Bond to investigate. (Incidentally, QoS has been criticized for the small scale of its plot.) If he is focused on "the big picture," his attention should be focused on Quantum's higher-ups. Like I said above, no further investigation of White occurs. QoS' original ending - Bond killing White - would have been a better demonstration of Bond focusing on "the big picture."
You might argue that Bond finally does indeed climb up the bad guy ladder 7 years later by using White to find Blofeld, leader of Quantum (now called Spectre for reasons unexplained). But my problem is this: Bond has absolutely no idea who/what he is meant to find by following dead M's cryptic videotaped instructions. What drives him initially is a suspicion that his old foster brother is involved (very small picture stuff), and it turns out this foster brother has a grudge against Bond - again, very small, very personal.
Bond is aware of terror attacks happening around the globe and gathers bits of info, deducing that Spectre is behind the attacks and backing Nine Eyes. Unfortunately, for me, all the foster brother nonsense distracts from what really should have been front and centre: Bond is hungry is to get back on the trail of Mr. White/Quantum and jumps at the chance to do so. Dead M could have explained that Sciarra is connected to Quantum or Nine Eyes or even simply told Bond "this is what you've been looking for, the big picture," but no. Let's focus on the foster brother "mystery" bullshit instead. Good call, Mendes.
That is not the point of SF. You know just as well as anyone that film was originally conceived as standalone, as EON didn't even have the rights to Blofeld at the time. SP tries to retroactively build on SF, but it is clumsy and what you've written - Blofeld funds Silva in order to create terror in the UK and kick start Nine Eyes - is never once made clear in SP. I wish it was.
So it's hard for me to agree the "big picture" idea was done justice when all we see is:
1) Bond capture Mr. White, lose Mr. White, take out a bit of Quantum trash, and then cease investigating Mr. White (these events occurring over a month at most);
2) Bond defending MI6 from a vengeful nutter;
3) Bond hunting for who-knows-what (believing the "what" could possibly be his foster brother), which just so happens to get him back on Quantum's trail (or Spectre, or whatever they're calling themselves this week).
He does finally stop Blofeld. But that is just one villain! One black target! Then he retires.
"So it's a job well done? Well you'll forgive me for not putting up the bunting."
Anyway, despite my arguments, I can appreciate your POV @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7, and in writing this post, I can see how some things in Spectre do check out better than I'd initially given them credit for. Thanks for the spirited discussion. ;) I think it's the foster brother thing that really makes it feel "small picture" to me. I would have loved to see that cut entirely and just show Craig's super-driven Bond hot on the trail of Quantum. (Btw we are very off-topic in this thread, lol)
As for the connections between the films, I think they're the logical ones you make. We know from SP that Blofeld got Silva involved in his schemes, and it's easy to see why he would do that; it leads up to the plot in SP and creates a reason in Britain for a thing like Nine Eyes to exist. The point of the program on the face of it was to stop terror attacks, and Blofeld ensured that the fear of attacks would be deep in the public consciousness and those of the government through the chaos of Silva. Yes, the SPECTRE/Blofeld rights came after but the story as continued in SP from SF does tie up some loose ends in the latter and make it more sensible that Silva would be so well sponsored with men and weaponry. It's a retcon, but it's a very well thought through one.
As for Bond losing the big picture, I think Quantum were driven into the ground or at least heavily diluted after QoS, where SPECTRE found another, more quiet way to work. White and Blofeld's relationship probably began to sour at this point in time, as the former was always running into trouble with Bond and couldn't get the job done to silence him, all the while MI6 were getting heavy eyes on who was connected to the organization and what operations they were running. They had to run into the ground and retire that tentacle before they were fully exposed. It just makes sense that they would do so.
It also doesn't make sense for M to say all this on video tape, as anyone could listen to it if it got in the wrong hands. She had to be vague enough to hide confidential information from anyone who could find the CD, be they a low-ranking ally, innocent civilian or dangerous enemy, and therefore couldn't just say to Bond, "You know Quantum, they're back! Kind of!" It just wouldn't make sense. She gave Bond enough information to get him to Sciarra, and trusted him to get the rest, which of course he does. She may not have seen the bigger meaning at the time herself, but had a hunch and put her best agent on it. The video was clearly shot before her death around the time Silva was attacking London, and she likely knew her days were numbered. She probably wondered how Silva became so connected and well funded, and found some Quantum connections moving behind him that made her think the organization or one like it was returning. She then made sure Bond would have the data he needed to fight that threat if she was no longer around.
You have to make some leaps and fill in some blanks you're not given, but you have to do the same with the 60s films and their SPECTRE plots. We don't know how well connected Dr. No is, but we trust that he's important and connected enough to run his operation, and we never know much about Largo but trust he's worthy of being SPECTRE's No. 2 behind Blofeld. How they work, what the hierarchy is and why some are in those positions are sometimes things we have to imagine on our own. The scripts don't have time to explain everything.
In fact, I find the idea to be nonsense. Silva is very strongly established as an independent agent - that is an idea fundamental to his character. I can't imagine him working under Blofeld. (I am familiar with the fan theory that Blofeld funneled resources to Silva without supervising him, knowing that Silva is a madman who will cause chaos. Again... I just wish this was actually in the movie. If we follow Occam's razor, I think the film merely suggests that Silva was a Spectre agent and nothing beyond that.)
I wish this was in the movie, as well. You make Spectre sound like a rich tapestry of character relationships and plot development. I don't see it, but I wish I could!
Okay, the script can't explain everything. But don't you find it unsatisfying that the script explains almost... nothing? Even the connection between Quantum and Spectre isn't explained, and that's just the bare minimum I would expect. And the things they choose to spend screen time on instead... Yikes. Did we really need to see Bond rifling through old family photos in his pajamas or ten scenes of Andrew Scott mugging? ;)
My love of the Craig era just makes me think about these films a lot, and I work much of it out in my head in a way that makes sense, using what the films themselves tell us. There's things I'd add or change about them, sure, but I think the retcon isn't as bad as some have said.