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As an original Bond fan, quite a few decisions have disappointed me over the history of the series, but none as much as the Bond/Blofeld connection.
That's good point mate, you're probably right.
I'm still baffled that they didn't think of Austin Powers though, they were so conscious of not straying into Austin Powers territory early on in the Craig era. The more I think of Brofeld, the more ridiculous it is
Agreed. I think it was poor research practices on EON's part.
They probably didn’t remember or had never actually seen GOLDMEMBER. It’s also the weakest of the two sequels, so it’s not like it’s all that memorable. If it weren’t for Bond fans, I probably wouldn’t have remembered the plot point about Dr Evil being the long lost brother of Austin Powers.
I'm not quite sure this matches up with the general consensus. Both of the sequels were immensely popular with audiences and made a sizeable chunk of dough. I would struggle to believe that nobody brought it up during the creative process, even if Cain and Abel was the original source of inspiration for the idea.
Either way, the implication that the similarities between Spectre and Goldmember aren't that big of a deal because the latter was a weak sequel and very unmemorable is quite funny in its own way.
The series hit its peak in 2002. No one today or even in 2015 really thinks of that series much now compared to what it was 20 years ago.
I’d argue THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME was the peak. 60s nostalgia was big in the 90s and that was probably its last gasp. Look how GOLDMEMBER shifted towards the 70s as nostalgia for that decade was becoming more pronounced. The next obvious step would have been to do an 80s send up, but I don’t think Myers views that decade as fun as the 60s/70s, especially when it comes to Bond. AUSTINPUSSY notwithstanding.
I don't think anyone is exaggerating anything. Conversely, let's not pretend that nobody remembers it either. All of that rhetoric is fine, but ultimately they ended up with a plot point already used in a parody film and did it in a self-serious way, which ironically made it even more silly.
There isn't really a defence of it that holds up. It was a daft idea, part of an admirable experiment that unfortunately was creatively dead on arrival as a result.
One of my favorite quotes. Vladek Sheybal. A small role and so much more menacing and memorable than Cristoph Waltz in two Bond films.
I’m not defending it. It was an unnecessary element because if anything Blofeld should have enough grievance over Bond just for foiling past operations of SPECTRE. The foster brother stuff is so inconsequential that if you snipped out all the bits from the film it wouldn’t really change the plot that dramatically.
True....................but unfortunately they did leave it in.
It's true. I think the Spectre script has lots of nice ideas in, but it feels like it went through lots of different versions and by the final one they'd left various ideas in which had a reason to be there in earlier drafts but had removed those reasons by the last one, and not really noticed. A bit like Nomi in NTTD: I feel there must be an earlier draft of that script where she has something to do and a reason to be there. It needed a big clever script doctor who hadn't been attached to the process previously to sweep in and take an aerial view of the whole thing and give it a good pruning/rationalisation.
Yes, exactly.
But they just never got the time to take a step back and see that 007 and Blofeld being brothers is basically a bit silly, and that the final version of the film didn't really get any mileage out of the concept anyway; it's a sort of pretend, fake dramatic reveal instead of one which actually means something. But I imagine you get caught up on these things and don't get much of a chance to look at the final version of your script as if it's the first time you're seeing it.
One can kind of see the room where the decision was made: Cigarette smoke. Take-out containers everywhere. The scent and smoke and sweat of a writers' room are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced by high writing--a compost of greed and fear and nervous tension--becomes unbearable and the senses awake and revolt from it. And suddenly Robert shouts: "Neal! I've got it! He's his foster brother!"
The more complicated question is how this made it through notes and revisions and pre-production and reherseals and shooting and editing and was left in the film...
This made me chuckle!
:))
Me too. 🤓😂 Are we sure it was Robert Wade, though? It could have been Neal Purvis or MGW.
Maybe if Bond had held a grudge and was the only man capable of pursuing Blofeld thanks to his prior knowledge of him, but Blofeld was more unaware of Bond (and we ditch all of the 'author of your pain' stuff) it would work better? But I don't know; I suspect if someone here pitched the idea behind Spectre we'd probably think it sounds good!