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But the logy part having Greek roots it stands to reason to use the word meaning four in Greek not in Latin.
Yes. After all, we say theology and not deology for instance.
The Craig era doesn't come close to comparing for me. Too inconsistent and very poorly tied together with the last one. Although I like CR and SF very much, I still prefer all 3 of Nolan's entries.
What about The Dark Knight Trilogy v Brosnans Bond tenure?
Probably too easy though I guess there are some Brosnan fans on here, only GE is a top Bond film for me from PB tenure
True the films are more cartoonish and compare better
Love GE and TWINE but it's 3-2 to Batman again for me (I like DAD in a so bad it's good way but not going to pretend it's anywhere near as good as any Nolan film).
To be fair though, whether it's Brosnan or Craig or any of the others, there's a genuine love and nostalgia I have for Bond that Batman will never have, even with a guy like Nolan at the helm.
How about comparing Burton+Schumacher Batman movies to Brosnan Bonds as they were make more or less around the same time period? Just for the stupidity of Schumacher's efforts Brosnan would win, imo.
I would make it a win for Brosbond I like GE and Batman equally, the rest of the films could go either way. DAD vs Batman and Robin DAD wins
So as much as I dislike TWINE and TND, Brosnan gets the win from me on the strength of the superb GE and the entertaining (if highly parodic) DAD.
CR: 9/10
QOS: 9/10
SF: 7/10
SP: 5/10
BB: 9/10
TDK: 9/10
TDKR: 6/10
The Batman films work as crime dramas, as action epics, as character studies (even if Nolan's Batman is not quite the traditional version). They have an honest-to-god theme that runs through them, and they made me think at least a bit (Batman is basically George W Bush in TDK, yet I love Batman and don't quite love Mr Bush), and have inspired lots of conversation and common cultural touchstones for people.
The Bond films have been great, I'd say, but they haven't captured the public imagination in the same way, are not especially well-constructed as a series (it's all been pretty ad hoc the last ten years), and for me at least, they've yet to land any emotional connection between me and the characters.
Love them both, but I'm taking the TDK trilogy to the island.
(Along with a bunch of Roger and Tim Bonds!)
I can see why. I like it and I thought it was a great end to the trilogy but there are a lot of plot holes that I noticed when I watched it again after the cinema. It's still really well made and everything and I like how ambitious and epic it is, I think it probably just suffered from coming out after TDK, because people were always going to compare them and even a good film was always going to leave people disappointed after that one, which was something really special imo. The bar was set so high that the last one was always going to suffer.
I love TDK as much as did the day I first saw it on the release day on IMAX, there hasn't been a blockbuster since like it for me.
I know it has grown in it's detractors as time as gone on, it's only natural if you don't see what all the fuss is about you are more likely to think it's that much worse because of it.
While I don't think SF is up to TDK standard (CR is very close) they are similar in the respect that they both got raves and a lot of exposure then as the dust settled the detractors appeared and especially here, it's critics got the knives out.
I think it is also because TDKR IS a conclusion: Bruce Wayne gives up the mantle, his secret identity is revealed at least to some people, he is believed to be dead, there's basically no room for development. Nolan killed his own franchise willingly. Regardless of the quality of the movie, people want the hero to come back for more adventures, not end them.
(And on a side note that's why I don't want him directing a Bond movie. It may be irrational but that's how I feel.)
I'm expecting something similar for Craig's next film to be honest, a definite conclusion/ending. They could have got away with going back to the old stand alone model after QoS but now we're way past the origin story and they're still doing continuity heavy films. So I think it'd just feel weird if after this big overarching narrative that's taken up at least ten years of Bond's career, they just recast and carry on from the end of Bond 25 but never really mention any of it again. I think they've been planning it that way for a while to, in the leaks the hook of SP was described as "Bond's last mission". I'm expecting Bond 25 to be a closed off ending in the same way TDKR was, and then when the next actor comes they can do a sort of reboot (not an origin or retelling or anything like that, just a new Bond film that ignores the last five).
I suppose I'm a bit of an odd duck, as TDK is actually my least favorite of the trilogy. I think it's good overall, just massively overrated. On the flip side, while I do recognize its faults, I've always found Rises to be unfairly maligned.
And while Batman Begins is my favorite of the Bat bunch, it doesn't have a patch on CR. I certainly find CR through SF a much more satisfying trilogy, as it were. SP is what it is and I'm just going to leave it out of the discussion really, as it's easier to just compare three versus three.
I actually don't think they'll do it with Bond, not with Blofeld being recently reintroduced.
I was thinking about both the Craig and Nolan films while reading the thread title and began comparing the two series in my head as I went. I was quite interested to see just how much they connected and how many ties I could form between them, not only in how they were realized, but also in the successes and failures that are attributed to both of them. A list of comparisons I thought of that bridge the gap between Craig's Bond films and Nolan's Batman trilogy:
*Both series are seen as rebooting a character that for many had jumped the shark in a previous incarnation, showing with its tone and overall execution that the protagonists could not only be treated seriously, but that both Bond and Batman films could have elements of character studies and implement theme and motif in interesting ways. Bond was coming off of the gradually cartoonish and hammy Brosnan films in the same way Batman was resurrected following Schumacher's similar degradation of the Batman brand with the nipple suits, acid trip sets and horridly written dialogues and "one-liners" of the scripts of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin that were about as clever as what we eventually got in Die Another Day. With Casino Royale and Batman Begins we saw two neglected brands brought back to the forefront again where they deserved to be and with movies that were earnest and executed with the craft that was severely lacking during the previous set, not only in cinematography and overall feeling, but also from a story, dialogue and tonal perspective.
I also find it interesting that, if we count the Craig era and Nolan's Batman films as the uber-serious modern interpretations of the characters and the Brosnan era and Schumacher Batman films as the cartoonish and more over the top films, we could also say that the Timothy Dalton era and Burton Batman films were the prototype of the more moody and serious films that a later era would take even farther (meaning Craig's films and Nolan's Batman). To add another layer, at the campy time of the late 60s into the even campier 70s, the 1960s Batman film and the TV series were the Batman equivalent of the campiness we saw in the Bond films of the day. I find it fascinating that for over 50 years Bond and Batman have really been following each other development-wise, often sharing the tones and visions of the other during each major decade the movies have occupied together.
*Both series are accepted and lauded for containing at least one modern "classic" amongst the bunch, with The Dark Knight being the biggie for Nolan's and Casino Royale or possibly even Skyfall being the one (or two) for Craig's films, movies that really impacted the audiences of their time, showed what new things could be done with a long familiar character and presented a human journey for the protagonist in a film with weaving themes.
*The journeys of both Bond and Bruce Wayne in their separate films have been fascinating to view, as they were built and developed from the same existential perspective and share a lot of commonalities due to what the men face and how they grow from movie to movie.
In the first films of each series, Casino Royale and Batman Begins, we see the protagonists reinterpreted for the modern age as they are finding themselves in their first time out, with Bond gaining his 00 license right before us and Bruce finding his way towards putting on the cowl and building his Batman legend. It's these movies that really introduce audiences to new takes on characters that were earlier seen as silly or parodical, and by doing so they refreshened their respective brands for a new, more serious age.
In their stories, we can also see how the ties can bind between them from an analysis perspective. The love interest of Bond and Bruce in these debut films (Vesper/Rachel) turn out to both be starcrossed, with each man unable to realize the happiness they want to feel with the woman at the end, though the reasons differ. We also find the men making uneasy alliances with those they must grow to trust (Bond has Mathis and Felix and Bruce has Lucius and Gordon) and each man also remains blind to a traitor in their midst until it's too late (Bond with Vesper and Bruce with Ra's). Both Bond and Bruce also have a reckless start to their careers, with Bond acting out in Madagascar and Bruce racing his car through Gotham causing havoc; however, each learn from these moments to grow more professional and capable later on. The overall theme or big ideas of the movies, to show rough men molded into the heroes they are destined to be, make them strong bedfellows.
The second films of each series, Quantum of Solace and The Dark Knight, are both more stripped back in style in comparison to past entries (or what was expected of them) and bring the protagonists in contact with events that bring them to a low point in their journeys as they face their own failures or demons. Bond is dealing with the aftermath of Vesper's that has punctured him and Bruce must face a man in the Joker who is the antithesis of all he stands for, bending and breaking him with his antics. Bond and Bruce become very lost characters in these movies, and need the wise words of their respective "father" figures to see the light and renew their hope (Alfred's motivation to get Bruce to push on in the face of Joker's chaos and Mathis' advice to Bond to urge him to forgive Vesper and move on). The theme of deceit is also present in both Quantum of Solace and The Dark Knight, with the Quantum traitors in the former and the mystery of who Joker or the mob has bought in the latter. This puts our heroes in a precarious position as they can never be sure of the allegiances of those they are working with, adding an interesting layer to the proceedings. The biggest departure between the films must be that Bond's film ends with him cementing his place in MI6, while Batman concludes his movie by throwing it all away. The contrast between the acceptance and forgiveness of Quantum and the powerful and at times hopeful yet bittersweet conclusion of The Dark Knight is an interesting one.
The third films of each series, Skyfall and The Dark Knight Rises, are comparatively more ambitious, grandiose and more in touch with their roots than the pervious ones (Skyfall capturing the big scope, feeling and spectacle of the vintage films and The Dark Knight Rises capturing the scale and high action of the comic books) and find Bond and Bruce again sharing existential hurdles. Bond and Bruce both face a moment that makes them unable to do their jobs anymore: for the former it's his bullet wound and disenchantment with his work and for Bruce it's the actions he took at the end of The Dark Knight that keep him out of the cowl. In both cases our heros sit out from their usual jobs, with Bond going on a bender in the quiet for a few months and Bruce going a whole eight years without being Batman. Over the course of the films we then find each man trying to rekindle what they lost mentally and physically to be who they once were, including moments where they are demanded to perform tests to prove themselves (for Bond it's his examinations and for Bruce it's his climb from the hole). When we see both men suit up, Bond in his Tom Ford and Bruce in his old suit, we know the game is back on.
In these third films we also have two villains who force our heroes to come back to their homelands/native cities/home bases to rescue those they care for and the very location they protect and represent (Bond as a foreign agent acting for England and Bruce as Gotham's sole defender) as both Silva and Bane tear up the place, endanger the public and use explosives, heavy armed guard and more aggressive means to realize their very personal and destructive goals that also personally impact Bond and Bruce respectively.
Throwing in Spectre to the mix versus The Dark Knight Rises, we have two films that ultimately depict the protagonists colliding with one big organization or group that becomes their overarching, main threat over their series. These enemies are those introduced early in the first films of each series that were then brought back in the last/latest to bookend the adventures. For Bond this was Quantum (revealed as a tentacle of SPECTRE in the later films), the secret group that kept mucking up the world on his watch, and of course in Batman we have Ra's League of Shadows that began the series by wanting to destroy Gotham and returned years later to have attempt number 2 under Bane and Talia. Through this bookending, we have Bruce facing a group who came back to his city to finish another man's business in the same way that Bond is always facing an organization that keeps coming back after he defeats them in a previous adventure. Through this, both series depict a cyclical theme of villainy that never ends for the protagonists, as if they are warriors fighting off a hydra with ever-growing heads.
If we can continue to blend Spectre in to match the final Nolan Batman adventure in the form of The Dark Knight Rises, we can also find two climaxes that depict our group of heroes (Bond and his MI6 family and Bruce and his Gotham team) working together against the clock to stop an event from happening that has big and dangerous implications for them and their immediate citizenry by the villain's design. In both cases, the "clock" is stopped at the last minute, like Nine Eyes' countdown timer and the timer on the bomb Batman must take out on the water outside Gotham City and both Bond and Bruce must face a specific hurdle before they get what they need to complete their mission: the MI6 family must get to C and get through the firewall to end Nine Eyes while Bond races his own timer in the form of a detonation clock and Batman must get the bomb from Talia before he can fly it away from Gotham.
Both Spectre and The Dark Knight Rises also see the heroes facing threats that are more than they can handle in the form of meaty adversaries. Both Hinx and Bane prove to be the physical matches to Bond and Bruce respectively as they are decimated and brought near death at the hands of the meatier, deadlier men that seem to know no end. While Bruce must train to face Bane again and Bond only faces him directly once, both men require their female partner (Madeleine in Bond's case and Selina in Bruce's) to fend the beasts off and finally kill them.
As far as resolutions go, The Dark Knight Rises and Spectre have elements of finality to them as the heroes literally and figuratively walk off with their newfound partners to other horizons away from the jobs they had known to that point. The only difference here would be that, while Bruce's ending does feel like the end, I never saw Spectre as the end of Craig's Bond so we'll have to see how Bond 25 plays off of the ending to the fourth film to compel 007 back to action.
Other little things that add up in both series that are more general observations:
*Bond and Bruce both have that one love interest that is built up as their ultimate soul mate in their films, but tragedy strikes and Vesper and Rachel respectively die in a moment that breaks our heroes. It's also interesting that, during their deaths, both Vesper and Rachel are in love with other men beyond Bond and Bruce, with Vesper working to save Yusef (despite not knowing his true allegiance) and Rachel who is ready to commit to Harvey Dent for good over Bruce. These women are torn by their feelings over the two men that they are balancing in their hearts and minds, connecting Bond and Bruce as broken-hearted men who are unable to realize their dreams of starcrossed love with their chosen women.
Most importantly, Vesper and Rachel leave a major impact on their respective men's lives that carry into the later films, in many ways impairing the heroes at the start but ultimately spurring them on to do good as they hold on to their memory in death. It's only until the later films in their series (Spectre for Craig) where both Bond and Bruce find second chances to get out of their situations with women who understand them, as they know the world they occupy. Madeleine is the daughter of a deceitful spy and knows the kind of man Bond is well, just as Selina Kyle/Catwoman is able to understand Bruce as she too lives a double-life and is trying to escape her old life in the same way Madeleine is trying to escape hers before Bond shows up to crash it all. Our heroes find these women mid-escape and, in the end, decide to accompany them as they go off the grid hand-in-hand.
*Both series depict at least one major love interest who is revealed to be a traitor to the hero at the end, with Vesper being Bond's and Talia being Bruce's. Both protagonists get so manipulated and swooned by these women that they are blinded to the coming betrayal and it becomes too late for them to act when Bond's money is gone or when Bruce has a knife between his ribs. Of course Vesper and Talia differ along moral lines, but how the films treat their characters, secret "enemies" to the heroes teased as good until they aren't, ties them together. I also find it fascinating that in both The Dark Knight Rises and Spectre we have the heroes comforting daughters of their old enemies as they face their latest threats all while the plots of the last films become weaved together on top of it all. Just as Quantum/SPECTRE is tied to all of Bond's journey as he meets White's daughter, Bruce's old enemy The League of Shadows returns while bringing along Talia with it, the daughter of his old adversary Ra's. Thankfully for Bond, Madeleine turns out to be far from the tree in respect to White, whereas Bruce must contend with a woman in the form of Talia who desires to complete her father's brutal scorched earth work on Gotham.
*Particular emphasis is placed on one building in each series close to the hero and his team that constantly receives symbolic damage/destruction. In Bond's case it's the MI6 building, and for Bruce it's his family manor. In both Batman Begins and Skyfall the heroes find their home base ransacked and brought to ruin, with Spectre going on to replicate the imagery of Begins with MI6 tumbling to rubble. These events are depicted not only to show the vulnerability of the main headquarters of our heroes and how vulnerable they too are at the hands of the villain/s, but by having the structures rebuilt the films also put forth a message of rebirth, restructure and ultimately a resurrection to what they once were, the same development both Bond and Bruce reach at times on their own personal journeys. In the time between The Dark Knight and Rises we know and see that Wayne manor has been rebuilt "brick for brick" in much the same way that Tanner tells Bond in Spectre that the MI6 building will be rebuilt too. In this way, the theme of resurrection and return is weaved in each film and tied to that special building for our heroes.
I hope that in Bond 25 we do see a recreated MI6 headquarters to really punctuate this aspect of the Craig era and to pay off the promise Spectre made to see the building back in action much like Bond will have to be in the movie, presenting even more double-symbolism to tie it all together.
*Both Bond and Bruce continually feel out of place and constantly changing and developing in their respective films. Bruce is trying to find a way to pass his mantle in the Batman films because he know he can't be doing the job forever, so we see him falling in and out of the occupation of Gotham's crime fighter as the series goes on and his hope and/or motivation wavers. He wants to pass the work on to Harvey in The Dark Knight and give up being Batman when he sees the effect Dent has as a public face uncovered by a mask just as Bond considers giving up his job in Casino Royale to be with Vesper and live an "honest life." But in each case we find Bond and Bruce coming back to their mantles after personal tragedies compel them to action, just as they do in their third films when they fall out of it again and must climb back to who they once were to face a personal threat in their home cities.
As heroes and men of action, Bond and Bruce are also largely treated as renegades of sorts, two good men who want to do their jobs but who are constantly colliding with opposition from those that should share their side. Bond has to deal with a corrupt MI6 in Quantum of Solace and the threat of his own government shuffling out the 00 program in Skyfall and Spectre in much the same way that Bruce must face a city of cops who don't yet trust him when he appears, led by Gordon. This leaves Bond and Bruce constantly proving themselves to others, to show they can be trusted and can do their jobs the right way (M and Gordon are skeptical at times with their respective partner, but over time embrace them and trust them). It's characters like M and Gordon that are there for the heroes when nobody else is, like how M stands up for Bond when the Americans want him dead in Quantum of Solace or how she stands up for him and all agents in Skyfall despite facing heavy opposition much in the same way that Lucius Fox helps Bruce get his Batman gear in secret underneath Wayne Enterprises' nose and Gordon works with Batman despite his fellow cops and commissioner not agreeing with what Batman stands for. They put their necks out for the protagonists, despite the risk or cost to them, and that's why such strong partnerships develop between them all across the films where mutual respect and solidarity is forged in the fire of conflict.
*Both series of films feature a villain last seen in a live-action 80s film who is rebooted with a twist in the new films, Joker being that character for the Batman films and Blofeld for Bond. In each case a villain is built that is chaotic and unpredictable in their sadistic plotting, giving their heroes a threat to face that they can't quite prepare for. In playing these distinctive villainous roles, both Heath Ledger and Christoph Waltz take common traits of their characters and their iconic looks (Joker's makeup and color scheme and Blofeld's scar, nehru suit and cat) but give their performances a twist that make them stand out from the past incarnations.
*Both Craig's Bond films and Nolan's Batman movies share the same sort of quirks in their overall timelines, elements of each that are openly criticized. Like the Craig Bond films, the Batman films take place over a relatively short period of time at the start, with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight being very close in time and Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace being directly connected. It's only until the later films, Skyfall in Craig's case and The Dark Knight Rises for Batman's, that the timeline jumps to give a gap of "lost time" where the viewer has no idea what the protagonists have been doing since that time. In between Quantum of Solace and Skyfall, which could well be 6 years, we trust that Bond has continued to grow to be the seasoned man he is under M's tutelage, though it's all left to us to imagine details. In the gap between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, however, one wonders what Bruce did with all his time not being Batman, shut up in his manor for eight years. For some viewers these big gaps and lost character time can be an issue, as they wonder what happened in the meantime and are annoyed by how the gaps throw off the continuity of the films where past films with short breaks give way to those that space out the timeline in a jarring fashion.
*Both films' climaxes carry interesting parallels. In Casino Royale and The Dark Knight we find two characters (Vesper and Harvey) dead in front of the protagonists who for them signified moral complexity and the ability to do both good and bad. Vesper and Harvey's balance of good and bad that ultimately led to their deaths leave Bond and Batman respectively lost at how to proceed next, with the former feeling anger and the latter feeling a sense of exhaustion and loss as he tries to find a way to stop the Joker from winning his "game." In these endings we find the heroes dealt the most devastating cards of their respective films as they face the aftermath and attempt to navigate what remains of their plans after the major death backs them into a corner.
Quantum of Solace and Batman Begins feature sequences near the end of each film that depict our hero trapped inside a burning building that they must fight to get out of alive, nearly burning alive in the process. In both cases a last second intervention saves Bond and Bruce, with Bond shooting a tank to blow out a wall and Bruce's ride down the lift to the cave below the manor just rescuing him from a crispy end. In both instances the villain of the film was in the building fighting their opposing hero as it went up in flames, but both Ra's and Greene make it out before the hero does once the hero is either defeated/incapacitated (Bruce) or distracted (Bond).
As mentioned in a previous comparison, both Spectre and The Dark Knight Rises lead up to an against the clock moment for the heroes as they race against time to stop a devastating event from happening once a timer counts down to 0.
Skyfall is the odd one out in this particular comparison, as it doesn't overtly recall anything in the Nolan films to as heavy a degree as others. It does have the imagery of the big villain, Silva, coming upon Bond's home with a group to burn it down like Ra's and his Shadows ninjas do in Batman Begins to Bruce's manor and the moment where Silva has M in his clutches in the church, prepared to kill her as Bond is absent, does recall how Batman is also late to the party when Harvey Dent is preparing to kill Gordon's kid in The Dark Knight. I guess in that way Skyfall has echoes of various parts of Nolan's Batman climaxes, instead of matching up to one ending of the three overwhelmingly or in particular.
*Both series of films are heavily based in continuity, where the last film hands off to the next. Casino Royale ends with Bond finding and shooting Mr. White, so Quantum of Solace follows us up with what happened directly after that moment in the same way that Batman Begins' decision to end on Gordon giving Batman the joker card and teasing the villain of the next film then leads into the opening of The Dark Knight where Joker himself is introduced in full. As noted elsewhere, Skyfall and The Dark Knight Rises share the same timeline gap of 6 to 8 years of time, but each film carries on from the last in respect to how both Bond and Bruce have grown as men that gives their respective character journeys continued development.
Structurally, each series also resembles a snake eating its own tail as the threat that began the first movies (Quantum in Casino Royale and The League of Shadows in The Dark Knight Rises) return in the later/latest film as the overwhelming threat to the hero).
*The themes expressed by each series connect them quite intensely, with the big focuses of the respective movies being the common touchstones of betrayal, sacrifice, death/mourning, rising up/rebirth, coming and going (from a job/position), forgiveness, and even the main feelings the villains cause the heroes or that they represent as forces of evil in the movies, like fear (Scarecrow/Silva), chaos (Joker/Blofeld) and pain (Bane/Le Chiffre, Hinx).
That's all I will write for now as I'm a bit exhausted and need some rest. I think about these movies a lot and am always fascinated by how both Bond and Batman were able to be revitalized in films that took themselves seriously and that injected themselves with a lot of character, messages and artistry that made them reach another level.
I'd be interested to hear if anyone has another other observations to make on how Bond and Batman tie together. If I sat down and really thought on it I'd probably be able to come up with more connections that bind them, but right now I'll drop it here and see what others make of the respective series.
I wouldn't say Blofeld represents chaos. Silva is much closer to the Joker imo, which probably comes back to how TDK inspired Mendes.
Outside of the idea that Silva wanted to be captured to get what he wanted, like Joker did and basically every villain of a blockbuster from around that time, including Loki and Khan, I just don't see as much connecting Silva as Bond's Joker.
Blofeld carries that villain to end all villains mystique for Bond, the one that is his big bad and ultimate test when it all comes down to it, as Joker is for Batman. Whereas Silva is just a random threat to M and not Bond, Blofeld specifically targets Bond for what he sees as him representing the "other side." Both Blofeld and Silva seem to pick at Bond for working as a government slave, in the way Joker teases Batman about being a stooge/leper in the eyes of the Gotham cops, but with Blofeld there's also that kernel that Bond in some ways created the villain he faces in the way that Batman brought about a man like Joker to face him for the city's control. Blofeld also has more of Joker's unstable nature and unpredictable side that appears to cross lines of sanity, yet we also see ways in which both villains are acting for a purpose and larger manipulative idea. Blofeld is able to manipulate C and others in the world to fit his own goals as Joker is able to with the mob and his own team of criminals, and they use fear as their biggest influence and their own unstable presences on top of it.
While both Joker and Blofeld are seen as men who want to watch the world burn by those from outside their perspective, we can see that both men are acting according to a larger scheme, with Joker constantly testing humanity from a sociology and psychology standpoint and Blofeld seeing the devastation of terrorism that paves the way to Nine Eyes as something beautiful being brought out from something tragic. Both men are unsettled in their ideas and how they reach their goals, and will service them in ways that are counter to society or how most civilized people act. The chaos they resemble to the heroes is another layer, as Bond and Batman are tasked with defeating men who are labyrinthine and so limitless in their actions that they are hard to counter; they are nearly inhuman, an "other" that they could stop, if only they could understand them.
This all isn't to say that parallels don't exist with Bond and Silva too, as we'll had these discussions before and have proven their validity. But in the larger sense and for how the villains function, I find more tying Blofeld to Joker than Silva to Joker, though of course there's some cross pollination there. And I don't think that's a mistake, as Blofeld and Silva were sketched in such a way as they are from the same cloth: tech focused madmen types who are unrelenting in their personal missions with a certain unstable flair to them. They make a good pair.