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He's in the middle of an evaluation when the villainess happens to cruise by. He doesn't know who she is.
In fact, if I remember correctly, it's another coincidence that he sees her at the casino. Her stolen licence plate leads him to an inquiry to Moneypenny.
I think all this is getting away from the main contention about SP. We can argue till we're blue in the face about what's a contrivance and what's a coincidence. But at the end of the day I don't want Bond and Blofeld to be foster brothers. End of story. I don't care whether it's a coincidence or a contrivance. I just don't want them to be foster brothers. I think it is a rotten idea. I wouldn't like it if Superman and Lex Luthor were made foster brothers. I wouldn't like it if Holmes and Moriarty were foster brothers. And I wouldn't like it if Rocky and Ivan Drago were foster brothers.
Beyond that, I don't rate the film at all for multiple reasons, the biggest of which is that it is no fun at all.
I like Monica Bellucci and that's about it.
Anyway, each to their own, Prof. I hope that makes it clear?! haha.
Monaco's not that big.
It's a small place where James Bond--who knows nothing of Xenia--is undergoing an evaluation when a series of massive coincidences leads him to adventure. :-D. It's like Shrublands in a way.
Now imagine Count Lippe turned out to be his long lost and previously unmentioned foster brother.
To stoke the fire even more: There is nothing coincidental about the foster brother thing. It's not like Blofeld was living his live being the head of SPECTRE and suddenly his long lost foster brother shows up at a colleague's funeral out of nowhere. He is the architect of everything. He did everything he has ever done since killing his father so it would lead Bond to the meeting in Rome and finally to Morocco. It is not a coincidence. It is planned.
And total shit.
Yep.
Well, that would be pretty lame!
Now, you don't have to like the Brofeld angle--I didn't either, for some time. But it's somewhat different in the context of a rebooted series that makes repeated reference to Bond's childhood and his unwillingness to talk about it. And one which (at least for two of the first three films) involves a shadowy organization whose leader is unknown.
Ignoring the first 20 films, as this is a reboot, one shouldn't be completely shocked, given the types of narratives currently en vogue, that the story evolves in this way. Again, it's fine if you hate it, but it's not really as random as if Count Lippe had been Bond's foster brother.
And remember, it's a different series to the first twenty. They're not going back and saying Telly Savalas was George Lazenby's brother.
Well, Blofeld doesn't make it sound like that in the movie. Bond's presence pushed him in a criminal direction, and then they ended up interfering in each other's worlds for obvious reasons, but I don't see why you would think he planned for Judi Dench to send Bond to Mexico City and then attend a funeral in Rome, and then get info on the Spectre meeting from Sciarra's widow. Or how he would do that.
Only Raoul Silva can plan events with such precision! ;-)
And @FatherValentine, you say you don’t like any incarnation of Blofeld, fair, but because you can’t imagine Dr. No bowing down before him? Surely then you must be ok with literary Blofeld, who had nothing to do with any villains before him? He was just the Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime for the Bond franchise at that point.
I ask because I love Blofeld, the idea of him, the arch villain dynamic generally.
Because he is the architect of all his pain of course.
Author.
Yeah, he is. But his organization's plots were not designed with the aim of hurting James Bond. They didn't fund terrorism or try to control water supplies or get access to intelligence networks to make Bond sad.
I love all the Blofelds, save maybe Donald Pleasance, but book Blofeld is definitely the best! And he gets better as his trilogy goes on.
I can see you’re a man with exquisite taste.
Great point. Yes, to clarify, I meant 'incarnation' as in the movie versions.
And I would like to roll back on my comments also. I don't mind Blofeld of course. I was getting a bit carried away with my venting haha. I like them all in one way or another. Even Waltz! I even prefer Savalas over Gray, I was being hyperbolic with that one!
I do think that the screen Dr No is a stronger villain that all of them, though.
Yeah, I'm not getting that at all. Blofeld never says he planned to have Bond be assigned to take on Le Chiffre and the like so they could one day meet. The whole "Blofeld started SPECTRE so he could target Bond one day" is just a fan theory.
Shit. Screwed that one up.
Well, of course it is a fan theory, because we get no hard evidence one way or the other as far as I can tell. But as I don't actually think there is any kind of value in the distinction between the two things, I will stop arguing a position I don't really care about.
The one thing I realized just now thinking about this, is how close Blofeld is to Silva in certain respects. With Silva, it is much more clear that his ultimate goal is to humiliate and then kill M. However it is likely that the various plots he alludes to being involved with (although we don't get a lot of details) don't all immediately go towards that goal. It is more that he is doing certain jobs to amass capital and favours and to get to a position where he can go after his ultimate target.
According to my fan theory Blofeld would be operating very, very similar. He is building up SPECTRE basically as his day job and power platform, but the second he gets a chance to go after his most hated target (irregardless of when exactly he realizes the chance exists: pre-CR or when his Assistant tells him Bond sneaked into the meeting, or after he gets scarred) he puts everything on the line to punish Bond as much as possible.
As I have stated before, I would like to were NTTD shed a bit more light on the relationship between the two and on the character of Blofeld. And from what I think we assume about the plot
The concept was just unnecessary. One of the great things about the Bond series is its avoidance of domesticity and childhood. That's part of what made it so appealing to adults. Skyfall came close to breaking the rule, but Bond's childhood home was more an excuse to feature a good location than a probe of Bond's past. Fleming was able to create some of the greatest villains of the 20th century without having to give them tortuous links to Bond's childhood ("Octopussy" is the only exception, but the story never feels contrived, unlike Spectre). The same of course goes for his Blofeld, who stands on his own.
I was very excited when I heard Blofeld was returning to the movies. I hoped EON would take the opportunity to wipe away the encrustations of Dr. Evil-style camp and make him an effective villain again, harking back to Fleming's treatment of the character. Instead Spectre did the worst possible thing: give Blofeld a childhood relationship with Bond and pile on the camp tropes (the cat, the scar, the Nehru jacket, Waltz overacting, etc.). It feels like nobody in charge was certain about which direction to take the character--and that's symptomatic of Spectre's script history, as the Sony leaks demonstrated. The previous stinkers in the series merely suggested exhaustion; Spectre suggests profound indecision.
The problem for me though is that Blofeld is his foster brother. Not because it's coincidental, but because I don't like it. I long for the days of DN where Bond's origins did not need any explaining. I long for the days of FRWL/TB where Blofeld was a faceless mystery.
I also long for the days that we didn't care for continuity. As much as LALD is Shaft, TMWTGG is Shaw Brothers, MR is Star Wars, OP is Indiana Jones, LTK is Miami Vice, and QOS is Jason Bourne, SP is very much Marvel.
And you know, I like Shaft, the Shaw Brothers, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Miami Vice and Jason Bourne. But I don't like Marvel. It's all subjective, and I fully admit that, but I just don't like it.
Now if you do, that's fine, I won't say that this is the worst Bond film ever. I will say though that it is my least favourite of the bunch and that I'll take slide whistles, invisible cars and Tarzan yells over it anyday.
This is very articulate. Thanks for making it clearer than I ever could. I agree with every word.
I agree with this. You put it perfectly.
I like the shoutout here to literary Octopussy. I think it works here because it's basically just mentioned in passing that Hannes is linked to Bond personally. It serves the story by making it a touch more personal that Bond himself is handling this matter, but is subtle in a way that the story would work without it. Spectre hammers you over the head with it.
I guess I can conjure up another potentially controversial opinion: no matter how silly, I actually love Victor Tourjansky's "man with bottle" routine in Roger's middle three films. I can't help it, there's something really funny about these silly cameos. I hated them when I was 12, but I'm always looking forward to them now. Perhaps I just found Tourjansky a nice bloke in one of those 'Inside' documentaries...
I’ll be honest, I’ve still never seen this man who cameoed three times with his bottle. I imagine I’d like it too. I’ll have to watch the films again with a mind to see him.
You could cut out any references to Blofeld being a foster brother and the story doesn't really change. Blofeld is still upset at Bond because he became a thorn on Spectre's side over the years. The conflict is still there. The foster brother stuff is superfluous.
And I just wanna make it clear, STEP BROTHER is an extremely different thing from FOSTER BROTHER. Step brother is what you get when one of your parents marry someone that already has a son. That's not what Blofeld is.
Like I have argued elsewhere, my opinion is that there is nothing really 'great' about SP. This is different from arguing about the Blofeld foster brother stuff.
The pre-title sequence is ok I guess. The fight on the train is ok. The suit he wears waiting for the Rolls to turn up in the desert is great. What else? The Bellucci scenes work because she is a terrific actress (that shot of her sat on the bed is spectacular too).
The Rome chase is boring. The plane chase attempts some Goldeneye style excess, but is ruined by the score (the Bond theme at points might have saved it - without it, it just looks like Bond has picked a really odd vehicle to pursue the jeeps with). The torture scene has real potential (from the CS novel), but is ruined by the 'I love you' reveal and the easy escape and destruction of Blofeld's HQ. The less said about the London climax the better.
I don't doubt that everyone worked hard on it. That much is clear. And I have really tried with it. But there is something that just doesn't sit right with me, and I can honestly say it is the only Bond movie that I hate. And that is such a strong word to use, but every time I think of the film I wince.
I know, through my arguments with you good people, that some of my justification for my feelings is inconsistent - and that what I hate in SP I like in other films - but I can't help it. Not sure if any one else feels the same and also hates it?
Not trying to convince anyone I am correct, by the way. I am glad some of you like it and am happy for you. Wish I felt the same.