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I agree. If the director and actor don't see eye to eye on what they're doing it's likely to show in the finished film. On the point of the character being poorly defined in the film script if only they'd used the Thunderball novel as their starting point (drawing from OHMSS and YOLT as well if they so wished) as the character of Blofeld certainly wasn't poorly defined by Fleming. Yet again it was another missed opportunity to bring laregely unused Fleming material to the screen. The Spectre meeting is clearly based on the one in the novel and the 1965 film version of Thunderball so it's a shame more from Fleming wasn't adapted. When the writers are stuck for inspiration with their original ideas they should always return to the Fleming novels.
To me it plays into real world efforts to undercut intelligence services, the military, and more recently the police. So it struck a chord, sure, and remains relevant. Works as well as struggling to prevent a bomb from going off. And being successful. Then it doesn't go off.
Also I didn't want harm to come to Madeleine. Like that character.
I also love M, and wanted him to get his position back.
Totally agree with you. While I take obvious delight in watching this movie, it's clear that the two plots weaken each other: as the film becomes a Cold War thriller, the character of Octopussy for exemple changes from a mysterious figure to a dupe, a victim, even though she was until now a mastermind criminal that could have been the main antagonist. These two narrative perspectives would have greatly benefited from being the subject of two separate films.
It's just an awfully dull concept. We don't have any tangible relationship with the Nine Eyes system as a maguffin because we've only had verbal confirmation of it. We've never seen what it can do nor do we know what SPECTRE's immediate plans are once it has been initiated (beyond now "being everywhere", which they already are anyway!). If they needed the system to go online in order to carry out a specific attack, the countdown would have more weight.
As is, it's about as exciting as waiting for a Youtube live video to premiere and as a result, our focus is pushed towards the personal aspects of the film's finale which are unfortunately also flawed.
That's the weirdest thing in that entire plan: Oberhauser shows pretty comprehensively that they have full surveillance capabilities long before the system goes online. There is no explanation, that I am aware of, of what they would be able to do, that they aren't when Bond and Madeleine are in the crater base (which Bond blows up by the way, which should set that entire plan back a tiny bit...).
On a more political bend: Do we know whether M is against Nine Eyes on principal or mainly because it is C's brainchild and could/would fall into SPECTRE's hands? After all, he is supposed to be the Head of the Secret Intelligence Service. Intelligence gathering and sharing should kind of be in his interest, shouldn't it?
He certainly doesn't trust C, but he also still prefers the more "hands on" approach to intelligence gathering that the 00 section represents and that Nine Eyes would make redundant. It's just a further extension of the "old ways are the best" theme that Mendes infused into SF.
And the idea that their schemes would be less likely to be foiled by the intelligence community were they to have complete access to everything seems at the forefront. It's suggested as well when M wants the smart blood files deleted.
It's a shame they didn't do more with that smart blood thing. There must have been more in an earlier version. C knowing exactly where Bond is could have been fun.
I don t understand how SPECTRE is any worse than the gang who is already in control. Doesn t make much difference to the rest of us, does it?
That recalls QoS and Gregg Beam sarcastically saying we should do business just with good guys all the time. That's not how the real world works as (for just one example) all of the dictators armed by the Western powers could attest. However, this level of introspection and self-doubt about how British Intelligence is no better than those it works against is not to be found in the patriotic works of Fleming but rather in those of Le Carré, Deighton et al. It does feature in the Bond films though from time to time.
I work in cybersecurity (recent position, but still) and I can tell you why: it is vital to be be proactive and not reactive. You predict and prevent. A minute after there's a breach of security and it's already too late: someone can do terrible damages to your organisation(s).
Exactly. Being alert and on attack mode is better than being defensive after the fact of the security breach and reacting to events rather than anticipating and preventing them occurring in the first place. It all comes down to the old thriller staple of the ticking clock of the bomb going off or the nefarious deed occurring be it an assassination or something else. You can't put the genie back in the bottle once it's gotten out.
To be honest I do find it a tangible enough threat: the idea that a network like Spectre could gain that additional power is a good enough objective for MI6 to battle, I think.
You're not far off, @BT3366! If I'm not mistaken, both Ghost Protocol and Fallout utilise the scenario you describe there, but both countdowns were serving a naturally more immediate nuclear threat rather than a computer programme/system.
It's a pity that they chose to go with such a bland and underdeveloped not-a-maguffin in SP, especially after the hacking stuff in SF was all so stylish in comparison.
No, I agree. That's not what a MacGuffin is defined as.
Of course.
https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/amazon-reportedly-james-bond-scifi/amp/
I wouldn't worry to much about that one, considering the publication, @Ludovico. They are well known for creating fiction.