It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Yes the Fleming novel does a nice job with that. Although outdated his system of having the black workers of the railways and others in the service industry working for him who in turn is working for SMERSH and Russia is an interesting story. Course by the time of filming it would have been way to political to be delivered to the screen...and of course racist in its tone.
At the beginning of GE, is Bond on a training exercise in Monaco or is he there tailing Xenia Onatopp? Does the film explain which it is?
Seems a little odd that Bond is on a training excursion in Monaco and just so happens to run into Xenia. Surely he is tailing her......
Isn't there a scene where Bond goes into the Aston and reports the status on Xenia? Saying he has made contact....
Yep, while the movie doesn't specify it I like to think that M charged Bond with finding out what Xenia is up to and sent the therapist with him, so to kill two birds with one stone.
That's how i see it too.
I also like to think that they deliberately left it open to interpretation as to make it look like Bond is hanging out in Monaco just for fun. He seems to be more than familiar with the place and knows everyone by name there. The first part of GE always felt to me like he's on vacation until work comes in between.
The Bond that enjoys himself was missing from the franchise for years, and that's what they wanted to bring back with PB imho.
The dialogue from Moneypenny over the computer says the following:
Identification confirmed. Onatopp, Xenia. Ex-Soviet fighter pilot. Current suspected links to the Janus crime syndicate, St Petersburg. Yacht "Manticore" is leased to a known Janus corporate front. M authorises you to observe Miss Onatopp, but stipulates no contact without prior approval. End oftransmission. Moneypenny.
It's possible that Bond was on a training course and just so happened on Xenia's scheme. But there is also the possibility that he was there investigating some links to the Janus group.
It's not entirely clear. It's probably a bit of both. it would have been helpful to have had one line of dialogue to explain that Bond was tailing Janus. maybe Bond saying "I've been tailing Janus for six months now..."
I'm just being hyper-critical and I think @00Agent is right - The scenes are basically an excuse to see Bond rolling around Monte Carlo following a dangerous femme fatale. the pleasure is supposed to be in seeing him begin to put ht mystery together in a sexy and exotic location.
Sure, Bond meets Tracy in the Casino for a second time, saves her and because of that their relationship deepens, but Bond is in the casino purely by accident just enjoying himself. Connery in Dr. No as well. That's who James Bond is.
He greets the valet boy by name in GE. He is clearly a frequent visitor to the casino, and would hang out there with or without a mission.
It might not serve the story that well, but to me that's purely a "character moment".
It also sets up the "Evil Queen of numbers" sequence as we see Bond doing old fashioned sleuthing by his gut and yet M is more into the numbers and facts. Too bad they abandoned this idea after just one film as in TND she is a staunch defender of Bond even though she clearly says she doesn't like Bond in this film.
Agreed, throughout the film you can see in the dialogue that they are puzzling the whole plot together from his first meeting with Xenia.
Bond sees that Xenia steals the helicopter in Monaco. Back in London he concludes that Severnaja was blown up by the people who stole the helicopter because of it's capacity to withstand emp blasts.
Xenia is linked with Janus because Bond send a request to MI6 for investigation, and the MI6 computer tell's them that she is affiliated with Janus. So from there they start investigating Janus. (Same thing with Dimitrios and Le Chiffre)
M asks him in the briefing "What else do we know about Janus?"
They were't shadowing them at all. Pure accident.
Same with Quantum until Bond stumbled on Mr. White with Vespers help.
YOLT a huge volcano that must have cost big bucks to make. Lots of men to help defend and keep the rocket program going.
OHMSS a small mountaintop base with a smaller army of men.
DAF no evidence of SPECTRE. Blofeld is running his caper out of Whyte industries. The only allies seem to be Wint and Kidd and Bambi and Thumper with Saxby somehow turned to do Blofeld's bidding.
There is one small sign of Spectre: the Octopus logo appears on Blofeld's bathosub.
I think you're missing the point.
The opening of GE after the PTS is all about tone.
It's about establishing a sense of mood and atmosphere. That feeling of exoticism, exclusivity, jet-set life. it's what Hitchcock did so well in films such as To Catch a Thief.
I know the opening is a little strained in terms of plot. But it's classically Bondian - you have the vintage cars, the French riviera, mysterious and potentially deadly femme fatales, casinos, glamour, etc.
It's all about tone. These days it's a tone that is really exclusive to the Bond films.
(Also, I think it's Campbell's way of giving Brosnan a nice easy hand to play as he wants audiences to accept him as Bond - so laden him with casinos and DB5's)
+1
Bringing the grinning,confident,fun element back to Bond.
Exactly. And that's as Fleming as it gets. He put tone before plot. I don't want to say always, but often. (you call it tone, to me it's as much the characterization of Bond, but we mean the same thing. Characters are not only about emotions. It's their lifestyle choices and interests.)
If you took some of his plots apart, you would get a headache from the implausibility, and Fleming knew that very well. Just as an example, in OHMSS Bond is chilling at a casino and randomly discovers a suicidal girl that happens to be the daughter of the biggest crime boss of Europe, who happens to know Blofelds whereabouts? That's as implausible as it gets. Still one of his best novels. The whole of CR is a headscratcher, but we don't care because the setup is awesome. In Moonraker he just wanted to put Bond in Blades and talk about food for a whole chapter (Thanks Ian!) and from there Bond discovers that Drax cheats at cards and decides to investigate him lol.
Setting up Bond in the Jetset life was the priority, the rest Fleming took from there.
Always has been. As far as franchises go. And if there is another, they stole it from Bond (John Wick comes to my mind first)
By the way is there a thread for this?
I have never noticed that before I am going to have to give it a look when I see it again?
I have never poisoned a room full of gangsters (LOL) but I can't think of a reason for the lights to flash on and off. Besides maybe to disorient them and cause some additional panic...but that might be a reach as the gas was going to kill them anyway.
My question was if there is another thread for this discussion. ;)
Also i don't agree that all that stuff has disappeared in the Craig era.
It's all, how do you say, a matter of perspective.
I would love to discuss this further in another thread i just don't know which one would fit.
I don't know but it was obviously necessary for the plot of both films. They had a similar story in many ways.