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
This works and makes a lot of sense.
I think the way you’re arguing your point comes across as quite rude (to others you’ve engaged with too, not just me), that everyone in the world and the professional screenwriters are haplessly confused and you’re the only one who realizes CR is “total nonsense” or whatever. It’s possible the screenwriters intentionally put things in the script that didn’t necessarily all line up, but we’re necessary for emotional beats; you know, to tell a story.
Anyways, whatever. Enjoy the film, or don’t.
EDIT: Apologies for the double post (on my phone).
I do apologize for that! One of my favorite Bond films is Diamonds Are Forever--that should put things in perspective! ;) --and that film also contains a writing screwup: Burt Saxby shows up to kill Willard Whyte, even though Blofeld gave that order to James Bond (who was impersonating Saxby). They just made a mistake and it doesn't make sense. I have to fan fiction my way around it or ignore it and it's fine.
I guess it's easier for me to do with DAF, as it's not a gritty movie that features torture and suicide and takes itself quite seriously. It also doesn't have that sacred cow status Casino Royale does (rather the opposite!). So when I point out that the value of Bond's password to Le Chiffre is rather questionable, and Vesper's account number (whatever it is) is clearly of no use to him at all, and I'm told it's quite simple and it went over my head, I do kind of roll my eyes at the reactions (which tend to involve not remembering entire scenes, or inventing a Lucasfilm-style post hoc explanation).
Anyways, largely I agree with you that CRs writing isn’t perfect.
It feels like once a year we all get together to try to sus out the exact happenings of CR. :))
It's like Palpatine fell into the reactor, the Death Star blew up, and now Kylo Ren is here. :))
The password can only be used on the encryptor. If Le Chiffre were to somehow get his hands on that (quite a feat, to put it mildly), he could send the money absolutely anywhere he wants. No information from Vesper is relevant to him.
That said, your ideas about what the hell could have been going on in this movie were pretty good. I'd have you on as a script doctor!
I feel guilty about that!
Maybe... but again I don't think given the situation he'd want to put the money anywhere he wants/in his own account and run, I think he's more worried about Quantum hunting him down and so I still think it makes sense that he'd want the money to go back to Quantum, and for himself to be the one to do it. This makes Vesper's information extremely relevant.
Again, this may be more legwork than should be necessary to do with the story of a film for it to make sense... but the plot holds water.
And, of course, if he's able to capture and torture Bond and Vesper, it'd be well within his hubris to assume he'd be able to use his villainous powers/resources to get a hold of the encryptor from little Mendel.
I suspect getting that encryptor from a Swiss bank would be, uh, something of a task. I don't think Mendel is out on public transport carrying it around!
But even if we're taking the fan fiction route, and Vesper has some Quantum/Spectre bank account number (!) before Mr White visits (the film makes it sound like that deal was only made after Le Chiffre's death, though M doesn't know anything more than we do anyway!), I have to assume that Le Chiffre already has a way to send money to this organization.
Also, Vesper seems to have sent the money to some dummy account, which is why she had to take it to them personally. She doesn't seem to have the Official Quantum Bank Account, for reasons that seem obvious.
This is all very inventive, and honestly kind of impressive, but it still doesn't work. They should have just come up with something akin to that poker chip in Skyfall. That was pretty straightforward!
You're the only one who can possibly be correct about Casino Royale, and you're even smarter than the professional screenwriters who wrote Casino Royale and several other Bond films that have earned millions and millions of dollars. When does your screenwriting career start?
Maybe, maybe not: even so it’s the only option open to him at this point. What Vesper can or can’t supply doesn’t make much difference.
I’m not adding anything that isn’t there, so it’s not really doctoring. I’m just explaining the situation all the characters are in.
Except for when we see him literally carrying it around on his own. Twice. We never actually see it secure in fact, so if we’re purely judging by what’s in the movie and not adding any of our own ideas or writing, it seems obtainable.
Le Chiffre is out of options anyway, he’s desperate, so if going after the encoder is all he’s got, then that’s his plan. He was planning to blow up a prototype airliner, it wouldn’t be his biggest plan to steal a suitcase.
It makes a difference to whether it makes sense for Le Chiffre to be talking about getting an account number from Vesper. There's no "maybe, maybe not". But yeah, if White's organization gives its bank account number to double agents from the Treasury, but not the guy who handles their clients' money, we might be getting somewhere!
Actually, if Le Chiffre had some of his guys do the apparently trivially easy task of stealing the encryptor from the Swiss bank, and he had it with him during the torture, and it cant be deactivated remotely, we'd be doing pretty good... (Though still no need for Vesper's account number)
Or maybe if Le Chiffre had won, and he realized he had no idea how to get the money where it needed to go...that be some nice irony.
I could be wrong/don't want to speak for mtm but I don't think either of us were trying to imply that it would be trivially easy, just within the realm of Le Chiffre's other plots in the film/the actions of a desperate Bond villain with less and less to lose every minute.
Maybe Le Chiffre’s wrong and he doesn’t need it even if he thinks he does, it still doesn’t matter as the threat he poses is real even if he’s mistaken about what he needs.
Le Chiffre isn’t handling Quantum’s money: it’s Obanno’s.
Nobody said it was ‘trivially easy’, you don’t have to keep trying to aggravate, as Nick mentioned. But if we just watch the film and don’t invent extra stuff, it doesn’t seem impossible (it’s a Bond film, the baddies do harder stuff than steal from a bank)- and we’ve already seen LC attempt grander plans. And as LC is out of options, he’ll go for the option he has left, even if it’s going to be tricky. Nothing you’re outlining here is a flaw that makes the plot fall apart.
This is definitely true.
Well, then just rob the bank. Or any bank. Anyway, not relevant to the conceivable use of Vesper's account number. If he wants to send the money to any account other than the one Vesper wants to send it to, he doesn't need her account number. If he wants to send the money to the same account she does, everything he's doing is a waste of time. "LC is out of options, so he's doing overly complicated and largely pointless things to try to get money and maybe he's just wrong anyway" is close enough to what I'm suggesting though!
This is definitely true. But consider that it may be in LeChiffre's best interest to be the one to make that transfer, instead of Vesper. Practically speaking, of course, it doesn't matter, but if he figures he's already on Quantum's bad side (which he is), he might figure it's his last option.
Even if Le Chiffre succeeded in getting the account number and password, and was the individual to make the transfer of the funds, Quantum still would have very likely killed him, but he may not know that for sure.
One could argue that a better option would have just been to run to MI6 for sanctuary, but of course, he's going to try to get the money where it belongs so he can keep being a criminal financier before he does that.
I'm not sure a bank will carry $120m. And it's not what the film is about.
Interestingly, the film version has Le Chiffre, in the torture scene, say the line:
"Miss Lynd will give me the account number, if she hasn't already. So all I need from you is the password."
whereas this version of the script has it as:
"Miss Lynd will give me the account number, if she hasn't already -- and I will then of course insert my own. So all I need from you is the password."
Not sure why they changed it, maybe they thought it was a bit too much information, or it didn't add up, or just slowed the line down, but it seems to suggest that he needs -or thinks he needs- the original account number to replace it with his own for some reason. But it does show that the writers were aware of it.
It's not very clear, but maybe he's just not thinking clearly. Whether he's right or wrong doesn't entirely matter, and someone being wrong when they're in a state of panic for their life isn't necessarily a plot inconsistency.
What he wouldn't want to do is send it to the same account she does, because they're not working for the same people at this point. And as we see from that draft of the script, that's not what the writers were intending.
Well, Vesper found a bank that carried that amount! (This is another very odd thing in the back half of CR) And obviously Le Chiffre doesn't want to send the money to the same account Vesper does. I mean, obviously.
Anyway, I'm glad you agree that what Le Chiffre says is pretty weird and he's obviously a little confused. And thanks for doing that research: the original line is even goofier! The writers seem to have detected a problem, even if the didn't manage to really fix it.
Anyway, he doesn't need the original account number. We saw how it works. You enter an account number, then a password, and that account gets the money. There's no "original account number".
What's this for? I'm being perfectly civil to you, please attempt to do the same.
Fair point. But it's possible they moved the cash in especially as Vesper had requested it ahead and her account showed the credit; it's easily hand-waved away. Regardless, Le Chiffre robbing a bank isn't what the film is about, let's limit the conversation to what's in the film rather than making it something else.
You suggested it, not me: 'If he wants to send the money to the same account she does, everything he's doing is a waste of time'. If we agree he doesn't want to do that then I'm not sure why you brought it up as a possibility.
He seems confused, yes; but he's in a situation where people may get confused. It doesn't constitute the plot of the film falling apart, and he still does require Bond's password to stand any chance at all of getting the money, so the torture scene is not for nothing.
You assertions like 'his apparent accomplice in the other room has the ability to get him the money' are actually misreadings of what's happening.
Yes. We've established that and have literally just been over it. He's wrong and/or confused. But it doesn't change anything that's happening.
Trying to be as thorough as possible. There were hints in this direction from someone at some point. I can't wrap my head around what is so hard to understand about him not having any use for Vesper's account number.
No, it works on an emotional level. I agree. And when Burt Saxby shows up to shoot Willard Whyte, it's because the writers screwed up, but the scene still happens, and the characters react accordingly. I get it. The writers screwed up here too. There's no way they meant to write this story so that nobody actually knows what happened or why. I don't think Le Chiffre is meant to seem confused about the very basic concepts guiding his actions. I don't think Martin Campbell told Mads, "Now Mads, what you're saying here obviously doesn't really make a lot of sense, but remember you are extremely confused. Daniel--when Le Chiffre says this thing that doesn't make sense, act like it makes sense to you. The scene is about the torture--it doesn't have to make logical sense."
Hey, I have no idea what Vesper was doing and neither does anybody else. The movie never tells us if Mathis actually was a baddie or who gave Le Chiffre the tell. I assume Vesper? She was apparently an accomplice for some period? When did that stop? When Mathis tells the audience Mathis was a bad guy, he seems to be covering for Vesper a bit. M thinks Vesper made a deal with White only when he showed up at the scene and killed Le Chiffre. Nobody really has any idea who is helping who or how and when. It's a mystery!
So you're going ad hominem again... I see. It's supposed to be a pleasant conversation about a film, just speak pleasantly and stick to the subject rather than the people, it's not hard. Nick has already pointed this out to you.
As I say, it's not a film about robbing a bank, it's a film about a poker game. That Vesper could get the bank to ready the cash isn't too hard to imagine because she had the credit, as the money already existed because of the poker game. It doesn't necessarily follow that every bank will carry $120m, or that Le Chiffre could raid Fort Knox if he wanted to, because that's a different Bond movie.
Can he steal a box from a nerdy banker? Well we've seen him abduct an Aston Martin-driving superspy and torture him: it's not too big a leap to imagine he could. And unlike Fort Knox, it's actually part of this plot. In suggesting that he couldn't as the character has been shown to us, or had other easier options, it seems like you're trying to find problems where there are none.
Blame Ian Fleming for writing Le Chiffre as trying to get the cheque from Bond rather than mugging old ladies on the street of Royale-les-Eaux, but that wasn't the story he was writing. Le Chiffre wanted that money. It was the money he'd worked to put together.
Or as you might say: 'arguing for the fun of it'.
If you are going to suggest one thing one moment, and when someone points out it's wrong then claim it's 'obviously' not true, then you can see why someone may feel it's arguing for no need, yes?
To paraphrase Vesper: since your first thought about me ran to arguing for the sake of it...that's what I'd say you are.
Not sure who you're aiming that at.
Yes, I think you're right: we the audience are supposed to accept what Le Chiffre is saying here as being the truth about what he needs. But the writers do know, as shown by the draft script, that he doesn't need access to Vesper's account but needs to replace it with his own. I think what they've done is just try to add a little jeopardy to Vesper's situation in the barge by slipping in that line and hoped the audience wouldn't think about it too much, it's a bit of a writer's trick going on I think; but really if you trimmed that one mention of getting the account number from her out of the film it would change nothing about the situation. You're overstating its importance; everything holds together just fine if you simply prune those few words out, which shows that absolutely nothing is depending on them. Other than a little bit of tension for both of our heroes rather than Bond alone.
It's as it's told and shown to us: Vesper is trying to save her other unseen boyfriend and is working direct for Gettler/White. And that's it.
It's thrown at us rather inelegantly, and in such a way which makes it hard to absorb, but it is there and adds up.
This is where you lose me a bit. Basically you're saying you have no idea what Vesper was doing, and you say that *nobody* has any idea what Vesper was doing. How can you speak for everyone? I'm sorry, but it still feels like a situation where you're not understanding what's happening in the film, and you blame everyone else (everyone's writing "fan fiction", everyone is "confused", including, again, professional script writers). Maybe it's not intentional, but you're making it seem like you're the only person who really understands Casino Royale, and that it makes no sense. Perhaps you need to look internally and say, "maybe *I* just don't understand what's happening in Casino Royale". Again, I know you don't mean any malice in your comments, I wonder if it's just in the way you communicate.
The movie communicated there were two people who knew the tell before Le Chiffre; Mathis and Vesper. We're lead to believe Mathis was the one who told Le Chiffre the tell, but then learn at the end it *may* have been Vesper (confirmed in QoS; this is the lesson Bond learns in CR: Vesper was a blind spot because she's a hot lady, now he doesn't trust anyone). She was 'employed' by Quantum who blackmailed her using her 'boyfriend' honeypot as leverage (a second attempt at this plot is made in QoS against CSIS). It stopped when Vesper fell in love with Bond, and was actioned when she told Le Chiffre's men that she wouldn't give them the account number if they killed Bond (confirmed, for all storytelling intents and purposes, at the end of the film). When Le Chiffre tells Bond Mathis is the bad guy, he indeed is covering for Vesper because she's still important for Le Chiffre's plan, however desperate it may be (LC could easily have deduced that Mathis was his only other ally, and so he made a small comment putting Bond on the trail of his actual ally). M thinks Vesper made a deal with White only when he showed up at the scene and killed Le Chiffre *because he did not kill Bond*.
That should answer all of your quoted questions.
You're saying nobody really has any idea who is helping who or how and when, and that it's a mystery, and I quote M: "Speak for yourself."
Again, I don't believe you intend any malice in your comments, but consider the way you communicate your own thoughts so as to not speak on behalf of others.
EDIT: For the record I basically agree with you that the account # / password stuff is pretty loose, but setting aside the effectiveness of what LC's plan might be, the above stuff is pretty set in stone.
I'm going on what people say about the movie. I've heard different ideas (in this thread and others) about the nature of Vesper's work for White/Le Chiffre/Quantum, when she decided to commit suicide and why. M, in the movie, says she made the deal when Mr White showed up. People here have implied differently. You recently thought maybe Le Chiffre actually did want to send the money to the same account number. I'm not trying to be presumptuous...nobody seems to really know.
I'm aware of the clarity QOS brought to some of it, and I'm aware of the background M gives, and the stuff about the boyfriend. I have seen the movie a few times!
It wasn't an attack. I thought it was funny to suggest that a character in CR couldn't withdraw such a huge amount of money from a bank.
Folks who have suggested that Le Chiffre has a use for this account number (as well as other odd things).
Well, if you trim the line, Le Chiffre is suddenly a lot more intelligent and competent. And so is Bond for not nodding along. I don't get any added tension from hearing things that don't make sense. I'm not overstating it's importance, it's just a really dumb line that they messed up. And Le Chiffre's plan to use Bond's password is already sketchy enough without such confusion.
Well, she also helps Le Chiffre. None of that answers any of those questions I listed.
But I'll leave you to it. Maybe you can help me with that Burt Saxby thing though. ;)
But... we said... it could be important for Le Chiffre to be the actual person to get the money into whatever account Vesper was using. Maybe not practically speaking, but maybe in the eyes of Quantum, who are obviously currently hunting him down to kill him. But I mostly agree, as I've said, this part is a bit hazy.
My post answers them all. Here it is again:
Well you are, it's one brief line which is easily skipped over but you're talking about nobody knowing what anybody is doing as a result of it. And as I say, take it out and absolutely nothing about the plot comes crashing down.
To clear it up: the tension is added by implying that he's extracting information from Vesper in the same way he is from James. It seems it's just a little bit of seasoning on the scene. Would it be better if it made perfect logical sense? Of course, but it's equally easily written off as LC just being wrong and not realising. The plot still works either way. It just depends how much you want to go on and on about everything being awful or whether you want to understand what's going on.
Repeating this doesn't make it true. He needs the password to access the funds, as far as it is presented to us he also needs the encoder; but we are shown what sort of a guy he is and what he's capable of, and Bond is a far harder target than Mendel, and LC captured him without a huge amount of trouble. It's a desperate plan, but the whole point of the story is that Le Chiffre is increasingly desperate as the film goes on- he's the frightened rat backed into a corner. That the plan isn't ironclad is very much not a flaw in the story, it's a massive feature of it.
She also works against him by not letting Bond buy back in with the extra money. You were trying to move the goalposts away from what we were discussing. 'Arguing for the fun of it' some may say.