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I don’t recall this exchange at all. Where is it in the film?
When Q is going through the recordings on Blofeld’s eye and comes across Primo meeting Logan Ash at the cafe.
Btw, could anyone make out what Safin says to Madeleine’s mother before shooting her? I was unable to make it out for all 3 times I’ve seen NTTD.
Nope, Safin hired Primo through Ash before Blofeld’s death. Primo was not just an henchmen. He was SPECTRE N1 henchman, he was Blofeld’s eyes, in charge of stealing Heracles and finalizing Blofeld’s grand revenge plan. Ash meets him right after the massacre, so this suggests that he had already plans for him.
It’s a bit confusing for the audience nevertheless, does Blofeld see everything Primo does? And this bit means he actually watched Primo betraying him, but we never get any impression that Blofeld reacted to that in any way.
Are you not just filling in the gaps yourself though? For all we know Safin had hacked the eyeball feed, saw Primo was still moving and told Ash to go to him (he’s pretty easy to find if you’re watching his POV!).
Anyway, Safin hacked Primo's eyeball? I don't remember that. Q hacked Blofeld's eyeball and that's it as far as I remember.
I think if we’re asking what’s shown in the film let’s not add in stuff that wasn’t there.
So what you just wrote - "For all we know Safin had hacked the eyeball feed" - is just a personal random assumption. We don't know that AT ALL. And if you ask me, it doesn't even make sense.
Anyway I said that Primo being spared SUGGESTS Safin had plans for him. To me Safin is not someone who just hires Blofeld's right hand because hey he's alive. Safin knew exactly who was targeting and knew Primo would have not died.
Yes, I said “for all we know”. My point is that has just as much evidence in the film as the idea that Safin decided to spare Primo in order to recruit him.
Well, you stated it as fact, that’s why I asked if it was in the film or not.
Safin also allowed lots of other Spectre goons besides Primo to live, who all tried to kill Bond, so we can see his planning isn’t great.
Perhaps it was less about who was targeted than it was whether you stood under the sprinklers or not: and Primo was watching from a distance.
Was his plan to keep Bond alive to make sure MI6 didn’t get Valdo and he’d be delivered to Ash? That’s a risky plan.
Quite a few Spectre members didn’t die, quite clearly. Unless they were just annoyed, heavily armed bar staff of course.
The film states multiple times that ALL SPECTRE members died in Cuba. Gosh, M even says to Bond "Blofeld is the last SPECTRE's member that is still breathing".
The ones that survived were henchmen, wives, bodyguards, escorts etc etc.
Regarding the geography... we see Primo walking right in front of the guy with the eyeball and seconds later we even see Bond looking at Primo the moment he activate the sprinklers. Hardly Fukunaga's fault...
What's the reference, for those of us not as steadfast on the books? (And maybe post it into the easter eggs thread as well...)
Does anyone remember whether the SPECTRE henchmen are going after Valdo or Bond in that sequence? It does seem a bit shortsighted if they don't come after him. Maybe only very few people knew who he is and maybe they didn't understand immediately that he manipulated the virus, but with an organization like SPECTRE you would still think they would kill him just for being involved in the whole mess.
I still maintain that that whole sequence including the Jamaica prelude is great spy thriller stuff, where no-one really knows who is working for whom and why. Maybe my favourite realization watching the film a second time was that Valdo asking Paloma whether they are there to get him for Safin isn't just a throwaway joke (and I am just now realizing that he says something like "are you my escort?" and she may take it as an indecent proposition?!), he is actually right! They are there on Safin's orders, they just have no idea. That would have, by the way been a nice way of continuing the Safin character and his MO. In the first half of the film he is constantly using people as double agents and using people doing things for their own benefit to be for his benefit. He doesn't have any henchmen of his own basically until the Norway chase. Both times he needs to get Valdo out of something, he has someone else do the dirty work. Primo and Blofeld basically kill their own people for him. He gets Madeleine to get the virus to Blofeld. Arguably that extends to his final act of using Bond and Madeleine' love for each other against themselves in a very twisted way. It's a nice inversion of SPECTRE's "we have people everywhere". So does he. But they are your people and most of the time they have no idea, they are working for him. That isn't continued in the last third of the film and I would have loved it if they continued that thread a bit more, with maybe him playing Japan, the US and Russia against each other more to use their armies basically as his henchmen or something.
Like Primo, yes.
He's stood behind a column and behind the crowd, and Bond, as I recall.
Was Safin intended to be revealed as Dr No?
Last time I watched the film I noticed someone refers to him as Doctor and the dialogue between he and Bond seems to be heavily edited at points
Could it be he was going to be revealed as Dr No and they cut it?
I agree, all this intrigue is terrific. The twists regarding who is doing what, and for whom, are enjoyable and logical, and not so twisty that they start to grate, which I felt to be case in the last Mission: Impossible film.
I honestly got a bit confused by all of the poisons and who they kill: Safin's red one was threatening but I felt I missed whether it targeted the Swanns or not- I only really understood when it had broken, and even then Safin seemed to be saying that he and Bond were in the same boat and couldn't meet anyone ever again, which seemed slightly contrary to what it seemed it did.
And with all of these targeted toxins he just wanted to kill almost everyone anyway. If he had wanted to remove anyone even vaguely related to Spectre worldwide or just been a massive racist and wanted to remove specific races it would have made a bit more sense of the nature of the weapon.
The red one was Safin's insurance. He reveals to Swann that he commissioned to Waldo one dose of Heracles with her DNA as the target. We can see him collecting one of Swann's hair in her office. This way he basically has total control of her life and Mathilde's. Then, when Bond is getting the upper hand, he gasses him but during the fight the little bottle breaks so he gets poisoned too. Everything is extremely simple and seamless.
Safin believes to be some kind of God. He provides a weapon but it's up to someone else (the buyers) to decide who's gonna be killed. Just like God gives life but then it's up to each being to decide what to do with this gift. In the end he just want to live inside his lair on his family's island with Madeleine while the world dies. He believes people just want oblivion and free will is just a lie. His heritage will be a less populated world, if not an inhabited one.
Yeah how the nanomachines function and what/why Safin wanted to use them for were the biggest head scratchers. I kept forgetting that the machines had to be loaded with a specific DNA profile beforehand because I kept going “Bond already has those things in his body! Why is he only now worried??”. I guess that’s more on me, but for all the exposition those things got it still felt poorly explained. I was also confused about their relation to the poison garden and the toxic plant farm in Safin’s base. Were they manufacturing more nanomachines in the water? Are the nanomachines simply a vehicle to deposit the toxin from the plant (this is my preferred reading I think)? Or was he simply developing other weapons there too?
Yeah, the film needed to clarify who he wanted to use the weapons on as well. Since thinking back on it I think I more or less get Safin’s motives: he’s a creep with a god complex obsessed with controlling life and death. In the PTS he kills Madeline’s mother but saves Madeline. In his poison garden he controls what grows and he uses them to kill or control others. And he tells Bond that people want to be told what to do, and seems to have a perverted sense of justice as well, so I imagine he wants to control people out of fear (like he does Madeline) while he takes out various “problematic” elements of the population as he sees fit, like he did with Spectre. But who specifically he wants to kill, and how this really relates to his family backstory is left too vague. It would be much more narratively tidy if there were some specific connection between his family’s goals and what he is doing beyond just making poison.
Yes it's just Safin's reaction didn't quite make sense after it had broken to me. He seemed to act like neither of them could leave or see anyone again.
Indeed, but muddled by the film showing us his plans (not his buyers') to kill millions of people in the lab, and the DNA data leak which comes from Valdo's (working for Safin) drive.
The film's storytelling is murky at a number of places.
After exterminating SPECTRE, Safin doesn't want to kill anyone specifically. That's the point.
His reaction made perfect sense since after their fight they both won't be able to touch Madeleine ever again. They're both doomed.
Those projections were either commissioned by the buyers or prepared by Safin to show the power of Heracles to the buyers.
It only makes perfect sense if you think he cares as much as Bond, but we've seen him not give a toss whether Mathilde stays with him or not. Muddled storytelling again.
You're filling those details in again; I don't recall that ever being said. Nomi literally says "He'll kill millions" - it's clear that the audience is supposed to infer that it's his plan. And yet a few minutes later it isn't.
I think it's a good film but there are flaws in how it's put together.