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That Daniel Craig interview...its like a fan fiction premise :
Source?
EDIT: You're right, @bondjames. It's quoted here:
http://www.slashfilm.com/bond-23-screenwriter-hints-blofeld-appearance/
I remember reading that quote too although not from a direct source.
Maybe @peter can confirm it, but my hypothesis is that everybody wanted Blofeld back, but all had a different idea of how to bring him back and more importantly who should be Blofeld as a character.
Logan made the comment in 2001.
I would love to know who chose the Blofeld we saw in SP and give them a slap.
I don't think it was one person decision and it was most likely a compromise. For many people Blofeld is a number of tropes: the scar, the cat, the bald head, etc. They kept some of the most obvious signs, the scar and the cat, revamped the clothes, then my guess is they agreed on the background that they least disliked. Or they "added" the Blofeld persona to Oberhauser when they received the rights.
It’s a shame, but it sounds like they just kept re-working a script that never quite held together from a very early stage.
You are absolutely right. I remember the quote widely discussed back then. Just goes to show what an originality lacking fellow Logan is.
Because I'm sorry but I can't buy into this Neville Chamberlain approach some are happy to advocate. The bottom line is that at some point someone said 'Let's make Blofeld Bond's stepbrother'. That person is an imbecile but EON could've killed it stone dead by saying 'That's a shit idea and there's no way it's going in the film.' But they didn't.
The notion that the start of filming was looming and they had no choice but to go with it is laid bare as utter rubbish quite simply:
SPECTRE meeting scene in Rome
Unseen chairman (Blofeld): We will hear from number 2 who is in charge of our Nine Eyes project, the most ambitious SPECTRE has ever undertaken.
Number 2 (Oberhauser) says a few lines and then film plays out the same with Oberhauser the main villain with the personal connection to Bond remaining intact and there's merely a coda at the end of the film with Blofeld saying something along the lines of 'if it wasn't for that meddling Mr Bond...'
Or
Blofeld is Blofeld and there's no Oberhauser and no personal connection at all. Given that the brother angle is utterly ignored by Bond it would make zero difference to the way the film plays out.
That's a five second fix that could have been done on the day before shooting and whilst it only solves brothergate it still improves the film and exposes the people who let this happen as fiddling while Rome burned.
Exhibit A: The tiresome DB5 dredged up first in SF and then after it had been destroyed it rises from ashes in SP like the cocking Terminator.
Exhibit B:
From 00.57.
The prosecution rests.
This. In f**king spades.
I like that idea! Actually i think Oberhouser would not even be necessary.
Instead Blofeld (still in the shadows) could have introduced C as a Spectre member in the Rome meeting. And then it could have been established that 9 Eyes, as you said, is the most ambitious project Spectre has undertaken, with the goal to weaken the security agencies of the world powers, make them easily controlable and susceptible to false information and start world war 3 to make a huge profit. (if thats not a timely issue i don't know what is)
Or go even crazier and have Blofeld, the little visionary, say he wants to rebuild the world in his image from the rubble. But being angry at his brother (or not, i don't know) is of course WAY MORE DRAMATIC lol
If you want to re-invent Blofeld, make him ambitious and scary. Not this Silent fart of a villain who is motivated by emotions? He was tonally inconsistent. You couldn't tell what he's about. Even waltz must have realized that as he said he was disappointed with the role.
After all we all know what Spectre stands for, and in the Movie it is not even talked about. Apparently they just wanted to name drop Spectre but it's not even clear what their goal is. Instead they turned Spectre into nothing more than a mild breeze, stopped by a pistol bullet to a helicopter engine.
If you have the threat of world war three hanging over the movie, you don't even need a stupid brothergate to keep anyones attention (and it hasn't worked anyway).
As is the process, you have some people who decided not to die on that hill and probably wanted other changes to be made to the script (like Blofeld having to leave his base to take a phone call back in London).
A world record explosion was filmed in scene that lacked any tension, our favorite secret agent was just tortured and he walks out and destroys the SPECTRE lair/
Tow big scenes in SP that are totally fan wank vut lack any originality or tension. Mendes was more about moody Craig than about making in an interesting spy movie. His action scenes are almost by the numbers.
Which is surprising when you see the PTS of SP, he shot all his originality with that action scene the rest of the movie was by the numbers and plain boring.
When a plane crashes it's generally somebody's fault be it the head of the airline, the pilot or just the guy whose job it is to check the wheel nuts. I'm just not happy putting it down as an act of God I'm afraid. The plane smacked into a mountain, everyone died and there should be an enquiry to find out who was culpable.
So because he's not the first to do it it means it's not fan wank? Now that does make no sense.
It served no other purpose than fan wank in GE, TND and CR and that continued in SF and SP too. I'd much sooner it had died with the 60s but for some reason they decided they needed to bring it back in GE and now it's in danger of turning the character into just a series of props. It smacks of a lack of confidence in what you are doing to be honest.
No spending half the budget on an explosion just so you can get in the Guinness Book of Records and then dancing a jig in a behind the scenes vlog while all the time your script is in worse condition than Sergei Skripal makes no sense.
I'm not in anyway undermining your dislike of SPECTRE. After reading the leaked emails, and being familiar with the process myself, I was merely shedding light on how things could have gone off the rails.
In the end, it's my own belief, from the evidence gathered, that, no matter how many re-writes were ordered, no matter how many notes were given, they were simply working with a story that was never working.
In an ideal world they would have shut everything down and started fresh (could you imagine the outcry on this forum); however that would have been at the expense of millions wasted in development, and not very happy investors.
So, they made the best possible film they had with the material at hand. Their gamble paid of and they made 800 million, plus.
But, I would guess, everyone knows they didn't make the particular film they had envisioned at the very beginning.
Brother-gate, in the end, was the least of the story's worry, I'm afraid.
If you're looking for any one person to pin this on, you're not going to find it. Filmmaking is by committee. You can blame the writer(s), but s/he had the notes; blame the executives, but all their notes and what gets into a script comes from compromising with the others on what's more important or less important to have in the final production.
That's why soooo many films don't get made. They die in development. It's a giant risk that costs millions and millions of dollars.
Unfortunately, Wizard, pinning this on one person, or even a handful of people, is a futile effort, since filmmaking is not led by one, or a few, but by many-- all the way from conception, to final cut, to release.
So I don't remember a positive thing written about brother-gate by the other executives, but those others said NOTHING about it; they had plenty of other issues (like that bloody call in London that Blofeld had to take, leaving his base in the desert!! I can't wrap my head about that one).
In the end, brother-gate wasn't the worst issue they were dealing with.
I think maybe it would have helped if the terrorist attacks were made more dangerous. Bond stops the one in Mexico but he does that by blowing up an empty building. I think it would have been cool to have an OP esque scene with him having to stop the bomb going off in a crowded place (he can kill Sciarra first to get the story going). Maybe we should have actually seen the other one play out as well, with cuts to Blofeld (they could have done the FRWL/TB thing and hidden his face if they wanted to keep him in the shadows until meeting Bond) back at his base coordinating the whole thing, instead of just a little news flash.
I also think the characters don't do enough to sell it. Bond figures the whole thing out when he gets to Blofeld's base but doesn't seem too bothered. In the Roger Moore movies his reaction always makes the villain's plan seem more evil. Bond gets pissed off when Blofeld shows the video to Madeline but not at 9 Eyes.
Blofeld should have done more to sell it too. This is where the author of all your pain idea and the foster brother bit distracts from 9 Eyes imo. He spends so much time going on about them that apart from his cheerful little pep talk on surveillance he doesn't spend enough time gloating over his evil plan. I get that they didn't want to go too Dr Evil mwahaha with it but just a few lines about the damage Spectre could do with that surveillance and the power they'd have would have done. Also, a little idea to ground the film, talk about how people's paranoia and the willingness of groups like ISIS to claim responsibility made it all too easy. If Silva absoloutely had to be a Spectre agent they could have talked about how everything he did in London also sowed the seeds.
Also, while I actually really liked the finale, I think that it was too easy to stop. I know a lot of people say it should have been going online from Blofeld's base but that doesn't make much sense with it being a government thing. Maybe C could have Bond and M framed and branded traitors or something? So M is arrested, Bond gets back to London but the police are after him, Q needs him to log in manually by plugging some gadget into a computer in C's office building, he has to break into the building which is full of Spectre agents. That's just a random idea but I think it could work. I'm picturing Bond at deaths door after fighting his way to the office, finally stopping it at the last second, and then a dying C smugly telling him in as many words that it isn't over because Blofeld has Madeline.
Sadly I believe there are a lot of people and executives who think brogate is a good idea, because most mainstream TV shows/movies end up having a personal angle, maybe because they think making it personal increases the stakes and our emotions. And perhaps it works a lot of the time. But Bond is, well should be, better than that
@peter yes and that's why often dramas with a controlling showrunner often produce excellent and highly awarded/watched shows (Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Sopranos). We need that for Bond. Cubby seemed to do that, for better or worse
(and, my feeling, mine alone: it will only get worse now that TV is a high-stakes pay-off-- more executives, more voices... more cooks...)
@peter exactly. The great shows like Game of Thrones and Mad Men have been affected by things such as budget, time, and world events (ie people complaining about treatment of women in GoT. The later seasons are much more toned down). #metoo will certainly affect things in a big way.
I get where your feeling is coming from. TV is becoming a much bigger deal these days