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I do think it could have been done better, though of course when I say "better", I mean "even better", but yeah, I don't entirely disagree.
But as for Q's line, I didn't quite read it that way, because one of the things I loved about NTTD is that they really doubled down--tripled down-- on every aspect of Spectre. I was shocked and delighted when Blofeld's final word was "Cuckoo!" I couldn't believe that when I saw it...! And then smart blood?! It must have been like "Bond's Greatest Misses" for many of the hardcore in the audience!
I always thought the smart blood idea was pretty clever myself, admittedly. It doesn't stretch the realms of realism these days, either. Seems like something that could very easily exist.
I like the idea of having Blofeld and Oberhauser as separate characters, with Blofeld basically winding him up and goading him to take on Bond. Mtm's probably right, though, and they'd've been combined into one role, anyway - the leaked emails showed that the studios suggested that SP ditched Tanner and gave his scenes to Moneypenny, after all.
Smart blood is indeed a good idea. And to actually be specific about something that I think could have been better in Spectre (there's not much, I adore it), the smart blood idea was totally wasted. If C/Blofeld/Spectre had accessed it, they could have come up with some cool ideas...shame.
Travelyn's motive is not dissimilar to Drax's from the MR novel. It's not a straightforward grudge against one individual like Safin or Silva in their respective films, but against an entire Government, an entire country, and one could say everything that goes with it. It's a pretty simple, easy to follow motive - the British Government wronged his parents and it led to their suicide, now everything he does is motivated by this intense hatred of Britain and its Government. When you boil it down to that it works because it's easy for an audience to believe, no matter how grand his plan is, no matter what the plot contrivances are (again, this a Bond film).
There's a reason why Travelyan is a well liked villain and the Blofeld of SP is disliked by many. Like I said, with Bond villains you can get away with a lot if you ultimately keep their motivations and fundamental reasons for what they are doing simple. Again, Blofeld is a psychotic criminal and thinks he's a visionary... fine, I can sort of go with it. It's weak, but no weaker than many other Bond villains. And yet there's all this stuff about him killing his Father, getting jealous of the young Bond, explicitly saying this led him down the path he's on...
Why did he hate his father? How did killing him lead to SPECTRE? We don't really get any context or explanation for this beyond Blofeld's obsession with Bond (which again has many implications for the viewer). And no, saying he's simply psychotic is a cop out. It just doesn't work for me.
That's a hell of a reason to kill your Father. Again, we simply have no further information about Oberhauser Sr. and Blofeld for this to work, and the fact that the film emphasises this connection between Bond and Blofeld leads the viewer to believe that Blofeld's obsession with Bond is actually a root cause of all this...
It would have been different if it were made clear that Blofeld was ashamed of his Father or hated him for some sort of tangible reason. What if Oberhauser Sr. worked in some way for the British Government? Maybe, contrary to what Bond experienced with this man, he was in some way abusive towards the young Earnst and his wife, and his perceived love of 'Britain' (or at least the idea that he was working for the 'good guys') in his work for the British Government was particularly egregious to Blofeld. The adoption of Bond, a young British boy, would not only make more sense but have a lot of connotations. Just a little speech detailing something like this from Blofeld would have gone a long way to justifying everything - his dislike of Bond, the killing of Oberhauser Sr., the fact that he set up this criminal empire and dedicated himself to this life of crime - everything that his Father stood against.
Like I said, fundamental motivations for villains can simply boil down to something like this and work, but you have to sell that idea.
You can have things like villains resenting Bond, sure. But like I said, if the fundamental reason for what they are doing isn't understood by the audience then it all falls apart.
It's not that Blofeld has that jealously towards Bond, it's that I simply don't know what drives him.
He killed his Father... why? Because he was jealous of Bond. Ok, so that's his motive for creating SPECTRE and hacking the Nine Eyes programme! No, it's because he sees himself as a visionary and he's a super villain... Ok, but Blofeld said that Bond was the reason he was set down that path in the first place, and the obsession with Bond is something that's being emphasised here... He's just crazy, that's it...
I don't buy it. It's too muddled. We need something more tangible here like I said.
Again, simply saying that Blofeld has been nuts his whole life is not a motivation and does not excuse weak writing, at least without having something that fundamentally drives him. Again, is it his obsession with Bond? The film emphasises this, framing the killing of Oberhauser Sr. around this, having the character state that he was set down this path by Bond... The film also hammers home this idea that Blofeld is 'the author of Bond's pain', implying that Blofeld was well aware of Bond interfering the whole time and acted as this mysterious figure pulling the strings. It's a retcon, but like I said it's what the film is going for.
But still, Blofeld is ultimately the man behind SPECTRE, the organisation that tricked Vesper and led to her death. Bond would still be invested in taking them down even without the personal connection between him and Blofeld.
Safin could have been a great villain, and I always say that if they'd have re-jigged the plot he could have worked better during the third act. If there were remaining SPECTRE agents that Safin was planning to target, knowing full well that it would also kill their innocent relatives, the weapon itself at risk of getting into the wrong hands etc. then you could have kept the revenge motive while also having him be... well, crazy. It doesn't matter to him that innocents will die, or that the nanobots could lead to catastrophe. He just wants to destroy SPECTRE, no matter the cost.
Once again, writing a Bond villain requires that simple, but central motive. It has to be clear though, otherwise we get villains like Safin and Blofeld from SP.
Well yeah. One is in a comeback movie that had a very successful N64 game, and one is thought to be Bond's brother, which is a very unpopular idea.
I mean, there's also a reason Spectre came in last in the production design ranking thread, and it has nothing to do with production design! :))
Again, I'm just completely lost as to what is confusing here. Blofeld is not presented here, or anywhere else really, as a picture of pristine mental health. If this mad guy tells us he killed his father because his father gave too much attention to another kid, that all makes sense to me. It's an illustration of his madness. When he talks about killing his father, you're not meant to think, "Well, that seems sensible." I don't know what to tell you!
I cannot imagine that any reasonably intelligent or normally socialized person can get this confused about it. (Which is to say I don't think you're actually confused about this.) Why would jealousy of Bond be a motive for hacking Nine Eyes? That doesn't even make sense on a superficial level. Blofeld talks about his past with Bond as an answer to a question about why he's torturing James Bond. It could not possibly be simpler.
Blofeld hates Bond out of jealousy and resentment. That's why he's not very nice to James Bond. And he killed his father because of it. Kind of extreme thing to do, but he is a villain in a James Bond movie. And once you murder someone, well, you're kind of on a path, aren't you?
The film is not asking that much from you. It's a bit more than "He loves gold," perhaps, but it's also a bit less than "Britain killed my parents in a roundabout way, and the ideological justification for my job changed, and Bond changed the timers, and I really want to be rich."
You don't think, "Oh, Bond changed the timers on those bombs and it messed up Alec's face and that's why he's blasting London with an EMP." No, you know he's doing it because of one or all of the other three reasons. Blofeld thinks himself a criminal visionary, and hacking Nine Eyes will help his other enterprises, as said out loud at the Spectre meeting.
EDIT: Here's a spoiler for Bond 26: the villain will be nuts. I know that because they're all nuts. Someone killed your elephant so now you're an assassin with a golden gun? That's bonkers. All these guys are bonkers.
Except maybe Largo.
Yes. Blofeld's mental illness was addressed directly in one of the SP drafts, where he asked Madeleine 'What's the term for someone who focuses all their misfortune and woe upon a single individual? Delusional paranoiac. It's a term I've heard before.'
That script also included a lengthy account by Blofeld of what happened during Bond's stay with the Oberhausers - how Bond was 'the absolute embodiment of everything that I was not', how his father taught Bond how to ski, climb, hunt and play poker, while Franz had to stay in his room alone as 'the excitement would be too bad for my heart' and how, when he was finally allowed to join the poker games, he thought he had the winning hand and was going to impress his dad, until Bond took off his dead father's watch and put it up as collateral - whereupon Franz panicked and folded. But Bond had been bluffing.
It worked in that script as it tied in to a later scene where Blofeld had to gauge whether or not Bond was bluffing again when he revealed the existence of an MI6 file about Spectre that would be made public in the event of his death. Once that angle had been dropped, would it've been better to keep the explicit account of why Blofeld hated Bond or have it be a bit more ambiguous, as they did in the final draft? Not sure. Spell it out and you risk the viewer thinking 'Is that all it is?' Don't spell it out and you risk the viewer feeling there's not enough meat on the bone.
So all the problems people have with SP are down to fans having a grudge against the idea of Bond and Blofeld knowing each other as children? To be fair that's a more clear motivation than Blofeld has in SP...
I mean, I'd argue that people view SP more negatively than GE is more broadly the fact that they find the latter to be a more entertaining, easier to watch film... but that's just me.
It's not confusing. It's simply not believable, at least to me. Seemingly to many other viewers too. Bond villains are usually crazy individuals with God Complexes, and that's actually fine, but only insofar as it's tied to a tangible, single motive that lies at their core.
If Goldfinger didn't have his love of gold and obsession with wanting to be the biggest gold supply owner in the world, then his scheme would not be believable. He'd just be some crazy rich guy trying to blow up Fort Knox.
Or if Travelyan didn't have his deep rooted hatred of Britain, the country that robbed him of his parents, then his whole plan would be convoluted and rather silly... He's still mad, but that's his central motivation, regardless of whether he was born a madman or was pushed into being one.
Same for Silva and his vendetta against M. Doesn't matter if he was always psychotic or if he was pushed into this state by his cyanid experience. His fundamental reason for what he's doing is simple and believable. I can even excuse the plot contrivance of his getting captured to escape from MI6...
Even the Blofeld of the old films was simply in it for the money. Hey, it works. I can buy he'd create a War with Russia and the UK for profit, or steal nuclear weapons to hold the world to ransom.
No main Bond villain is simply mad for the sake of it. Again, this idea of a central motive is so important for these characters. If this core idea is not strong enough, or you have too much going on with this aspect of the character, then they don't work as villains.
You have this iteration of Blofeld, a man who killed his Father, who knew Bond as a child and went on to create this criminal empire and is now using the Nine Eyes programme to essentially strengthen his organisation. That's fine. But you need that central motive to tie it all together. The film emphasises his obsession with Bond, framing his Father's killing through Oberhauser Sr's adoption and love of the young James. In doing so, you place a lot of significance on that idea for the viewer. You sure as hell do when your villain outright says, 'in a way you set me down this path'.
The film is outright telling me that this obsession with Bond is a central part of Blofeld. Or at least I and other viewers hone in on this because it's the most prominent dramatic detail. And yet this is not quite the case in practice. Blofeld is ambitious too so set up a criminal organisation and wants to strengthen it... there's no motive for that other than he's a mad egomaniac, and the film is trying so hard to push this jealously subplot that I associate Blofeld's string pulling from the previous films as motivated by his hatred of Bond, at least on some deep level... It's not strong enough a foundation for this character. This is a major reason why this character is so disliked compared to comparatively sillier villains.
I'd like to know what you thought of my alternative idea for Oberhauser. Do you think this would have strengthened the Blofeld character if he claimed all his actions were tied to this?
As I said I don't find it believable for the above reasons. I just don't think Blofeld was a very well written character in this film.
Again, I just didn't feel this was strong enough enough motivation for killing your Father in the context of the film. If you are able to view this movie and take everything it is telling you at face value without feeling that it's not quite right, then power to you.
Seriously, if this film and villain work on an emotional level for you, then I'm actually glad. I wish I could enjoy SP as much as you seemingly do. Same for how a lot of people feel about NTTD.
... no, I don't think Travelyan is blowing up London with an EMP because Bond inadvertently scarred his face. Mainly because the film makes clear that he's doing this because of the British Government's involvement in the death of his parents. He has a very clear motivation for becoming a super villain. I don't think SP effectively ties Blofeld's ambition to be a criminal mastermind with a similar deeper motivation and the film emphasises his jealously towards Bond too much, linking it in with the killing of his Father, the path he went down to create SPECTRE. I think more was needed to make this character stronger. That's all I'm saying.
A lot of Bond villains simply want to be the best in their field but are more extreme and obsessive in how they go about this. Goldfinger wants to be the world's most prominent gold supplier. Elliot Carver wants to be the best media mogul in the world. Scaramanaga wants to be the best assassin in the world. Some of these villains don't even have backstories to justify any of this because that central motivation is so clear and strong. Boil it down even further and there's obsession, narcissism, madness... but ultimately, on a very basic script level, the idea is simple and provides an effective bouncing off point for the writers.
Blofeld's formation of SPECTRE doesn't quite have that. We never get a long speech about how he wants to be a great man unlike his weak Father, how as a child he longed for the day that he could do something great and when he did kill Oberhauser Sr. finally felt something akin to how he imagined this. Even that would have been something.
But no, he's just cuckoo. And hates Bond... because daddy didn't love him... and now he's a super villain. Weak sauce really.
Kristatos too perhaps? Anyway, most likely they'll be bonkers, and that's fine. But if they're poorly written then they won't work.
I'd also argue Kananga is not bonkers.
Well, he wears crazy makeup and has an alter ego and hangs out with a voodoo god and believes virginity allows his friend to tell the future! There's that!
Nah. Release TND first, make an N64 game of that, that'd be the classic.
So you're watching Spectre for the first time, you see the big meeting, they're talking about all their profitable schemes and how their surveillance project is going to help them out, and you're just sitting there baffled, wondering why they're doing this. Why the hell are these people making money and gaining power through organized criminal activity?! It's inexplicable! Who does that?!
Then finally, in the third act, someone asks Blofeld why he's torturing James Bond. He explains his history with James Bond, and you think, "Ohhhhhhh, THAT'S why his organization is making money and gaining power through organized criminal activity!"
We obviously just watch films differently!
But what was your idea for Oberhauser? I missed it. If it involves having a Blofeld character and a Oberhauser character, I don't care for the idea.
Kamal Khan isn't bonkers I'd say. He's balanced out by Orlov though who is, let's be honest, completely nuts.
Same for Koskov. Like Khan he's just immoral, but I wouldn't say mad as such. Again, it's balanced out by Whitaker who is comparatively crazy.
I'm not a gamer but I really like TND. It's far better than I think some people remember it being.
I mean, I watch the film, see Blofeld going on about how him and Bond grew up together, how he's the 'author of all his pain', how it was him who set him down his path, the glee he takes in tormenting Bond etc. and the process, in my mind anyway, goes a bit like this:
"ok, so Blofeld killed his Father because he was jealous of Bond and set him down this path of being a criminal mastermind... so, he's created SPECTRE because he was jealous of Bond? Not really, but sort of... And he, what, got jealous of Bond and killed his Dad because he's crazy? I don't really find this believable. I am now taken out of the film somewhat because I find this silly, and not in a TSWLM or GF type way."
That's all it boils down to. If you don't find the motives of the characters believable it take you out of the movie. And that's not good.
No, the alternative idea for Blofeld was:
"It would have been different if it were made clear that Blofeld was ashamed of his Father or hated him for some sort of tangible reason. What if Oberhauser Sr. worked in some way for the British Government? Maybe, contrary to what Bond experienced with this man, he was in some way abusive towards the young Earnst and his wife, and his perceived love of 'Britain' (or at least the idea that he was working for the 'good guys') in his work for the British Government was particularly egregious to Blofeld. The adoption of Bond, a young British boy, would not only make more sense but have a lot of connotations. Just a little speech detailing something like this from Blofeld would have gone a long way to justifying everything - his dislike of Bond, the killing of Oberhauser Sr., the fact that he set up this criminal empire and dedicated himself to this life of crime - everything that his Father stood against."
Something like that. It feels like the Oberhauser killing could have had some more significance and made Blofeld a more believable character.
But hey, again if you are able to go with this film and take what it's telling you at face value, then you probably won't agree. These things are subjective after all, but I do think it's telling that this iteration of Blofeld isn't fondly regarded by fans and general viewers.
No, not really, and not "sort of".
But... Blofeld said 'in a way you set me down this path' in the film... I don't have any more information about his ambitions other than he's supposedly crazy and in the past he killed his Father because apparently he was jealous of little Bond... if anything I'm sort of wondering what was going on between Obserhauser Jr. and Oberhauser Sr. before Bond arrived to have justified such an extreme reaction, and ultimately to become a super villain.
I don't how accurate a single rating system will be for a general audience reaction... I can only go with the views broadly of people I know my own age. The general sense I get is Spectre is... well, kinda lame. Skyfall and Casino Royale are generally the favourites. So to be fair, perhaps I was a bit too quick to say general audiences, as I think that's rather subjective and not always easy to gauge... my bad :)
It's not got a bad audience rating on RT to be fair... 60% or something? Not the best but not the worst. What specific problems people had with Blofeld, if any, in this movie is a separate issue.
Anyway, I think we know each other's thoughts on this and like I said I'm glad you find more enjoyment in this film and character than me :)
So, in the light of that, the motivation attributed to Blofeld in SP looks like a real thing, rather than a ludicrous bit of P & W overreach. Given that such individuals apparently do exist, Blofeld's feelings towards Bond in the heightened reality of SP become more plausible, no?
It's not always easy depicting mental illness or paranoia on film because often individuals aren't always rational in this state in real life, and aren't subject to the same expectations/logic that we have within narratives (specific goals, motivation, character arcs etc.) I don't think it's useful applying terms like 'delusional paranoiac' to a Bond villain in this sense, as it's a genuine mental illness which some people suffer from, not just an excuse for having a character do stuff without clear or believable explanation.
Yeah, and I think most of what you posted of that early draft is basically in the film. Blofeld clearly acts like a delusional paranoiac through the whole film. I'm also quite glad we didn't have to hear him say out loud that Bond was every thing young Franz wasn't--it just doesn't need to be said. There were some good things in those early drafts, but most of this was stuff that was kind of redundant to the performances and existing text.
Yeah, I do read them, but I may have skipped the fan fiction thing. I did look at it now though, and you were right to expect I wouldn't think much of it. It reminds me of cash-in prequel series writing. I'm already not on board with your claim that murder out of jealousy is far-fetched (!), and when you bloat it with details designed to make a murder sound justifiable to a non-delusional person, I just don't get why you would do it. If a clearly crazy megalomaniac who orders eye gougings and requires assistants to adjust his microphone says he killed his dad because he gave too much attention to another kid, well, that sounds about right.
But I can already hear the Kate Bush song playing during your Oberhauser series! ;)
Regarding confusion, there is clearly a huge amount of confusion out there, some deliberate, perpetuated by people who half-watched or half-understood the movie. On your end, I just think you have to be confused if you were unable to discern a motive for Spectre's existence, and if you instead applied to that Blofeld's motive for torturing James Bond.
He sure did! "Well, this cuckoo made me realize my father's life had to end. In a way he's responsible for the path I took..." His delusional way of thinking is crystal clear.
Hmm, like I said I think we know each other's thoughts on this now... or perhaps at least one of us doesn't want to. Ah well, I think we're going round in circles a bit on this one. Have a nice day :)
There it is!
-...so they'll be foster brothers. That's my idea.
-But Michael, what about Goldmember?
-Please, let's not talk about my endowment. Back to Spectre.
I haven’t watched another Bond since, nor have I really even felt like it — it’s an odd predicament, really, considering how much of a fan I’ve been since I was introduced to Goldfinger when I was 4/5. In the past day or two, I’ve begun to get that familiar itch again. Oddly enough, I find myself anticipating watching Roger Moore save the world again. I think a viewing of Octopussy is in the near future.
I'm hoping to get my cinematic Bond enjoyment back soon.
There's something tragic yet fitting to Bond resigning himself to having to save the world.
The man who is only a silhouette
Yet another thing we agree on tonight...:-)
NTTD is one I thought was amazing the first few times, but some aspects of the ending are less satisfying in the long run, so perhaps it will mirror the trajectory of SF in my rankings...
I find something new to enjoy about it every time, the idea that it's Madeleine's movie not Bond's. She was so shortchanged in Spectre but I find her such a compelling character and I really enjoyed Nomi a lot more on my last rewatch. Guess I appreciate an underdog :))