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I have wondered how the small amounts that he gave them would wipe out or damage thousands of crops and animals. But as Blofeld states "the methods of great pioneers have often puzzled conventional minds."
History has shown us that great epidemics alway start with one virus.
I guess, but it’s not like there’s only one chicken farm in the UK, say. How much damage can she do to the entire industry? And Blofeld has found girls who happen to be allergic to everything he’s targeting?
Most of these aren’t exactly high security things, I do tend to think sending a henchman to creep into a chicken farm at the dead of night is probably less work intensive than finding, recruiting and hypnotising a girl who happens to live(?) on one. He wouldn’t exactly have to be dodging the machine guns towers to get in!
I know it’s kind of pointless poking holes in these plots, but this one is probably the silliest in all of the films! :)
1) Blofeld's mad and has far too many resources available to him to enact his crazy plans.
2) Blofeld has found some sort of theoretical reason as to why just sending men out to plant the virus would be more risky than going the lengths he does.
3) It's what the book/script said and it'd be a much less interesting story without it ;)
Now my random question (which I've never found a real explanation to): why in TB does Jacques Bouvard dress as his own widow to attend his fake funeral? Seems a bit stupid unless I'm missing something, and it's the only time I've really been taken out of a Bond movie.
The logical reason for faking your death and attending the funeral in disguise is that you’re trying to smoke someone out, in this case the only person who turns up and seems to want to cause Bouvar harm is James Bond, but weirdly Bond seems to be attending for the same reason, so it’s kind of like the writers have got confused. In a way it might have worked better if Bouvar had caught Bond in a trap of some sort, but instead Bouvar seems taken by surprise which kind of makes it nonsensical.
Mind you, there are plenty of henchmen there, so perhaps capturing Bond or something similar was the plan. Maybe he was intending to romance him! Everyone knows Bond likes the ladies after all :D
I think Blofeld wanted to the girls to show up at the local animal fairs or something; in the novel the first part of the plot is carried out and one of the girls sets off the virus at a poultry show.
If one is being charitable to Fleming's plotting, they could say that its a continuation of the theme of Blofeld's snobbery and also his want for recognition; the same reasons he calls Bray into the middle of his criminal operation. He uses innocent British/international girls to strike because it'd be more devastating than some simple man in black sneaking into some farm.
If one is being realistic however, then probably Fleming did not consider the logistics of finding all of these allergic girls.
That sounds fun! It'd make more sense than what we got. Bond tends to stretch logic, but as far as I can tell it's the only instance of something in a Bond film that makes no sense whatsoever. I suppose it's meant to be a bit daft though, although I must admit I'm not sure how much of that is intentional, especially watching the film today (I don't think that editing or choreography does Simmons and Connery during the fight - and of course Barry's score - justice. It looks pretty janky at points).
I’m also no fan of the jetpack to be honest. I mean, it could be good, but like the widow there’s no reason for it. Just go down the stairs, James.
And like the widow, I’d say it’s fixable. Just have the chateau be one which has a moat (as in AVTAK) so he has a reason to fly. It feels like that’s why you’d choose a chateau in the first place…?
The alarms go off, James sees the guards raising the drawbridges from a window- he’s trapped. He radios to the lovely French agent in the car outside: “Plan B”- then heads to a door to a turret. She starts the car outside, retracts the convertible roof and pulls away.
We see some guards come rushing along and follow him through the door and up the staircase within: when they’re finally at the top they find Bond dressed in his jetpack- he fires it up and blows them all back down the stairs with the rocket draft.
He flies over the moat, making his escape, and lands on the back seat of the French lady’s moving car. Maybe a baddie car appears, giving chase; Bond drops the jetpack over the back of the car- as they drive to pass it he shoots at it and it explodes, sending the baddie car into the moat, cut to watery titles.
(I do think cutting away from Bond while he’s putting the jetpack on would really help it too: it’s so awkward having to watch him do it all up and pop his helmet on- find a reason to cut to the guys chasing him so you don’t have to see it)
I like all that. Yes, the jet pack is one of those missed opportunities for a great Bond moment.
I disagree; it can have a reason to be there without doing model shots, as it is, it doesn't.
For your first question: with a potent virus, a lot.
Regarding your second objection, it's not only getting to the farm, it's getting through customs without raising suspicion. It's probably doable with professional SPECTRE members, but you're increasing the risks. Henchmen can be discovered, they can be bought, they can get greedy, they can get second thoughts, they can get sloppy in the execution of the plan. Even sending them in the dead of the night is risky: if one fails, the whole operation can be compromised. With the angels, they are oblivious to what they're carrying or anything about Blofeld's true intentions. If they show up on the farm, it looks far more natural. Yes, it's complicated, yes it's costly, yes, it's not entirely full proof, but it's far safer. And I'm sure there's at least one farm girl in England allergic to poultry, etc. Finding suitable guinea pigs shouldn't be too difficult for Blofeld. He's got the resources and the organisation.
But if it's that potent it can transfer between farms it barely needs to be placed anywhere with secure access at all.
We see they can conceal it in a perfume bottle. That's not going to be a massive challenge for a henchman to take through customs, I don't buy that all of his trained killers will start knocking their knees at the 'nothing to declare' line.
We're talking about getting, what, 15 or so guys he trusts? There's way more than that manning Piz Gloria already, happy to flamethrower anybody who happens to wander up the hill. He has people involved in this at every stage, not least the hypnotism experts and guys who made the electronic noises, the fellas who built the map of the world with locations of all the girls etc. - plenty of people to be bought. And the guys planting the poison don't have to know what they're even doing in the grand scheme: they just do the small part they're told to. Stand next to this fence and spray your bottle.
I don't really buy that in every other villain's scheme they have henchmen who carry out their evil tasks of murder, creating posions to kill all animals on planet Earth, undersea bases firing nuclear weapons etc. but Blofeld's scheme here is the only one where a dozen henchmen can't be trusted to do a job and it's easier and more reliable to hynotise some random farm girls to do their jobs :D
Makes me wonder why Blofeld's crater base wasn't full of mesmerised primary school teachers and milkmen launching those rockets ;)
I think if they were all going into high security places where only they had access, then it would be a bit easier to swallow, but they're all no-one special as far we know and they're accessing places which aren't very hard to wander into, hardly Fort Knox. And even if they were all special high value assets, that they'd all have allergies and be willing to go to a mountaintop resort to cure them is so incredibly far-fetched. I do like how Fleming's ideas were bonkers and wacky- gambling a man to death at a casino table is a wonderful idea and holds together under its own logic, but this plan is just plain silly in so many ways.
Bond is not suspicious of the widow, but of the widow opening a car door. I laugh as this whole thing has not aged well. Women in todays age open doors by themselves and no one thinks anything of it.
Men in drag is a comedy and storytelling no-no with todays' values. I can see a day when Amazon puts a disclaimer on before the start of their streaming to share that these films were made in a different era.
Miss Galore was determined to have the last word. She said sweetly, 'Know what, Jacko? I could go for a he-man like you. Matter of fact I wrote a song about you the other day. Care to hear its title? It's called "If I had to do it all over again, I'd do it all over you".
What's funny?
Pussy Galore delivers a line that, on the surface, sounds flirtatious even submissive. But the humor comes from how she turns the innuendo back on him, beating him at his own game.
Her “song title “If I had to do it all over again, I’d do it all over you” is cheeky wordplay. It parodies sentimental song titles (“If I Had to Do It All Over Again”) by twisting the final phrase into something risqué. The phrase “do it all over you” deliberately sounds both romantic and sexual, which is why it lands as a sharp, teasing joke rather than a sincere statement.
In other words, the line is funny because:
It plays with expectations of the cliché love song title.
It uses sexual innuendo disguised as politeness (“sweetly”).
Maybe. But I don't think Babs ever had a vision of Bond past Daniel Craig. She had this weird attachment to him.
Thanks for the explaination. In the end it was how I understood before asking. Well it just me that still don't find it funny, nor belittling toward Jack.
I don’t get why people think it’s weird that she thought the lead of her films, who she picked, was great; film producers are supposed to do that. Any notions that she was in love with him are projection and a bit sexist, frankly.
Her dad was quite often publicly at war with his stars (even Roger), so I tend to think that she handled things much better there.
ofcourse it's different, just look at some of the stories of what the Disney princes at theme parks have to put up with.
And that's before you even take the likes of Dragonpol being there into consideration.
I never meant or implied that a professional criminal would get weak on the knees at customs. But even in the 60s, z professional criminal could be identified as such, or seen with suspicion, by customs agents. Even if he's not arrested, Some of his belongings could be confiscated. I don't think a beautiful woman with a spotless background would raise such suspicions herself. As for any conspiracy, the more active agents you add to it, the riskier it gets. Blofeld's plan is in fact not so different from criminal organisations using mules to smuggle drugs. Sometimes these civilians know they're carrying something illegal, sometimes they don't know.