Looking through John Logan's script for "Spectre"

1246789

Comments

  • doubleoegodoubleoego #LightWork
    Posts: 11,139
    Double 0 programme is such a stupid name.
  • Posts: 5,767
    doubleoego wrote: »
    Double 0 programme is such a stupid name.
    Talk about no longer imitating Bourne ;-).

  • Posts: 5,767
    I've laughed my arse off over everyone getting upset at Blofeld being Bond's foster brother. I want to say, "relax guys, it's not like Monique popped out Franz and Bond at the same moment and they were raised from the crib together."

    The only connection Bond and Franz have is this: Bond's parents die, Bond befriends Hannes Oberhauser, Oberhauser agrees to be his guardian for just two short years, during which he teaches James many of the skills he goes on to use in his service of Britain, and that's it. End of story. Bond probably barely even knew Franz at all, and if he did it was likely a one-sided relationship as Franz resented him and likely would've ignored him at every turn.

    There weren't blood brothers, they weren't best friends turned frenemies turned enemies; they interacted for two years and then never saw each other again until SP's present day. Therefore, saying they have some big "past history" in the movie and the established canon of the Craig era is beyond laughable and just doesn't hold water. But I'm sure people will continue to fuss about it day and bloody night.
    Because it´s presented in the film as something important, while in reality it rather diminishes than enhances the relationship between Bond and Blofeld, turning what should be an exciting professional exchange into a children´s feud.




    Therefore, saying they have some big "past history" in the movie and the established canon of the Craig era is beyond laughable and just doesn't hold water. But I'm sure people will continue to fuss about it day and bloody night.

    Well, the past relationship is the basis of Blofeld's motivation in SPECTRE. And the fact Bond knew Blofeld and thought he was dead is one of the "dead are alive" symbol of this movie. And well, probably, the intended "subtle" meaning of the title of the movie, no less (Mendes pointed out it's *not* S.P.E.C.T.R.E.).
    You´re kidding me, right? What´s gonna be next then, Blofeld being a random name out of a phone book? Wasn´t there a big hype here on the forums claiming that Mendes was such a big Bond fan?




    Therefore, saying they have some big "past history" in the movie and the established canon of the Craig era is beyond laughable and just doesn't hold water. But I'm sure people will continue to fuss about it day and bloody night.

    Well, the past relationship is the basis of Blofeld's motivation in SPECTRE. And the fact Bond knew Blofeld and thought he was dead is one of the "dead are alive" symbol of this movie. And well, probably, the intended "subtle" meaning of the title of the movie, no less (Mendes pointed out it's *not* S.P.E.C.T.R.E.).

    Notes :

    1) In one of the available scripts, SPECTRE's name is explained when Bond looks at White's archives, as coming from "Les Spectres de Pierre", the name of the French Foreign Legion group where Oberhauser and White first met. But it was deleted and they made it far more symbolic.

    2) Also, in one of the scripts, the "Brother" angle is stronger than in the movie. "Brother !" is even Blofeld's last word before Bond kills him on the bridge if I remember correctly. Well, someone probably decided it was too much...

    I see Blofeld's main motivations for heading SPECTRE to take control and make everyone feel his impact; if Bond wouldn't have come along that would still be a central part of his make-up. So while Bond disrupted his relationship with his father and drove him to end his life, his actions in SPECTRE and the organization's effects on Bond are for most of his life mutually exclusive; it's only until Bond is back on his radar that he even thinks on him again. One way or another, Bond or no Bond, he was likely going to chart a path that led to his attempt to hold power.
    Interesting perspective, I wish I could see that also in the film, instead of the idea that Blofeld spent the last decade screwing up Bond´s life.




    If their past is just something casual and irrelevant, then why is it even brought up?
    So yes, the Bond-Blofeld brothership is in the dialog but it's "downplayed (a lot) compared to the script" so that indeed some of the audience can think, well, that relationship is just a twist for the sake of it, and that it can be forgotten the second it's revealed.
    That´s great that it´s "downplayed comared to the script", but that doesn´t help any, because it´s still much too prominent in the movie, and if it wouldn´t have been that prominent it would have been even more obvious how superfluous that element is.


    [
    IMO, I think it'll be forgotten in the next movie. It's such a dead-end, story wise. What next ? Hannes is not dead ? Hannes killed Andrew ? Hannes is Bond's real father ?
    Just off the top of my head:
    "Well, we looked at what we have got, and there you have a few pivotal years in Bond´s adolescence that he spent together with Blofeld, which must have been the most defining years for Bond´s character, and we thought, wow, that´s a story that´s never been told!"



  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    Did anyone else think that when Blofeld admitted to Bond that he killed his own father, he was also going to drop the bombshell that he was behind the climbing death of Bond's parents? I had a brief moment where I thought that was actually inevitable. I don't know how I'd have felt about it though...
  • MalloryMallory Do mosquitoes have friends?
    Posts: 2,036
    Did anyone else think that when Blofeld admitted to Bond that he killed his own father, he was also going to drop the bombshell that he was behind the climbing death of Bond's parents? I had a brief moment where I thought that was actually inevitable. I don't know how I'd have felt about it though...

    That would make even less sense. Bond and Oberhauser never met until after their death, never before. They only met as a result of it.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    edited December 2015 Posts: 28,694
    Mallory wrote: »
    Did anyone else think that when Blofeld admitted to Bond that he killed his own father, he was also going to drop the bombshell that he was behind the climbing death of Bond's parents? I had a brief moment where I thought that was actually inevitable. I don't know how I'd have felt about it though...

    That would make even less sense. Bond and Oberhauser never met until after their death, never before. They only met as a result of it.

    I didn't say it made sense. It was just a weird thought that came into my head, of what a nightmarish DAD like version of SP would look like.

    But as you pointed out, I then slapped myself and realized the impossibility of it.
  • royale65royale65 Caustic misanthrope reporting for duty.
    Posts: 4,418
    I did briefly @Brady. That was my one big fear throughout Spectre. "The author of all your pain". I was dreading Oberhauser was behind Bond's parents death, ever since I watched the trailer. Compared to that the foster-brother connection seemed inconsequential. (Not that I'm happy linking Bond and Blofeld mind)

  • edited December 2015 Posts: 5,767
    Mallory wrote: »
    Did anyone else think that when Blofeld admitted to Bond that he killed his own father, he was also going to drop the bombshell that he was behind the climbing death of Bond's parents? I had a brief moment where I thought that was actually inevitable. I don't know how I'd have felt about it though...

    That would make even less sense. Bond and Oberhauser never met until after their death, never before. They only met as a result of it.

    I didn't say it made sense. It was just a weird thought that came into my head, of what a nightmarish DAD like version of SP would look like.

    But as you pointed out, I then slapped myself and realized the impossibility of it.

    Well, Blofeld could have always been a bit on the sadistic side, and perhaps made some early studies about life and death with Bond´s parents, and possibly little James was there too. And then the experiment backfired in the shape of James surviving and becoming Blofeld´s foster brother. That would of course make little psycho Blofeld even more psycho. And here we are... >-)
  • edited December 2015 Posts: 2,115


    That's interesting, though. I stayed away from the leaks and spoilers, so all of this is new to me. Is the screenwriting process usually such a mess?

    I don't know about "mess," but often the finished product can be far different than what they started with.

    I've read the first drafts by Michael France and Bruce Feirstein for GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies respectively. They're extremely different, including concepts that got dropped. In the case of Tomorrow Never Dies, various hands rewrote it until Feirstein was brought back at the very end. He ended up with the only writing credit in the movie but he was far from the only one working on it.

    By comparison, Purvis & Wade's first draft for The World Is Not Enough (which says it's "based on an idea by Richard Maibaum") is a lot closer to the finished product, but there are still significant changes. When Feirstein did the final polish, he included a bit that was in his original Tomorrow Never Dies first draft.

  • Posts: 5,767


    That's interesting, though. I stayed away from the leaks and spoilers, so all of this is new to me. Is the screenwriting process usually such a mess?

    I don't know about "mess," but often the finished product can be far different than what they started with.

    I've read the first drafts by Michael France and Bruce Feirstein for GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies respectively. They're extremely different, including concepts that got dropped. In the case of Tomorrow Never Dies, various hands rewrote it until Feirstein was brought back at the very end. He ended up with the only writing credit in the movie but he was far from the only one working on it.

    By comparison, Purvis & Wade's first draft for The World Is Not Enough (which says it's "based on an idea by Richard Maibaum") is a lot closer to the finished product, but there are still significant changes.
    All the more so I find it fascinating that apparently throughout the SP writing process the changes were not that drastical.

  • re: why some people may not have cared for Blofeld being Bond's foster brother.

    --Remember how one reason the reboot was necessary was that "Austin Powers f*cked us"? (See MI6 interview: http://bit.ly/1RgABhC)

    That's why we got a more serious grittier Bond in 2006. Except, four films into it, they adopted an idea that's similar to the whole Austin Powers and Dr. Evil were really brothers. Not exactly the same thing, but close enough. Maybe they changed their minds about Austin Powers.

    --Turns the conflict between Bond and, arguably, his greatest adversary into an installment of Family Feud.

    --For me personally, I've seen this once before with the rebooted Hawaii Five-0 television series. There where arch foe Wo Fat was given a personal reason to hate McGarrett, which accounts for various events going all the way back to the pilot.

    In their final showdown (in the 100th episode, which aired during the fifth season), Wo Fat and McGarrett have guns drawn on each other. Wo Fat calls McGarrett, "Brother." (He's not, really, but Mom McGarrett, who was a spy, wanted to adopt him). McGarrett replies, "I'm not your brother." BLAM!

    I realize people outside the U.S. (and probably a fair number within the U.S.) aren't familiar with this. But for me the Bond-Blofeld "foster brother" bit was been there, done that.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    boldfinger wrote: »
    Mallory wrote: »
    Did anyone else think that when Blofeld admitted to Bond that he killed his own father, he was also going to drop the bombshell that he was behind the climbing death of Bond's parents? I had a brief moment where I thought that was actually inevitable. I don't know how I'd have felt about it though...

    That would make even less sense. Bond and Oberhauser never met until after their death, never before. They only met as a result of it.

    I didn't say it made sense. It was just a weird thought that came into my head, of what a nightmarish DAD like version of SP would look like.

    But as you pointed out, I then slapped myself and realized the impossibility of it.

    Well, Blofeld could have always been a bit on the sadistic side, and perhaps made some early studies about life and death with Bond´s parents, and possibly little James was there too. And then the experiment backfired in the shape of James surviving and becoming Blofeld´s foster brother. That would of course make little psycho Blofeld even more psycho. And here we are... >-)

    I think Blofeld killing the parents of the boy who would then go on to also be his foster brother and later arch-nemesis would be just about the biggest instance of convenience in the entire Bond series. It'd make TB look like a sleek, smooth spy narrative in comparison.
  • edited December 2015 Posts: 5,767
    boldfinger wrote: »
    Mallory wrote: »
    Did anyone else think that when Blofeld admitted to Bond that he killed his own father, he was also going to drop the bombshell that he was behind the climbing death of Bond's parents? I had a brief moment where I thought that was actually inevitable. I don't know how I'd have felt about it though...

    That would make even less sense. Bond and Oberhauser never met until after their death, never before. They only met as a result of it.

    I didn't say it made sense. It was just a weird thought that came into my head, of what a nightmarish DAD like version of SP would look like.

    But as you pointed out, I then slapped myself and realized the impossibility of it.

    Well, Blofeld could have always been a bit on the sadistic side, and perhaps made some early studies about life and death with Bond´s parents, and possibly little James was there too. And then the experiment backfired in the shape of James surviving and becoming Blofeld´s foster brother. That would of course make little psycho Blofeld even more psycho. And here we are... >-)

    I think Blofeld killing the parents of the boy who would then go on to also be his foster brother and later arch-nemesis would be just about the biggest instance of convenience in the entire Bond series. It'd make TB look like a sleek, smooth spy narrative in comparison.
    Yes, I agree, but as it is it still is the biggest instance of convenience in the entire series that the man with the name of the archetypical archnemesis of Bond was his fosterbrother, so no harm done ;-).

    TB for me has also the big advantage of being very immersive, which distracts me a lot from thinking about logic and convenience and such stuff, whereas SP´s look and detached feeling is inviting to look for all kinds of flaws.
  • edited December 2015 Posts: 2,015
    Unfortunately, I'm not the one who can just forget about it. I agree it's a dead-end, and it makes no sense to exploit it further.

    I can't just forget about it too, but I can understand that for some it's just a minor random twist. When a director start to play with a franchise, you can have very different opinions depending whether you consider these movies as part of a franchise (or like me, as a genre), or just as movies.

    To me, both SF and SP are more Mendes movies than Bond movies, a bit like if Alan Moore would write a Sherlock Holmes adventure in which he actually is Moriarty with a split personality, then it would be more an Alan Moore story than a Sherlock Holmes story.

    So when the next director comes in, I can imagine that the Mendes Universe where everything is connected goes out of the window. Even with the same actors. Yes, I can imagine Blofeld never talking anymore about his brotherhood with Bond. On the other hand, if Mendes stay, I'm afraid they'll have to go even "deeper". The script went deeper.
    That's interesting, though. I stayed away from the leaks and spoilers, so all of this is new to me. Is the screenwriting process usually such a mess?

    Many will say "yes". But I can't think of another recent instance of a screenwriter giving an interview and saying publicly "I'm done with writing for movies", during the screenwriting process.
    boldfinger wrote: »
    You´re kidding me, right? What´s gonna be next then, Blofeld being a random name out of a phone book? Wasn´t there a big hype here on the forums claiming that Mendes was such a big Bond fan?

    He's such a big Bond fan that he thinks he's the one who cast Kinnear as Tanner :)

    More seriously, he's a fan but IMO not in the sens that he cares about Fleming. He talked more about the movies he saw as a kid. I don't think he sees something major in turning Blofeld into someone from Bond's past, and not have in mind Fleming's Blofeld.

    Yes, IMO, he could consider "Blofeld" as a random name, a kind of private joke reference to the book, a bit like the Hildebrandt name on the door. Bond reacts like he doesn't care about the "Blofeld" name, I think Mendes doesn't care either. Wasn't it reported he said he didn't care the DB5 full of GF gadgets was illogical when P&W told him so ?

    After all, SP's Blofeld ends up with YOLT's scar in every scripts IIRC. Fleming didnt give him a scar. And they didn't care about Dr Evil :)

    Another script difference :

    In the script, Oberhauser didn't know his real name. He thought he was Hannes Oberhauser's child. But Bond revealed to him he was in fact an adopted child, and tells him his real name was "Ernst Seban" ("Blofeld" never appears in any script, but it may have to do with obfuscation if a leak happened, oh the irony).

    So you see, they were ready for even more re-writing of Blofeld's past. He could have discovered he was a child adopted by Hannes but not his real child, a bit like Bond. The "nemesis" symbol goes up, the subtlety goes down !

    boldfinger wrote: »
    "Well, we looked at what we have got, and there you have a few pivotal years in Bond´s adolescence that he spent together with Blofeld, which must have been the most defining years for Bond´s character, and we thought, wow, that´s a story that´s never been told!"

    Sam Mendes' "Bond and Blofeld", by Netflix :)



  • edited December 2015 Posts: 5,767
    When a director start to play with a franchise, you can have very different opinions depending whether you consider these movies as part of a franchise (or like me, as a genre), or just as movies.

    To me, both SF and SP are more Mendes movies than Bond movies, a bit like if Alan Moore would write a Sherlock Holmes adventure in which he actually is Moriarty with a split personality, then it would be more an Alan Moore story than a Sherlock Holmes story.

    So when the next director comes in, I can imagine that the Mendes Universe where everything is connected goes out of the window. Even with the same actors. Yes, I can imagine Blofeld never talking anymore about his brotherhood with Bond.
    This makes sense, after all, when Mendes came aboard, a lot from CR and QoS was thrown out the window.
    I don´t even mind a director turning a Bond movie into "just a movie". CR and QoS invented a completely new Bond. But I could connect very well with those films, and I hope I get to renew that experience with the next director.

  • PropertyOfALadyPropertyOfALady Colders Federation CEO
    edited December 2015 Posts: 3,675
    Why was Blofeld in bandages in the October 8 script?
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 5,921
    I wish they had had Blofeld *pretend* to be Oberhauser to draw Bond out/play with his mind rather than Blofeld actually being Oberhauser, which really is a bridge too far.
  • robcoperobcope St. Petersburg, FL
    Posts: 58
    I'll add to the people that Logan's original script (with some details from the final film being kept) is probably the best version of SPECTRE. Remove Oberhauser and "Nine Eyes", keep the length of the movie, and deepen the rest of the story line and you have a much better Bond movie.

    After reading what they did to Logan's original script, I'm looking forward to Mendes leaving the franchise and Bond getting back to some more straight-forward movies instead of needing these big, franchise-turning events happening in every movie.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    edited December 2015 Posts: 5,921
    And some people actually think some of this garbage was better than what we got in the final film? Seriously? Having M, Tanner or any member of the MI6 home team being a turncoat of any variety is beyond ludicrous. When every member of the Whitehall brigade was shown to lay down life and limb for Bond (and vice versa) in SF, why would one of them then turn their back and screw him and the whole of their government? As some have said, there could be a grey area like blackmail or where one of the team was forced to make a tough decision in the face of the 00 program's dismissal, but from what I've read it seemed like the traitor was going to be portrayed quite clearly as an evil SOB at the far right side of the white and black moral spectrum.

    It's funny, because when SF came out and Mallory was introduced as the new M, we all made jokes about how he was Voldemort in disguise crossed over from Potter and was an evil sleeper agent trying to wreak havoc on the world from a high government position. In some ways, this is almost what we actually got. Christ...

    People can drag P&W through the mud all they want, but they saved this film. I'll just let that sink in...

    I agree it would have been horrible to have one of MI6's stable become a turncoat and it was way too obvious that "C" was the baddie. Let's face it, the whole "C" storyline was to give M something juicy, yet believable, to play.

    I still think it would have been more interesting to bring in M's IRA backstory somehow rather than the obvious C storyline. Or, alternately, they could have had C/Blofeld "framing" the MI6 regulars via video manipulation. It really doesn't make sense to hide C's evilness because it's just so obvious; they should have just had him wear it proudly and go for broke.

    Whoever mentioned that the African warlord idea could work for a reimagined Mr. Big is a genius.
  • edited December 2015 Posts: 267
    I'm not a huge fan of Blofeld being an African warlord or M being a traitor, but a lot of Logan's first draft sounds way better than the lazy version of Spectre that we got in the end. Definitely some very questionable aspects, but I wish they hadn't cut so much of the original script.

    The whole brother angle isn't what irritated me about that aspect of the film, it was how it was handled. Their past together drove Blofeld to be evil and Bond accidentally helped to create a criminal mastermind? That's ridiculous. And Bond barely even acts like he knows Blofeld in the film. There doesn't seem to be any stakes for Bond. The stakes of the movie just felt very, very low.

    There were certainly some great ideas in Spectre, but I felt like they were very poorly carried out.
  • Posts: 187
    Did this Logan draft actually leaked online?
  • Posts: 1,098
    Its a good point that some have raised that in the film SP, it did appear that Bond didnt seem to really know Blofeld.
    How did the two of them go about there separate ways in life, and not know or keep in touch as to what the other was doing?
  • PropertyOfALadyPropertyOfALady Colders Federation CEO
    edited December 2015 Posts: 3,675
    km16 wrote: »
    Did this Logan draft actually leaked online?

    Someone might have it, but I'm not sure.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    edited December 2015 Posts: 28,694
    mepal1 wrote: »
    Its a good point that some have raised that in the film SP, it did appear that Bond didnt seem to really know Blofeld.
    How did the two of them go about there separate ways in life, and not know or keep in touch as to what the other was doing?
    Well, considering that Bond thought Franz was dead, there was no need for him to try and keep in touch. And obviously Franz wanted to stay as hidden and mysterious as possible, so that explains why they never crossed paths after he faked his death.
    bondboy007 wrote: »
    I'm not a huge fan of Blofeld being an African warlord or M being a traitor, but a lot of Logan's first draft sounds way better than the lazy version of Spectre that we got in the end. Definitely some very questionable aspects, but I wish they hadn't cut so much of the original script.

    The whole brother angle isn't what irritated me about that aspect of the film, it was how it was handled. Their past together drove Blofeld to be evil and Bond accidentally helped to create a criminal mastermind? That's ridiculous. And Bond barely even acts like he knows Blofeld in the film. There doesn't seem to be any stakes for Bond. The stakes of the movie just felt very, very low.

    There were certainly some great ideas in Spectre, but I felt like they were very poorly carried out.
    How is it ridiculous? It's the classic "hero creates the villain" trope.
  • Posts: 187
    I actually would be very interested if we somehow got some amalgamation of some of these ideas with the seedlings of the Majesty's Secret Service event that is most likely to come and the unused events of You Only Live Twice for B25.
  • SuperintendentSuperintendent A separate pool. For sharks, no less.
    Posts: 870
    How is it ridiculous? It's the classic "hero creates the villain" trope.

    You can call it classic, but I call it unoriginal, seen a million times, a cliche.

    Besides, James Bond is not supposed to create his villains. I think this is the obvious influence of Batman.

  • How is it ridiculous? It's the classic "hero creates the villain" trope.

    You can call it classic, but I call it unoriginal, seen a million times, a cliche.

    Besides, James Bond is not supposed to create his villains. I think this is the obvious influence of Batman.

    You're right, that was clearly the intention of the filmmakers this time out. As you have stated this arc is very reminiscent of a number of different films, the one that immediately comes to mind is Tim Burton's 1989 "Batman". Here a gangster called Jack Napier killed Bruce Wayne's parents, therefore forcing him to become Batman. Soon after, Batman pushes Napier in some acid and he forces him to become The Joker. There's even a line in the film where he says something like "I made you, but you made me first".

    It's a slightly familiar trope.

    I suppose the idea in SP is that Bond created his own arch-nemesis. Even Oberhauser says Bond is "responsible for the path I took". It is because of Bond that Oberhauser became Blofeld. Thereby, Bond created Blofeld.

    Personally, I don't mind the idea. I just don't feel like the film really utilises it as well as it could have. In the original drafts the angle is more developed. In particular in the December draft where Bond and Oberhauser play cards over dinner whilst using chestnuts as chips to gamble with. There's a great story Oberhauser tells during it about Hannes connection to the young Bond. Sadly the whole scene morphed into the dodgy CGI drill-torture scene in the final film.

    I was wondering if we knew anything about Sony or EON's choices for Charlotte King? She's a CIA agents and considering Mendes's penchant for casting well-known actors there is a lot of great choice.

    Personally, I think Jessica Chastain would have suited that type of role

    Jessica-Chastain_3086379b.jpg

    Also, I don't think it ever entered the actual scripting stage but an idea floated around at the studio level was Meryl Streep as the villain. Whether they mean for Blofeld or Irma Bunt, I don't know. What I do know from the e-mails is that Mendes was very keen to cast her.

    article-0-0131FBAF00001005-873_468x344.jpg

    From Logan's perspective, I have a feeling he always wanted to go with the African warlord idea. Which I kinda love. Chiwetel was always the ebst choice for the part for me.

    What pains me is that Mendes had no clear vision on who Blofeld is. He went through so many different iterations of the character in such a short period of time. From African warlord, to ugly lesbian to evil step-brother. Surely the character of Blofeld has such a firm ingrained identity that none of these interpretations neatly fit within? It would seem that Mendes was merely creating entirely new characters and (frustratingly) saddling them with the name "Blofeld".

    Having said that we do end up with something closer to the iconic character in the final film. However, that's only because Mendes happily embraces all the gimmicks associated with Blofeld (obscurity, the jacket, the cat, the scar, etc). On the other hand, Blofeld was never that fleshed out a character and always just a collection of gimmicks anyway. So maybe Sam felt he had little to work with anyway....
  • SuperintendentSuperintendent A separate pool. For sharks, no less.
    Posts: 870
    What pains me is that Mendes had no clear vision on who Blofeld is. He went through so many different iterations of the character in such a short period of time. From African warlord, to ugly lesbian to evil step-brother. Surely the character of Blofeld has such a firm ingrained identity that none of these interpretations neatly fit within? It would seem that Mendes was merely creating entirely new characters and (frustratingly) saddling them with the name "Blofeld".

    Yes, looks like they wanted to bring back Blofeld no matter what.

  • edited December 2015 Posts: 267
    How is it ridiculous? It's the classic "hero creates the villain" trope.

    You can call it classic, but I call it unoriginal, seen a million times, a cliche.

    Besides, James Bond is not supposed to create his villains. I think this is the obvious influence of Batman.

    That's kind of what I was getting at. Bond essentially 'creating' Blofeld felt very weird to me. Especially given that all Bond did was latch onto the elder Oberhauser as a father figure 30 years prior. Then there's the fact that Bond doesn't even seem angry at Blofeld for killing Oberhauser and just seems virtually indifferent to Blofeld in each of their encounters. It was almost like they knew there wasn't a whole lot of real conflict between the film's hero & villain so they threw in the whole foster brother/Bond created Blofeld arc to try and add some depth to the relationship between the two of them at the last minute.

    Contrast that to the relationship between Bond & Le Chiffre in CR, where we got to see their hatred for each other build. It was through Bond's actions in that film where he kept foiling Le Chiffre's plans that built up animosity between them (similar to how the Bond/Blofeld relationship was staged in FRWL/TB/YOLT). Not some 30 year old feud between foster brothers that's barely even mentioned in the film, yet is given as the entire reason the villain turned evil in the first place.

  • edited December 2015 Posts: 2,015
    mepal1 wrote: »
    Its a good point that some have raised that in the film SP, it did appear that Bond didnt seem to really know Blofeld.

    Well, Bond looks at Blofeld when he sees him for the first time IMO with a "HIM ?" look, and it's in the trailer. That had the photo scene.

    Obviously since I had read the scripts when the trailer came out, I can't judge if it was obvious or not. But to me it was as obvious as the Madeleine / White connection in the trailer.
    How is it ridiculous? It's the classic "hero creates the villain" trope.

    It's classic but it's not Fleming"s creation. Yes, as others have said, it looks like DC Comics' Bond. You kind of expect a Netflix TV series about their youth now, during which you will see Bond smashing all the teeths of a tall bully at school, who will then have some steel teeth :)

    Another classic trope is that the father of the hero is not dead. Do we really want Andrew Bond in Bond 25 for the sake of another Mendes family business ?

    Yes turning Bond into a rogue spy with family issues turned the Bond movie hero into a more classic movie hero. It may have brought money, but IMO, in the long term, it could kill the genre.

    If it was in the public domain, well, no problem, others could continue in the genre. But only EON can produce Bond movies, they rule the genre. It's a problem IMO if they start to fill it with cliches from other genres. Because contrary to LALD and Blaxpoitation, TMWTGG and Kungfu, MR and Starwars, etc.; it's been two movies they are moving the movies away from the genre into Mendes territory.
Sign In or Register to comment.