5 replies to this topic

[quantumofsolace]

http://whatculture.c...ver-noticed.php

[Jim]

Hmm. "Never" noticed is some claim.

[DamnCoffee]

I'm sure 10 is completely wrong. 

[Call Billy Bob]

What Culture has never been the most accurate of websites anyway...

[David_M]

I'm not sure this guy understands what an "Easter egg" is.  By definition, it's something hidden, to be found by those who look harder than others.  His number one listing is the Aston Martin, which could hardly be more prominent and "in your face."  There's nothing subtle about its (over) use in the series or the way it's constantly trotted out to borrow some of the eternal luster of GF.

 

The other quality of an Easter egg is that it's a "treat." Finding it should yield a pay-off when you recognize its presence.  For example, seeing a familiar form in a glass case in "Captain America: The First Avenger" and realizing it's the original Human Torch?  That's an Easter egg for Marvel fans. Bob Simmons in the gunbarrel is not an Easter egg.   At best it's interesting trivia, but even if someone was a big enough Connery fan to look at the silhouette and say, "That's not Sean!" who outside of the Simmons family would see it and say, "Hey look, it's Bob Simmons! Woo!"  And again, when it's the central image on the screen, how can it be an "Easter egg"?

 

Boothroyd's presence in DN is not an Easter egg.  He's in the novel, too.  Yes, he's named after a guy who wrote in to Fleming to complain about Bond's gun, and yes, a total Fleming fanatic might pause their DVD to explain this piece of trivia to his kids, but in the strictest sense, it's not an "Easter egg" to translate a scene from the book to film.  Filmmakers add Easter eggs purposely, knowing they are Easter eggs.  If including Boothroyd here is an Easter egg, then so is including Dr No, or any other character Fleming put in the book.

 

Fleming's "cameo" in FRWL (IF it's he) is just as likely a blooper as an Easter egg, but if it is Fleming, it's kind of a treasure, so I'll let it slide.

 

I'm not convinced "Old Albert" in LALD is named after Broccoli.  In 1973, "Pogo" was a HUGELY popular comic strip (surviving even the death of creator Walt Kelly in October of that year), and a major character in that strip -- arguably more popular than the titular Possum star -- was the cigar-smoking "Albert the Alligator." I am 99% certain that LALD's Albert is named after that character.  Either way, it's not an "Easter egg." If the writer is correct, it's an "in joke" and if I'm correct it's still just a joke, like naming a man-eating lion "Fluffy."

 

The "Christopher Lee was a spy" thing is always fascinating, but again it's not an Easter egg when most people can't be expected to know his history, and even less so in 1974.  Also, the phrase "fought alongside Fleming" suggests this guy is more attuned to myth than history.

 

I suppose maybe Glenn's pigeon fixation might be called an Easter egg in the sense that you eventually learn to anticipate and look for the birds to show up. (However, the one pictured is from a Gilbert-directed fim).

 

Jumping ahead to ones that DO qualify, the Barry cameo in LTD and the "Bond theme with bullets" scene in LTK are good ones.  And I'd forgotten "James Bond Island" shows up in TND (but then, I rarely watch that one).  Pretty much the top half of this list is okay, but one gets the impression it's been padded out with a lot of questionable entries to meet some kind of quota.

 

The one new thing I learned from this (which makes it kind of worth it) is that Zukofsky's pin-ups in TWINE are of former Bond girls.  The downside is now I need to watch TWINE again.

[AMC Hornet]

"Most obscure"?

 

Presumptuous of Morris to claim that "you" (ie: "we") had never noticed these things, until they were pointed out to him by somebody with either 20/20 vision or corrective lenses, and now he's lording over us his superior attention to detail (or at least his superior attitude).

 

Like most such lists intended for the casual (non-fan) viewer, there were no surprises for me.

 

How about a list of "the Top 100 Most Inaccurate, Opinionated, Uninformative and Unoriginal Lists Regarding 007 by Writers Who Assume They're Better Informed Than the General Public"?

 

Someone else can go ahead and compile it - like the Whatculture writers themselves, I can't be arsed to do the research myself...