Haven't posted on this forum in years, but I had to, because I need your help, CBn community! Just saw SPECTRE twice this last weekend, and loved much about it, but one thing is driving me absolutely crazy: Oberhauser/Blofeld could not possibly have fully orchestrated everything he claimed to, most especially Vesper's death.
Blofeld says something along the lines of "You interfered in my life, so I destroyed yours." So is he is suggesting that Bond's adoption interfered with his boyhood, so he somehow manipulated Bond's life to land him in the 00-section and on the assignments he was on (a massive leap)? Of is he saying that Bond interfered with SPECTRE's work, and Blofeld at that point started taking it out on him. Either way, it doesn't make sense.
I went back and watched all of the parts of CR and QOS to see how this gels with what is in SPECTRE. Blofeld implied that he was instrumental in manipulating the deaths of Vesper and M. I can actually buy the idea that Silva was a part of SPECTRE, and it was known that he had a special wish for revenge upon M, and so Blofeld funded him/set him loose to wreak havoc and kill M, because he knew how that would hurt Bond. I can buy that.
But Vesper? How exactly would that work? How could he have known that Bond would fall so deeply for Vesper? Vesper was blackmailed to do SPECTRE's dirty work before she even met Bond. Did Blofeld find out in the midst of events in Montenegro that Vesper had fallen for Bond? Did he then plan her death in that deal for the money to spare Bond's life (and Vesper knowing, as M says, "that she was going to her death")? She was kept alive to try to regain the money that Le Chiffre lost, right, not just to toy with Bond. And she killed herself, did she not? So the setup with Vesper was not really Blofeld's doing, it was luck that he took advantage of. And she killed herself, meaning that she didn't die in the way that Blofeld intended. Accepting all this, we would have to also accept that Blofeld is taking credit for more than he should...which kind of weakens his menace. Unless I'm missing something... am I?
It just seems like lazy writing to me, as if no writer bothered to go back and watch the previous movies to make sure everything was reconciled. It all feels like a cheap wave of the hand: "And I planned EVERYTHING!" Which creates a dramatic effect in the moment when you don't have time to think about it...but in retrospect, it then cheapens everything that came before it, and demand much greater strains of logic.
A couple of other loose thread comments:
- I find it an unnecessary and distracting element to have Blofeld actually be Bond's foster brother; as one other commenter posted here recently, it seems like "soap opera trash." Totally unnecessary and weakens the whole plot. What are the odds that the most talented 00-agent and the leader of the largest crime organization in the world grew up in the same house? I just can't understand why they had to cram that plot point in.
- Did Hinx wait on the train for hours to suddenly attack Bond at dinner? Why?
- If Blofeld was expecting Bond at the crater in Morocco, then why was Hinx clearly sent to kill him? Did they make up two rooms in the crater guest hotel area just in case Bond survived? Was Hinx operating outside of Blofeld's order?
I loved everything about SPECTRE, but frankly it's a hard movie for me to love because these gaping holes. Kind of almost ruins an otherwise fantastic movie. Maybe I'm getting too old and demanding of logic to enjoy these movies anymore? Please help me!