6 replies to this topic

[Cruiserweight]

Being the Octopussy lover that i am i always wondered this. I often end up flip flopping on my opinion in this matter and i wanted to hear what other members opinions are on this subject.
Kamal Khan gets more screen time and has the final villain death but on the otherhand he is just a role player in a scheme that General Orlov created which means Orlov is the mastermind behind the plot of this film and usually the mastermind is the main villain so i just wanted to hear some opinions and maybe someone will be able to clear this up a bit for me.

[Mr_Wint]

OP is really a two-villain film. You cant seperate them. That's one of the things I really like about this film.

However, Kamal didn't say anything to Orlov about the bug hidden in the egg. You can take this as a proof that Kamal is hiding things from Orlov and that Kamal is the real villain. Maybe Kamal somehow knew that Orlov was going to get killed.

[Judo chop]

John Glen is the real villain, although I find him to be less dastardly in OP than in any of his other crimes against Bond.

[dinovelvet]

OP is really a two-villain film. You cant seperate them. That's one of the things I really like about this film.

However, Kamal didn't say anything to Orlov about the bug hidden in the egg. You can take this as a proof that Kamal is hiding things from Orlov and that Kamal is the real villain. Maybe Kamal somehow knew that Orlov was going to get killed.

I'd thought that Kamal didn't tell Orlov about the bug because he didn't want to let Orlov know he'd been fooled by a British agent.

Its one of those two villain films, along with TLD and TWINE. It is Orlov's scheme, but Kamal is the one that Bond goes up against for most of the film.

[Publius]

OP is really a two-villain film. You cant seperate them. That's one of the things I really like about this film.

However, Kamal didn't say anything to Orlov about the bug hidden in the egg. You can take this as a proof that Kamal is hiding things from Orlov and that Kamal is the real villain. Maybe Kamal somehow knew that Orlov was going to get killed.

Agreed. Not all the films have had a clear or strong main villain. Take FRWL, where Blofeld is calling the shots, but doesn't do anything beyond set objectives and punish subordinates (and badly at that). Klebb is just a flunkie who happens to be coordinating the plan laid out by Kronsteen, with Grant (who, as something of a freelancer, is not exactly a "henchman") handling things on an even more specific level. Not that such fragmentation is necessarily bad; indeed, it can provide great suspense and interesting challenges for Bond.

But I digress. Octopussy, like TLD and possibly TWINE after it, is a case of "co-villainy" at work. It's something I generally don't like because it usually results in weaker villains, when a single villain already has the advantage of evoking more threatening power given his total control of an operation, but I think Octopussy did a good job of it by having the men be wildly different in personality and goals, as well as dispatching one much earlier than the other so the film could wind down with greater focus.

[Cruiserweight]

Nice different perspective guys. I just took a more simple approach of Khan getting more screen time as well as Khan outliving Orlov not to mention that Khan got some face time on one of the posters always just led me to believe that Khan was considered the main baddie.

[DaveBond21]

Octopussy, like TLD and possibly TWINE after it, is a case of "co-villainy" at work. It's something I generally don't like because it usually results in weaker villains, when a single villain already has the advantage of evoking more threatening power given his total control of an operation.

Yes, I agree with this, I always thought that Octopussy and TLD had weak villains, although I love both movies. Also, I think Orlov had to be killed by the Russians, and also before Bond foiled his bomb plan, so his death had to come earlier than Kamal Khan's.