42 replies to this topic

[Royal Dalton]

Great post, Loomis.

[Agent Spriggan Ominae]

After reading Craig's comment and re-reading the offical story synopsis, methinks I've cracked Greene's plot. The offcial blub says that by "manipulating his powerful contacts within the CIA and the British government, Greene promises to overthrow the existing regime in a Latin American country".

I think the big twist involves Greene's plot, which I believe is...

Spoiler

Greene intends to supply his american and british contacts with bogus intellegence that the existing regime in this "latin american country" is a threat so they support or at least stand by idle when Medrano stages his coup.

Edited by Agent Spriggan Ominae, 23 February 2008 - 11:01 PM.

[K1Bond007]

It's probably either:

Spoiler

What Agent Spriggan Ominae said and has to do with falsified or just faulty intelligence

or

Spoiler

Perhaps the main "Blofeld-like" villain that we all expect to show up at some point is actually a key government figure who holds a great deal of power and rank in the British government and is manipulating the system for his gain.

[sharpshooter]

End of Casino Royale - "You don't trust anyone, do you James?" "No" "Then you've learned your lesson."

[stamper]

I doubt the will play M as the evil of the piece, it's so Mission Impossible yawn derivative...

[dinovelvet]

I don't mind if they want to send a political message in Quantum of Solace, just as long as it's not something that is so obvious that it feels like we're watching a public service announcement rather than a movie.

Cubby always made it a point to stay away from political messages which is good until they started making up countries/cities like San Monique and Isthmus City.

Whenever I hear "political message" in a film, I think of anti-American films such as that garbage with Tom Cruise and Robert Redford.

I like when Bond films reference real world events such as Margaret Thatcher in For Your Eyes Only and 9/11 in Die Another Day and Casino Royale but do we really need a "political message" whatever that means in Quantum of Solace? Not really.

Well didn't OCTOPUSSY feature a political message of sorts, about nuclear disarmament? You know, in between Bond running around in a gorilla suit and clown suit

[Byron]

I don't mind if they want to send a political message in Quantum of Solace, just as long as it's not something that is so obvious that it feels like we're watching a public service announcement rather than a movie.

Cubby always made it a point to stay away from political messages which is good until they started making up countries/cities like San Monique and Isthmus City.

Whenever I hear "political message" in a film, I think of anti-American films such as that garbage with Tom Cruise and Robert Redford.

I like when Bond films reference real world events such as Margaret Thatcher in For Your Eyes Only and 9/11 in Die Another Day and Casino Royale but do we really need a "political message" whatever that means in Quantum of Solace? Not really.

Well didn't OCTOPUSSY feature a political message of sorts, about nuclear disarmament? You know, in between Bond running around in a gorilla suit and clown suit

Most ironic is the political message in TLD - Russians are evil commie invaders whereas the Taliban Islamic fundamentalists are democracy loving freedom fighters.

[Simon Beavis]

After a long absence, I weigh in:

M - The comparison to Pamela Landy isn't accurate, she's more along the lines of Alvin Kersh from The X-Files. When Kersh first appeared, our first thought was that he was a bad guy (given his stern demeanor and his connection to Cancer Man). But upon closer inspection, you saw that he looked at things from a business-like perspective. Mulder was a "loose cannon on deck" just like Craig's Bond is. As far as Kersh was concerned, Mulder killed his own career with his obsessions and maverick tendencies; he "relished playing the role of martyr" so Kersh made sure he had no opportunities to play that role. But in the end, he and Mulder were still on the same team, hence his decision to help Mulder in the series finale. As said, this version of Bond is a loose cannon. M, like Kersh, is "bad" in the sense that she gets some unsavory "orders from above" but any opposition to Bond is because he is a loose cannon and she looks at his maverick tendencies from a businessman's perspective. Not because she's dirty.

Craig's comment - Bond's world has always been rooted in our own, Fleming name check's Beria, Khrushchev, and Serov several times in FRWL, with SMERSH's top brass mentioned to be on a name basis with the latter. Craig is likely referring to one of two things:

A. A political statement and a topical scientific statement are NOT the same thing. If someone says "We are running out of oil, in about 100 years, all our natural petroleum deposits will be tapped out," then that's a scientific statement. It would not become a political one unless it was followed by prolethysizing (sp?), which the movie is not likely to do.

B. The "truth is stranger than fiction" nature of the spy business. The intelligence community is, in a way, kindof like the Mafia in the way your friends one moment are enemies the next, Fleming's work is like The Godfather and John Le Carre is more along the lines of Donnie Brasco.

Picture if you will, the organization's leader NOT being a "Blofeld" but instead a "Gruboza" (shortened form of Grubozaboyschikov, the SMERSH chief from FRWL), for example, a spymaster from an unnamed country (his government perhaps being unaware of his extracurricular activities). Because of his sovreign status, Bond cannot take him out. But likewise, this "big bad" could only strike at Bond indirectly, though people who could not be traced back to him. Two enemies that want to destroy each other, but can't, so they battle each other in more indirect ways. I believe this was the original intent behind Gruboza. It was only rising Cold War tensions and concerns of "demonizing" the Soviets that prompted Fleming (and EON) to replace Gruboza with Blofeld.

[MarcAngeDraco]

sorry Byron, but I think that you are simplifying things. the Afghan resistance movement in the 1970s/ 1980s was much more diverse than just consisting of radical islamists; apart what we got to know as the Taliban movement didn't form until the beginning of the 1990s. The Soviets deliberately destabilized the country since the beginning of the 1970s and invaded it in 1979; they were responsible for throwing it back to the stone age. Just compare the Kabul of the "Kite Runner" with the Kabul twenty years later...

Subsequently, the US helped the Afgan resistance defeat the Soviets, but then left a total power vacuum. Which was, of course, filled by the most violent/powerful/extreme members of the resistance.

[stamper]

Bah, the real news is, the twist Craig is talking about, is that Villiers is the head of the organisation. Tobias Menzies announcement was made to elude suspicion from the reporters !

[dinovelvet]

Bah, the real news is, the twist Craig is talking about, is that Villiers is the head of the organisation. Tobias Menzies announcement was made to elude suspicion from the reporters !

Oh please...we all know Gulshan Grover is playing the head of the organization!

[Emma]

Does that mean we won't be getting another allogary to how badly the Bush Administration has screwed up the world? Darn!

[Righty007]

Does that mean we won't be getting another allogary to how badly the Bush Administration has screwed up the world? Darn!