462 replies to this topic

[seawolfnyy]

So I guess this thread can be closed?

[Vauxhall]

So I guess this thread can be closed?

 

Technically yes... but we'll leave it open for further discussion of whether the reveal worked, etc.

[Professor Pi]

My sister saw SPECTRE and loved the reveal.  She had no idea who the villain was, never having been on this site for sure, but is a big Bond fan and remembers Blofeld from the Connery days.  So for people like her, it seems to have worked.

 

I could have done without the half-brother bit though, and tie in the Nazi gold story instead as motivation.  I think it's enough  that Bond is a fly in his ointment having disrupted their schemes in CR, QoS, and the stadium plot in SP. 

[Twingolot]

My daddy loved you James more than he loved me, therefore I established a massive crime syndicate to avenge myself on you on the off-chance you ended up working for the British government and not, say, a binman.

Before you ask, I haven't seen the script.

...

 

That sounded odd at the time. Still sounds odd. But is in the movie...

 

I really don't like this connection between Bond and Blofeld. Plus the fact that Blofeld gets simply "arrested". However, there is still a way to fix this in the next chapter. The way Waltz is claiming he is Blofeld is not convincing at all as Bond recognised him as Franz Oberhauser. Why wouldn't there be several "Blofelds"? Just like in the 67' version of Casino Royale, they could have renamed several villains as Blofeld. And once Bond actually meets the real "Blofeld", he could start with his "clone program" à la DAF.

[Jim]

 

My daddy loved you James more than he loved me, therefore I established a massive crime syndicate to avenge myself on you on the off-chance you ended up working for the British government and not, say, a binman.

Before you ask, I haven't seen the script.

...

 

That sounded odd at the time. Still sounds odd. But is in the movie...

 

I really don't like this connection between Bond and Blofeld. Plus the fact that Blofeld gets simply "arrested". However, there is still a way to fix this in the next chapter. The way Waltz is claiming he is Blofeld is not convincing at all as Bond recognised him as Franz Oberhauser. Why wouldn't there be several "Blofelds"? Just like in the 67' version of Casino Royale, they could have renamed several villains as Blofeld. And once Bond actually meets the real "Blofeld", he could start with his "clone program" à la DAF.

 

I'd forgotten I'd said that last year. Good grief.

 

Well, you can all blame me if you want.

[Simon]

Am afraid I remember this one too.

 

I was in fear as it had something of the prescient.

 

I blame you.  (Actually, I could give a damn.  The movie was too much fun to really care.  Although I am sure your review will tell me all the reasons why it is a dastardly infliction upon the human race for all to despise...)

[Jim]

Am afraid I remember this one too.

 

I was in fear as it had something of the prescient.

 

I blame you.  (Actually, I could give a damn.  The movie was too much fun to really care.  Although I am sure your review will tell me all the reasons why it is a dastardly infliction upon the human race for all to despise...)

 

Maybe. Time will tell on that one, I think.

[Dustin]

Well, next time you write a pitch for a Bond film you better do it sober, Jim...

[AMC Hornet]

A quick perusal of Waltz's credits on IMDB reveals that SPECTRE is not his first brush with the world of 007. He played a German spy in GOLDENEYE: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming, back in 1989.

 

Maybe you guys knew that already, but it's news to me.

[Dustin]

I think I've seen that film - TV production, wasn't it? - but I can't for the life of me remember Waltz in it. Good find there!

[AMC Hornet]

It was the better one - the one with FYEO alumnus Charles Dance as Fleming.

[Glockenspiel]

 

It was previously reported and widely expected that Waltz would be playing the historic head of SPECTRE, Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
But Waltz asserted in this recent interview his character was Oberhauser and that was all. "The character is called Franz Oberhauser." Adding: "That’s a fact. I can guarantee."
But what about a Blofeld reboot? Like Darth Vador in Star Wars 3? Just an idea...
At the end of SPECTRE, after an accident or a brutal fight, Oberhauser appears bald and with a scar... just before the end-titles...
What do you think?

I think he could be both Oberhauser and Blofeld. 

 

Well... I was just right, guys! :-)

[AMC Hornet]

But did Bond really have to be responsible for 'making' Blofeld, like Burton's Batman & Joker, or Fedora & Indy Jones, or Austin & Dougie Powers?

 

Are audiences really too impatient to sit still and watch characters develop over a series of guaranteed entries (I'm looking at you, Lucas, with your 'let's chop off all Anakin's limbs at once, and set him on fire too!")

 

We've been watching Craig's Bond develop for too long already, and it looks like he's still not 'done' yet.

 

I hope Bond 7 -whenever he starts - just gets sent on missions that don't turn into personal journeys.

[Guy Haines]

But did Bond really have to be responsible for 'making' Blofeld, like Burton's Batman & Joker, or Fedora & Indy Jones, or Austin & Dougie Powers?
 
Are audiences really too impatient to sit still and watch characters develop over a series of guaranteed entries (I'm looking at you, Lucas, with your 'let's chop off all Anakin's limbs at once, and set him on fire too!")
 
We've been watching Craig's Bond develop for too long already, and it looks like he's still not 'done' yet.
 
I hope Bond 7 -whenever he starts - just gets sent on missions that don't turn into personal journeys.

Re; did Bond create Blofeld - I'm not convinced he did.

The whole "author of all your pain" line, as I've argued a few days ago here, is implausible because with the possible exception of Silva's manic pursuit of M - which SPECTRE could have directly encouraged and financed - in everything else there's no way Blofeld could have guaranteed that Bond would suffer. Could he have known that Vesper would fall for Bond - and vice versa - and then kill herself? I doubt it - if anything, as Mr White says in QoS, they wanted her alive so she could turn Bond.

In this Bond universe we know that Blofeld is really Oberhauser/Blofeld - but he took the path he did because of Bond? I doubt it. He's using the convenient coincidence of a brief shared upbringing to justify the path he took and blame Bond for it. The mark not of a master plan but a sick mind, as I've remarked before.

[AMC Hornet]

By 'making' him I was referring to the trademark scar. His "Daddy always liked you best" rant sounds like Tommy Smothers.

[DaveBond21]

My daddy loved you James more than he loved me, therefore I established a massive crime syndicate to avenge myself on you on the off-chance you ended up working for the British government and not, say, a binman.

Before you ask, I haven't seen the script.

 

What I feared, and what we got! Happily they didn't go on about it too much.

 

-

[Guy Haines]

My daddy loved you James more than he loved me, therefore I established a massive crime syndicate to avenge myself on you on the off-chance you ended up working for the British government and not, say, a binman.
Before you ask, I haven't seen the script.

 
What I feared, and what we got! Happily they didn't go on about it too much.
 
-

Not sure we did. Certainly Blofeld referred to a cuckoo in the nest - Bond in his youth - but then says that was the reason for getting rid of Oberhauser senior. I didn't detect any mention of "and by the way I set up SPECTRE on the off chance that you'de end up in British Intelligence so I could g et my own back on you for ruining my adolescence." All he, Blofeld said was something along lines of thank you for setting me on the path of a life of crime - no mention of I set this all up to get back at you.

Blofeld does, however, come out with all this "author of all your pain" stuff, but I've argued above that he's clutching at all these coincidences - that it's Bond, of all people, who has interfered in SPECTRE's plans for almost a decade, but that along the way people close to Bond died - to twist the knife psychologically - that, plus the references to Bond's childhood after he lost his parents.

Oberhauser/Blofeld certainly resented young Bond and Hannes Oberhauser - but set up SPECTRE just to get his own back? I don't buy it, and it's not what I read into it. Anyone who would do what ESB did to his dad and then become a master criminal was probably sick from the outset.

[Walecs]

The fact that the best secret agent in the world and the most dangerous criminal in the world were forster brothers is even worse, though. There's like 1 chance out of bilions.

[Makeshift Python]

The fact that the best secret agent in the world and the most dangerous criminal in the world were forster brothers is even worse, though. There's like 1 chance out of bilions.

So is the chance that Bond would stumble onto Blofeld through his assignment in Japan in the original You Only Live Twice novel, though I think it's handled much better in that book whereas Spectre never really plays up on that. If you cut out any reference to Overhauser, the film wouldn't lose anything.

[Dustin]

Indeed, it has little real impact beyond some dialogue; the story would be much the same without that element. Strangely I did not only not feel Bond cares about Oberhauser, I also didn't really buy Oberhauser's issue with Bond. If that were left out the film would lose nothing substantial.

[Harmsway]

Earlier drafts were built around the Oberhauser angle to a much greater extent. They ultimately backed off of it so much that it became completely extraneous to the story.

[Makeshift Python]

So much that I'm willing to bet if Waltz returns for the next film, there will be no reference to Oberhauser. EON will likely just sweep that under the rug. Maybe EON had always been uncomfortable with that concept and tried rolling with that until the editing phase where they realize it wasn't working. It's most telling that once he refers to himself as Blofeld, he's never referred to as "Franz Oberhauser" ever again, most notable when Bond calls him "the late Ernst Stavro Blofeld" to his MI6 gang. Even the closing credits only have Waltz listed as "Blofeld". They really want to just move past "Oberhauser".

 

I think the only reason the Oberhauser angle survived into the final product was so EON could hold onto the film having that reveal as a twist, so everything about that was cut to the bare minimum.

[FlemingBond]

i would you're right.

[Guy Haines]

So much that I'm willing to bet if Waltz returns for the next film, there will be no reference to Oberhauser. EON will likely just sweep that under the rug. Maybe EON had always been uncomfortable with that concept and tried rolling with that until the editing phase where they realize it wasn't working. It's most telling that once he refers to himself as Blofeld, he's never referred to as "Franz Oberhauser" ever again, most notable when Bond calls him "the late Ernst Stavro Blofeld" to his MI6 gang. Even the closing credits only have Waltz listed as "Blofeld". They really want to just move past "Oberhauser".
 
I think the only reason the Oberhauser angle survived into the final product was so EON could hold onto the film having that reveal as a twist, so everything about that was cut to the bare minimum.

I think they kept the character name "Franz Oberhauser" in the script to lend an air of mystery - not so much for the audience as Bond. How could this man who died as a youth be alive? Hence Bond's strange request to Moneypenny - all information about Oberhauser before and after he died.

So far as Blofeld is concerned Oberhauser father and son are both dead. Ironically it's the opposite of what happened in the film OHMSS - to the world he's the Count de Bleauchamp, but Bond knows he's Blofeld. Here, to SPECTRE if not the wider world he's Ernst Stavro Blofeld - that's what he calls himself. Only Bond knows he was once Franz Oberhauser.

Indeed it lends meaning to the title SPECTRE - a ghost. Bond must have thought he'd seen one. And the title at the start - "The Dead Are Alive". Not only the shards of glass, or the message from beyond the grave - but the villain himself.

[Walecs]

 

The fact that the best secret agent in the world and the most dangerous criminal in the world were forster brothers is even worse, though. There's like 1 chance out of bilions.

So is the chance that Bond would stumble onto Blofeld through his assignment in Japan in the original You Only Live Twice novel, though I think it's handled much better in that book whereas Spectre never really plays up on that. If you cut out any reference to Overhauser, the film wouldn't lose anything.

 

Yeah, but that's way different. In the novels, Bond knew Blofeld because he was a criminal, and in YOLT 007 stumbles onto Blofeld because he's doing criminal activities in Japan. Not to mention that Bond had already had two different assignements before the Japan assignement, so it's inevitable that, sooner or later, Bond and Blofeld would meet again. Had they met because Blofeld was simply enjoying a holiday with his family in Tokyo, that would have been a contrived coincidence.

[Guy Haines]

The fact that the best secret agent in the world and the most dangerous criminal in the world were forster brothers is even worse, though. There's like 1 chance out of bilions.

So is the chance that Bond would stumble onto Blofeld through his assignment in Japan in the original You Only Live Twice novel, though I think it's handled much better in that book whereas Spectre never really plays up on that. If you cut out any reference to Overhauser, the film wouldn't lose anything.

 
Yeah, but that's way different. In the novels, Bond knew Blofeld because he was a criminal, and in YOLT 007 stumbles onto Blofeld because he's doing criminal activities in Japan. Not to mention that Bond had already had two different assignements before the Japan assignement, so it's inevitable that, sooner or later, Bond and Blofeld would meet again. Had they met because Blofeld was simply enjoying a holiday with his family in Tokyo, that would have been a contrived coincidence.

Not entirely inevitable that Bond would encounter Blofeld again - don't forget, Blofeld was in "retirement" enjoying death - other peoples. That said, even if M hadn't sent Bond to Japan on that "impossible" mission in the novel, who is to say that sooner or later 007 wouldn't have heard through intelligence sources that something very unusual - suicides on an industrial scale in just one part of Japan - was happening and the place happened to have, amongst others, two Europeans living there.

Indeed if Bond wasn't being shaken out of his remorse on this assignment he might have spotted a couple of (admittedly long shot) clues when Dr Shatterhand and his "frau" were mentioned to him - the doctor hailed from Switzerland and his wife was exceptionally unattractive.

[Makeshift Python]

It's still a pretty crazy coincidence in YOLT, so much even Fleming's narration comments how only fate could have brought them all together again like this. I'm not sure Bond would have heard othewrise and be able to do something about it, as this matter was unique to Japan and wouldn't have been of the concern of others unless someone else would have identified them, and then likely send squads to arrest him, taking away Bond's chance at revenge.

 

The way SPECTRE treats the relationship between Bond and Blofeld seemed to be played as a funny coincidence than anything else. I haven't read the drafts, but I got the impression that from notes on earlier drafts that Blofeld set up his organization just to hurt Bond, but at some point it was realized that took away from what he is known for as a man with global aspirations. Thus, in this film, Blofeld never seems to be all that concerned of Bond beyond being a small pest and Bond doesn't seem to acknowledge their relationship beyond "I think I knew him". Blofeld's "I was behind them all" became nothing more than taunting, playing mind games, which Bond recognizes and dismisses.

Edited by Stockslivevan, 14 November 2015 - 04:44 PM.

[sharpshooter]

Blofeld's "I was behind them all" became nothing more than taunting, playing mind games, which Bond recognizes and dismisses.

Agreed. Le Chiffre, Greene and Silva were SPECTRE members, as the film reveals, but that's about it as far as connecting the films goes. Bond became involved in SPECTRE plots, lost people along the way, and Blofeld relishes this fact. He rubs it in his face. And that works for me. 

[Guy Haines]

It's still a pretty crazy coincidence in YOLT, so much even Flemming's narration comments how only fate could have brought them all together again like this. I'm not sure Bond would have heard othewrise and be able to do something about it, as this matter was unique to Japan and wouldn't have been of the concern of others unless someone else would have identified them, and then likely send squads to arrest him, taking away Bond's chance at revenge.
 
The way SPECTRE treats the relationship between Bond and Blofeld seemed to be played as a funny coincidence than anything else. I haven't read the drafts, but I got the impression that from notes on earlier drafts that Blofeld set up his organization just to hurt Bond, but at some point it was realized that took away from what he is known for as a man with global aspirations. Thus, in this film, Blofeld never seems to be all that concerned of Bond beyond being a small pest and Bond doesn't seem to acknowledge their relationship beyond "I think I knew him". Blofeld's "I was behind them all" became nothing more than taunting, playing mind games, which Bond recognizes and dismisses.

Indeed. I note that a lot of us here were concerned about the Bond/Blofeld nexus being played out like the Austin Powers/Dr Evil link. Not really. As you point out in the final script which reached the screen Bond is treated like a pestilence by Blofeld. Their past relationship is acknowledged only in that it encouraged Franz to kill his dad, fake his own death and change his name, and embark on a life of crime - not devote every waking hour after Hannes Oberhauser died to making Bond's life hell. Only when Bond interferes with SPECTRE does Blofeld/Oberhauser take an interest in him again, and then he can't personally direct what happens to 007 - only gloat when they eventually meet about the deaths linked to Bond, particularly of those Bond cared about such as Vesper and M - claiming credit for the bad times in Bond's recent past.

[Makeshift Python]

Here's something the film actually supports concerning the background. Bond stays under Oberhauser's wing for two years from 83-85. This is supported by the document Bond holds in the beginning showing his aunt grant temporary gardianship to Oberhauser. Blofeld says he killed his father and faked his death "twenty years ago", which would put it around the mid 90s. So a whole decade had passed after Bond left the Oberhauser home. Based on what's laid out, I think the father and son always a troubled relationship, it's just that Bond was one of the many things that made it complicated. By the mid 90s there was a breaking point that made Blofeld decide his father should die and he go off under a new name, setting up a criminal organization with White. When they cross paths again personally for the first time in decades, Blofeld admits that Bond is part of the reason for the troubled relationship, but is not the ultimate reason for why he took on the path he did.