71 replies to this topic

[.0.0.7.]

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!

[Vauxhall]

He says something like "For a while, a nice pattern emerged. You interfered in my world, so I destroyed yours." To me, that suggests it began as coincidental that Bond had landed himself up against SPECTRE.

Oberhauser says Bond, in a way, may have been responsible for the criminal direction he chose to take - but stops short of saying it was all because he was jealous of him.

[Silva25]

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!

The answer is, sloppy script-writing.  Because it makes very little sense, at least given how it's presented in the movie.  I can think of ways that it potentially could have worked, but the movie didn't go there.  Oh and the "foster brothers" thing was really lame, I groaned in the theatre when they went there.

[SecretAgentFan]

He says something like "For a while, a nice pattern emerged. You interfered in my world, so I destroyed yours." To me, that suggests it began as coincidental that Bond had landed himself up against SPECTRE.

Oberhauser says Bond, in a way, may have been responsible for the criminal direction he chose to take - but stops short of saying it was all because he was jealous of him.

 

 

Exactly.

 

People take it too literally.  What Oberhauser did was what he would have done with every agent trying to interfere.  That it was Bond who repeatedly got in the way made it only more interesting and personal for Oberhauser.

[Dustin]

Didn't Oberhauser say, right at the beginning of his Illuminati-speech, that something had been nagging at him and now, this evening suddenly all makes sense to him? Can't really recall the exact wording there. That line would suggest at least that Bloferhauser learned of Bond's involvement only there, at the spot. Could be a leftover from another script version perhaps; to me this implies at one point the idea may have been to make Oberhauser just as surprised about Bond's presence as Bond must have been about his.

[Guy Haines]

The answer is; he couldn't have.

Could he have predicted that Vesper Lynd, having been recruited by "the organisation" as it was in CR, would kill herself? No.

Could he have forseen the earlier death of Solange? No.

Did he even know that Bond was going to meet Strawberry Fields in La Paz, let alone seduce her and inadvertently put her in a perilous spot? No.

Or that Bond would go out to the far east and meet, and seduce the mistress of Raoul Silva? No.

The only one Blofeld might have had an inkling in orchestrating the death of was M, if Silva was acting under his direct orders in starting the cyber attacks and stalking. But again there was no certainty M would die.

Blofeld is clutching at co-incidences here. The main one being that he and Bond, for a brief period knew each other when Hannes Oberhauser took the young Bond under his wing. The idea that Franz took up a life of crime because of jealousy of young Bond is again just Blofeld twisting the knife psychologically. Anyone who would murder his parent and then embark on the life Blofeld did is a disturbed individual and I find it difficult to believe that it was all triggered by two winters with young Bond.

No, I think ESB would have taken the path he took anyway, but in one of life's little ironies - to quote another Bond villain with Bond issues, Trevelyan - the agent who has interefered with Blofeld's plans for nearly a decade is the same person he knew as a youth. And to get back at this individual he's not only claiming credit for all Bond's woes, but even places the blame for his life on Bond. Not the mark of a master plan, imho, but a sick mind.

[RMc2]

Hehe yes, the conversation between Blofeld and Bond in the Morocco lair comes across as a massive bluff.

 

Blofeld can't possibly have orchestrated Vesper's death (quite the opposite, since Mr White and Gettler seem to have wanted her alive).

 

M's death is all down to Silva, but I can imagine Blofeld funded his efforts and provided the small army because they had a common interest.

 

Quantum was a SPECTRE subsidiary, but Bond seems to have come off completely clean for shutting that down...

 

I like to think that Blofeld's just trying to rile Bond up by mentioning Vesper. In reality, he supported Silva's quest against M partly in retaliation for shutting Quantum down, and partly to get C and the Nine Eyes project on the go in Britain.

[Harmsway]

Blofeld is just emotionally torturing Bond in the same way that he tries to torture Madeleine. He's a sadist. Even as he physically tortures Bond, it doesn't really seem truly personal for Blofeld. He's just pulling legs off of an insect that bit him.

There was a wonderful backstory to how Blofeld met Mr. White and founded SPECTRE that really made his sadistic side clear. It's a shame it was cut. The movie would have been better with it.

[RMc2]

There was a wonderful backstory to how Blofeld met Mr. White and founded SPECTRE that really made his sadistic side clear. It's a shame it was cut. The movie would have been better with it.

 

Wow, what was it?

[Vauxhall]

It was cut quite a while before shooting began, but the story went that White and Oberhauser were both members of a Foreign Legion offshoot in north Africa. Their group of ten got struck by a sandstorm and cut off. Oberhauser violently killed eight of the others in the night, for rations, leaving just him and White. The platoon was called "Les Spectres de Pierre", and their emblem included an octopus.

[RMc2]

It was cut quite a while before shooting began, but the story went that White and Oberhauser were both members of a Foreign Legion offshoot in north Africa. Their group of ten got struck by a sandstorm and cut off. Oberhauser violently killed eight of the others in the night, for rations, leaving just him and White. The platoon was called "Les Spectres de Pierre", and their emblem included an octopus.

 

That's very cool!

[Harmsway]

It was cut quite a while before shooting began, but the story went that White and Oberhauser were both members of a Foreign Legion offshoot in north Africa. Their group of ten got struck by a sandstorm and cut off. Oberhauser violently killed eight of the others in the night, for rations, leaving just him and White. The platoon was called "Les Spectres de Pierre", and their emblem included an octopus.

Don't leave out the cannibalism!

Blofeld left Mr. White alive so that Mr. White could carry one of the bodies so that they could use it for food.

[Surrie]

It was cut quite a while before shooting began, but the story went that White and Oberhauser were both members of a Foreign Legion offshoot in north Africa. Their group of ten got struck by a sandstorm and cut off. Oberhauser violently killed eight of the others in the night, for rations, leaving just him and White. The platoon was called "Les Spectres de Pierre", and their emblem included an octopus.

 

Would like to have seen this mentioned - might had added some more depth to the menace of Blofeld!

[RMc2]

Holy cow, that's brilliantly dark.

 

Although it does shrink the world of 007 incredibly. Not only is Bond's foster brother the leader of SPECTRE, but a founding member of the organisation and best bud of Oberhauser is also the man behind the death of Bond's one true love? Sheesh.

[Dustin]

It was cut quite a while before shooting began, but the story went that White and Oberhauser were both members of a Foreign Legion offshoot in north Africa. Their group of ten got struck by a sandstorm and cut off. Oberhauser violently killed eight of the others in the night, for rations, leaving just him and White. The platoon was called "Les Spectres de Pierre", and their emblem included an octopus.

Don't leave out the cannibalism!

Blofeld left Mr. White alive so that Mr. White could carry one of the bodies so that they could use it for food.

And this was cut. Why the hell ever? It's more interesting than most of what we've got.

[Marcin]

Exactly. Truly unique story.
Rating issue, perhaps?

[Dustin]

Well, it wasn't as if they would have shown it. And the torture scene is certainly more graphic.

[Harmsway]

And this was cut. Why the hell ever? It's more interesting than most of what we've got.

Agreed. I think they cut it out to streamline things, but I miss it.

[Marcin]

Well, it wasn't as if they would have shown it. And the torture scene is certainly more graphic.

Perhaps you're right. Films under 12A category can contain mature themes. Cannibalism references probably fit into this.
Shame. Such a great story.

[Dustin]

I'd even argue to grasp the full impact of this backstory you'd have to have reached a certain stage of maturity.

[Jim]

Dark stuff, that. More novel than what we have been served up, but a number of green and folding reasons why we didn't get it, no doubt.

[FlemingBond]

i would have thought having SPECTRE and Blofeld to use again they'd do a whole series of films off of them. Instead they've retroactively made the last 3 SPECTRE films, which is very forced to me.

It would be like going back and saying Goldfinger was a member of SPECTRE.

why?

[Jim]

i would have thought having SPECTRE and Blofeld to use again they'd do a whole series of films off of them. Instead they've retroactively made the last 3 SPECTRE films, which is very forced to me.

It would be like going back and saying Goldfinger was a member of SPECTRE.

why?

 

Because they have people everywhere.

 

Even in films made several years ago.

 

They're dead clever and sneaky.

[Pushkin]

It's a Bond film so don't take it too seriously. But for me I don't see a massive problem. SPECTRE/Blofeld set these events in motion and the outcome were these deaths that personally impacted Bond. 

[George Kaplan]

Hehe yes, the conversation between Blofeld and Bond in the Morocco lair comes across as a massive bluff.

 

Blofeld can't possibly have orchestrated Vesper's death (quite the opposite, since Mr White and Gettler seem to have wanted her alive).

 

M's death is all down to Silva, but I can imagine Blofeld funded his efforts and provided the small army because they had a common interest.

 

Quantum was a SPECTRE subsidiary, but Bond seems to have come off completely clean for shutting that down...

 

I like to think that Blofeld's just trying to rile Bond up by mentioning Vesper. In reality, he supported Silva's quest against M partly in retaliation for shutting Quantum down, and partly to get C and the Nine Eyes project on the go in Britain.

 

I agree, that he couldn't have done it all; he's playing mind games with them, like putting the pictures of Madeline's dad and Bond-Hannes-Franz in the pairs respective rooms.  Even the torturing of Bond is, in its way, a massive mind game he's playing.

 

And agree with SPECTRE backing Silva's plan, knowing how it'd both be a strike against the organization for what had happened in CR and QoS and help back one of their other projects it seems like an easy thing to make and explains how Silva can have had such wide ranging support in his activities (even down to planning that train thing underground).

[glidrose]

It was cut quite a while before shooting began, but the story went that White and Oberhauser were both members of a Foreign Legion offshoot in north Africa. Their group of ten got struck by a sandstorm and cut off. Oberhauser violently killed eight of the others in the night, for rations, leaving just him and White. The platoon was called "Les Spectres de Pierre", and their emblem included an octopus.

Don't leave out the cannibalism!

Blofeld left Mr. White alive so that Mr. White could carry one of the bodies so that they could use it for food.

And this was cut. Why the hell ever? It's more interesting than most of what we've got.

 
 

And this was cut. Why the hell ever? It's more interesting than most of what we've got.

Agreed. I think they cut it out to streamline things, but I miss it.

Ditto. It was in the lengthy October draft. Got cut from the streamlined December draft, with so much other wonderful stuff. Once the film is in wide release everywhere I suspect somebody will put together a list of script changes between the two leaked drafts and the final version.

But then of course one could easily read those drafts. I'm sure in the coming months script-hosting websites will upload them without fear of reprisal.

Dark stuff, that. More novel than what we have been served up, but a number of green and folding reasons why we didn't get it, no doubt.

More likely running time. A three hour Bond film was never going to be an option.

[stromberg]

Dark stuff, that. More novel than what we have been served up, but a number of green and folding reasons why we didn't get it, no doubt.

More likely running time. A three hour Bond film was never going to be an option.

And they'd rather cut some of the "cheaper" dialogue scenes instead of the expensive action stuff...

I really wonder much was actually shot of all that stuff. For example, Detlef Bothe, the bald guy in the cable car, was only hired for very few days, but he got his contract extended, scheduled for shooting in Rome or Brazil (sic!).

I know we won't get that, but I'd really love to see a director's/extended cut.

[Harmsway]

I'm sure the original cut was much longer.

[RMc2]

More likely running time. A three hour Bond film was never going to be an option.

 

 

Shame. The amount of half-baked stuff in the final film could benefit from more character and plot work.

 

Although I'd rather they cut down the current version into a more streamlined feature.

I'm sure the original cut was much longer.

 

Well, the first length rumours were 160mins, weren't they? That probably wasn't just 'fat' from the scenes in the final film.

Edited by RMc2, 10 November 2015 - 08:02 PM.

[glidrose]

More likely running time. A three hour Bond film was never going to be an option.

 
Shame. The amount of half-baked stuff in the final film could benefit from more character and plot work.

Unfortunately the October draft had the same character and plot problems and a handful of more elaborate action sequences. And was more bloated. [EDIT: ...and a handful of much better written character scenes. h/t to Harmsway] As I say in another thread, this one was misguided from the get-go. They tried doing too many things at once and it seems few of them have come off.

Edited by glidrose, 10 November 2015 - 11:52 PM.