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How could Oberhauser have orchestrated as much as he claimed?


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#31 Dustin

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Posted 10 November 2015 - 08:18 PM

I suppose with the concerns about the script, the budget and so on there may have been some drastic shifts, also tonally. Alone seeing this bit about "Les Spectres de Pierre" go makes me wince. They probably cut or rewrote everything that played in roughly the same league.

#32 Vauxhall

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Posted 10 November 2015 - 08:23 PM

I'm sure the original cut was much longer.

Longer, but not too many scenes were shot which weren't used at all.

Quite a few bits from London earlier in the film though - Bond walking to MI6, entering the building, walking past the secretaries, greeting Moneypenny, etc. Also similar shots of M and Moneypenny walking into the real Foreign Office to meet C.

I think the Rome meeting was also slightly longer, plus there was a shot of Hinx sitting on the train before attacking Bond later in the day.

#33 Gobi-1

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Posted 10 November 2015 - 08:23 PM

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.

 

Love it. In a lot of ways Spectre really just teases Blofeld. Perhaps we'll see his back story unfold in Bond 25.



#34 .0.0.7.

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Posted 10 November 2015 - 08:28 PM

Thanks for all the thoughts! I can accept that it happen to be coincidence, and Blofeld was milking Bond's pain for all it was worth. It does resolve one of my main dislikes of the film, and the info about the cut scenes/changed dialogue is pretty fascinating.

 

There is nothing that will resolve my disdain for the forced childhood backstory of Oberhauser though.  Blah.

 

Still unclear on why Hinx attacked Bond halfway through a train ride.  But I'm willing to suspend logic, as I do in many of the other films.



#35 George Kaplan

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Posted 10 November 2015 - 09:17 PM

Thanks for all the thoughts! I can accept that it happen to be coincidence, and Blofeld was milking Bond's pain for all it was worth. It does resolve one of my main dislikes of the film, and the info about the cut scenes/changed dialogue is pretty fascinating.

 

There is nothing that will resolve my disdain for the forced childhood backstory of Oberhauser though.  Blah.

 

Still unclear on why Hinx attacked Bond halfway through a train ride.  But I'm willing to suspend logic, as I do in many of the other films.

 

Maybe Hinx only knew he was on the train and hadn't found out where he was before he spotted him in the dining car?



#36 Harmsway

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Posted 10 November 2015 - 09:22 PM

Unfortunately the October draft had the same character and plot problems and a handful of more elaborate action sequences.


Certain aspects were stronger, but others were much weaker.

#37 .0.0.7.

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Posted 10 November 2015 - 10:22 PM

 

Thanks for all the thoughts! I can accept that it happen to be coincidence, and Blofeld was milking Bond's pain for all it was worth. It does resolve one of my main dislikes of the film, and the info about the cut scenes/changed dialogue is pretty fascinating.

 

There is nothing that will resolve my disdain for the forced childhood backstory of Oberhauser though.  Blah.

 

Still unclear on why Hinx attacked Bond halfway through a train ride.  But I'm willing to suspend logic, as I do in many of the other films.

 

Maybe Hinx only knew he was on the train and hadn't found out where he was before he spotted him in the dining car?

Yeah, I thought of that... but the train was only about 8 cars long.  Couldn't have taken that long to find someone on a train like that.  Not sure why he was even sent to kill Bond in the first place, given that there were neatly arranged rooms with framed photos for them at the lair in the desert crater.  Again, I must suspend logic for this one.



#38 Vauxhall

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Posted 10 November 2015 - 10:35 PM

I had no problem with it. It would be fairly logical that Bond was likely to be most off-guard at dinner and drinks, so this would be a good time to strike.

#39 glidrose

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Posted 10 November 2015 - 11:53 PM

Unfortunately the October draft had the same character and plot problems and a handful of more elaborate action sequences.


Certain aspects were stronger, but others were much weaker.


Absolutely. I've updated my original post. But ultimately if that October draft had been filmed, I suspect few people would have been that much more satisfied with the final result.

#40 Guy Haines

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Posted 11 November 2015 - 07:42 AM

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.


Actually, when Bond was on his first "00" assignment in Madagascar at the start of CR, he put the train of events in motion by killing the bomb maker hired by Demetrios for Le Chiffre. Admittedly Le Chiffre's put option plan was unauthorised by Quantum/SPECTRE, which meant that White had to execute Le Chiffre in the end after it all went wrong in the casino - but why did it go wrong - Bond!

But, for reasons that I've set out above, Blofeld couldn't have been the "puppet master" of Bond's life after CR. Too many things happened which Blofeld couldn't have predicted - in SPECTRE I think he's just claiming credit to psychologically torture 007.

As for the missing backstory about Blofeld and White - pity they left it out. I expected this film to be a sort of "Blofeld Begins" story just as CR was "Bond Begins" yet apart from the passing references to the childhood link and Oberhauser's name change we are still no wiser about Blofeld and SPECTRE. As for the Foreign Legion story - it could have been explained away without explicit reference. (Something like "We killed them for their rations - when they ran out White and I had to find another source of protein....." and leave it to the audience's imagination.)

#41 Vauxhall

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Posted 11 November 2015 - 07:49 AM

The October draft has some nice background information and a couple of different ideas, but apart from that, is pretty dire. Far too overwritten, and boiling over with cliche page after page. The final act of that draft makes even less sense than the finished product.

#42 SecretAgentFan

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Posted 11 November 2015 - 08:19 AM

I agree - Irma, for example, is totally wasted in the October draft.  But Stockmann taking Madeline hostage much earlier made sense to me.



#43 Guy Haines

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Posted 11 November 2015 - 01:25 PM

Can't help wondering if the whole Morocco sequence, from the hotel rooms to Blofeld's crater base, should have tied in with the earlier draft about Oberhauser/Blofeld and White's involvement in the Foreign Legion. It might explain why White kept going back there every year and why Blofeld chose Morocco as his base of operations - he knew the territory.

However, as I never got to see the scripts in any form - only various internet links to people who had - I defer to those who could enlighten me about this point. Is there anything in it?

#44 George Kaplan

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Posted 11 November 2015 - 01:37 PM

Maybe Hinx only knew he was on the train and hadn't found out where he was before he spotted him in the dining car?

Yeah, I thought of that... but the train was only about 8 cars long.  Couldn't have taken that long to find someone on a train like that.  Not sure why he was even sent to kill Bond in the first place, given that there were neatly arranged rooms with framed photos for them at the lair in the desert crater.  Again, I must suspend logic for this one.

 
I couldn't remember how long the train was; yeah 8 cars makes it seem like Hinx wasn't looking real hard. :laugh:
 
Maybe he was trying to poison bond's drink (but IIRC Bond didn't drink it, so he had to resort to a more direct route)? :P

Edited by George Kaplan, 11 November 2015 - 01:38 PM.


#45 thecasinoroyale

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Posted 11 November 2015 - 01:46 PM

Maybe Hinx was presumed dead after failing in Austria and so, like White, Oberhauser simply discarded him after he felt he was spent...but for Hinx it become a personal mission to kill James Bond at all costs.
 
And if I look too much into things, I take away the fun. This is a James Bond universe - not totally our own.
 
I'm willing to now accept that Oberhauser and SPECTRE were the ones behind everything in the Craig era. Let's not forget, we had Mr White pulling Le Chiffre's strings in 'CR', so in turn he was operating on orders from SPECTRE. Oberhauser knew Bond would follow a scent if he was attracted to it, so if Le Chiffre failed once, orders were made to make him try again and put Bond through the mill. Everything Mr White knew, including Vesper, would have been seconded by Oberhauser.
 
Again in 'QOS', it was still Bond following pieces of the puzzle laid out by White and the cell of SPECTRE that did whatever Quantum did, so Oberhauser would do what he had to do to maintain Greene and Quantum continued to push MI6 and James Bond to their limit.
 
With 'Skyfall' and the emergence of Silva, he was acting under SPECTRE to bring down M and James Bond. Maybe not specifically James Bond, but that was secretly Oberhauser's little bonus plan when Silva managed to destroy M.
 
And then with what M knew, we come to 'SPECTRE' and the opening titles.
 
It may be far fetched but seriously, if we look too hard to make sense of things we will ruin the enjoyment and fantasy of it all. It's like events in all the Connery films, bar 'Goldfinger', were orchestrated by SPECTRE. If Dr.No hadn't mentioned he works for SPECTRE at all, and it came up a few films later, I'd have bought it still.

 

We don't question how in the 60s, Blofeld could create a hollowed-out volcano lair, steal nuclear warheads, capture space shuttles, bleed operatives into the intelligence game and a whole other matter of nefarious deeds...so why do we question the 00s and Oberhauser when he has probably done less, but with more capability and technology at his disposal. 
 
And who says Goldfinger wasn't a greedy SPECTRE operative hmmmm?? :P



#46 Harmsway

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Posted 11 November 2015 - 02:05 PM

Can't help wondering if the whole Morocco sequence, from the hotel rooms to Blofeld's crater base, should have tied in with the earlier draft about Oberhauser/Blofeld and White's involvement in the Foreign Legion. It might explain why White kept going back there every year and why Blofeld chose Morocco as his base of operations - he knew the territory.

However, as I never got to see the scripts in any form - only various internet links to people who had - I defer to those who could enlighten me about this point. Is there anything in it?

Nothing that I can recall.

#47 FlemingBond

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Posted 11 November 2015 - 03:03 PM

it's not that SPECTRE couldn't be behind the previous films like they were so many in the 60s. It's to retcon it feels a bit forced since they weren't written that way at the time. Can i believe SPECTRE was behind Silva...actually yes i can. It's just the whole "james i'm the author of all this" to get at him personally is a bit  :rolleyes:



#48 SecretAgentFan

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Posted 11 November 2015 - 03:10 PM

 

 

Maybe Hinx only knew he was on the train and hadn't found out where he was before he spotted him in the dining car?

Yeah, I thought of that... but the train was only about 8 cars long.  Couldn't have taken that long to find someone on a train like that.  Not sure why he was even sent to kill Bond in the first place, given that there were neatly arranged rooms with framed photos for them at the lair in the desert crater.  Again, I must suspend logic for this one.

 

 
I couldn't remember how long the train was; yeah 8 cars makes it seem like Hinx wasn't looking real hard. :laugh:
 
Maybe he was trying to poison bond's drink (but IIRC Bond didn't drink it, so he had to resort to a more direct route)? :P

 

 

I wouldn´t overthink it.  

 

Bond thought Hinx was dead or severely injured after Austria.

 

Hinx tracked him down via the data of the smartblood and/or knowing about L´Americain.

 

On the train Hinx just waited for the best moment to strike.  And that was when Bond and Madeleine were relaxed, not thinking about him anymore.



#49 Guy Haines

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Posted 11 November 2015 - 03:57 PM

it's not that SPECTRE couldn't be behind the previous films like they were so many in the 60s. It's to retcon it feels a bit forced since they weren't written that way at the time. Can i believe SPECTRE was behind Silva...actually yes i can. It's just the whole "james i'm the author of all this" to get at him personally is a bit  :rolleyes:


Like I've said before about the "author of all your pain" stuff - I think it's ESB clutching at coincidence. Who'd have thought that the man who ruined Le Chiffre at the poker table and therefore made him a double liability to Quantum and/or SPECTRE was the same man who as a youth knew, however briefly the man formerly known as Franz Oberhauser?

I find the idea of ESB being the puppet master in the previous three Craig films a bit incredible. On the other hand I can see where he'd be kept informed of Bond's activities in the CR/QoS assignments, be aware that Bond has interfered, but also aware that others have suffered because of Bond, and when he finally meets 007 again twists the knife psychologically. Doubly so - not only claiming credit for the deaths of people Bond knew but blaming, or gloating at Bond for setting ESB off on his dreadful career.

I too can believe that SPECTRE was directly involved in the events of SF. Hardly anything was made of it - maybe the next film will enlighten us - but getting Silva to do SPECTRE's dirty work would (1) strike a blow at MI6's credibility, leading to the privatised "Nine Eyes" project in which SPECTRE is the secret partner (2) be in line with one of SPECTRE's purposes - revenge on MI6 and M for the failure of previous projects, including I dare say the blowing of Quantum as a going concern and (3) hurting Bond by undermining the one person in the world he fully respects. First Silva tries to turn Bond by making him doubt M's integrity, then he carries on with his original plan to kill her anyway. This is the only previous plot where, in retrospect, one might detect the hidden hand of ESB - plus supplying the men and material for the final assault on Skyfall Lodge.

#50 Matt_13

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Posted 11 November 2015 - 06:02 PM

Amazing trivia there, thanks guys!

#51 glidrose

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Posted 13 November 2015 - 12:11 AM

 

Can't help wondering if the whole Morocco sequence, from the hotel rooms to Blofeld's crater base, should have tied in with the earlier draft about Oberhauser/Blofeld and White's involvement in the Foreign Legion. It might explain why White kept going back there every year and why Blofeld chose Morocco as his base of operations - he knew the territory.

However, as I never got to see the scripts in any form - only various internet links to people who had - I defer to those who could enlighten me about this point. Is there anything in it?

Nothing that I can recall.

 

 

Ditto. However it does make me now wonder why would White had his secret hide-out so close to Blofeld's own operations? After all he knew Blofeld was not a man to be trusted.



#52 Vauxhall

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Posted 13 November 2015 - 12:55 AM

It was possibly the other way round. White had been going to Tangier since he got married and Madeleine was young.

He was then on good terms from the point he met Blofeld, up until a year or two maybe before the events of SPECTRE. For most of their working relationship, there was no problem that Blofeld was nearby; in fact, it may even have been convenient.

#53 DaveBond21

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Posted 13 November 2015 - 04:31 AM

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.

 

Yeah but Bond doesn't care does he? As he says, "I never stop to think about it".

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________



#54 Guy Haines

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Posted 13 November 2015 - 07:40 AM

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.

 
Yeah but Bond doesn't care does he? As he says, "I never stop to think about it".
 
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Harmsway's view of Blofeld as a man who pulls legs of insects is apt, I think. As for Bond "not caring" - during the torture scene, as in the previous one in CR he's not rising to the torturer's bait. Besides, although "he doesn't stop to think about it", if he did Bond would know that some if not all the "authot of all your pain" stuff is nonsense.

#55 RMc2

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Posted 13 November 2015 - 11:32 AM

Saw it again. It still niggles at me that Oberhauser claims Vesper's death as his work.

 

I wish Bond had replied with "They made their own choices." (referring to Vesper's suicide).

 

Spoiler

 

Missed opportunity.


Edited by RMc2, 13 November 2015 - 11:32 AM.


#56 Guy Haines

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Posted 13 November 2015 - 11:48 AM

Saw it again. It still niggles at me that Oberhauser claims Vesper's death as his work.

I wish Bond had replied with "They made their own choices." (referring to Vesper's suicide).

Spoiler


Missed opportunity.

That I like! Those two lines or something like them added to that scene would have really allowed further twisting of the knife and made Madeleine's decision a bit later more credible.

#57 Dustin

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Posted 13 November 2015 - 12:07 PM

Indeed, good idea. Can't believe they didn't pick up on that. Maybe the echo of the Scaramanga-Bond exchange in SKYFALL with Silva being an earlier Bond-version prevented them from playing the trick again. It would have sounded like dialogue from the previous film. But it would also have improved considerably on what we got here.

#58 RMc2

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Posted 13 November 2015 - 01:34 PM

 

Saw it again. It still niggles at me that Oberhauser claims Vesper's death as his work.

I wish Bond had replied with "They made their own choices." (referring to Vesper's suicide).

Spoiler


Missed opportunity.

That I like! Those two lines or something like them added to that scene would have really allowed further twisting of the knife and made Madeleine's decision a bit later more credible.

 

 

Indeed, good idea. Can't believe they didn't pick up on that. Maybe the echo of the Scaramanga-Bond exchange in SKYFALL with Silva being an earlier Bond-version prevented them from playing the trick again. It would have sounded like dialogue from the previous film. But it would also have improved considerably on what we got here.

 

Thanks! Good point Dustin, I hadn't thought how Silva's character might have put them off it. But since SP includes so many classic tropes, why not that one too? 

 

Still, as you say Guy Haines, I feel if they'd done something like that, it would've improved Madeleine and Oberhauser. 



#59 Walecs

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Posted 13 November 2015 - 02:27 PM

Could someone please write Blofeld and Mr. White backstory here?



#60 Harmsway

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Posted 13 November 2015 - 02:30 PM

It's already been written out earlier in the thread.