112 replies to this topic

[han4bond]

Since seeing Spectre, I've been thinking a lot about its numerous references to pre-Craig Bond films.  I'm trying to come up with a complete list of all of the references.  I've listed the ones that I can remember below, and I'd love to know what others noticed as well.

 

For the purposes of this list, I'm interested in film references only, not nods to the books (which probably could be its own list).  That said, I'm trying to compile every kind of reference, from minor Easter eggs to major plot points.  Thanks!

• The name SPECTRE (just to get that out of the way).
• Like Thunderball, the pre-titles sequence features Bond on a personal mission to assassinate a member of SPECTRE.
• Obviously, the octopus ring is an updated version of the ring seen prominently in the 60s films.
• The meeting around the table in Rome resembles a scene in Thunderball, along with SPECTRE members discussing their recent and planned operations, the face of the leader (Blofeld) partially obscured, and the casual death of a member while others watch.
• The style of the labels and functions of the gadget-laden car clearly reference the DB5 in Goldfinger.
• The clinic on top of the snow-capped mountain visually and conceptually resembles the Piz Gloria allergy clinic in OHMSS.
• Madeline Swann's character is a parallel to Tracy from OHMSS in many ways.  She's the daughter of a criminal enemy of Blofeld with whom Bond makes a pact in order to gain information about how to find Blofeld.  Bond goes on a personal mission to rescue her at the climax of the film.  Ultimately, he chooses to leave the service to be with her, and they drive off together in Bond's personal Aston Martin.
• Bond's white suit & red carnation on the train are taken from Goldfinger.
• Mr. Hinx's muteness and tank-like fighting style make him an obvious reference to many previous henchmen, primarily Jaws.
• The ending of the train fight, in which Bond wraps a rope around Mr. Hinx's neck, recalls Bond's strangling of Red Grant at the end of the train fight in From Russia with Love.
• After the explosion at Blofeld's lair, the scar on his face resembles Blofeld's scar in You Only Live Twice.

 

That's all I can think of at the moment (hey, I only saw the movie once).  Anything I'm missing?

Edited by han4bond, 11 November 2015 - 04:57 AM.

[S K Y F A L L]

I don't know if I agree Bond retires.

 

There are the obvious ones that are mentioned in passing, Le Chiffre, Green, Silva, Vespre, old M. 

 

some of these are forced lol :

 

- I thought I remembered Monica Bellucci (Lucia Sciarra) say the word "Solace".

- Barrel rolling helicopter / TMWTGG 

- Bulldog / SF

- Ejector Seat / GF / DAD

- MI6 blowing up / TWINE / SF

- Bond pulling up on the helicopter at the last moment / GE / DAD

- the Skulls / LALD

- Octopus / TB / OP 

- Watch Gadget / TB / LALD / MR / GE / TND / DAD

- Torture / GF / TB / CR

- Bond seeing an oncoming theat in the reflection of something / GF / GE

Edited by S K Y F A L L, 11 November 2015 - 06:29 AM.

[SecretAgentFan]

- Helicopter action and a certain villain - FYEO

[Guy Haines]

The Hinx fight scene - as well as obvious references back to FRWL, LALD and TSWLM - when Bond causes Hinx to catch fire I thought of DAF and Mr. Kidd's death. Except that Hinx, of course, merely shrugs his jacket off and carries on beating up Bond.

And, I think, the whole approach to the story reminds me of QoS. The villains have a plot - Nine Eyes and the corruption of surveillance - but stopping it is not Bond's motivation. He wants the truth - this time about Oberhauser and SPECTRE.

[SecretAgentFan]

Oh, yes!  

 

One has to wonder, though, whether all these things are nods to previous movies - or the result of... well, not much wiggle room within a franchise that has to set up certain situations which can only be resolved in a numbered set of ways.

[Professor Pi]

- Helicopter action and a certain villain - FYEO

 

I'm surprised more hasn't been made of this.  Helicopters bookend SPECTRE.  In the trailer, they play the OHMSS theme while the helicopter barrel rolls.  (Also, this is a bit of LTK, Bond jumping in, dispatching the pilot, taking over, getting his prize.)  And the end is almost an inversion of how FYEO starts.  It's all subtle callbacks to Tracy for the audience (TWINE did similar things skiing with Elektra.)  Also, leaving exploding MI6 building by boat.  TWINE also had a boat barrel roll.

Edited by Professor Pi, 11 November 2015 - 12:54 PM.

[Agent 76]

Also, leaving exploding MI6 building by boat.  TWINE also had a boat barrel roll.

 

That is exactly what I thought about when watching that part. a cool nod I think, since I'm a fan of TWINE. 

 

I also got a TSWLM vibe in the desert sequence. 

[Single-O-Seven]

I thought I detected a bit of a slide whistle homage during the music while the Helicopter was ascending straight upward before falling back.

[Pushkin]

 

• The meeting around the table in Rome resembles a scene in Thunderball, along with SPECTRE members discussing their recent and planned operations, the face of the leader (Blofeld) partially obscured, and the casual death of a member while others watch.

 

I have only seen it once, but I think there is an audio reference too. If I am not mistaken when the meeting starts the microphone voice of Blofeld has a "tone" to it (if that makes sense) that is very reminiscent of the one in Thunderbolt. 

[Hockey Mask]

I thought I detected a bit of a slide whistle homage during the music while the Helicopter was ascending straight upward before falling back.

It wasn't quite a slide whistle but it was something that I believe was a nod to the whistle.

Edited by 00Hockey Mask, 11 November 2015 - 11:39 PM.

[tonyvenhuizen]

Bond wears a NATO strap on his watch. It's very similar to the strap in GOLDFINGER - a design that is often called a "James Bond" strap.

[Blofeld's Cat]

It could be argued that the crows(?) startling Bond in White's bungalow is a nod the director John Glenn's use of the same device in all his Bond movies.

 

As it's used so often by many directors in any number of films it's hardly a specific homage though.

[han4bond]

This is great stuff.  A few thoughts:

• I'm leaving the DC era out of this list since Spectre is a direct sequel to those movies.
• Not sure if the Day of the Dead imagery is a deliberate reference to Live and Let Die.  Do the posters look similar?
• I didn't originally include the watch since we've never seen it explode before, but I suppose it counts as a general watch gadget, which is a genre trope at this point.  It does remind me of the "explosive alarm clock" that Q mentions in Licence to Kill, though it's never used.
• Does the torture scene reference any specific scene in an earlier film?  It seems like it must, but nothing specific comes to mind.
• Good call on the barrel roll resembling TMWTGG.  I'll have to listen for the whistle sound effect.
• I can't believe I didn't even think of the Blofeld/helicopter connection, even though I just listened to them discuss it when covering FYEO on the James Bonding podcast.

 

I've updated my list below.  I left out some of the more uncertain ones for now, but I'll look for them when I see the movie again in a few days.  Keep 'em coming!  Thanks, everybody!

• The name SPECTRE (just to get that out of the way).
• Like Thunderball, the pre-titles sequence features Bond on a personal mission to assassinate a member of SPECTRE.
• The helicopter barrel roll is shot very similarly to the car barrel roll in TMWTGG.
• Bond hanging out of the helicopter during the fight and eventually throwing out the pilot resembles the fistfight in the drug-filled plane in Licence to Kill. He then pulls the helicopter out of a nose dive, narrowly avoiding a crash, similar to the ending of Die Another Day and the plane in the pre-titles of GoldenEye.
• Obviously, the octopus ring is an updated version of the ring seen prominently in the 60s films.
• Q provides Bond with a watch containing a gadget that he uses to escape a deathtrap, as seen in both Live and Let Die and GoldenEye.  The watch design, specifically the strap, resembles his watch in Goldfinger.
• The meeting around the table in Rome resembles a scene in Thunderball, along with SPECTRE members discussing their recent and planned operations, the face of the leader (Blofeld) partially obscured, and the casual death of a member while others watch.
• The style of the labels and the ejector seat in the gadget-laden car clearly reference the DB5 in Goldfinger.
• The clinic on top of the snow-capped mountain visually and conceptually resembles the Piz Gloria allergy clinic in OHMSS.
• Madeline Swann's character is a parallel to Tracy from OHMSS in many ways.  She's the daughter of a criminal enemy of Blofeld with whom Bond makes a pact in order to gain information about how to find Blofeld.  Bond goes on a personal mission to rescue her at the climax of the film.  Ultimately, he chooses to leave the service to be with her, and they drive off together in Bond's personal Aston Martin.
• Bond's white suit & red carnation on the train are taken from Goldfinger.
• Bond avoids being hit by a henchman approaching from behind when he sees him coming in a reflection, similar to the pre-titles of Goldfinger and the boat scene in GoldenEye.
• Mr. Hinx's muteness and tank-like fighting style make him an obvious reference to many previous henchmen, primarily Jaws.
• The ending of the train fight, in which Bond wraps a rope around Mr. Hinx's neck, recalls Bond's strangling of Red Grant at the end of the train fight in From Russia with Love.
• After the explosion at Blofeld's lair, the scar on his face resembles Blofeld's scar in You Only Live Twice.
• Like TWINE, Bond chases a would-be assassin away from MI6 in a boat on the Thames after an explosion (and chases his target to a helicopter).
• Blofeld's helicopter becomes his undoing, as it does in the opening of For Your Eyes Only.

[Messervy]

Not strictly movie-related, but seeing Bond get off the boat with Tanner saying "careful, it's slippery" when they're meeting Q in his lair, I thought about that anecdote when Daniel Craig almost slipped when disembarking his boat to meet the press outside the Thames once he was announced as the next Bond... Was it deliberate, or is it just me reading too much into things?

[201050]

Not a film reference, but novel reference. Certainly the Hildebrand safe house is a reference to The Hildebrand Rarity.  They even go a step further and comment about how few there are.

[Major Tallon]

If you look closely at the plaque by the door, it lists the premises as Hildebrand Prints and Rarities.

[Pushkin]

I noticed on my second viewing today that Craig's Bond wears an outfit (in Tangier I think) very similar to the one Dalton wore in Tangier. You can see Dalton one in the clip below when he is on the plane. 

 

[DaveBond21]

Q hiding in the ski lift is the same way Bond escaped from the villains in FYEO

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

[# 11]

• Bond waking up before the torture was filmed the exact same way as in CR after the torture. («Mathis, no, not him.»)
• Ben does this Desmond pose: http://www.englishfo...an-z-rich-q.jpg
• Doesn't Bond say «Bottoms up» before shooting in the PTS?
• I feel the Lucia scene is an answer to the Solange one.

[Pushkin]

 

 

• The meeting around the table in Rome resembles a scene in Thunderball, along with SPECTRE members discussing their recent and planned operations, the face of the leader (Blofeld) partially obscured, and the casual death of a member while others watch.

 

I have only seen it once, but I think there is an audio reference too. If I am not mistaken when the meeting starts the microphone voice of Blofeld has a "tone" to it (if that makes sense) that is very reminiscent of the one in Thunderbolt. 

 

 

So I saw it again today and I believe Blofeld says something like "don't let me interrupt". The voice and the way it is miked sounds very similar to this scene in Thunderball.

 

[Guy Haines]

• The meeting around the table in Rome resembles a scene in Thunderball, along with SPECTRE members discussing their recent and planned operations, the face of the leader (Blofeld) partially obscured, and the casual death of a member while others watch.

 
I have only seen it once, but I think there is an audio reference too. If I am not mistaken when the meeting starts the microphone voice of Blofeld has a "tone" to it (if that makes sense) that is very reminiscent of the one in Thunderbolt.

Actually, when we first hear Oberhauser at the SPECTRE meeting it reminded me of the first time we hear Dr. No - when Dent goes in that room and listens to a disembodied voice. That said, until recently many thought it was Joseph Wiseman who did the Blofeld voice in TB - I understand, and correct me if I'm wrong it was in fact Eric Pohlmann using some kind of voice masking device so that he didn't sound exactly the same as in FRWL.

[DavidSomerset]

Didnt anyone else get the Hollowed Volcano vibe when we saw Blofeld's lair in the desert for the first time? The shot was set as if the lair was inside the crater like in YOLT. Blofeld's intro at the lair was very much like Bond and Honey's visit to Dr. No's lair.

[Professor Pi]

I did, totally.  Also, the Rolls Silver Wraith reminded me a bit of Goldfinger's car at the golf club.  And the champagne might have been drugged like Dr. No's coffee.  "Maybe later."

 

There was also a similarity to the QoS/LTK villain lairs.

[SecretAgent007]

Definitely got the volcano vibe at the end of the film. Also got a vibe that the pre-title sequence for Bond 25 may involve elements from the end of OHMSS with Bond and Madeleine driving off.....

[dtuba]

When Bond says, "Who sent you?" to the mouse in the Hotel L'American, I was reminded of his conversation with the rat in the pipe in DAF. "One of us smells like a tart's hankerchief...sorry about that old boy."

[PrinceKamalKhan]

Huge parade sequence(the Junkanoo in TB and Carnival in MR)

 

Bond and the leading lady conversing on a train ride(CR)

[sharpshooter]

A girl asks Bond where he's going, and he pops outside to the rooftops, ala DAF. 

[DavidSomerset]

Definitely got the volcano vibe at the end of the film. Also got a vibe that the pre-title sequence for Bond 25 may involve elements from the end of OHMSS with Bond and Madeleine driving off.....

This will be too similar to the start of Bourne Supremacy. Unless the Brocollis are able to put a different twist on things. Or they might again plunder Austin Powers and show that Madeline was a fembot.

[sharpshooter]

I liked the ending with Bond and Madeleine driving off. It made me happy. A good note to end on, IMO. Low key but charming.

[DamnCoffee]

I liked the ending with Bond and Madeleine driving off. It made me happy. A good note to end on, IMO. Low key but charming.

 

 

Agreed! Although, that bloody music AGAIN. Quantum of Solace is the only film that hasn't finished with it. (Well it did technically, but with the gunbarrel. 'I Never Left'. Great track.)

Edited by DamnCoffee, 15 November 2015 - 01:05 PM.