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Cassssino Royale - "Two" - art by Crispy, story by Ame
The art seen above is by Marc Fuentes, aka CrispyFajita on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CrispyFajita [he's also on FA, but not active yet: 
CrispyFajita]
It's October 5th, which is James Bond day! October 5th 1962 was when the first Bond film, Dr. No, was released, 57 years ago today. So many years and still captivating audiences, it's quite a feat!
Meanwhile, in the Sond-verse, '10/05' is unofficially 'Sond Day', since the '005' within that date mirrors the serpent's call-sign: '00S'!
So, in any case, here's a still image of one of my favourite moments from one of my favourite scenes in my favourite Ames Sond movie: Cassssino Royale! 8D
Below, enjoy the Sond scene itself.
~~~
The cold night air of the winter in Prague still clung to Dryden's thick coat as he hurried into his darkened office, even after the trip up in the elevator. The only light was that of the city's skyline and the silver illumination of the moon, outside the floor-to-ceiling window that was the entirety of the back wall, behind his desk.
The stocky, middle-aged weasel's preoccupied and busy mind raced, and in his rush toward his goal, he neglected to turn on the lights, making a bee-line to a framed painting near his desk. In the dim illumination, he kept his gaze down, to avoid stumbling, even if it was a space well known to him, that which he had learned only one hour ago - the information that caused him to rush here - had him rattled.
In no uncertain terms: it was time to get out.
The death of his associate, even if it was in a city halfway across the continent, could only mean that he had been burnt.
Just after taking off his hat, the mustelid froze in place, his mind suddenly absolutely cleared by the sight in front of him. He had finally looked up at the painting, and in the low light, he saw how it was angled away from the wall upon the frame's hidden hinges. The thick door of his seemingly-no-longer-secret safe also hung ajar.
As Dryden's mouth fell into a similar slackened, half-open state and his tail bristled with alarm and fear, a deep, sonorous voice filled the room from behind the mammal, shockingly loud compared to the utter silence that had reigned beforehand.
"M doesn't mind you earning a little money on the side, Dryden--" Spinning around, Dryden was confronted with the sight of a naga seated in a chair, a sprawling trail of serpentine body flowing away from the source of the voice. In the near dark, only the forward edge and window-facing side of the python's snout was visible, floating disembodied above his black peacoat-clad torso. Below, the vaguest ghostly impressions of unmoving coils could be discerned, threatening even in their immobility.
Ames Sond's statement continued without pause while the reptile's shaken prey composed himself, getting over the shock of the revealed intrusion. A serpent entering the weasel's burrow was the stuff of nightmares for the lesser predator. "--She'd just prefer it if it wasn't selling secrets."
With a consciously controlled huff out through the nose, Dryden stepped behind his nearby desk and sat in its chair, smoothly and silently opening a drawer as he did so. A practiced move, the larger motion totally concealing the existence of the smaller. The drawer slid into just enough light for Dryden to see the reassuring dark shape of his handgun. A warm flush of pride at his forethought steeled his nerves, he had placed it there so long ago, for just such an occasion.
He wouldn't let himself be bested by this upstart junior officer from home office. He knew of Sond, and even if the young agent was as good as he had heard, and even if the python was adept at using his natural reptilian 'charms' to unsettle those he was set upon, he refused to be rattled. Young, new operatives like this were all the same: they thought they knew everything, that their youth would always triumph, no respect for their elders. A more experienced foe, who had clearly had time to crack his safe, would have also searched the desk, and removed the weapon.
Sond had not.
"If the theatrics are supposed to scare me, you have the wrong man, Sond," said Dryden as he purposefully removed his gloves. "If M was so sure that I was bent, she'd have sent a double-O." He smiled, pausing to place his gloves down on his desk, pleased with the show of logic, his confidence building.
"Benefits of being a section chief - I'd be notified if anyone had been promoted to one of Twenty-Six, wouldn't I? Your file shows no kills, and it takes--"
"Two," Sond interrupted smoothly.
~
Twelve hours before, in Pakistan, in a public bathroom belonging to a cricket pitch, a bull crashed through a flimsy toilet stall door. Sond's tail - which had sent the hulking thug careening backward - recoiled to shove his torso forward, chasing after his quarry.
The pair struggled and twisted in the tiny space until the winding coils and rippling bovine muscles shoved them together through the walls of the adjacent stalls, one by one. The two spilled back out onto the tiled floor of the grimy room, and the bull hefted up a rubbish bin and attempted to use it as a bludgeon upon his reptilian adversary.
A quick block with a coil turned into a grip with a dexterous snake-tail, leading the two to wrestle over the metal cylinder.
~
The smug serpent's interruption of Dryden had held a strange malice, if only due to the naga's total calm, his almost robotic, unblinking stare. It made Dryden want to end the conversation post-haste, made him want to make the reptile react, somehow - put the fear of god, or at least of death, into the stoic serpent.
In a flash of fur and overcoat sleeves, Dryden was aiming at Sond's snout. The snake was a statue. The weasel was torn, unable to tell if Ames was truly unfazed, or perhaps frozen with fear. He had to smile, bemused by his silly overthinking. What did it matter? He had won now anyway.
"Shame. We barely got to know each other." With those parting words, the mammal squeezed the trigger, entirely certain of his aim at this short range. The building was empty, no one would hear the shot. The only minor annoyance as he condemned the constirctor to the grave was where he would get enough muscle to drag the lengthy corpse out, before morning.
A sharp metallic click derailed the mustelid's train of thought in a spectacular crash of realization. He looked down at the betraying pistol as if the gun had chosen to defy him, finally recognizing the niggling sense of something being off: It had felt too light.
Just as Dryden looked back up to Sond, the snake lifted his left hand into the little pool of light that lay upon his face, showing what he had been holding since before the weasel's arrival - a handgun's magazine.
"I know where you keep your gun.. suppose that's something."
Recovering from the shock, Dryden fought to tamp down his fear and his revulsion, desperate to keep things civil, in case there was any chance of talking his way out of all this. "True," he admitted to Sond's half-serious point. The weasel's advantage had melted away.. or rather, it had never existed in the first place. He was beginning to reconsider this young naga. It struck him in the brief silence, that it must have been Sond who killed Fisher. He asked, "How did he die?"
"Your contact in Pakistan?"
There was a nod from Dryden and Sond took a split second to sum up the bull's penultimate moments. "Not well."
~
Twelve hours prior, the naga was beginning to wonder if the bull would ever die. The considerable force from a whole-body ripple-shove delivered from the python against the bovine had sent the snorting beast into the urinal. Fully half of the porcelain had been smashed away, but the bull was getting up once more. He wished he could simply constrict him, but he was sure the authorities would find him soon enough, and he didn't need there to be a stoppage on all serpentine passengers attempting to leave the country. The bull was formidable enough that Sond was using his whole length just to have enough momentum and strength to make a dent in the huge male's defences.
Ames lashed his arms and tail around the bull's neck and tried to jerk him towards the row of sinks. Wearing the muscle-bound mammal down wasn't working, so he would have to be more.. cruel. On his knees, the ungulate grunted and jerked around as Sond started to strangle him, the two opponents lunging back and forth in a rough circle. The bull didn't know where he was being led, but he was certain of the idea that he needed to oppose it.
Slowly, the snake got his foe to the sinks - which stood independent, without a counter ensconcing them all. His aim was one where the faucet had been left on, the water overflowing the basin in a steady stream. The bull saw the dropped gun seconds before the python did. He nearly got it up behind himself, blindly aiming for the naga's torso or head. Ames whipped his tail away from the bull's neck to intercept the gun, twisting it away. The mammal's intent remained and he fired all the same, into the next sink over, shattering it.
Wrenching the gun-gripping hand forward into a mirror a number of times, thereby crushing first the mirror, then the hand, the serpent caused the bull to drop the weapon. Hand-by-hand, Ames shifted his grip onto the bull's horns, using them to shove the dark face into the water. With the gun taken care of, Ames slapped his tail down over the middle of the bovine skull. Slowly, he lifted up, his long body arching over and hunching down, adding more weight to that which hung over the sink and pushed down on the bull, keeping his spluttering, coughing face deep in the water.
Slowly, even as the bull's hands tried to dislodge the serpent's grip or turn off the water, he slackened. Finally, he relented, letting the limp beast flop onto the floor. Sond backed away to avoid the hefty form falling onto him, breathing heavily. His jacket sodden, his scales aching, he glanced up, seeing a disjointed vision of himself amongst the spider-web of cracks that was the mirror above the unmoving bovine.
~
As he tried to imagine the lethal struggle between Sond and the bull, Dryden's face was marred by a slight grimace and knitted brow. His expression was borne of personal mourning for Fisher and professional sympathy for the serpent, remembering his own first kill, and how messy it had been. He remarked, "Made you feel it, did he?"
There was no answer from Ames, he simply stared back at his prey, waiting him out.
"Well.. you needn't worry. The second is--"
Sond's right hand swung up, silenced P99 in hand. The pistol's subdued bark was one of heart-stopping finality. One final spasm from its last moment made Dryden's lifeless body crumple out of the office chair.
"Yes," Sond agreed with the corpse under the desk as he turned on his sidearm's safety with a satisfying snap. "Considerably."
~
Amethystine/Ames Sond 00S and related IP © to his owner.
James Bond 007 and related IP © to Ian Fleming & Albert R Broccoli's DanJaq LLC & EON Productions
CrispyFajita]It's October 5th, which is James Bond day! October 5th 1962 was when the first Bond film, Dr. No, was released, 57 years ago today. So many years and still captivating audiences, it's quite a feat!
Meanwhile, in the Sond-verse, '10/05' is unofficially 'Sond Day', since the '005' within that date mirrors the serpent's call-sign: '00S'!
So, in any case, here's a still image of one of my favourite moments from one of my favourite scenes in my favourite Ames Sond movie: Cassssino Royale! 8D
Below, enjoy the Sond scene itself.
~~~
The cold night air of the winter in Prague still clung to Dryden's thick coat as he hurried into his darkened office, even after the trip up in the elevator. The only light was that of the city's skyline and the silver illumination of the moon, outside the floor-to-ceiling window that was the entirety of the back wall, behind his desk.
The stocky, middle-aged weasel's preoccupied and busy mind raced, and in his rush toward his goal, he neglected to turn on the lights, making a bee-line to a framed painting near his desk. In the dim illumination, he kept his gaze down, to avoid stumbling, even if it was a space well known to him, that which he had learned only one hour ago - the information that caused him to rush here - had him rattled.
In no uncertain terms: it was time to get out.
The death of his associate, even if it was in a city halfway across the continent, could only mean that he had been burnt.
Just after taking off his hat, the mustelid froze in place, his mind suddenly absolutely cleared by the sight in front of him. He had finally looked up at the painting, and in the low light, he saw how it was angled away from the wall upon the frame's hidden hinges. The thick door of his seemingly-no-longer-secret safe also hung ajar.
As Dryden's mouth fell into a similar slackened, half-open state and his tail bristled with alarm and fear, a deep, sonorous voice filled the room from behind the mammal, shockingly loud compared to the utter silence that had reigned beforehand.
"M doesn't mind you earning a little money on the side, Dryden--" Spinning around, Dryden was confronted with the sight of a naga seated in a chair, a sprawling trail of serpentine body flowing away from the source of the voice. In the near dark, only the forward edge and window-facing side of the python's snout was visible, floating disembodied above his black peacoat-clad torso. Below, the vaguest ghostly impressions of unmoving coils could be discerned, threatening even in their immobility.
Ames Sond's statement continued without pause while the reptile's shaken prey composed himself, getting over the shock of the revealed intrusion. A serpent entering the weasel's burrow was the stuff of nightmares for the lesser predator. "--She'd just prefer it if it wasn't selling secrets."
With a consciously controlled huff out through the nose, Dryden stepped behind his nearby desk and sat in its chair, smoothly and silently opening a drawer as he did so. A practiced move, the larger motion totally concealing the existence of the smaller. The drawer slid into just enough light for Dryden to see the reassuring dark shape of his handgun. A warm flush of pride at his forethought steeled his nerves, he had placed it there so long ago, for just such an occasion.
He wouldn't let himself be bested by this upstart junior officer from home office. He knew of Sond, and even if the young agent was as good as he had heard, and even if the python was adept at using his natural reptilian 'charms' to unsettle those he was set upon, he refused to be rattled. Young, new operatives like this were all the same: they thought they knew everything, that their youth would always triumph, no respect for their elders. A more experienced foe, who had clearly had time to crack his safe, would have also searched the desk, and removed the weapon.
Sond had not.
"If the theatrics are supposed to scare me, you have the wrong man, Sond," said Dryden as he purposefully removed his gloves. "If M was so sure that I was bent, she'd have sent a double-O." He smiled, pausing to place his gloves down on his desk, pleased with the show of logic, his confidence building.
"Benefits of being a section chief - I'd be notified if anyone had been promoted to one of Twenty-Six, wouldn't I? Your file shows no kills, and it takes--"
"Two," Sond interrupted smoothly.
~
Twelve hours before, in Pakistan, in a public bathroom belonging to a cricket pitch, a bull crashed through a flimsy toilet stall door. Sond's tail - which had sent the hulking thug careening backward - recoiled to shove his torso forward, chasing after his quarry.
The pair struggled and twisted in the tiny space until the winding coils and rippling bovine muscles shoved them together through the walls of the adjacent stalls, one by one. The two spilled back out onto the tiled floor of the grimy room, and the bull hefted up a rubbish bin and attempted to use it as a bludgeon upon his reptilian adversary.
A quick block with a coil turned into a grip with a dexterous snake-tail, leading the two to wrestle over the metal cylinder.
~
The smug serpent's interruption of Dryden had held a strange malice, if only due to the naga's total calm, his almost robotic, unblinking stare. It made Dryden want to end the conversation post-haste, made him want to make the reptile react, somehow - put the fear of god, or at least of death, into the stoic serpent.
In a flash of fur and overcoat sleeves, Dryden was aiming at Sond's snout. The snake was a statue. The weasel was torn, unable to tell if Ames was truly unfazed, or perhaps frozen with fear. He had to smile, bemused by his silly overthinking. What did it matter? He had won now anyway.
"Shame. We barely got to know each other." With those parting words, the mammal squeezed the trigger, entirely certain of his aim at this short range. The building was empty, no one would hear the shot. The only minor annoyance as he condemned the constirctor to the grave was where he would get enough muscle to drag the lengthy corpse out, before morning.
A sharp metallic click derailed the mustelid's train of thought in a spectacular crash of realization. He looked down at the betraying pistol as if the gun had chosen to defy him, finally recognizing the niggling sense of something being off: It had felt too light.
Just as Dryden looked back up to Sond, the snake lifted his left hand into the little pool of light that lay upon his face, showing what he had been holding since before the weasel's arrival - a handgun's magazine.
"I know where you keep your gun.. suppose that's something."
Recovering from the shock, Dryden fought to tamp down his fear and his revulsion, desperate to keep things civil, in case there was any chance of talking his way out of all this. "True," he admitted to Sond's half-serious point. The weasel's advantage had melted away.. or rather, it had never existed in the first place. He was beginning to reconsider this young naga. It struck him in the brief silence, that it must have been Sond who killed Fisher. He asked, "How did he die?"
"Your contact in Pakistan?"
There was a nod from Dryden and Sond took a split second to sum up the bull's penultimate moments. "Not well."
~
Twelve hours prior, the naga was beginning to wonder if the bull would ever die. The considerable force from a whole-body ripple-shove delivered from the python against the bovine had sent the snorting beast into the urinal. Fully half of the porcelain had been smashed away, but the bull was getting up once more. He wished he could simply constrict him, but he was sure the authorities would find him soon enough, and he didn't need there to be a stoppage on all serpentine passengers attempting to leave the country. The bull was formidable enough that Sond was using his whole length just to have enough momentum and strength to make a dent in the huge male's defences.
Ames lashed his arms and tail around the bull's neck and tried to jerk him towards the row of sinks. Wearing the muscle-bound mammal down wasn't working, so he would have to be more.. cruel. On his knees, the ungulate grunted and jerked around as Sond started to strangle him, the two opponents lunging back and forth in a rough circle. The bull didn't know where he was being led, but he was certain of the idea that he needed to oppose it.
Slowly, the snake got his foe to the sinks - which stood independent, without a counter ensconcing them all. His aim was one where the faucet had been left on, the water overflowing the basin in a steady stream. The bull saw the dropped gun seconds before the python did. He nearly got it up behind himself, blindly aiming for the naga's torso or head. Ames whipped his tail away from the bull's neck to intercept the gun, twisting it away. The mammal's intent remained and he fired all the same, into the next sink over, shattering it.
Wrenching the gun-gripping hand forward into a mirror a number of times, thereby crushing first the mirror, then the hand, the serpent caused the bull to drop the weapon. Hand-by-hand, Ames shifted his grip onto the bull's horns, using them to shove the dark face into the water. With the gun taken care of, Ames slapped his tail down over the middle of the bovine skull. Slowly, he lifted up, his long body arching over and hunching down, adding more weight to that which hung over the sink and pushed down on the bull, keeping his spluttering, coughing face deep in the water.
Slowly, even as the bull's hands tried to dislodge the serpent's grip or turn off the water, he slackened. Finally, he relented, letting the limp beast flop onto the floor. Sond backed away to avoid the hefty form falling onto him, breathing heavily. His jacket sodden, his scales aching, he glanced up, seeing a disjointed vision of himself amongst the spider-web of cracks that was the mirror above the unmoving bovine.
~
As he tried to imagine the lethal struggle between Sond and the bull, Dryden's face was marred by a slight grimace and knitted brow. His expression was borne of personal mourning for Fisher and professional sympathy for the serpent, remembering his own first kill, and how messy it had been. He remarked, "Made you feel it, did he?"
There was no answer from Ames, he simply stared back at his prey, waiting him out.
"Well.. you needn't worry. The second is--"
Sond's right hand swung up, silenced P99 in hand. The pistol's subdued bark was one of heart-stopping finality. One final spasm from its last moment made Dryden's lifeless body crumple out of the office chair.
"Yes," Sond agreed with the corpse under the desk as he turned on his sidearm's safety with a satisfying snap. "Considerably."
~
Amethystine/Ames Sond 00S and related IP © to his owner.
James Bond 007 and related IP © to Ian Fleming & Albert R Broccoli's DanJaq LLC & EON Productions
Category Artwork (Traditional) / General Furry Art
Species Snake / Serpent
Size 733 x 656px
File Size 593.9 kB
Nope, I scrambled to come up with something to post for Bond/Sond day, and settled on this pic, because I knew the scene to go with it would be small enough to do quickly and easily. >___>
I have a bunch of Sond pics that I could post whenever, I just don't have the time or motivation to write Sond scenes for them.
I have a bunch of Sond pics that I could post whenever, I just don't have the time or motivation to write Sond scenes for them.
I liked how the new movies had a lot "throwbacks" to classic Bond tropes... and also to the SPECTRE, my favourite XD
It felt like an excellent way to restart the series. Additionally, all the new Bond movies with Daniel Craig felt like part of one big arching story compared to the older movies, which feel very "episodic" and loosely related between each other
(although that can also play on those movies' favour, allowing different audiences to enjoy each single one of those without feeling left behind in the story)
It felt like an excellent way to restart the series. Additionally, all the new Bond movies with Daniel Craig felt like part of one big arching story compared to the older movies, which feel very "episodic" and loosely related between each other
(although that can also play on those movies' favour, allowing different audiences to enjoy each single one of those without feeling left behind in the story)
The whole Craig era has been the most solid era so far, yeah.
[I don't want to dampen your appreciation or enjoyment of the films, but here are my thoughts about the idea of the Craig era Bond films all having links to one another:]
The idea of there being a big overarching story is a bit muddled by how they had 'Quantum' as the big-bad organization in CR and QoS, then seemingly no big-bad-org behind Silva, then in Spectre, Blofeld's revelation that the previous 3 films were all his doing sounded a lot like the writers trying to retroactively tie it all together (perhaps because Marvel's cinematic universe is such a cash cow and it's the "in" thing to do). Even so, if Blofeld had briefly explained some kind of reasoning for each of the three previous plots, I might like it more - or maybe that would have felt like they were trying too hard.
I personally feel like they could have done a better job of showing that the organization of 'Quantum' had been absorbed or hostilely taken over by SPECTRE, or that Quantum had been forced to join it, or that Quantum had always been Spectre, two names for the same thing. The idea of a take-over of one by the other would explain why Mr White was maybe a final resistor to the take-over of Quantum, and an enemy to SPECTRE, hence them causing his death with the thallium poisoning.
Actually, now that I read the transcript of the scene with Mr White, I see that White was following Blofeld as long as he could, but then Blofeld crossed a line [something to do with 'women and children', perhaps human trafficking, or not caring if they killed women and children in general], and White wouldn't obey any longer.
So in that case, they could have made it clear that Quantum was simply another name for SPECTRE, and the idea had been to keep the name SPECTRE secret, or whatever.
And my main point is this: it's fine to make these links between Quantum and Spectre and between the film Spectre and the plots within CR and QoS, but trying to say that Silva's actions in Skyfall were also all part of Blofeld's plan, that's a bit too much to me, unless there had been any set-up beforehand. We never see Silva in communication with anyone. If he had just been on a phone to an unseen superior at some point, it would be fine, but nope, he was, for all we were shown, totally a lone wolf, running his own show. His whole vibe is that of someone who can and will do it all for himself, his whole speech about being able to topple or disrupt this or that major thing with his computers really cemented that, to me.
The reason we know that there wasn't going to be any connection to Spectre is that the legal rights to use the name SPECTRE and the character of Blofeld were not settled until after the production of Skyfall. And then they couldn't wait to use them, couldn't slowly introduce the idea of it all a little more slowly.
Also, the fact that Q was supposed to have found the DNA of Le Chiffre, Dominic Greene, Silva and Marco Sciarra (Marco is the guy from Mexico, in the beginning of Spectre) ALL on that one Spectre-insignia ring was insane. If they had to do something like that, they could have just found pictures of all four of those people wearing similar rings, not try to prove that they all wore that same ONE ring.
- Oops! It seems it was more complicated than it just being their DNA on the ring. Here's a summary: "Q later determined that the ring was connected with several antagonists 007 had faced previously. He discovered three fingerprints on the ring - Sciarra, White (who held the ring in Austria) and a partial unknown print. Further analyzing the latter, he found DNA belonging to Franz Oberhauser and traces of Reidite. Reidite is a very rare mineral related to zircon and is commonly associated with meteorite impacts. Sifting through post-mortem data, traces of Reidite was also found in the toxicology reports of Silva, Le Chiffre, Greene and Sciarra; suggesting that all four wore similar signet rings at some point."
That's much more plausible, for it only sort of says to us that they had similar rings, or had been in that SPECTRE base that was also a meteor impact site. But still, in the movie, because it all sort of just happens on Q's computer with no explanation save for the images shifting around on his screen, it makes it look like it's just DNA or fingerprints, which implies all those villains wore or touched this one particular ring, which seems implausible to me.
And again, it seems silly to retroactively rope Silva into it, when no link between Silva and 'Quantum' or anything else was ever done, in Skyfall. Silva had his own reasons for acting M and MI6. If that movie had ended with a lingering question of 'Why did Silva do all this to us?' it would have been cool to answer that question in Spectre, but it was clear, he was just out for revenge against M. Even then, if there had been a question of how Silva got the money to do all that he did [or his 'start-up costs' so to speak], or if he had mentioned being saved from death by someone, before he set out on his quest against M, then we could say Blofeld was the one who saved him or gave him the start-up money, or both. But nope, Skyfall's plot is totally self-contained and Silva's whole deal was seemingly self-made by Silva himself.
[I don't want to dampen your appreciation or enjoyment of the films, but here are my thoughts about the idea of the Craig era Bond films all having links to one another:]
The idea of there being a big overarching story is a bit muddled by how they had 'Quantum' as the big-bad organization in CR and QoS, then seemingly no big-bad-org behind Silva, then in Spectre, Blofeld's revelation that the previous 3 films were all his doing sounded a lot like the writers trying to retroactively tie it all together (perhaps because Marvel's cinematic universe is such a cash cow and it's the "in" thing to do). Even so, if Blofeld had briefly explained some kind of reasoning for each of the three previous plots, I might like it more - or maybe that would have felt like they were trying too hard.
I personally feel like they could have done a better job of showing that the organization of 'Quantum' had been absorbed or hostilely taken over by SPECTRE, or that Quantum had been forced to join it, or that Quantum had always been Spectre, two names for the same thing. The idea of a take-over of one by the other would explain why Mr White was maybe a final resistor to the take-over of Quantum, and an enemy to SPECTRE, hence them causing his death with the thallium poisoning.
Actually, now that I read the transcript of the scene with Mr White, I see that White was following Blofeld as long as he could, but then Blofeld crossed a line [something to do with 'women and children', perhaps human trafficking, or not caring if they killed women and children in general], and White wouldn't obey any longer.
So in that case, they could have made it clear that Quantum was simply another name for SPECTRE, and the idea had been to keep the name SPECTRE secret, or whatever.
And my main point is this: it's fine to make these links between Quantum and Spectre and between the film Spectre and the plots within CR and QoS, but trying to say that Silva's actions in Skyfall were also all part of Blofeld's plan, that's a bit too much to me, unless there had been any set-up beforehand. We never see Silva in communication with anyone. If he had just been on a phone to an unseen superior at some point, it would be fine, but nope, he was, for all we were shown, totally a lone wolf, running his own show. His whole vibe is that of someone who can and will do it all for himself, his whole speech about being able to topple or disrupt this or that major thing with his computers really cemented that, to me.
The reason we know that there wasn't going to be any connection to Spectre is that the legal rights to use the name SPECTRE and the character of Blofeld were not settled until after the production of Skyfall. And then they couldn't wait to use them, couldn't slowly introduce the idea of it all a little more slowly.
Also, the fact that Q was supposed to have found the DNA of Le Chiffre, Dominic Greene, Silva and Marco Sciarra (Marco is the guy from Mexico, in the beginning of Spectre) ALL on that one Spectre-insignia ring was insane. If they had to do something like that, they could have just found pictures of all four of those people wearing similar rings, not try to prove that they all wore that same ONE ring.
- Oops! It seems it was more complicated than it just being their DNA on the ring. Here's a summary: "Q later determined that the ring was connected with several antagonists 007 had faced previously. He discovered three fingerprints on the ring - Sciarra, White (who held the ring in Austria) and a partial unknown print. Further analyzing the latter, he found DNA belonging to Franz Oberhauser and traces of Reidite. Reidite is a very rare mineral related to zircon and is commonly associated with meteorite impacts. Sifting through post-mortem data, traces of Reidite was also found in the toxicology reports of Silva, Le Chiffre, Greene and Sciarra; suggesting that all four wore similar signet rings at some point."
That's much more plausible, for it only sort of says to us that they had similar rings, or had been in that SPECTRE base that was also a meteor impact site. But still, in the movie, because it all sort of just happens on Q's computer with no explanation save for the images shifting around on his screen, it makes it look like it's just DNA or fingerprints, which implies all those villains wore or touched this one particular ring, which seems implausible to me.
And again, it seems silly to retroactively rope Silva into it, when no link between Silva and 'Quantum' or anything else was ever done, in Skyfall. Silva had his own reasons for acting M and MI6. If that movie had ended with a lingering question of 'Why did Silva do all this to us?' it would have been cool to answer that question in Spectre, but it was clear, he was just out for revenge against M. Even then, if there had been a question of how Silva got the money to do all that he did [or his 'start-up costs' so to speak], or if he had mentioned being saved from death by someone, before he set out on his quest against M, then we could say Blofeld was the one who saved him or gave him the start-up money, or both. But nope, Skyfall's plot is totally self-contained and Silva's whole deal was seemingly self-made by Silva himself.
Yes, I have to agree that retroactively revealing how all the Craig Bond movies were all Blofeld's doing was quite cheap, despite being the perfect SPECTRE trope I enjoy.
And also that Silva was really the least likely to be secretly part of SPECTRE since he had his own personal and reasonable motives to do what he did in Skyfall without the need joining a secret organisation...
As for Q finding out about all the bad guys relationships on the ring, that is unfortunately a product of "Movie Science Magic Bulls©it" that doesn't plague just Bond but many, many other movies due to plot convenience or writers not knowing how actual science works. Implying that "oh he figured out because he's a genius with access to MI6 super high-tech research facilities that are just beyond this world" doesn't work well with modern audiences anymore, it must have some degree of plausibility. Same for all the intense hacking action.
Which is why I really liked it at first when on Q's first appearance he smirks about explosive pens and similar gadgets and only gives Bond a miniaturised radio and a gun with fingerprint safety. I thought this new series was trying harder at being more plausible with its secret agent technology and was totally on board with it. But then he just conjures intel out of a random ring and finds out that 4 different people had it at some point, realising they must be all linked together! XD
And also that Silva was really the least likely to be secretly part of SPECTRE since he had his own personal and reasonable motives to do what he did in Skyfall without the need joining a secret organisation...
As for Q finding out about all the bad guys relationships on the ring, that is unfortunately a product of "Movie Science Magic Bulls©it" that doesn't plague just Bond but many, many other movies due to plot convenience or writers not knowing how actual science works. Implying that "oh he figured out because he's a genius with access to MI6 super high-tech research facilities that are just beyond this world" doesn't work well with modern audiences anymore, it must have some degree of plausibility. Same for all the intense hacking action.
Which is why I really liked it at first when on Q's first appearance he smirks about explosive pens and similar gadgets and only gives Bond a miniaturised radio and a gun with fingerprint safety. I thought this new series was trying harder at being more plausible with its secret agent technology and was totally on board with it. But then he just conjures intel out of a random ring and finds out that 4 different people had it at some point, realising they must be all linked together! XD
Yeah, the idea of him having a laptop that could do all this analyzing in the field was the exact opposite from the 'back to basics' feel of the Q intro-scene in Skyfall.
But still, now that I know the idea was that there was a rare element in the ring's metal, and previous toxicology reports from the autopsy of the prior villains showed that element: that's a fine/normal bit of detective content. The movie's attempt to show that to the audience was horrible, though. It all flashes by on Q's screen while 2-3 other things are happening, as I recall, there's no way to know it was that cool sort of deduction.
Do you remember your impression of the ring-scan scene? Did it also seem, to you, that Q had simply found fingerprints or DNA of all the villains on the same ring? I'm going to have to ask other Bond fans what they thought the idea was, there.
But still, this is all better than the silliness in the Moore era. That has its own charm, yes, but as I said before, the Craig era is generally much better.
But still, now that I know the idea was that there was a rare element in the ring's metal, and previous toxicology reports from the autopsy of the prior villains showed that element: that's a fine/normal bit of detective content. The movie's attempt to show that to the audience was horrible, though. It all flashes by on Q's screen while 2-3 other things are happening, as I recall, there's no way to know it was that cool sort of deduction.
Do you remember your impression of the ring-scan scene? Did it also seem, to you, that Q had simply found fingerprints or DNA of all the villains on the same ring? I'm going to have to ask other Bond fans what they thought the idea was, there.
But still, this is all better than the silliness in the Moore era. That has its own charm, yes, but as I said before, the Craig era is generally much better.
Yeah, I just looked back at it on YouTube and all he seems to look at in his laptop are fingerprints and autopsy reports, and flashy pictures of all the bad guys as if the laptop screen was telling him "yo, Bond was right" XD
If anything, maybe all the fingerprints got on the ring not because the same ring was owned and passed on by each bad guy, but because they all paid respect to the one wearing it? Hand-shakes and such... But is still quite the stretch even in this case, and certainly fingerprints can't last forever on a ring...
I still enjoyed the movie though and this scene didn't bother me too much after all
If anything, maybe all the fingerprints got on the ring not because the same ring was owned and passed on by each bad guy, but because they all paid respect to the one wearing it? Hand-shakes and such... But is still quite the stretch even in this case, and certainly fingerprints can't last forever on a ring...
I still enjoyed the movie though and this scene didn't bother me too much after all
Well, the official story seems to be [as it said in that thing I quoted in my first long comment to you] that there were just 3 different prints on it, from the Italian owner of it, Mr White, because he had just handled it in the scene where Bond encounters him, and an unknown other print [Oberhauser/Blofeld, probably].
The rest of the villains were linked to the ring because it had that rare element in its chemical makeup and the other villains had that element in their autopsy reports. But I've seen the movie enough times that - if it was clear at all - I'd have realized that was the idea before. The fact that I had to read it online to know any of that is the issue.
But yes, I agree, I still like Spectre, for the most part. Although I still have issues with how the whole Spectre base blows up so easily near the end of the film. It's a great explosion, the largest practical/real detonation ever shot on camera for a film, I think, but it happens too easily, with just a few shots from Bond into some random exterior pipe or something.
Back to Q's ring analysis, though: I actually have less problems with the scene now that I know of that detective work about the rare element. It just would have been better if that was clearly demonstrated. Because now I know it's better than I thought and I know to the casual observer, it's going to seem like bullshit when it wasn't as 'magical technology' as I first thought.
~
Oh, this just reminded me of something that's really wonky in Quantum of Solace. I wonder if you took note of this.
At the end of the boat chase in Haiti, there's a moment where Bond dispatches an enemy boat. It's the climax of the chase, and it makes no sense when you stop and analyze it. The footage that shows how it works properly is just not in the movie [and perhaps does not exist, anywhere]. It's something to do with an anchor and its rope, and you would assume the anchor latches onto something underwater and... well anyway, the bad-guy boat ends up being launched into the air strangely and it looks cool but makes no sense, given the lack of visual explanation of the action.
I bring it up because it's another moment that seems like a real flaw, and I remember reading people who were discussing it online when the movie was brand new. So, they had seen it [and the whole movie after that moment besides] in cinema, then came home and tried to remember it clearly enough to figure it out. The posts from that time period, where you could only see it in cinema, are just a lot of the blind leading the blind, and people assuming it worked one way or there was this or that shot of something that would make it make sense.
Then the same forum has people talking when the DVD was out, and the consensus just like 'Whelp! it makes no sense - oh well u_u'
When I wrote that scene in my Sond QoS scenes, it works correctly, though, haha. It's a lot easier to have everything laid out in text.
The rest of the villains were linked to the ring because it had that rare element in its chemical makeup and the other villains had that element in their autopsy reports. But I've seen the movie enough times that - if it was clear at all - I'd have realized that was the idea before. The fact that I had to read it online to know any of that is the issue.
But yes, I agree, I still like Spectre, for the most part. Although I still have issues with how the whole Spectre base blows up so easily near the end of the film. It's a great explosion, the largest practical/real detonation ever shot on camera for a film, I think, but it happens too easily, with just a few shots from Bond into some random exterior pipe or something.
Back to Q's ring analysis, though: I actually have less problems with the scene now that I know of that detective work about the rare element. It just would have been better if that was clearly demonstrated. Because now I know it's better than I thought and I know to the casual observer, it's going to seem like bullshit when it wasn't as 'magical technology' as I first thought.
~
Oh, this just reminded me of something that's really wonky in Quantum of Solace. I wonder if you took note of this.
At the end of the boat chase in Haiti, there's a moment where Bond dispatches an enemy boat. It's the climax of the chase, and it makes no sense when you stop and analyze it. The footage that shows how it works properly is just not in the movie [and perhaps does not exist, anywhere]. It's something to do with an anchor and its rope, and you would assume the anchor latches onto something underwater and... well anyway, the bad-guy boat ends up being launched into the air strangely and it looks cool but makes no sense, given the lack of visual explanation of the action.
I bring it up because it's another moment that seems like a real flaw, and I remember reading people who were discussing it online when the movie was brand new. So, they had seen it [and the whole movie after that moment besides] in cinema, then came home and tried to remember it clearly enough to figure it out. The posts from that time period, where you could only see it in cinema, are just a lot of the blind leading the blind, and people assuming it worked one way or there was this or that shot of something that would make it make sense.
Then the same forum has people talking when the DVD was out, and the consensus just like 'Whelp! it makes no sense - oh well u_u'
When I wrote that scene in my Sond QoS scenes, it works correctly, though, haha. It's a lot easier to have everything laid out in text.
Thanks! You might also like the other Sond adventures/images: https://www.furaffinity.net/gallery.....Ames-Sond-00S/
That's an intense drawing by CrispyFajita!
These kinds of scenes are the type I like more in text rather than on screen, I feel. The reveals are a bit more pertinent when you get the internalized thoughts about what's going on, specifically when Dryden making assumptions on Sond's supposed fledging mistakes before the reveal that he'd been outplayed.
I think it takes a really strong direction, acting, framing and cinematography to pull off what text can in a matter of well-detailed paragraphs. Of course that just shows how skillful a whole movie crew is when it's done seamlessly.
I did find a couple wondering tenses in your text, however:
he neglects[neglected] turning on the lights
And
stepped behind his desk and sits[sat] in its chair
These kinds of scenes are the type I like more in text rather than on screen, I feel. The reveals are a bit more pertinent when you get the internalized thoughts about what's going on, specifically when Dryden making assumptions on Sond's supposed fledging mistakes before the reveal that he'd been outplayed.
I think it takes a really strong direction, acting, framing and cinematography to pull off what text can in a matter of well-detailed paragraphs. Of course that just shows how skillful a whole movie crew is when it's done seamlessly.
I did find a couple wondering tenses in your text, however:
he neglects[neglected] turning on the lights
And
stepped behind his desk and sits[sat] in its chair
Thank you for the fave and the comment! :}===<
And, thanks for the tense advice. Those are both fixed now. I think I had typed a lot of this in the present tense before going back to change it all to past.. and then I think I ended up actively choosing present tense for Sond scenes going forward soon after this submission.
~
It's true, the deeper meaning of it all was gleaned just from me watching the scene a lot. I suppose in text, the reader can take it all in at their own pace, whereas movies have their own natural pace, which one must conform to. That can create more driving force, or more intrigue, although the film also takes the risk of having some people left behind, sometimes.
And, thanks for the tense advice. Those are both fixed now. I think I had typed a lot of this in the present tense before going back to change it all to past.. and then I think I ended up actively choosing present tense for Sond scenes going forward soon after this submission.
~
It's true, the deeper meaning of it all was gleaned just from me watching the scene a lot. I suppose in text, the reader can take it all in at their own pace, whereas movies have their own natural pace, which one must conform to. That can create more driving force, or more intrigue, although the film also takes the risk of having some people left behind, sometimes.
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