was Tracy's death resolved???
alabamabondfan
Posts: 23MI6 Agent
I have recently started watching all the Bond movies for the first time. I watched OHMSS about a month ago and wondered how Bond would avenge his wife's death. I've seen DAF and LALD.
Was there any resolution to this??? It seems like DAF should have been different (as far as the relationship b/w Bond and Blofield..........)
Can anyone clear this up for me?
Was there any resolution to this??? It seems like DAF should have been different (as far as the relationship b/w Bond and Blofield..........)
Can anyone clear this up for me?
Comments
Yes, Bond is shown hunting down Blofeld at the start of DAF. He fails (killing a double) however does kill Blofeld at the end of the film
No.
In the pre titles when Bond is tracking Blofeld, he doesnt mention Tracy - despite showing a fair amount of rage. When he does meet Blofeld (the double), he seems perfectly in control before killing him.
When he finally does meet Blofeld for real, he doesnt seem horribly upset at him.
I think DAF was meant to act as if OHMSS was something of the past, not denying that it happened, but trying to dowplay it. As a result, it feels like Tracy's death wasnt resolved, despite Bond killing Blofeld.
For a post-OHMSS watch FYEO's pre-credits sequence. Although the resolve there is again laughable, at least we do see Bond mourning Tracy. For the first time since OHMSS, actually.
Yes,James Bond avenged Tracy's murder,but that was in Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice novel--the third and final of the Blofeld books.
Three books deal with 007 Blofeld and SPECTRE.They are:
1)Thunderball
2)On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3)You Only Live Twice
They were written to be read in this order and this is even the order that they were originally intended to be filmed in as well.Until EON changed their minds.
The You Only Live Twice movie was shot out of sequence,and with an entirely different storyline-only the Japanese locale and a few character names were retained.In every other way it's an original story.By contrast,both of the Thunderball and OHMSS movies are fairly close adaptations of their source novels.
In the Fleming You Only Live Twice novel,James Bond tracks Blofeld to Japan(there's no hideout in a volcano,no SPECTRE army,no space capsule swallowing rocket,etc.),and eventually he kills his archenemy--but not easily.IMO this story would make a great movie,and maybe EON will adapt it someday.
As others have already noted,EON tried to tie up all of the remaining loose ends of the Bond/Blofeld/Tracy storyline with the pretitle sequence of the For Your Eyes Only motion picture,where--after first visiting Tracy's grave on the anniversary of her murder--007 escapes a helicopter deathtrap personally engineered by Blofeld and drops his enemy down a nearby factory's chimney.That was the very last time EON ever put Ernst Stavro Blofeld on the screen(he's unnamed in this film, but just who he's supposed to be is pretty obvious).
What has shocked me is the inextricable link between this movie & FYEO. The Blofeld in FYEO even has a surgical collar on (think how Blofeld supposedly `dies` in OHMSS). To that end, I believe FYEO is more a sequel to OHMSS than DAF ever was.
In addition, in the original trailers on the DVD of FYEO, Blofelds voice is different from the final cut - sounding much more like the Telly Savales Blofeld. I wonder if it was changed due to the threat of lawsuits.
I wouldn't mind betting that the famous `delicatessan` line can be traced to something in OHMSS or the legal shenanigans involving the Blofeld character (don't know what yet though!)
Contrast that with the novels, in which Bond tracks down his wife's murderer in YOLT and avenges her in a battle so vicious he winds up an amnesiac who travels to Vladivostok based on a word he sees on a scrap of newspaper -- and, of course, unwittingly into the hands of the KGB ...
What a waste of wonderful material.
Edit: Sorry Willie, didn't see your post. I'd love to see them use that story line too. In fact, I would love to see EON remake at least YOLT and TMWTGG in sequence. Even throw in OHMSS if they felt they had to, just for the whole sake of the trilogy's integrity.
Remake 'em all -- what the heck.
The deli...yes.
The most believable story that I've ever heard to explain it is that New York gangsters in the 1930's would gift people with them (rather than cash.) Smething about it being a legit way to earn money. Maybe if Blofeld had offered to buy Bond a vodka distillery things would have turned out differently.
I don't kink so, in fact not even with FYEO scene... i still say that Lazemby had to do the job (i mean in the name of continuity. In DAF Tracy wasn't mentioned once,and Bond ended with one of the BIGGEST bimbos in the series (i would change Tracy, not even for a harem of Tiffany Case girls.
But that's not my point. As you might know, i'm the only fan in the world who hasn't got the movies, so i'm not pretty sure, but here i go:
Wasn't Irma Bunt the one that fired the weapon?
if she does, well, is Bloferd's plan, but even if she didn't: What the hell happened with her?
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Agreed, Loeff...
Even from Moore's Bond you'd expect more conviction than that comical little sequence; his wife was killed in a drive-by by his nemesis and it's treated like a sitcom in FYEO... 8-)
Batman: "The Hammer Of Justice is UNISEX!"
-Batman: The Brave & The Bold -
What I've always found comical about this issue, is that Blofeld wasn't healthy enough to actually take a "hands-on" approach to the drive-by himself but he's well enough to drive a car going about 90.
Head's stationary behind the wheel but he's handling a winding hill...
Batman: "The Hammer Of Justice is UNISEX!"
-Batman: The Brave & The Bold -
Actually Rogue, Blofeld wasn't wearing a neck brace in that scene. It was a very early version of the HANS device.
What you mean like NASCAR? In a Mercedes and he's suffering from whiplash? Classic.
Batman: "The Hammer Of Justice is UNISEX!"
-Batman: The Brave & The Bold -
Yeah, but the only question remains.. what happened with her? why they didn't show her again planning something bad for her husband (and don't give a name) so Bond would stop her and have his revenge ( a la YOLT book but Mrs Shatterhand)
Are you sure that Irma Bunt and Blofeld were married ? ?:) Or are you referring to the novels?
I'm wondering that myself, Dan. Movie or novel, surely Blofeld couldn't have been that hard-up.
Batman: "The Hammer Of Justice is UNISEX!"
-Batman: The Brave & The Bold -
Well, Blofeld, unlike Bond probably did not have his choice of lovely ladies to go after.
From memory, in YOLT, Bunt takes an alias which is married to Blofeld. I cant remember if they are themselves married.
Wow, first time i have to qoute myself...
Here it goes: In the book they were "pretending" to be married, so she would be Mrs Shatterhand, but what i mean is that maybe Eon would use that sort of story (or why not, change it to sometring more "Brain sucking's aliens" or another wacko plot and the evil mastermind is Mrs somebody, who happen to be Irma Bunt. The idea is to make a Reference to Bloferd but without using his or Spectre name (for legal reasons). When Bond confronters her, he would say that is a evil plan and there is no reason to think she planned herself, she would answer that he is right and the real mastermind is buying cigarettes - or other excuse, like it was in his will - again without names.
Which I think was the point; that scene, where he is dumping a cartoony Blofeld (in retrospect Ernst Stavro never seems more like Dr. Evil) is indicative that, for now, EON is dumping the more outlandish plots, which Blofeld symbolized.
If Moore's James addresses the actual death of Tracy, it is in the sequence in TSWLM where he is talking to Major Anya about being sensitive about certain things; Roger was at his most effective in this scene that to me seems quite moving, all the more impressive in that Spy is one of the more comic bookish 007's(from me that is not a putdown, I'm a fanboy).
I do wonder if the idea of Tracy will be reintroduced in the Craig cycle? Or is Vesper the last woman this Bond will fall for?
Interesting. She was never mentioned in the Brosnan era - only the odd reference to her from time to time. I think she's a thing of the past never to be repeated again. I have a feeling it will be Vesper who has the odd reference from time to time. In one of the later novels, Bond returns to Royale and a very small reference is made to a simple grave that says "VESPER LYND - RIP" Id like to see that on a future movie.
Ironically, I think it's in OMHSS. Royale is where Bond meets Tracy.
Fleming creates Blofeld as a sadistic super-villain, and at times, due to the overly sadistic cast he put on the character, was accused of having a sadistic interest himself. I can easily mark that up to bit of overblown research, taking the character too seriously, or maybe just a means of displaying the serious differences between Bond and Blofeld. Revenge,... No, I don't see it as revenge, the idea of a single-minded vendetta is not there. Fleming portrays Blofeld as someone who had developed into what he was slowly and methodically over time, and he is definitely portrayed as the best of his kind, so it would require someone such as Bond to defeat him.
Then there is the determination made in several instances that Bond is moving towards that motive, revenge, but it is always, and well prevented by either a clear realization that Blofeld is indeed a threat which needs to be destroyed, and who has more experience, motive and desire as Bond?
The only way to explain some of the lack of emotion is to reach into an area most, and I should hope reasonably so that nearly all viewers have no real-life concept of, and that is that Bond is a professional killer. How do we refrain from condemning that in itself, how can we just write off and say "Oh, it's his job to kill," without becoming overcome with the idea that such a person MUST be just as bad as the person he sets out to kill.
Fleming demonstrates, and at times, overly pounds it into the story that his villains are a menace to everyone, and that it is due to that menace that the "necessary evil" of assassination is not only justified, but the end result of a process that makes the assassination the "execution" stage of a series of events that we are not privy to. Fleming it seems, had to show in the best manner he could that Bond's point of view was based on a confirmation of that decision on a very personal level. Bond was not just an executioner, but an investigator that determined that this action was justified and then followed through with it.
Given that psychological background, it is easier to say that the death of Tracy was a confirmation that what Bond was doing was correct, but also a clear demonstration that it was up to him to prove TO HIMSELF that he had to act in a professional manner, even though the vindictive motive was clearly apparent.
In Casino Royale, this professional attitude overwhelms any idea of vindictive revenge. It is there, and it is apparent, but this is how Bond moves on beyond it and begins to create the future character. The job is there, but it still remains a judgement call on the part of knowing what happened and who was behind it.
We see, in this case, the old spy-hunting tactic of find the low-level players, and then kill everyone until you get to the top. The first thing Bond is ridiculed for is following that tactic, and the entire movie deals with moving level-by-level all the way to the people behind it.
In terms of a chess game, Bond is More a support player, a knight who can act either aggressively or defensively, but not a higher order piece, the limitations of the moves requires that a knight learns to work in tandem with others, because the danger of losing that control will be the end of the knight, and of the game itself.
Hard to explain, but harder to accept that this professionalism is what erodes Bond's humanity, but also strengthens it, in the end. It could be argued that with the death of Tracy, Bond, or a very substantial part of him, also died. The manner that Bond carries on beyond that point is wreckless, calculating and doesn't back down. With everything else gone, what else is there to lose but a life you don't value that much. Do what good you can be sure of, and in the end, it's all a loss, anyway. Each additional day is a justification that you were in some way right, even though you have nothing to show for it.
My interest in this issue was recently focused when I came across a thought provoking article on a page of the OHMSS tribute website at:
http://www.ohmss.ohmss-007.com/screening_room_fhmeo.html
Peter Hunt is on record as saying that the original intention, had George Lazenby agreed to make further Bond movies, was to end OHMSS happily with 007’s wedding and then deal with Tracy’s tragic death and the aftermath during the pre-credits sequence of the next film, i.e. DAF. This of course never happened. Instead there seems to have been a concerted attempt by the producers to ‘uninvent’ OHMSS and pretend it never took place. Whilst some point out that Bond’s search for Blofeld - and his apparent killing of him - during the opening of DAF is evidence of him gaining vengeance, the lack of any reference to Tracy in the film, not to mention the plethora of Blofeld doubles that crop up in DAF, only serves to leave the audience unconvinced. In fact at the end of the film the last we see of Blofeld is of him being left suspended in a crane on his rig! There’s no evidence to confirm that he was killed. The fact that the character of Irma Bunt (who fired the fatal shots on OHMSS) is missing altogether all contributes to the feeling of having been sold short.
The abovementioned website suggests that John Glen, who was editor to Peter Hunt in OHMSS, also felt this way. For in the first of the five Bond films he directed – For Your Eyes Only in 1981 – the pre-credits sequence offers an altogether more convincing and natural sequel to the OHMSS tragedy. In this scene 007 is seen visiting his wife’s grave to lay some flowers and pay his respects. We see Roger Moore in an unusually (for him) thoughtful and sombre mood during this scene. Shortly afterwards when the helicopter he has been collected in is being remotely controlled there can be little doubt that the person responsible is one Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The wheelchair bound villain is shown to be bald man, stroking a white cat, wearing a collarless grey suit and is even wearing a neck brace – in common with the injury suffered by Blofeld during the bobsleigh run fight sequence in OHMSS. According to Alan Barnes & Marcus Hearn’s 1997 book ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ the story goes that John Glen was keen to name the villain but was restrained by legal considerations (presumably the ongoing situation between Danjaq and Kevin McClory). The KKBB book also states that the scene was originally devised when there was some doubt whether Roger Moore would appear in FYEO and the pre-credits sequence would therefore serve as an ideal introduction to the new 007. Reportedly, the original plan was for Bond’s unseen captor to greet him over the helicopter intercom with the line “I thought we should celebrate the tenth anniversary of our last meeting” which, had this been done, would have reinforced the sequence’s link with OHMSS\DAF even further.
The OHMSS tribute website page contains a link to an excellent WMV file called “For Her Majesty’s Eyes Only” which combines the last scene of OHMSS with the opening of FYEO. This may be less than perfect as the FYEO sequence is short and incidental to the rest of that film. Also Roger Moore’s usual dose of wit and sarcasm is present in the ensuing FYEO helicopter sequence prior to dumping ‘Blofeld’ down the chimney stack and is plainly out of place - a more brutal manner would have been far more appropriate. However, the overall effect definitely works for me and offers a fantastic insight into what could have been achieved in DAF.
Looking to the future I would totally support any remake of OHMSS and a genuinely convincing sequel involving Daniel Craig that was faithful to Ian Fleming’s YOLT book. Any chance of this please Barbara and Michael?
Cheers,
Mark