Octopussy
Dovy
Posts: 206MI6 Agent
I enjoyed this film more than any previous Bond film, and I can't get over the extraordinary effects, especially with Bond on the train and then Kamal's airplane. How was the photography and the stunts performed so well? Especially together with circus performers? The film's scenery was incredible.
But could anyone explain to me exactly the connection between the theft of the jewelry involving Octopussy and the bomb plot? I didn't quite understand the connection.
I guess we should be wondering how this degree of international intrigue still didn't involve Blofeld.....
Comments
Actually the early drafts in Octopussy involved SPECTRE, though I'm not sure about Blofeld, but McClory's inclusion put it in the shelf.
I though liked the early concept of the draft, with Octopussy being this main villainess who would manipulate Bond by using her research on Tracy to have Bond joined her in her vendetta against SPECTRE, but Blofeld wasn't mentioned.
I though prefer it than what we've got, it would be closer to my ideal Lazenby starred DAF revenge action thriller.
Yes, agreed about the plot, but again, like what I've said, after For Your Eyes Only where those plots became convoluted with subplots here and there that looked like they've combined all of their ideas and put it in one film, but just didn't worked out.
It's just blurry and messed up.
But yes, all in all, if you turn your brain off by not thinking about the logic of the plot, then it's entertaining.
Octopussy is one of the better Bond Girls, but again, she's one of the patients of 'Third Act's a Damsel' syndrome that also occured in Anya Amasova in TSWLM, a woman being abducted by the villain and needing of saving.
The villains were decent, but again lumbered by the convoluted plot also lessened their menace, but they were an improvement over the villains of FYEO (Kristatos) whose one of the weak villains in the series.
The action was superb and so was the score that combined the drama and action.
MI6_Headquarters said:
Actually the early drafts in Octopussy involved SPECTRE, though I'm not sure about Blofeld, but McClory's inclusion put it in the shelf.
I though liked the early concept of the draft, with Octopussy being this main villainess who would manipulate Bond by using her research on Tracy to have Bond joined her in her vendetta against SPECTRE, but Blofeld wasn't mentioned.
I though prefer it than what we've got, it would be closer to my ideal Lazenby starred DAF revenge action thriller.
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I've never heard of this early draft before. Does anyone have more information?
Ditto
I believe that @Revelator is the man needed here.
There was a version where M was killed too, wasn't there? Replaced by a SPECTRE mole, who then had Bond framed. It sounds quite exciting to me to be honest.
I think a big issue with the film as we got it is that I have no idea what Kamal Khan is involved for. He presumably wants to make a quick buck, but starting a nuclear war seems a fairly bad idea as you'll have no-one left to buy things from.
From the Taschen Bond book:
"Blofeld returns as the primary antagonist, locked in a war with a group of bullion smugglers who carry out low level espionage work and are led by Octopussy. Blofeld plans to remove M from control of MI6 and replace him with his mole Villiers, M's chief of staff, which would allow him to manipulate the West's secret services. M is assassinated, thus leading to Moneypenny's being fired and replaced, and Bond is framed as a double agent. On the run and eager to clear his name, Bond works with Octopussy and Kamal Khan, an old school friend of Bond's working with the Afghan resistance, to defeat Blofeld and his army chief, Smythe."
Regarding the version where Octopussy recruited Bond into her crusade against Spectre using knowledge about Tracy, I've only seen that mentioned by one article online. It'd be interesting to know more about that one, or maybe it's the same one, I don't know.
thanks @emtiem it certainly sounds more interesting than the film we got
actually sounds like a bit of it got resurrected for SPECTRE, C was a SPECTRE mole.
and the Afghan resistance also ended up in another film
Villiers was a character in the 90s movies wasnt he? was this the first appearance of the name?
No, there's a Villiers in the CR novel. He isn't in the 90s movies, though.
I'd forgotten, thanks @Barbel , did Fleming's Villers also work in M's office?
that plot does maybe sound much more radical than what they were actually willing to do in those days. But interesting to see elements that may have got recycled in later films.
come to think of it, Bernard Lee had died after Moonraker and there was no M in for Your eyes Only. Just an unnamed Chief of Staff who was a bit of a jerk (I dont think he was named Tanner). The Octopussy we got cast Robert Brown as the new M, but with no in-story explanation. Could this abandoned plot have been one way to explain Bernard Lee's absence?
Villers is in the CR movie, and of course James Villers played Tanner in FYEO.
As emtiem says, James Villiers played Tanner in FYEO but you only find that out in the end credits- he's referred to as Chief of Staff in the movie itself.
Fleming's Villiers works in Jamaica, not M's office. The Villiers in CR06 is a substitute for Tanner or possibly Moneypenny.
The mysterious mention of Octopussy recruiting Bond is from this article: https://web.archive.org/web/20130105140625/https://iansadler.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/musings-on-bond-at-50-octopussy/
"McClory’s continuing legal claims to the character of Ernst Stavro Blofeld and the SPECTRE organisation scuppered Broccoli’s early plans for the plot of Octopussy. The eponymous character was originally conceived as a villain using research into the death of Tracy Bond to manipulate Bond into joining her vendetta against SPECTRE."
The author doesn't mention a source, but if this was a hoax it surely would have consisted of more than two sentences. I guess we won't know the truth until someone does a deep dive into all that unused material.
The book Ian Fleming and James Bond: Manuscripts in The Schøyen Collection discusses some of the manuscripts for Octopussy, including 111 sheets detailing "original storyline development," dated December 1981 and credited to George MacDonald Fraser, John Glen, Michael G. Wilson, and Albert Broccoli:
"These earliest ideas concern Blofeld's small independent state, used as a base for terror activities. 'Octopussy' is another criminal organization based in India and headed by 'O'; they are all female followers of a mystical cult descended from the Thugs, but are not murderous; they are involved in smuggling of contraband. Blofeld takes them by force, as a perfect set-up for peddling heroin, and numerous Octopussies are assassinated.
"Meanwhile in London, M has surveyed these events with interest but is killed before he can intervene; Bond is convinced it is murder. M's successor Villiers (a possible KGB plant) is Blofeld's puppet, so Blofeld effectively now runs the Secret Service. Villiers assigns Bond a desk job to neutralize his detective efforts, and worse still, Bond will be framed as M's assassin and has to flee. Bond, whilst pursued by British agents, must prove his innocence and determine what has happened to M.
"Various characters such as Craft (aka Smythe), Copeland, Briggs, Lobo, and Miss Smallbone are mentioned, then written out or developed. A scene at Blades is explored and future characters Magda, Kamal, Orlov, and Gogol are introduced, and Octopussy becomes a person rather than a gang. Locations/scenes such as Cuba, an English cricket match, a race at the Nürburgring, and a U.S. Navy submarine are proposed and then dropped."
The book The Making of On Her Majesty's Secret Service briefly discusses elements from the early Octopussy scripts:
"...an early version of the script of Moore's next film, Octopussy, featured Maibaum's recycling of his idea...to hire Gert Frobe to play Goldfinger's brother, who this time would be Monsieur Diamant, a man obsessed with diamonds who partners with Octopussy, an Asian woman who runs a night club in Tokyo. A later version of the script involved Octopussy's girls overtaking a SPECTRE factory that printed counterfeit currency, and in a romantic scene Octopussy and Bond embrace, but he tells her the secret service doesn't permit men in his category to be married."
Thanks, @Revelator !
I'm so glad we have @Revelator on the payroll!
does this seem familiar to anybody?
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...a race at the Nürburgring...
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thats Murder on Wheels/Trigger Mortis! did they have access to Fleming's unused materials?
I would like to read some of those; having Bond framed for M's murder sounds more exciting and dramatic than most of Roger's films.
I'm guessing it was a coincidence. The Nürburgring has been very important in the motoring world for decades, so I wouldn't be surprised if Fleming and Wilson/Maibaum independently decided to send Bond there. It's not impossible that Wilson and Maibaum might have had access to Fleming's unused materials, but it seems unlikely. I get the impression that after Fleming's death his papers were scattered and in disarray.
An F1 race meeting has long been a rather classic Bond location which has never been used. Full of rich people enjoying champagne parties and fast cars: it’s a natural for Bond. Certainly moreso than a circus! But I would imagine it’s a very hard thing to stage for a film and would be very expensive to shoot at.
I've mentioned this at reddit for a suggestion about the next Bond film, and one redditor there replied at me that it's going to be a jump shark.
Of course, I've defended my answer, but that redditor guy still didn't stopped from depending his position.
And now, I've realized, I'm not the only one that thinks an F1 should be included in a Bond film, and I'm not wrong.
A jump shark? Did they say why? That seems odd; it's perfect for Bond. Especially Monaco- he'd be there every year.
But nowadays I think it's even more unlikely- F1 is a brand now and would surely charge Eon through the nose to use them, so it would likely be some sort of F1-a-like and feel a bit fake. Maybe I'm being pessimistic, obviously Aston Martin is a team now and we've seen 007 logos on cars, so who knows.
This is what the redditor said:
Because F1 cars don't really just work. You need a huge team of people to operate them. I personally think it would be way clunky, but I hear what you are saying. Rich guy with own private track and owns a bunch of classic F1 cars. I think Rally cars or Low end LeMans cars would be more credible.
Oh do they mean if Bond drove one himself? Yes, I think that would stretch credibility. But as an event which he would attend it's very much in the right sphere.
Wasn't this a scene in For Special Services, in a test track in Texas?
I'm largely happy with the Octopussy we got and wouldn't want to see Roger Moore in a film like this original draft.
Recall going to see the film in the long hot summer of 83 with Mum at Odeon Leicester Square. The idea of loveable Rog bumping off M or being framed for the crime doesn't sound like something we'd have taken to and his style was to make a joke every few minutes about stuff. Moreover, nobody really would believe that Rog's Bond would do something like that. It's a bit like who you might cast in The 39 Steps - you can believe that Donat would go on the run and be a suspect, but not really Kenneth More in the remake who seems such a clubbable fellow.
But of course - in this early draft it was likely that R Moore would not be in it and be replaced by a younger type of actor with a more dangerous look. You could imagine Dalton in fact being suspected of killing M, he fits that bill, and the injustice of it would generate sympathy. It may not so much have been that the early treatment was ditched because McClory was doing a film with Spectre - surely EON didn't have the rights to Spectre anyway, I don't know, I mean they take care not to mention Blofeld in the FYEO pre-credits - but because the treatment was aimed at introducing a new, darker actor. With Connery set to return as Bond, however, Rog was brought back again to compete. That meant ditching the original treatment, very possibly.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Yes, that's right.
I remember getting that out of the library, and in that scene Gardner mentions that Bond has his air conditioning on full because it's so hot in Texas, and someone had circled that in pencil and written in the margin that having your air con on saps engine power, which Bond certainly wouldn't do in a race. He had a point 😁
I think Roger would handle that absolutely fine to be honest; much like the first climax to the actual version of Octopussy where he's racing to get to the airbase and is effectively on the run, evading his allies. I think a bit more grit here and there would have been good for him.
Yes, I think because we're still not sure at how those early drafts would have turned out.
The details were incomplete and we have no idea other than the summarized versions of the drafts.
But, it would be interesting to see because the film that we've got, in my opinion was a bit convoluted in plot.
And Moore's ageing looks didn't fit the campy scenes either, the tarzan yell and the comic elements of the film would have worked if he's still young looking, think of The Man With The Golden Gun, it's ridiculously campy but fits Moore because he's still looked young that it's not being that cringe while watching.
But for an aged Moore, a grounded films like FYEO would have fit him better.
I think the bit where Bond is being hunted in Khan's castle grounds is a great idea for a scene- I could easily see Fleming coming up with that. It's proper old-school adventure. But it's just not made very well.
I just love the whole Pre Title scene with the Horsebox jet and all that, lovely young lady in the Range Rover by the way!
Also I have always had the theory that Robert Brown's M in this film may or not be the Character he played in The Spy Who Loved Me, who similarly to Bond was recruited to the Secret Service.
I believe he can't be as he's a Vice Admiral in TSWLM and M is shown to be a Rear Admiral, so unless he's been demoted then they're different characters.