The spectre of Ian Fleming fills SPECTRE.
In interviews the heirs of Albert R. “Cubby” say their famous father would say always go back to the Fleming books when in doubt about the direction of the 007 film franchise.
EON Productions did just that when they reset the series by hiring Daniel Craig and making a film based on the first Fleming novel, Casino Royale.
As fans eagerly await for SPECTRE, the spirit of Ian Fleming and Albert Broccoli is clear and present in the 24th Bond film. It’s astonishing to think after more than 50 years and all those films there are still elements of Fleming’s books we are seeing for the first time in the film franchise.
The title of the new adventure is the name of the most sinister evil organization in spy fiction. S.P.E.C.T.R.E. (the Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) and its leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld are Fleming’s most powerful creations and the main villains of the Sean Connery era Bond films.
SPECTRE may also mark the most personal of the Bond films exploring the mystery of Bond’s parents death. Daniel Craig as Bond went home to Scotland in Skyfall and we could imagine what the spy was like as a child and how it shaped him. With SPECTRE, something in the remains of his destroyed home leads Bond on a new mission and a character from the 007 novels we’ve never seen on screen before.
Christoph Waltz is playing a villain named Franz Oberhauser who may be the leader of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and claims a personal connection to Bond. This critical character of the Bond books is finally making an appearance in the films.
Who is Oberhauser?
In the novels, Hannes Oberhauser is a skiing and climbing instructor who taught a young Bond to ski in Kitzbuhel, Austria. This happens Bond after lost his parents in a skiing accident in the French Alps. Oberhauser appeared in the short story collection “Octopussy and The Living Daylights”
Franz may be the son of Hannes who knew Bond from childhood.
What if one of the Oberhausers is responsible for the death of Bond’s parents?
Andrew and Monique Bond died in a climbing accident but later novels suggested they were murdered by foreign agents and one even claimed Bond’s mother was a secret agent.
In the first SPECTRE teaser trailer we learned Bond finds something in the ruins of Skyfall Lodge that sends him on a covert personal mission. Does Bond find evidence that his parents were murdered and this leads him on the trail of Mister White (from Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace) and ultimately S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and Oberhauser?
54 years and 24 films later, Bond’s past is being de-classified before our eyes on the big screen. Broccoli’s advice is still creatively paying off for fans as we await the biggest, potentially most personal 007 adventure yet.
SPECTRE arrives November 6th.
By Editor