Showing posts with label Octopussy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Octopussy. Show all posts

22 Aug 2016

The James Bond references in Spectre - part 2

In Spectre, the previous Bond films are referenced in more or less conspicuous ways. The references to the first eight films were covered in a previous post and below I list the references to the next eight films: The Man With the Golden Gun trough Licence to Kill.

The Man With the Golden Gun
In the finale of Spectre, Blofeld has decorated the abandoned Mi6 building with pictures of people from Bond's past, such as Vesper, M and the villains Le Chiffre, Silva and Mr White. Blofeld lures Bond through the corridors of Mi6 and tricks him to shoot at flipping targets, similar to how Nick-Nack and Scaramanga lures Bond through Scaramanga's fun house in The Man With the Golden Gun.




The Man With the Golden Gun, 1974

Even the pattern of the dynamite wires that are covering the ceiling of the entire Mi6 building is slightly reminiscent of the interior design in Scaramanga's fun house. This of course might be a coincidence.

The dynamite wires stretched across Mi6 before the demolition
Scaramanga's fun house in 1974

However, the helicopter stunt from the pre-title sequence in Spectre resembles the famous car stunt from The Man With the Golden Gun, although this roll stunt has never been done with a helicopter in a Bond film before. 




The Spy Who Loved Me
Spectre references The Spy Who Loved Me during the plane/car chase in the Austrian alps. During the chase, Bond flies his plane alongside the car convoy and waves at Hinx travelling in the Range Rover with Madeleine Swan.




A similar scene occurs during the car chase in The Spy Who Loved me when Bond and Major Amasova are driving around in Sardinia. As Naomi chases Bond and agent triple X with a helicopter, she flies up alongside Bond's Lotus and at one point waves at him. Contrary to this film however, in Spectre, Bond is the one flying the aircraft and waves back at the henchman.

The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977


The big fight between Bond and Hinx aboard the Moroccan train could very well be a reference to the train fight between Bond and Donald Grant in From Russia With Love or the fight between Bond and TeeHee in Live and Let Die. But it might also be a reference to the fight between Bond and Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me. Some has suggested that the big barrels, which Bond kicks off the train and ultimately uses to throw Hinx off, might be a reference to the 1975 movie Jaws where big barrels are used to force the big shark up to the surface. Very far-fetched, but still funny.



The fight ends with Bond throwing Hinx off the train, by attaching him to some heavy barrels and kicking them overboard. In The Spy Who Loved Me, Jaws pretty much goes the same way, when Bond kicks him through the window.




Moonraker
The Dia de Muertos parade in Mexico city in the pre-title sequence of Spectre can be considered as an homage to the carnival in Rio, visited by Bond in Moonraker. It is of course also reminiscent of the Jankanoo parade in Thunderball and the Jazz funerals in Live and Let Die.

Mexico City 
Rio de Janeiro 1979

Blofeld's lair in the Moroccan desert is reminiscent of Drax's secret control room in Moonraker. 



During the car chase in Rome, Bond uses a new feature in his Aston Martin in order to escape from Hinx and not ending up in the river Tiber, namely an ejector seat with a parachute. Unlike the ejector seats installed in Bond's previous Aston Martins, this one is located in the driver seat. Bond ejects himself moments before the car crashes into the river and afterwords he lands on the adjacent street. Similarly during the boat chase in Moonraker Bond manages to escape from both Jaws and the largest waterfall in Brasil with a built-in para glider in Q's boat, before landing/crashing in the Brazilian jungle.



For Your Eyes Only 
In the pre-title sequence of both For Your Eyes Only and Spectre Bond is hanging outside of a helicopter, trying to get in control of the aircraft.



In addition, Blofeld's helicopters in both Spectre and For Your Eyes Only fly past Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament in a similar view.



Furthermore, another For Your Eyes Only reference is the name 'Hildebrand' that appears on the door to the Mi6 safe house in Spectre. Hildebrand is the cover name on a shop in London, selling "prints and rarities", but in reality functioning as a safe house. The title 'The Hildebrand Rarity' is a short story written by Ian Fleming that is included in the book 'For Your Eyes Only' which was published in 1960.


Octopussy
As far as I have made out, there are no obvious visual references to Octopussy (apart from the giant Octopus symbolising the organisation SPECTRE) but a few things from the plot can be considered as similar. For instance, the fathers of both Octopussy and Madeleine Swan kill themselves after a visit from 007.

Furthermore, Kamal Khan, just as several other villains before him, travels around in a Rolls Royce, which might be referenced through the fact that Blofeld also owns a Rolls, that picks up Bond from the desert.

Bond watches Kamal arrive in Octopussy

Bond and Swan arriving to Blofeld's lair in Spectre

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A View to a Kill

A View is one of the few films that has no obvious references. If anyone has found anything, please leave a comment below.

The Living Daylights
The fact that Bond visits Tangier in Spectre is a reference to The Living Daylights which also used Tangier as a location.

Tangier in 2015
Tangier in 1987
Furthermore, Bond's outfit in Spectre, a tan suede Jacket and a navy polo shirt is probably inspired by Bond's outfit from 1987, when he visited the city in the guise of Timothy Dalton. Dalton wore a beige blouson and chinos together with a dark blue knit shirt.





Licence to Kill
The reuse of locations from earlier films was also apparent in the pre-title sequence of Spectre when Bond and Estrella takes the elevator up to her hotel room, from where Bond later jumps out the window. This elevator was seen in Licence to Kill when it was located in Bond's hotel, 'Hotel El Presidente'. 



In Licence to Kill Bond and Pam takes the elevator up to Bond's suite where Q is waiting.


In the same film, Q is on vacation and turns up to assist Bond in the field. The same thing happens in Spectre when Q turns up at the Hoffler clinic in Austria.




James Bond Locations will return with the final references in Spectre. 

8 Jul 2016

Various airlines

In addition to the posts in the travel section on this blog, where some of the airlines from the films are described in more detail, a few other airlines with considerably less screen time (than for instance Pan Am or British Airways) will be covered here briefly.

Royal Air Maroc



In The Living Daylights, two Boeing aircraft, a 727 and a 767 from the Moroccan airline 'Royal Air Maroc' (RAM) are seen in the background at the airport in Tangier. This scene was actually filmed at the airport in Ouarzazate, in the south western part of Morocco and not Tangier. I do not know if RAM had a promotional collaboration with the film production, but it is likely since the two RAM airplanes are featured rather prominently in the film.

Royal Air Maroc - Boeing 727








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Air France
A brand new Eurocopter EC 135 (worth £1.6 million at the time) had been flown in from France

When Q delivers the BMW to Bond at the airport in Hamburg, Bond takes it for a test drive in an adjacent hangar. A BAe 146 airplane from Air France Express, belonging to 'CityJet' or 'Jersey European Airways', is seen in the background. CityJet is a regional (Irish) airline that operated on the Paris - London route on behalf of Air France at the time of filming Tomorrow Never Dies. The airline is still in operation today and Air France was its main owner between 2002 and 2014 when it was sold to Intro Aviation. Jersey European Airways, today known as 'Flybe', is the largest independent regional airline in Europe, based in Exeter, that also had a code share agreement with Air France at the time of filming.



The British Aerospace 146 (BAe 146) is a short-haul airliner that was manufactured in the United Kingdom by British Aerospace from 1983 until 2002. Another BAe 146 airplane belonging to 'Titan Airways', which receives maintenance work, is also seen behind Bond and Q in the hangar.


An advertising poster for Air France is also visible at the entrance of Hotel Oriental, which is Bond's hotel in Bangkok in The Man With the Golden Gun. The text on the poster is promoting Air France's new airplanes and reads: "Europe and Far East - 5 Super B747's, 2 Boeing 707".


In Dr. No, a small flag with the winged seahorse, which is the logo of Air France, is visible on the reception desk at Bond's hotel in Jamaica, along with a few other props including Air India and Alitalia.







A Concorde from Air France also featured rather prominently in Moonraker as Bond lands in Rio de Janeiro.

                                                       KLM and Scandinavian Airlines 

West Berlin - The KLM office seen in the background

















In Octopussy, Bond, posing as Charles Morton, and M are travelling down Kurfürstendamm in West Berlin. The headquarters or a travel agent belonging to KLM - Royal Dutch Airlines - is seen very briefly behind Bond and M through the rear window. This KLM travel agent was located at the intersection of Joachimsthaler Strasse 39-40 and Kurfürstendamm at the time of filming in 1983. Today the Azimut Hotel is housed in that building. 

The KLM logo would also feature in Never Say Never Again, as seen below.

KLM in front of Nicole and Bond - The SAS logotype is seen on the wall to the right

Produced in the same year as Octopussy, the logotype of KLM was visible above a travel desk at Nice airport in Never Say Never Again, where Bond meets with agent 326, after arriving from the Bahamas. In the same scene, a travel desk belonging to SAS - Scandinavian Airlines System - with the old Viking logo on the wall can be seen in the background.
KLM and SAS