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Fridge Brilliance
- It seems kind of insulting to think that Blofeld built Spectre just to screw over Bond... But, his Freudian Excuse aside, why wouldn't he? Bond is MI6's best field operative, and MI6 is pretty much the one organization that proves capable of resisting Quantum/Spectre's efforts to take over the world. In Quantum of Solace, the CIA is totally in bed with Quantum, the Canadian SIS is being penetrated, and two of Quantum's leaders are a former Mossad agent and a former KGB operative turned businessman. If Blofeld wants to take over the world's intelligence agencies, he has to subvert MI6, and if he's going to take out MI6 he has to take out its best operative, who is none other than Bond himself. So Blofeld really does have to hurt Bond and his friends.
- Denbigh, a Spectre asset, is able to seize control of the British intelligence because MI6 is in total disarray following the death of its chief and the destruction of its headquarters in Skyfall. Those two events themselves were masterminded by Raoul Silva, himself another Spectre asset. Blofeld may have exaggerated one thing or two when he tells Bond he is the author of all his pain, but he truly has been running this scheme all along.
- The scheme Spectre is running is based on the first two elements of their moniker, namely counter-intelligence and terrorism. Specifically, they utilize staged acts of terrorism to help the asset that they've cultivated a way to implement a global surveillance system with a back door that they control, allowing them to anticipate and counter any law enforcement/intelligence service effort at interfering in their businesses.
- Madeleine Swann's name is a reference to Proust's saga "Remembrance of Things Past". A "madeleine" is a pastry that figures prominently in the novels, and there is also a character named Swann. What is this movie about? It's about Bond solving a mystery by remembering his past.
- When Bond and Madeleine are waiting in the desert, Blofeld sends a car to pick them up, which Bond immediately recognizes as a 1948 Rolls Royce Silver Wraith. Bond is probably a gearhead who would be able to identify the car regardless, but he says it with such resignation that it's likely Blofeld chose the exact car his parents used to drive only to mess with Bond's head.
- How does Mr. Hinx show up on the train? He's using Spectre's access to British intelligence to track Bond via the smart blood they're unwittingly feeding.
- Spectre's tactics make complete sense going off of the idea that Spectre is an evolution/remnant of Quantum (the film offers equal amounts of evidence to this and Quantum being a part of Spectre). Quantum was a network of roughly equal-in-power Corrupt Corporate Executives and moderately high-ranking politicians. They were out to gain power and influence through manipulation and infiltration. Bond doesn't bring them down, but does expose most of their leadership, which met secretly in a public space all speaking English. After that, it seems Quantum became Darker and Edgier, becoming Spectre. Instead of semi-public figures of influence, its ranking members all appear to be career criminals (the kind of people who worked for the leaders of Quantum). Instead of semi-public meetings where everyone knows the same language, it's a heavily guarded secret meeting with translators and one figure above the others (perhaps one of the remaining Quantum higher ups). Instead of manipulating conflict and economies for gain, it's into human trafficking, international terrorism, and indiscriminate contract killings. And instead of infiltrating and cutting (biased to one side) deals with people in power, it's trying to force world powers to unintentionally give them information. It does seem that Spectre is Quantum's remnant and that the name is a Meaningful Rename.
- In the Mexico City scenes, there's a moment in the course of Bond's surveillance when he spots a man in a light-colored suit with his face partially concealed, and it seems to give him momentary pause. The combination of the out-of-place white suit, all the Day of the Dead/skull motifs, and the first act's theme of "the dead are alive" — is he being unpleasantly reminded of Raoul Silva?
- One of Spectre'S major businesses is human trafficking/sex slavery. Their former employee/contractor Raoul Silva's mistress Severine was a former sex slave in her backstory which perhaps suggests that he found her in the Macau side of the business Spectre was running.
- It doesn't work across the board, but a number of the plot holes stemming from Oberhauser's comments about the Arc Welding and The Man Behind the Man can be easily explained by being lies done to mess with James' head, something Franz is already happy to do in other dialogue. He's in full I Shall Taunt You mode.
- In Tangiers, Bond has trouble finding Mr. White's lair until he spots a rat crawling through a wall. Throughout Skyfall, what did Silva compare himself and Bond with? Rats. So, once again, Bond "rats out" another professional killer.
- Bond having to save Madeleine in the climax. His greatest failure was his inability to prevent Vesper's death. Now, the woman he's fallen in love with is in a very similar situation, but this time Bond has a chance to stop it. Basically Bond having to save Madeline ties in with Bond facing his past; this time he has a chance to undo his failure and save one of his loved ones, and keep his promise to Mr. White.
- Note also where he stares down Blofeld's helicopter, a room fairly high up in the face of the tiered building that looks like it was previously blown open from the inside — it's M's old office, and Bond finds Madeleine in a small adjoining room.
- The reason Bond recovers so effortlessly from the drill torture is that the drills actually corrected his miswired brain after the extreme physical turmoil he experienced at the beginning of Skyfall.
- Oberhauser mentions that he and Madeline met when she was a child, but she doesn't remember him. Much earlier, when they were on the train, Madeleine mentioned to Bond that as a kid, she once shot an assassin sent to kill her father. Considering his malice towards her seems to go beyond simply tormenting Bond, it's likely Oberhauser was the assassin that Madeline shot and that, just like with Bond, he's still carrying a grudge towards her over it even years later. With an Actor Allusion to their previous encounter in Nazi-occupied France as a bonus.
- Jossed as of No Time to Die; the man who came to kill her father was Lyutsifer Safin.
- The film's soundtrack is very similar to that of its predecessor. Which makes sense as (a) Thomas Newman composed both and (b) events of that film have an impact on this one. In particular, the final pieces of music. When heard in Skyfall, they accompanied a sad ending as Bond failed to save M. But in this film, they're revved up as Bond saves Madeleine, captures Blofeld, and walks away triumphantly.
- In Quantum of Solace, M's bodyguard Craig Mitchell tries to shoot her. It would appear that Spectre/Oberhauser/Silva/Quantum has indeed been trying to kill M for some time before finally succeeding with Silva.
- How convenient that while searching the abandoned MI6 building for Madeleine, Bond should end up right where she is, with just enough time to save her before the building collapses. It's all planned thanks to the whole thing being a sick game created by Blofled.
- This was stated before, but the reason how Blofeld knew Bond was at the meeting in Rome, how Hinx knew that Bond visted Mr. White, found Madeleine, and then later stalked the two in the train, and finally at the end, when Blofeld has Bond kidnapped, was all thanks to the smart blood put in earlier into Bond. Which Spectre had access to due to their infiltration within MI6.
- People have questioned what exactly Bond sees in Madeleine that leads him to leave his job and stay with her by the film's end. The answer is simple: she is someone who lives a normal life, which is exactly what Bond wants, seen when Moneypenny suggests this to him during the Rome car chase. Every other woman Bond has come across in his past three missions, barring Moneypenny, has always been connected to the spy business, mostly for the worse. Vesper Lynd was a British Treasury agent who easily fell in love with Bond - and was also a traitor working for Quantum. Camille Montes lost her family due to General Medrano, began a path of revenge to avenge their murders, and walked away from it emotionally damaged. Sévérine is a Macau sex slave rescued by Silva, who clearly has her in his sights; a fact that fatally proved to be true when he used her as a marksmanship target. And while a younger Madeleine did shoot an assassin trying to find her father, she chose to distance herself from her father's past crimes, working as a psychiatrist in the isolated Austrian alps. In other words, Bond and Madeleine are more alike than expected.
- There are three ways one can reconcile Silva apparently being an agent of Spectre, despite being entirely motivated by his personal vendetta against M.
- 1. Blofeld is either lying or exaggerating to mess with Bond's head.
- 2. Silva was associated with Spectre in a freelance capacity, and they simply gave him the financial backing and resources to act on his desire for vengeance.
- 3. Spectre has decided to take credit for Silva's actions after the fact, since, as detailed in one of the entries above, said actions benefitted them greatly.
- Right before Blofeld tortures Bond by drilling into his head, the description of what he intends to do and the long-term brain damage Bond will suffer is complete Artistic License – Biology. But since Blofeld is continuously trying to mess with Bond's head, the possibility he's making it up to add a psychological side to the torture make sense.
- Why would the DB 10's gadget controls be less integrated into the car than previous models? It's not finished yet. Q had installed the weapons and gear, but wasn't done with subtly hiding the controls inside the car. Plus, Bond stole it from the workshop, so it would make sense the guns wouldn't be loaded.
Fridge Horror
- The videotape labeled "Vesper Lynd Interrogation" that Bond finds in Tangiers. Enough said.
- The happy ending is a bit too similar to the ending of On Her Majesty's Secret Service for comfort.
