I am watching the movie right now and it just hit me. Bond and Blofeld met in You Only Live Twice. How in the world did Blofeld not recognize Bond when they first met?
Amazing the things you catch as you watch a movie again and again.
Blofeld is supposed to recognize Bond 'cause he already met him in YOLT.
He doesn't, but IMHO it's Ok because we're having 2 different actors there (Savalas and Lazenby Vs Connery and Pleasance). So the matter is not that obvious.
If Connery would have returned, the sequence would have been very weird.
He wouldn't necessarily recognise him as he was disguised as sir Hilary bray. I admit the disguise was not that comprehensive (a pair of glasses and a deer stalker hat). He was sir Hilary for a large portion of the film and I think if the producers had made him too disguised it would have detracted from Lazenby in his performance of Bond.
shareIt's because the film version of OHMSS was faithfully following its source novel where Bond and Blofeld have never met before while YOLT did not faithfully follow its source novel. It's easy to argue that OHMSS is actually a sequel to Thunderball rather than YOLT because of this.
shareYes and no.
By the end of Thunderball, Bond is still chasing/being chased by SPECTRE. However he is unaware of the supreme commanders name.
Blofeld introduces himself by full name in YOLT, and that's the name Bond pursues in OHMSS.
The only real inconsistency between OHMSS and YOLT is Blofeld "not recognizing" Bond.
But I always assumed Blofeld had Bond pegged from the start. At no point does Blofeld seem convinced of Bond's "disguise".
And honestly, if Superman talk to Lex Luthor as Clark Kent, Bond can talk to Blofeld as Sir Hillary lol
I rationalize all this in my head another way:
Bond was in disguise as a Japanese man at the end of YOLT, even by the time Blofeld has caught him infiltrating the volcano base. Yes, I know that the "disguise" is lame, but from a cinematic perspective, there was no way Connery was going to walk around so covered in latex or prosthetics as to be truly unrecognizable--to say nothing of how ridiculous or even insulting that would be (more so than even what we get). So I just pretend that Bond is in a better disguise than what we actually see. There is no scene in YOLT that shows Blofeld goes to the trouble of seeing what Bond looks like under his Japanese look (such as it is; again, I just pretend that Bond is better-disguised than what we get in the movie)--and if Blofeld was intending to kill Bond at the volcano, there would be no reason for him to worry about what Bond looks like out of disguise (ie. "oh, I better take his makeup off and remove all his disguise cuz he might escape later and show up in another disguise trying to infiltrate my next base...").
So if Blofeld, by OHMSS, has had radical plastic surgery to remove his scar, alter his appearance significantly...earlobes off too, of course--but if a guy looking like Donald Pleasence altered himself to look like a Telly Savalas, and that villain then met a guy who he had last seen done up as a Japanese man but then who was dressed up as a nerd like Hillary Bray, then who is going to recognize whom??!! I know it all sounds silly--and I don't really need all this to enjoy these films; I enjoy them regardless--but that's where I land when it comes to all this. Blofeld, in the OHMSS novel, has had radical appearance-altering surgery, so that can be applied to the film. And although I don't think it's necessary to assume that Blofeld knows who Bond is the instant he sets foot at Piz Gloria, it is fair to assume that Blofeld, smart fellow, at least gets suspicious of Bond--due to some of Bond's impromptu slip-ups, yes--but maybe also because the Japanese-man disguise turned into Hillary Bray disguise wears a bit thin.
I think he did was just playing along with him up to a certain point
shareIt's because the film version of OHMSS was faithfully following its source novel where Bond and Blofeld have never met before while YOLT did not faithfully follow its source novel. It's easy to argue that OHMSS is actually a sequel to Thunderball rather than YOLT because of this.
In the movie, M states that it's been two years since the events of You Only Live Twice.
shareI keep seeing people trying to rationalize how Blofeld wouldn't recognize Bond:
-"Bond was disguised as a Japanese man in YOLT": Doesn't matter. When he met Blofeld in YOLT he was not in any disguise at all.
-"Bond was disguised as Hilary Bray in OHMSS": Same as above. Wasn't even wearing his glasses.
-"Blofeld knew it was Bond, he was just playing along": That doesn't explain why Bond would be trying to pass himself off as another guy in the first place.
In OHMSS the two are clearly meeting for the first time. It's just a straight up discontinuity.
Bigger issue is Blofeld in the next movie suddenly has hair, and no issues with his neck.
Yet in For Your Eyes Only he has a neck brace and is in a wheelchair.
Continuity was not well planned in the Bond Films.
Exactly, which is why I watch them as stand-alone movies rather than as a multi movie story arc. Or if I do it's by cherry picking the movies I think work best together and watching them what seems the best sequence. I couldn't care less if OHMSS doesn't match up with YOLT, it's a great Bond movie in its own right and it connects well with other movies like FYEO and LTK.
sharePerhaps the films are not set in the order they came out? I suggest the following timeline:
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
Diamonds are Forever (Bond is still in Japan, looking for Blofeld)
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
For Your Eyes Only (Bond is mourning Tracy and Blofeld is still wearing his neck brace)
In this case continuity is OK - Bond harmed Blofeld very bad in Diamonds Are Forever.
shareYet in For Your Eyes Only he has a neck brace and is in a wheelchair.I think that was probably due to his fate at the end of Diamonds Are Forever. share
There's no continuity in the Bond movies prior to Casino Royal. People may want to believe there is but there is not
shareI've always considered each actor as a sort of re-boot of the series. Each actor's gig is only loosely connected to the other ones. Each actor's Bond had their own Casino Royale adventure appropriately set in their era, etc but we just didn't get to see a film version of it, except for Craig's.
That makes it easier to accept a Bond who never ages and is up-to-date with technology, fashions, cars, etc. And, it does away with the mental gymnastics some fans go through to explain the different Bonds, particularly that goofball theory that 007/Bond is a assumed identity that a series of new agents take. It also helps to explain the inconsistencies between movies from different Bonds.
OHMSS was meant to be the first of a series of films of Lazenby, but that went by the wayside. Yes, I know that the producers probably weren't thinking of it as a re-boot back then -- it's a much more recent concept. You get the idea though. It's just easier for me to think of it that way.