Talk:Thunderball (novel)

Lotto Thunderball

Shouldn't There be a page for the Lotto Thunderball as well? - ?

• If you feel that there should be one, and if you feel that this doesn't violate any WP-standards, why don't you create an article for previous mentioned lotto? :p SoothingR 07:54, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

S.P.E.C.T.R.E. in the novel

I'm conflicted on this line

The novel features the first and last appearance in the Bond books of S.P.E.C.T.R.E., and the first of Bond's greatest enemy, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, although 007 does not meet the man in this book;

This is slightly true, but at the same time false. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, it seemed to me that Bond felt Blofeld was attempting to recreate SPECTRE. He even stated that many of the workings going on at Piz Gloria were SPECTRE-like, however, we technically never see SPECTRE like we did in Thunderball, beyond Irma Bunt. Perhaps this should be restated? K1Bond007 03:37, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

I think it needs to be rephrased. Technically it is the only FLEMING Bond in which SPECTRE as a full entity is depicted. By OHMSS and YOLT it is stated that SPECTRE as an organization had disbanded, though Blofeld is trying to recreate it. Gardner's books For Special Services and one other (I forget which - Role of Honor, I think) explicitly feature a new SPECTRE, so based on that alone the original statement is incorrect. 23skidoo 14:42, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Blofeld's cat

I've deleted the claim that McClory owns the rights to the use of Blofeld's cat as it seems unlikely for the following reasons:

• Blofeld doesn't have a cat in the books - it was introduced in the film of From Russia With Love.
• The cat is present in the sequence at the start of For Your Eyes Only when an unnamed blad villain is killed off as EON's two fingers up to McClory. I doubt they would have been able to use the cat if it was in McClory's copyright as it would make the character very clearly Blofeld as described in the original drafts and novel.

Timrollpickering 03:40, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

So long as there isn't some (official) source that explicitly says McClory won the rights to the cat, I have no objection to the change. It could be argued that if McClory did have the rights to the cat he might have taken the Austin Powers people to task since their Blofeld parody, Dr. Evil, initially had a similar cat, too. Personally, I've always been curious how come McClory never caused problems for the productions of You Only Live Twice, OHMSS and Diamonds which featured Blofeld yet he supposedly raised Cain when Spy Who Loved Me planned to use the character... 23skidoo 04:28, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Variety made the claim about the Cat [1]. They claim it was part of the 1963 settlement, which is possible. From Russia With Love (movie) did have a cat, but the screenplay to Thunderball was technically written first by Maibaum who later wrote From Russia With Love. I don't know what Maibaum used as source material - I was under the impression the novel only for the first draft, but if Blofeld had a cat and it was in one of those 9 (I've seen the number as high as 10) outlines or screen treatments then it is indeed owned by McClory. The part about the cat should be referenced, but considering Variety actually reported this it should be listed. There are far more odd things that McClory claims ownership of including the Sicilian mob and use of the Bahamas in a storyline etc. It's really never been clear what McClory has and doesn't have when concerning the film rights.

As for why McClory didn't do anything about Blofeld for YOLT, OHMSS and DAF, I've never understood for sure. I don't think he could have done anything about YOLT and OHMSS to be honest. Blofeld was in those novels, and the film rights to those novels are owned by Danjaq and UA. Admittingly, I'm not to sure how film rights work for a case such as this. Casino Royale (the spoof) was able to use "James Bond" because they owned the rights to that book, so is this not feasible? Another thought is that the use of Blofeld may have been included in the 10 year agreement between McClory and EON - which concluded in 1975. It was about this time that McClory began work on his own James Bond stuff - or perhaps at this point he finally felt that he needed to protect his IP since he was attempting start his own series. I'll attempt to look into this last part more, perhaps consider contacting John Cork if I can. K1Bond007 05:13, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

I was always under the impression that EON considered SPECTRE et al to be completely under their ownership until the mid 1970s when McClory first brought suit. If EON did indeed have the film rights to the novel of Thunderball for ten years then presumably all elements in it would have come under their control at the time of the earlier films and so no-one needed to notice the difference. Timrollpickering 12:32, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

I've seen this a number of times. This is most likely true. K1Bond007 20:59, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

Number 1 vs. Number 2

I see that you are treating the writeup as the novel, not the movie and that is fine, but maybe there should be a reference to Largo being Number 2 in the movie at some point in the article to clear this up. 20:59, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

There already is in the plot summary of the film:

Once in control of the plane, the henchman lands it in the middle of the ocean near the Bahamas where Emilio Largo (number two in S.P.E.C.T.R.E.) and his men hide the plane from any sort of overhead reconnaissance looking for it. Additionally, the man posing as the NATO observer is killed by Largo's men after asking for more money prior to the hijacking.

Timrollpickering 23:25, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I just can't turn two = 2... My bad 23:58, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Lack of clarity

To quote: "Additionally, to date, Thunderball is the only James Bond film to rank #1 on the chart." Which chart is that? CalJW 01:33, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

By Gross. K1Bond007 03:06, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Did the rebreather exist?

From the gadgets section:

Lastly, Bond was given a "rebreather", which was a small scuba device that can be carried unnoticed and, when used, provides a few minutes of air in underwater emergencies. After the film's release there was some confusion as to whether a "rebreather" of this size actually existed and worked, since most of Bond's gadgets (at the time), while possibly implausible, were somewhat based on real gadgets. The rebreather would appear again in a couple future Bond films, most notably Die Another Day and would also possibly be the inspiration for other similar devices found in other movies such as Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

The article basically says "people asked such and such question," but doesn't actually ANSWER the question referenced! I'm still curious, does such a device exist? Then or now? My curiosity has been piqued, but i have no answer. Does somebody know? Please assist. – Fudoreaper 18:22, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

It did not exist in 1965, I can answer that. Whether it exists now, I don't know. There was a special on the History Channel about James Bond gadgets (I believe it was Modern Marvels) and they featured some background information on the device and had an interview with the designer (Ken Adam, I believe) and said it never existed and that he had to explain this to a number of business' and militaries (specifically the Royal Navy and I think the U.S. military). I'm sure this is covered on the Thunderball DVD too. K1Bond007 18:59, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, K1Bond007. I see that the article has now been updated with that info. Cheers. – Fudoreaper 20:57, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

McClory's role

The narrative says McClory took on executive producer role, and that Broccoli and Saltzman weren't credited as producers. IMDB has McClory as producer, and Broccoli and Saltzman as uncredited producers. I think we should clarify. -- Beardo 05:21, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe the line you were referring to was redundant (i.e., second mention). I cleaned it up a bit. Should be better. K1Bond007 05:43, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Splitting the article

• I oppose splitting the article as it would require removing it from FA status. I also do not want to see the other Bond novel articles split, either. 23skidoo 12:46, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

• I don't know if I support splitting all the Bond novels from films (I lean towards 'no'), but for this one specifically, I agree with 23skidoo. It's a featured article. Splitting would void that and it really hasn't changed all that much since becoming one and it's not like the plot of the film is really all that different from the novel. This goes for just about all of them. K1Bond007 16:50, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

• • That being all very well, Bond articles seem to be a law unto themselves. Films and Books are seperate media, so they warrant seperate pages. For instance: Revenge of the Sith. Take a look at that, and you'll no what I mean. And this being a FA... well, I think it's treading on thin ice. For starters, it's refs are lacking, but that's another thing. ...._(Complain)^{(Let us to it pell-mell)} 04:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

• As a champion of each work of art getting its own article, I don't see why the Bond articles generally should be treated differently from other film & book combo articles (which are in the process of being evaluated for splitting). Even if the film differs very little from the novel, it's still a separate entity. (Plus, there are those who are interested in only the books or only the films, although that's a minor issue.) Last but not least, why would separating the film and book elements of this article "void" its FA status? Just curious. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 00:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • It would certainly have to have major overhauls done to justify being a featured article. I'm not totally against the idea, it's just not a simple copy and pasting job that can be done all at once. I am considering it. K1Bond007 03:06, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

• Split and expanded. K1Bond007 06:47, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
• Split, that's the standard and for good reason. Fear of losing FA status isn't a valid reason, if this entry is good enough to be featured it would still be good when the film part is split. --TheTruthiness 17:41, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
  • It's already been split. K1Bond007 18:16, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
    • And, to be honest, it's looking better than ever. Good job K1Bond 007. ...._(Complain)^{(Let us to it pell-mell)} 00:10, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
      • Ok, I was pointed to this by another user when I commented about splitting another Bond novel/movie article. Is someone not splitting the other ones as well? --TheTruthiness 06:14, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
        • It'll happen, eventually. I've been busy. K1Bond007 00:46, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
          • Afraid that's not good enough, if you don't have it completed in 30 minutes...um...it's free? --TheTruthiness 02:04, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

            • ) 03:38, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Bond Battle Royale section

Should not the majority if not all of the "Bond Battle Royale" section belong in the film article / articles. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 08:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

All of it has to do with the film rights to this book and the screenplays that were written before it as told in the preceding section. Why not keep it together? K1Bond007 17:20, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Lit reviews

Below is a piece cut&pasted from the article. While this would be very valuable to the article it should have a citation (for the quotes in accordance with Wikipedia:Citing sources). My google search could not confirm these, so if anyone can add to the literature reviews (either citing these or adding new reviews) please do so and place it back in the article. Maintain 02:37, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Not all reviews were praise, however. The political magazine Time and Tide wrote, "The fact that he has made such a dull book out of such a good idea leaves me no doubt that Bond must go." Even Fleming himself referred to Thunderball as one of his lesser books once warning his publishers that he had "run out of puff and zest," and later stating that his last five novels (beginning with Thunderball) were not as good as his first seven.