Why didn't the machine affect Bond in Spectre?
In the newest Bond movie, Spectre, there is a scene where bond is hooked up to a torture machine. He is told that
the first action will damage his eyesight and the the second action will cause him to forget all the faces he knew.
Both these actions occurred, but
he still remembers everyone's face, and 5 minutes later he is making precision shots from a large distance.
So it seems like the torture device had literally no effect on him. Is there a reason for this, or is it just poor movie making?
Best Answer
I went and saw this again today and paid attention to the scene in question. My comment to the original question was close to, but not exactly correct (I had mentioned the drilling was random) so I'm posting as an answer while it is still fresh in my memory.
When Blofeld does the first drill he does mention that it will have the effect of
dulling vision as you mention
However, before he drills the second hole his words are roughly paraphrased as, "if the drill hits the blah blah, it will have the effect of"
losing recognition
The key word here being "if". That tells us that the machine, while likely fairly accurate, is not foolproof. And judging by the aftermath, we are led to draw the conclusion that they did not find the correct drill point.
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What did the drill do to James Bond?
Aiming to erase Bond's memory of faces, the villain correctly intends to drill into the lateral fusiform gyrus, an area of the brain responsible for recognizing faces, Cusimano said. But in practice, the drill was placed in the wrong area, aiming for the neck instead of the brain.How did Bond survive Spectre?
The worst scene in Spectre involves Christoph Waltz's Blofeld torturing Bond by sticking a robotic drill into his head, threatening to erase his memory. It's already terrible because Bond manages to escape, neurologically unscathed, without any explanation.Does James Bond have brain damage?
He is then captured by Blofeld who straps him to a chair and drills holes into his head causing brain damage then death. What we see for the rest of the film is the fantasy of Bond's dying mind, and all other Bond films are his same damaged brain making sense of his memories.How is Bond connected to Spectre?
Bond, M, and Q manage to stop Spectre, and Blofeld is captured by MI6 and sent to prison for his crimes. It's also revealed Bond was adopted by Blofeld's father after Bond was orphaned at a young age, making Blofeld resent him as he believed he was stealing his family's love and replacing him.Why Didn't You Stop Me?
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Answer 2
I believe this scene shows a fallacy which is not uncommon in action movies - the idea that the strength and fortitude will somehow always overcome adversity.
Blofeld tells Bond:
"When the needle hits the point right here in the brain, you can't recognize no one! You will not remember her because she will be another face on your grave."
Now, there are a few potential explanations of what happened next.
Blofeld made a mistake, or Bond got lucky
It's possible Blofeld missed the spot he was aiming for, or correctly targeted it and Bond was lucky and avoided the worst of the damage. This may be possible, but feels unlikely to be.
Bond adjusts (and saves) himself
Bond does noticeably twitch as the drill is coming towards him (understandably so). It's possible he changes the angle the drill is impacting him ever so slightly, and thus avoids it hitting him in the exact spot it needed to for Blofeld's plan to work. Again, this is possible, but feels a little unlikely to me.
Bond's strength and desire to keep his memories overcome the pain
This is the least logical of the options, and yet I also think it's the most likely. We often see in action films our heroes overcoming things they really shouldn't be able to overcome. As the drill was going in, he looked into Madeleine's eyes and focused on remembering her - and by doing so was able to find the strength to overcome what was happening to him.
I believe this is the most likely option. Of course, another way to phrase this might be to simply call it a movie mistake. After all, you can't overcome brain damage by a brain drill via mental fortitude. But given the lack of other explanation, it seems the macho man Bond theory is the best one (in my view at least).
It is worth considering, as a side note, that the entire brain drill scene isn't exactly scientifically accurate. To quote from Dr. Cusimano:
"Aiming to erase Bond's memory of faces, the villain correctly identified the lateral fusiform gyrus as an area of the brain responsible for recognizing faces...But in practice, the drill was placed in the wrong area, where it likely would have triggered a stroke or massive hemorrhage."
Given the scientific inaccuracy of the scene, I'm hesitant to read too much into Blofeld's mistakes, or Bond's adjustments as theories, and instead I think his strength and desire are the most likely.
(Of course, a small part of the Internet has argued that everything that happened after the brain drill entered his skull was fantasy. I certainly don't believe that, but will leave it here for a reading!)
Answer 3
It did
Everything from the time that the second drill went into his brain was the imagination, hallucination, delusion of a brain-damaged man whose brain kept getting drilled. Bond made the best of it by imagining all sorts of things. Swann was just sitting and watching the man who she saw give her father a gun to kill himself. But Bond fantasized that she suddenly, after two drills, got up and said she loved him, and saved the day with the perfectly timed exploding watch throw. Bond was able to make a sniper shot from two hundred meters away with machine gun. They just don't have that sort of accuracy. Meanwhile, Bond got another skull drill. And another. And another...
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