why does'nt James Bond ever battle Spectre or Blofeld anymore?

all villians seem to pale.

It's all about who has legal rights for SPECTRE and Blofeld and stem from the original story for "Thunderball" penned as a screenplay long before Fleming published it as a novel.

The lawsuit (well explained in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderball#The_controversy_over_the_novel)) allowed producers Brocolli and Saltzman to use SPECTRE and Blofeld for 10 years after which the rights reverted to Kevin McClory (a contributor to the original "Thunderball" screenplay) together with the right to remake "Thunderball" - which he did ("Never Say Never Again").

And that's why you don't see SPECTRE or Blofeld in any of the more recent James Bond movies.

Jim

Wasn't Blofeld killed off in For your eyes only? Dropped his butt down a smokestack...

It wouldn't be TOO hard for the creators to come up with another organization and newer interesting villains...I.E. Jaws and Oddjob.

Wasn't Blofeld killed off in For your eyes only? Dropped his butt down a smokestack...

That character was never identified as Blofeld but it was symbolic of the fact that Broccoli and Saltzman couldn't use Blofeld in any further movies.

Jim

That character was never identified as Blofeld but it was symbolic of the fact that Broccoli and Saltzman couldn't use Blofeld in any further movies.

Jim

Saltzman had been bought out before SPY, several years before FYEO.

Actually, Broccoli thought he COULD use SPECTRE in SPY, which is why Roger Moore mentioned that SPECTRE was going to be back on a Merv Griffin show in 76. But McClory successfully shouted them down that time, which is how Blofeld morphed into Stromberg. (there was another take on SPECTRE for SPY in script form as well, with the old guard of SPECTRE cut down by young baddies who just take over the operation, but that also couldn't be done due to McClory.)

Man I wish McClory had been able to get his project going in the late 70s instead of having to wait and get Schwartzman involved for NSNA. Would have been a better project and would have been better timing. SPECTRE taking over the statue of liberty was a great bit in their first script of what became NSNA.

and so Mr McClory had all those years of sucess with his rights to Spectre!


what was the best Bond Villian since Spectre?

So the lawyers did what Bond couldn't. Kill off Spectre.
They're just a shadow of what they were.

Yeah, they're prety much reduced to robbing shopping malls and funding VH1 reality shows.

Spectre changed it's name to Viacom? That would explain UPN. ;)