How Rogue Nation Pays Homage To The Original Mission: Impossible TV Pilot

The film franchise “Mission: Impossible” has lasted for almost 30 years now, and with the seven films of the property which will soon become eight at the time of the editorial staff (with the release of this summer “The Final Reckoning”), there is more than enough to catch up before May. When it comes to Rankings and summary “Mission: Impossible”You almost never see a key entry being included: the original television series that has launched everything (in its normal episodic or Even the film length form). This series took place for seven seasons and 171 episodes from 1966 to 1973, and this does not even count the series of renewals of 1988, which lasted 2 seasons alone. Obviously, there are a ton of impossible missions that precede the series of films, so why are they not discussed very often?

The uninformed answer is that the films have no connection with the television series, except for the name, some stylistic reports, etc. Beware of anyone who makes this assertion, however, because they have clearly forgotten the intrigue of “Mission: Impossible” by Brian de Palma in 1996, in which Jim Phelps (played by Peter Graves in the television series and Jon Voight in the film) plays a full and very controversial role (in particular among among Some actors of the television show “Mission: Impossible”). Beyond that, if it is certainly true that the films “Mission: Impossible” are not otherwise linked to the continuity of the television series in another major way, there are a certain number of elements and tributes to the show that arise in almost all the episodes of the film franchise.

Regarding the oldest tribute to the original series, Christopher McQuarrie beat everyone. In the first film “Mission” by Mcquarrie as a writer and director, “Rogue Nation” of 2015, he understands a moment that recalls the very first scene of “Mission: Impossible” never filmed. Not only is the scene a reference to the pilot episode of the series, but it is also an intelligent subversion of one of the basic moments “Mission: Impossible” seen in each episode and each film to date.

The very first episode of the television show “Mission: Impossible”, entitled “Pilot”, was written by the creator of the Bruce Geller series and directed by Bernard L. Kowalski. The episode does not waste time establishing what was going to become the format of the series (and, by extrapolation, the films), introducing the leader of the impossible mission force Dan Briggs (Steven Hill) while it receives a mission briefing in Extreme Secrecy. For this first briefing, Briggs visits which seems to be a wholesale warehouse, but treats it as a record store, making its coded request for a “special recording, collector series”. The disconcerted woman is quickly replaced by a man who seems to be in the arrangement, and he nods with an understanding while Briggs asks “Pevan in G, by Ernest Vaughan and the Pan-Symphonic orchestra, 1963.”

After receiving a disc under an office, Briggs is left alone in the office to listen to the disc in private. His briefing is actually on a groove in the middle of the disc; The outer part only contains music. Once the details of the IMF mission have been relayed, the voice of the dossier called “as usual, this recording will break down a minute after the breaking of the seal”. (The now classic “This message self-destrura in five seconds” would not appear in the series for another episode or two.)

For the co-scriptwriter and the director McQuarrie tribute to the origins of the series in “Rogue Nation”, he visited Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) a full-fledged record store in London called “The Vinyl Offer”. Once there, Hunt said to the employee of the record store on call (Hermione Corfield) that he is looking for a “rare” recording, and specifying that it is a jazz disc, the two describe the 1961 album “Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane”. As with Briggs, Hunt receives the file containing the briefing and it is requested to observe it in a private listening stand. Of course, that is the 21st century, the Tourne-Disque briefing contains a visual component as well as a visual component.

An additional tribute lies in the way the two scenes provide a little color with regard to the reputation of their respective agents. In “Pilot”, the voice of the file indicates that Briggs joins the IMF after a kind of leave, saying “I hope it is” Welcome Back “, Dan. It’s been a while.” In “Rogue Nation”, for his part, Hunt receives his first from several reminders on his disproportionate inheritance within the IMF by the employee of the record store, who points out to him that “it is really you” and wonders aloud if all the stories she heard about her could be true. In response, Hunt gives him only a sly smile.

In “Pilot”, the Briggs briefing takes place without a hitch. The agent learns the mission, selects his team and performs an impossible task with relative ease. However, in “Rogue Nation”, Hunt is not as lucky, discovering in the middle of the disk briefing as this whole affair was diverted by the evil union, a cabale of thug agents of various intelligence agencies which have taken on themselves to disturb and dismantle the world order for their own selfish purposes. The scene is an intelligent subversion of (literally) the constituent elements of all the franchise, the union intercepting and perverting the briefing of the mission. To add the insult to this injury, the employee of the record store is even cruelly killed before Hunt’s eyes while he finds himself trapped and gassed in the listening stand – the zero murderer other than the union chief, the former agent Mi6 Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), who had been in the store throughout the time.

With this scene, McQuarrie and the co -series Drew Pearce slyly withdraw a double tribute – not only to the initial origins of the franchise, but also to the tone and the themes defined by the first film “Mission: Impossible” and its previous consequences. Starting with the film by Palma, the franchise examined a long and long on all sides of the existence of an impossible mission force, an organization so secret that it can be too clandestine for its own good. Following the traitor actions of Jim Phelps, the IMF and those behind it questioned the loyalty of hunting many times. But while Hunt remained firm (except for the moments when his orders go against his true northern morality), the IMF has undergone a number of upheavals, betrayals, defections, losses and other seismic problems. The main of the philosophical questions of property is: how can such an organization continue to function ethically and can it continue to exist?

With this post-Main-Crédits scene in “Rogue Nation”, McQuarrie puts Hunt and the IMF to the test, and uses the long history of the franchise to really twist their screws. He even reveals that the employee of the record store is herself an IMF agent, or at least a kind of staff member, demonstrating how dangerous it can be for the strength even in this title, not to mention the Hunt’s propensity to jump on planes in the middle of the flaw. With “The Final Recking” on the horizon for Hunt (and perhaps the franchise “Mission: Impossible” itself), it goes without saying that Mcquarrie could return to the long history of the IMF even more, and all bets are extinct to know if hunting can alter this storm. To paraphrase Tom CruiseThis mission could indeed become much more impossible.