8 replies to this topic

[bondfisher007]

Have his men shoot 007 with a dart gun instead of just killing him? He put him in an helicopter to explode him but his men could have shot him for real in the abandoned park.

[Guy Haines]

Indeed. Since Bond was meeting a man who was listed as dead anyway - and no one, not even Zukovsky, had actually seen "Janus" - who would be able to connect Bond's sudden death to Trevelyan? Put the dart gun/helicopter plan to get rid of Bond down to the typical Bond villain's tendency never to do the straightforward and obvious (i.e. shoot him) when the overly elaborate method of execution is available. It is a tendency mercilessly sent up in the Austin Powers films.

Of course in other Bond villains - those who had never encountered 007 before - such a tendency might be excusable. But what is the former 006's excuse? He's supposed to know Bond better than Bond himself. He would know that such ludicrously complicated methods of trying to bump him off just don't work! Presumably he never bothered to read 007's post mission reports when he himself was still a Double-0.

(and by the way, he does it twice. As well as the helicopter, he traps Bond and Natalya in that train, with another bomb primed to go off. He never learns does he, that Alec Trevelyan. )

[Mr_Wint]

I guess 006 had to get rid of both Bond and the helicopter. Maybe it was an attempt to blame everything on Bond and Natalya... assuming that someone could identify the bodies after the explosion.

[bondfisher007]

He guess 006 had to get rid of both Bond and the helicopter. Maybe it was an attempt to blame everything on Bond and Natalya... assuming that someone could identify the bodies after the explosion.

thank you. that makes a lot of sense. can you please explain to me the beginning of the film? i don't understand how orumov blank gun killed a soldier and why he wants to let bond live?

[Guy Haines]

He guess 006 had to get rid of both Bond and the helicopter. Maybe it was an attempt to blame everything on Bond and Natalya... assuming that someone could identify the bodies after the explosion.

thank you. that makes a lot of sense. can you please explain to me the beginning of the film? i don't understand how orumov blank gun killed a soldier and why he wants to let bond live?

Destroying the helicopter with Bond and Natalya in it would be convenient, certainly, but not essential. There was nothing to link them to the helicopter theft - Bond is sent to Russia to find out why it was stolen, why the first GoldenEye satellite was activated, and what Ouromov has to do with it. Trevelyan could have disposed of 007, the leading lady, and the helicopter separately. To be blunt, the helicopter explosion was most likely included because there came a moment in the movie for a "bump" - an exciting action scene.

You have spotted something, though, in the pre title credits scene. How did Ouromov manage to execute one of his own troops but fire a blank at 006 with the same pistol? It isn't even like the scene in Die Hard II when the so called anti-terrorist commandos suddenly change their ammunition so that they end up firing blanks at the terrorists that they are actually in league with. As to why he wants Bond to live - a guess, but perhaps the whole put up job of the destruction on the nerve gas factory was based on an assumption that 006 (who was, presumably, using this mission to defect) would be able to sabotage the assignment, leaving Bond at the mercy of Ouromov and his troops, who would then be able to take a prize catch - 007 no less - into custody to interrogate him.

The idea of a former double 0 agent being the villain was a good one, and given the track record of the real life MI6 when it came to defections it had some basis in the real world. It was just rather clumsily executed in GE.

[Vauxhall]

Have his men shoot 007 with a dart gun instead of just killing him? He put him in an helicopter to explode him but his men could have shot him for real in the abandoned park.

James Bond dying halfway through would have ruined the movie.

[DR76]

Of course in other Bond villains - those who had never encountered 007 before - such a tendency might be excusable.

Hmmm . . . I don't think so.

[Guy Haines]

Of course in other Bond villains - those who had never encountered 007 before - such a tendency might be excusable.

Hmmm . . . I don't think so.

Perhaps I should have said "understandable". Although after all those years (decades) of taking on and defeating villains, word might have filtered through to potential adversaries that complicated methods of execution tend not to work on Bond. It ought to be obvious, also, to any world threatening billionaire megalomaniac that at some point during his or her evil plan, 007 will turn up and try to ruin it.

I think the problem is that not one of Bond's enemies has done much research on the man. Perhaps they should consult the works of Ian Fleming, or even go and see a Bond movie!

[Mr. Blofeld]

The original GoldenEye screenplay, by Michael France, does it much more understandably; Bond actually sees Trevelyan defect, and he was supposed to die (along with two other 00s) after MI6 learned that Trevelyan had been "captured" -- ther presence would assure the Russians of the credibility of Trevelyan's information and the legitimacy of his defection.

There also was a scene where Trevelyan reprimands one of his henchmen for not using more reliable people in preventing Bond from being on a train Trevelyan was set on destroying due to one of its passengers, the designer of the train, being one of several Russian scientists his men were eliminating -- if Bond had not been there, the plan might have succeeded. It's a novel scene, and a nice throwback to the days of Dawson-Blofeld.