In the Bond movie “GoldenEye”, James Bond is accompanied by Alec Trevelyan, agent 006, to infiltrate a Soviet weapons facility in the beginning of the film. Alec is apparently shot and killed by General Ouromov.
Bond takes the opportunity to halve the timers on the bombs he’s set, and the base blows up just as he’s making his escape.
So, two questions:
My understanding is that Trevelyan knew by that time he was a Cossack and was in cahoots with the Russians during that mission and Ouromov wasn’t really going to kill him.
He was pissed off about the bombs because as far as James knew, he was still a colleague, and they had their escape plan which depended on the bomb going off after enough time passed, and by setting the bomb off early, James was betraying him to die.
He already had a plan to fake his own death right but was counting on the bombs going off at the right time? When the bombs went off early he still survived but his face got scarred up. The Russian General didn’t know he was a Cossack right or he would not have agreed to work with him? When Bond mentions it on the train he appears disgusted.
The entire “getting vengence for the repatriation of my Cossack parents” theme in Goldeneye was claearly an inclusion by a screenwriter intent on trying to interject some John le Carré-style intrigue into a particularly disjointed Bond film. Ourumov (not a Russian surname) was clearly already in league with Trevelyan (also not Russian but Welsh, apparently a cover identity somehow not uncovered during security review, or otherwise accepted because is just was, okay) and was going to fake his death and betray Bond because, reasons. I mean, this is a film with stolen stealth helicopters that can fly thousands of miles without refueling, a female Russian assassin whose favorite method is suffocation with thighs, and a secret Arecibo-size radio telescope hidden under a lake in Cuba because somehow they need it to communicate with a secret EMP satellite because a normal size moveable transmitter dish would not provide an interesting way to kill Sean Bean. This film doesn’t bear even a cusory examination of logic or coherency and Trevelyan presumably survives by tthe same mechanism that has Captain Phasma coming back to Star Wars films; he uses the plot holes to travel interdimensionally between pages of the script the same way Sam Neill does in Event Horizon.
The movie still makes more sense than Spectre, though.
Stranger
I thought Bond only changed the bomb timers after he saw Alec get shot. Alec was still scarred by the bombs exploding earlier than expected (and may well have blamed Bond for it), but it’s hardly Bond’s fault if he thought Alec was already dead.
Bond resets the timer on the device nearest him after Trevelyn, on his knees with Ouromov pointing a pistol at him, tells him, “Finish the job, James. Blow them all to hell!” The execution was obviously a put up job, although to what end is unclear.
Gods, this is a terrible movie. From the ‘Nineties stock incidental music, the even-for-the-era greenscreen effects, the clumsy attempts to call back to other, better films, to even the disappointing theme song by a usually dependable Tina Turner turning in a half-baked Shirley Bassey-esque theme song and the barely extant plot, this is just a bad film. The only thing that that barely redeems the movie is a hysterically over the top performance by Famke Janssen doing her best Natasha Fatale impression.
Stranger
There are things about it I liked. Nice to see the old Aston Martin again (and I was definitely smitten with the redhead riding shotgun), Q doesn’t have the stick nearly as far up his butt as usual, and there’s some great dialog in the scene where Bond meets Joe Don Baker’s character in Saint Petersburg.
…and Robbie Coltrane’s character, I really liked that guy. “You know him?” “I gave him the limp.”
This film is one H. Jon Benjamin impression away from being a live action version of Archer. ”Did he say ‘cock ass’? Lana, he said he’s a cock ass!”
Stranger
The film does have some positives… If you did have have to die wouldn’t you prefer for it to be suffocating between Famke Janssen’s thighs? I love the whole tank scene. Let’s also not forget the movie spawned one of the most enjoyable video games of the era.