History Headscratchers / GoldenEye

** Speaking of Trevelyan's plan, why did it take ho so long to execute it after stealing the Goldeneye? After the event at Severnaya, he obtained Boris, he had the satellite, yet he doesn't do anything with them until after Bond has been deployed to Russia and uncovers the plot. Why wait? Why not execute the plan as soon as possible?

** Self-defence or otherwise, Bond's presence in the Soviet Union during the Cold War and then ''gunning down rank-and-file soldiers'' should have resulted in serious international consequences. The UK government cannot extend his license to kill to foreign nations, so by covering for him, they are sanctioning those killings. What do they call that? An '''assassination'''. A declaration of war by default. Bond's actions here (and in a couple of other movies, but especially here) quite possibly set off WorldWarThree. Not to mention that he was possibly held accountable for the death of Mishkin, the ''Soviet Defence Minister''.

** Basically, RuleOfCool. It's a James Bond film. They're going for "holy shit this is an awesome secret base for spy KillSat purposes".

** Onatopp is wearing the gun on her back, slung around her shoulder. To get it into a position where he was able to get it off her, aim it, and shoot her anywhere (never mind in the face), Bond would have to fight her for it. In the circumstances the movie set up, it actually ''is'' quicker and simpler for him to just hook her up to the cable, shoot the helicopter, and see what happens next.

[[folder: Xenia Death Redux]]
* RuleOfCool aside, why didn't Bond just shoot Xenia right in the face rather than attaching the cable to her, then shooting down the helicopter and indirectly killing her (which seems a lot harder, plus how could have have predicted the helicopter would land in just the right place for this to work?)

[[/folder]]

* When Orumov and Natalya board Trevelyan's missile train, Trevelyan acts as though he is meeting Natalya for the first time. But Natalya was captured by Janus before (by Boris and Xenia at the church) and the next thing we know is that she was placed, along with Bond, in the Tiger helicopter death trap in Statue Park. Why would Trevelyan be ignorant of Natalya's existence and forego trying to enslave her then?
** He ''is'' meeting her for the first time. Boris and Xenia handled the abduction of Natalya; he didn't personally load Bond or her into the Tiger, but had some mooks do it. That doesn't mean that he is ignorant of her existence either though- he just didn't bother dealing with her because he has people for that. It's only when he is right in front of her (and realises that now she has met Bond and is yet another "Bond girl") that he starts getting sex-slavey ideas.

[[folder: Natalya Ventilation]]

*** No, it is a women being shot, shocked and dying. That's how Xenia "knows" that she killed someone in the first place. Otherwise, for all she knew there really was someone up there but they could have crawled away to any part of the shaft already.
*** It clearly isn't, though. We see Ouromov glance to the kitchen after Xenia shoots, and her looking/sounding like the cat that got the canary; the sound is her gasping like she's getting off - she just thinks she's killed someone and isn't thorough enough to check.

* So, the Manticore yacht is leased by a front for the Janus crime syndicate, but was the guy who attacked Bond a murderous thug or was he just some random ObliviouslyEvil employee of the front who has no idea he was working for a criminal organization and was simply attacking an intruder who was breaking and entering into the ship (meaning Bond beat up and possibly killed an innocent man)? Ditto for the guy in the sauna when James is fighting / being sexually assaulted by Onatopp- is he working with her, or did he think Bond was attacking (raping?) ''her'' (and got smacked in the face with a metal bucket for it)? And lets not get started on the countless Russian soldiers he guns down escaping the Defence Ministry, none of whom had ''anything'' to do with the villains. These were all cases of self-defence yes, but still- Bonds mantra of "those who I kill are themselves killers" is ''really'' stretched to it's limit here.
** Well, you said it yourself; most of these are fairly clear-cut cases of self-defence or similar 'in-the-line-of-duty' matters, to be entirely fair to him. It's not like Bond's going out of his way to hurt or murder clearly innocent people, they're all presented fairly clearly as either soldiers out to kill him or rather sketchy thugs involved on some level with a major criminal enterprise out to get him. As for Sauna Guy, given that Xenia is both one of Janus's top lieutenants and is trying to assassinate Bond / lure him into a trap, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if there was at least one bodyguard posted as back-up and to prevent any hapless civilians from interfering; in short, he's probably a bad guy as well.

* The opening sequence makes no sense whatsoever - if the intention is simply to have [[spoiler:006 defect, why slaughter so many Russian soldiers to do so? Why couldn't he just shoot Bond when he had a gun pointed at him when the latter first entered the facility?]]
** Trevelyan was ''already'' the BigBad before the intro. His basic motive was that his parents, Lienz Cossacks, were indirectly 'murdered' by the USSR (his father committed suicide after killing his mother), and he believed the British let this happen. Trevelyan was consumed with hate for the United Kingdom. He was pretty much forced into [=MI6=] by the British government despite Russian blood, as they didn't think he'd remember. [[CaptainObvious He did]]. Trevelyan had to play along with [=MI6=] despite hating it. If he had killed Bond and openly defected, it would have counted as high treason. The British Government could have captured him and imprisoned him for life. He couldn't take that risk, so, as the note below states, he wanted to identify as Killed In Action to prevent suspicion. Of course, he was a giant ChekhovsGun, so it was kind of inevitable he was the villain.
** 006 wanted to be confirmed as KIA. Who suspects a dead man?
** TruthInTelevision: the USSR often displayed a very, VERY frightening willingness to expend dozens if not hundreds of its servicemen in order to cover up ONE defection. For the KGB and GRU, a few dozen dead soldiers and scientists in a burned out husk of a weapons plant that was manufacturing a weapon they could literally not use unless all the gloves came off would have been well worth it to obtain one defector of high standing in [=MI6=] or another major Western intelligence organization with fresh intelligence and knowledge about how the organization worked.
*** This also becomes an example of fridge brilliance when it's said that Ourumov sees himself as the next "iron man of Russia". Even this early in the timeline he was cultivating a bloodthirsty reputation, willing to expend men to meet his goals. In fact this setup might have even been an excuse to rack up some more bodies to cement his reputation.
** Worth noting that aside from the ones we see Bond and Trevelyan shoot, we don't know how many people were still in the facility when it was destroyed. They could have been evacuating the bulk of the staff during the final confrontation. But ultimately, as others have said, this is the USSR. They had a huge population to begin with; it was a central part of their military strategy. A few dead soldiers / technicians can be easily replaced.

** He'd only really need the first bullet in the chamber to be a blank for the effect. He makes sure to load a blank round into the chamber, and then the rest of the bullets in the magazine can be live rounds and no one's the wiser.

* A related matter: Why did 006 hate Bond so personally? Yeah, Bond represented the British government that he hates, but 006 keeps mentioning the 3 minutes that Bond switches the bomb to. However, Bond only changes the timers to 3 minutes *after* 006 is captured *and* after 006 goads him to. And then Ourimov "executes" him, giving Bond no reason to assume that 006 is still alive and needing rescue.
** It is pretty easy to establish that Trevelyan isn't running on all gears by the time of Goldeneye, and so probably isn't thinking that rationally. However, it probably boils down to a combination of Bond's undying loyalty.

** If we consider the Trevelyan/Bond duality, then it makes so much sense. Bond is the antithesis of Trevelyan: unswervingly loyal, noble, proud in his service. Trevelyan is the complete reverse, a man with no morals whatsoever, completely obsessed with revenge. The money is just a sweetener for him. In effect, Bond is everything Trevelyan despises about Britain, right down to the hypocrisy: Bond halving the countdown time, always taking time out to screw women, and always failing to protect them. He's a symbol of Britain to him, which is why he goes out of his way to kill him.

** Trevelyan has nursed a grudge over the death of his parents that has seen him enact a complex long game to revert the entire United Kingdom "back to the stone age" in response. Holding disproportionate and kind of irrational grudges is kind of his thing, so given that for whatever reason James Bond is directly responsible for ''half of Trevelyan's face being burnt off'', is it any ''wonder'' that Trevelyan might be a bit pissed and hold a disproportionate and kind of irrational grudge?

** Speaking of Trevelyan's plan, why did it take ho so long to execute it after stealing the Goldeneye? After the event at Severnya he had Boris, he had the satellite, yet he doesn't do anything with them until after Bond has been deployed to Russia and uncovers the plot. Why wait? Why not execute the plan as soon as possible?

** They explicitly were NOT killed by Stalin. His parents escaped only for his father to snap and kill both himself and his wife in a case of murder-suicide because he could not live with it. [[WildMassGuessing And a few fanfics have proposed the idea]] that while it is implied that he was orphaned shortly after Lienz, he was actually orphaned quite a bit later (possibly even decades after the war) as his father fought a losing battle with his latent guilt until he finally lost it.

** At that point he's clearly flustered, panicking a bit about being found out, and not really thinking clearly. The plan to frame Bond was an afterthought after he realised that he'd kind of dug himself in a hole. Besides which, it's a James Bond movie. The bad guy's ''never'' just gonna shoot Bond in the head and have done with it, deal with it and move on.

*** In-universe, he was pretty much winging it by that point so while it wasn't a very good plan, it wasn't completely terrible either. Out of universe, well if he was capable of showing truly good judgment he wouldn't a Bond Villain would he?
*** The Walther wasn't loaded when Bond got it back - Ourumov picked it up, shot the guard and Mishkin, and then popped the clip and removed the remaining bullets. Ourumov tossed the now-empty gun into Bond's hands (for the fingerprints) and THEN came up with the shot-while-trying-to-escape plan. So Ourumov calls for the guards to help with the cover story: he calls for the guards like Bond is trying to escape, but Ourumov planned to kill Bond right there in the cell (so the arriving guards see Ourumov as a hero who killed an extremely dangerous pain-in-the-ass enemy). Ourumov never wanted Bond to leave that cell alive but, Bond being Bond...
*** The defense minister was already leaning toward suspecting Ourumov was a traitor and believing Bond's story. At minimum, Ourumov would have been under surveillance from this moment on, limiting his freedom to act. He possibly would have been relieved and arrested. Killing Bond in custody or "trying to escape" would only make the minister more suspicious.

** One could argue that while he knows she was involved in the death of the Admiral and the theft of the helicopter, he doesn't know how dangerous she actually is - and seeing his expression once she gets on top of him at last, it's quite likely he was unaware of her MurderousThighs - plus it's along the same lines as Bond in Thunderball knowing that Fiona Volpe is a SPECTRE operative but still having sex with her; Also, in some respects, Bond is seduced by these women and believes he can handle them, only to be proven wrong. Both Volpe and Onatopp essentially use him for sex, only in the latter instance, Xenia doesn't even need to make love to him.. So, yeah. Basically, she seduces him. Watch the scene and after a point, Bond keeps going for the gun, but Xenia actively stops him, kicking him around until she pins him on the bench.

[[folder: Bond and Trevelan, Drinking Buddies]]

** Trevelyan was ''already'' the BigBad before the intro. His basic motive was that his parents, Lienz Cossacks, were indirectly 'murdered' by the USSR (his father committed suicide after killing his mother), and he believed the British let this happen. Trevelyan was consumed with hate for the United Kingdom. He was pretty much forced into MI6 by the British government despite Russian blood, as they didn't think he'd remember. [[CaptainObvious He did]]. Trevelyan had to play along with MI6 despite hating it. If he had killed Bond and openly defected, it would have counted as high treason. The British Government could have captured him and imprisoned him for life. He couldn't take that risk, so, as the note below states, he wanted to identify as Killed In Action to prevent suspicion. Of course, he was a giant ChekhovsGun, so it was kind of inevitable he was the villain.

** TruthInTelevision: the USSR often displayed a very, VERY frightening willingness to expend dozens if not hundreds of its servicemen in order to cover up ONE defection. For the KGB and GRU, a few dozen dead soldiers and scientists in a burned out husk of a weapons plant that was manufacturing a weapon they could literally not use unless all the gloves came off would have been well worth it to obtain one defector of high standing in MI6 or another major Western intelligence organization with fresh intelligence and knowledge about how the organization worked.

* Speaking of cars: why did MI6 take the trouble to fly Bond's BMW to the USA?
** [[WatsonianVersusDoylist Doylist answer]]: BMW, despite delivering the car too late to perform any stunts, had still paid to have their car driven in the movie and that was the only place they could fit it in so late. Watsonian answer: MI6 needed to use up some excess budget before the end of the financial month and decided that flying it out on a cargo plane ought to fit the bill.
** MI6 always takes the trouble to fly out Bond's cars. In most cases, it turns out to be fully justified; this is one of the rare cases he ''doesn't'' need his weaponized death mobile.

* A related matter: Why did 006 hate Bond so personally? Yeah, Bond represented the English government that he hates, but 006 keeps mentioning the 3 minutes that Bond switches the bomb to. However, Bond only changes the timers to 3 minutes *after* 006 is captured *and* after 006 goads him to. And then Ourimov "executes" him, giving Bond no reason to assume that 006 is still alive and needing rescue.

*** In-universe, he needs Bond to be seen by a whole bunch of witness and causing damage/random death in order to have his own story be accepted and not be seen as orchestrating a coup (which is what he is doing. He knows Bond is going to have to run, and given they are in the heart of Russian's military HQ the chance of him escaping ought to have been nil.
*** So In-universe, Bond needed to shoot a couple casualties and get kind of far but not too far and kill a few Russians but not a lot of Russians? Not a very good plan

** Trevelyan doesn't want her 'enslaved'; he's already got plenty of computer people working for him, like Boris. He wants her ''dead''. He's likely not ignorant of her existence at all, it's almost certainly on his orders that she was kidnapped and almost murdered, but he also probably doesn't handle all his murders and criminal syndicate business personally. He dealt with Bond face-to-face because Bond's an old 'friend' and ItsPersonal with him, but with Natalya he probably just had a bunch of his goons handle her while he was doing something else, and their meeting on the train was the first time he had met her face-to-face.

** P'raps his gun was loaded with X amounts of live rounds, then a blank and he knew to only fire off so many rounds before "shooting" 006. Yeah, a blank at close range'll still do some damage, but then this franchise isn't exactly known for its realistic treatment of firearms.

** Probably because he's got a score he wants to settle with Bond as well. He ''does'' blame him for half his face being burned off, he's probably been alerted from Xenia that Bond's on the case, so he might as well kill two birds, lure Bond out and deal with him as well.
** He might also need to finish getting the Cuba side of the operation set up as well.

** Well, you said it yourself; most of these are fairly clear-cut cases of self-defence or similar 'in-the-line-of-duty' matters, to be entirely fair to him. It's not like he's going out of his way to hurt or murder clearly innocent people, they're all presented fairly clearly as either soldiers out to kill him or rather sketchy thugs involved on some level with a criminal enterprise out to get him.

* So, the Manticore yacht is leased by a front for the Janus crime syndicate, but was the guy who attacked Bond a murderous thug or was he just some random ObliviouslyEvil employee of the front who has no idea he was working for a criminal organization and was simply attacking an intruder who was breaking and entering into the ship (meaning Bond beat up and possibly killed an innocent man)? Ditto for the guy in the sauna when James is fighting / being sexually assaulted by Onatopp- is he working with her, or did he think Bond was attacking (raping?) ''her'' (and got smacked in the face with a metal bucket for it)?

[[folder: Yacht Manticore Mook]]

* So, the yacht is leased by a front for the Janus crime syndicate, but was the guy who attacked Bond a murderous thug or was he just some random ObliviouslyEvil employee of the front who has no idea he was working for a criminal organization and was simply attacking an intruder who was breaking and entering into the ship (meaning Bond beat up and possibly killed an innocent man)?