* Okay, standard Bond sex scene... wait a minute... where'd Jinx pull that knife from?!?
** HammerSpace
** It looks more like a fruit knife (yes, there is such a thing), and would probably have been included with the [[CaptainObvious bowl of fruit]] they were sharing.
* What exactly was Bond's plan to assassinate Moon at the beginning of the movie, assuming his cover stayed intact? Setting off the explosives in the diamond case during the deal? Great, now he's unarmed and surrounded by enemy soldiers. Setting off the bomb after the deal, at a safe distance? Moon will probably never be physically close to the diamonds again, preferring his mooks to do the heavy lifting. The diamonds will be put away until they're needed, and the bomb will go off, killing a few nobodies.
** Didn't he have a gun? And perhaps those South Koreans he was with earlier were planning on rescuing him?
** No, it was to set off the bomb. Its just that he assumed that Moon ''would'' be with the diamonds, and the only reason he wasn't was because Moon was having them taken to be used for [[KillSat Icarus.]] Bond's only mistake was the reasonable assumption that Moon wanted the diamonds for money, in which case he probably would have been in close contact with them at some point. He was surprised when Moon had them taken away.
** Presumably the plan was to set off the diamonds right ''after'' the deal, as he was leaving.
* Speaking of which, why does Bond look so shocked when Moon calls him by his real name? Isn't it obvious that Moon's figured out who he is? Why doesn't he realize it earlier? He's looking right Moon and Zao (and seems to even be within hearing distance while they talk and cast furtive glances at him).
** It's obvious that Moon has figured out pretty quickly that Bond ''isn't'' a South African diamond smuggler. That's not the same as knowing who he really is, a British assassin whose identity is top-secret.
* How exactly could Bond stop and start his heart at will?
** I gathered from the flashbacks that he learned the technique in order to endure the torture he received in north Korea.
** Not sure ''how'', but some people can (through meditation) willfully slow their heartbeats down to almost nothing without killing themselves.
** [[RuleOfCool He is James Bond.]]
** [[JustForFun/TimeLord And he only stopped ''one'' heart.]]
* So, the movie is about a KillSat and diamonds... ''Film/DiamondsAreForever'' anyone?
** To celebrate the 20th movie, they put bits of most of the previous films into this one. A laser cutter used for execution, playing the villain at their favourite sport for their favourite precious material and winning, a rogue MI-6 agent, a new piece of technology designed for peaceful, eco-friendly things being turned into a weapon, etc., they just mixed it all up. ''Film/TheSpyWhoLovedMe'' did the same, being the 10th film.
* Icarus' self-defense system was just firing the laser at anything that threatened it. Why didn't the military fire more than missiles at it from more than one direction? Icarus doesn't look like it can turn on a dime, and the missile they launched at it was pretty close before Icarus fired at it. Fire two missiles from two directions and BAM, suddenly it's raining little bits of Icarus everywhere. Better yet, they could've done a MacrossMissileMassacre.
** For that matter, aiming the missile so the sun is on the wrong side would totally defeat the purpose of the laser. No sunlight means no beam. Frankly, Moon was far too confident in that weapon's superiority when even a little creativity would have brought it down.
** Also, Icarus appeared to be in a fairly low orbit. Since maintaining geostationary position in low orbits requires considerable (and very fuel-intensive) active propulsion, the satellite should have been in motion relative to the Earth below. This means that Icarus could not have remained in firing position above a single area for very long. Also, steps would need to be taken to keep it on Earth's day side, as the instant it moved into Earth's shadow and out of direct sunlight it would have been powerless as a weapon. What was Moon's plan should South Korea and the U.S. attack during nighttime? Earth's shadow extends far enough into space to eclipse the Moon! [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale No viable orbit would be high enough]] to ensure that Icarus always had sunlight to reflect.
* When Bond and Jinx are positioned on the lawn outside the airfield to snipe Graves, a squad of soldiers are checking the perimeter in a jeep. They shine their spotlight right at them. They're only hidden by a brown blanket and they managed to leave the barrel of their sniper rifle poking right out of it! Somehow, the squad manages to miss this very obvious security threat that's right in front of their face.
** Its a Bond film. Not all the villains are smart.
*** *Ahem* [[BondVillainStupidity There's a Trope for that.]]
* How does anyone Graves hits with his 100,000 volt weapon not die instantly? More to the point, how in the hell does Bond endure for several seconds and A-Okay immediately afterwards?
** I always thought he could turn the voltage up and down. Bond probably didnt get hit with that much voltage.
** It's the Amps that kill you, not the Volts.
** In fact, most stun guns clock in at well OVER 100k volts. 100k for a stun weapon is pretty much entry level. There are commercially available models that clock in at 5 MILLION volts.
** As for how he's just peachy afterwards, he only won by pulling the chute cord at the end. Many stun gun hits can be shrugged off though once the voltage is shut off, especially one so low powered as 100k volts.
* This movie (like ''Film/DiamondsAreForever''), ended with a powerful, combat proven [[KillSat death ray satellite]]...fully operational, just sitting in Earth orbit. Awaiting orders. Or a prize crew. FridgeHorror ''and'' (albeit unusable) SequelHook, two for the price of one!
** Don't forget the second ''Film/GoldenEye'' satellite, that's still in orbit and contains a fully operational nuke that could instantly vaporize any city's electronics. Granted, the control devices for all three satellites were destroyed in their respective movies, but that's nothing a little HollywoodHacking won't solve.
*** Natalya re-routes the 2nd [=GoldenEye=] satellite so that it burns up on re-entry (That's what she was doing during the hellish EscortMission in the video game), so that threat is averted at least. The first one was deactivated the moment it fired- the satellites are only good for one shot. One could assume that now that Graves was dead, it was easy enough to shoot Icarus down, or send a ship up to get the diamonds back off both his and Blofeld's KillSat.
* How long was Bond imprisoned in North Korea? The film implies it's only been a couple of months, but wouldn't it taken Gustav Graves years to build up his Bond-ian reputation? Not to mention how long the "gene therapy" would've taken to transform him from Col. Moon.
** Most fans [[HandWave hand-waved]] that with the idea that [[KillAndReplace Moon murdered the real Gustav Graves, who had already established himself, and assumed his identity]]. Bond was imprisoned for 14 months and we've seen how rapid Zao's transformation already is, so it's not too much of a stretch to think that Moon's transformation could have been just as fast.
*** Moon did not kill the real Gustav Graves. Graves showed up out of nowhere, and his business was based on diamond mining but the mines were entirely a cover for laundering money from his arms dealing. As to the question, Moon had been plotting his Icarus scheme for ''years''- that's why he has the diamonds taken away at the start of the movie. Bond "killing" him simply forced him into some XanatosSpeedChess- its possible, even likely, that Moon had ''always'' intended to become Gustav Graves, since he needed an excuse to put a KillSat in orbit without the world stopping him, in which case the Graves identity was probably at least partially set up already. Bond almost did him a favour.
** How exactly are those diamonds still sticking to Zao's skin? At the very least, you'd think they would either fall off, or be removed during application of first aid (not to mention they'd have been a handy source of petty cash).
*** He keeps them in as sheer badass-cred. Plus, any time he comes up short for his magic surgery, he pops one out to pay for it.
* You'd think a badass secret agent like Bond would bother to check that [[ItWorksBetterWithBullets his gun is loaded after it's been out of his sight]].
** Not to mention that an unloaded gun weighs a lot less than a loaded one.
** According to the novelisation, the ammo was in there, but the firing pin was disabled/bent.
* And speaking of loaded guns - when Q brought out the "Vanish" it apparently had the auto-tracking shotguns enabled and ready to shoot anything that moved in front of them. Yes, this was done for the RuleOfFunny but...
* When the baddies are revealed and attempt to kill Jinx, they do this by locking her in the ice hotel and melting it around her. Yet somehow, the room she's in gradually fills up with water - ''yet the walls and ceiling seem to remain entirely intact''. So where is this water coming from?
** Ice palaces, especially ones of that size, would have extremely thick walls and ceilings. The ice was melting, just not nearly fast enough for the room to collapse in on itself. The scene is still stupid, but less so than it first appears.
* James is astonished that [=MI6=] are trading him for Zao because the standard policy for [=MI6=] agents is "No deals". Fair enough, if a little harsh. But [=MI6=]'s rationale for trading him then was that somebody (actually Miss Frost) was leaking classified intel. So let's get this straight: [=MI6=] policy is "Keep quiet and we'll leave you to rot, start talking and we'll deal to get you out immediately." Can there be a stupider policy in terms of encouraging captured agents not to spill their guts?
** They suspected him as the source of the leak and if they'd left him to rot in Korea he might have spilled more secrets.
*** That's the OP's point. It gives agents an incentive to talk.
*** There was also the possibility that it was the CIA who wanted him pulled out. They're the ones who were certain he talked, perhaps they pressured [=MI6=] into making the trade so they could find out what else he told the North Koreans.
*** When you capture a spy, it's preferable to keep him. Bond was released in exchange for Zao. No doubt [=MI6=] would have preferred to keep Zao and let Bond die.
** I suppose they expected him to take his cyanide pill before he would talk. When the leak was traced to Bond's prison, they figured he couldn't/wouldn't kill himself and was talking.
** Bond is old-fashioned, and has been an [=MI6=] agent for at least 40 years at that point. He seems to have no interest in – if not outright contempt for – internal politics. Maybe it was "No deals" during the Cold War, and now it's "We protect our own". Bond just hasn't noticed that the world has changed, which is a major theme in the Brosnan era.
** They ''didn't''. It was the ''Americans'' who demanded Bond be traded.
** Incentive or not, an agent should have the moral loyalty not to talk, since it compromises their country and certain individuals (like the American agent that was executed). If they ''do'' talk, it throws into question their qualification and trustworthiness as an agent, and even if [=MI6=] did bust them out, they'd face serious consequences for having done so. Even after being traded off, Bond was still being held in custody until it could be verified whether he had been compromised or not.
* Why does Graves' suit have an "electrocute self" button on the chest?
** It doesn't, but in his position he is no longer grounded and shocked the crap out of himself when it was activated.
** He was gripping the metal frame of the aircraft, which short-circuited the contacts of the stun gun.
* Jinx is an NSA agent? The NSA's job is twofold: secure American communications and tap foreign communications. Their field agents are technicians, not assassins.
** It's the classic fiction portrayal of the NSA - they're like the CIA, but somehow even cooler because they were secret for longer. Unless she was going after Zao and Graves for interfering with US communications with that satellite...
** [[FridgeBrilliance She ''claims'' to work for the NSA.]]
* So, Colonel Moon gave himself plastic surgery to turn himself into Gustav Graves. How did they change his voice to one that was appropriate for his new nationality? Did the surgeon do something like what is done for Sean Archer and Castor Troy in ''Film/FaceOff'' - put a microchip in his larynx?
*** Why not? Blofeld did way back in TheSeventies, when he had a transistorized version of his voice-changing device put in his double's neck.
** It's not plastic surgery, it's a DNA replacement therapy. He didn't make himself ''look'' Caucasian, he ''became'' Caucasian. Feel free to consider the DNA replacement a VoodooShark though.
** Yes, I know that. But, what would the surgeon do to change Moon's dialect from Korean to British?
*** Presumably he just had an ear for accents. That said, wouldn't having a brand-new throat make sounding British easier? Don't the vocal chords mold over time to the language/accent they're using?
*** He may have just been affecting the accent. He'd certainly be familiar with it, considering that he says he studied at Oxford when he becomes the TropeNamer for MajoredInWesternHypocrisy.
* Can someone please explain how in the hell this "gene therapy" is supposed to work? They pull out your bone marrow (which in reality is a death sentence, not to mention fucking painful), and that's supposed to alter the entire genetic makeup of the human body? '''''[[FlatWhat What?!?!]]''''' Do they also seriously expect the body to just go along with the sudden change in bone marrow and remake itself? What's stopping this bodily rebuilding from altering the construction of the brain, and thus the memories and cognitive abilities of said brain? Or just becoming one giant cancerous tumor, or rejecting the bone marrow entirely, or rejecting its own rebuilt organs? Hell, even incompatibilities in blood type would show up, as this new body would start producing the incompatible blood which would mix with the pre-existing blood and clot horribly.
** And while we're at it, Zao is rather conscious, mobile, and capable of taking Bond on in a fight for someone ''who's just had all his bone marrow taken out''. By its own explanation, the movie's henchman is running around with no DNA or bone marrow in his body at all.
** Fridge Brilliance. The "Gene therapy" is just really good plastic surgery to make the subjects look like another race. The clients are just put through painful unnecessary bone morrow procedures to complete the illusion that they're getting their money's worth, when in fact they are just going under the knife in the traditional way.
** Even better, they SELL the bone marrow on the black market. These guys are [[EvilInc fully vertically integrated bad guys]].
* Why is Moon paying for the diamonds with hovercraft? They aren't going to be useful in a lot of places other than North Korea, and if he expected the person he was getting the diamonds from to sell them (the hovercraft), why didn't he just save them some trouble and sell the hovercraft for cash to buy the diamonds with?
** He wasn't selling the hovercrafts, he was selling what was on them, weapons and ammo,other vehicles (some hovercraft are built to take TANKS) but the area where he was hiding them was in the middle of "1 million landmines" which the hovercraft could navigate without setting them off.
* How the hell did the VR Bond partly undress Moneypenny? We see her hands throughout that scene and she's not touching her own clothes. (Also, was she really fake-kissing the air? Just what would that have looked like to an external observer?) Or did Q invent the holodeck?
** Moneypenny undressed herself while the pre-programmed VR goggles only showed her hands in other places. And yes, she really did make out with the air. This may seem like TMI, but in the throes of masturbatory fantasy, it's perfectly possible to play both roles, often without even realizing you're doing it.
* How did [=MI6=] manage to miss the fact that Frost was on the Harvard fencing team with the son of a high ranking North Korean officer? Even if they did, but the NSA did manage to pick up on it, why wouldn't SHE be suspected by them as the one who leaked the information?
** They assumed Moon was dead, so maybe they assumed the leak couldn't have been an associate of Moon, so they never bothered to look at his personal history any more. Perhaps they started looking into it once the connection between Zao and Graves was made, but by then, Frost and Bond were in Iceland. It's subtle, but if you watch knowing Frost is the mole, and then look at M's conversation with her, it sounds like M slightly suspects her.
* This potentially breaks new ground as "Fridge Stupidity," but during the climax, rather than farting around with trying to start the [=MD500N=]'s engine in freefall (which, sorry, ain't happening in time), why didn't Bond just perform an autorotation landing? Autorotation is part of basic helicopter pilot training, so Bond should be well-acquainted with the procedure.
** Despite Bond seemingly being skilled at everything, has he ever been shown able to fly a helicopter prior to this? Every time I recall helicopters appear in the series they're either attacking Bond, or he's in them being flown by someone else (or about to be blown up, in ''Film/GoldenEye''). He did fly Little Nelly, but autogyros work differently from helicopters, and it probably had a simplified Q-control scheme.
*** In the teaser of ''Film/ForYourEyesOnly'', Bond flies a helicopter through a building, picks up a man in a wheelchair, and drops him down a chimney. There's also "Little Nellie" from ''Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice'', which may or may not qualify as a helicopter.
*** It does not - autogyros operate differently than helicopters despite looking similar - but even then, an autogyro exclusively uses ''autorotation'' for its operations. If Bond flew an autogyro before, he'd have more familiarity with the technique than a helicopter pilot!
*** He did fly an autogyro personally - Little Nellie was one. He seems less familiar with the helicopters though - in the teaser of ''Film/ForYourEyesOnly'' [[JustPlaneWrong he tries to fly one with both hands on the stick.]]
* So Zao was imprisoned for 14 months... and his captors never removed the diamonds embedded in his face? For that matter, why weren't they removed for his gene therapy? You'd think they'd have been the ''first'' things to go.
* Where are all the mentions of Icarus using diamonds in its construction coming from? There’s no indication in the film that Graves is using the diamonds as anything more than funding for his scheme, and no mention is made of the diamonds being placed into the satellite. While I understand that Icarus is an homage to Diamonds are Forever, where diamonds were used as the focusing element, there is no mention in this film that the same thing is being done.
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