James Bond

Thanks

Finishing Casino Royale 2006, and I got these questions:

1. Any reason why there's a PPK in the intro sequence, yet is not used by anyone, Bond included, throughout the movie?

2. Was Mendel in the original novel?

3. Where did Bond get the UMP he was wielding in the ending?

Bond uses a P99 in the office scene, and no, Mendel wasn't in the novel. He probably had the UMP with him the whole time. Or he snatched it off a guard he killed offscreen.

Does it matter all that much where Bond got the gun at the end of Casino Royale?

He doesn't go straight to White's from anywhere. Presumably he took it from an MI6 armory somewhere when he planned his kidnap.

edited 15th Nov '14 7:31:28 AM by Achaemenid

I was referring to the opening credits, with "You Know My Name" playing.

Thanks

I thought he did after finding out White's location from M(ansfield)?

Yeah, but it isn't like he doesn't have to change clothes and get ready.

Actually, I was replying to this:

But wouldn't that be a better option? Why? Because if there was too much time taken, wouldn't White have left, with or without knowing Bond was coming for him?

White doesn't know who Bond is at that point. Hence why he spared him when he killed Le Chiffre. He didn't know that Vesper had given Bond his address.

edited 15th Nov '14 9:40:29 AM by Achaemenid

But my issue is that, had Bond took his time by going back to Britain to get cleaned up and get his UMP, wouldn't he show up at White's place, with White not there for some reason?

That was just a risk to be taken. He could have gone there straight away and he may not have been there. Had that been the case I imagine he'd have just awaited his return.

There's that.

Coming out of Quantum Of Solace this morning, I got this to ask: Anyone get the feeling there are tons of whole plot references to both A View To A Kill and Licence To Kill? Why? Let's list them down:

AVTAK:

1. Greene wielding an ax in the final battle, much like Zorin did.

2. Camille fearing for her life in the fiery room being similar to Stacy, only difference is that she isn't screaming "James" multiple times.

LTK:

1. Bond going rogue.

2. An agent being sent to personally arrest Bond, only to end up dead, much like Fallon being sent to arrest Bond after the latter got beaten up by those Hong Kong policemen dressed like ninjas.

3. Judi Dench's M taking the field herself just to tell Bond to stand down, much like Robert Brown's M tried to do in LTK

4. Camille, Matthis, and Leiter being Bond's only allies, much like Pam, Q, and Sharkey.

5. Bond spending most of the movie in Latin America (Ishtmus in LTK, Haiti and Bolivia in QOS), though took a detour to Italy to get Matthis' help.

edited 4th May '15 12:40:01 PM by HallowHawk

Fun fact, speaking of Isthmus: Bond has only twice visited a fictional country, in LALD and LTK. In both the government of the country is shown to be a puppet regime for a brutal drug lord. Wonder if that's the reason?

In LALD's case, wasn't the drug lord THE dictator?

EDIT: Speaking of QOS, given Greene's plan for Bolivia, and that he and his comrades watching Tosca earlier in the film, anyone get the feeling Quantum might be descendants of 19th Century Blue Blood that want to make the developing world their playground?

edited 17th Nov '14 12:53:12 AM by HallowHawk

Watching TMWTGG. I love how the world's most secretive assassin has a dwarf butler and a concubine in a seaside Thai hideaway everyone seems to be able to find...

edited 20th Nov '14 9:59:09 AM by Achaemenid

I'm not sure Francisco Scaramanga really was meant to be all that secretive. He's like Winston Wolf in Pulp Fiction, noted in his circle as a guy who fixes problems, and someone you really don't want to either have accepted a contract on you or indeed have him pissed at you. He only ends up losing because he's pissed off his concubine - she's the one who sent the golden bullet to MI 6 that started the whole mess.

Also, Scaramanga seems to have negotiated some sort of a deal for protection with Red China, who offer to blow Bond's plane out of the sky; dialogue in the film suggests he does them the "occasional favour", which I imagine offers a decent amount of credit with them, especially given his talent at the job. Tourists don't stand much chance, and the deaths could easily be covered up by powers that great.

Would that be why China doesn't like the film, whereas Russia was okay with it?

That would make sense yes. For Russia, it helped that the bad guy wasn't a member of a KGB section or working for them.

Bond very rarely fights Soviets working for the Soviet government rather than renegades or criminals, and usually they are portrayed as professional rivals rather than evil villains. The point of SPECTRE and Red China - one to be the villain and the other to be the occasional Man Behind the Man to get the plot moving along or give it coherence (ie, to explain why Spectre or Goldfinger is doing somethiing) - is to let the films be apolitical (when Connery was making the films, the idea that the Chinese would ever get to watch them was laughable) and not take sides in the Cold War.

An underrated film and song.

I concur.

Yeah, M's equivalent, Golgov, was as Metaknight to Kirby really. Bond occasionally raced the Soviets to the same objective, sometimes fought rogue ex-Soviets etc, but never fought directly against the Russian government itself in any meaningful way, at least on screen (cold open of Goldeneye possibly excepted)

If I recall, given the fact Golden Eye came out in 1995, wasn't it already okay to have Soviet Russia as a bad guy then?

Speaking of Gogol, given the fact Walter Gotell was well enough, post-TLD, to appear in Star Trek The Next Generation, any reason why they stopped having Gogol around in the Brosnan era? I mean, was Gotell also having complaints similar to Roger Moore?

edited 21st Nov '14 9:55:50 AM by HallowHawk

He might just have not felt up to it. He died in 1998, after all.

@Caissas

Agreed. I recall Bond is reasonably popular in Russia, though the quintessential superspy in Russian culture is Isaev/Stierlitz from Seventeen Moments of Spring. A Bond vs Stierlitz crossover would be a thing of unparalleled beauty.

edited 21st Nov '14 11:33:27 AM by Achaemenid

Fleming himself was savvy enough to realize that populating his stories with eeeeeevul Russians would eventually date them severely. It's why he created SPECTRE.