LTK finale

crawfordboon

Watching LTK recently, I couldn't help but be shocked at just how quickly the whole heroin refining plant / monastic retreat falls to pieces. Bond caused a minor explosion in a labratory, yet this somehow causes a chain reaction in which the place is exploding in moments, causing a major evacuation. I thought it was a very sloppy bit of writing, when an explosive finale was required, to fail to give a plausible reason for it occurring.

And while we're at it, why does everyone keep running after the evacuation, the oil tanker chase scenes are exciting but there is no real reason to them. Sanchez could have got a safe distance away, brought everyone to a halt, and got the situation under control. Instead they flee like they have the army on their tail, it would have been far easier to defeat Bond if they had stayed at the base and defended themselves properly, without a confusing chase down the mountains.

Good film, but as with so many when he look at it more deeply, there are clearly flaws.

Barbel

As has been said before, there are moments like this in all Bond films- perhaps in all fiction films. Some are more important or central to the plot than others, some can be explained away, and some we just have to accept.
If my aging memory serves me, the late Alfred Hitchcock once said something along these lines: he always liked to leave a loose thread or two dangling in the plot in order that the audience would say, after the film, "Hey, what about...?" but never during it.

darenhat

The facility going up in smoke so quickly is pretty funny to me, but what I really get a chuckle out of is how everyone starts panicking immediately...I don't think anyone actually grabs a fire extinguisher and tries to put out the blaze. Heller comes running in and screams "I don't think I can control the fire!" but it really shouldn't have gone any further than the lab.

Perhaps a more suitable angle would have been to use CIA pilot Bouvier to actually sabotage the plant in some crippling manner. It would have been more consistent with her character attributes, and maybe cut down on some of Wayne Newton's screentime .

Smoke_13

I remember the end of Dr. No when the base was blowing up. People were jumping off the dock, running all about and flailing their arms -absolute chaos in general. Meanwhile Bond and Honey just hop down the dock get into a boat and drive it away. 8-)

As has been stated, there are many instances like this that cause Bond fans to raise a Spockian eye brow from time to time.

Bill Tanner

Not only that, it was full of fuel in which the heroin was being transported & extracted, so I don't think it was too much of a stretch to imagine there was a fair old fire hazard there.

I take the point about Sanchez fleeing though - never noticed that before; just why was he in such a hurry? And as you say, why didn't he just stop the car, shoot Bond then carry on?

Someone mentioned Hitchcock above - I believe he used to call these 'refrigerator moments' - something you only started to think about after you'd watched the film, arrived home, reached for a snack in the refrigerator and then said "hey, hang on a minute..."
They weren't necessarily left hanging deliberately, just plot holes that weren't fully resolved and he hoped no one would notice until after the film - therefore not important enough to hold up the dramatic tension.