Die Another Day
Dovy
Posts: 206MI6 Agent
Well, the underlying is story was very good, but there are so many unanswered questions. The film not only Incorporated video game violence, but by the time of the events in Iceland turned into a CARTOON, plain and simple. I won't ask about all the violent events in Iceland and North Korea involving Icarus because it's totally ridiculous.Here are some questions.
1) How did Col. Moon and Zhao build the entire Icarus technology right under the noses of the North Korean authorities including Kim IL Sung, right in the Demilitarized Zone, with no foreign powers noticing a thing?
2) How did Moon build the entire Iceland complex without the slightest interaction with any Icelandic authorities or NATO, which has a base in Iceland?
3) How did the trade in diamonds fund all this activity to the tune of what must be billions of dollars, and how did Moon obtain all the construction materials without anyone noticing?
3) When Bond was in the hospital how did he pretend to be dead, and how did he manage to swim to the shore of Hong Kong with all the strength necessary after a year in prison in North Korea?
4) With what money did he pay for the hotel and amenities in Hong Kong, and fly off to Cuba?
5) What happened to the original Gustav Graves whose DNA Moon used to change his appearance in Cuba?
6) How did Bond and Jinx get away from the Iceland location and end up in North Korea, and how was it all paid for?
Comments
I'll take the last three -
4) No money. Mr Chang was an old frenemy and happy to see Bond, though not above trying to set up a spot of potential blackmail. We are told that Zao had earlier taken out three Chinese agents so Mr Chang was happy to subsidize 007 on his way to Cuba to deal with him.
5) The doctor at the "beauty parlour" tells Jinx the DNA comes from orphans, runaways, people who won't be missed.
6) They are government agents. They called their superiors who arranged for them to be picked up at government expense.
But in Bond's case here he is a rogue agent who escaped on the way to the Falklands where M intended to send him.....
Regarding Graves, do you mean that Moon managed to build and create everything in the short time he made himself Gustav Graves?
No, he isn't.
And yes he did. The unlikelihood of this has been much commented upon.
Why wasn't Bond a rogue agent? He violated M's decision and went to North Korea on his own. By the way, 7) who were the other two men landing there with Bond, and how did Bond know exactly when the diamond smuggler was to arrive by helicopter?
The time Moon had was less than the time Bond was in North Korea prison after he disappeared over the waterfall. Totally improbable. Cartoonish. But notice that after all types of physical exertion in unclean environments Jinx and Bond could engage in intimate sex without the slightest concern for cleanliness and body odor. How romantic. Then again, one has to wonder how even in the worst of circumstances in each scene they had their hair impeccably styled!!
It's totally ridiculous and it's definitely one of the bad entries in the series and the weakest of Brosnan's Bond films, but it's enjoyable (it's so bad it's enjoyable), I though find it a lot more rewatchable than the Craig Era Bond films to be honest, and it's definitely a better final Bond film of a Bond actor than the likes of Diamonds Are Forever and A View To A Kill (those that are a lot more worse than this one 😅), or maybe even No Time To Die (if we're looking at the enjoyment value, because let's admit it, NTTD wasn't an enjoyable Bond film, there's no fun but full of depression!)
It's a guilty pleasure of mine, because the concept was really good, the idea's there, but they've butchered it through bad executions that made the film even weaker in hindsight.
So, to answer your questions:
1) How did Col. Moon and Zhao build the entire Icarus technology right under the noses of the North Korean authorities including Kim IL Sung, right in the Demilitarized Zone, with no foreign powers noticing a thing?
North Korea has been always hiding some secrets from the likes of United Nations, hence, is there any updates on what is happening to them right now? None of us have any ideas, because they're keeping it as a secret and no should ever leak their lifestyle or their way of living to the world, so it's not impossible for them to do without having the world noticing it. And hence it's just only in the making, unlike firing and testing missiles.
2) How did Moon build the entire Iceland complex without the slightest interaction with any Icelandic authorities or NATO, which has a base in Iceland?
All they know was he's this wealthy business who just bought up a property and built his building there, there's no sense of any bad intentions, so there's no big deal here, unless someone checks it up and inspect the whole area.
3) How did the trade in diamonds fund all this activity to the tune of what must be billions of dollars, and how did Moon obtain all the construction materials without anyone noticing?
Now that's something I couldn't answer since the movie depicted this situation as a bit convoluted. But my guess is, they must be doing the diamond trade for a very long time secretly without anyone noticing it, so maybe they kept a huge money from it, and not just diamond trade, they also trading luxury cars, so I think that one also helped?
Again no big thing about the obtaining of construction materials here, he's a General, so maybe they used the military activities as some sort of alibi and reasoning for obtaining such materials, so hence left concealed from the authorities.
When Bond was in the hospital how did he pretend to be dead, and how did he manage to swim to the shore of Hong Kong with all the strength necessary after a year in prison in North Korea?
Again, another impossible moment, because a machine like that could detect a pulse coming from Bond, so if he's not dead, then it's impossible for the machine to act the same way as that, and it's impossible for Bond to lose pulse either because we all know that he's still alive, so yes, it's impossible to think, unless someone manipulated the machine, or maybe it's Bond himself whom manipulated the machine?
I think he'd already recovered and gain some strength, again, this is Bond we're talking about, an injured soldier could still swim a river in order to survive and escape a war, then so, why not Bond?
With what money did he pay for the hotel and amenities in Hong Kong, and fly off to Cuba?
The hotel and amenities in Hong Kong that he acquired were covered by the British Secret Intelligence stationed there, Bond knows it, he knows where to call them, he would never go to a place where it's not covered by the Intelligence for nothing, unless it's a mission and the MI6 gave him a money enough to spend, but since he had no money, he went to the MI6 Stationed in Hong Kong and he knows where to find them.
What happened to the original Gustav Graves whose DNA Moon used to change his appearance in Cuba?
That's the ultimate interesting mystery! 😅 We never know what happened to that one, interesting question indeed, and one that should definitely deserving a look out.
How did Bond and Jinx get away from the Iceland location and end up in North Korea, and how was it all paid for?
Bond knows the history of Gustav Graves, maybe he also cooperated with the NSA by telling them all of the information he knew about his experiences in North Korea and the full history of Gustav Graves.
They're spies they know the secret of getting inside a North Korea, if that's the case, then you should also ask how Bond and his team got to North Korea in PTS.
How was it paid for? Using the money of the British Government through MI6.
It's enough for me to use such a logic in this film, but again, using my stocked memories of the film to answer them all. 😅
Some interesting insights to answer my questions even if a bit of a stretch in some cases....
dovy said:
What happened to the original Gustav Graves whose DNA Moon used to change his appearance in Cuba?
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I dont think I've ever seen the suggestion before there was an original Gustave Graves, I always assumed it was just what Col Moon looked like with caucasian features. Moon/Graves says he based his appearance upon Bond's. But this whole DNA therapy talk is very vague, a bit of science-y sounding nonsense to make the plot work (just wait'll you get to the nanobots!).
But this new interpretation has much explaining power, as there is no way Moon could have established his identity as Graves and built up such a vast corporate empire in the time Bond was imprisoned. If there was a real Gustave Graves who is never seen, thatd make the plot even closer to Diamonds are Forever which it already resembles (much of this film is actually based on Fleming's Moonraker, and I suspect the second half of the DaF film was also borrowing the same plot)
This is another BrosnanBond film where I think a good original plot idea got buried underneath cliche setpieces and endless action scenes. The plot actually is: Bond is searching for the MI6 mole who betrayed him. Bond actually says this out loud enough, its his motivation throughout the film, yet it took me four or five viewings to notice as there is so much else going on that seems more important.
I thought the whole premise was that Graves used Bonds DNA to manipulate his own. That’s why we get the Union flag parachute amongst other things, and why the were pretty even matched in a fight and why Bond had an inherent hatred of him. This was supposed to be explored further, but they never did. Graves said himself he modelled himself off Bond. That was supposed to be taken literally.
There was lots of fun in NTTD, but the ending throws a long shadow.
Your second sentence starts from an incorrect premise. At no point does Bond go to North Korea on his own. He goes there twice in the film, each time as a British agent and not as a rogue agent.
I never thought that Graves somehow stole Bond‘s DNA to enhance his own (& I‘m fairly sure that’s not what happened in the movie), but it definitely sounds interesting…
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But why he doesn't looked like Brosnan's Bond? It would be more interesting, if Brosnan's Bond became two, or Brosnan's Bond would have his double in Moon, with the real Bond fighting his doppelganger 😅.
With Jinx getting confused at who the real Bond is, now that would be a unique plotline for a Bond and never been done before, also having a literal evil mirror or evil reflection of Bond, I mean Brosnan's tenure started in Goldeneye with Trevelyan being Bond's evil counterpart, and it would end in a more updated fashion with himself being his own enemy.
Raymond Benson used the plot line of a doppelganger Bond in Double Shot, which for my money is his most accessible novel. It was only published a couple of years before DAD went into pre-production, so I reckon Purvis & Wade probably gave it a look, but then discarded the basic idea. In Benson's novel, the villainess can only tell them apart by their prowess in bed, which is the sort of fan fiction type garbage he likes to pass off as literature.
Regards DAD, this thread has for the first time made me consider the timeline of the movie, specifically Graves' sudden rise to fame. The posters above who have all said Bond isn't in prison long enough for any of the technological and military set ups shown to have been developed are 100% correct. They must have been in production for a number of years. As we know General Moon 'disappeared' and reappears as Graves only after his confrontation with Bond in North Korea, so how does he suddenly transmogrify into a British billionaire space engineer, or whatever Graves is. When we meet him, he's receiving a knighthood, which does set him up like Drax in Fleming's Moonraker. So has Moon assassinated the real Graves and taken over his show? Is this ever mentioned by Graves / Moon or anyone? An identity switch such as we saw in DAF between Blofeld and Willard White seems the logical solution. Given that Miranda Frost is Graves' agent, perhaps she's been stealing Grave's DNA with some Raymond Benson style bedroom activity. But I'm supposing, because this is never once hinted at, at least not as far as I'm aware. There's a throwaway line instead isn't there, something about the speed of his rise to fame?
The whole plot feels suspiciously like two storylines jammed together. One is about Gustav Graves and his diamond smuggling / laser weapon which he can use as a secret foreign agent to annihilate potentially anywhere - although I would assume London, like Hugo Drax intends in Fleming's MR. I'm not a fan of Fleming's novel, but given the London based scenes, it is fairly obvious this is the intent. So why the stupid sword fight? Why not a game of bridge, or chemmy, or bezique, something more sophisticated, maybe with Madonna as Bond's partner in card sharping if they want to keep the guest star cameo in place. A massive space laser threatening London and digging up the M25 motorway might have been good fun.
The second is the South Korean patricide angle, which is shoehorned over the first and really doesn't make any sense whatsoever. My feeling is they wanted to use North Korea as an 'enemy' because it was topical at the time and chose to impersonate Amis' Colonel Sun with General Moon, but couldn't figure out how to work his scheme into the narrative. So, the interesting, more grounded and Fleming related titbits get jettisoned in favour of the fantastical.
Does anyone know exactly how the DAD screenplay evolved?
Like almost all of the P & W scripts, there is an awful lot of interesting stuff being suggested and a lot of Fleming / Amis / Gardner / Benson being interweaved, yet as Caractacus says above, it all gets buried underneath some supposed need for extra-loud and ultra-violent action scenes, most of which the films, this one in particular, could easily do without.
It may be time to rewatch DAD.
🙈
Oh, maybe not.
My point referred to the period after Bond escaped from the hospital and ended up in Cuba. He was doing it against the plan M had, when she suspected him of treason. That was when he went rogue, from Hong Kong to Cuba to Iceland and back to the Demilitarized Zone.
No, that isn't accurate. He stops being rogue, before he goes to Iceland, during this scene -
Edit -
It comes between this scene (he's still rogue)
And this one (he isn't) -
I always like that bit on the Tube station platform, where Bond emerges onto the platform for the first time from a door which simply isn't there.
Look at him and M there- where are they walking away from? Just a wall 😄
Yes, after he encounters M she changes her mind. But from jumping ship until Cuba he was rogue.
Closer. He's still rogue in the London scenes (Buckingham Palace, Blades) up till he meets M in the underground and she brings him back in "from the cold", as the saying goes.
I think Dovy is saying that Bond is rogue when he escapes the ship in Hong Kong so how come he gets put up as a swanky secret agent at a hotel with no money, no cards, no reputation? But one supposes the maitre 'd didn't know Bond was rogue and was prepared to indulge him and give him his best room etc, assuming maybe he'd fallen on hard times in the course of duty and would put his expenses on the account, or tab.
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Buzzing with ideas - not all of which feel coherently integrated - this is a movie at the more fantastical end of the Bondian spectrum, requiring the audience to accept: "the fewer questions asked, the better."
Not one of my favourite films in Pierce's tenure as Bond, but it does have its positives.
I like Gustav Graves as a villain. He has that smarmy arrogance in him,which i like in a villain.
Killing his own dad is brutal! It just shows that he'd stop at nothing to achieve his goals. Awarding himself his dead dad's medals,was just cold!
The Cuba scenes were great! Love Bond thinking on his feet at the clinic and using that obnoxious prick as a distraction. I love the Thunderball nod,when Bond steals a grape.
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