Octopussy: Why did Orlov destroy the real egg?

Higgins · July 2013

Having seen Octopussy again, this has been bothering me for decades.

1. 009 managed to steal a replica of the Faberge egg and bring it to the british embassy
2. Bond "borrows" the replica and takes it to the Christie's auction
3. Bond replaces the real Christie's egg with the replica
4. Bond hands over the real Christie's egg to Mi6
5. The real egg gets prepared by Q with the bug transmitter
6. Bond takes the real but bugged egg to India and teases Kamal with it during the backgammon game
7. Magda steals the real bugged egg and hands it over to Kamal who has now 2 eggs
8. Kamal hands the egg over to Orlov who destroys it saying that this replica caused so much trouble.
(You can see that he's destroying the real egg because the the transmitter falls off then - so he's not destroying the replica).

So was Orlov not aware that 007 replaced the egg at the auction?
Was Kamal not able to check both eggs in his possession which one is real?

I certainly would have done it, because one of them was obviously a fake.

Or have I been missing something?

ZorinIndustries · July 2013

I have wondered the same exact thing. Maybe Kamal was afraid to question Orlov? Not sure. It bugs me too.

jeffch · July 2013

The plot of Octopussy is so damn confusing. One of the many reasons that its one of least favorite Bonds.

ZorinIndustries · July 2013

jeffch wrote:

The plot of Octopussy is so damn confusing. One of the many reasons that its one of least favorite Bonds.

It has taken me about five or six times to actually have an idea as to what's going on.

Higgins · July 2013

I am still trying this with QoS

Barbel · July 2013

Kamal gives Orlov the fake egg to take back to Moscow, telling him it's the real one, since it has to be returned before the inventory.
Kamal is holding on to the real egg (which Orlov now thinks is the fake one) hoping to sell it later. However, Orlov spoils this little scheme by smashing the egg, causing Kamal's look of horror at seeing the valuable real egg destroyed.

Thunderbird 2 · July 2013

Of course we know the fake must have been pinched later, because it looked amazing at the Designing 007 exhibition last year in London!

As an aside, did anyone see the documentary on the BBC last month about Faberge's work, and how many of the eggs are to be displayed as one collection?

Firemass · March 2016

From the pros & cons thread:

mattindubai wrote:

Kamal buys what he thinks is the original but of course we know it's the reproduction which Bond switches during the auction. Does Kamal find out at some point that he didn't buy the genuine egg? Does he realise when Bond produces the genuine egg during the backgammon match that what he bought must be the fake? And what happened to the egg that Kamal bought (the fake one)?

Good questions. Higgins, I also appreciate your concise timeline for the egg.

1. Kamal never realized he bought a fake at the auction. He thought the egg Bond had was the fake lost in the river.

2. The fake egg must have gone promptly back to the Moscow inventory, because they were in a rush to get it at the auction. However, we never see it inspected by the jeweler expert. It would have been interesting if he was shown smashing the fake egg, instead of crushing the Romanov star.

3. Not sure of Kamal even realized that Orlov smashed the real egg? They both probably thought the genuine egg was back in Moscow and were frustrated by the whole ordeal. On the other hand, now that they have BOTH eggs again, why not try to sell the original one and do some more business? $$$

Agree or disagree?

Aftermath:

Due to Bond's switch, Moscow now has a fake egg and the real one was destroyed. Mi6 should not have used a historic treasure as bait. Bugging it with a microchip was also a bad idea because they could have harmed the ornate detailing. It would have been okay if they were playing around with the fake one. They should have just used the one that 009 brought them. Switching the egg had no real affect on the plot, and wasn't even noticed by Kamal. However, I agree that it seemed like a good idea at the time to switch them….it just didn't pay off very well.

The ending of the film with General Gogol and the Romanov Star is weird, because the egg is like completely forgotten about.

Octopussy: Why did Orlov destroy the real egg?

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