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Man With The Golden Gun - was 007 the bad guy?
mtm
United Kingdom
Here's an interesting idea I saw elsewhere and I'd have to agree that the plot is quite odd for a Bond movie. Not only is that dreaded thing amongst Bond fans: 'the personal mission' (Bond's life is threatened and so M takes him off the mission and he goes on leave!); it's also a plot in which Bond seems to be the aggressor rather than defending the world.
Gibson is a scientist who has seemingly left the UK to work for Hai Fat and Scaramanga, and under their employ he develops the Solex (the British weren't aware he'd made it until he approached them in Hong Kong), so it's reasonable to say that Fat and Scaramanga own the Solex rightfully. He then decides he wants to go back to the UK and essentially steals the Solex as part of his bargaining.
Scaramanga meanwhile has been framed for planning to kill Bond, which isn't the case. Bond pursues him and discovers this, but also finds out that Scaramanga is attempting to recover his Solex. The British have no claim on this beyond the fact that Gibson, who invented it but also effectively stole it, offered it to them in a deal that was never completed. Scaramanga hasn't exactly been pure white in this having killed Fat and Gibson, but even so, he's got more of a claim on the Solex than the British do. So even though Scaramanga has nothing against Bond and doesn't plan to kill him, Bond goes after him and decides to take his property. And because he has a personal distaste for what Scaramanga does (even though killing him will hardly stop the assassination market) he basically decides to go and murder Scaramanga and take his Solex for England. Killing him would even be a pleasure, he admits.
Bond even suggests that the oil companies would pay the owner of the Solex to keep it under wraps... is that the British Government's plan too?
So is Bond/MI6 actually acting morally right here or are they just going out into the world and taking something they want by killing someone who hasn't actually even threatened them? A bit like Kristatos going after the ATAC. Is Scaramanga Bond's victim to some extent?
Gibson is a scientist who has seemingly left the UK to work for Hai Fat and Scaramanga, and under their employ he develops the Solex (the British weren't aware he'd made it until he approached them in Hong Kong), so it's reasonable to say that Fat and Scaramanga own the Solex rightfully. He then decides he wants to go back to the UK and essentially steals the Solex as part of his bargaining.
Scaramanga meanwhile has been framed for planning to kill Bond, which isn't the case. Bond pursues him and discovers this, but also finds out that Scaramanga is attempting to recover his Solex. The British have no claim on this beyond the fact that Gibson, who invented it but also effectively stole it, offered it to them in a deal that was never completed. Scaramanga hasn't exactly been pure white in this having killed Fat and Gibson, but even so, he's got more of a claim on the Solex than the British do. So even though Scaramanga has nothing against Bond and doesn't plan to kill him, Bond goes after him and decides to take his property. And because he has a personal distaste for what Scaramanga does (even though killing him will hardly stop the assassination market) he basically decides to go and murder Scaramanga and take his Solex for England. Killing him would even be a pleasure, he admits.
Bond even suggests that the oil companies would pay the owner of the Solex to keep it under wraps... is that the British Government's plan too?
So is Bond/MI6 actually acting morally right here or are they just going out into the world and taking something they want by killing someone who hasn't actually even threatened them? A bit like Kristatos going after the ATAC. Is Scaramanga Bond's victim to some extent?
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Comments
Gibson is morally a bit suspect. He is wanting to go back to the UK. Why he can't just go and needs to meet with Hip. Why meet with Hip? A low level agent. But I never understood why Gibson would want to "defect" or thought this was a complicated matter.
Scaramanga idolizes Bond and considers him to be a peer. This, in spite of the fact that we have never seen Bond perform an assignation on film. He attempts to kill the guy coming out of Elke Sommers mouth but Bey takes over. No matter Scaramanga feels Bond is his equal. Bond is repulsed by Scaramanga and agrees to his challenge. It takes on a personal edge. I think Bond doesn't like the comparison as it might hit a little too close to home.
Do I consider Bond to the villain of the piece? No, he has different motivation for completing the mission but he's not the villain of the movie.
Yes I do wonder why he doesn't just go home. Presumably he must've left in slightly dodgy circumstances and presumably is thought of as working for the Red Chinese despite Fat being in Thailand. It's weirdly vague.
Yes probably not the bad guy as such, but he is the antagonist in a way I'm not sure he is in many other Bond films. And I think his, and MI6's, motivations aren't as heroic as usual. Unusually the 'big plan' isn't the villain's plan but the British plan: obtain the Solex.
I do wonder why they didn't just have Bond and Scaramanga racing to get hold of the Solex from a third party or something, or that Gibson had stolen the Solex from the British in the first place. In the version of the film we have it's hard not to conclude that it does, more or less, rightfully belong to Scaramanga.
On a James Bond and Friends podcast they talked about TMWTGG and LTK being a bit similar which at first glance seems preposterous. However Bond is clearly intent on one thing and it doesn't really concern his government. We see a side to Moore's Bond that we don't see again till LTK. This Bond roughs up woman. He goes on the aggressive to get the villain. LTK Bond clearly is the aggressor, in fact Sanchez provides hospitality to Bond and even involves him in his operation.
It is an interesting angle you have presented @mtm
Really weird plotting. It's just logical.
Even the novel doesn't have him planning an assassination though does it? He's just building a hotel and doing everything baddies do but without actually assassinating anyone, despite being an assassin! :)
I don't see why audiences wouldn't go with that as long as the stakes are high enough.
yes, MI6's plans in TMWTGG could be veiwed in the grey area of morality.. but remember the time and place.. Scaramanga's plan was to sell the Solex tech and the Laser Gun to the highest bidder, which i believe was the real point of the Solex to begin with - sure it had it's energy saving facade, but we all saw what else that technology was capable of.. and at the time, possibly letting that tech fall into the hands of Communist China or Soviet Russia in a bidding war was something Mi6 was not going to let happen..
Scaramanga, the man himself, is a cold blooded killer... Bond is a killer too - he even addresses it, but he also says "the men he kills are themselves killers.".. while murder on any level is a sin, to Bond there is a moral difference he sees because he doesn't murder innocent people, or people in cold blood.. even Bond's coldest kills you could argue are just (within context).. plus when doing so, its under orders of his government to do so - he isn't freelance..
in terms of Sanchez.. remember, he is dealing in not only narcotics, but black market arms dealing, and even threatened to commit acts of terrorism against innocent civilians by threatening to shoot down an airliner.. and also, he is a murderer... remember too, he killed an innocent woman, and nearly killed Felix to just to get back at him for getting him arrested.. it's one thing to go after Felix, but to go after his wife - and basically ordered to have her raped and then murdered.. that's pretty evil.
but the duality of these specific villains tho is what i think makes them 2 of the better villains in the entire franchise.. their motives are clear, and they believe what they are doing is morally right.. but they have a lot of charisma that makes it sort of easy to want to look past just how bad they are..
No ones saying he isn’t a bad sort of guy, but unlike Sanchez Scaramanga isn’t even threatening any innocents. He’s a paid assassin, sure, but once he’s gone his clients will just find another assassin: Bond hasn’t ended the assassination market by killing him.
As for selling the Solex to the highest bidder... well that’s rather how business works, and although Scaramanga went to extremes to ensure the Solex remained his, it was essentially rightfully his. If the British want it there’s nothing to say he won’t let them buy it from him. But their first resort is to take it by force, they don’t even try. Would M have ordered Bond to kill Gibson once they’d found him in Hong Kong I wonder?
And what do they do with it? We never hear of a solar revolution, so did they let the oil companies pay them off perhaps...?
Are MI6 ever shown as morally dubious in any other Bond film? I’m trying to think.
Yes I always forget that. That is a massive clue that the film is based on that book!
:)
what about him killing Andrea Anders?
Well I'm certainly not saying he's a nice man, but she has framed him and attracted the attention of the world's greatest secret agent to try and kill him. From his point of view, she did sort of start it!
:D
True, but the worst they do there is choose to not do anything, whereas in TMWTGG they're actively going out there and taking what they want. Not even from another state but from a private individual.
I think it'd be quite an interesting angle and it's kind of surprising the films haven't gone there yet: with Bond actually disagreeing with what the British are doing. I wonder if they'd ever go there. Probably the closest we've had is the Nine Eyes thing in Spectre.
Andrea being the plot instigator is inspired as is the solex as a maguffin but the issue is that once they are established the film does little to nothing with them.
Everyone acknowledged they should have given a little more time between films. That’s the primary issue but I still adore GG with all my heart and it has inspired moments aplenty.
The bullet he got in the mail was just a prop. He needed a real bullet which had been fired by Scaramanga to track him down.
And did that actually happen?
Chula! Chula! Chula! lol for some reason I like that scene and the character. Memorable.