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For Europeans a government institution (department) that organises at least a certain level of education is so self-evident, that what's happening in the USA is astounding, tbh. So no, it wasn't a dig at you personally, as I appreciate and value your posts (and topics) extremely high. You contribute far more to these forums than I do.
Sorry about the chatGPT remark, but it's part of my professional field, and it bothers me that so many use this technology to get 'answers', where it basically just cobbles together answers from everywhere, not knowing if they're right or wrong. ChatGPT doesn't know the intrinsic vaalue of words, but as it comes over as 'human', our brain is tricked in thinking it makes sense.
That doesn't mean the technology isn't helping, it is. But you need to know where it is trustworthy, and where it isn't.
Sorry, I can lecture about this all day, I'll stop here.
It could however be the start of an amazingly interesting plot for a Bond villain. Alas, the villains have taken over Bond these days.
Right, now, back to the question: what's the reason for Holly to behave like that? I don't know, it's for me one of the major drawbacks of the film. No chemistry between them and Bond starts out utterly stupid. As if a British government official would ever behave like that.
Really ? Not even about the guy who visited the proctologist ? Doc says "Turn around, bend over and try to relax, and please note it is not unusual to get an erection during this exam." Guy says, "What do you mean ? I don't have an erection !" The doctor says "I didn't mean you."
Okay I want to move on to one that @Ludovico suggested. I hadn't thought it before.
It concerns our old friend Blofeld.
First introduced in FRWL and then spotted again in TB Blofeld is seen in the shadows. He never see his face but can clearly see his hands and his fashion. In both of these appearances he is seen wearing a conventional suit. Dark colour suit, white dress shirt and tie.
However when he is fully seen in YOLT he's changed his look to a Nehru suit. This look is further repeated in DAF. He veers slightly off course in OHMSS to a few different looks. But he is never seen in a conventional suit again, including in Craig's version of Blofeld.
The theory we would like to know, why the change in look from FRWL to YOLT? What prompted this change in fashion for Ernst Stravo Blofeld?
Feel free to approach this from a production or story choice or a theory in world for the switch in styles.
Anyway, maybe he wants to distinguish himself from others, that's the only way I see it 🤷.
From an unfortunate failed attempt to save the original Blofeld's Cat who fell into an aquarium with Siamese fighting fish. Frenzied attack. Frenzied incomplete cat rescue. Scars. Emotional fallout. Had to find another white, blue-eyed Persian cat. Not easy.
Changed his ideology. Or at least his fashion sense.
I think it's from the French. Putting an "e" on the end of an adjective makes it feminine.
-Blofeld has to look different from Bond and other people surrounding him. He has to look distinctive even when his face isn't shown or is not in closeup. Hence a radically different outfit.
-The Nehru suit gives him a somewhat mysterious and exotic, as a White man and a Westerner in Japan, wearing something definitely "foreign" to him.
-It also looks suitably militaristic.
-Blofeld from YOLT onwards wears mostly beige/brown clothes. Again, very different from Bond. The colours are a sign of wealth, but suitably discreet and old fashioned. Like old wood. Blofeld doesn't stand out, yet he's there, solidly established in his surroundings.
-It's not flashy or vain, very sober.
-He's wearing a camel hair suit in the novel TB, if I'm not mistaken. The colour of course would be similar to what we've seen in the movies from YOLT to DAF. A fashion choice that I have seen in a few pulp fiction stories: camel hair jackets and/or brown clothes seems to be liked by many big bad mobsters. So the brown clothes harks back to this old trope and may be partially inspired by the novel TB.
This is a great observation, and yes, it kinda draw a bit from the novel TB.
He does recognise him but plays the game. The Augsburg quote is just showboating.
Also, with his scars, he just had on e of those DAF mudbaths.
On to another thing that requires a theory.
One of my favourite films in the series FRWL. The character of Kerim Bey is wonderful and one of the reasons I love the film so much. As we know, Kerim claims that all his key employees are his sons. Which is a wonderful character touch, but I have wondered over the years.
Is Kerim saying this in a general sense, are some of these "sons" maybe nephews, or close family friends? I believe we see 4-5 different men as his sons. One wonders the following:
What is your theory about Kerim Bey and his sons?
According to the comic book series Permission to Die, yes. Her name is Luludi, AKA Botanee, and she helped Bond during a mission :
https://jamesbond.fandom.com/wiki/Botanee
He might see entertaining the lady (ies) who are send to him as 'work', as a way to keep the opposition busy thinking they can get info on/from him. It clearly is a risk as well, as he was supposed to be 'digging the salt mines' on the bed next to the wall (and indeed, the Soviets wouldn't care about losing the lady in question if the attack was successfull). So perhaps a professional weakness.
Would his sons/cousins talk about it to their mother? Highly unlikely. He's clearly 'the boss', and again, in a cultural perspective, I think the 'sons' would deem it normal behaviour.
Lets fast forward to a more recent, though is a 30 year old movie more recent?
I am talking GE. I love this film and yet...one thing has bothered me.
The "death" of Alec Trevelyan. Captured as double-o-6 Alec is facing a gun at the hands of General Ourumov. Bond plays his bluff and Ourumov caps Alec and he slumps to the ground.
What is your theory around this staged death?
Was it Alec's plan all along to be captured by the General and "shot". Did they plan for Bond to see the death? Or did they get lucky that Bond witnessed the death? How is Ourumov's gun able to kill one man and yet not wound another?
Bonus, how did Alec get scarred on the face only? Wouldn't an explosion do more than scar his face?
Lets hear your theories on how did Trevelyan plan and fake his death?
GE is a treasure, but its PTS makes no sense.
I always had it having somehow survived the blast, the forsaken Alex was imprisoned, but escaped capture thanks to Ouromov, who used him as an enforcer.
As time elapsed, Trev grew more powerful, taking on powerful Moscovian gangs with a barely concealed Yorkshire accent.
He outgrew Ouromov. Now the hunter became the hunted.
Alec saw the mission as a way to defect to the USSR, so he could betray England. After all, that's what 'mad little Alec', our Lienz Cossack, was all about. Hints are given throughout the film. Bond notices it's too quiet. Alec tells him it's luck and fate, knowing very well it's a set-up. He was going to me captured by Ourumov, who was expecting him, so he could defect.
All went according to plan. Ourumov just fires the gun close to Alec's head, he doesn't kill him. But Alec plays his part so from Bond's perspective it is real. But Alec didn't count on Bond setting the timers to 3 minutes instead of the six he thought he'd have to get out of the building. Hence the scar on his face. He was already going out, but the explosion caught up with him.
But his information about the UK and MI6 no doubt would've helped him, and Ourumov in his career.
As CmrRoss says, Ourumov could have fired his gun to the side and made it look real from the angle Bond is looking I guess.
As for the scars, I reckon it's not from the explosion at all (which he was out the door for) but from when Bond dropped a ton of gas canisters onto him and all the Russians on his way out of the facility! Imagine getting one of those in the face while you're lying on the ground with your eyes shut! :D
It's been a long while since I've seen the film, but for the specific question of why they'd fire machine guns at Bond, if they wanted him to survive in order to relay Trevelyan's death, could it not simply be that not every goon was in on the plan? So they do what they do faced with a foreign agent: Try to capture or kill him.
Those in the know can't really stop them for fear of compromising the Trevelyan defection, either by some guard talking or Bond realizing that it was a little too easy to get out. They'd bet on Bond managing to make it out, given what they know about his skills and if he didn't, well, two agents never made it out of the facility.
That still leaves the question of why Trevelyan didn't immediately kill Bond, if they were either willing to risk one of the guards killing him "on accident" or were convinced that their guards couldn't kill him. Maybe the British would never believe the two agents just disappearing and would have sent 00 after 00 to find them, so they had Bond go back and "close the case".
Another issue is Ouromuv tosses Bond a loaded gun during the interrogation scene, after whacking Mishkin.
There is still a round in the chamber.
That's because Travalyan had a deal with Ourumov to defect, Bond didn't. It was capture or kill him, with capture and interrogation being the spy-game bonus. 006 had to fake his death though, just in case Bond would escape, as he did. Otherwise MI6 would know he defected.
Ouromov shoots past Trevelyan's head. From Bond's POV it could easily have looked like a legitimate execution. Trevelyan somehow lets the gas canisters (?) fall on him as Bond makes his escape. When Bond is gone, he gets up and finds that Bond reset the timers. For some reason he can't disable them so he makes a run for it but still gets scarred in the explosion.
One big question is why the Russian mafia let a former MI6 agent (or even just a guy with an English accent) take power in St. Petersburg.