GoldenEye

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GoldenEye
Caption: Promotional poster for GoldenEye
Bond: Pierce Brosnan
Director: Martin Campbell
Producer: Barbara Broccoli
Tom Pevsner
Anthony Waye
Michael G. Wilson
Writer: Michael France
Screenplay: Jefferey Caine
Bruce Feirstein
Music: Eric Serra
Composer: Bono
The Edge
Performer: Tina Turner
Distributor: MGM/UA Distribution Co.
Released: November 17, 1995
Runtime: 130 min.
Preceded by: Licence to Kill
Followed by: Tomorrow Never Dies
Budget: $60,000,000
Worldgross: $353,400,000
Admissions: 81.2 million
Imdb id: 0113189


GoldenEye is the 17th James Bond film and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as Ian Fleming's British secret service agent, James Bond. Made by Albert R. Broccoli's EON Productions (though listed as "Albert R. Broccoli presents"), it was the second official James Bond film not produced by Broccoli himself. While undergoing heart surgery, Broccoli entrusted the making of the film and the forthcoming generation of James Bond films to his daughter Barbara Broccoli and stepson Michael G. Wilson, both of whom had been executive producers of previous James Bond films. GoldenEye was released in 1995 and directed by New Zealander Martin Campbell. Campbell would later sign to direct 2006's Bond film Casino Royale.


Name

While GoldenEye is technically the third original James Bond movie that doesn't contain any reference to an Ian Fleming novel or short story, the title comes from Fleming's Jamaican estate he dubbed "Goldeneye" where he wrote all the Bond novels. The estate could have been named "Goldeneye" for a number of reasons. The first is that the estate is located in Oracabessa, which some think may have been derived from the Spanish for 'golden head' (cabeza de oro). Fleming is also reported to have read Carson McCullers's novel Reflections in a Golden Eye around the time he had his house built in Jamaica. More notably, Fleming was in charge of the defence of Gibraltar during the Second World War; the operation dubbed by Fleming, Operation Goldeneye.

In the film, "GoldenEye" is the code name of a secret Russian military satellite program, using two nuclear warhead equipped satellites named Petya and Mischa, which use electromagnetic pulse caused by their nuclear explosions in space to disable all electronic devices within a 30 mile radius of their target on Earth. A square-shaped disk with a translucent golden sphere in the centre authorizes the GoldenEye system to set a trajectory and target for each satellite.

Overview

GoldenEye is considered an important film in the Bond series in that it was successful in reviving interest in a character that many critics had suggested had become an anachronism in the post-Cold War world.

The previous film, Licence to Kill, had been released in June 1989, before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although it was financially successful and critically acclaimed, it was not as popular as previous Bond films, suggesting interest in the series was waning at that point.

Judi Dench, the newly cast M, describes Bond as a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War." This unusual candour, combined with a generally well-received performance by Brosnan as the new James Bond, helped to revitalize the franchise.

Plot summary

The story opens with James Bond 007 (Pierce Brosnan) infiltrating the Soviet Army guarded Arkangel chemical weapons facility in the Soviet Union, along with his friend and colleague Alec Trevelyan 006 (Sean Bean). Trevelyan is captured and shot by Colonel Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov (Gottfried John), but Bond escapes and blows up the facility, completing the mission.

Nine years later (after the collapse of the Soviet Union), Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen) and an accomplice steal the prototype attack helicopter Eurocopter Tiger from the French frigate La Fayette during a flight demonstration. Onatopp is identified by MI6 as being a member of the Janus Syndicate, a Russian crime ring. The stolen helicopter is flown to a supposedly abandoned satellite control centre in Severnaya, Russia (depicted as being in central Siberia) being used to develop the GoldenEye satellite weapon; this is traced by MI6 satellite and watched by Bond and M in London. Onatopp and Ourumov, who is now a General, enter Severnaya, steal the GoldenEye disk and kill the programmers working there. They then fire Petya, one of the two GoldenEye satellites, which detonates an electromagnetic pulse and destroys the control centre; this covers their theft but allows them to escape in the unaffected Tiger helicopter, along with Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming, a programmer at Severnaya who actually works for the Janus group. Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco), a female programmer, is the only other survivor but she arranges to meet up with Grishenko and Onatopp catches her.

MI6 deduce what has happened and Bond is tasked with finding GoldenEye and stopping its use. He travels to St. Petersburg and uses his CIA contact Jack Wade (Joe Don Baker) to arrange a meeting with Valentin Zukovsky. Zukovsky, in turn, arranges for him to meet up with the head of Janus. This turns out to be Trevelyan, who had faked his death at Arkangel. He wants revenge for his Lienz Cossack parents, who were betrayed by the British and returned to the Soviets at the end of World war II. He plans to get this by detonating the second satellite, Mischa, over London. This will hide his own theft of money from the Bank of England and possibly cause a worldwide financial meltdown. Trevelyan captures Bond and leaves him with Simonova to die but they escape.

They are then caught by the Russian government and interrogated by Dmitri Mishkin (Tchéky Karyo). During the interrogation, Ourumov enters and is implicated in the Severnaya attack by Simonova. He kills Mishkin and captures Simonova, escaping in a car; Bond pursues in a tank to an armoured train, where he kills Ourumov and reunites with Simonova. They are again left to die by Trevelyan but escape, and Simonova traces Grishenko to Cuba using a computer on the train.

File:Gold9.jpg
Xenia Onatopp & James Bond fighting

Bond and Simonova go to Cuba to find the satellite dish in a light aircraft which is shot and crashes in the jungle. Onatopp ziplines down off a helicopter to finish them off, but Bond fights back and she is killed. They make their way onto the radio telescope cradle, which had been hidden in a lake, and Simonova programs the satellite to initiate re-entry (so it would burn up in the atmosphere). Grishenko reprograms it back, but Bond jams the moving gears of the cradle preventing it repositioning and Mischa is destroyed. Trevelyan and Bond fight hand-to-hand with Bond the eventual winner; Trevelyan falls hundreds of feet to the dish below, although is shown as still alive. Bond escapes by jumping to a helicopter that Simonova has commandeered, then the antenna explodes (as a result of the jammed gears) and falls, killing Trevelyan.

Cast and characters

The Women of GoldenEye

Picture Name Actress
100px Natalya Simonova Izabella Scorupco The redheaded Natalya Simonova, the lead Bond girl of GoldenEye, is a computer programmer stationed in Severnaya, which in turns safeguards the activation of the GoldenEye satellite. Simonova was the sole survivor after General Oroumov and Xenia Onatopp slaughtered all the personnel so they can activate GoldenEye. Later, when she discovered that fellow programmer Boris Grishenko was also alive, she met up with him, not knowing he was on the side of the villains. After escaping the clutches of Trevelyan and Onatopp a couple of times, Natalya joined forces with Bond to end the threat of the GoldenEye satellite.
100px Xenia Onatopp Famke Janssen A former fighter pilot for the Soviet Air Force who joined the Janus crime syndicate after the fall of the Soviet Union, Xenia Onatopp is Trevelyan's right-hand woman. Clearly a villainess in the mold of Fiona Volpe, Onatopp takes it several steps beyond. She is characterized early on in the film as achieving sexual satisfaction through killing, usually by crushing her partner's chest between her thighs. Although sexual encounters have always played a prominent role in the franchise, Onatopp is the only character in the film series seen to achieve anything resembling an orgasm onscreen.
100px Caroline Serena Gordon The other redhead of GoldenEye is Caroline, the film's pre-mission Bond girl. She is seen as a nervous passenger sitting next to 007 in his Aston Martin. It is revealed that she was sent by M to "evaluate" him. After a cat-and-mouse car chase between her, Bond, and Onatopp, Caroline finally gives in to Bond's charms.

Crew

Soundtrack

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File:007GEsoundtrack.jpg
Original GoldenEye soundtrack cover

The theme song, "GoldenEye", was written by Bono and The Edge, and was performed by Tina Turner. The Swedish group Ace Of Base were also involved at one point, producing a song also called "GoldenEye". This song was later released with slightly revised lyrics as The Juvenile on their 2002 album Da Capo. In addition to the Bondian bass line, it seems that the lyric 'The Juvenile' simply replaced 'The Goldeneye'. The other lyrics, most notably the line "Tomorrow's foe is now a friend" obviously refer to the plot of this film.

The film features the song "Stand By Your Man" by Tammy Wynette. The song is sung in the film by Minnie Driver in the scene in which Bond confronts Zukovsky. Intended to be a comic moment, Driver intentionally sings the song off-key in an exaggerated Russian accent.

The soundtrack was composed by Eric Serra. Serra's score is often criticized by Bond fans and is considered the farthest departure from a traditional Bond score in the series history. The producers later hired John Altman to provide the music for the tank chase in St. Petersburg. Serra's original track for that sequence can still be found on the soundtrack as "A Pleasant Drive In St. Petersburg". The incidental music for the film has thus far been the only collaboration on a James Bond film. Parisian Eric Serra composed and performed a number of synthesizer tracks, including the version of the James Bond Theme that plays during the gun barrel sequence, while John Altman and David Arch provided the more traditional symphonic music.

Track listing

  1. GoldenEye - Tina Turner
  2. GoldenEye Overture: (Pt.1) Half of Everything Is Luck (Pt.2)
  3. Ladies First
  4. We Share the Same Passions: (Pt.1) the Trip to Cuba (Pt.2)
  5. Little Surprise for You: (Pt. 1) Xenya (Pt.2) D.M. Mychkine
  6. Severnaya Suite: (Pt.1) Among the Dead (Pt.2) Out of Hell (Pt.3)
  7. Our Lady of Smolensk
  8. Whispering Statues: (Pt.1) Whispers (Pt.2) Two Faced
  9. Run, Shoot, and Jump
  10. Pleasant Drive in St. Petersburg
  11. Fatal Weakness
  12. That's What Keeps You Alone
  13. Dish Out of Water: (Pt.1) a Good Squeeze (Pt.2) the Antenna
  14. Scale to Hell: (Pt.1) Boris and the Lethal Pen/(Pt.2) I Am Invincible
  15. For Ever, James
  16. Experience of Love

Vehicles & gadgets

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  • BMW Z3 — A convertible, it comes fully loaded with all the usual Q refinements, including a self-destruct system and Stinger missiles located behind the headlights. Bond uses none of the car's gadgets except for the GPS navigation system, and ends up trading it for Jack Wade's plane.
  • Cessna 172 - Jack Wade's aeroplane (see above)
  • Grappling Belt — Q gives Bond a size-34 belt containing a 75-foot rappelling cord and a piton-shooting buckle. When fired, it shoots a grapple attached to high-tensile-strength wire designed to support Bond's weight.
  • Aston Martin DB5 — Registration BMT214A. Note this is not the same car as seen in Goldfinger and Thunderball (that car was registered BMT216A). This appears to be Bond's personal car and re-appears in the next film Tomorrow Never Dies (its appearance at Castle Thane in The World Is Not Enough did not make it into the final film). The car is equipped with a refrigerator in the centre arm rest to hold champagne and two glasses, and also a communications system including voice commands and a fax machine, which prints out of the in-dash CD player.
File:Armour-train002.jpg
Goldeneye Class 20
  • The armoured locomotive pulling the train in which Alec Trevelyan escapes St. Petersburg was actually a British Rail Class 20 No. D8188, with the addition of some armour plating to give the impression of a Russian armoured locomotive. (In the film, Trevelyan mentions that the trains were used to haul mobile ICBMs around the country).
  • Explosive Pen — Q-Branch gives Bond a Parker Jotter pen that doubles as a "class four" (C4) grenade. Three clicks arms the four-second fuse, another three disarms it.
  • Omega Watch — This watch, standard issue of MI6, has a built-in laser that can cut through steel and iron, and can also remotely detonate mines.
  • Grapple and Laser Gun — In the intro sequence Bond bungee jumps off of a dam. To ensure he doesn't bounce back up he uses this gun to latch on to the complex below using its grapple function. Once down, Bond uses the laser built inside the gun to infiltrate the venting system that leads into the bathroom.
  • Russian tank, which Bond steals from a Russian military building. An older T-55 tank was made up to resemble a T-80BV in the film.

Firearms of GoldenEye

  • Walther PPK — James Bond's standard issue pistol. Shown in the poster below with silencer. Chambered for the 7.65 x 17mm Browning (or .32 ACP) cartridge.
  • Makarov PM pistol — Standard-issue pistol of the Soviet/Russian armed forces. The pistol was prominately used by General Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov in a number of scenes in the movie.
  • Kalashnikov AK-74 automatic rifle — Standard-issue assault rifle of the Soviet/Russian armed forces and has been in Soviet/Russian military service since 1974/1975. Chambered for the 5.45 x 39mm Soviet M74 cartridge. A number of the AK-74 rifles that were used were not real AK-74s but non-Russian made Kalashnikov rifles that were made to look like the AK-74 rifle. The folding-stock variant AK-74 rifles that were seen in GoldenEye were Chinese-made Norinco Type 56/AKM rifles that were fitted with AK-74-style muzzle brakes and Russian-made red bakelite plastic magazines that were made for the AKM rifle in the 1970s. The rifles that were fitted with fixed buttstocks were real, Russian-made AK-74 rifles.
  • Kalashnikov AKSU-74 carbine— Standard-issue carbine of the Soviet/Russian vehicle crews and certain internal security forces. The AKSU-74 is shortened version of the AK-74 for issue to vehicle crews and people operating in confined spaces, it uses the same ammunition as the AK-74. The AKSU-74 (or AKS-74u) was prominently used by James Bond at the Arkangel Chemical Weapons Facility in 1986 and in St. Petersburg in 1995 when he and Natalya were escaping from the Russian military base. The AKSU-74 was also used by Xenia Onatopp when she used the weapon to kill the personnel at the Severnaya satellite control centre after General Ourumov got control of the two GoldenEye satellites. Bond can be seen wielding it on Trevelyan's Train. Also chambered for the 5.45 x 39mm Soviet M74 cartridge.

Ratings history

Goldeneye had a few things trimmed in order to be guaranteed a PG-13 rating from the MPAA and a 12 rating from the BBFC. The cuts include:

  • The visible bullet impact to 006's head when he is shot at the beginning of the film.
  • Several additional deaths during the sequence in which Xenia guns down the workers at the Severnya station.
  • A few extra seconds of footage of Xenia's death.
  • James giving Xenia a rabbit punch while they are riding in the car together. This change was only requested by the BBFC, however, Martin Campbell felt that making two versions of one scene was ridiculous, so he cut the punch in both versions of the film.

Locations

Film locations

File:Kleinman titlecredits.jpg
Title credits from GoldenEye representing the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War

Shooting locations

Italics indicate the locations in the movie portrayed by each shooting location.

Novelisation

File:GoldeneyeNovel.jpg
1995 British Coronet Books paperback edition.

GoldenEye was the second and last Bond film to be adapted as a novel by then-current Bond novelist John Gardner. GoldenEye is based upon the screenplay by Bruce Feirstein and Jeffrey Caine. The book follows the movie storyline fairly closely, however Gardner adds a rather violent sequence prior to the opening bungee jump in which Bond wipes out a group of Russian guards. This scene does not appear in the movie, although the popular GoldenEye 007 video game based on the film featured something similar.

This was also Gardner's penultimate Bond novel; after one more entry in the series (COLD), Gardner would retire from chronicling the adventures of 007. Raymond Benson would take over the series and also write the novelisations for the remaining three Brosnan Bond films, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day.

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Comic book adaptation

In late 1995 Topps Comics began publishing a three-issue adaptation of GoldenEye in comic book format. The film script was adapted by Don McGregor with art by Rick Magyar. The first issue carried a January 1996 cover date. For reasons unknown, Topps cancelled the adaptation after only the first issue had been published, and to date the adaptation has never been released in its entirety.

Video games

Main article: GoldenEye 007 and GoldenEye: Rogue Agent

GoldenEye was adapted into a highly regarded video game for the Nintendo 64 by Rareware. At the time of its release, it was considered a flagship game for the new N64 console, and was considered revolutionary in its use of the first-person shooter format which led to many imitators, and is still considered to this day one of the finest games of all time.

In the Autumn of 2004, Electronic Arts released GoldenEye: Rogue Agent for Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube and later the Nintendo DS. This is the first game based on the 007 franchise in which the player does not take on the role of James Bond himself; rather they control an aspiring 00-agent (named GoldenEye) who is recruited by Auric Goldfinger, the villain in the movie and book Goldfinger. It should be noted that this game has nothing to do with the movie and was only titled "GoldenEye" in order to gain from the previous game's success.

Trivia

  • According to story writer, Michael France, the film was written with Timothy Dalton's darker, grittier portrayal of Bond in mind, but Dalton withdrew from the role before shooting began in 1994.
  • For a time it was rumoured that Brosnan's contract specifically stated that he was not allowed to wear a full tuxedo in other films and that Brosnan had apparently worked around this in the film The Thomas Crown Affair by leaving his tie untied during a black-tie ball, thus not wearing a full tuxedo. This rumour turned out to be false.
  • GoldenEye features the highest bungee jump from a structure in a movie, performed by British stuntman Wayne Michaels. The drop was more than 722 ft. Michaels later made a cameo as a helicopter pilot that Xenia shoots.
  • Reportedly, GoldenEye's script had to be rewritten as it was found to be too similar to a plotline in the James Cameron film True Lies.
  • Maurice Binder, the title sequence designer for most of the James Bond films since Dr. No, died in 1991. The job of title designer for GoldenEye as well several future James Bond films was then passed to Daniel Kleinman.
  • During the tank sequence, the tank can be seen running over a Russian vehicle, clearly crushing the driver (presumably a mannequin). This depiction of "collateral damage" may have been unintentional as it is followed by a quick shot of the driver getting out of the car.
  • Xenia's combat boots had to be custom-made for the film, as the costumers were unable to find appropriate boots which fit Famke Janssen (who wears US size 11 shoes).
  • When GoldenEye was first released it was rated a '12' by the BBFC. This continued for all home video releases until 2006 when it was remastered and re-edited for the James Bond Ultimate Edition DVD in which a number of headbutts were restored and some violent sound effects were restored to their original levels. The rating was changed to a '15'.
  • Alan Cumming and Famke Janssen later appeared together onscreen again, this time as protagonists Nightcrawler and Jean Grey, respectively, in X-Men 2.
  • The title of Goldeneye was used for EA Games latest Bond game, Goldeneye Rogue Agent. Altough the star of the game is not James Bond but rather a former MI6 agent who lost his eye to Dr.NO during a mission. And due to brutal behavior during missions he is fired by M personally. But he has had a secret agrement to join no one less than Auric Goldfinger, who is now a member of Spectre. Appearently Scaramanga is also a member of Spectre as their version of Q. He is the one who gives the agent a robotic Golden Eye, thus his new name becomes Goldeneye. Also Xenia Onatop and Blofeld himself appears...


External links


The James Bond films
Official films
Dr. No | From Russia with Love | Goldfinger | Thunderball | You Only Live Twice | On Her Majesty's Secret Service | Diamonds Are Forever | Live and Let Die | The Man with the Golden Gun | The Spy Who Loved Me | Moonraker | For Your Eyes Only | Octopussy | A View to a Kill | The Living Daylights | Licence to Kill | GoldenEye | Tomorrow Never Dies | The World Is Not Enough | Die Another Day | Casino Royale | Quantum of Solace
Unofficial films
Casino Royale (1954 TV) | Casino Royale (1967 spoof) | Never Say Never Again
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