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This article is about GoldenEye, the film. For the video game see GoldenEye 007. For the ducks, see Goldeneye.
GoldenEye is the seventeenth James Bond film and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as British secret service agent, James Bond. Made by Albert R. Broccoli's EON Productions it was the second official James Bond film not produced by Broccoli himself. While undergoing heart surgery, Broccoli entrusted the making of the 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 was directed by Martin Campbell. Campbell would later direct 2006's Bond film Casino Royale.
GoldenEye is considered an important film in the Bond franchise 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. Judi Dench, the newly cast M describes Bond as a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War." This unusual candor, combined with a well-received performance by Brosnan as the new James Bond, revitalized the franchise. Brosnan would go on to appear in three further Bond films.
While GoldenEye is technically, the first original James Bond movie that doesn't contain any reference to an Ian Fleming novel or short story, the name GoldenEye comes from Fleming's Jamaican estate where he wrote the first Bond novel. In the film, "GoldenEye" is the code name of a secret, military satellite, which uses a nuclear explosion's electromagnetic pulse to disable electronic devices.
Film plot summary
The story's beginning shows James Bond, agent 007, and his friend Alec Tevelyan, agent 006, infiltrating a Soviet chemical weapons factory in Arkhangelsk, now Russia. Trevelyan is captured and presumably killed at the hands of Colonel Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov, but Bond escapes.
Nine years later, after the collapse of the USSR, a prototype attack helicopter, the Eurocopter Tiger, is stolen from the French frigate La Fayette. Former Soviet fighter pilot Xenia Onatopp, whom Bond was spying following a chance encounter, made that possible by seducing and killing a Canadian Admiral. She accomplished this by crushing his chest with her thighs during sex, thus allowing her male accomplice to impersonate the admiral at the Tiger's demonstration flight the following day. Xenia's yacht, the "Manticore" moored off Monte Carlo, was identified by MI6 as leased to a front company of the Russian crime syndicate, Janus.
Bond discovers the dead Admiral, but is too late to stop the theft of the Tiger. The helicopter is tracked by British satellites when it lands at (rumoured) disused satellite control centre in Severnaya, Russia. Moments later, Bond, M, and Chief of Staff Bill Tanner witness the sudden electromagnetic pulse explosion that disables their British spy satellite and severs their visual link to the Russian satellite control centre. General Ourumov and Xenia Onatopp detonated one of two GoldenEye EMP weapon satellites over Severnaya to hide their theft of the remaining, second GoldenEye satellite. They escape from the control centre in the stolen Tiger helicopter, which was designed to withstand the electromagnetic pulse, produced when they detonated the GoldenEye satellite. A woman computer programmer, Natalya Fyodorovna Simonova (surname pronounced Sim-yo-no-va) is the only innocent survivor of the attack on Severnaya; Simonova becomes a target for Janus when Gen. Ourumov learns she survived.
Bond is charged with finding the GoldenEye satellite weapon, and stopping the Janus crime syndicate from using it. His only clue is the lone survivor he saw escaping Severnaya once the visual satellite link is reconnected.
He discovers, during his mission, that Alec Trevelyan not only is alive, but is the mastermind of Janus. His 'assassination' in Arkhangel was a set-up, as Gen. Ourumov works for Janus. Trevelyan plans to detonate the GoldenEye weapon over London, sending Britain "back to the stone age", in vengeance for his Lienz Cossack parents, who were betrayed by the British Army, at the end of World War II, and returned to the Soviets, who had them executed. Before detonating GoldenEye, his plans are to steal from the banks of London, thus having the transaction erased after GoldenEye goes off.
Cast and characters
Crew
Soundtrack
Original GoldenEye soundtrack cover The theme "GoldenEye" was written by Bono and performed by Tina Turner. The soundtrack was composed by Eric Serra. John Altman provided 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".
Track listing
- GoldenEye — Tina Turner
- GoldenEye Overture: (Pt.1) Half of Everything Is Luck (Pt.2)
- Ladies First
- We Share the Same Passions: (Pt.1) the Trip to Cuba (Pt.2)
- Little Surprise for You: (Pt. 1) Xenya (Pt.2) D.M. Mychkine
- Severnaya Suite: (Pt.1) Among the Dead (Pt.2) Out of Hell (Pt.3)
- Our Lady of Smolensk
- Whispering Statues: (Pt.1) Whispers (Pt.2) Two Faced
- Run, Shoot, and Jump
- Pleasant Drive in St. Petersburg
- Fatal Weakness
- That's What Keeps You Alone
- Dish Out of Water: (Pt.1) a Good Squeeze (Pt.2) the Antenna
- Scale to Hell: (Pt.1) Boris and the Lethal Pen/(Pt.2) I Am Invincible
- For Ever, James
- Experience of Love
Vehicles and gadgets
- 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. Unfortunately, in the film, the car isn't used. Bond ends up trading it for Jack Wade's plane in Cuba.
- 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 BMT216A. Note this is not the same car as seen in Goldfinger and Thunderball (that car was registered BMT214A). 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 fax and voice commands.
- Explosive Pen - Q-Branch gives Bond a pen that doubles as a class-4 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 and can 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.
See also
Locations
Film locations
Shooting locations
Trivia
- While this is the first appearance of Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, he was actually picked to replace Roger Moore in the film The Living Daylights, but due to his contract with the television show Remington Steele he had to drop out of the film. Timothy Dalton was then brought in to play the role.
- Brosnan's contract specifically states that while he is playing the role of James Bond he is not allowed to wear a full tuxedo in other films. Brosnan would get 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.
- GoldenEye features the highest bungee jump from a structure in a movie. The drop was more than 722 ft.
- 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.
- The name 'Goldeneye' is that of the house in which Fleming was living when he wrote the first James Bond novel.
- Joe Don Baker returns as CIA agent Jack Wade: his previous appearance in the Bond films was as the villain Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights. Baker had played a similar character, also a CIA agent, for GoldenEye director Martin Campbell in the 1985 BBC television drama Edge of Darkness.
- Richard Maibaum, who had written or co-written the majority of previous Bond film scripts, died during the hiatus between Licence to Kill and GoldenEye. His screenwriting duties were taken up by Michael France, Jeffrey Caine and Bruce Feinstein. Another Bond veteran who passed away during the hiatus was title sequence designer Maurice Binder; the title sequence for this film was passed to the CGI work of Daniel Kleinman.
- The incidental music for the film was, for the first and (as of 2004) only time, a collaboration. 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. Serra's rendition of the James Bond Theme was not very popular with fans.
- "Cubby" Broccoli died shortly after the film was released. He had been too ill to visit the set during filming. The next Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies, was dedicated to his memory.
Novelization
British 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 Michael France 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 novelizations for the remaining three Brosnan Bond films, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough and Die Another Day.
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 canceled the adaptation after only the first issue had been published, and to date the adaptation has never been released in its entirety.
Video games
GoldenEye was made into a video game for the Nintendo 64 by Rareware; see GoldenEye 007. In November 2004 Electronic Arts released GoldenEye: Rogue Agent for Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube video game consoles. The game, based on the James Bond license, actually had nothing to do with the movie GoldenEye.
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