Question: What was the *exact* recipe for Bond's cocktail in the casino?
Question: In the last scene, what happened to the man who helped Domino? They all (Bond, Domino and man) jumped from the boat before it crashed into the rocks but only Bond and Domino climbed into the lifeboat. They didn't even try to find him.
Answer: Bond hands Kutze a lifesaver just before they jump off the hydrofoil. Presumably he just floated there before being picked up by the Coast Guard.
Question: If the opening scene was staged to get 007 to surrender, then it seems it was a terrible plan. Look how many Russians got killed by Bond and 006. It seems very awkward that the whole thing was staged. Why did Bond need to surrender? Why couldn't 006 just shoot him (besides the usual reason that 007 must be executed through an overly involved and escape-riddled plan) What would they do with him once he was captured? Too many questions and a weird scenario.
Answer: The plan was not to capture 007, it was to stage 006's death. Trevelyan's long-term goal was to steal money from the Bank of England and cover it up using the GoldenEye satellite - he presumably did not have time to run the Janus Syndicate and implement this very elaborate plan whilst serving as a full-time MI6 officer. In fact, it was probably the intention that Bond should escape and tell the British government that 006 had died a hero's death.
Question: How did Bond win the game of backgammon, with Kamal Khan, when he didn't get all his chips off the board? Even the two sixes he rolled wouldn't have done it.
Answer: Bond (taking over for the Major) had 1 piece on point 2, 1 piece on point 3, and 2 pieces on point 6. Rolling doubles in Backgammon means you get to make 4 moves instead of just 2, so he was able to remove all 4 pieces. If you have a piece on point 2, you don't have to roll a 2 to remove it. Anything higher than a 2 can be used to remove the piece. Kahn even says Bond has to roll a double 6 in order to win, which he does.
Answer: Not knowing anything about backgammon so this is perhaps wrong. But I thought that Bond didn't win. And the fact that he produced the Faberge egg is what ended the game. (I'm more than likely wrong tho).
Question: How did Bond know which room Goldfinger had at the hotel?
Answer: He deduced that Goldfinger was using a partner to spy on his opponent's hand, and to check his theory he went to the room with the best line of sight. Alternatively, he went (off-screen) to the desk and used his charm, which was utterly irresistible in the Bond films of the '60s, to find out where Goldfinger was staying.
Question: When Bond gets trapped underwater, could it be possible for him to survive using the air in the tyres?
Question: When Cary Lowell arrives at the religious compound run by Wayne Newton to "donate" money, they don't let her in at first. She begs and says "But I came all the way from Wichita Falls." Being from Wichita Falls, Texas (a city not real well known throughout the US since it's relatively small) I'm curious as to how this line got into the film. Does someone working on the film have some connection to Wichita Falls?
Question: What are those blades (the ones used at the end on the caviar factory) used for in real life?
Chosen answer: We see them in the movie when Bond first arrives to meet Electra - they're used for cutting trees in a straight line. Google "helicopter tree trimmer" to see dozens of examples.
Question: When Pushkin wakes up after Bond pretends to kill him at the press conference, he apologises to his wife/girlfriend for putting her through the trauma. But since she was in the bathroom when Bond was there interrogating Pushkin (about Koskov etc.), wouldn't she have heard Bond and Pushkin discussing the staged assassination (after Pushkin says "Then I must die")?
Chosen answer: She could have been let go off screen once it was clear that Bond wasn't going to kill Pushkin, so they could formulate the plan in secret.
Question: When Bond hands Moneypenny the photo before he leaves, he writes "From Russia With Love" on it. Would this be another in a series of Bond sight gags, similar to stopping the bomb timer at "007" seconds in "Goldfinger"?
Chosen answer: It would, yes. Also I am to understand that it's his sense of humour.
Question: In "The World Is Not Enough" Bond, using his intuition, correctly assessed that Elektra King had sided with the villain. So why did he never suspect for a second that Miranda Frost had done the same in this film?
Answer: Bond's suspicions about Elektra King were triggered by his discovery that her head of security, Davidov, was working with Renard. With Miranda Frost, there was nothing that would have led Bond to believe she was a double agent working for Graves/Moon in any capacity other than her undercover MI6 assignment.
Question: Why does the archvillain Ernst Blofeld want to eliminate the diamond smugglers (including Tiffany Chase) via his two assassins?
Chosen answer: Blofeld and Spectre has enough diamonds for the laser he is building to hold the Earth hostage. In typical Spectre fashion, since he is finished with the operation, he wants to leave no loose ends that could tie Spectre into the mix.
Question: Sean Connery took dancing lessons for 11 years in his youth, and he surely knew how to dance when he made this film in his 50s. So, why is his choreographed tango with Kim Basinger in this film so painfully, embarrassingly awkward and heavily edited? Is this perhaps due to the fact that Kim Basinger had virtually no dancing skills?
Question: Just as the bad guy fell into the water two sharks came for him at once, but not for James and Melina (even though he had a wound from earlier). Is there a logical explanation of why the sharks weren't interested in them as well?
Question: What happened to the Space Marines and Draxites who were fighting outside the space station? We have a great big shootout and then they're not even mentioned or seen when the station explodes. And there's no mention that anyone was recovered afterwards. (Just Jaws and Dolly).
Chosen answer: One of the Marines is heard to say to return to the shuttle after Bond gets in. The Draxites must have returned to the station.
Answer: There is a very brief scene of the Marines' shuttle undocking from the space station.
Question: How does the Liparus explode and sink at the end? After the nuclear subs have been destroyed, the ship just starts blowing up for no apparent reason. Was there any explanation for it?
Chosen answer: When the nuclear subs have been destroyed, there's an explosion in the control room, and one of the men cries out "Fuel tank!" Liparus has numerous internal fires raging after the battle with her crew. These uncontrolled fires eventually spread to her fuel tanks and ammo storages, one of which explodes in a huge fireball and finally causes Liparus to sink.
I thought the final explosions that sank the Liparus were deliberate self destruction after completing the mission in an attempt to destroy any evidence, rather like when Bolfeld manually triggers explosives after being thwarted in You Only Live Twice.
Liparus sinks slowly, and that would leave her crew plenty of time to evacuate. Angry and armed crew with a grudge against Stromberg.
Question: Bond is very picky about having a martinti, shaken not stirred. If he drank a martini that was stirred, not shaken, would he be able to tell the difference?
Answer: Actually, yes, he would. The key to a vodka martini, Bond's preferred tipple, is that it should be served ice-cold. By shaking the drink, the ice cubes have a better chance to swish around the whole drink than they would if it was only stirred. It apparently also has the effect of dispersing the ingredients better, giving a different taste to the drink. In the spirit of scientific experimentation, some friends and I tried the drink both ways in a blind taste test a while back - it makes a surprising difference.
If you shake it, it turns cloudy.
Answer: Shaking also causes more melting of the ice resulting in a milder, if watered down, taste suited to Bond's sophisticated palate.
Answer: We tried that as well on several times and on many various evenings. There is a serious difference.
Answer: From the novel: "Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel."
Captain Defenestrator