The Living Daylights (1987)

Factual error: Austria is famous for its mountains and ski resorts, but certain parts of Austria are quite flat. And the border region between Bratislava and Vienna is VERY flat. No chance to cross the border over a mountain with a ski resort like shown in the movie, unless you take a 600km detour with three more border crossings.

Factual error: In the "Soviet" base in Afghanistan, every equipment, from armoured carriers to light tanks, is of French manufacture. And the transport plane is an American C-130 Hercules.

Factual error: When the police car Bond has lasered through splits in half, the metal on either side of the wheels has been cleanly cut, but the wheels themselves are undamaged, despite the fact that Bond never switched it off.

Factual error: Both in Czech and in Slovak, the forms of last names always mark gender (aside from some exceptions which aren't relevant here). 'Milovy' is not a possible last name for a Czech or Slovak woman because it is a male adjective. 'Milová' would be possible, though. This kind of mistake is very commonly made with Slavic names (e.g. Russian women whose last names end in '-sky' when they should end in '-skaya'). Also, her first name 'Kara' is virtually never used in the Czech Republic or Slovakia (let alone communist Czechoslovakia) and sounds very exotic to the people that live there. We can just assume she got an unusual first name for some reason which is entirely possible, but overall her full name sounds very silly to a native speaker.

Factual error: While Bond is taxiing down the runway at the Russian airbase, he is nowhere near takeoff speed for that aircraft (if he was, the Jeep wouldn't be able to catch up).

Factual error: When James Bond and Kara Milovy are on the plane and it runs out of fuel, one engine quits first. When this happens, the aircraft turns towards the stalled engine, so the pilot has to compensate by steering towards the good one, or the plane will spiral. James Bond doesn't do this, he just keeps the wheel straight and pilots normally. (01:59:17)

Factual error: When Bond steals the opium laden plane from the airbase, Kamran Shah and his men are busy fighting the Russians. Considerable flying time later (during which Necros gets the boot), Bond then drops the bomb on the bridge. Somehow Kamran has managed to get ahead of the plane on horseback.

Factual error: Aircraft have multiple independent tanks. If one tank is hit, it should be able to fly for hours on the others. It would be very unlikely that all tanks of the plane got hit during the firefight - some are in quite well-protected spots. It is actually very nigh impossible to pierce every single tank from the outside and still have a flyable plane remaining.

Doc ★