Your thoughts on the Zorin Miners Massacre in AVTAK?

Never had a problem with it. That's what bad guys do. If anything, Zorin killing innocent men falls at the very bottom of my list of problems with A View To A Kill.

Was in the process of moving to a new city and all my stuff was getting shipped down, foolishly the only Bond movie that was with me was A View to A Kill. Talk about a massacre, I couldn't even be bothered to watch the final fight before I turned it off. I can't believe I even made it that far.

It could have been worse. They could have followed through on the original plot of having Zorin re-direct Halley's Comet to hit Silcon Valley.

That would have made DIE ANOTHER DAY look like FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

It could have been worse. They could have followed through on the original plot of having Zorin re-direct Halley's Comet to hit Silcon Valley.

Fecken 'ell.

I suppose the climax would involve Moore-Bond atop the comet, Aerosmith playing in the background, cocking an eyebrow and quipping "This comet's not the only thing that's hard as a rock."

Is it bad that when I read that, my first thought was that Moore's quip was a reference to his erection?

CJB wrote:

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

It could have been worse. They could have followed through on the original plot of having Zorin re-direct Halley's Comet to hit Silcon Valley.

Fecken 'ell.

I suppose the climax would involve Moore-Bond atop the comet, Aerosmith playing in the background, cocking an eyebrow and quipping "This comet's not the only thing that's hard as a rock."

I'm baaaaaaaaack in the saddle again! I'm baaaaaaaaack!

Apart from the fact that assembling the workers and gassing them would add even more similarities to GF - having plenty of them is what AVTAK is often criticized for, and the suggested scenario would be a blatant rip-off - how would he lure them to that "facility under the ground"? And how could a ballroom be built into the mine?
What's more, he had to kill them shortly after the earthquake came about, why would they be stupid enough to come together one more time under what pretence on Zorin's part? Isn't that a bit too suspicious?
And while we're at it - Zorin kills a lot of his own workers, or other hired workers, a Texan geologist and other experts, and he plans to blame it on a natural disaster, which is perfectly doable, because their bodies will be mutilated by the explosion and perhaps be forever covered under tons of debris/rock/soil, whatever.
Whereas Goldfinger assembles gangster leaders from all over America in a room, after they have worked for him, gasses them all at the same time - and does not expect their organizations to retaliate? Or what is he going to tell them how it happened?
How stupid is THAT?

Largo's Shark wrote:

Seve wrote:

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

Seve wrote:

A pretty inefficient way of going about it, when you got a big explosion / earthquake planned which could do it for you

There were no guarantees that the earthquake would kill them. And how would you convince the workers to stay in the mines? They've been packing it full of explosives..

I was thinking along the lines of tricking them into attending some sort of meeting, in some sort of dining hall or other facility under the ground that had been in use during the mining, then lock them in and gas them

"Hey, what's widd da trick pool table?!"

Exactly


But that's just an example of how it could be done in a more efficient manner, I'm not suggesting they copy Goldfinger, which has it's own well documented plot credibilty issue

I love this scene; it is one of my favorites and one of the highlights of A View to a Kill. We see how sadisticly twisted and purely evil Max Zorin is, and it really does justice for his character as the main villain.

Dead men tell no tales and can't be witnesses.

Any of you would had done the exact same thing if you were in Zorin's place.

It's called self-preservation.

j7wild wrote:

Dead men tell no tales and can't be witnesses.

Any of you would had done the exact same thing if you were in Zorin's place.

It's called self-preservation.

No, it's called MASS MURDER!

Max Zorin is a villain. And villains do bad things.

j7wild wrote:

Dead men tell no tales and can't be witnesses.

Any of you would had done the exact same thing if you were in Zorin's place.

It's called self-preservation.

You'd make one hell of a lawyer.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

FieldsMan wrote:

Well, given what happens with Bond right at the beginning of GE and in TND, I don't think it's completely out of place in the Bond series.

Bond doesn't mow down unarmed men in GE or TND.

Unarmed, no - unprepared and relatively innocent, yes.

I remember on Entertainment tonight, John Tesh introduced a clip from GoldenEye by saying "007 escapes from some bad Russian soldiers..." supposedly to differentiate them from the hollow-eyed minions they would have been six years earlier, or perhaps to give the scene context, since the clip began with Brosnan racing around the St. Petersburg prison shooting indiscriminately.

Yet, in the film, I got the impression that Ouromov was the only corrupt soldier in the lot, and that the rest were naively following whatever orders their General issued. Not having time to explain this to the soldiers, Bond simply shoots his way out. Very nasty, and I expected 007 would never be welcome in the New Russia again. Moreover, Moore would never have done it.

As for Zorin, his massacre scene was disturbing but perfectly in character. Even the way he laughed at one point suggested to me that, should Project Main Strike come off successfully, he'd like to do this again sometime.

"That's what I call trouble."

But I thought that Stacey Sutton said that Zorin's plan to blow up Silicon Valley, would kill millions of people. So if Zorin's plan was going to kill millions people anyway, does him wasting about a 100 more, make that much of a difference, how we should view him?

AMC Hornet wrote:

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

FieldsMan wrote:

Well, given what happens with Bond right at the beginning of GE and in TND, I don't think it's completely out of place in the Bond series.

Bond doesn't mow down unarmed men in GE or TND.

Unarmed, no - unprepared and relatively innocent, yes.

I remember on Entertainment tonight, John Tesh introduced a clip from GoldenEye by saying "007 escapes from some bad Russian soldiers..." supposedly to differentiate them from the hollow-eyed minions they would have been six years earlier, or perhaps to give the scene context, since the clip began with Brosnan racing around the St. Petersburg prison shooting indiscriminately.

Yet, in the film, I got the impression that Ouromov was the only corrupt soldier in the lot, and that the rest were naively following whatever orders their General issued. Not having time to explain this to the soldiers, Bond simply shoots his way out. Very nasty, and I expected 007 would never be welcome in the New Russia again. Moreover, Moore would never have done it.

Old thread, but since ironpony bumped it: Didn't Bond kill Orlov's soldiers in OP? I felt they were blindly following his orders during the train sequences.

I think they were blindly following orders, but the soldiers must have known something was up, as it would be weird to get called to Berlin to participate in this whole train thing.

It seems that Bond is biased cause he has no problems shooting Russian officers in order to escape capture, but you never see him do this with officers in other countries.

In A View to A Kill for example, when the San Francisco police wanted to arrest him to clear things up, Bond sprayed the cop in charge with the water canon, and then ran away. You don't see him taking the cops gun and shooting the other cops.

In Casino Royale, when the officers at the Embassy came after Bond, Bond shot the steam pipes to let steam out and incapacitate them, but he didn't shoot them directly.

So why does he have no problems killing Russian officers like in Octopussy and Goldeneye?

ironpony wrote:

I think they were blindly following orders, but the soldiers must have known something was up, as it would be weird to get called to Berlin to participate in this whole train thing.

There were Soviet soldiers in East Germany from the closing months of WWII until the country was reunified, so it's nothing out of the ordinary. The Americans are still there, after all.

ironpony wrote:

It seems that Bond is biased cause he has no problems shooting Russian officers in order to escape capture, but you never see him do this with officers in other countries.

In A View to A Kill for example, when the San Francisco police wanted to arrest him to clear things up, Bond sprayed the cop in charge with the water canon, and then ran away.  You don't see him taking the cops gun and shooting the other cops.

In Casino Royale, when the officers at the Embassy came after Bond, Bond shot the steam pipes to let steam out and incapacitate them, but he didn't shoot them directly.

So why does he have no problems killing Russian officers like in Octopussy and Goldeneye?

You raise valid points. There's something about Bond massacring 18-19 year olds doing mandatory military service that's never sat right with me. Sure you can bring in the whole "kill or be killed" argument but, given it's a movie, it could always have been written differently. Hell, Campbell only filmed and included the bit with the policemen getting out the crushed car in the tank sequence at the last minute because he didn't want Bond to look like a cop-killer. From the perspective of Bond in the driver's seat, he didn't intend to leave any survivors in the police car.

As for why it's deemed acceptable, partially just Russia being the token bad guys due to the geopolitical realites of the last 70 years and partially because Russians are white and are therefore safe to demonise and caricature in a manner you wouldn't frequently see with other nations on the silver screen.

Couldn't imagine a sequence where Bond is held up from completing his mission by the Americans and is therefore forced to mow down GIs to escape.

Well I think that if the filmmakers want to explore the kill or be killed theme, they shouldn't be hypocritical about it.

As for Bond not intending to leave survivors in the police car, Bond did loosen his collar at the end of the chase, while looking back at two of the police cars, giving an indication that he hopes the police are not too banged up, didn't he?

But if they are going to have Bond be double standard about it, I feel it should be addressed.  Like maybe Natalya could say "Why did you have to kill them all?  Not all the officers are in the plot to frame me!"  And Bond could say "They're Russians, they're expendable".

Plus in Octopussy, Bond wants to stop Orlov from planting a bomb in a US airbase and blowing it up. But in the opening of the movie, Bond plants a bomb inside a communist military base. It's not a nuclear bomb, but in principle, kind of a double standard when he also has the intentions of blowing up people just following orders, with the possibility of bystanders around, no?

Seems now we're onto the thorny issue of whether or not Bond doing what he does is OK because he's perceived to be on the 'right side'.

I don't have a problem with Bond killing the Russians in OP and GE for the very reason that they are the enemy. If Bond didn't, he'd be dead. 

That said, in GE, even though we see Bond mowing them down, I like to think that they're warning shots; just that some bullets happen to clip the soldiers.

I think quite a few bullets hit the soldiers and that warning shots is an understatement. Not that I necessarily mind, if the movie wants to be gritty.

But were the Russians really the enemy in GE though, since the cold war was over?

Oh absolutely. But how accurate could the shooting be from a swinging machine gun, from that distance, to moving targets? 

And I don't think the film is trying to be gritty. Just brutal, which is one of the films biggest strengths. 

In the PTS, yes. It takes place in '86.

Oh okay, I thought we were talking about the shootout in the archives, after Bond arrested, after being found in the parachuting helicopter.

Gunning down the miners is one of the more ruthless scenes we have seen on screen in 007 movies, but its pretty tame compared to a lot of the attempted plots that other movies had.

In Moonraker, Drax was attempting to kill every single human on earth.
In The Spy Who Loved Me, Stromberg was attempting to kill every human so that he could restart civilization underwater.
In Thunderball and NSNA, Blofeld was willing to nuke major cities for a chance at a profit.

The key difference is that never before had any Bond moment had such a blatant and complete dark tone for any sequence. This must be what Roger commented on with his saying the films were getting too dark for him.