What was the point of the drug subplot, it didn't seem to go anywhere.

Basically I never understood why Bond spent so much time on going to Zorin's stables, and trying to figure out this whole plot about if he was cheating in the races by drugging his horses, etc.

Cause M told Bond that his mission was to find out what was going on with the microchips, being sold to the Soviets, and Bond decides, I'm going to investigate this whole other suspected crime that has nothing to do with it instead, and M is okay with that.

I didn't get why the movie spent it's whole first half on this.

To put it simply, the film forgets about the horse race and drug subplot. 

Details are sketchy as I've not watched it for sometime, however I imagine it was for one of these reasons:

- Get close to Zorin and learn more about him,
- Find reasons to have him arrested.

I say the latter because the Brits needed to tread carefully ("for heavens sake be discreet about it") and so to continue preventing the sale of microchips to the Soviets, arresting him on the grounds of his drug fixing, would (at the very least, temporarily) put a stop to the sales, fine him, and discredit him. The Soviets may even halt business with him due to the attention he's drawn to himself. 

An arrest would then lead to an interrogation by MI6, who would use the opportunity to extract information about the microchip sales from him.

But then of course, Bond gets into trouble and the stakes get raised and we still need to reunite with the main Bond girl of the film, so the narrative thread is dropped.

All this talk of arrest and what not makes me picture good ol' Ronnie Vallance. Maybe if VTAK had been done in the late fifties/early sixties with a similar plot as done but done in the good old way of the movies then.

Hilly KCMG wrote:

All this talk of arrest and what not makes me picture good ol' Ronnie Vallance. Maybe if VTAK had been done in the late fifties/early sixties with a similar plot as done but done in the good old way of the movies then.

Actually, he could have definitely popped up at the races amongst amongst the MI6 clan.

FieldsMan wrote:

Hilly KCMG wrote:

All this talk of arrest and what not makes me picture good ol' Ronnie Vallance. Maybe if VTAK had been done in the late fifties/early sixties with a similar plot as done but done in the good old way of the movies then.

Actually, he could have definitely popped up at the races amongst amongst the MI6 clan.

True. I like my image of Barry Foster as Vallance in the 70s/80s. Something about him that fits the bill. He would've fitted in well alongside the two Sirs.

But I don't buy the MI6 clan going to the races and M changing his mind on focusing on the horse racing drug investigation instead of the bigger picture.

It would be like Goldfinger for example, after M gives Bond his assignment to find out how Goldfinger is smuggling all his gold, but then later M changes his mind and tells Bond he wants him to figure out how Goldfinger cheats at golf instead, so we can arrest him for that.

It's unlike M to drop the bigger picture for a lesser issue at steak.

It's not like that at all. They go to the races to keep Zorin under surveillance, and then Bond discovers that he might be cheating. But that's not the reason why he goes to Chantilly. He just happens to stumble across evidence re: the drug fixing.

But it is like that I feel, because Bond before going there, meets with a drug investigator who is investigation the races. The man is killed by Mayday, so Bond does go to the Chantilly, and he doesn't just stumble across it. He actually sneaks into the basement of the place, and snoops around in the lab and finds the drugs.

So it's not like he stumbles across it, he goes full on investigation into it.

IIRC the drug plot-line prepares us for the later revelation that Zorin himself is the product of genetic engineering.

True but I felt that the whole genetic engineering backstory was not necessary and didn't contribute anything to the story. Couldn't they just make him a natural born psychopath, and just leave it at that?

ironpony wrote:

True but I felt that the whole genetic engineering backstory was not necessary and didn't contribute anything to the story.  Couldn't they just make him a natural born psychopath, and just leave it at that?

I'm not exactly a fan of it myself. But I think AVTAK might be at the bottom of my ranking; so, I might be the wrong person to ask.

As for the horse race, it is a somewhat cheap attempt to include parts of the novel DAF:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamonds_Are_Forever_(novel)

Oh okay. I have mixed feelings about AVTAK cause I like the villains more than usual compared to most other John Glen directed Bond movies, but I don't like the story and humor surrounding it as much.

ironpony wrote:

But it is like that I feel, because Bond before going there, meets with a drug investigator who is investigation the races.  The man is killed by Mayday, so Bond does go to the Chantilly, and he doesn't just stumble across it.  He actually sneaks into the basement of the place, and snoops around in the lab and finds the drugs.

So it's not like he stumbles across it, he goes full on investigation into it.

Bond uses the drug fixing to meet with Det. Aubergine because he needed an excuse to learn more/make contact with Zorin. 

Kath wrote:

IIRC the drug plot-line prepares us for the later revelation that Zorin himself is the product of genetic engineering.

That's right.

It seems it was set up to simply have the usual Bond encounters villain having sideplot that has little to nothing to do with main plot that can either be used as a way to set Bond after him on small charges or Bond encountering him doing small affairs that suggest more evil schemes.

You'd think that they might wait to do these side quests until after the main mission but oh well...