Ok so Goldeneye (if I remember correctly, it’s been ages since I had that old ass console and the tiny, heavy, shitty tv with the three cables) started out with two MI6 agents fucking with a Soviet chemical weapons research plant. Westoid propaganda intel says they’re studying weapons they intend to use in some nefarious way against freedom instead of researching the potentiality of chemical warfare like every major government does. They fuck up the mission, one of them gets caught and pretends to be a double agent, but actually goes rouge so he can use the Goldeneye when they steal it for, “it’s just a massive bank heist!” and then it’s like, “For England, right James?” and then he actually says, “No whatever his name was, for me.” then he shoots him.
Goldeneye totally reaffirms Soviet values. Privatization was the real villain and James Bond turned out to be a cuck removed for an unethical, unstable government.
Who he also immediately continued working for… Goldeneye was set before the dissolution of the USSR, right?
You’re kind of right. The main bad guy, Alec Trevelyan, wants to avenge his parents, who were Nazi collaborator Cossacks that the British sent back to the USSR to be killed (which the movie portrays as a bad thing, of course). He’s the head of a crime syndicate and Bond also has to get help from a Russian ex-KGB guy who’s become a gangster, which also doesn’t paint a very rosy picture of post-Soviet Russia.
The fall of the USSR is a theme in the movie, with the opening sequence featuring women destroying hammer and sickle sculptures, but the villains are evil Russians who ride in an ex-Soviet train with red stars on it, so they’re not entirely giving up the anti-communism. The funny thing about Bond movies is that in many of them, even during the Cold War, the antagonists end up being rich Western assholes.
They knew it was their last chance to really go for it with the Soviet imagery and it kinda slaps ngl
My theory is that they were excited to get to film action sequences in locations that hadn’t been accessible up to that point and felt obligated to address the end of the Cold War in some way, but their hearts weren’t really into that aspect. ‘Let us drive a tank through St Petersburg and we’ll tell whatever story you want.’
The hats though
Wait they didn’t even go with it being like his grandparents being Cossacks sent back during the inter-war years? The “sympathetic” backstory is that they are literal nazi collaborators?
They don’t mention the Nazi collaborator part out loud in the movie, they were definitely banking on Westerners thinking the USSR killing them must’ve been because they’re evil and do evil things.
edit: I was wrong, they do mention it.
James Bond: [while talking about the incident at Savernaya] They’re not just criminals Valentin, they’re traitors.
Valentin Dmitrovitch Zukovsky: Well, what do you expect from a Lienz Cossack?
James Bond: What?
Valentin Dmitrovitch Zukovsky: This Janus, I’ve never met the man, but I know that he is a Lienz Cossack.
James Bond: Group that worked for the Nazis against the Russians. Second World War.
Valentin Dmitrovitch Zukovsky: You know your history, Mr. Bond. At the end of the war, they surrendered to the British, thinking they would help in waging war against the Communists. But, the British betrayed them, sent them back to Stalin, who promptly had them all shot. Women, children, entire families.
James Bond: Not exactly our finest hour.
Valentin Dmitrovitch Zukovsky: Still, ruthless people. They got what they deserved.
And backstory is actually that his parents ”escaped Stalin’s execution squads”, but
CW:suicide
the father kills himself and the mother out of survivor’s guilt
so it seems like they were trying to cover their tracks by leaving the possibility that Trevelyan’s parents didn’t actually collaborate with the Nazis open.
Goldeneye was set before the dissolution of the USSR, right?
The chemical weapons plant boondoggle was set in 1986. The remainder of the film takes place in 1995.
Also Hearts of Iron 4 makes it clear Stalin was correct to do the purges
here are the facts:
people who brag about picking oddjob are bragging about cheap moves, since his hitbox is smaller and frequently just outside the boundary for aim assist. so beating all your friends with oddjob: not impressive. if your friends ban you specifically from using oddjob, that’s respect.
anyway, REAL heads know you can get nearly the same advantage by choosing the second facility scientist, which is a short woman in a labcoat.
this post counts as theory
The game is how I learned the word soviet as a kid
The soviet values of watching a guy poop from an air vent
I don’t remember the story well. I was mostly a Pistols Only License to Kill player. Or proxy mines LoK if I’m feeling cheeky.
