Octopussy moment
crawfordboon
Posts: 126MI6 Agent
Ever noticed in films, included the Bonds, that there are moments that you just accept as unremarkable, but when you think about them, they seem ridiculous and non-sensical?
The best example I can think of ocurs in the PTS of Octopussy, where Bond attempts to pilot the jet through the target aircraft hangar and out the other side, in the hope that the missle will follow him through and destroy the facilitiy (this hope is of course borne out by events).
As Bond flies through the hangar, the soldiers there start to close the far exit doors. At first I thought nothing of this, but then I realised it must be one of the stupidest things ever. Not only would they be causing a massive crash by having him collide with the hangar doors, they would probably destroy the facility and get themselves killed in the process! Not only would the plane crash cayse irreprebale damage, but the cruise missle was following behind and would have hit them anyway when the plane crashed.
Surely it would have made more sense for the soliders to leave th doors open once the jet had flown into the hanger (with no room to turn back), as it would have saved their lives, protected the buildings, and given the missle more of a chance to catch Bond.
And while we're at it, from the moment a diving jet can fly through a hanger from one side to the other must be far less than a second, and yet it seems longer in the film, especially if you watch the effort being put into shutting the doors as the jet (already in the the hangar) moves towards them. Weird..
Do you agree or have similar instances of bone-headed implausible instances?
The best example I can think of ocurs in the PTS of Octopussy, where Bond attempts to pilot the jet through the target aircraft hangar and out the other side, in the hope that the missle will follow him through and destroy the facilitiy (this hope is of course borne out by events).
As Bond flies through the hangar, the soldiers there start to close the far exit doors. At first I thought nothing of this, but then I realised it must be one of the stupidest things ever. Not only would they be causing a massive crash by having him collide with the hangar doors, they would probably destroy the facility and get themselves killed in the process! Not only would the plane crash cayse irreprebale damage, but the cruise missle was following behind and would have hit them anyway when the plane crashed.
Surely it would have made more sense for the soliders to leave th doors open once the jet had flown into the hanger (with no room to turn back), as it would have saved their lives, protected the buildings, and given the missle more of a chance to catch Bond.
And while we're at it, from the moment a diving jet can fly through a hanger from one side to the other must be far less than a second, and yet it seems longer in the film, especially if you watch the effort being put into shutting the doors as the jet (already in the the hangar) moves towards them. Weird..
Do you agree or have similar instances of bone-headed implausible instances?
Comments
Or perhaps Colonel Toro just panicked when ordering the soldiers to close the hangar doors. Yes, even experienced soldiers make nonsensical/disastrous decisions when the unexpected occurs and they have no (or very little) time to react.
As for the jet taking too long to fly through the hangar? Yes, it does take longer than you would expect and this is due to too much editing. But it doesn't detract from a great sequence, in my opinion.
The "heat of the moment" explanation is the only one that comes close to holding water, since the other "stop 007 at all costs" theory overlooks that Bond's original target was the hangar anyway, so if the plane crashed inside it (with the missile following), that would be tantamount to Bond succeeding in his mission without obstruction. It would make more sense to let Bond escape but keep the hangar intact, if they felt so strongly about it.
18 years later ( a new record :)
My two cents:
I always assumed they meant to close the doors as much as possible to either cause the wings to fall off (i.e. like with Mrs Bell's plane in LALD) or even if the doors were completely closed the plane would still fly through and then eventually crash.
As for the cruise missile, I don't think the soldiers realised there was a missile tracking Bond's plane until the last second. If you notice, another team outside seem to launch the rocket so my guess is that the soldiers in the hanger never knew that there was a missile tracking Bond's plane.
My favourite thing is that when you see Toro's point of view of the plane in the sky coming right towards the hangar, it's a completely different plane to Bond's! 😄