Rewatchables Reference

• Bill: The tank chase through Saint Petersburg, complete with the Perrier truck crash. 'This scene is just fucking awesome.' He just can't believe how awesome it is.
• Sean: Also the tank chase – 'the most like holy shit how did they even do this scene.' Also shouts out Bond meeting Jack Wade (Joe Don Baker) and their chemistry driving a tiny car together.
• Craig: The opening 12 minutes leading up to the Bond song. 'Everything leading up to the Bond song is as entertaining as it gets.'
• Bill: Also the bungee jump opening – 722 feet, filmed at the Contra Dam in Switzerland. 'I don't know if I'd ever seen a bungee jump before this.'

• Bill: The BMW Z3 – they held the car for six months to debut it in 'GoldenEye'. It's the first non-English car in the Bond series. Bill: 'Never liked them. Always thought they were corny.'
• CR: The fall of the Soviet Union into corrupt Russia, and the Internet cafe scenes. Those PCs and computer hacking feel so specifically 1995.
• Bill: Harmless sexual tension at work felt very 1995. Tina Turner doing a theme song written by Bono and the Edge also has to be in the 90s somewhere.

• Bill: Killing someone with your legs during sex as a female villain move – still spectacular 31 years later.
• CR: Famke Janssen's major acting note is 'I'm just going to come every 5 minutes no matter what.' Playing cards, fighting, dying – she's orgasmic throughout.
• Bill: 1990s Joe Don Baker coming in hot in different movies at a great stage in his career.
• Sean: Pierce Brosnan as Bond – well received, splits the difference perfectly between camp and seriousness. 'If AI spat out what Bond would be, it would spit out Pierce Brosnan.'
• Bill: The integrated sponsors (BMW, Perrier, IBM ThinkPad) actually factor into the plot organically. You don't feel like they're ramming them down your throat.

• Bill: The opening bungee jump at the dam – filmed at the Contra Dam in Switzerland, 722-foot jump that was a world record. Just an awesome combination of the jump, the wall, and the location.
• Sean: Bond's head poking out of the tank right before crashing into a building, then popping down as nothing falls on him.
• CR: The victory lap after the dam explosion – Bond barely escapes and then circles back for a flyby.

• Sean: The Tina Turner theme song, written by Bono and the Edge who were living next door to her in France. 'She is just singing in Bono's register and that's how the song doesn't work because they're not the same singer.'
• Bill: The score and soundtrack just sucked overall.
• CR: The most egregious offense – the music during the Aston Martin vs. Ferrari car chase sounds like 'Super Mario Brothers pause music.' 'This is the fucking coolest guy in the world, the hottest woman in the world, and two of the best cars in the world, and we got fucking Luigi jumping around in the background.'

• Bill: The plot is confusing. 'I still don't 100% understand what happened in this movie.' Bond should have died 9 times.
• Sean: All Bond plot mechanics are a little dumb, but this movie's actual mission doesn't get introduced until 45 minutes in, which is atypical for Bond.
• CR: They make the plots overly complicated so they never have to be thoroughly interrogated. Sean: 'They are style over substance. That is the point.'

• Bill: The Tina Turner theme song. CR agrees – 'Really not a need of the song.'
• Bill: M calling Bond a 'misogynist dinosaur' – 'I'm trying to root for him here. Need a hero for two hours. Maybe a better pregame speech.'
• Bill: The gadget scene could have been more fun. CR: 'They just didn't have a lot of juice in those gadgets. Look at my leg cast that shoots a missile. When the fuck am I ever going to wear a leg cast?'
• Bill: The score and soundtrack sucked.
• CR: The one moment they try to make it serious with Bond wistfully staring at the sea in the Caribbean. 'Give me a break, dude. You're not traumatized by this.'
• Sean: Passwords for world-destroying satellites being words like 'Chair.'

• Bill: Colin Farrell should have been the best Bond ever after Connery. He's got the accent (Irish like Connery was Scottish), the look, the action chops. 'There would have been a little Sonny Crockett 'Miami Vice' in there.'
• CR: They missed a step by not making a Bond buddy movie – a prequel with Bond and Alec Trevelyan showing their whole relationship before 'GoldenEye'.
• Sean: Brosnan would be considered the second best Bond ever if Martin Campbell had directed all four of his movies instead of just this one.

• Bill: Before Brosnan, Liam Neeson passed (Natasha Richardson forbade it), Mel Gibson was first choice, Hugh Grant had momentum but wisely declined.
• Sean: Ray Fiennes met with them and could have done it – would have brought a more intellectual take. Jude Law in the late 90s would have been really good too.
• Bill: Paul McGann was the studio's second choice behind Brosnan. Billy Zabka was also looked at.
• Bill: For the 006 villain, Anthony Hopkins and Alan Rickman both turned down the role when it was written for an older character. They made it younger and cast Sean Bean.
• Bill: Paulina Porizkova and Eva Herzigova were both offered Natalya and turned it down. Elle McPherson was also considered. Courtney Cox allegedly turned down Xenia Onatopp.
• Sean: John Woo was approached to direct and turned it down – he basically gets to do the Bond thing with 'Mission: Impossible' II instead.

• Bill: Alan Cumming as Boris – the 'I'm invincible' stuff, the pen flipping, the terrible Russian accent. He's basically test-driving his Traitors hosting role.
• CR: Sean Bean on the train going 'See you in hell' with this big dramatic gesture to indicate the guy should kill Bond. 'Take a couple mph off, Bean.'

• Bill: Gottfried John as General Ourumov. 'Very unmistakable face.' He shares the prison cell with David Morse in 'Proof of Life'.
• CR: Checky Karyó as the defense minister. Also Robbie Coltrane as Zukovsky and Minnie Driver in a small singing role.
• Sean: Minnie Driver is pretty foxy in the movie. 'Terrible singer' though.

• Sean: Martin Campbell is responsible for two of the seven or eight best Bond movies ('GoldenEye' and 'Casino Royale'). There's a great featurette of him directing on the Blu-ray where he screams 'Action!' incredibly loud in his New Zealand accent.
• Bill: Brosnan was kind of in a heat check moment in '95 – Bond was a huge success and reinvigorated the whole franchise.

• Bill: Joe Don Baker shouldn't be in the movie because he was already a villain in a previous Bond film. Replace him with Nick Nolte as Jack Wade – 'kind of doing Jack Cates, tired of this shit.' This is right after 'Blue Chips'.
• CR: Good call. Also suggested Dustin Hoffman for the role.
• Bill: Brian Dennehy would have been good too – you need someone grizzled and older.

• Bill: The opening scene with an admiral being seduced and killed had to be rewritten because the US military objected – they changed the admiral to Canadian.
• Bill: 'GoldenEye' was the nickname of Ian Fleming's beachfront house in Jamaica where he wrote Bond novels in the 50s.
• Sean: It was also the name of a WWII military operation strategy against a potential Nazi invasion through Spain via Franco. Fleming was working as a spy at the time.
• Bill: 90,000 cans of Perrier water were used in the tank truck collision. Every other soda brand turned down the placement.
• Bill: Bond kills 47 people – the highest ever for a Bond film.

• Bill: Pierce Brosnan – yes. This revived the franchise. Sean: 'It might be Mamma Mia' for the younger generation. Also Thomas Crown Affair and Hot Fuzz.
• Bill: Izabella Scorupco – yes, this was the peak.
• Bill: BMW Z3 – no question, apex mountain.
• CR: Is the Tina Turner 'GoldenEye' theme the anti-apex of Bond theme songs? Bill: 'I think it's the worst.' Best theme: Carly Simon, 'Skyfall' (Adele), Diamonds Are Forever, Goldfinger.
• Bill: Perrier – maybe coming back around after being blown off by fancier sparkling waters.
• Bill: Alan Cumming – doing Traitors now, basically test-driving his hosting persona as Boris.
• Bill: Joe Don Baker – apex is when Mystery Science Theater did Mitchell. 'The best hour and a half of comedy in Comedy Central history.'

• Sean: 'GoldenEye' sits right where he wants Bond to be – not too goofy, not too trauma-bond like late-period Craig. The Nokia wave thriller era of techno-friendly action.
• CR: The movie has Mission Impossible and Bourne DNA before those franchises fully took over the action genre.

• CR: Bond doing his victory lap flyby after the dam explosion – barely escapes, then circles back just to flex. Pure unnecessary but undeniable showmanship.
• Sean: The Dan Campbell-scale opening – the motorcycle-to-plane jump where Bond catches a falling plane mid-air. Craig: 'From the character doing a stunt in a movie, that is a crazier stunt than anything Ethan Hunt has ever done.'

• Bill: How does Bond escape from 100 Russian soldiers in close quarters in the opening scene? They all have machine guns.
• Bill: Can tanks really do what they did in this movie? 'I'm going to guess no.' Tanks take about a mile to get up to speed and 90-degree turns are very hard.
• CR: Bond gets out of the tank very slowly as a train approaches. Also the plane crash-landing in the jungle – Bond and Natalya are just 'beautifully knocked out for 5 minutes, not eviscerated.'
• Bill: Sean Bean falls 100 feet, doesn't die instantly, just lies there until something falls on him.
• Sean: The missile that hits Bond's plane acts like a boomerang instead of exploding it. 'It's supposed to explode and blow the plane out. Kind of a weak missile.'

CR (doing Zane Lowe voice): 'James! We couldn't even call it espionage because it's a journey. It's a journey about who you want to be as a spy. 'GoldenEye' looking down on us, but we're looking over at you. What do you have for us next in this great piece of art that we call spying?'

• CR: Martin Campbell for Best Director.
• Sean: The stunt guy who did the 722-foot bungee jump – give him some kind of special effects or stunt award.

CR: 'GoldenEye' has remake potential – the hacking stuff could incorporate AI, the EMP satellite is still relevant, Russia as villain is timely, and the Trevelyan relationship could be explored much deeper.

• CR: How does James Bond break up with women between movies? Craig: 'I don't think he breaks up with them. He definitely ghosts them.'
• Bill: Could you actually kill somebody by squeezing your legs around them if you're a 6-foot Dutch model? Craig confirms: broken ribs would splice an organ, causing internal bleeding.
• Bill: Joe Don Baker – is it better to just be Joe Baker? Or does 'Joe Don Baker' become one of the coolest names you could have in a movie? Why don't other people do this – 'Chris Don Ryan'?

• CR: A functional mint-condition Nintendo 64 with a mint-condition 'GoldenEye' 007 cartridge. 'My wife to go away for a week.'
• Craig: The exploding pen from the Q scene.
• Sean: The Aston Martin.

• Bill: 'Half of everything is luck.' James Bond thought that was solid.
• Bill: 'Governments change, the lies stay the same.'

• Sean: Moonraker – Bond stretching for the limits is the theme. Also Lawnmower Man for an early Pierce Brosnan performance that includes hacking and virtual worlds.
• Bill: Moonraker could be a future Rewatchables – 'I can't believe that movie happened. They basically did James Bond in outer space.'

CR: Pierce Brosnan. Sean: Agreed. Bill: 'I think so too. You could argue the Bond franchise because it reinvigorated it.'

Craig: Had never seen it before – only seen the Daniel Craig Bonds. It was worse than expected (the Austin Powers parody colored his viewing) and better than expected (pure old-school movie escapism). The first 12 minutes are elite. He paused it, got his wife Liz, and restarted from the beginning. 'Hot people, sprawling, going to countries, fancy cities, you're in casinos. Super fun.'