“Spy”'s ski jump inaugurated the tradition of starting a Bond film with a stunt spectacular enough to climax any “normal” action film. The GE jump, while impressive, was just a continuation of that tradition and, as it turns out, merely a lead-up to the mid-air bike-to-plane transfer that apparently was intended to be even bigger and more impressive (though it ends up being less so).
Dramatically, the ski jump climaxes a running battle on skis and extricates Bond from a “certain death” scenario. In contrast, the GE jump is the very first thing we see in the film: “Hey, look, there’s Bond. Oh, he’s jumping off a dam.” There’s no build-up, no tension and no explanation – at this point – for why it’s even happening.
Also, maybe I’m alone in this but it’s bothersome that the GE scene has that downshot of Bond standing on the edge and looking skyward, revealing that whomever we’re looking at is definitely NOT Pierce Brosnan. Considering we barely glimpse the tactical-suited figure’s face until this point – if we do at all – this “reveal” of an unknown stuntman, followed by the jump where we STILL don’t see his face, means the jump is being done by someone we (so far) don’t know for reasons we can’t fathom.
Further, I’m far from the bungee-jumping type, but isn’t the idea that the cord securing you at the top is highly elastic, preventing you from a quick, back-breaking wrench at the end of the fall? And doesn’t that elasticity mean that on reaching the end of it, you’re pulled back up again for a considerable distance? If so, when Bond fires the piton with another cable anchoring him to the ground, why doesn’t he snap his spine? Or alternatively, why isn’t the gun simply yanked out of his hands? And as others have pointed out, how can he jump from a dam, then jump again, even further, to catch the plane? Why is the dam even there if all that’s below it is another cliff?
Anyway, the GE jump can vanish without hurting anything, since even the film itself doesn’t consider it the climactic stunt of the PTS. But if the ski jump goes, it doesn’t inspire the great tradition that gave us the MR freefall, the FYEO copter sequence, the OP mini-jet, the TLD Gibraltar chase and all the others I like to varying degrees.
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