Is there actually any explanation anywhere as to why she was buried there? I mean, she’s a British agent, who was apparently blackmailed by Le Chiffre, but what is she doing there, buried in Maltera, other than being a nice location for an opening scene.
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Just pure plot convenience and continuing on with EON’s obsession with Italy in the rebooted films.
Not to give EON any more terrible ideas, but they could join the previous continuity with Craig’s and we find out in the opening of the next film that Craig’s Bond was in fact James Bond Junior. We find this out as the film opens with a POV shot of a man walking into MI6 in what will be a call back to Fleming’s The Man With the Golden Gun. Everyone appears surprised and somewhat disturbed to see him there, but after some “convincing”, he manages to get himself into see Mallory. The unseen man attempts to assassinate Mallory and, at the last moment before the title sequence begins to unfold, we see Pierce Brosnan standing over Mallory, weapon trained on him, ready to finish the job.
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And then he takes off what turns out to be an Impossible Mission mask and it’s… Tom Cruise!
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Would have to wear high heel shoes… 
Vesper’s funeral… They would have included it, but they didn’t have any use for it. It would have made sense and add to the story if there had been something like a concept or a general idea for the forthcoming films and the funeral could have been used to give mysterious hints and build up some expectations.
Alas, there were no ideas to hint upon, so, no use for the funeral. I wish there had been, so my vote went to Vesper’s funeral.
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Doudou?
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Why not do the obvious: indulge in a nostalgic nod to previous Bond films and do an homage (copy) to DAF, because Q got wind (sorry) of Blofeld’s human copy program and had made many Bond doubles, sending a lesser one (Michael Keaton fans know) to the island, and having the real one appear at his own funeral to take over.
Except M, Moneypenny and Q actually sent the real one to the island (surprise twist, even for the real one) and have the lesser copy take over because that one is easier to handle.
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September 2.
- Something to explain Bond’s knowledge of rare fish
- Something to explain Bond’s knowledge of rare orchids
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voters
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Well, in the absence of much creativity elsewhere for Bond…
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Orchids: During semester break Bond used to have a house sitting job at 35th Street West, NYC, in later years also filling in as errand boy.
Bond originally imagined to have ample time for his own activities, but the estate’s owner sustained a significant orchid cultivation collecting a vast range of obscure and rare breeds and it was Bond’s duty to catalogue the various specimens and their respective characteristics*.
*It’s also a little known fact that Bond used to infuse his cigarettes with a recollection-boosting botanical extract that helped him commit the facts and experiences of his previous exploits to memory.
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I went with something to explain Bond’s knowledge of rare orchids because in his job I figured he’d be more likely to have to have knowledge of rare fish than he would rare orchids. So, consequently, his knowing about rare orchids would need to be explained.
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Fish, probably not specific knowledge since he kills everything which is rare.
Of course, he also tramples flowers.
And Moneypenny always fills him in with just enough knowledge to dazzle M (after the old man amusedly tells Moneypenny „oh, today I will startle 007 with something he doesn’t know anything about, namely…“)
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Sept 1: Neither character needs a funeral. Having Bond attend a service for Vesper would blunt the impact of his dismissive (and true to Fleming) “bitch” comment at the end of CR (even if we know he doesn’t mean it). Meanwhile the only people left on Earth who care about Bond are already seen at the end of NTTD and they give him all the send-off he needs or deserves.
Sept. 2: Bond travels from Egypt to Sardinia knowing he’ll be interviewing Stromberg, so he has time to bone up on fish facts. No need to show him with the library books. (That said, I always thought it would be great if Stromberg followed up “Let them get to shore and then kill them” with “Pterois Volitans, indeed! Idiot!”)
On the other hand, Bond displays his orchid knowledge with no prep time at all, and recognizes it by its chemical formula, to boot. That seems a stretch, but then again we are talking about MR, here. Maybe we can let it slide since its the chemical part he’s into, and the flower’s effects arguably veer into biological warfare, or poisoning, territory which is within his wheelhouse.
That said, it might have been fun seeing him spend a Saturday at the library reading up on rare flowers while across the table we see Lazenby absorbed in a field guide for butterfly hunters.
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A funeral seems too common for Bond, at least to me. His true self can’t be celebrated in a public type setting, and I honestly don’t think as a character he’d want a big deal made. He’s a man of the shadows and died on the job. Vesper didn’t need a funeral shown either.
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Not going to vote in this one. Both are unnecessary. He’s James Bond. 007. He just knows.
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Reminds me of that other field Bond shows perfect mastery in whenever he’s behind the controls of Any. Vehicle. At. All; sea, land or air. Was it Gardner who tried to explain it by M supposedly keeping Bond busy with a commercial/military pilot’s license (on top of everything else he’s got to keep au currant with)?
Anyway, I assume SIS turfs out their 00s to RyanAir whenever there’s a slow week in world domination…
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Fun Fact: When not on a mission, Bond loved to spend his time at the London Zoo’s Aquarium. There was one ichthyologist he was quite fond of–Marina Del Ray–and he spent a great deal of time in her company. As a result has a near encyclopedic knowledge of fish.
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In fact in Wood’s TSWLM book Bond’s knowledge of the rare fish is explained something like this:
“How lucky, Bond’s roommate when he was a student also owned just such a fish and he had often talked about it. What exactly was it’s name again…?”
Or something like that.
Also is it realy such a rare fish? Maybe the Latin name, but otherwise not really?
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I’m just grateful you didn’t go with Maura Lago.
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September 3.
- Something to explain Trevelyan being shot in the head and surviving
- Something to explain Bond’s survival after his (erm) sky fall in Skyfall
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voters
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Trevelyan was a bit thick in the head.
So is Bond.
Explains both.
The bullet was lodged in his brain so he cannot feel… um… awkwardness.
He did not need that head to conduct his scheme.
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