Wasn‘t Gotell sick at the time of shooting TLD which led to writing in Pushkin?
Well… principally yes.
But in a time in which there were only landline phones and fax machines information travelled a lot slower.
Also, I guess that the state of affairs between Russia and the rest of the world was a bit more conscientious of the spiral which leads to a war. So, having Bond identified as killing Pushkin would immediately have triggered the Mi6 response: awfully sorry, chaps, rogue agent, we take care of him. But I expect Pushkin to tell those in his inner circle: relax, it‘s all a ruse.
So, actually, it is a rather tightly constructed plot. Apart from the fact that the hero again survives.
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Yes, he was. Original it was not Pushkin, but Gogol that Bond was sent to kill, but Gotell was still recovering of his illness, so he got only a small cameo at the end of the movie.
Also Gogol wasn’t at all in the novelization of TSWLM from Wood, instead of there was the head of SMERSH who gave the orders and he wanted to have killed Bond at the end of the mission.
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Yes, I’d always heard he was ill. But whereas M could be replaced in FYEO (by Tanner in London and Q in Greece) without making much difference, it really did alter the “vibe” of TLD to replace an established character with one who was new to us. For instance, the apparently genuine affection and heartfelt grief of Pushkin’s hottie girlfriend would’ve “clicked” more for me had it been Gogol getting shot and “Miss Rublevich” doing the mourning; they’d been a couple for years.
But…as I mentioned, think we need at least a bit of uncertainty about the character’s guilt, and I wouldn’t have felt it with Gogol. Likewise we need to believe, however briefly, that Bond could really have pulled that trigger in the hotel room.
re:TLD…it probably would’ve made more sense to kill Bond than take him back to Russia alive, given his rep for getting out of impossible situations. And all they’d have to do is substitute the chloral hydrate Kara slips into his martini with a dash of cyanide. I’m sure Koskov’s plan would have worked just as well (had Pushkin really been dead) if he’d transported a corpse instead of a “heart patient” (“We were inseparable, you know…”), especially since he’d be the first adversary in history to prove his claim of killing Bond by actually producing a body.
But maybe the thinking is that once Bond is back in Russia, he can somehow be broken and forced to reveal state secrets, or traded for another high-ranking prisoner. In that sense, at least, it’s actually NOT the worst example of the “just shoot him” trope.
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Agreed. Perhaps this could have somehow been accomplished with Gogol if there was a scene earlier in the film where we see him get his hands somewhat dirty, or give some kind of tacit approval to the Smiert Spionam program, so that Bond, and the audience, have just enough doubt for it to work.
Even still, it’s hard to imagine TLD without that hotel interrogation scene. Even all of this time later, I think it’s the best scene in the franchise, and Dalton and John Rhys-Davis play the heck out of that scene. Then again, with Gotell, perhaps there could have been a way to even further increase the effectiveness of the scene by playing on their history together and leaving things with Bond perhaps having to kill someone who has, in all other instances, been a fairly solid ally in what would otherwise have to be considered to be an adversarial government.
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Sanchez said to launder it, too. Or maybe that‘s how crystal meth happened? It‘s a feature, not a bug.
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Cocaine has a faint petrol scent to begin with as petrol is what is used to extract the psychedelic chemicals from the coca leaves (I thankfully have no personal experience with it but I’ve heard it smells like what you would smell after a truck drives by). That’s why Sanchez chose it to use.
Others like him, too…
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Trevelyan: a bit daft, he is. But many idiots do not think that everything they do will affect themselves in the end. See: climate crisis. Or Putin‘s greatest hits.
Missile from the lake: well… it looks cool.
Where does the water go? Well… it… looks cool?
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They fire a missile at Bond from the lake for the same reason they send helicopters after him in YOLT: they’re stupid. In each case, Bond has done a flyover and is convinced there’s nothing to see. Then they attack him and he knows he’s in the right place, after all.
Presumably the dish is under the “lake” to hide it from satellite imagery, but if so this is just as daft as Drax’s secret orbital city. In each case, it takes a lot of construction time to get to the finished product, and there would have been plenty of opportunity for the authorities to spot either of these colossal engineering marvels before their “cloaking” schemes could be implemented.
Pretty sure all the water drained into a bucket from Derek Medding’s house.
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“You didn’t see it was a miniature.” 
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I also am amazed that villains never have problems during the construction of their lairs. No „there is an unforeseen delay“, „my crew is sick today“, „we forgot to build in additional wiring“, „you need another permit“…
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Well…Drax did have those problems.
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I wonder, in which aisle of the building supply store would you find the “self-destruct” buttons?
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You order them from the same company that makes the uniforms for your cannon fodd…I mean…your soldiers.
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Probably right next to the doorbells. Choose wisely. 
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In what other film–Bond or otherwise–do we see the main villain call the Henchmen Employment Service to get a new henchmen? Of course, If MR were to be remade, Drax would just look on-line.
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C‘mon, he just got that uniform from wardrobe that morning. And that guy said he would look cool in it.
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I never looked at the ribbons too closely. I was always too distracted by that hat making him look like Beetle Bailey. I keep expecting him to walk into something.
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A message for audiences that information must always be conveyed in the simplest way, without details or facts getting in the way because studios always want to play to the dumbest one in the room.
So, here‘s to better education plans, folks.
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The only thing I can think of regarding why seeing Strangways’ secretary potentially incriminates Dent is that he is the only one to show any interest in her. Pleydell-Smith and Gen. Potter hadn’t seen her or really knew anything about her. Only Dent. Plus he looked uncomfortable after he admitted that she looked really nice, as if he had just realized that he may have said too much. Why look uncomfortable about her beauty if you had nothing to hide?
As for the the fellow gambler beside Sylvia Trench, he’s ok. The magic broom man in Quantum Of Solace is the worst offender. Sweeping the air a foot off the ground is just plain bad.
Oh and could someone please post something in the April thread. It won’t let me submit a new post until someone else does. Thanks.
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