This always puzzled me too. For him to have been alive during the execution, he would be at least 50. To be old enough to remember, maybe between 52-55. Sean Bean was 36 when Goldeneye released. I suppose he could’ve been in his mid-50s as they never actually say his age. Though, I would concur with you that Trevelyan was too young.
They weren’t killed by the Nazi’s, they were working against the Nazi’s, and for that sent to live in Britain. Britain sent the Cossacks back to Russia where they were killed by Stalin, but Alec’s parents survived. Alec’s Dad felt guilt and killed himself and his wife when Alec was 6…
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Yes, error aside, the problem he’s pointing out is the Cossack massacre occurred in May 1945. Goldeneye is set in both 1986 and 1995. Trevelyan being 6 in 1945 would make him 47 in Goldeneye’s PTS and 56 during Goldeneye’s main story. Sean Bean was only 36 when Goldeneye released making him 20 years too young to be playing Trevelyan. That or I would love to see Trevelyan’s dermitologist one day…unless Trevelyan was born 10ish years after the betrayal and his father killed himself and his mother in like 1961.
I have always assumed that Alec’s father killed himself and his wife out of guilt years later, not at the time of the massacre. Not saying I’m right, but that’s how I have always read it…
Fair enough, the movie isn’t exactly clear about it. For whatever reason, I always though he was alive during the execution from when he says “MI6 thought I was too young to remember.” Maybe they meant he wouldn’t remember his parents and why his father did what he did.
I did not notice.
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The Cossacks surrendered to the British army in Austria under the illusion they would work with them to bring the Nazi’s down. The British essentially betrayed them by forcibly re-patriating them back to Russia which is what killed them. That betrayal is what MI-6 thought Alec was too young to remember when they recruited him.
Again though, the betrayal occurredin 1945. If Trevelyan was 6 at the time, he would be 56 in Goldeneye…
Nobody is saying Alec was alive in 1945. He wasn’t. That betrayal is what ultimately made his father kill himself and his wife. He remembers THAT, not the event that led to it.
Try this:
1945: Cossacks, who had surrendered to Britain thinking they would be helping them, are instead forcibly re-patriated to Russia where they are massacred. Alec’s parents survive.
1959: Alec is born
1965: Alec’s father, after feeling years of guilt from surviving the massacre, kills himself and his wife.
1980ish: MI-6 recruits Alec, thinking he doesn’t know the reason behind his father’s actions, but he does. Alec begins formulating his revenge against the British government.
1986: Alec, who is now working with a Russian general, fakes his death.
1995: Alec is now the head of a crime syndicate that Bond goes after.
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Why not try something else? Like, Alec’s role was maybe originally written with a different, significantly older actor in mind?
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I’ve seen this brought up a few times, that it was supposed to be more of a mentor role. I’ve seen Anthony Hopkins name mentioned a few times as being considered for it (though that always sounded a bit “Tabloid fodder” for me)
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Although Hopkins was indeed considered, and the original drafts called for Alec to be a mentor, it still works giving Arbogast777 has said.
Both parts ring true - the idea that Alec’s father had survivor’s guilt, and the fact that MI6, like other military organizations, like to recruit orphans. It seems Alec discovered the truth of his parents’ suicide, while MI6 thought he still believed whatever was told to him as a child in the 1960s.
Maybe no one will notice that Goldfinger told the hoods his whole plan for no reason, since he killed them an instant later.
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That may have been leftover from the early drafts when it was still Dalton’s 3rd film. The villain in that treatment was to be an older agent mentoring Bond who turns out to be the bad guy.
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This thread has become fascinating to me - we all see the same movie but sometimes take away very different things…
I always read that Goldfinger scene as Godfather-esque, like when Michael had the heads of all the families killed at the same time. That’s what GF was doing before he made his big move - the pretense of wanting them to invest was just to get them there peacefully. Telling them the plan was just his ego giving them a giant “eff you look at the criminal mastermind I am” before he turned the gas on.
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A friend once offered the theory that Goldfinger was testing his nerve gas on the hoods. Of course, he could have done that without spreading out his plan. Also, the whole Solo business is pointless, trashing a perfectly good Lincoln limousine and the gold with it. If Goldfinger had just let Solo stay it would all have been avoided.
But then the Homer wouldn’t have been followed for a few minutes…
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…And no one would have the opportunity to notice that the limo has no engine block when it’s lifted into the crusher. No wonder the car was able to crush down to the size of an engine block before being deposited, bone dry, into the back of a ranch wagon without the wagon’s springs bottoming out.
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That one always bothered me 
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Maybe no one will notice that Hamilton has an American accent…
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Maybe no one will notice that if SPECTRE had just left Little Nellie alone, Bond might not have found their headquarters in time to stop WWIII.
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Trevelyan could have learned from that example too.
And maybe no-one will notice that Scaramanga’s junk made it from Bangkok to his island in the China Sea in less time than it took Bond to get there - after it had been left behind by anyone who could have delivered it. Was it - like the Disco Volante - also a hydrofoil, or did Scaramanga and Nick Nack - with Goodnight in tow - double back after abandoning their car-plane 200 miles NW of Bangkok?