Question: At the beginning, M and agents representing the USA, Soviet Union and France try to convince James Bond to come out of retirement. Bond steadfastly refuses; whereupon, M lights his cigar as a signal for British troops in the distance to destroy Bond's estate with mortar fire (M is accidentally killed in the mortar attack). But what was the purpose of destroying Bond's estate? Wouldn't that action only drive Bond further away from rejoining the spy corps? Why would the British government go to such lengths to punish Bond? And then why did Bond return to the secret service, anyway, after such treachery?
Question: Where is the golden gun now?
Answer: I haven't been able to find any information on its whereabouts so my guess would be that ended up like most movie props do. Either as a souvenir for one of the people attached to the movie, (actor, director, etc.) in storage (in case it could be recycled as a prop in another movie) or simply discarded when it wasn't needed anymore.
Question: From the way it is portrayed in the movie, it looks like Bond & Wai Lin just head straight for the stealth boat once they spot it. They come at it from the front. I don't see why they would do that. Even if the surveillance guy wasn't paying attention (there's no way Bond could've known that), shouldn't someone on the bridge be able to see the dingy approaching straight at it? It would've made more sense to me if Bond waited for the ship to pass and then come from behind or the sides.
Answer: It's getting dark by this point - Bond and Wai Lin are dressed in black in a dark coloured boat. Anyone looking out of the window would be looking down towards them - they wouldn't be able to pick them out against the sea.
Question: Bond was 12 when his parents were killed, and spent the next 2 years with his guardian, who taught him to ski, climb and hunt before his death. It is mentioned a few times that it happened 20 years ago, making Bond 34, but he's clearly much older - just wondered if I was missing something here.
Answer: It is mentioned that Oberhauser died 20 years ago. This could have been many years after James stopped living with him.
Question: When Bond is getting ready to go down the ski jump, he starts getting chewed out by the guy at the top. What is the guy saying to him? I've always assumed that he is demanding to know why Bond has only one ski pole...but that's just a vague guess.
Answer: He's complaining that Bond didn't wait his turn for the ski run. He cut in front of everyone.
Chosen answer: I always thought that the guy in charge of the jump was saying that Bond didn't have the correct skis to do the jump or something. As I saw it Bond's skis were generic ones for cross country and / or regular skiers and to do the jump Bond needed, and didn't have, special, specific skis designed for jumping.
I'm more inclined to agree with you. It didn't appear like Bond had queue jumped. And I doubt the guy at the top would have known (or even cared). The guy did seem to be looking at Bond's attire, so I have to agree that he was chewing him out on that.
Question: Is this the only Bond film where the title song is being sung by a character during the film?
Answer: As far as I can tell, yes. Unless you count "Die Another Day," where the singer of the title song (Madonna) appears in a scene, as well as the song being remixed for the party scene in the ice castle.
Answer: Given that this is a comedy, the thinking was probably "Well, we'll just blow up your retirement so you've got no choice but to come out of it."
Captain Defenestrator