Scientist puts Bond movie deaths under microscope
HE is the world’s best known secret agent, with a ‘licence to kill’ all threats to UK national security however he sees fit.
Now a new book gives a fascinating scientific insight into the imaginative methods used by James Bond – and his villainous foes – when trying to bump each other off.
To celebrate 60 years since the first 007 movie, which featured Sir Sean Connery as the heroic spy, leading science communicator Dr Kathryn Harkup has examined some of the creative ways to kill in the world of Bond – and concluded that some of them ought to have lived to die another day.
The chemist and author, who spent two years watching all the Bond films and researching their plots, said: ‘I’ve been looking at some of the most memorable moments; some of the silly and not so silly ways to die and the science behind them.
‘Some are realistic and others are not, but does it really matter when they’re great fun?’
Dr Harkup will reveal her findings in Licence to Kill in Aberdeen later this month as part of the city’s Granite Noir crime writing festival.
She has previously studied Agatha Christie poisons, deaths in the works of Shakespeare and the science of
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
She added that some murderous methods do not withstand scientific
‘Can you be sucked out of a plane like Goldfinger?’
scrutiny but, with the fast pace of Bond films, fans can overlook the issues and move onto ‘the next brilliant set piece, chase or explosion’.
She said: ‘There are so many memorable moments – everyone remembers Jill Masterton covered in gold paint and Sean Connery with the laser between his legs, but how realistic are they?
‘Can you kill someone by covering them in gold paint? How worried should Bond be about the laser between his legs?
‘And can you really be sucked out of a plane like Goldfinger?
‘Dr Kananga – Mr Big – has one of the silliest deaths when he swallows a bullet of compressed air that goes off inside his stomach, and he inflates and pops. How it gets triggered in his stomach, I don’t understand.
‘If you get a release of gas inside the stomach, it might cause a horrific wound but you’re not going to inflate like a balloon.’
Dr Harkup added: ‘Since the first Bond film, bad guy minions have dropped dead at the first bang of a gun but it’s not easy to get an instant kill unless you’re a brilliant assassin like 007 himself or Scaramanga in The Man With the Golden Gun.
‘In Daniel Craig’s fifth and final outing as Bond in No Time to Die, Blofeld dies after nanobots that are passed on by touch get into his skin and kill him – scientifically, that’s not right at all.’
However, it’s not all fantasy, and Dr Harkup says some of the complex ways to kill in the world of 007 are very accurate, including in Casino Royale, where Le Chiffre attempts to wipe out the secret agent by spiking
his drink with digitalis during a poker game. She said: ‘A lot of the symptoms that Bond displays are very accurate for digitalis poisoning.
‘He is given a shot of novocaine, just what you’d do if someone overdosed with digitalis so it’s a pretty good reflection of what would happen. In Tomorrow Never Dies, Elliot Carver, the media baron played by Jonathan Pryce, is shredded by his own sea drill, and that will definitely work.
‘And at the end of Moonraker, Hugo Drax is sucked into space after an airlock is opened in his space station – that is guaranteed to kill you.’ Dr Harkup will appear in Cocktails – Shaken Not Stirred on Saturday at the Music Hall in Aberdeen, as part of the writing festival, which runs from Thursday to Sunday.
Part of the Bond franchise’s deadly charm – reflected in many of the titles such as Live and Let Die, A View to a Kill, Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day and No Time to Die – is the fact that the secret agent has Double O status, meaning he is licensed to kill.
In total, Bond – played by Connery, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Craig – has featured in 27 films.