Headscratchers / Diamonds Are Forever

• Mr. Wynt's and Mr. Kidd's Bond Villain Stupidity. They had an unconscious Bond at their mercy twice and fail to kill him. Is there any reason why they didn't just put a bullet or two in Bond's head or killed him in any other way? I can only think of "The movie would be over if Bond dies" as the reason why they suddenly have an aversion to killing Bond directly.
  • They seem to have more freedom than most of the henchmen in Spectre since theyre still alive after the first failure. Other than that their MO seems to be killing without getting their hands too dirty Drowning/burning/animal assistance. Like most Bond henchmen with a gimmick this does lead to their downfall
• When Bond asks Moneypenny if he can bring anything back for her, she responds, "A diamond, in a ring." This is a monumentally inappropriate thing to say to a man whose wife was recently murdered.
  • Unless, of course, you believe the 'Bond is a codename' theory - which, between George Lazenby's "other feller" remark and this movie making reference to Sean Connery having been on vacation, is fairly plausible. Connery's Bond did NOT lose his wife, while Lazenby's (potentially the same person as Moore's) did.
    • If "James Bond" is just a codename, why did Theresa take the surname "Bond" as her married name?
    • Because they're still on the mission.
  • Or the theory that Bond at the beginning was tracking Blofeld after You Only Live Twice, and therefore On Her Majesty's Secret Service never happened.
  • Or, as Bond had killed who he thought was Blofeld, he'd gained revenge and wouldn't be as offended.
  • The codename theory is a nice what-if, nothing more. It doesn't hold up as canon with any amount of scrutiny:
    • 1. Bond having been "on vacation" was a fourth-wall joke in reference to Sean Connery's first retirement.
    • 2. "The other fella" was also clearly a fourth-wall joke.
    • 3. Bond and Blofeld not recognizing each other in OHMSS was an Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole - the films don't occur in the same order as the books, and OHMSS was intended to be as faithful to the novel as possible. For the codename theory to apply here we would also have to assume Blofeld is a codename too, which raises a whole other set of questions.
    • 4. Roger Moore is shown paying respects at Tracy's grave in For Your Eyes Only. His mood also noticeably darkens when Anya mentions his late wife in The Spy Who Loved Me.
    • 5. Timothy Dalton's Bond also remembers Tracy. In Licence to Kill Felix briefly fills Della in on what happened after her attempt to throw him her garter prompts Bond to leave in a huff. "He was married once, but it was a long time ago."
    • Yes, but he's not overly emotional about it. It could have been his colleague.
• When Bond, posing as Peter Franks, suggests using the real Franks' body to transport the diamonds, how does he know there's a mortician that's part of the smuggling ring that can retrieve the diamonds?
• Why is Peter Franks apparently the only person in the diamond smuggling pipeline that hasn't been involved in prior operations? Was it common practice to kill the mule? That would explain why Tree and Slumber didn't seem to think anything of the attempted murder of "Franks".
  • Everyone had done multiple deliveries. Since Tiffany had already got the diamonds in the chandelier they where only cleaning up after this last delivery, but the second last batch had not made it to its final destination yet.
• Does Bond have weird, misogynist, sex-based "Female Competence" destroying powers? Case gets with him and goes from a (presumably) competent, no-nonsense Action Girl smuggler to a complete and utter bimbo.
• Why is Bond on this case at all? There's no indication the smuggling operation has anything to with the UK. It was from South Africa to the Netherlands to the United States.
  • It's explained in the novel that England is so closely tied in to the diamond business that, yes, the above affects them enough to get one of their agents involved.
• Why kill everyone in the diamond smuggling pipeline? Blofeld was about to publicly blackmail the world with a Kill Sat. He couldn't have cared about them talking and the deaths would only draw attention to both the smuggling and the real operation. If he really wanted to silence everyone, wouldn't it make more sense to do it after the plan is completed?
• Why didn't Wint and Kidd kill Tiffany Case before Bond (posing as Franks)? Everyone else in the chain was apparently killed in the order they came into contact with the diamonds.
• Why bother with the charade of sending in Bond to try and switch the computer tape? Once the US authorities knew where Blofeld's base was, they could have taken out the entire control room with a guided missile frigate before they even knew what hit them.
• Due to a Deleted Scene one is left to assume that Plenty O'Toole quite possibly had to return home without her clothes.
• The fake diamonds, retrieved from the corpse of the real Peter Franks via cremation, are revealed to be mostly glass. Wouldn't those have been burned up along with the body?
  • Glass is not flammable, though it can be melted, and some types can shatter when exposed to intense heat. However, other types of glass can withstand the temperature found in a modern crematory. That being said, they would likely be discolored, and diamonds and glass can be easily distinguished.
  • Since diamonds are simply a form of carbon, they are essentially flammable: They will convert to carbon dioxide gas when heated to about 1300 degrees. A crematory oven actually exceeds that temperature, so burning a body containing diamonds might destroy them. Or perhaps our criminals didn't know that.
• Why bother with Bond trying to switch the tapes when a guided-missile cruiser could have instantly destroyed Blofeld, the control tape and the transmission tower before he got a signal off? It's not like his last plot where he had "Angels of Death" scattered all over the world—here he's got all his assets in the one Supervillain Lair. And Tiffany isn't much of a hostage, given that she's ostensibly a criminal associate of Blofeld.

---