Daily Dialogue — May 9, 2016
ELEKTRA: James Bond. If only you’d kept away, we might have met again in a few years and become lovers once more. (To the henchman holding Dr. Jones) Take her to Renard. (To Bond) Pretty thing. You had her, too? I could have given you the world.
BOND: The world is not enough.
ELEKTRA: Foolish sentiment.
BOND: Family motto.
ELEKTRA: They were digging near here and found some very pretty vases. They also found this chair. (Bond is forced into the garrote.) I think we ignore the old ways at our peril, don’t you?
BOND: Where’s M?
ELEKTRA: Soon she’ll be everywhere.
BOND: All this because you fell for Renard?
ELEKTRA: Five more turns and your neck will break. I’ve always had a power over men. When I realized my father wouldn’t rescue me from the kidnappers I knew I had to form another alliance.
BOND: You turned Renard.
ELEKTRA: Just like you, only you were even easier. I told him he had to hurt me, he had to make it look real. When he refused, I told him I would do it myself.
BOND: So, you killed your father.
ELEKTRA: He killed me. He killed me the day he refused to pay my ransom.
BOND: Was this all about the oil?
ELEKTRA: It is MY oil! Mine! And my family’s. It runs in my veins, thicker than blood. I’m going to redraw the map, and when I’m through the whole world will know my name, my grandfather’s name, the glory of my people.
BOND: No one will believe this melt-down was an accident.
ELEKTRA: Hah! They will believe. They will all believe. You understand? Nobody can resist me. You know what happens when a man is strangled?
BOND: Elektra, it’s not too late. Eight million people need not die.
ELEKTRA: You should have killed me when you had the chance. But you couldn’t. Not me, not a woman you’ve loved.
BOND: You meant nothing to me. One…last…screw.
ELEKTRA: Oh, James.
— The World Is Not Enough (1999), screenplay by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Bruce Feirstein, story by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, based on the characters created by Ian Fleming
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Femme Fatale. Today’s suggestion by Will King.
Trivia: The film’s title, “The World is Not Enough” is the translation of the Latin motto, “Orbis non sufficit”, given to George Lazenby’s Bond when he researches his own coat of arms in the 1969 film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969).
Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Will: “It’s a formidable choice to select a single femme fatale from the panoply of Bond women, but Elektra King seemed the right choice because she isn’t just one of Bond’s evil women, she is the antagonist of the story. Elektra is the cold, brutal beauty who seeks to remake the world in her own image, and in the act of trying to kill Bond finds pleasure in his suffering and imminent death. Her ego is as large as any male opponent Bond ever faced. So sure is she of her attractiveness that she challenges Bond after he escapes and corners her, claiming he can’t kill her. Of course, this proves to be her undoing.”