Licence to Kill (1989) used a contest advertising campaign to help generate interest for the movie. The winner of the contest was promised a cameo role in the next James Bond movie. Unfortunately, due to many production issues, work on this movie did not begin for many years. Nevertheless, the contest winner was given a scene after the long delay. She does not have a speaking part, but you can see her in a lovely gold and black evening dress looking over Xenia Onatopp's (Famke Janssen's) shoulder as she plays Baccarat against Bond (Pierce Brosnan).

An East German architect and a Russian civil engineer were present during the construction of the Russian sites and interior sets. They refused to have their names credited.

Computer graphics were used to create the famous "gun barrel" opening, making this movie the first James Bond film to use CGI.

Features the highest bungee jump from a structure in a movie. The drop was over seven hundred twenty-two feet. The man who did the jump has a cameo as the black-haired Tiger helicopter pilot shot by Xenia Onatopp.

First completely original James Bond movie, without reference to any Ian Fleming novel or short story.

Continuity

The two parachutes on the helicopter escape pod are white in long distance shots but red, white and blue in close-up on the ground.

Bond acquires gloves after falling out of the plane.

While escaping in the plane at the pre-titles sequence, we see takes of Russian base exploding without any of the soldiers or vehicles that were chasing Bond before his jump.

Just before Goldeneye blows up Severnaya, a different alarm than the one already sounding goes off. The screen shows Goldeneye nowhere near Severnaya, but in the next shot of the screen, Goldeneye is shown right on top of Severnaya, about to detonate.

Previously submerged areas dry quickly.



Factual errors

Onatopp and Ourumov activate the GoldenEye satellite by turning two keys simultaneously. As with nuclear missiles, two keys are used so that no single person can launch. However, the keys Onatopp and Ourumov use are within arm's reach of each other, defeating their intended purpose as one person could easily turn both keys.

During the opening scene, Bond uses a laser to cut through metal plating. Bond is shown staring at the spot where he is cutting with no eye protection. A laser powerful enough to cut through metal that quickly would be extremely bright at the point where it's cutting. Bond would be left with temporary vision loss at best. Also, it would be painful to look at and he would not be able to stare at the spot for very long.

A slamming door could not waft all those candle flames (or indeed Simonova's hair) from across the opposite side of such a large church.

Bond bungee-jumps from a dam in the first scene. When he reaches the bottom, where the rubber-bands are stretched the most, he shoots a hook and winds himself down. That maneuver would demand enormous strength in his hands, since the bungee-jump bands force him upwards, and he needs to hold on to the hook-mechanism pulling him down.

At the demonstration of the Tiger helicopter, the French Navy Captain introduces one of the helicopter pilots as "Lieutenant Commander Bernard Jaubert". This rank does not exist in the French Navy, the equivalent rank is Captaine de corvette. Also the name patch on his flight suit says CAPT. JAUBERT but the 3 stripes above it and on his shoulders denote the lower rank of Lieutenant de vaisseau. Also the other pilot is introduced as a Lieutenant and his name patch says LT. BROUSE but his 2 stripes indicate that he's an Ensign 1st Class, or Enseigne de vaisseau de premi?re classe.



Incorrectly regarded as goofs

When Bond stops his Aston Martin during the race with the Ferrari, he uses his right hand to pull on the emergency brake. As Aston Martin DB5s have the emergency brake to the outside of the Driver's seat, this is correct. Some assume that this is a goof as most cars have the emergency brake between the seats.

At least one of the soldiers that Bond kills on the runway reappear when Bond and Natalya try to escape the archive. In this particular case it is allowable as twin henchmen are a running gag in Bond lore.

When Xenia and Ourumov land the helicopter in Severnaya, they are wearing different uniforms than when they took off. However, they had to make another stop along the way, for refueling.

It is very fast, but Q does in fact disarm the pen grenade with three audible clicks before putting it back into his pocket. When slowed down the audience should even be able to see Q's thumb in the middle of the final click after snatching the pen back from Bond.

When Bill Tanner gives a report to Bond and M he refers to satellites being down. He should be calling them earth stations, or satellite earth stations. The satellites in orbit were destroyed by the GoldenEye detonation. That is why Tanner needs to wait for another one to "come into position."



Revealing mistakes

When Bond is rescued from the antenna at the end of the film, a helicopter would not have been able to get that close to him without its blades coming into contact with the metal scaffolding that he's hanging from.

Near the end of the satellite dish antenna's draining cycle, some of the water leaps from the outer edge toward the drain, a reversal of the laws of physics. This is because the footage is played backwards.

When the antennae of the dish is raised out of the water, it is dripping wet in one shot, and bone dry in the next. (The second shot is apparently reversed footage, where they sank the antennae into the water and reversed it to make it appear to be rising out of the water.)

The cockpit display of one of the MIGs heading towards Severnaya shows ORDINANCE STATUS HOMERS............NORMAL AIR TO AIR........NORMAL AIR TO GROUND.....NORMAL WATER BALLOONS.....READY with some of the letters flipped to make it look Russian.



The trajectory of Bond's watch laser doesn't match up with his wrist movement.



Miscellaneous

When James Bond drives the armored tank through the cargo truck carrying thousands of aluminum cans of the French carbonated mineral water Perrier, water would have been fiercely spraying everywhere, drenching him, the tank, and the surroundings. Instead, the scene is as dry as can be.

Bond is playing Chemin de Fer against Xenia although in the movie she calls it Baccarat. In the second round, Bond has two face cards and after asking for a third, he wins six to Xenia's five. . In modern baccarat, with forced drawing rules, the Banker Hand would draw with a six or less if the Player Hand drew a six. Thereefore, Xenia could have called draw as the banker. However, in the early 20th century, both sides have free will in every situation, as long as neither side had a natural 8 or 9, which froze both hands at two cards.

At the beginning of the film in the chemical weapons factory, James Bond climbs out of a shaft in the floor and leans against a concrete wall, which is obviously not concrete because it bends.

When Q is showing Bond the leather belt gadget, he is clearly looking past Bond and reading his lines.

The helicopters, despite being already close by, become audible only after Jack Wade calls for the Marines to appear.



Anachronisms

The pre-credits sequence of the film is set in 1986. Yet (with very close analysis) a Soviet soldier's newspaper reads "1995" at the top.

Uniform/costume errors: The uniforms worn by the Russian soldiers in the "present-day" (1995) part of the film (after the pre-credits sequence) resemble Soviet uniforms rather than the redesigned uniforms of the modern Russian Federation Army (the Soviet Union ended in 1991 and the film is clearly set in the post-Cold War climate). They are Soviet-style olive green rather than the darker shade of green used today. Ourumov's uniform as a General still follows the Soviet design, Soviet shoulder boards, inward-facing gold leaves on the lapels (as opposed to outwards like nowadays), Soviet belt buckle and he has a Soviet cap badge (red star with hammer and sickle). His cap also lacks the Russian Federation Coat of Arms that is now worn on the crown of Russian military peaked caps. The only Russian Federation part of his uniform is the patch on his left sleeve. The other Russian soldiers also still wear Soviet cap badges, including Xenia in her leather outfit during the Severnaya scenes. The ordinary soldiers (in the scenes following Bond and Natalya's capture after escaping from the helicopter) all wear red shoulder boards with "CA" in yellow letters; these mean Sovietskaya Armiya (Soviet Army).

Bond and Onatopp talk as if Georgia is part of "Russia", while in fact Georgia got its independence in 1991 as the USSR collapsed.

In addition to the already mentioned inconsistency, the headline in the newspaper in the opening 1986 sequence clearly reads "15 years ago the first Soviet soccer player was allowed to play abroad". This happened in 1980 which puts the newspaper date in 1995.



Audio/visual unsynchronised

When the plane is diving towards the ground, there is a high pitched siren that the Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka" was famous for in World War 2. It seems to be common to add the siren on any planes that are shown diving in movies.

When Jack Wade shows up at the end of the movie, his helicopters don't make any noise until they are actually on screen. A helicopter anywhere in their general vicinity would have been making a constant, loud noise all the while.

When Xenia shoots the Tiger helicopter pilots, her gun seems to have a silencer attached but when she shoots, you can hear loud gunshots.

In the marching band sequence in the square in St Petersburg, the bell lyre players in the band are not playing, but their sound is clearly audible on the soundtrack.

Boris changes a password to "chair" and audibly presses more keys than there are characters.



Crew or equipment visible

In the opening bungee jump scene, the camera cuts away to a wide shot as James Bond is free falling. For about half a second you can clearly see the top of the Dam where a large white truck is parked plus another large truck housing some form of bungee jump rig.

Wires pulling the cockpit upwards are visible, when Bond ejects it from the helicopter just moments before it explodes.

Right after James Bond meets Jack Wade for the first time, a black car passes by. You can see the reflection of the crew on the side of the passing car.



Errors in geography

The Goldeneye satellite that is targeted to destroy the Severnaya complex is shown on the world map to be orbiting the Earth from east to west. Apart from those in polar orbit, satellites are launched from west to east in order to take advantage of the rotation of the Earth.

The dam seen in the start of the film is in a summery snow-free area. When Bond enters the station, he is at the bottom of a valley. When he emerges from the station, he is at the top of a snowy cold mountain, with no such valley in sight.

Archangelsk, where the pre-title sequence takes place, is on a river delta on the White Sea, and the surrounding terrain is flat. There are no snow-covered mountains and no large dam nearby.

When Bond first enters the repository of monuments from the Soviet era of Russia, an American blue jay's song can be heard.

The locomotive hauling Trevelyan's train is not a Russian design, but a British Railways class 20, with a fake snowplow nose and additional side-skirts.



Plot holes

A satellite in the low earth orbit does not require such enormous dish to communicate with. Even television feeders for the geostationary orbit are much smaller. Aside from technical aspects, a weapon requiring such large antennas would be too easy to be paralyzed by enemy simply by destroying the large ground antenna with a small missile or even a grenade launcher.

Minister Mishkin brings Bond's Walther with him while interrogating Bond and Natalya and just sets it on the table within both Bond and Natalya's reach. Yet he did not unload it first, it makes no sense for him to set a loaded gun on a table within reach of one person he suspects is a terrorist and another person he suspects of being a traitor.

When Trevelyan realises that Bond and Natalya have arrived at his base in Cuba, his order is "Kill them". But when his soldiers catch up to Bond, they take him prisoner instead.

It's amazing that on an entire vessel filled with military personnel, and with such tight security, that nobody managed to hear two loud, unsilenced gunshots going off.

Bond gets captured multiple times, but his accessories he got from Q are never removed, except for the finale. This would be normal from an average enemy, but not from a former MI6 agent who even mentions he knows Q personally.



Character error

The satellites are said to be orbiting 100 km above the earth, but that is far too low. The minimum altitude necessary to place something in a stable orbit is 640 km. Any object lower than that soon falls back to earth due to atmospheric drag.

Bond drives the tank with the driver's hatch open, but really doing so would result in injury from all the rubble that falls down onto the tank (not to mention metal cans of water).

When Bond is talking to Valentin Zukovsky and says the line "They used the chopper to steal a nuclear weapon", he pronounces the word nuclear as "nucular". Not the kind of error someone of Bond's sophistication and education would make.

Bond and Simonova manage to escape from the archive since the trained Russian soldiers (who are firing up at them from the floor below), seem to be totally unaware of the need to aim their machine gun fire slightly ahead of a running target.

A suggestion by Alec Trevelyan that he would have "more money than God" by robbing the Bank of England is a misnomer. There are a number of wealthier cities other than London he could have targeted, such as New York or Tokyo.