How did you feel when you first watched GoldenEye on the big screen and saw James Bond walking, turning around, and firing before the blood came down? It’s a unique experience that only Bond films can provide, and the fact that this new film, with a new actor in a new era, retained it made the moment even more special. It felt like a bridge between old and new. Whatever our preferences, we all felt part of the same thing.
I didn’t have the privilege of seeing that gunbarrel on the big screen. In fact, the first time I encountered it was in the Nintendo 64 game of the eponymous film. It looked like a nice little animation, but I was completely mind-blown when I finally watched the movie on TV sometime later. I remember thinking: “Oh, this is where the animation came from? How cool is it to start a movie like that?” The rest of the film was, of course, brilliant. I admired Pierce Brosnan’s heroics, and my eyes were inevitably drawn to Famke Janssen whenever the camera found her, but it was the gunbarrel sequence that instantly sold the film to me. It was the opening that told me Bond was something like nothing else, certainly more distinguished than whatever my friends happened to be fans of, be it Star Wars, Dragon Ball, or their favorite football team.
It has often been discussed, particularly after 2006, whether a gunbarrel makes a Bond movie or not. I consider it a vital element that has to be there whenever copyright allows it (which is a fair way of excusing Never Say Never Again).
Although it is a product of the films and therefore not created by Ian Fleming, with credit going to legendary main title designer Maurice Binder and his assistant Trevor Bond (who, like the actress who played Brosnan’s Moneypenny, coincidentally shared his surname with the secret agent), the gunbarrel is the essence of James Bond. In those twenty seconds, it defines what 007 is about. I would even compare its impact to St Benedict’s cross with its Latin inscription expelling the devil, Vade Retro Satana (“Step back, Satan!”). Why? Because it is a firm reminder that good always defeats evil, and that Fleming’s hero can overcome anyone who stands against him.
The image has been repeated with slight variations for over forty years, yet its meaning has remained the same. Notice that we never see who is following Bond’s footsteps as he walks calmly and confidently across a clear background. The person watching him from the other side of the barrel has no name, gender, religion, or ideology. And we don’t need to know, because in his adventures, Bond stands above it all. The secret agent appears almost anonymous, then suddenly turns and fires. Brosnan, in particular, does this with elegance and precision, whereas some of his predecessors showed visible tension when turning and shooting (with the notable exception of George Lazenby, who chose to drop to one knee).
The Die Another Day gunbarrel famously includes a computer-generated bullet flying through the barrel, introduced in 2002, when flying bullets were common in television series and action films. Director Lee Tamahori wanted it as a one-off to honor the franchise’s 40th anniversary. Many complained, but in all honesty, I enjoy seeing just how great a marksman Bond is, capable of taking down his pursuer by firing straight into the barrel of his weapon.
During the Brosnan era, main title designer Daniel Kleinman gave the gunbarrel a digital, morphing effect. The iris appeared clearer and brighter than the greyer tones of earlier films. The same design, walk, pose, and animation were reused throughout the era. However, I have noticed a couple of visual variations when comparing GoldenEye to the installments that followed. Home video transfers may well account for some of these differences.
The Tomorrow Never Dies gunbarrel looks warmer and blurrier than GoldenEye’s, with a noticeable brownish tint visible across all home video editions, from VHS to DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K streaming. I can’t quite recall whether it looked the same in theatrical prints. In The World Is Not Enough, the design is more saturated, and the iris opens in the top-right corner to reveal Bond walking through Bilbao. This marks the first time in the series that the opening iris reveals Bond himself, rather than an establishing shot of a location or object. Bond’s position within the barrel is also slightly off-center.
Beyond the CGI bullet, Die Another Day offers further interesting alterations. Most notably, the circle remains red after being soaked in the enemy’s blood, instead of turning white before opening. More intriguingly, and I vividly remember this from my two cinema screenings (I wish there had been more), the footage appears desaturated. Since the film opens at night in North Korea and cinematographer David Tattersall gave the pre-credits sequence a bleached look to evoke a totalitarian state, it feels natural that the gunbarrel footage would also have its colors subdued.
The many Bond video games released between the mid-1990s and early 2000s also made excellent use of the gunbarrel. As mentioned earlier, GoldenEye 007 for Nintendo 64 featured it before the title screen using real-time graphics. The PlayStation versions of Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough used gunbarrel clips lifted directly from their source films. 007 Racing, released on the same console, reused the gunbarrel from Brosnan’s third film.
In a nod to GoldenEye 007, the Game Boy Color adaptation of The World Is Not Enough, developed by 2n Productions, included an 8-bit gunbarrel animation moments after the cartridge was inserted. Nightfire and Everything or Nothing, both developed by Electronic Arts and using Brosnan’s likeness, recreated Kleinman’s morphing iris while featuring their own digital version of Brosnan to walk, turn, and fire. Interestingly, in Everything or Nothing, the iris opens on a full moon at night, which was reportedly the original intended opening for Die Another Day before the surfing sequence was added.
I still remember my disappointment when, some twenty years ago, I heard that Casino Royale would not begin with a gunbarrel. That disappointment grew when it was moved to the end in later films I would rather forget. Still, it pales in comparison to the moment I sat in a cinema in 2021, watching that expensive funeral, and witnessed the unthinkable: “Bond” disappearing, and the blood never coming down. Some called it “foreshadowing the fate of the character.” I called it “a deliberate act of betrayal toward Cubby, Harry, and all those who helped make this character a legend.” And I don’t mean producers, artists or executives. I mean people like us. The ones that, when EON needed to reestablish Bond for a younger audience in the 1990s, spread the word about this film GoldenEye and this James Bond character, who had been played by many actors in many films in over thirty years.
Some people were fine with that. I never will be. I refuse to consider that disappearing figure in the iris to be “James Bond.”
Once, Admiral Sir Miles Messervy, brilliantly portrayed by Bernard Lee, said: “A licence to kill is useless without a target.” In much the same way, an entire shelf of expensive Bond memorabilia is worthless without genuine admiration for Bond himself. When you watch a Bond film, something inside you wants him to triumph. You are on his side, and that connection forms naturally.
It is no surprise, then, that of all the tropes the post-Brosnan era dismantled, the gunbarrel was the primary target. It defines the essence of James Bond and makes it clear that Ian Fleming’s secret agent is, as one From Russia with Love poster famously put it, unkillable. The symbolism of the gunbarrel is so powerful that it literally proves “nobody does it better.” It is so strong, in fact, that it had to be self-parodied just to be included in films that openly contradict its meaning. Of course, few remember the 1975 Eurospy parody From Hong Kong with Love, which featured a gunbarrel where the hero is killed. Yet some certified film experts, obsessed with Christopher Nolan’s monotone color palettes, would dismiss the Brosnan era as parodic over a handful of CGI effects.
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