I already posted about how the major plotline of the 1985 James Bond film A View to a Kill is all about ending the domination of Silicon Valley. Another bit from this film along those lines I thought I should mention while thinking about it,at the end of the film Soviet General Anatol Gogol presents Bond with the Order of Lenin (the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union) for preventing Silicon Valley from being destroyed. A gesture that the British secret service higher-ups question, saying “I’d thought the KGB would have celebrated if Silicon Valley had been destroyed.” To which General Gogol answers, “On the contrary, Admiral, where would Russian research be without it?”
This scene struck me that already in the mid-1980s the writing was “on the wall” (no pun intended) for the imminent fall of the Soviet Union and the start of a post-Cold War era. In less than five years Bond will need a new enemy as communism crumbles, and I love how this film seems to suggest that in this final moment. What’s more, I love how even the commies can’t help but love Silicon Valley back in 1985. So good.