The Q Branch scene from GoldenEye (1995) is one of my favorites of the series. It has it all: physical humor, great chemistry between Bond (Pierce Brosnan) and Q (Desmond Llewelyn), funny one-liners and quips and…the only time another movie’s theme is mentioned in a previous movie? Although it’s great, it does have its flaws.

It starts off innocently enough, with Q retrofitted in a wheelchair/rocket launcher/leg cast combo which he quickly launches and completely misses his target. Just missed!

I’d say the only strike against the scene would come next – at the expense of one of the most boring and underutilized cars of the entire series in the dull blue-grey BMW Z3 (I think it’d have been so much better in black). The Q Branch team “does” show off its rather odd parachute functionality (I guess for quick braking? Saving the day off a cliff?) but then Q only glosses over its other capabilities – including a radar, self-destruct system and “the usual refinements” alongside stinger missiles embedded behind headlights (c’mon, if you’re not gonna fire them in the movie, at least show them locked and loaded in the scene!) A curious Bond grabs something out of the passenger’s seat (is that C4?), but it’s quickly taken away by a tech. We should’ve at least gotten to see the car’s touch screen interface or control buttons, but no…they quickly move on to the next gadget. Boo!

The 75 foot rappelling cord leather belt is also not demonstrated, but its at least used later on in the movie, and we also get a bit of trivia: Bond has a 34 inch waist (although wouldn’t they measure differently in the UK?). Bond then gets distracted, typing on what now seems like an age-old laptop, and Q has to grab his attention like a schoolteacher. And in the background, we see a telephone booth (wow, don’t see those anymore!) with an airbag that traps its occupant…hilarious!

Q then gives Bond his airline ticket while showing off an x-ray dinner plate – nice of Q to show off some of his “hobby” gadgets, I suppose. And then we get the exploding pen, which although simple, I’d say pound-for-pound may be one of the best and most effective gadgets of all. We see a great rapport between the two as Q knows Bond will try to test out its three click arming of its 4 second fuse. Q scoffs and stops him and as he goes to test it out in the pocket of a dummy, and we see the hilarious sight of the telephone booth guy still trapped and getting wheeled away in the background. Classic!

The pen explodes as anticipated, but Q quickly hushes 007 who he knows will make a joke at the expense of the gadget. And then we have the (common) phrase that eventually is the title of a future movie’s theme – “The writing’s on the wall?” – Sam Smith’s song title for Spectre (2015). Has to be the first and only time another movie’s theme title is said in a Bond movie, right?

Anyways, the scene ends perfectly, with yet another background distraction of an employee ejected from a seat through the air, which really makes you wonder how safe Q Branch really is…what kind of OSHA nightmare shop is Q running?!

That’s not a gadget, 007!

And then probably the best Q quip when Bond curiously grabs a sandwich from the table, inspecting it like it’s the next gadget to test out. And of course, Q exclaims a quote for the ages: “Don’t touch that! That’s my lunch!”