Where Was ‘Die Another Day’ Shot?

Everyone’s favourite chauvinist spy, James Bond (albeit in everyone’s least favourite reincarnation, Pierce Brosnan), visited everyone’s favourite sub-Arctic island back in 2002. The resulting film had diamonds, Madonna and, because it’s a James Bond film, a totally incoherent plotline.

After being held as a prisoner in North Korea for a year, 007 gets invited to some billionaire’s ice palace in Iceland. Bond is well up for it, and doesn’t even have PTSD or anything. Has anyone who lives in an “ice palace” (other than Superman and Queen Elsa) been anything other than a villain? No. But James Bond is literally the stupidest guy ever, so he gets in a super fast car and heads on over there.

The ice palace scene was filmed at Jökulsárlón—a large, iceberg-strewn glacial lagoon in southeast Iceland. If you go there today, you’ll find no palaces, and no pantomime villains: just ice. And if you want to drive over it, you’ll need a Super Jeep, not a sports car. Because in real life Bond would have flipped that car, died, and saved us all 133 minutes.

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