"A View to a Kill"

The title „A View to a Kill” from the 1985 film can be considered prophetic. Below is a shocking story of how simple, mundane, and seemingly insignificant situations can give birth to great tragedy… And how Man with a capital „M” tumbles down.

He was an incredibly promising scientist and athlete with bright prospects not for some “kill” (although sailing is a national sport in Sweden), but for the Olympics, Chemical Breakthroughs, and given his heritage… who knows… after all, he had a Nobel within his grasp.

After finishing high school in the 70s, our hero (already a promising athlete) goes to the United States, where he briefly studies chemistry at Washington State University.

Upon returning to Sweden, he completes (oh yes, for him, it’s like snapping a pencil) his studies at KTH, where he earns (effortlessly, almost accidentally – as his colleagues recall) an engineering degree in chemistry (and Nobel suddenly felt a bit threatened).

After completing his studies, feeling a bit mentally drained, he decides to regain his physical strength (you know how it is with scientists: they go to the gym, and instead of working out, they ponder integrals). So, he serves a year in the Swedish Marine Corps at Kustjägare (KJ), where one night, as he jumps up from his trusty bunk, he suddenly remembers kumite! As he stood, he got up and immediately went to train, further developing his earlier interest in martial arts.

This leads him to a black belt in Kyokushin. And that’s not all – in 1978, he becomes the captain of the Swedish Kyokushin team and doesn’t stop until he wins the European Kyokushin Karate Heavyweight Championship in 1980 and 1981, and in 1982, he becomes the champion in Australia. And he didn’t even break a sweat doing it.

But he didn’t stop at just some karate title and one academic degree – Karate Master Engineer? Pfft! He was restless, as if „The World Is Not Enough,” and in 1982 he earns (neither by correspondence nor extremism) a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Sydney.

Now, that’s something, because before he knows it, in 1983, due to his excellent academic performance, he receives a Fulbright scholarship, granting him admission to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That’s MIT, Sir! Here, they don’t mess around.

But while in Sydney, working on his muscles outside of academic activities, he moonlights as a harmless little professor-bouncer in a nightclub around King Cross. And it’s here that he’s spotted (hence that prophetic “View to a Kill”) chalking up some chemical formulas on the wall. None other than Grace Jones notices him and smells an opportunity (probably thinking he’s cooking up some new chemical compound suitable for effective and cheap „nose powdering”). Ms. Jones first, for appearances’ sake, offers him a job as her bodyguard, and then asks about the compound.

Our hero takes her question seriously, invents the compound, and soon they become a couple. Already in New York.

And here begins the drama, the breakdown, the real loss for humanity. The endless parties, social gatherings, and streams of guests effectively pull him away from his studies. Sound familiar?

Befriending some Andy Warhol and that whole artistic crowd of freeloaders and cheap grub-seeking scum, he gets sucked into the primitive world of the global bohemia. He won’t finish MIT.

Soon, instead of working on fullerenes (that’s a form of carbon where the atoms are arranged in spherical, ellipsoidal, or tubular shapes. The most famous fullerene is buckminsterfullerene (C₆₀), which resembles a soccer ball, consisting of 60 carbon atoms arranged in a truncated icosahedron structure), he starts a film career.

Yes, our scholarship holder, pioneer, champion, engineer – let’s not shy away from big words – almost Nobel laureate – debuts in 1985 as… oh God, I don’t know if I can write this… one of the KGB henchmen in the film “A View to a Kill,” a movie from the James Bond series.

Though it was a small role, alongside Grace Jones, who played May Day (because she was always screaming “Mayday Mayday”), it opened the door to a, ugh… film career.

Lundgren, first name Dolph, begins his descent. After a sleepless night spent reading Paul Celan’s poetry, he decides to abandon the world of science and sports.

Yes, this exceptionally intelligent, brilliant, educated award and scholarship laureate, who was on track for the Olympics, contracted to fight the Divine Rocky, but looking like a stereotypical musclehead flexing his biceps and only associated with, at best, B-grade cinema, focuses on an acting career. Although he’s a man of the “Everything I Touch Turns to Success” type and becomes an icon of 80s and 90s action cinema, it’s still, let’s face it… beneath his DNA’s potential.

Almost certainly, he misses out on some Nobel Prize for research on, hmm… oh, for example, on two-dimensional materials like phosphorene or molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂).

Humanity regresses once more, while VHS tape manufacturers, popcorn sellers, and Nobel Prize committees breathe a sigh of relief.