I just thought of another think that bothered me: stakes. Once Silva's real goal is revealed, to kill M, the stakes go out of it for me. It seems small and easy--or should've been easy, but why kill your victim easily... but, I've talked about that. Basically, we have a two and a half hour Bond movie where the stakes are about saving the life of 1 person. The NOC list is forgotten. Silva has no other goal. He doesn't want to take over the world. He doesn't want to make England pay. Just to kill one person. Which he succeeds in doing. At least in Goldeneye, THAT former spy burned by the British Secret Service, wanted to make England pay AND make a shit load of money AND throw the world into the dark ages (right, can't remember) the stakes were HIGH. If Bond doesn't succeed the world is OVER. In Skyfall, if he doesn't succeed, an old woman, who was probably going to retire soon, would be killed and then replaced...
A lot of Silva's actions are mind-boggling. Apparently getting apprehended and then escaping was all part of the convoluted (and apparently psychic) plan. Why? It served no apparent logistical purpose. On an unrelated note, in the word-association exercise, when the psychologist says Skyfall, Bond refuses to participate any more. Why? Because it raised an unhappy memory? Also, how could Bond have been so clueless that he didn't realize he failed the marksmanship test and other tests? Apparently he didn't even come close to passing the marksmanship test, scoring a 40 where passing is 70.
^Re the Skyfall/psychologist query - I thought you answered your own question there. That's how I interpreted the scene anyway. We later learned that he never returned to the house until he brought M there and he didn't seem in the least bothered when it was demolished to the ground. So I thought it fairly apparent that that name was something of a trigger word for him.
Gave it an 'A'. Solid story, good acting and a great villain. What more could you want in this type of film?
Yeah, I thought it was pretty clear in hindsight why Bond stopped talking at the mention of his boyhood home. Doesn't seem like there's a lot of good memories, and Bond doesn't strike me as a sharer.
It'd be over for the UK for decades, not necessarily for the world for all time (a destructive EMP blast would rip through London; terrible, but still falling far short of Stromberg triggering WWII). If Silva could've brought himself or sent hitmen to M's townhouse, he could've also killed M there and then when he blew up the top floor of MI6 - he seemed to be slowly and sadistically playing with M before killing her (like Dr. Evil). His escape from MI6 custody to get at M at the courthouse seemed to be emergency plan B and him storming Skyfall in a helicopter was emergency plan C (he succeeded but unfortunately for him got killed as well). The NOC list subplot seemed to have dropped out of the story when Silva was captured and his island operation shut down.
Ah, well. Couldn't agree more. Some of the sheer bollocks people talked about Casino Royale when it came out was breathtaking. Statements like "The James Bond films are an anachronism" and "They've successfully brought it up to date with a bang" were made as though they're somehow intelligently considered analysis. All they really did was make a film as stupid as ever, replaced James Bond with a weathered old chavvy thug, and waited for the plaudits to unthinkingly roll in. Batman and Robin is Citizen Kane, Rear Window and The Conversation combined compared to Cuntum of Solace. Gosh, I'd forgotten all about that. That's as ridiculous as it gets. Your entire post is quite brilliant, in fact. You remind me of me. I think that's very true, especially among the generation most represented in discussing these things on the internet. A solid story. And while the action and direction were top notch, a lot of the dialogue was eye-rolling for me.
Which he was already doing before his capture... BUT, according to the movie his capture was a part of his plan. IT was Plan A. Q even says, he must've been planning this for years. Plan B was Skyfall. Plan C was probably nuking from orbit, just to be sure. Pity. While a recycled plot from a different spy franchise, that subplot had stakes.
I don't see why M, by now a pretty familiar and beloved part of the franchise, isn't sufficient stakes.
I liked the smaller stakes as it made me more interested. Another "he's going to take over/destroy the world!" would be rather boring.
She's a spy. She isn't more important than the mission, than the job. She feels that way. She said as much at the beginning of the movie. And the movie didn't really do much to change that. It's great that she was in danger, as she was a familiar character, but with the villain's ONLY goal was her death, it made the stakes small. Again, she was going to retire. What is her value to the safety of the country? Over someone threatening to destroy all of the banking with an EMP blast. Personally, in my spy movies I do like a little higher stakes. Pretty much ALL of the Bond movies have had some aspect of trying to take over the world, are all of them boring? Let's look at License to Kill, it was personal for Bond, getting revenge but there was a LARGER thing at stake as well, that whole pesky War of Drugs thing. I get what you're saying about the smaller stakes, but it was a sort of asymmetrical battle against those stakes. The movie brought all of the explosions and gunfire of a You Only Live Twice, with the stakes of a indie thriller.
No, not all of the ones with that plot are boring but some are. However, the previous two Craig films did not have anything involving taking over the world. "From Russia With Love," arguably the most respected Bond film, was not about taking over the world. I also think mixing an indie plot with a big budget sounds like a really cool movie...
Well even that's only if we assume she's the same character as the Brosnan M. Personally I don't care about her at all, she's an average and not very interesting character. But even if I thought she was brilliant, in the universe of the film she's still not important. Not much changes for the world if she dies. It's only because we've seen her before. And it's that kind of insular plot that makes the whole thing seem so fannish.
True, because that would be far to cartoonish for this new Bond. BUT, the organization he was facing had its hands in terrorist plots, monopolies on precious resources for power and money. And those plots affected large numbers of innocent people. True. But it was about two super powers fighting over a great MacGuffin that would give them leverage over the other. Yeah... would love to see that someday...
I never got what's supposed to be so great about From Russia With Love. The only good thing is the train sequence at the end. And the music throughout the film. The rest of the film I found pretty cheesy, and Tatiana's got to be the most stupid Bond girl I've ever seen.
Did they really need to spell out higher stakes though? I understand that the guy is bad, has already did all kinds of bad shit and will likely do more bad shit in the future. I say this as a casual Bond watcher.
Surely she's even more important to Craig's Bond than the Brosnan-era version of the character was? To Craig she's the (not always friendly) mentor who brought him into the service and is probably the closest thing he has to family (he even jokingly compares her to his mother in Solace). She's far more than just the new boss he learns to respect as was the case in her first four films.