Skyfall - Grading & Discussion

[Rush Limborg]

^See, I've always seriously doubted that idea. For one thing. the constant references to Tracy throughout the "old" films. At the very least, Moore is the "same" Bond as Lazenby--and License to Kill links Dalton's to those two, for that reason. Connery's "revenge rampage" at the beginning of Diamonds Are Forever implies a connection there, too.

So...perhaps Pierce Brosnan was a "new" Bond--but M refers to him as "a relic of the Cold War," etc.

Perhaps MI6 is very advanced regarding skin grafts (face changes), voice changes, and "de-aging", particularly after Moore?


As for Craig--the idea, remember, is that Casino on is a re-boot--where the legend is restarted for a modern audience. Effectively, they're acting as if the "old" series didn't happen, and Bond is discovering the elements we know and love.

[JarodRussell]

But I don't see why they would change voices and faces of the same guy, and keep calling him James Bond. For me, the other way round makes a bit more sense.

We've now officially seen new Qs and Ms introduced. I think even Brosnan made a reference to the "old M" when Judi Dench appeared. So why not have the same thing happen with Bonds.


And the Tracy thing... I always liked to think that for example Moore-Bond visited the grave to trick Blofeld into appearing in For Your Eyes Only. That's exactly the purpose of the "Bond identity" (lol). Blofeld didn't know it was a new James Bond, and fell for it.

[Starkers]

But M's always been a code name really, hence the in film reason why Dalton has a different Bond to Moore/Lazenby/Connery, of course the real reason is that Bernard Lee died. In reality the head of MI6 is still refer to as C after Mansfield Cummings, same as the head of MI5 is K (after Vernon Kell)

By the way, I agree about the torches being stupid, but as Jarod says, it wasn't a particularly safe environment given the ice etc.

The Bond as a codename really doesn't make sense, and Skyfall gives us another good reason why, because if it really were a codename then she'd be the same M, and she isn't. As per this universe in 1995 she was running Station H, whereas in the previous universe in 1995 she was already running MI6 and briefing Brosnan...

[Relayer1]

Supreme Dittodrone wrote:

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As for Craig--the idea, remember, is that Casino on is a re-boot--where the legend is restarted for a modern audience. Effectively, they're acting as if the "old" series didn't happen, and Bond is discovering the elements we know and love.

So, the old Aston with the ejector seat...

[Kai "the spy"]

Relayer1 wrote:

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So, the old Aston with the ejector seat...

Well, he did win a DB5 in Casino, so he could have had that one retrofitted with several gadgets (like he had the Saab in the John Gardner novels). The real question is, how did MI6 not know about that.

And it is important MI6 did not know about the car. Otherwise, there would have been a file on it in the system which Silva could have hacked into, therefore making the car unsafe again.

[starburst]

With the old films it was meant to be, implausibly, the same man from Connery to Brosnan hence him knowing about various gadgets kept in Qs vault from previous films, use of the DB5 and knowing the previous M before Judy Dench.

No matter how you want to link Daniel Craig with the previous films its not possible, its a new universe with a revised version of the characters. Trying to fit them into the previous series would be like trying to fit The Dark Knight in between Batman Returns and Batman Forever.

Skyfall was a good film, a really good film. Time will tell where it really fits in terms of being the best Bond film or top 3, 5, 10 etc.

[Bob The Skutter]

I saw it again yesterday, have to say I enjoyed it more the second time around. Whether that was missing 20 minutes of the ads or having a friend there to make stupid comments to or what I'm not sure.

[Samurai8472]

6 years ago we had a Bond who was rough around the edges

Then(QOS)we still get a Bond who's learning the curves. Now we get someone who's past his prime? In roughly 6 years?


It's like they(the studio thought "Okay fast forward the story. He's progressing too slowly"

I think the "Past his prime" aspect would have worked better if Craig had more movies under his belt. It almost looks like the end for Craig but we all know it's not since he's signed on for more sequels.

[CaptainCanada]

starburst wrote:

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With the old films it was meant to be, implausibly, the same man from Connery to Brosnan hence him knowing about various gadgets kept in Qs vault from previous films, use of the DB5 and knowing the previous M before Judy Dench.

It's no different than the sliding timeline in comics. Spider-Man's various 1960s adventures are canonical, they just "happened" later (and in radically different circumstances).

[starburst]

That made sense with the old ones, same man just ignore that hes not aging (or his age goes up and down like a super spy Time Lord) while everyone else does.

This isnt the comic Marvel or DC universe though where you can shoehorn various history in together, if this was meant to be the same Bond as Connery or Dalton then you have the problems of the M's being in the wrong order if they are meant to be the same characters.

Why cant this simply be a new version of the same history? Does it have to link up to the old films? Part of what makes films like Casino Royale, Batman Begins and The Amazing Spider-man what they are is that they go back and start fresh without worrying about what came before.

[inflatabledalek]

Kai "the spirit" wrote:

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And it is important MI6 did not know about the car. Otherwise, there would have been a file on it in the system which Silva could have hacked into, therefore making the car unsafe again.

M knew about the gadgets, or at least the ejector seat.

As for the whole codename thing, surely the precredits sequence of Goldeneye blows that out the water by showing Brosnan as Bond when he should have either been an extremely elderly Moore or a very fresh faced Dalton.

Plus here, Bond's family home, parents and groundskeeper all suggest he is indeed the one and only Bond. Considering Fleming himself started the thing of freezing the character's age (though the Young Bond books do a great job of reconciling some of the conflicting dates so that it turns out that, yes Bond was only 8 when he got his first car...) he's jut like Poirot or Biggles, one of those characters who just do not age at all and do their thing doe decades.

Plus I've always found the idea of multiple Bond's completely at odds with the intent of the character. He's the ultimate wish fulfilment, the best there is at what he does ect. You couldn't have six different Bond's in fiction because there aren't six men that good.

It was interesting Skyfall had one final bit of confirmation Dench wasn't playing the same M as in the Brosnan films as she now didn't become M until some point after 1997.

As for the film... I liked it a lot. Great fun, and unlike poor old DAD the injokes were fairly unobtrusive (I think Bond's own car being kitted out with old fashioned gadgets is the only one that would seem really odd if you'd never seen a Bond film before).

I'm surprised Silver has been getting so much praise though, I've seen comparisons to Ledger's Joker (and there is a big Nolan Batman vibe throughout- the burning of Stately Bond Manor, the old villain gets captured on purpose scam, the first real focus on Bond as an orphan in the films and the revelation the fist thing he did after he parents died was go into the caves beneath his house. Of course, as Nolan has cheerfully been making Bond films with Batman in that's probably fair exchange) but he was more the new David Walliams.

A bit of self aware camp is fine, but the whole "Ping ping cooo-eyy I'm bonkers me" stuff was way too OTT. And the attempts to try and create a Goldeney style parallel between him and Bond didn't work as a result. You needed someone who would feel like Bond gone evil and what we got was more someone who'd been rejected from children's TV for being too zany.

He was also a bit crap. Despite all the general chaos he caused, his one and only goal throughout the film was to kill one pensioner and (it turns out) himself. He winds up being incredibly inept at this and only winds up winning by freak events (Despite his "She's mine!" protestations it's one of his henchmen who delivers the killer shot to M). So we end up in the weird position where the film ends with the villain achieving him ends, but still a failure.

They again, we're talking about someone who, when they want to have someone killed in Singapore, they set up an overly elaborate "Lure him into a room to look at a piece of art and have him shoot from the next building" plot rather than just having one of the other people in the room- who are all in on it- shoot him themselves. He'd have saved four million Euros that way.

But despite his ineptitude at his actual plan, the set pieces he put into play as part of his failure were all very well done, the whole underground cross London chase being especially a highlight. The climax of the film was more Home Alone With Your Granny than Bond but still with a lot of pace and excitement to it. The poor old DB5

As a final thought on the villain... He's apolitical and will do any nefarious scheme for left or right for the money. So basically exactly like Quantum. He could have been the head of that organisation with almost no changes to the script, the fact he wasn't I think shows what Eon really think of that side diversion despite their claims they might revisit those plot threads in future.

Craig was great, even if it was odd to have the film dealing with Bond as old and past his best so soon after the relaunch and with more Craig to come.

The new supporting cast are great as well. Yes Ralph might as well have been wearing a "I'm the new M" t-shirt but Bond's boss as more than a contemporary to him is an interesting one and he managed to remain likeable even at his most sarcastic to old M.

And that was actually one of the things I really liked about the film. Dench's M has been basically incompetent since The World Is Not Enough (and of course, the NuDench M of the reboot doesn't have the strong showing of the first two Brosnan's to her credit).

Constantly making poor judgement calls, she's managed to get MI6 blown up twice and has hired at least one traitor a film, culminating in her own bodyguard trying to kill her. She's also basically entirely dependant on Bond for everything she does to not be a complete disaster (she's also a borderline alcoholic far more than Bond is, generally if she stands still for more than 30 seconds she'll break out a glass of the hard stuff). If not Dench being so good we'd all find her completely useless.

So for this to finally come back and bite her on the arse was long overdue. Dench has been great, but with the return of the "Classic" supporting characters and office set we'll once again see an MI6 where Bond may well be the best but everyone else isn't useless and/or evil.

And despite one of the trailers blowing its appearance (in fact, a surprising amount from close to the end of the movie is in the trailers) I squeeed when Bond walked into that office.

[CaptainCanada]

starburst wrote:

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That made sense with the old ones, same man just ignore that hes not aging (or his age goes up and down like a super spy Time Lord) while everyone else does.

This isnt the comic Marvel or DC universe though where you can shoehorn various history in together, if this was meant to be the same Bond as Connery or Dalton then you have the problems of the M's being in the wrong order if they are meant to be the same characters.

Why cant this simply be a new version of the same history? Does it have to link up to the old films? Part of what makes films like Casino Royale, Batman Begins and The Amazing Spider-man what they are is that they go back and start fresh without worrying about what came before.

I was referring to the old films. The Craig ones are explicitly a reboot.

[starburst]

Ahhh I see, I got mixed up and thought you suggested the same logic could be applied to the new films and fit them in with the old as others have suggested across various boards, my bad!

The old films I kind of see as supposedly being the same guy, just ignoring that his age keeps changing allowing him to be the same age in the 60s and 90s.

[Deckerd]

Samurai8472 wrote:

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6 years ago we had a Bond who was rough around the edges

Then(QOS)we still get a Bond who's learning the curves. Now we get someone who's past his prime? In roughly 6 years?


It's like they(the studio thought "Okay fast forward the story. He's progressing too slowly"

I think the "Past his prime" aspect would have worked better if Craig had more movies under his belt. It almost looks like the end for Craig but we all know it's not since he's signed on for more sequels.

I must have missed that bit about him being past it. He's contracturally obliged to get his shirt off in every movie and he looks just fine to me.

[Samurai8472]

inflatabledalek wrote:

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I'm surprised Silver has been getting so much praise though, I've seen comparisons to Ledger's Joker (and there is a big Nolan Batman vibe throughout- the burning of Stately Bond Manor, the old villain gets captured on purpose scam, the first real focus on Bond as an orphan in the films and the revelation the fist thing he did after he parents died was go into the caves beneath his house. Of course, as Nolan has cheerfully been making Bond films with Batman in that's probably fair exchange) but he was more the new David Walliams.
.

The movie was influenced by the dark knight

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/10/...he-dark-knight