Skyfall - Grading & Discussion

[Gaith]

... Or if one of Silva's guys (or Silva himself) had had a pair of night-vision goggles.


(Still doesn't explain why they left the tunnel to begin with.)

[Trekker4747]

The flashlight thing was so over-the-top I really did expect it to be some-kind-of decoy set up by Bond. I mean it just seemed so really, really stupid to have it out there.

[TedShatner10]

I'm not bothered by the flashlight when Kincade seemed to have nearly fallen apart emotionally and mentally during the battle (he was fumbling with his shotgun shells). You people honestly believe an elderly seventy something would be thinking straight during a infantry and helicopter gunship attack directed at him?

[Trekker4747]

Do you need to "think straight" in order to say, "Light will attract the people with large fully automatic assault weapons to us."

[Mister Fandango]

TedShatner10 wrote:

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I'm not bothered by the flashlight when Kincade seemed to have nearly fallen apart emotionally and mentally during the battle (he was fumbling with his shotgun shells). You people honestly believe an elderly seventy something would be thinking straight during a infantry and helicopter gunship attack directed at him?

When both him and the incredibly intelligent, insightful, and completely-put-together woman who is experienced in espionage is with him? Yes, I do think one (if not both) of them would slap the other one upside the head for waving a flashlight around in the dark with heavily armed soldiers hunting them down.

[Harvey]

M was dying, and not a field operative. Kincade was an old man who was not prepared for his life to be threatened by anything other than old age. Considering that they were scared, inexperienced, and (in M's case) mortally wounded, I don't have a problem with them behaving erratically.

Hell, trained soldiers have been none to freeze up or behave erratically when they come face to face with an actual firefight.

The movie wasn't without problems, but this wasn't one of them.

[Professor Zoom]

TedShatner10 wrote:

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I'm not bothered by the flashlight when Kincade seemed to have nearly fallen apart emotionally and mentally during the battle (he was fumbling with his shotgun shells). You people honestly believe an elderly seventy something would be thinking straight during a infantry and helicopter gunship attack directed at him?

No. But I would think the head of MI6 would. You know... cause its what she does...

[Ghost Bones]

How did Bond survive a direct shot in the chest? In fact, shouldn't the bullet have gone right through him rather than just gently stopped slightly skin deep so he can conveniently leave it in and remove later?

[Captrek]

How did he survive two minutes under a frozen lake? He’s fucking James Bond. He’s immortal. The laws of reality don’t apply.

The bullet he removed later was not the bullet from Moneypenny’s shot. It was shrapnel from a shot the baddie took at him on the train.

[CaptainCanada]

Professor Zoom wrote:

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No. But I would think the head of MI6 would. You know... cause its what she does...

If M ever was a field agent, she hasn't been for decades. She's an 80ish department head.

[Trekker4747]

But, see, you guys are trying to come up with excuses for this ipso facto. "Well, the housekeeper was and old man inexperienced with this sort of thing and M was an aging, mortally wounded, bureaucrat so neither of them were in a position to know not to use the flashlight in such a manner under those circumstances or were thinking straight."

I somehow doubt that thought process were what the writers of the movie had in mind when they made the scene. (At the same time, I doubt they had it in mind that either or both were so incompetent at life that they didn't realize doing something like that was a bad idea.) It's just an inkling of poor writing. They needed a way for Silva to spot M in the distance and this was the best they could come up with. (As opposed to a variety of Bond-universe-ian gadgets they could have come up with. Like Silva's hack into MI6 gave him access to a drone or satellite with thermal imaging or something.) It's a bit of lazy writing, a deus ex machina. The characters act stupid pretty much because the script says they have to in order to get to the next scene.

It doesn't make Skyfall a bad movie, it just stands out as odd that in such a situation these two people would behave in such a manner to make their position VERY obvious and easily tracked.

[JarodRussell]

And then nobody would be argueing about the flash light had Connery played Kinkade.

[Captaindemotion]

^We'd be too busy arguing about whether or not 'James Bond' is a code-name that gets passed on to 00 agents:

'And when they retire, they send them out to work as gamekeepers to keep an eye on the next generation of possible recruits!'

[Professor Zoom]

CaptainCanada wrote:

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If M ever was a field agent, she hasn't been for decades. She's an 80ish department head.

So that means suddenly she's stupid?

[Ghost Bones]

captrek wrote:

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How did he survive two minutes under a frozen lake? He’s fucking James Bond. He’s immortal. The laws of reality don’t apply.

The bullet he removed later was not the bullet from Moneypenny’s shot. It was shrapnel from a shot the baddie took at him on the train.

Ohhhhh...yeah. Well I only saw it once.