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Did M need to die in Skyfall?

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  • pking_3pking_3 Punting under the Bridge of Sighs
    Posts: 33
    Well to tell the story of Skyfall, yes M "needs" to die. To tell a different story...M could live. Or die.

    I think the premise here is to ponder whether a different story might have been better than the given one, and to that I would have to say, sure, maybe. But the one we got works for me.

    Pyrrhic victory and all.
  • tanaka123tanaka123
    Posts: 4,325
    Yes.
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    Posts: 23,883
    Her presence was sorely missed by me in SP. Even though I've never been a fan of her increased presence over the years in Bond films, I now recognize that she added a certain centering gravitas. I only noticed this after her departure.
  • barryt007barryt007
    Posts: 19,339
    She had to go though,she was almost getting as much screen time as Bond himself.

    It was the right time for her to go,and a good way to go out of it IMO.
  • suavejmfsuavejmf Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England
    Posts: 5,131
    I'm not really bothered about her departure at all. She was no Bernard Lee.
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    Posts: 23,883
    barryt007 wrote: »
    She had to go though,she was almost getting as much screen time as Bond himself.

    It was the right time for her to go,and a good way to go out of it IMO.
    I agree. Still, she's left a noticeable MI6 void which the three stooges don't seem capable of filling, at least imho..
  • barryt007barryt007
    Posts: 19,339
    bondjames wrote: »
    barryt007 wrote: »
    She had to go though,she was almost getting as much screen time as Bond himself.

    It was the right time for her to go,and a good way to go out of it IMO.
    I agree. Still, she's left a noticeable MI6 void which the three stooges don't seem capable of filling, at least imho..

    Oh definitely...she has been M for 7 Bond films (8 if you count her video message in SP) since 1995,so you will always feel the missed presence for a bit.
  • Jazz007Jazz007 Minnesota
    edited March 2017 Posts: 257
    suavejmf wrote: »
    I'm not really bothered about her departure at all. She was no Bernard Lee.

    Curious... Could you expand on that?

    I mean.... Was she supposed to be Bernard Lee? :-/
  • suavejmfsuavejmf Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England
    Posts: 5,131
    Jazz007 wrote: »
    suavejmf wrote: »
    I'm not really bothered about her departure at all. She was no Bernard Lee.

    Curious... Could you expand on that?

    I mean.... Was she supposed to be Bernard Lee? :-/

    Bernard Lee was close to Fleming's creation and the perfect M. Dench is just a PC stand in. Unfortunately she was portrayed as rather incompetent in the end too.
  • RC7RC7
    Posts: 10,512
    suavejmf wrote: »
    Jazz007 wrote: »
    suavejmf wrote: »
    I'm not really bothered about her departure at all. She was no Bernard Lee.

    Curious... Could you expand on that?

    I mean.... Was she supposed to be Bernard Lee? :-/

    Bernard Lee was close to Fleming's creation and the perfect M. Dench is just a PC stand in. Unfortunately she was portrayed as rather incompetent in the end too.

    1995 was an opportunity to mix things up a little. It was in essence a soft reboot. One way to add a different dynamic was to have Bond's superior be female and the casting of Dench was a master stroke imo. She had fantastic chemistry with both Brosnan and Craig and made the role her own; something that beyond Lee seemed destined to never happen. Not only did she achieve it, but she cemented herself for the best part of two decades.

    Looking at Fiennes in SF and particularly SP I actually think it shows what an absolutely sterling job she did and the level of talent and gravitas she leant to her films.

    Reducing her to a 'PC stand in' isn't only nonsensical, I actually think it's pretty offensive when you take into account her work. There are moments of greatness in there.
  • suavejmfsuavejmf Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England
    Posts: 5,131
    RC7 wrote: »
    suavejmf wrote: »
    Jazz007 wrote: »
    suavejmf wrote: »
    I'm not really bothered about her departure at all. She was no Bernard Lee.

    Curious... Could you expand on that?

    I mean.... Was she supposed to be Bernard Lee? :-/

    Bernard Lee was close to Fleming's creation and the perfect M. Dench is just a PC stand in. Unfortunately she was portrayed as rather incompetent in the end too.

    1995 was an opportunity to mix things up a little. It was in essence a soft reboot. One way to add a different dynamic was to have Bond's superior be female and the casting of Dench was a master stroke imo. She had fantastic chemistry with both Brosnan and Craig and made the role her own; something that beyond Lee seemed destined to never happen. Not only did she achieve it, but she cemented herself for the best part of two decades.

    Looking at Fiennes in SF and particularly SP I actually think it shows what an absolutely sterling job she did and the level of talent and gravitas she leant to her films.

    Reducing her to a 'PC stand in' isn't only nonsensical, I actually think it's pretty offensive when you take into account her work. There are moments of greatness in there.

    Its just an opinion. I agree on the dynamics comment (in GE and CR/QoS) and the fact she's a good actress. But I'm not a fan of a female or 'motherly' M, I prefered the traditional mould of Lee.
  • Jazz007Jazz007 Minnesota
    Posts: 257
    I will give Lee the benefit of being consistent with his M portrayal - one moment, Dench's M is a ballbuster in GE, a joke-cracking "pump her for information" pimp in TND, she had more of a role in TWINE but then went back to ball-busting/motherhood in DAD. Wasn't her fault, that whole era was really unbalanced.

    Once Craig's era came though, her character really had a great arc. She and Bond come to an understanding of each other built from the beginning of CR through the end of QOS - which makes her end in SF all the more meaningful. Her characterization in both Brosnan's and Craig's eras was so strong, she really did a great job. I'd prefer her over some Robert Brown-like stand-in; she made the role interesting and I at least looked forward to her scenes with Bond in a way that I didn't always with Lee who, while consistent and definitive, did fall into a sort-of predicable pattern by the end; Dench remained fresh from film to film. So there's a give-and-take with the comparison of both Ms, I think....
  • barryt007barryt007
    Posts: 19,339
    Oooooh now i have to pull you up on that ....nobody is better as M than Bernard Lee !!!
  • Jazz007Jazz007 Minnesota
    Posts: 257
    barryt007 wrote: »
    Oooooh now i have to pull you up on that ....nobody is better as M than Bernard Lee !!!

    Yeah, Lee's the best - he defined the character for the screen - but Dench is in a strong second place with some merits over his I have to say.
  • DRush76DRush76
    Posts: 533
    Milovy wrote:
    This is something I have wondered about at times. I have seen some fans claim that M dying was necessary for the story being told in Skyfall (particularly the idea that she "deserved" to die or to be sacrificed due to all the mistakes she's made), and I can see that POV. On the other hand, I know some people don't care for the ending - Anthony Horowitz in particular lamented: "The villain wins. The villain sets out to kill M. The film finishes with the villain killing M. So why have I watched it?"

    I personally don't care much for M dying - the development kind of turns Skyfall into a Very Special Bond Film, you know, the one we all remember as The One Where M Dies. The event gives M a bigger role in the story than the character needs (these are Bond films, not M films), and it's hard to see how either Bond or M have won the day at film's end. I also think it was unnecessary to kill off another female character for the sake of adding to Bond's man pain (this happened with Craig once already in CR).

    So could Skyfall have worked without killing off M? Here's how I personally think it could have worked: M is injured and uses the opportunity to fake her death, giving her an opportunity to leave the spy game and let Mallory take over as M. This would be a symbolic "death" - M's disappearance would echo Bond's disappearance in Turkey, and the film would get a happy ending.

    Sequence of events would be something like... M is injured, bleeding out at church / MI6 agents arrive at Skyfall in helicopter / Fade to black, suggesting M has died / Cut to Bond on a deserted airport tarmac at dawn / Car pulls up, driven by Moneypenny, M exits / Bond says "Not many of us get to leave this cleanly," M gives bulldog statue to Bond, says goodbye / M boards a plane that flies away. Then cut to MI6 where we see Moneypenny in her office and Mallory in his new position. Film ends as usual.

    What do you think of this idea? Would you enjoy Skyfall more if M lived? Or do you think M dying is an essential part of the story?


    I saw no need for "M" to die. But the movie's narrative struck me as so flawed that M's fate really didn't matter.

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