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It's great in the context of the film but as a standalone sequence I can think of a handful that smash it to bits.
To be fair, Bond sort of brings this up when he meets Eve back at the new mi6 HQ, when he comments in some of his ribs and less vital organs were affected but nothing major. Also, it's astonishing how some people have survived similar and in some cases worse calamities.
The line is "a bloody big ship" ;)
I thought that was funny.
Perhaps there is an element of truth to what @Grant is saying but, then again, didn't Fleming once say that "Bond was a man of little culture"?
I thought the original Bond was, in many respects, quite casual (he enjoyed getting drinking and getting drunk - see the OHMSS/YOLT novels). This is something Craig gets quite well in my view.
He is refined and sophisticated when he wants to be but at heart is more comfortable sitting in a shirt and shorts and looking out the window.
That was the whole point of growing up with Bond. Sean Bond, George Bond, Roger Bond, they all dressed lovely (without the aid of a lady), loved fine food and drink and most importantly could hold forth on any topic under the god dam sun.
This was the whole point of Bond. He was a man of the world, suave, could charm the ladies and STILL beat the crap out of must adversaries. But the violence was secondary, the icing on the cake.
Daniel Bond is dour, charmless and uber violent. People have to see that this is a huge change.
Plus - not everybody sees his Bond as charmless - you see, many describe Craig Bond or Craig himself as effortlessly oozing sexapeal and charme and ruthless cruelty, IF he needs to. This is Bond.
Imagine the six Bonds where sitting around an elegant table having a champagne dinner. Which one do you think would be most out of place and why?
As a franchise you cannot. There is an explanation hidden somewhere by MGW, why it is necessary to change things. So you might question my words, but maybe believe, he knows a bit.
Why do you find it disturbing? I would find it disturbing if only the "new fans" liked it and the old ones didn't. But the great majority of fans, regardless of how long they have been Bond fans, enjoyed the film. So SF kept the old fans and brought new ones, that is amazing!
If all it took was wining and dining the elite reviewers to get great reviews I guess everyone would get raving reviews, don't you think? :-w
Would you care to elaborate?
Bond is a brutal man, he always has been (or should have in the films) and always will be. He's not a cultured man, @BAIN123 you're completely right.
It wasn't directed at me but I can give you an answer, which I believe is the obvious one: Lazenby. He did a great job with what he had, but what he had could never match what Connery, Dalton and Craig, or even Moore and Brosnan had, it's a different league.
Hi Grant - it depends, what a person wants of his/her Bond. We have seen quite some different portrayals. The elegant lover (Moore) the Dandy (Brosnan) the mans man (Connery, Craig), dunno where to place Dalton. So - for me the way a masculine man drinks his Champagne is definitely more attractive then when Brosnan does it, for example. So no, I don't think Craig Bond would look out of place. He would look like a relaxed panther ready to tear you apart at any minute despite being the epitome of coolness just now. He would look like a man, a woman would turn to for safety. (Never mind, that the Bondgirls lucked out mostly ;) )
My point was was Bond all that "sophisticated"?
When we first meet him in YOLT he is getting pissed with Tiger on "Sake"
And I quote:
"But I didn't hit anyone?"
Bond: "only that girl you slapped so hard on the bottom that she fell down"
Oh that" said Tiko Henderson with relief "that was just a love pat. What's a girls bottom for anyway. As far as i recall they all screamed with laughter, including her. How did you make out with yours anyway? She seemed pretty enthusiastic!
Bond: "she was"
"good show!"
Bond wasn't "disgusted" by Henerson's behaviour - he seemed to go along with it.
and in OHMSS he says he can think of nothing better than getting drunk with Draco the night before storming Piz Gloria.
Bond can put on a front of being sophisticated (thats where his experience at Eton proves useful) but at heart he isn't.
I beg to differ. He's exceptionally cultured.
I didn't express myself correctly @RC7, I should have said he's not a walking encyclopedia, that's more what I had in mind ;)
Yeah erm, I mean I can see the plus sides people on here mention a little better now, as being on here and hearing from people who have followed the series more than me, etc, has given it some more context.
I do understand why M had to die, why they needed to shake the series up and pull it out of the Casino Royale era (which of course was based on a now very old book) etc.
I do prefer the CR/QoS style by a long, long way, but at the same time I understand why they made the decision that they did.
Mallory... I understand his significance more. He's an ok character. Eve I really don't like... her acting just feels so SMUG to me and it drives me nuts lol
Silva wasn't an awful villain. I prefer Le Chiffre and Greene but he's ok and menacing enough.
Erm, so yeah I guess I've made my peace with the film a bit more, but I still greatly prefer CR and QoS.
I could probably lift it to maybe a 5 or even 6/10 in my books but any more than that and I'd be lying...
Not appalling I guess... which is a compliment when it's about Skyfall coming from me lol
I still have to give it a second watch and will do soon, but the sky 007 channel makes it harder. So many great bonds on all day.
I like you didnt rate skyfall after my first watch and actually think it the worst in the series. Hopefully like you it will improve with my second viewing.
I found the first hour dragged when I watched it on monday, did you find this?
and if so was the first hour better 2nd time round?
Well, for me it was actually the second half which was worse. It's unusual you say it dragged. Did you enjoy CR and QoS? :)
Both had great Bond teasers, two of the best in the series.
I didnt enjoy the teaser or the title sequence/tune at all in SF though. It wasnt until shanghai that the movie got going for me.
I think @Grant has a point about Craig appearance-wise. I'm not sure I can see him blending into a place like Blades but I think some of the basic personality traits are there. The gruff-ness (Bond sometimes speaks "gruffly"), the cold eyes, the casual confidence - especially around women.
I was thinking of the night before the weading, mind playing tricks :D
I wonder how many brian cells it took to conjure up such an excellent, intelligent and thought-provoking response. Your head must be hurting.
Why? The Bond series prior to Craig had descended into mindless stupidity and lacked credibility on almost all fronts. There was nothing no longer unique about the series, everything had become a joke, a pastiche and the series had become one of those guilty pleasure's one indulges in simply because, one might as well.
It reminds me of the Church of England who tend to try and cater for everyone only to piss off the old faithful.
And you are speaking on behalf of whom may I ask? Cheap generalisations and innacurate sweeping statements has become the norm around here and I've seen it on both sides from those who champion and support SF and the Craig era and those who don't. Everybody has a right to an opinion, that's obvious but if one is going to state their opinion at least exercise your right with some responsibility when doing so.
Secondly, Eon were very clever in how they marketed Skyfall. They had the premiere in London and the general release in the UK was several weeks in advance of other markets (notably the US). God only knows how they wined and dined the elite reviewers who gave the initial great reviews and people tend to get their opinions, to some extent, from the rottenttomatoes of the world before the see a film. People do not like to go against trends.
Correct me if I'm wrong, are you suggesting that EoN paid for positive reviews? bribes? Lol! If that's the case then you couldn't be more fundamentally wrong. Secondly, you're right many people do look to reviews in aiding their decision on seeing a film, one of the benefits of the concept of press freedom but the fact is, irrespective of any embargoes, there were tweets and other positive comments from all over the place that gave their opinion on the film and they mostly enjoyed it. This is not rocket science or intergalactic astro physics. Many journalists and media reps and other people enjoyed the film and that is a fact. A fact that facilitated a change of many people's perceptions of Bond in a favorable way. Just because you and others failed to like it doesn't mean there's a conspiracy or that people that did like it are somehow hopping on a bandwaggon just to go along with the trend. If you and others didn't like it, fair play to you and no one should get on your case about it but when the opinions of those that did like it are being attacked or being accused of liking the movie just to go along with the crowd, then you create a problem.
I love SF and it's in my top 5 but I'm fully aware of it's weaknesses and there are many things I would change about the movie but my opinions on the movie are honest and objective and I don't consider myself to be a SF flag waving fanboy but sometimes, some of the SF haters take things too far and come up with a load of complete rubbish. SF isn't perfect but some here call it the worst in the series?? Really?? Seriously?? Well, I can respect one's right to having an opinion but I don't have to agree nor respect said opinion.
Thirdly, the linear plot of the film is crap. It makes no sense.
Well, you can take almost every film that's ever been made and find that there is very little sense to be found. Hell, take every single Bond movie ever made and an argument can be made that it's all senseless rubbish. That being said, Mendes in the audio commentary talks about how there was a leap in logic or something to that effect within the movie but guess what, it's just a damn movie. Get over it.
Fourthly, I am really saddened at the dumbing down and brutalisation of Bond. Examples:
Casino Royle, Bond does not know how to dress himself (blacktie) or order cocktails.
Ountum of Solace, Bond dumps Mathis into bin.
Skyfall, Q "What do you see"
Bond "a Boat".
Current Bond would not make a great dinner party guest.
Firstly, you cite all 3 Craig movies and fail to mention the utter stupidity that can be argued to be all of Moore's Bond movies, all of Brosnan's and a couple of Connery's. Nice try.
Secondly, Bond can't dress himself? Can't order a cocktail? You need to watch CR again because everything you said just so happens to be factually untrue.
Bond dumping Mathis into a dustbin was to create a concept of misdirection and looking at that scene within context instead of just watching the images on the screen scroll by maybe you would have caught on.
As for your mention of Skyfall, again, the context of the scene being played out was lost on you. Bond says, "a bloody big ship" (if you're going to quote a movie in your quest to identify how stupid it is, at least bother to quote it correctly) as a way of not allowing himself to get caught up in a conversation with someone he doesn't want to talk to. He doesn't know the person he's responding to is Q and is in the process of getting up and moving away to further emphasise why he gave the response he did. Look at the way Bond stares at him as Q walks over to Bond and sits down, uncomfortably too close to him. Bond isn't there to chit chat about art exhibits with some geeky-looking stranger.
Honestly, so many people on here talk about how silly, dumb, stupid and flawed SF is and yet, many of those people, not all but many of them really beg the question of if they paid attention and actually understood what they were seeing instead of hearing random sounds and watching a bunch of images scroll by.
Cheers, mate :-)
Well, you can take almost every film that's ever been made and find that there is very little sense to be found. Hell, take every single Bond movie ever made and an argument can be made that it's all senseless rubbish. That being said, Mendes in the audio commentary talks about how there was a leap in logic or something to that effect within the movie but guess what, it's just a damn movie. Get over it.
I am constantly baffled how quick and Easy some People are denigrating all of the Former Bond Movies as stupid,Camp and illogical just to defend SF. To you I say - WRONG!!!
This is foremost an insult of The Great and Late Richard Maibaum who went to Great length to deliver scripts that often strongly improved on Mr. Flemings Books and to iron Out many of the original Plot holes of an actually quite mediocre Thrillerwriter. Also take for example Films like OP,which is Full of ridiculous Moments - it still has an absolute Sound Storyline on the height of its Time!
He also said:
Firstly, you cite all 3 Craig movies and fail to mention the utter stupidity that can be argued to be all of Moore's Bond movies, all of Brosnan's and a couple of Connery's. Nice try.
Would you care to dwell on the stupidity of for example FYEO compared to SF?
Same here. I loved it the first time, and still do.
He made such a bold entrance into our little drama.
To you. Ok, but I disgree - I see great humour and desert dry wit, which I love and it makes me laugh and smile: And tons of charm and definitely not uber violence.
That's true, one hears incredible true stories sometimes, and I assume surviving that fall wouldn't be impossible, even if the odds might be small. I'm not sure how literally one is supposed to take Bond's comment back in London about his injuries, but he could easily be talking about the effects of the fall - not the actual shot. That makes sense to me, anyway.
@doubleoego, your long post above is great, btw, so =D> from me, too.
@Germanlady, the panther description sounds fitting in so many ways. :D
:))