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The main comparison however is in the roles the villains play. Both TDK trilogy and the Craig era Bonds rely on the same source. Reality. Both are informed by it and both prey on our fears. Silva and The Joker are borne out of fears of terrorism. They are both symbols of chaos, one ordered, one apparently not. Although we know that not to be true. Both are dangerously clinical in the execution of their plans.
Stripped back, they are also very different. Silva's motivation is an emotional plot driver, where The Joker's motivation is left muddied, he's an anarchist with an emotional disconnect. The Joker comes to rely on Batman for justification and self-satisfaction, whereas Silva has tunnel vision and underestimates the threat Bond poses - Bond gives Silva no satisfaction in the end.
The link between SF and TDK for me is that Mendes realised it was possible to inject a theatrical villain into a grounded movie. The tone and scope, more than the material, is what connects the two IMO.
As for Batman and Bond, @Brady explained most of the criteria for why Bond and Wayne are opposed, all of which I agree with. Some people will find similarities but they only exist on a superficial level. Yes they are orphans, but then so is Peter Parker, Clark Kent, Harry Potter etc. It gives these characters some dramatic weight as they derive strength from personal loss, this is where Bond stands alone for me and why he is so interesting. He derives strength from his sense of duty, something exemplified by his return to the UK at the beginning of SF. A moment I thought typified the man.
I can see peoples misgivings about the emotional trappings of Skyfall and it's place in the film. The above (Bond's sense of duty) is the key character trait for me, anything remotely related to his childhood trauma drifts towards weakening the character IMO. I think SF just about got away with it, but I'd be loath to encourage any more exploration of such themes. There are much more progressive and exciting ways to develop the character. As an aside, I don't see any connection between this element of the film and Batman, as pointed out above. Mendes was inspired by TDK, not the specifics but the world, the tone, the scope.
I wouldn't get too exasperated. It's not a bad thing for films to influence each other. As I said above, it's more a Nolan influence than a Batman, but as it stems directly from his work with TDK, comparisons will always be drawn. The following are quotes from Mendes...
In terms of what [Nolan] achieved, specifically The Dark Knight, the second movie, what it achieved, which is something exceptional. It was a game changer for everybody
What Nolan proved was that you can make a huge movie that is thrilling and entertaining and has a lot to say about the world we live in, even if, in the case with The Dark Knight, it’s not even set in our world… That did help give me the confidence to take this movie in directions that, without The Dark Knight, might not have been possible
Hm, ok; well, what about the sidekick who reveals his name at the last minute and the sidekick who reveals her name at the last minute ? ;)
You really are scrambling to find weak comparisons, aren't you? And how dare you call either Blake or Eve "sidekicks". Very derogatory. ;)
Nope, I'm just poiting out random ones that are no so weak in particular when you try to find a connection between, say, Octopussy and The Dark Knight Rises, and realize that there you have to go into very weak territory. Knightfall, on the other hand, is different, you feel it's everywhere.
If you think the comparison is laughable, then I'm afraid I should tell you that "A storm's coming" :) It seems the overall feeling these days about Craig movies is that Skyfall is the Nolan Bond, Quantum is the Bourne Bond, and Casino Royale the reboot Bond. Even if Casino Royale and Bourne were compared too at the beginning, but mostly because of a fight at one moment. For Quantum and Skyfall, it's more a feeling from all over the movies.
http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/5515/borrowing-here-borrowing-there...-early-cinema-007-influence-formulation
Very well said!
Besides the similarities and differences explained by @RC7, the use of the villain´s planned capture and escape as plot device is strikingly similar. And if one considers the differences between Gotham and London, the differences between the Joker and Silva become smaller. Not so much in the character, but in the appearance, Silva is partly a translation of the Joker into the Bond universe.
That’s a relief, for a minute I thought you’d had a sense of humour bypass.
I'll stop you there, if you don't mind? I think you've missed the point of what I was trying to say. I wasn't implying that Nolan had created the origins of Bruce Wayne, (light, dark or a little bit grey) so there's no need for the history lesson in what appeared in the comics first. Whether Christopher Nolan used Knightfall for the basis of The Dark Knight Rises or Frank Miller for Begins it's neither here nor there as Nolan was taking the ideas from an already established back catalogue that firmly belonged to Bruce Wayne. The point I was making was he did it first as a cinematic blockbuster and made a success out of the material. Full points to Chris Nolan then.
I thought M said that "orphans make the best agents"? There was no mention that this was the qualification needed to be a 00 agent. Are you suggesting that MI6 only make you a 00 if you've had the unfortunate patronage of Dr Barnardo's?
Depends how you measure a "tad" and what you're comparing it to? Though not a carbon copy, the structure of Skyfall is occasionally a bit too close to that of The Dark Knight. This is especially true in the second act, when Silva is captured by our heroes and interrogated, only for our heroes to realise too late that it was all part of the villains’ grander plan. Like the Joker, Silva escapes captivity in a most dramatic fashion, relying on the nature of his captors to provide him with a key. Both dress in a police officer's uniform in order to infiltrate a public setting and assassinate a major figure, with Silva looking to off M and The Joker aiming to kill Mayor Garcia.
Of course the Joker takes urban terrorism to extremes in Gotham, using familiar tools like videos of murder and torture of innocents to make his announcements. Silva launches an attack on London, using its public transport as a weapon against Bond, but not before taunting M with Joker-style graphics on her laptop first.
Skyfall does push the similarities to Nolan’s Bruce Wayne a little too much sometimes. At one point James Bond looks skyward and says “A Storm’s coming” as an ominous warning. This line is used in both Batman Begins by Batman and then again in The Dark Knight Rises by Selina Kyle. Of course some will claim that Bond was simply giving M a weather forecast and there was no intention of any ambiguity of any kind like in Nolan’s script, it’s just a happy coincidence is all.
Okay, let me make myself clear. I don’t think SF is a terrible movie just a derivative and very self-conscious one. The most awkward comparison comes much later when we discover said tunnel (priest hole) under the old Bond manor, as described so deliriously a few posts back by our own resident Bond scholar. In particular, Kincaid describes how Bond reacted to the news of his parents’ death by going down into the tunnels. When he came back, we’re told, he was no longer a boy. It seems a bit strange that Bond would also have a transformative experience in the caves beneath his family’s estate just like young Bruce did in Batman Begins. As I pointed out this is nothing to do with Fleming but more the hallmark of Bruce Wayne courtesy of Chris Nolan. It’s a parallel you can’t deny as it’s in both films, firstly Batman Begins and latterly Skyfall. I haven’t even mentioned that Skyfall Lodge suffers a similar fate to the Wayne Mansion at the end of Batman Begins as that’s purely fortuitous.
Now I’m willing to forget all the other parallels and synchronicities I see between Skyfall and Christopher Nolan’s films but I find it hard to ignore the most obvious when it’s so blatant. This is the only reason why the Third Act doesn’t work for me and I fast-forward to the Mallory office scene at the very close of the movie.
PS. This is all I'll say on the matter. Thank you.
PPS. Well said @boldfinger.
Funnily enough when I heard that line it made me think not of Batman but of a similar moment in The Terminator. Sarah Connor, right at the end of the film, is in the desert and hears a kid speak Spanish to his father. When she asks what he says the father's response is "he says there's a storm coming in". Her reaction: "I know".
I really like Skyfall, however maybe it isn't quite as revolutionary as some make it out to be.
I think @Bondsum is right about the film's self consciousness. An example I can think of is the "sometimes the old ways are the best" line which is used not once but twice. Seems a bit too coincidental (and gimicky) that two different people who had never met and never shared the screen together would say it.
I can't answer that question but for all we know, it was there. I believe most of the ideas that made it to the screen were split between Casino Royale and Skyfall. This is all found in the new Bond Archives book, so I'll dig it out soon and post what they have to say on the subject.
And, if you lads want to argue that "Silva and Joker were both captured but they both wanted to be captured so both films are sooooooo similar" we might as well toss in Loki from The Avengers into the mix now, shouldn't we? What kind of weak comparisons can be made that will say Skyfall ripped off Avengers? Since some of you appear to be experts in that field, go at it! (:|
Toodles...
I didn't see
"Our villain is such a brilliant mastermind that they are going to get captured, but they had it planned all along just to fool the heroes and they will escape after! Isn't that totally cool and fresh?!"
No, not anymore it's not.
Even the music when Bond enters the priest hole to leave the house could have been lifted right from a Nolan Batfilm.
And because everybody does it it´s cool?
Then why nobody says that Skyfall is the "Avengers Bond" ? While many compare Skyfall to Knightfall... Aren't you building a straw man ?
If Bond 24 is full of fun, and sees Bond lead some troops along with Leiter and a Bond girl almost his equal, etc, then maybe Bond 24 will be the "Avengers Bond". No need to fight aliens for that... When you copy the recipe, the cake decoration may fool the eye, but the taste will be the same.
How is Bond leading an army to fight someone an Avengers rip-off? So all war films are also Avengers copies? Seriously, man...your thought process boggles my mind.
Ah, @boldfinger, I certainly didn't write any of that...
If I ever do though, have the asylum lock me up.
Quite. I fully agree with your assessment of the events. I mean, when some are comparing a tiny priest hole to an expanse of caves underneath a rich boy's manor they really are scraping the bottom of the barrel. :))
What's next? Bruce grew up with Alfred by his side and Kincaid knew Bond when he was young too. WOW, they are completely the same! Except you know, the characters are completely different in personality, action, and in what they bring to the story. 8-}
*im not as much of a Batman geek as a Bond geek so maybe this is why.
Because you look at the detail instead of looking at the whole picture.
If Craig's Bond goes from the gritty, lonely hero, to being a flamboyant team leader of peers fighting an army, with many interactions between the good guys, don't underestimate the fact that the Avengers may have trigger something. Not sure at all it will happen though !
Almost all blockbusters are very dependent on the zeitgeist, and very few actually have an influence on it. Bond was the zeitgeist in the 1960s, one could argue TSWLM also was in its time, but since then it's more a follower (sometimes of itself), it would exceptional to become one trendsetter again, the formula would definitely need quite some change, it's too risky as long as it still works I think, from a producer's point of view.
For someone who claims to analyse films, you're either being very selective or very dumb in your methods.
One of the most interesting things about studying films is drawing parallels and comparing the work of one director to another, or one DOP to another, or one writer to another etc. The reason this is done is because not every decision these artists take is a conscious one. At any point during the filming process and particularly from film to film, a director may draw inspiration from a contemporary or a master of the past. That doesn't mean they'll lift something wholesale (although this does happen) but they may subconsciously inject a certain vision, one that is for want of a better word 'borrowed' or 'adapted'. Now I don't think Mendes lifted anything from Nolan, but I've no doubt his vision was informed by Nolan's work and subconsciously he may have found himself drawing on that inspiration for specific set-ups, emotional drivers, etc. Every director does it.
Which brings me on to P&W, with these two I wouldn't put it past them to get specific. I think Mendes cares about his vision and will strive for originality, the same cannot be said of masters Purvis and Wade. If anything was indeed 'borrowed' narratively, I'd have no doubt it started life here.
I'm a huge Batman geek on all fronts and I never think of Batman when watching any Bond film, not just Skyfall.
Most of my analyzing focuses on just the film in question, and often I don't compare other films, because as I said, you could compare films of any different genres all day and get nowhere. I more center on the themes and characters at play in the film if anything, and if it is a film that includes one of my favorite characters I go deeper, which is why my longest write-ups are Bond, Batman and Holmes focused. With Holmes there is more literary than cinematic study, of course, and about even with Batman where I also get into the comics/graphic novels at times.
No, that´s not that, but that that line was hammered into audiences in seemingly every trailer for TDKR.
No offense taken, mate. ;)
Skyhook or a similar technology was a real thing though, not exclusive to film.