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But by that logic Bond is redundant. He's not a 'young man' anymore. I think @forgotmyusername's point is a good one. I don't agree with the old 'being' the future, but more 'that is our future' and in the context of the film suggesting 'there's life in the old dog yet'. Afterall, the only young character, 'Q', drops the biggest bollock in the film.
Hmmm, you're right about that too :-? . I think it's something in between. Total green youngsters: No. Old elderly people: No. But an experienced spy in his mid 40's in today's political environment: A big Yes.
Something like that @RC7 ;-)?
I think it's more about learning from the past. It's easy in this modern world to forget the past, believing all that matters is the here and now. The most telling moment for me is when 'M' suggests getting the job done is more important than dignity. In the end she's proved right. She dies, but the one man she trusts to do the job, does it. If it had been left to 'Q', he'd have attempted to do it from his laptop. It's quite a complex set of themes and neither black nor White.
On Bond's side of it, you can see a clear reason why human intelligence always beats signal intelligence. Bond could fight Silva in both London and Scotland, while Silva only had the ability to contend with 007 in London. In Scotland, Silva's tech skills were useless, while Bond's tactics rooted in the ways of human strategy prevailed in both his homeland and London.
That's interesting. Another theme discovered! And I do see this now. It also shows that Bond is still an action figure. And ordinary individuals can connect better with these heroes.....to get a better understanding of how intelligence services should work in today's society.
Yeah, Dan's Bond has the perfect mix of action style Bond who is capable of great feats, yet has that depth and vulnerability that is easy to connect to as well.
oh dear
While I see what you are saying I would like to add that SF did a heck of a job with the characters I still am not sure that Mendes could not have given the story and especially the holes in it a little more thought. Unless there is a director's cut with the movie fleshed out somewhat more in that case I would like to see that.
But in my personal opinion the movie looks beautifull & Craig is really good, but is vastly overrated for a billion dollar movie. The franchise does have better Bondmovies and they are also very beautifully shot.
Agreed here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/james-bond-spectre/daniel-craig-007-casino-royale-skyfall/
Now these are the articles I like to read to prepare for "SPECTRE". I'm starting to think that some underlying themes of the upcoming 24th Bond adventure are:
--> "Family relationship & Teamwork": Look to the backgrounds of James Bond, Franz Oberhauser and Madeleine Swann. They just can't be acting on their own again. Both Bond and Oberhauser learn that they can't be loose cannons going out for revenge. They need to back up and execute their ideas. Bond with a better MI6, Oberhauser with a Bilderberg-esque crime syndicate named S.P.E.C.T.R.E.
--> "How entirely 'grey' a nation like the United Kingdom can be": With this I mean that there's a more critical look at the country, that it's this time around not just a glorious iconic 'father figure', but equally a nation that loves doing 'bad things' to preserve the 'good', like prosperity, peace and welfare.
--> "Today's villainous schemes...are real": We live in a social media society were secrets starting to pop up on the worst tabloids. Again, espionage could prove pivotal again in today's society...and by watching "SPECTRE".
I like this quote 'When Brosnan tumbled down the roof of the Millennium Dome in the opening sequence of The World is Not Enough (1999), the franchise had become every bit as culturally relevant as the Spice Girls and pickled sheep.'
There's soemthing different about the Craig Bonds, they feel more than just the standard formulaic Bonds that the Brosnan ones became. Sure they made money, but there was never the buzz among the general film-going public that the Craig Bonds have elicited.
There was no social media in the Brosnan era and that is the difference.
Today everything gets buzz.
It's really funny you say this, as I had the completely opposite response to that scene.
My feeling was that MI6 had clearly made a colosal cock-up (as I've said before, MI6 are depicted as serially incompetent throughout SF). M's response at the hearing is to put up the barricades and go for full on bluster and self righteousness.
Far from being snobby Claire Dowar represents the people - the democratic and legitimate right of parliament to hold the shadowy secret services to account.
My reading is therefore that this scene just highlights how out of touch M is. It's not a glorious moment - it's the moment when you see clearly that her time is up. She's basically lost the plot. She's in denial about her manifold failings and has resorted to quoting poetry in front of a government committee - she's basically falling apart at the seems. It's an unseemly but in some respects moving depiction of a powerful woman losing her grasp on reality.
You'd never have got Bernard Lee spouting such total nonsense in front of the Minster of Defence, that's for sure.
Here we have a representative of the people (Claire Dower) asking the security services what on earth has gone wrong with their cataclysmically badly run organisation, and rather than eating some humble pie (as one might expect in the 'real world' ) the Head of MI6 goes off on a total tangent of self-denial and self-justification. It's like watching Tony Blair defending the Iraq War - impressive on a certain level in terms of the gobsmacking arrogance and refusal to acknowledge a mistake, but also at the same time clear evidence that the person in question is clearly utterly detached from reality and in total denial about their own role in an unfolding disaster.
That's my take on it anyway. But like much in SF I'm still not at all sure what Mendes was really trying to convey with this scene. The film is a well intentioned but incoherent mess IMO.
Ooowh, I think this discussion should be held in the light of....espionage....on the whole. You DO know that espionage and democracy never were big buddies huh ;-)? I think the that's part of the theme of "SkyFall" (and "SPECTRE"), and in a weird way these themes are way more supportive of the conservative/Tory cause as opposed to the progressive/Labour cause.
Look around you. Look to what Russia is doing. That country keeps destabilizing Europe. One of their latest tricks: Supporting Syrian monster Assad, thus resulting in even more immigrants....and the facilitation of more ultra-right-wing politics in Europe. A Situation Moscow loves.
IF we do not more fierceful espionage work in the shadows of all this, then democracy will cause its own collapse eventually. Yes, I support democracy, but when it comes to espionage things get more grey, things become less democratic, BUT do not forget that this 'undemocratic espionage' is there to protect our democracy and all its freedoms. How weird it may sound.
Yes, Judi Dench' "M" fucked it up in 'SkyFall". But at least during that speech she was completely right. I am a very progressive person. I support a progressive party. But when it comes down to espionage, I am usually in favor of Conservatives. Richard Snowden is a very progressive person. In an ideal world I agree with his ideology of progressive thinking, democracy and transparency. But he's also incredibly naive. And on many occasions he severely damaged our democracy.
I totally disagree. The key point here is that MI6 is responsible for a massive cock up. Clare Dower raises questions about the legitimacy of the secret services, but that is because MI6 has just put the country's entire security at risk by losing the hard-drive. Hundreds of British and allied agents' lives are at risk.
This is about gross incompetence on a national security threatening level. The politician is asking a completely legitimate question - ie, if MI6 is this badly run, then doesn't it need more proper oversight? M's response is to totally ignore reality and start banging on about something totally irrelevant.
M comes across here as the dinosaur. The person out of touch. The more politically adept and diplomatic Malory is waiting in the wings to clean up her mess and restore legitimacy and coherent leadership to MI6.
MI6 is there to protect Britain, but when MI6 itself becomes a threat to the country's security, something is dangerously wrong, and the guardians of Britain's sovereignty (parliament) must intervene.
This is one of the reasons I really dislike SF - it depicts MI6 as this total disaster that is actually a risk to itself and the country. And Bond isn't really much better
It's a new forummember @Getafix :-). That's not how you welcome a newbie no? Not very nice at all :-).
A Theme of Family, Generations and Teamplay:
- Marco Sciarra is married to Lucia Sciarra. Marco Sciarra is a member of S.P.E.C.T.R.E.
- Madeleine Swann's father is The Pale King/Mr White. Mr White is a member of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and its daughter-branch QUANTUM. He loves Madeleine a lot.
- Ernst Stavro Blofeld's/Franz Oberhauser's father is Hannes Oberhauser. His mother is Ms Oberhauser-Blofeld. Blofeld is the head/Nr.1 of S.P.E.C.T.R.E.
- James Bond's foster father is Hannes Oberhauser, so for a short while -2 winters- he was a foster brother of Franz Oberhauser.
- Conclusion: "SPECTRE" is the most family-heavy Bond film in the franchise history. It is therefore a rather unique film. Fathers, sons, husbands, wifes, foster parents, brothers, daughters, mothers....the above mentioned characters are all connected through families.
Secondly, there's the notion that teamwork in this new Bond film is as vital as ever. With so many layers of deceit and leaks within the intelligence community, one has to work together. BUT, we also see that in some instances one man alone has to do the job...alone, without any support: Agent James Bond-007. The new 'M' directly refers to that, as he thinks it's better than Moneypenny and Q stop interfering with Bond's 'rogue' mission. So there comes a point in "SPECTRE" where it is of no use to work according to authorized government missions.
A Theme of International Espionage and its Implications on Democracy:
Whereas "Skyfall" focused on the importance of modern-day espionage, mainly inside the UK, "SPECTRE" goes a step further and focuses on how espionage works in a global environment. Sam Mendes doesn't introduce a villain or character that is based on Richard Snowden, but he does focus on all the scandals and intelligence information that were leaked through ex-CIA-operative Edward Snowden. And one could say that James Bond himself is an 'Edward Snowden'-esque character.
These 'leaks' included the revelation of two intelligence programs:
A) The PRISM Program: Which is a US-based NSA-program that foresees in eavesdropping all American citizens, via telephone and on internet. It's basically assisted by big bluechip billion dollar companies like AT&T, Google and Microsoft.
The link with "SPECTRE"? Blofeld is running a privately held PRISM-like company, which is hired by several national governments and its intelligence services. Like MI6/CNS, led by 'C'.
B) The Five Eyes Program: This collaboration of intelligence services across the globe exists as of today. The core 'Five Eyes' are the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. As Edward Snowden once said: The Link with "SPECTRE"? Obviously, that's The Nine Eyes Program. And as weird as it may sound, in today's, real-life intelligence community members of Five Eyes already refer to Nine Eyes. The 4 extra countries in this program are: The Netherlands, France, Denmark and Norway: hhttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/02/nsa-portrait-total-surveillance
So there you have it PRISM and Five Eyes are the two main McGuffin's of "SPECTRE".
Blofeld is a larger-than-life version of Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) / Larry Page/Sergey Brinn (Google). He runs a S.P.E.C.T.R.E.-paid company in the Moroccan desert where he runs the PRISM-esque Big Brother program. He is also the head of the Bilderberg-esque crime syndicate S.P.E.C.T.R.E.
Max Denbigh, or 'C', could be seen as a government official that gets his ideas from Bush-era politicians, ex-CIA director Allen Dulles and ex-FBI-director J. Edgar Hoover. Make no mistake, Allen Dulles and J. Hoover weren't lovable babies.
Ed Snowden would make Bond smile. He likes it shaken not stirred... :))
:)
There are, of course, the eyes in the title sequence. But then throughout, there are lines about what can be seen, what people are looking at. Blofeld talks of "visionaries." The last "drill" that Blofeld was going to perform on James was in the eyes. Note, too: Blofeld's eye is damaged. There are continuous shots of video screens. Bond feverishly tells Madeleine not to "look" but to look at him (when the video of Mr. White's suicide is playing.)
In that article: "And SPECTRE will introduce Léa Seydoux’s Madeleine Swann, the Proustian overtones of whose name must be the most highbrow Bond gag to date. (“It’s above my head, that’s for sure,” said Craig.)"
I am with Craig here, I do not get it (English is not my mother's tongue, btw, and I have not read Proust). Could someone explain the gag to me, please?