It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
By people who take themselves too seriously.
Some didn't like the film from what I can ascertain from certain responses to this particular thread. Fair enough, I can appreciate that, more power to you. Without straying too far off course but I remember from before, there was significant talk about the plausibility of Bond where Craig is concerned. I'll be truthful, the opening half hour was disjointed and muddled to an extent. Some needless scenes inserted and other absurdities before Craig turns up 'ready for duty' at M's London residence
Could go on, but I don't want to rip into a movie for little bits and pieces of irritation for a film I thought overall was a job well done. It wasn't quite the superlative film release this year that some had expected or talked up before time though
To get back to the original theme though, I've expressed my thought's on Eve as a character & I still think she's believable for reasons I've explained already.
So as we're off theme my opinion of the film as a whole is that it's OK, better than most, however not the masterpiece some critics would have you believe, I have a view why the critics have taken so strongly to it, basically it's down to the fact that it's superior faults & all to the vast majority of the tosh that Hollywood is currently releasing as main stream entertainment.
Basically when all around is grossly inferior, mediocrity seems to excel.
Try to watch the language, and there's no need pointing out flaws with the threads and then supporting aforementioned problems. Keep it on topic. Sure, things get off track from time to time, but it usually only takes an on topic response or two to get it back to the way it should be.
Like I've said, as incompetent as Eve appears to be, there are still times when she does what she's supposed to. She keeps M fully informed of the mission and her not having a proper shot in Turkey, and she saves Bond's life by taking out the thug on the walkway in Macau. Also, she's good at shaving.
Yes, she shot Bond, but only on direct orders to take a shot she knew (and reported) was not clean.
I'm trying to think where else she may have made a mistake, but I can't really think of one.
Perhaps some people just have an issue with a woman in the field?
I think you sum it up perfectly. What passes for quality film-making these days would have the past masters of cinema turning in their graves. SF is indeed a notch above the usual Hollywood garbage, but I agree, is no where near as good as a lot of critics have made out.
Regarding Eve, I can take her or leave her. Silva and Severine were far more interesting characters who deserved a lot more screen time. I don't think Eve's back story was so interesting that it deserved quite as much time as it got in SF.
I would say the story to be told was the one about M, not Bond. To me, Skyfall centers around how M manages her decisions. She essentially orders high-probability death sentences for two individuals for the hope of "the greater good." There lies the contrast: you have Bond, who even knowing what went on when he was shot, he decides to come back and join the ranks and then you have Silva who is so immersed in revenge from a similar situation. M is very human though. You know that M does care when making those decisions which is illustrated with her relationship with Bond. (The bulldog is a prime symbol of this.) The train sequence also illustrates it, because from what information she is given, M orders the shot as a last resort option. From that point forward Skyfall plays out the political and personal consequences of those decisions through Bond's eyes.
I don't see how the storytelling is disjointed. They've just recently toyed with loyalty/existential crisis; the story I think you're looking for has been already told in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. The "fall" is Casino Royale, and the "return and redemption" is Quantum of Solace. This time, that process has been matured and resolved. I think the Skyfall story inherently assumes that the audience knows that tale and builds off of it focusing on the flipside of that situation: M & Silva.
I agree about Silva & Severine, especially Silva, I think the fact that the character doesn't appear until after the hour mark is a disgrace in a Bond film, but Eve was OK maybe a bit too much but it was setting it up for future films.
Well, Bond's initial qualifications that is.
I know. I guess I still can't quite accept that they made a Bond movie that is actually about M. And that they made M the least sympathic she's ever been. So it's a film about a not very nice woman messing up. I think I just struggled to care enough what happened to her.
He simply shows her (quite rightly) that he's not blaming her for having been shot.
She's in the PTS driving around in comma with both Bond and HQ
She takes an unclean shot, hitting Bond
We see her back at the new mi6 flirting with Bond and apologising for shooting him
We next see her in Macau giving Bond a shave and then appearing fleetingly at the casino
We next see her at the Enqiry
Then we last see her at the end of the movie
Putting all of the above into context of the film, to say she has a big backstory is a massive overstatement. Eve initially being a field agent and then opting to take a desk job is a nice and welcome touch for such a staple character in the series and what makes it even better is that it never once feels intrusive to the overall story going on.
While i am not all too much into Womanslib and these kind of Things and also don't dig her I would like to add,that
when it comes to incompetence Harris is way down the line far beyond M, Q and Bond (not
counting the Script Writers of course)! If i was going in harms way i'd rather have her at my side than all those other morons, which stumble their Way through the Movie, especially this fool who claimes he is 007 and who only reason d'etre seems to mess Things up! You can't blame her for shooting Bond.This was an extremly difficult shot and she told M at least twice. And by the way - Bond wouldn't even made it out of the Casino, if she had not helped him! Come to think about it, he would not have been able to shave himself without her.
:))
That's the question I'd like to ask too.
Think: A rookie who was sent to aid an experienced 00-Agent on a high-level mission. Shouldn't she be just securing the perimeters? Just like that inept agent with Bond in Madagascar? And the fact that M allowed her to "take the bloody shot"... a candidate for the 00 Section, perhaps? Nevertheless, she must be pretty good in her own way, and is an in-your-face statement from the DC Bond canon: "Our Moneypenny can kick serious a***"
The same way he got to keep his job after LTK I guess.
I don't remember him getting M killed in LTK.
M had to take time out to travel to South America to repremand him, so Bond beat his security up and turned rogue.
He then got two Chinese agents killed.
But it was ok because Felix soon forgot all about the girl he had married a few days earlier, made a miraculous recovery from being half eaten by a shark and was planning a fishing trip with James.
Serious Bond films eh? ;-)
I don't think I ever said that - I said it was watchable.
Fair point. What I've actually said in previous posts is that LTK is a tipping point for me where the characterisation begins to go a bit awry. From the first time I watched it I never found the whole going rogue element very believable and in particular the scene where he kicks M's security and runs off into the bushes. I always felt that was not something Bond would do - or at least not in that way. One thing I like about that scene though - M telling Bond "we're not a bl**dy country club" or something to that effect.
But then he got the job done in the end.
He was captured by them and some bad guys killed them. It's hardly Bonds fault is it.
I think more than a few days had passed. He was still in hopsital. I doubt he'd forgotten Della. He was planning a fishing trip.... So what?
Look I'm not really bothered, I don't watch Bond films to pick them apart when they don't make sense, otherwise I would be here for a month. Just trying to make the point that even the most earnest and grounded Bond films don't necessarilly make sense just because they are earnest and grounded.