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As much hate as TWINE gets at least it is not as dull as SkyFall with way better action" locales, and villains.
SF is actually about something. Which you can't say about every Bond film.
Plus, it as the most jaw-droppingly talented cast and crew - Sam Mendes, John Logan, Roger Deakins, Javier Bardem, Ben Whishaw, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Albert Finney (!), and makes proper use of DC and Judi Dench.
Totally the gold standard of Bond movies. Plus, it introduced the world to Berenice Marlohe......
plus, it's a film intelligent enough to explore how 'Bond became Bond' and the childhood trauma associated to the titular house. which was a stunning piece of production design.....
I got some good photos of a hot air balloon landing just behind the chapel :)
What!? I LOVE that scene, and the Arnold soundtrack. Probably one of my favourite moments throughout the Craig era. It has a very positive upbeat feel to it, helped by the soundtrack where Arnold surpassed himself here, with its build up to the horn crescendo sounding like we are back in 1964.
It's one of the highlights of the past 20 years for me, with a welcome departure from gloomy dark interior shots, pretentiousness, depressing personal angst - all the hallmarks of P&W and the Babs era.
It feels like one of those positive upbeat moments from the novels - blue sky, sun shining, Bond smiling grimly to himself at the new adventure that lies ahead.
Give me that any day of the week over dark hotel rooms, watching Moneypenny shave Bond, or Bond staring out at a Scottish wasteland, muttering to M about his childhood, like she's his long lost mother.
This is what I hate about SF. I don't want to know how Bond became Bond. Fleming never wrote about it, never wrote about any childhood trauma. This has all been invented by P&W and has nothing to do with Fleming.
I want Bond as the cardboard booby we read about, and watched up until 1989. No real backstory, just a blunt instrument on a new mission.
The closest we ever got to knowing Bond's childhood was at the beginning of OHMSS, when Bond reflects on happy memories of Flake 99 ice creams and building sandcastles - not evil step brothers called Blofeld, or being some traumatised orphan that was desperate to become used and abused by the British government.
This is all reinvented by Beavis and Butthead, and what I utterly despise during the Craig era.
But making up one trauma after another just to deliver some faux-intellectual nonsense is not my idea of a superior Bond film.
If any Bond film is about something, I'd say it's QOS. Touching upon the subject of favouritism and political corruption.
The music there is total cheese though. A lot of fun but cheese :)
And the Mondeo beauty shots have always been hilarious.
I love it.
When Bond first hears the word ‘Skyfall’, it’s an attempt by the MI6 psychologist to test him. Bond refuses to answer the question which essentially provides the answer itself. There are clearly some unresolved issues from his childhood and a traumatic event that he needs to address. ‘Skyfall’ has specific traumatic resonance with Bond.
When in mortal danger, Bond decides to take M back to Skyfall – the source of his original trauma. I imagine he took her to such a private and personal place because he trusts her. It’s the biggest insight into his personal life that he has offered anyone. Clearlyhe sees M as a friend and something of a surrogate mother.
Later we learn that Bond learned of his parents’ death whilst at Skyfall and he spent his childhood there. Essentially, this was the place where he became Bond and shaped his life. Skyfall created him and led him to his inevitable path of becoming 007.
In destroying the house, Bond is able to confront his past and destroy the painful memories associated with it. Later, in his family chapel, he holds the dying body of his surrogate mother – the woman who has shaped his adult life. Having put his past trauma behind him and now without his surrogate mother, Bond is left to confront a ‘brave new world’ alone.
And again, this is a new world invented by P&W, nothing remotely to do with Fleming. I take it you are not such a big fan of the novels then?
I wonder if this was a cheeky way of saying, "he's not James Bond just yet ;)" giving the Mondeo beauty shots as if it were a Bond car. Literary and Cinematic Casino Royale are all about the man who becomes the James Bond we know and love after all. Anyways this is way off topic.
The moment in the first trailer when the psychiatrist says "Skyfall" and Bond has his reaction and says "Done"... this was absolutely brilliant. Prior to this, Skyfall was just a cool word / fit well within the Bond film title catalogue, but then this moment, and then it was "What does it mean??" Absolutely amazing.
Totally agree. Tracy, Vesper and Leiter's encounters all come from the books.
Bond's childhood trauma's are a pathetic invention by the dullard moronic pair P&W, who are not fit to lace up the shoes of Ian Fleming.
This retcon crap has really killed it for me in the films. And to think the Craig era started so promising with CR, lifting the entire book onto film, and then using a Fleming title for his second outing. Once Mendes got on board it all went sadly downhill.
I wouldn't say Bond's childhood trauma is an invention of P&W. Fleming had him an orphan of his parents' climbing accident as well, and while perhaps not as overt as P&W have made it, even in Fleming Bond's behaviours I believe are attributable to his parents' deaths, but in a much more subtle way. Fleming giving Bond the origin he did was not random.
Agreed, conceding the Hannes Oberhauser connection from Fleming. Blofeld's motivation as purely criminal in the novels is how they should have gone here, certainly. And then inject the personal aspect because it's the same bloody englishman foiling all of his plans, but end it there.
That’s a bit silly. Are you not a fan of TSWLM because Fleming didn’t invent Stromberg and oil tankers swallowing submarines and spies skiing off cliffs with Union Jack parachutes on their back? Because you’re missing out on a really fun film.
True. The connection with the late M sending him after Spectre, and the Mr White connection was probably enough to give it a personal dimension - you could even have kept the bit about Blofeld manipulating and secretly using Bond over the course of the past few films- that’s simple enough. Having him being a foster brother was overegging the pudding somewhat and just strains credulity.
Completely agree. Especially about Berenice Marlohe, what a woman. Her scenes were incredible, she stole the screen in her small 15 minutes. One of my all time favourite Bond girls
I also love moments in Skyfall, like Silva's entrance/monologue and the moment when Bond turns to the bodyguards and raise's a toast as if to say "good luck lads" and the whole word association scene was fantastic (Daniel Craig really sold every emotion to me)
SF's climax on the other hand is simply riveting.
I love them both, though I will say CR’s first two acts are stronger than the last.
Yeah that’s true: I remember finding the sinking house extremely frustrating as it just got in the way of Bond confronting Vesper: I didn’t want an action scene at that point. Whereas Skyfall is one of those rare things: an action film (not just a Bond film) which has the last act being its most exciting. Very tense too.
Neither are perfect films (CR is excellent but just a bit scrappy in places, and whilst bold in some areas lacks courage to go all the way in others. Also: Mathis did what? And Vesper betrayed him.. how? :) ; SF meanwhile is probably the classiest a Bond film had been in decades and is hugely exciting and tense and dramatic, but the plot makes almost no sense!) but they’re still two of the best ever Bonds, and that’s not bad going for Mr Craig!
I love both but I much prefer the sinking house (very inventive and thrilling) to the Miami airport sequence, its just Raider light and some awful music from Arnold here.
Don't get me wrong CR is my no.2 but I recognise its faults.
SF's Scotland climax is glorious and I love SF, my in concert experience was incredible.
I have no problem with what they did with SF but that should have been it, digging more into Bond's past and then tying it to Blofeld for me remains the worst idea in the whole era if not the last 24 films.
Really?? I LOVE the Miami sequence, and especially the music! That’s one of the best parts for me!
What that Sky plane reveal, the music sounds like something out of Austin Powers?
I just didn't think it was very original, after the parlour sequence which was incredible and inventive, really set DC's stall out with that one.
The rest of it was dull, poorly-written nonsense. I haven't been able to sit through it a second time.
I also dig the smirk on Bond's face when the bomber gets a dose of his own medicine. It's an underrated Bond moment that should be considered a classic moment. That's the thing about SF, I just can't think of moments in it that compare with ones that CR has in spades.
I agree with this. Just as children don't belong in Bond films, neither does childhood psychology. We didn't need the "You need the whole story" line when they arrive in Scotland. Much better is when they show the interaction between Bond and Kincade. Bond had a childhood, clearly, but we don't really need to hear about it.
It really shows how there's very short line between being faithful to Barry's sound and coming off like an Austin Powers parody track. It's extremely delicate and precise.