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
Silva had been performing digital sorcery, much of requiring quite some suspension of disbelief, for the entire film up until that point; they could easily have explained it away by saying Silva created some no-comms bubble around MI6 while he was in there escaping.
I don't think the point of that scene was to make M look like a dumbass. Just to create some more tension.
I agree with you; the bolded part was in response to a different post.
That’s what I was was wondering too; I think it’s heavily implied. “He’s coming for M. Get her out.” Or something like that.
No ones denying that it is ludicrous, the movie is explicitly aware of her bad decision making during that scene. This is why scenes later she’s saying “I f***ed this up, haven’t I?” It’s why she wanted to involve no one else during the climax because it’s a mess she’s willing to clean up even if it means giving her life.
Even Bond failing to save her from dying is part of the point. Of course, it’s not surprising Bond fans don’t want to see these characters fail at something, make poor decisions like any human being would. Well, I guess that’s what we have AVTAK for.
Funnily, this discussion is reminding me a lot of THE LAST JEDI, another movie where one of the heavy themes is about failure, and a bunch of fans hate the film because they don’t want to see characters failing at things.
Good point. The Bond in the novels or early films was never infallible. That was never the appeal of the character, just like he is no saint like superhero either. The Bond of the novels and early films repeatedly makes rash, reckless desicions, gets outsmarted, lets women, romance and pride get in the way of his profesionalism, gets captured or called out on numerous occations. His heroism lies in how he deals with the critical situations he has often created for himself.
If Bond is not infallible I am not sure why M should be, or why her making some errors make her or him less of an appealing character. James Bond is a modern spy series, not a cartoon for children...
Ah here, if I didn't ever want the characters to fail I would hate OHMSS, or CR, or criticise the myriad of other poor decisions in SF. My issue here is that I think staying at the inquiry goes beyond an understandable mistake that's in her character and verges into 'because the plot can't have her evacuate'. Again, the idea of the head of the service doing something as utterly insane as this is just a bridge too far compared to the rest of the film for me.
And I'm not even going to touch TLJ.
Yep. This to me is filmmaking. Sometimes you sacrifice a bit of bulletproof logic for storytelling. You want substance, but you also want a bit of goddamned style.
For me, if I want perfect logic and everything happening the way it should, I’ll turn off films and go outside. Live life and all that. I watch film to feel. As Nolan says, “you don’t have to understand it; you just have to feel it.“
Go watch some CinemaSins; I highly recommend them, very enjoyable videos. But they prove you can pick apart the logic in any films, even those categorically decided to be great.
Again, from my perspective, if the emotion is built on nonsense, I can't get completely invested in it. I think it would've been quite possible to rewrite the film so that the same events occurred in a more logical way. Furthermore, I'm of the mindset that looking at film criticism from the lense of "but how did it make you feel?!" above all else is far more reductive than trying to judge the writing from a more balanced view.
Then you pretty much constrict yourself taking that approach.
But I don't blame anyone when it comes to Bond films. The franchise is largely plot driven, so SF putting more emphasis on story/character regardless of plot logic is not something fans are used to.
Actually the nitpick that makes my eyes roll is when fans over-examine the presence of the DB5. Like trying to reconcile it with the DB5 featured in CR by suggesting Bond merely converted it to a left driver vehicle, trying to figure out how the same car from GF somehow made it's way into Craig's timeline. That it's "universe breaking".
In my head it's all rather simple. The DB5 is not the same car from CR. Also given that SP added that the car was lended to Bond by Q, it would make more sense that it's a car that was possibly used by 00 agents from the 1960s, way before Craig Bond's time. There. Not a very complicated explanation.
I think it can be the CR car, just because if MI6 happened to have identical cars in the 60s it would just be a bit of coincidence. I think Bond wins the car, but with company money while he's on a mission, so it's actually Her Majesty's property: so MI6 ships it back. Because he's friendly with someone in Q Branch (and maybe because M actually feels a bit sorry for him after's Vesper's death) he persuades them to convert it to RHD for him and sprinkle in a few gadgets from some old Q car they have laying around and basically get exclusive use of it. Hence in Spectre we see Q fixing it up and referring to it like it's a company car rather than Bond's personal motor- because it isn't. At the end of the film he just steals it but they turn a blind eye.
But that's only if I feel like playing it and figuring out how it could happen as a little game for myself. In the film I don't actually care: he just has that car because he's James Bond, and that's enough for me.
I like this as well. For me, Andrew James Bond was Sean Connery, and he decided to retire after DAF and move to Skyfall with Monique (and the DB5), where they had Andrew James Bond II (Daniel Craig). Both of which, of course, used their middle name in the service. ;)
Heh! :) You know I'm trying to think of something which contradicts that, but there's actually not much! Them both getting the 007 number in the exact same department is a bit of a massive stretch of credulity, but otherwise his love of the high life and martinis and all that he could have inherited from his dad I guess.
The most major issue only appears in the film after when Blofeld pops up! :)
Lol for sure, the Blofeld (as well as other issues) is a major gap. My feeling is it's documented that Bond was good with languages etc. because of travelling the world with his parents as a child, and then Carte Blanche (lol), through Operation Steel Cartridge, indicates the possibility Bond's parents were also spies.
About the number, my feeling is that when Bond the junior became a 00, it only made sense for the department to give him his father's number. And Bond the junior becoming a secret agent in the same department was only inevitable, given his life and upbringing. "I suppose I never really had a choice."
But like you said, it's a fun game to try and tie things together / explain things, regardless of how futile! At the end of the day, my belief is the DB5 in SF was pure fan service for the 50th anniversary and nothing more. But the theories are fun too.
Yep, either way, it doesn’t make sense that it’s the car from CR.
Also Q’s joke “I told you to bring it back in one piece, not bring back one piece” does literally indicate that it’s MI6 property, but it’s not a stretch to imagine he was just saying this to make a good joke and isn’t 100% conclusive that it’s MI6 property.
But don't forget in CR he wins the car by gambling while he's trying to trace the bomber's associates, and even though he had gone AWOL at that point, M herself and the rest of MI6 turn up in the Bahamas to reassign him onto the case, so you can bet that anything he'd done while on that mission retroactively became official company business, and that includes anything he'd won becoming company property- he is freed from police custody in Miami very quickly so we can assume they told them he was acting as an MI6 agent. Hence the DB5 in CR was MI6 property.
And besides, Q doesn't actually say it belongs to him in Spectre- he's just making a joke about it. He obviously didn't say "bring it back in one piece" because Bond was never sent on a mission with it. If it did fully belong to Q Branch then why was Bond keeping it in a private lockup? It seems to be a bit of a looser arrangement and that Bond has persuaded Q Branch to work on 'his' car in the same way he persuades Q to let him disappear.
Although the money Bond won at Blades in Thunderball wasn't MI6 property; M had strong suggestions on what to use it for, but ultimately it was Bonds.
Still, I don't believe the SF and CR DB5s are the same. There's just no sense in making it RHD from LHD. And it being in a random storage locker instead of Q Branch where all the other Astons are. And Bond complaining about company cars immediately before it's reveal.
It's a personal car that exists outside of real explanation, except as fan service for the 50th anniversary.
Yes, yes, and yes. See my posts above and below also. ;)