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It is actually potentially really quite interesting, just really badly executed. And I agre with Hoorowitz that The characterisation of Bond is SF is really odd - He's a sort of aimless, incompetent background character. It's not really clear what he's there for.
But regardless of who 'wins', everyone within MI6 comes across as completely naive and incompetent.
Laughable writing in Skyfall 101:
Don't dare to touch her. She's mine.
Yeah...but he and his henchmen perforate the Skyfall mansion with countless bullets knowing M and Bond are in there.
Makes so perfect sense, perfect.
Silva's goal: M's demise
It worked, he died knowing she will not live any longer too.
Everything else is nitpicking to defend a horrible script and plot holes.
1. Silva knows he's dealing with MI6 agents. The idea is to "smoke them out." But the approach only proves that Silva gets reckless when it gets personal. It fits perfectly.
2. How does Silva know this? He doesn't.
As I have said countless times, every Bond film has plot holes. It makes no sense to carry on about SF's, which aren't nearly as big as those in most of the 22 films that preceded it.
I think the reason SF's plot holes are brought to the forefront of a discussion so often is because it isn't like a lot of the other Bond films, in that it's both the most recent, grossed the most out of any other Bond film, and was highly, highly praised by fans and critics alike.
SF presents itself as a more cerebral affair so I find critical discussion justified, especially given the same creative team are tackling SP.
That is what makes me very uneasy because the last movie was quiet a mess, but on the positive side a much worse and incoherent story cannot be made up, or so I hope.
But it can still be so, plot holes and all. A good example is David Lynch's Blue Velvet. The film is full of plot holes and red herrings. But it's there to make you think.
SF is much deeper than any Bond film that came before it. The depth has little to do with missions or lists or stolen hard drives. Those are secondary. It's this that likely bothers most fans because the mission is supposed to be the point. But not here. SF deals with the personal; it's the first time Bond's "job" is seen as having real, emotional costs. This is why the word "job" comes up so often. "You should have trusted me to finish job." And it's not just personal to Bond; it's personal to Silva, too.
In CR and QoS, M insisted that Bond take his personal feelings out of it--"I need you to act dispassionately." He didn't in either film. Now, we're seeing that no matter how "impersonal" the job is supposed to be, this is impossible. Silva isn't just a villain in SF; he's a casualty of the job, as Bond had become on the train.
The film's subtexts, especially regarding old vs new and young vs old, might have been too obvious and heavy-handed. But they still resonate in a film franchise unaccustomed to asking thornier questions.
The more I defend the film in these threads, the more I love it.
Blue Velvet has a hallucinogenic quality to it, something true of most of Lynch's oeuvre. This is a man who constantly plays with non-linear narratives, semiotics, thematics, he's the definition of an art house auteur. SF is, when all said and done, a Bond film. It doesn't operate in the same space as Blue Velvet, or any Lynch film. Suggesting it can somehow explain the merits of SF is bizarre.
People continually bring up the thematic qualities of the film, but had they been as excellent as others suggest they would have carried me through the more nonsensical and overwrought narrative beats, particularly in the latter part of the film. It is still in essence an action/adventure film which has a more cerebral take on the subject matter, but you can't just dispense with logic when there are inherent rules to the kind of cinema you're making.
For all the sometimes heated arguments "we" have over Skyfall I want to tell you I admire your passion and love for that movie.
I feel the same about Goldeneye and would defend it to my grave.
I will admit that I was so heavily disappointed in Skyfall after seeing it at the cinema that I have quite a grudge against the writer's and the director.
Q acting like an imbecile, the flashlight incident and M's demise were enough to almost ruin the movie for me. I couldn't believe M got such an unworthy exit.
It still nags me and I believe those things should have been handled differently.
I often criticise people for disliking DAD because of the CGI scenes. But I realise that's not really different than me criticising Skyfall for the things I mentioned which are not really such a big part of the movie. They are a part of the story though, so I think that weighs a bit more than bad CGI.
But I can see the motivation now for people disliking certain Bond movies because of "minor" things.
Such things can make one prejudiced.
I promise you I will re-watch Skyfall shortly and set aside my prejudice and judge it anew and hopefully more objectively. That doesn't mean I will rank it higher after re-watching it but maybe it will happen.
There are already some things in Skyfall which I absolutely find great. I can't repeat it enough how truly fantastic the cinematography is. I'm still cross Deakins didn't get the Oscar for it. The many homages to other Bond movies are simply the best.
The last scene in the old-fashioned Moneypenny and M office is a real treat and a stroke of genius.
Ralph Finnes being M is a dream come true.
I won't change my mind about QOS though, never! :)) That one is just wrong.
I don't think so. I think if people genuinely love something, other people's opinion is largely irrelevant. I still love AVTAK despite the general perception.
So why do you....love AVTAK so much? Does May Day excite you :-)?
Listen, purely as a Bond fan I also love every Bond film. Otherwise I wouldn't have the entire collection on both DVD and BluRay. Every Bond film is special in its own way, has its own set of highlights, and is memorable for that.
But you have to admit that not every Bond film.....when solely judged as a film.....is top quality or is being received with universal acclaim no? Solely as a film......some Bond films are really better than others. Hence why someone created this topic. I know you're not into rankings, but most other Bond fans update their rankings every now and then in a separate topic.
Precisely. People all over shoot down TND all the time (and some points I cannot dismiss), but it's still one of my favourites no matter.
EON seem to be pissing about with these artistic elements more and more these days, intentionally I think, to shake up the formula that, let's face it, has been going for 50+ yrs.
With QoS they let Forster go nuts with the zoom edits and artsy style (including location titles and Tosca/fight sequence, which seems to have inspired Mi-RN). It didn't quite catch on at the box office and split the fan base, although some really like it for the racy and coherent, bare plot.
In SF they let Mendes go all thematic on us. It did catch fire at the box office, because I think some just felt these aspects/elements very strongly and it resonated with them.
At the end of the day, it is possible that those who like SF are inspired in the same way that some people like certain sounds & music videos (the beats and the visuals get to them). They just hit/touch a nerve. It's a passionate response so those who like it may be more emotional, but I'm not sure.
Others prefer lyrical depth (or plot) over a good beat (or themes)...they may be a little more analytical, but not necessarily.
I'm curious to see how much love of SF is split along gender lines. That could be telling.
The whole Craig era is being presented or sold as the realistic take on Bond, so I find all of these films fair game for criticizing plot holes in a way I wouldn't apply to any of the previous films. If you are going to accept the critical praise for alleged realism, you'd better be willing to take the heat for idiot plot turns that I wouldn't have found acceptable even in the Moore era.
That's why I've been going on for nearly a decade about how most of the plot points in CR revolve around Bond getting his leads from the phones of dead people, 'professionals' all, who apparently can't be troubled to keep secret info in their heads where it can be at least partly protected (as Bond himself demonstrates.)
I've heard plenty of rationalizations for the fleeing to Skyfall to make a stand there, and none of them work for me. They all, again, are the arbitrary idiot plot turn. Now you can do this in some films when it is one of those 'a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do' things, and sometimes it is credible (HIGH NOON) and sometimes it is megastupid-but-entertaining-anyway (OUTLAND), but in this instance, it just plays like 'we did it this way because this let's us play with all this thematic stuff,' which for me is MUCH more heavyhanded and inappropriate than other stylistic calls like Tosca.
Sums up my problems with SF pretty well.
Totally agree that the thematic stuff is really heavy handed.
As I've said before, it's a stupid person's idea of a clever movie.
But Outland was really cool.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Outland-Blu-ray-Disc-2012-/400983841193?hash=item5d5c7fd9a9
NOW! ;)
Who has said this? Babs? Michael? DC?
I think we can say that the re-boot has created a "more" realistic or "grittier" take on Bond, but it's still far from reality. The parkour chase to the top of the construction crane in CR should have killed off any idea that EON was trafficking in "realism." It's like saying Nolan's take on Batman is grittier, darker, and more realistic than Tim Burton's 1989 Batman; but this still doesn't mean Nolan's DK films are "realistic."
If you think SF was being sold as some form of realism, then I don't know what to say. I never understood it to be and still don't. It's still escapist entertainment. And that's why I think the film works so damn well: it's fun; it stays within the Bond universe and pays tribute to the past; it has its corny moments and its funny moments; and yet it also remains fresh, mostly because of the themes it presents. I think Mendes did a tremendous job blending these elements. Rarely has a Bond film given me goosebumps. I got them twice in SF: the appearance of the DB5, and the final line "With pleasure, M. With pleasure," leading into the the gun barrel.
I'm not by any means saying SF functions like Blue Velvet. I'm just suggesting that sometimes a film's plot holes aren't an issue. BV is an extreme example.
I can't argue against your take on the film. For many, the film's themes didn't work, came across as uneven and/or heavy-handed. And that's fair.
I saw SF in Las Vegas. I was there attending a conference. I was 44 years old (Craig's age) and at the conference had come across colleagues who'd become more successful than I had. Many were younger. I was looking at myself, older and out of shape, unhappy with how my career had gone, wondered where the years had gone, and film's themes resonated big time. For once, I truly did relate to James Bond.
That's why film is such a subjective experience. :)
I don't know if the producers made that claim, or just allowed certainly critical sources to make that case for them. Then again, you can't really take comments from ANY of the makers too seriously; I remember Campbell claiming there was only one explosion in CR, when there were two just in the Parkour alone (beneath the construction and again after Bond kills the guy.)
I don't understand the idea of SF as escapist entertainment because it is such a grind. It'd be one thing if the whole film lived in a realistic gritty universe (CHILDREN OF MEN), or even a non-gritty one that felt real (like TINKER TAILOR), because then it has integrity, both in its visual presentation and with its content, but it just offers up a mix of tones that are at odds with full-on escapism, keeping it from fulfilling any 'fun' quotient while not measuring up to 'serious' fare either.
I don't know that Nolan's films are realistic either, but they remain largely credible within their framework to me, except for segments of the third one. That is to say, even in TDKR you don't suddenly see him back in town driving Adam West's batmobile, which is what I take from the GF fully-kitted-out Aston in SF.
Be sure to read Harlan Ellison's review (for review, read: evisceration) of OUTLAND, but don't do it till AFTER you see the movie.
It does have great model work, but unfortunately the filmmakers decided to use coarse spray-paint to change the color of the miniature, which obliterated 2/3rds of the amazing detail Martin Bower and Bill Pearson built into the thing with fine etching and airbrushing.
It also has what I've always assumed to be a very minor tweak at Eon with an on-screen 'your eyes only' reference.
I'm trying to remember, were there any more than that though? Does the implied explosion killing Carlos count as it's offscreen?
But let me say that I feel you are judging yourself too harshly here. This is a brave new world of leveled playing fields that don't allow for excellence anymore.
H'ooh boy.