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It's just interesting and quite strange to not see Quantum Of Solace as the least favourite of the three, that's all. Normally only the loons have it this way!
I meant similarities in the plot.
With Elektra and Silva it was a bit like Frankenstein, with M being their creator. Both of them became baddies because of something M did.
In TWINE, M and Elektra's dad didn't pay her ransom, and in Skyfall, M handed Silva over to the Chinese. As a result of this both Elektra and Silva turn into evil psychopaths, both blow up MI6 and both want revenge on M. In both films, it all could've been avoided if it wasn't for something M did.
Plus in both films Bond's shoulder is injured during the PTS and in both films things could've been other much sooner if she'd trusted Bond (in SF if she hadn't ordered Eve to shoot Bond could've taken out Patrice and got the list back on the train, in TWINE if she'd listened to Bond then Elektra could've been sent to prison).
The difference is in TWINE, Elektra actually had something to gain as well as revenge and Bond managed to save M.
All that being said, SF is still a very good movie. I wouldn't say it's Craig's best performance, that honour believe it or not goes to either CR or QoS and a very strong case can be made for the latter. One of the brilliant things about SF besides it's astonishing cinematography is, it's incredibly well paced for a 2hour and 20minute movie. The cast are great, Mendes did a brilliant job making a movie that is essentially outside of his comfort zone, the film is incredibly stylish and beautiful to look at and with all that said, where it was initially in my top 5, it's now somewhere in my top 8.
Very interesting list of similarities I'd not noticed before, @thelivingroyale, thanks!
As for SF, I feel the same as I did a year ago. A good but not great Bond movie that is extremely entertaining despite it's flaws.
EDIT TO ADD: NSNA is a bit dodgy for me as well....
It did not come across as Bond movie to me.
1. Relationship between Craig-Bond and M was overstated in Skyfall. Maybe this plot would have worked better with Brosnan-Bond, but not Craig-Bond.
2. Bond-women: The revictimization of Severine was unfortunate to the extent I could understand the critics about her. Moneypenny seemed to disappear and reappear. It was as if they did not want any women in the movie, but felt like if they didn't people would complain about it.
3. The issue with Bond childhood was never sufficiently explained to me as to why he still suffered from the trauma from his youth. The line about orphans being the best agent was stolen from The Brotherhood of the Rose. Why was childhood now an issue and not when he joined the Double-0 program? In the last three Bond movies, Bond has seemed to have chosen a profession that he is not psychologically prepared to do it. He falls in love on his first mission and is prepared to resign over it in CR, cannot move beyond from Vesper's death in QoS, and now suffers from authority issues in SF. If this is the point, then expand on it, else leave it.
4. What is the purpose of the Double-0 program any way in the 21st century? Obviously Bond is not a spy, he is not even a counter-spy. He not an assassin. Why is there even a Double-0 program?
5. Cinematography is great, but added little other than technical enjoyment of the film, which is not a crime, it just did not add to the movie's plot.
6. The general plot problems.
7. A poor villain. His antics made him look silly rather than evil.
Yes. The last two Bond movies were the worst in my opinion.
EDIT: Oops. Beaten to it.
So on your account there's no sense on having James Bond movies today...
I apologize for not providing context for that statement. The double-0 program, in my opinion, should have never been coupled with MI6. I once wrote an unpublished opinion regarding this.
Bottom of the list could have meant Skyfall was one of the three lowest or something, I was just checking to be sure before I properly gasped in shock.
*GASP!*
One of the themes at the heart of Skyfall is just this: Bond and the 00-Section ARE needed in a world where technology rules the day. Skyfall shows quite exceptionally why human intelligence is needed in the espionage community. Humans have emotions, they have care, and are able to act in an un-programmed and un-manipulated fashion where they still allow their humanity to affect their decisions. With computers/technology/drones of war you have nothing but machines that have no sentiment, no compunctions, and no remorse; they are man made and controlled.
Skyfall shows us that we need that human element to this day to feel a sense of protection and well-being; I know I'd prefer it. You feel safer when a fellow human being is beside you in the room, and not some technological security system that could mean your demise if it fails in what it was programmed to do. As we have seen in our every day lives (and in this film), technology can fail us, it can short out and it can be hacked: it's unreliable. When you have men like Bond who are incorruptible and willing to die for a cause they stand for, they can never fail like technology can. Between humans there is a sense of familiar trust and safety, and while the men and women of the intelligence services may seem to be out of date in this technological age, Bond and Skyfall in the larger scope of things shows us why man beats machine every time. When Silva had the technological advantage, MI6 was at his mercy, but when Bond turned the tables and gave Silva no opportunity to use that technological element against him, he was able to level the ground and fight back, defeating Silva. Bond adapted and survived against both man and machine because he has the human qualities technology sorely lacks. All Silva had was his technical wizardry, which failed him miserably when put to the test on a leveled ground at Skyfall. With only his mind, human intuition and "old" methods, Bond conquered over the new age of super-computers, hackers, and satellites. This in part shows us that technology is often unreliable and unadaptable, while the human mind and body is a more durable force with a face and a heart you can connect to and believe in, and not an callous monitor and hard-drive that could fail you at any second without remorse.
For all this and more, Skyfall proves to us that:
Man>>>Machine
Yes, Skyfall is full of such deep thematic content that I often marvel in joy at it, this aspect being just a tiny part of a plethora of great messages placed into the film. This is why I fail to see how films like DAD are ranked over it (and QoS) when the former is about as deep as a puddle.
I think people too often confuse cinema and reality. Yes, some films (especially the Craig era Bond films) have aspects that are grounded in reality, but a movie is still a movie, and is therefore different from our real life. You have to be aware that not everything that happens in the films can happen in real life, and though films have realistic qualities, you do have to at times suspend your disbelief. That's part of the fun of seeing films anyway: to escape our own lives and go to other worlds or join in the adventures of other characters.
Oh dear, that was so Adrian Mole (in the worst sense).
Bond is a counterintel agent, and always has been.
Some of it has a subtext I'm not sure has even been picked up on, even by the director. M reading Tennyson, I mean it's a Colonel Blimp moment, she's reading poetry ffs while her subordinates know an assassin is on his way to wipe them out and hesitates to inform her. It's like that head of the Met Ian Blair who wasn't even told by his juniors that the man they'd taken out wasn't a terrorist but some innocent and they'd screwed up big time. But if so, the director doesn't seem to make this point quite. Many seem to think that it shows how great M is, and how it's all that Britain stands for...
The shooting Severine is one of the ugliest scenes in the movies, perhaps the the top. It's all clever subtext in this film, but that never does it for me. Bond looking at Turner's Fighting Temarie (sp), ooh, he's getting old and washed up like the ship! I'd trade that all in for a bit of insightful dialogue or genuinely witty line.
For all that, there's a lot on screen and a turnover of locations and stuff, and Craig is more relaxed in the role.
True, but then DAD's scenario doesn't lift itself too far above the level of a mediocre early 2000's video game. In a way, they played it safe. It's not that difficult to make something work, to have the story move flawlessly from point A to point B to point C and then to point D. The real question here is: is it any good?
SF isn't flawless but at least it doesn't shy away from something a little bit more ambitious than the generic cyber spy stuff that we got with XXX, Spy Kids and DAD. When Bond said "You burned me." in DAD, I have trouble believing that. In SF, I see an agent who did get burned and mutilated and tormented in many more ways than merely by scorpion poison in a Korean prison. Ironically, the scorpion in SF signals much more 'danger' to me than do the scorpions in DAD.
When I watch SF, I do so for its powerful and intriguing exploration of Bond's inner universe. And in that department alone I find enough treasures to keep me glued to my seat for its entire running time.