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Raoul Silva
what does everybody think?
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Silva's entrance is great but after that I was a bit underwhelmed.
I would have liked to see a face-off between Silva and M in the committee room scene. A chance for Silva to humiliate M and see her squirm in-front of her political masters. It would have given more reason to Silva's plan which otherwise just seems to culminate in spraying the courtroom with machine gun fire.
I won't call him the best because there's a big club of excellent performances, but that doesn't take him credit.
It's an amazing death when you see the irony in it. I had the same thinking as you until someone explained it to me.
Silva, this highly technological, take-over-the-world-with-a-push-of-a-button villain has crafted this deluxe, complicated plan via hacking, computers, and disguises. Technology meets days of old when he gets taken down with...a knife. You see him as an unstoppable man who hides behind his powerful computers, yet at the end of the day, he can't beat one of the oldest weapons around.
Yeah... but by the end of the film Silva turns out to be pretty old school as well though, doesn't he? Helicopters, machine guns, grenades. It's not exactly hi-tech. I get what you're saying, but I don't think this changes the fact that your initial feeling was that it was all a bit of an anti-climax - a feeling that I and I think quite a lot of other viewers shared. They could have still had Bond take him out with a knife but done it in a way that was genuinely dramatic. Instead, one second Bond is battling a henchman 20 feet below the surface of a frozen loch and the next time we see him he's knifing Silva in the back.
Given the fact that Silva had already been royally stabbed in the back (matephorically) by M, it actually seems the ultimate injustice that this is how he is killed. Like @SpectreNumberOne says, Silva is the genuine victim in SF. M's sense of victim-hood and Bond's navel-gazing self-pity fade into insignificance compared to the injustice that Silva has suffered - betrayed, sold out and abandoned by a very sinister MI6.
This is super nit-picking on my part, but I thought Gassner's sets at Skyfall were awful. There was nothing distinctively Scottish about the lodge and the chapel interior was totally uninspired. I imagine he was trying to convey some miserable Scots Presbyterian existence that Bond grew up in, but it didn't even really look like a chapel. It all felt a bit under-designed. Having said that, I think they changed course on those final scenes quite late. Originally they were going to use a real, genuinely beautiful Scottish baronial castle but perhaps they wanted it to look more bleak and depressing to underline Bond's miserable childhood.
Yes but that's cheesy and predictable (and yes I know that Bond is supposed to be cheesy) but when Kincade told Bond that he can do it oldschool and he put the knife on the table I knew that Silva will die from that same exact knife.
That was the only problem I had with the movie.That and M's death.I actually thought that she will survive..
If they wanted her to die they should've killed her at the court.That scene was so perfect I actually thought that they will kill her then.
Silva DID want her to die...sort of his mission throughout the entirety of the film. Why do you think he set up such an elaborate plan to escape, traverse the tunnels, change into a cop's uniform, derail a train, and race to the courthouse? To kill M. That was his plan all along; he only failed because Mallory took the shot that was supposed to be for M, and as all the guards started to fire, Bond rushed in and quickly ended his plan, turning it around on him by making him come for M and Bond at Skyfall.
Totally agree. The courtroom/committee scene was the obvious place for a pivotal verbal or violent confrontation but feels fluffed. Silva's supposedly clever plan culminates in spraying the courtroom with bullets and he is sent packing when Bond sets of the fire extinguishers. Some evil genius!
What were you expecting? Notre Dame?
Well, then you have answered your own question. Twice.
We should have a competition in which thread is the most desperate Getafix nitpick?
One thing that stood out about Silva's death to me is that, in each screening I attended, the audience laughed at his deliberate mugging at the camera.
Well, I did precede my comments by saying they were nitpicking...
I love the production design of the early films and Ken Adam's work in particular, so this stuff matters to me. I don't rate Gassner's work. So shoot me.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/ff20121130r1.html
Silva wanted to destroy M's career and kill her in public in front of the commission.
When he enters, there is this shot of M and him looking each other in the eye. Everybody is surprised and it takes some time before someone reacts.
My take is, that Silva couldn't do it as quick as he thought he could and gave the others too much time to react. I back this up with the final scene where Silva clearly can't kill M and wants her to do it and take him with her.
That's what made it so powerful. He is not just obsessed with hate. He still has this mother complex. He still couldn't do it as easily as he thought because of his long loyality.
His shot at M is not even thaaat good thus giving Mallory the chance to take the bullet.
Besides, because you are constantly saying how bad MI6 and M are, this is a dirty business where people die. M knows that, Bond knows that and Silva should know that too. M had to make a decision and didn't she say that Silva also tried to profit of something back then in Hong Kong?
Anyway, she saved a few lives while sacrifying one, one who knew something like this could happen and was trained for it.
The difference you get is, Bond is betrayed too. And while he also has to cope with that, he understood that it's his job and the decision was M's job. There is even the dialogue at Skyfall for that. He doesn't run around trying to kill M because he is bitter.
It is still no black and white thinking, and there are valid points in also seeing Silva as a victim as well as some poor decisions made by all involved (mainly ordering the bloody shot) but that is quite human and makes Skyfall work so well for me. A difficult decision in a stressful situation.
What I found odd was that for someone who is so clever and has planned so much down to the smallest detail (escaping from MI6, having police uniforms and goons ready to help out, blowing the tube tunnel so the train falls on Bond etc) Silva doesn't seem to have a plan once he reaches the committee room. It seems odd that everything is just intended to culminate in a public execution. Why not just bump her off anywhere - in her own house or in her car on the way to work. Even killing her in the committee room just leaves her looking like a martyr and a victim of a crazed terrorist. Is that what Silva wanted?
I just felt that there had to be a reason why he chooses that moment to confront M and that it would have worked better and made a lot more sense if he'd actually planned it all so that he arrived as the 'star witness for the prosecution' as it were. The speech he makes on the island shows he is flamboyant and enjoys an audience. The scene is tailor made for a grand bombastic Silva speech. M is being grilled by the committee and doing everything she can to avoid taking blame for what has happened - this is the perfect moment for Silva to arrive and lay it all out for the court. How she has overreached her authority; how she has betrayed her own agents and undermined them in the field; how her own arrogance has brought her to this point.
I just thought that was where the narrative was heading but then it all just descends into machine guns and explosions.
I understand that one could feel this way. After all the details it seems odd for him to just arrive with a gun in a public place. But the first steps were important to humilate her. Then he wanted her to feel "save" thus being captured, so she can attend the meeting with the committee.
Then he goes for the surprise, killing her with audience at the low-point of her career. And to be fair, all he wanted to say to her was said when he was imprisoned.
I don't think a speech was needed, especially because he would not have had the time. Surely they wouldn't just let him stand there, telling them the story of his life.
And maybe there is the difference between us, you clearly detest Dench's M and think she has done wrong on all terms. I don't think she really overreached her authority. When? She didn't really betray her agents, she made a decision. In case of Silva, it was to save more people. In case of Bond, it was because of that precious little hard drive.
Of course it didn't end well with Bond, but Eve could have as well hit Patrice and the day would have been saved. It was a judgement call as she said.
M was arrogant yes, but in this job and with these decisions to make, it is a not too unrealistic character-trait I suppose. Or at least imo.
That the decisions did not end well, lead to more pain and suffering and by that can be called "bad decisions" of course can be discussed.
Overall though, it is a movie. Of course Silva could show up at M's house (though it would not quite fit his character I suppose) and kill her. But then the movie is over ;-)
I understand that thats a stupid argument for some people, but as long as I have a satisfying answer for me and it's not completely senseless to me, I am fine with it.
John McClane could have waited for Holly at her home with his kids. Die Hard would look then different too ;-)
I thought it was just fine. But as I already said, I see where you are coming from. It works for me though.