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I just think to avoid this they needed a scene before it to give us an idea that Severine wanted to sleep with him, or even more so, initiates it. For example, if she and Bond have a drink on the boat as she'd planned, and then afterwards walks away in her robe, and invites him to the shower with her, then I think it would just make the scene more comfortable for people who did have a problem with how the scene was presented.
For me, that arrival scene is the best part of that entire sequence. The CGI dragons are not intimidating, there's clunky humor and the fight isn't well choreographed.
It's similar to one of my annoyances when LTK always gets the a Miami Vice comparison. Like Miami Vice has a monopoly on having scenes set in Florida and the villain being a powerful drug dealer.
Somehow I feel the lighting or the perspective ages him quite a bit, but it could be just be me.
Agreed. Didn’t love the cut in Skyfall.
There is no controversy, really. It's a Bond film. And the shower scene is pretty mild by Bond standards.
Let's not forget that the two locked eyes big time in Shanghai. It was similar to Solange's look, on the beach...though in that scene they seemed nearer. And the invitation to the boat was quite forward. I do believe that Bond had every intention of "saving" her. This is why the scene in the shower was important: he wraps his arms around her, from behind. This is known as a protection hug.
Problem is, once at the island, Bond doesn't show enough remorse about her sudden death. While it couldn't have been stopped, I would have liked to have seen a little more remorse or respect from Bond afterward. (I'm not talking about the "scotch" line, which was meant to distract.) Once they were back at MI6, it would have been nice to see Bond signing papers regarding the body and giving someone instructions to find the next of kin as soon as possible. I mean, something, anything other than what we saw. It's my only quibble with SF.
Indeed, that´s the bottom line. A usual way to justify it is to claim that Skyfall is «so pretentious», therefore it has to be held to a higher standard of expectation. I still don´t understand what is pretentious about it though...
It's because it has an Oscar winning director behind the helm, who was originally known for being a director of melodramas like AMERICAN BEAUTY and REVOLUTIONARY ROAD. Guarantee, if this film happened to have been directed by Martin Campbell, you wouldn't hear that word "pretentious" a lot. In fact, if Mendes had directed CR as we got it, you'd probably hear the word "pretentious" regarding that film.
"What the point of shooting the PTS in black and white? Why be all experimental and pretentious for the sake of it?"
+1
Some tend to forget that Mendes had also directed Jarhead and Road to Perdition, which were not exactly melodramas. Both contained their share of suspense and violence.
They set out to give the Craig era a more realistic context than the context of Bond films in which Moonraker was made. “We don’t go in for that anymore” and all this. They’re asking us to hold the Craig era to a *different* standard (hesitate to say higher standard). I say this as a big fan of Skyfall, who has no issues with any perceived pretentiousness or anything like that.
I’m just saying I don’t think the argument that “you were fine with this in MR, why not SF?” holds much water.
Mendes has shown he's pretty open to trying different kinds of films, at the very least. Not too dissimilar from Lewis Gilbert, who actually got an Oscar nom for ALFIE before taking on YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE.
First up some slow burn cerebral take on the genre and still my favourite film of the 21st Century, anchored by one of the Gary Oldman's finest ever performances with an accompanying cast to die for. Thomas Alfredson's adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is always a treat for me.
Then of course our boy gets his turn and I knew it was going to be a Craig film and although I could have picked CR,I chose Skyfall. There isn't a huge amount in it for me with regards to quality and preference.
CR is my favourite DC film just after OHMSS in my rankings then it is FRWL with SF at no. 4 but the margin is very slim between all three, only really OHMSS has a bit of distance.
I know some on here detest or don't like it but I love it and this will be my first watch since a group of us saw it in Manchester the end of last year at Skyfall in concert, which was incredible. Also this will be the first time I've watched it on my 4K UHD version.
Also we are going with a Turkish flavour with the food tonight, something from our favourite local Turkish restaurant via take away and some additions added ourselves.
All washed down with some Effes Turkish draft beer.
All in all a quality night that I'm hugely looking forward to.
I've seen a couple discussions on this and I maintain I like the way it's handled. Think back to how previous Bonds have handled the deaths of women and colleagues they couldn't protect and it's not something soppy or sentimental. It's quick and to-the-point (Moore's "Goodbye countess" in FYEO or Connery reflecting for just a moment to Paula's death in TB are good examples) and Bond has to move on, whereas Tracy and Vesper are exceptions for obvious reasons.
If he dwells on these things, he's less effective. That's been explored a lot in the books, but doesn't need to be in the films. Besides, you haven't seen anything like that in any previous film, so why do so for her?
Exactly what I thought. I'm one of those fans that holds SF to a higher standard to criticism because as a Bond fan, I don't find it as good as others do. Does MR hold up within the context it's made? Yes. It's made to be a goofy good Star Wars-inspired anything goes film that still has some effective scenes and stunts among the madness to make it stand out, at least to me.
I've already touched on my criticisms of SF many times, from plot points that were done in other films to none of the action sequences standing out to the tired this time it's personal and focus on M. All of that just doesn't work for me as an overall experience and why it's not a go-to film for me. It's an M film featuring James Bond.
To me it made perfect sense for the story that she'd stayed around long enough that fallout from the hard decisions she'd made (includes handing Silva over to the Chinese, not a mistake on her part) returned to haunt her. Leading to her price paid for doing the right thing.
There is some truth to this.
At the same time, Bond has a history of actually showing great concern for the safety and well-being of women, no matter that critics have (mistakenly) called his character a misogynist. He is visibly bothered by Jill's death in GF and then forsakes his own safety to check on Tilly. He is concerned about Plenty when she is thrown out the window in DAF. Even Craig shows regret and agitation over Solange's death in CR and then Fields' death in QoS.
Judi Dench is great but i feel they gave her way too much screen time as the movies progressed.And in Skyfall,when the character is shown to be completely and utterly incompetent,i find it hard to feel sad for her when she dies.I was just so elated at the time that Fiennes was replacing her and that we would be going back to a Bond and M relationship reminescent of the Bernard Lee years.
I actually felt very sad for Severines death and wish she had been the main Bond girl of the film.
Wow, I can still remember how I felt seeing that for the first time grinning ear to ear.
I was thinking about this as well, and really stretching to come up with some grave missteps:
1) Creating the list of NATO agents: Likely not entirely on M, but Mallory seemed to indicate that it was in her "retirement" meeting.
2) "Take the bloody shot.": Agree with Bond that she should have trusted him to finish the job. Her argument that "it was the possibility of losing you versus the certainty of losing all those other agents" holds absolutely no water; she effectively lost both. Her fear of losing the list likely made her override her better judgement here when she ordered Eve to fire.
3) Not alerting the parliamentary committee to Silva's oncoming attack: Clearly a massive misstep. They needed to evacuate the entire building.
4) Asking to go to Skyfall alone, with no backup: This only really resulted in her own death; she wanted to go this route because of the guilt she felt about people dying around her. A personal decision that only endangered herself and Bond (and it's her job to put him in danger). Kincade as well but no one knew about him beforehand.
5) Sticking around to shoot poorly at bad guys in Skyfall: See point 4.
Anyways, M I'm sure would agree with you @AstonLotus at the end of the day:
"I f***ed this up, didn't I."
"I did get one thing right..."
Bonus point: I think you could argue also that M sending Bond out on the mission after he's failed all the tests could be another poor decision made by M, but the franchise is built on Bond outperforming the expectations placed on him by M. I like that Judi's M seems to continually realize this and put her faith in him. She should have done that, though, when he was on the train!
Excellent summary. I'd add sending somebody as inexperienced as Moneypenny into the field with Bond on such an important assignment.
That was the point.